"Weekend Reading" is a weekly rundown of our favorite stories from around the web.

Back In The U.S.S.R.: Russia's Fashion Resurgence
"For a new generation of designers, real memories of Soviet Russia shine brighter than the fantasy of peasants and princesses."

via: The New York Times

How Rei Kawakubo Spent Decades Defining the Avant-Garde
"People commonly look for a few basic traits when it comes to fashion — attractiveness, conventionality, ease. But Rei Kawakubo has never been about any of that. When she founded Comme des Garçons in 1969, she reimagined what clothing could be, and she remains at the vanguard of her art, outpacing experimental designers half her age. How does one designer remain the gold standard of the new for almost half a century, through all the maximalism, the minimalism, the wear-now-buy-when?"

via: The Cut

Meet Underground Influencer Luke Meier and His Men's Label OAMC
"Even some of the most hardcore fashion fans hadn't heard of Luke Meier before last week, when it was announced that he and his wife Lucie Meier would become the new creative directors of Jil Sander. Up until that big reveal, Luke had long been considered an underground influencer, having spent eight years as the designer of Supreme, where he was essential in establishing the aesthetic and iconography that remain synonymous with the cult streetwear brand today."

via: CR Fashion Book

A Meeting of Minds: John Galliano, Tim Walker and Grace Coddington
"Through his work for Maison Margiela, John Galliano is analyzing the times we live in and inspiring an emerging generation of designers to do the same. In a special collaboration, Galliano, Tim Walker and legendary stylist Grace Coddington come together to celebrate the Maison’s spring/summer 17 Artisanal collection."

via: i-D

The Big Business of Movie Tie-In Collections
"Last week, news broke that Beauty and the Beast had crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, becoming the 29th movie in history to ever do so. It’s the year’s highest-grossing film across the globe — and, according to Disney, the highest-grossing movie musical ever made."

via: Racked

Adidas’s Secret Weapon In The Sneaker Wars
"An onyx stage catches fire and three performers, silhouetted in the blaze, begin to sing from behind the flames. You can hear Kanye West’s voice, but you can’t make out his face. The first glimpse of him, poking out of the fire, is a shoe."

via: Fast Company

Is American Retail at a Historic Tipping Point?
"Along the cobblestone streets of SoHo, Chanel handbags and Arc’teryx jackets are displayed in shops like museum pieces, harking back to the height of the neighborhood’s trendiness. But rents there are softening, and the number of vacant storefronts is rising."

via: The New York Times

The Oscar De La Renta Drama That Started It All...
"Laura Kim was a star student at Pratt Institute. “She could do no wrong,” admitted fellow Pratt classmate and designer Adam Selman to The New York Times. “Teacher’s pet in the best possible way: the perfect draper, perfect sketcher, won all the awards.” She received scholarships from Fashion Group International and the CFDA — and then went on to intern at TSE Cashmere, Donna Karan, and eventually, Oscar de la Renta, where she took on a full-time job in 2003. She rose from design assistant to associate, and became de la Renta’s number two in command until he passed away in 2014."

via: Racked

Vogue and now Gucci: Fashion Takes Steps Outside a Whitewashed World
"For decades the fashion industry’s issue with diversity has been starkly seen on the catwalks, on the pages of glossy magazines and on lavish billboards.
But this week marked a pivotal moment for the whitewashed world of couture, first with the appointment of Edward Enninful as editor of British Vogue and swiftly followed by Gucci unveiling its latest campaign, which features only black models."

via: The Guardian

Helmut Lang on the Art Life and His Ambitious New Show
"In a 1982 Robert Mapplethorpe photograph of Louise Bourgeois, the legendary sculptor looks proud and determined while holding a large phallic sculpture. The image was reused in a 1999 fashion campaign from Helmut Lang's previous incarnation as the designer of his eponymous line. At the height of his iconic tenure in fashion, he was already thinking about the same sculptural concerns that appear in his latest show at Sperone Westwater, with new work from 2015 to this year. Louise Bourgeois, like Helmut Lang, spent much of her life thinking about the body, abstraction, and the seduction of materials."

via: i-D

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