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

Rethinking New York Fashion Week
"Things are not looking good for New York Fashion Week. Recently, Thom Browne, Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and Altuzarra all announced their departure for Paris. These are arguably the most creative American designers that New York really cannot afford to lose, because the city’s fashion week already has a reputation for being something of a creative snooze-fest, heavy on sportswear and cocktail dresses, and light on new ideas. Ask almost any European editor about New York Fashion Week and their eyes glaze over. Few of them actually want to come here of their own volition."

via: Business of Fashion

When Did Céline Dion Become 2017’s Fashion Icon? - An Investigation
"When Céline Dion stepped out of the Royal Monceau hotel in Paris in an oversized “Titanic” Vetements hoodie, Saint Laurent jeans and Gucci heels in July of last year, there was a profound rumble felt throughout the fashion industry. Un moment… did she always dress this well? Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of the personal tragedy that had her crying on stage, Dion was popping up in the style press in outfits as wild and crazy as her inexhaustible, quirky personality. Balenciaga, Balmain, faux leather overalls – everyone was getting Di-onboard with her transformation."

via: Dazed

What American-Made Brands Really Think of Trump's Made In America Week
"There was a knife in Victor Lytvinenko’s face. An old woman was holding it closely up to him, only threatening in the way any knife near your face would be. It was more of a flex. The woman had just bought a $450 knife and Lytvinenko scoffed at the price. “You Americans are so stupid,” Lytvinenko remembers her responding. “You’ll buy twenty $20 knives in your lifetime and never own a good one.” This was some time ago in Switzerland, just a year before Lytvinenko would create his American-made Raleigh Denim brand. Like other Made in America brands, it’s based on the ideal that things made here are high-quality and worth investing in, like a fancy knife you wanna shove in someone’s face.—That’s also the idea behind Donald Trump and the White House’s current Made in America Week. It’s a time to honor the companies who continue to make their products domestically despite mounting difficulties, and definitely in no way meant to distract from the ongoing Russia investigation. When I first caught wind of the theme week, I started reaching out to brands in order to find out what it’s like to be a made in America company during Made in America Week. I spoke with 12 of them."

via: GQ

The Greatest Hits from Nanamica and The North Face Purple Label’s Archive
"For 14 years, Japanese label Nanamica has been quietly producing some of the most versatile menswear collections in the world. From their iconic mackintosh coats to quilted down sweaters to characteristic tapered pants, every Nanamica garment maxes out on style—but is made from cutting edge, teched-out fabrics. “All our garments should look quite classic, but once you look inside, once you try it on, some surprise might happen,” says Nanamica founder Eiichiro Homma. “In other words we try to make people say: woah.”

via: GQ Style

John Mayer Talks Supreme, Louis Vuitton, Off-White, and How to Start a T-Shirt Brand
"John Mayer wants to talk about clothes. We’re at 7B, a prototypical East Village bar, where Mayer’s filming promos for his Bud Light Dive Bar Tour date later this summer. He’s wearing Visvim boots, a white gold Rolex, and rocking what he calls “autumn sunrise” highlights in his hair. Mayer is upbeat and seems extremely happy, on the tail end of a righteous summer tour with Dead & Company, the band he formed with former members of the Grateful Dead. His seventh LP, The Search for Everything, has also been out for a few months, full of cathartic tunes that he gets to play on the second leg of his own tour—and at a dive bar in LA on July 26—when it begins later this month."

via: GQ Style

Behind the Scenes of Pirelli’s All-Black 2018 Calendar
"“I’m the beheader: I chop people’s heads off. And I like it,” says Naomi Campbell, clad in latex, on the set of the 2018 Alice in Wonderland-themed Pirelli Calendar, designed by Shona Heath, styled by Edward Enninful and shot by none other than Tim Walker. It’s Campbell’s fourth time gracing the annual’s glossy pages – this time around the legendary supermodel is playing ‘The Royal Beheader’. She participated in the calendar in her teens, 20s, 30s and now 40s, she says, but never before has it felt such a groundbreaking moment. “This calendar is gonna be a historic calendar. It’s gonna go down in the history of Pirelli. It couldn’t be more balanced and diverse which is something we all strive for each day. And Tim, we love you, you’re a hero and this is gonna be the best calendar ever.”"

via: AnOther

When Did Vogue and Co. Become So Out of Touch?
"Yes, Vogue has long been considered the home of aspirational fashion and lifestyles, but it becomes problematic when that veers into elitism or as one Instagram user called it "poor taste." In March 2015, a photo of what appeared to be a homeless person reading a copy of Vogue appeared on (and was swiftly deleted from) the Instagram account of one of the mag’s style editors, Vogue style editor-at-large Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis, a member of German royalty. The instance, according to many other sites, showed just how "out of touch" the Vogue editor is."

via: The Fashion Law

Saying Farewell to a Store That Changed Shopping
"When news broke last week that Colette, the pacesetting Parisian concept store that started numerous designers’ careers and helped change the face of retail, would close in December after 20 years, fashion first was shocked, then began to mourn and finally to reminisce. For an industry that does not agree on much, this everyone believed: It was the end of an era. Here, some of its members share their memories of the store, of the founders — Colette Roussaux and her daughter, Sarah Andelman — and of why it mattered."

via: The New York Times

Here’s Why Every Fashion Brand Needs an ‘It’ Statement Piece (and Memes)
"Alessandro Michele’s Gucci Cruise 2018 collection was a roaring success in terms of publicity. Forget the criticism that followed, forget the questionable ethics of appropriating the work of Dapper Dan (a designer that Gucci, among others, effectively put out of business in 1992), because the second that side-by-side picture comparing the two began to spread on Instagram and Twitter, Michele had achieved what he set out to do. While the bohemian-baroque aesthetic the Roman-born designer has forged at Gucci is certainly one which feels unique to the Italian fashion house, the formula is the same as many of its peers. It now seems that any collection worth mentioning has at least one ‘it’ item – something designed to be shared, discussed, dissected and, eventually, memed across the internet."

via: Highsnobiety

How a big dog became a symbol for white, male America
"You probably remember the Big Dog Sportswear catalog from the late ‘90s or early aughts. As a child, I flipped through it (along with the Oriental Trading Company catalog) when my parents would randomly decree that we’d watched too much TV. But I hadn’t thought about the brand in 15 or so years until someone (jokingly?) retweeted a sales announcement for 70-percent off a tee featuring a smirking Big Dog pointing at himself with a hand-paw-hybrid and the words “I’m In The BUTT KICKING BUSINESS AND BUSINESS IS GREAT” around him."

via: The Outline

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