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

Charting the Rise of Supreme, From Cult Skate Shop to Fashion Superpower
"James Jebbia, the man who, in 1994, founded and to this day runs the SoHo-based company that has been making clothing and skateboards and a lot of other things that the people who love it absolutely have to have, doesn’t think of Supreme the way most people in fashion might—as a brand that started out in a small store on Lafayette Street and has since inched its way to legendary global status. He thinks of Supreme more as a space. When Jebbia was a teenager in Crawley, West Sussex, in the eighties, working at a Duracell factory, listening to T. Rex and Bowie on breaks and spending his spare cash on trips to London to buy clothes, it was always in a certain elusive kind of store—one that became the model for Supreme."

via: Vogue

Matthew Williams, Renaissance Man
"The paths that lead designers to their destinies — or even just to their studios — are long and winding, and difficult to predict. It would have been hard to divine at the outset, or at any critical juncture along the way, that Matthew Williams, a one-semester college dropout from Pismo Beach, Calif., onetime creative director and paramour of Lady Gaga, collaborator of Kanye West, skate rat turned club kid turned D.J. turned designer, would wind up newly installed here in Ferrara, north of Bologna, where the Renaissance court of the Este once patronized Michelangelo and Piero della Francesca."

via: The New York Times

'W Magazine' shows how fashion is embracing augmented reality
"The fashion world loves augmented reality. From Gap to Nike, brands are trying to find different ways to integrate the technology into their retail experience. Now W Magazine, one of the most prominent fashion publications, is treading a similar path with a new AR-powered issue. Done in partnership with The Mill, a visual effects production studio, the magazine's Sept. 2017 Collector's Issue features an interactive, computer-generated image of Katy Perry on the cover. At first glance, it seems like a traditional magazine, but that changes when parts of it come to life when viewed through the lens of a smartphone or tablet. For W Magazine, it's about using tech to keep its print publication modern."

via: Engadget

Inside Helmut Lang 2.0, the Re-Invention of the 1990s' Most Influential Label
"A few years later, Lang quietly exited the company he had founded in 1986, decamped to Long Island, and took up life as an artist. Despite his absence from fashion for more than a decade (or perhaps, you could argue, because of it), Lang’s influence can be felt now more than ever. It is in the Crombie coats and lacquered cowboy boots in Raf Simons’s debut collection for Calvin Klein. It is in the fact that Gucci sends both men and women, their clothes almost interchangeable, down the same runway. It is thanks to Lang that the international fashion calendar kicks off in New York rather than ending there. Helmut Lang’s influence is everywhere, it seems, except in the brand that still bears his name."

via: W Magazine

The Sneaker World’s Biggest Yeezy Skeptic
"Matt Powell wakes up every day at 5AM to start going through his emails. Then, occasionally, before 6AM he denies that Kanye West moved " the needle for Adidas at all." After that, he catches up on the blogs he reads, like Retail Dive, Business of Fashion, and Linkedin. On certain days, right around 6:20AM, he tells a Twitter follower Kanye West isn't the reason a certain adidas shoe is selling well. Powell then spends time combing through data surrounding the latest sneaker releases. Shortly after 9AM, he might tell off a West supporter by tweeting that the rapper is "inconsequential." After taking a couple press phone calls, like the one he's doing with me, he might visit a sneaker shop to talk to its salespeople or give a presentation to a retailer or brand. Or maybe he'll get real fiery and come for West's Yeezy Powerphase Calabasas."

via: GQ

Sole Searching: Inside the Wild World of Nike's High-Tech Scavenger Hunts
"About a hundred kick-hungry sneakerheads marched into Washington Square Park, smartphones held high, panning from side to side, on a late June afternoon in New York City. It was a mix of faces: parents, early high schoolers, 20-something urbanites. They paced in droves, pushing strollers, scooting atop bicycles, coasting on electric skateboards. Most strutted in sneakers so clean they looked as if they were just pulled out of the box...Seconds later, they all took off sprinting."

via: Mashable

Stefano Ricci, Clothier to the 0.001 Percent
"After nearly four decades, the Stefano Ricci label has come to occupy a unique place in the fashion firmament. Makers of hypermasculine, hyperexpensive men’s wear and accessories, this tightly held family business has outfitted Kremlin power brokers, Middle Eastern oil scions, celebrities (Andrea Bocelli, Tom Cruise) and world leaders (Nelson Mandela, Helmut Kohl)."

via: The New York Times

The Secret Supplier to the World's Top Designers
"Its position, nestled at the bottom of a valley surrounded by big hills, means the easiest way to get there is by car. But even then drivers have to navigate winding and often steep roads. The town is around 75 miles south of Seville, nowhere near the world's fashion capitals of Milan, Paris, New York or London. Yet this collection of whitewashed houses, known as a pueblo blanco (white town) in Spanish, is where many of the top fashion brands source their leather goods. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, Chanel, Chloe, Loewe and Carolina Herrera are all reported to use the artisans here to make things such as handbags, wallets and belts."

via: BBC

Tom Ford: Over Sex, Seeking Emotion
"Ever since 2004, when Tom Ford walked away from the Gucci Group, he has done things in his singular way. He’s made two movies (both of which have been nominated for all sorts of honors, Oscars included) and developed his own line in reverse order from everyone else (eyewear, followed by fragrance, followed by cosmetics, followed by clothes). He and his husband, former Vogue Hommes International editor Richard Buckley, became parents to a son, and Ford’s moved his design studio from London to Los Angeles, though it’s still kind of in London. There’s also an office in Milan, and one in Tokyo, because “that’s what fashion people do. It’s normal.” "

via: The Cut

Vogue Magazine's Complicated Relationship With Diversity
"Edward Enninful is finally taking up the helm at British Vogue after months of anticipation. The new editor-in-chief has a proven track-record of bringing diversity to the fore that many hope will be the start of an overhaul of the global Vogue brand."

via: The Independent

Why Does Architecture Have Influence on Fashion—and Can It Go the Other Way?
"What do Tom Ford, Raf Simons, Pierre Balmain, Pierre Cardin and Gianni Versace all have in common? Before kickstarting a flourishing career in fashion, each of these individuals enrolled to study architecture or industrial design."

via: Fashionista

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