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

How the Shoppable Runway Is Changing Fashion
"Over-saturation is just one issue facing the fashion industry, though. And it leads directly to the next, that of speed. Millennials are a dreaded generation who no one can define apart from the fact that they're not old and aren't fans of waiting. You can get a car in five minutes, food in half an hour, anything you can imagine on Amazon overnight — not to mention the efficient joys of online shopping for actual clothes. In this context, waiting six months for clothes to hit stores after a show seems ridiculous and outdated. Never mind that they have to be, you know, made, hopefully from luxurious fabrics in Italy, not to mention the process of sampling. So the fact that brands are changing their production schedules is something that can be filed under 'very big news,' as it runs contrary to the cycle of anticipation and production that's been the MO of ready-to-wear since forever."

via: i-D

On the "Black Designer"
"In an industry that doesn’t like to talk about race (let alone blackness), it’s rare for designers, who identify as black, to readily insert identity politics into their brands. The fear, perhaps, emerges from the fact that doing so could pigeonhole them into a singular narrative of blackness – one that could result in them being unattractive to customers, investors, and the media."

via: The Fashion Studies Journal

The Perfect Fit
"Normally in Tokyo we rent an apartment and stay for a week. This time, though, we got a whole house. The neighborhood it was in—Ebisu—is home to one of our favorite shops, Kapital. The clothes they sell are new but appear to have been previously worn, perhaps by someone who was shot or stabbed and then thrown off a boat. Everything looks as if it had been pulled from the evidence rack at a murder trial. I don’t know how they do it. Most distressed clothing looks fake, but not theirs, for some reason. Do they put it in a dryer with broken glass and rusty steak knives? Do they drag it behind a tank over a still-smoldering battlefield? How do they get the cuts and stains so...right?"

via: The New Yorker

Nordstrom’s Big Department Store Bet
"Nordstrom is beefing up its department store portfolio at a time when we are constantly being told the department store is dying. This summer, Macy's announced it was closing 15 percent of its American stores after six straight quarters of declining sales. Since 2014, J.C. Penney has closed 80 locations; Sears closed nearly 300. According to the US Department of Commerce, department store sales have declined 30 percent from $87.46 billion in 2005 to $60.65 billion in 2015."

via: Racked

Luxury brands are failing in their storytelling
"Content strategy is not your brand story. It cannot replace the ethos and the defining point of view of your brand. Luxury brands were by default created by founders with vision, spirit and passion that attracted their first audiences and made them fall in love. Early luxury houses were arbiters of taste that worked with taste-savvy connoisseurs of culture who came to ateliers for the lush vibe and the stories as much as they did for the goods."

via: The Guardian

Georgia: Fashion Beyond Vetements Or A View From Within
"'Do you know that Georgian has one of the oldest indigenous alphabets? It is not part of any group, singular.' My conversation partner is tireless and adamant when it comes to defending Georgia’s uniqueness as a greenhouse for cultural fusion as well as a regional epicenter for winemaking. Ketevan Bochorishvili is the ‎Vice Minister at Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, and the scene is an afterparty for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi at famous Funicular restaurant. Right place at the right time: the mountainous country and its capital are becoming the latest fashion industry success story. Following the arrival of Georgia-born designers Demna Gvasalia and David Koma on major international runways, all eyes are on this small nation nestled at the centuries old intersection of east and west."

via: Forbes

An Ode to Nina Hagen, the Godmother of Punk
"A consummate shape-shifter and risk-taker since her career commenced, German-born performer Nina Hagen has embodied countless characters over the past four-plus decades. After her early dreams of an acting career were thwarted by the Communist state, Hagen took a musical turn, eventually forming her namesake Nina Hagen Band in West Berlin’s Kreuzberg district in mid-1977 and shocking audiences with her shrieks, shouts, and snarls about taboo subjects. Along with her vocal abandon, she famously experimented with her on-stage look, rarely shying away from looking outlandish, eccentric, or even downright creepy before audiences in Germany and beyond. Indeed, Hagen proved herself a deeply influential figure within Germany’s nascent punk scene, eventually making her way to New York to pursue a solo career and to Paris to collaborate with fellow aesthetic rebel, Jean-Paul Gaultier. Today AnOther conjures this queen of personal reinvention and celebrates her lasting marks on music, fashion, and so much more."

via: Another Mag

A Shopping Director’s Guide to, Well, Shopping
"As employees, we got the best deals. Not because they were offered to us ahead of time, but because we spent the entire first half of the sale hiding the things we wanted to buy — in the rafters, at the bottom of storage closets, in the manager’s office high up on a shelf that no one could reach. The discount was the steepest at the end, and with our employee discount, everything was basically free. I bought a Proenza Schouler PS1 bag for $60, and a pair of Fendi pumps for $50."

via: Racked

Examining the Patterns that Inspired the S/S17 Collections
"Talk to any designer about their collection after it debuts and you’re likely to hear some iteration of the same words each time: research, archives, inspiration. This doesn’t mean they are unoriginal, but rather indicates that smart designers know the value of looking at the wealth of visual material that has come before them. The best ideas, after all, come from looking to brilliant old ones, and standing upon the shoulders of giants."

via: Another Mag

Six Fashion Careers of the Future
"When it comes to working in the fashion industry, it might seem like there are only a few pathways in the business, such as becoming an editor, designer, buyer, stylist or photographer. But in reality, these functions represent a small portion of the overall industry. The fashion industry has significantly evolved over the last 10 years and emerging trends, such as the evolving store, changing consumer preferences, a heightened need for radical transparency and more, is shifting companies’ priorities and the roles they are hiring for. BoF meets six fashion professionals with jobs that are becoming increasingly important, to discuss how they landed their roles and how each one contributes to the industry."

via: The Business of Fashion

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