Things I liked recently - September
Published at Sep 25, 2024 | Last edit at Sep 30, 2024
Fun Things
The motel room or on datedness
Kate Wagner, the author of McMansion Hell, writes a lot about architectural theory as well. This wonderful piece explores what makes something ‘dated’, before it might become something we consider to be vintage (if it ever even does). Wagner reflects on this while occupying a 90’s motel room, that firmly sits in the dated category, and will likely never reach the lofty heights of ‘vintage’.
The motel room or on datedness
Taste and how to develop it
A friend asked me about developing taste the other day and I was a bit stumped on how to answer it. I ended up asking them what they liked, and then asked them if they’d thought about why they liked it and what common threads tied their interests and likes together. I don’t think that was a very adequate answer, i was mainly flabbergasted that someone thought I had good taste, good enough to ask me how they could get better taste even!
A few days later, I happened to come across an instagram post by Ruby Thelot, an academic working at NYU. It piqued my interest, and on scanning his other writing, I came across an article he’d written called How to Develop Taste. It makes for a delightfully tongue in cheek read, breaking it down into 10 steps, that - while humorous - carry genuinely good advice on how to develop and understand your own taste. There’s some serendipity to stumbling upon this given that part of my writing is exercising my own critical thinking and understanding of the things I like.
The Crisis of Legibility
Going down the ruby justice thelot pipeline. In this essay, he talks about legibility in the context of digital consumption. How products stand out in a way that they are immediately recognisable as themselves. This then ties in to cultural half life, or how long an item has cultural relevance.
Thelot uses the MSCHF big red boot as the primary example in this article, an immediately recognisable piece of footware, with a cultural half life that is still being determined.
Anything by Ken Sakata
Ken Sakata is the owner of Front Office, an Australian clothing brand that focuses on simple garments done in interesting fabrics (a theme for a lot of clothing I like). He often posts instagram reels on the history of ubiquitous garments and their evolution. His one on MA 1 bomber jackets comparing three different modern jackets and how the philosophy of each of the different manufacturers reflects in the design variation.
SHELLZINE
Self described as “Futuristic fashion articles and guides on modern aesthetics, and lifestyle technologies for the 21st century consumer.” Shellzine’s aesthetic is heavily cyberpunk, with articles on cyberpunk fashion, consumer goods, and a large archive of urban photography.
I had seen some of the editors photography and outfits floating around on the web (@xeoniq), so it was cool to finally put a handle to content I have previously enjoyed. I believe they also do quite a lot of the photography for Gracia Ventus (@therosenrot), who’s work and designs I will have to write about more at some point, given that I own several pieces of hers (and will almost certainly be acquiring more of).
Articles of note that I really enjoyed:
Uncomfortable Aesthetics - Alex Temple interview
Alex Temple is a composer who’s musical work i’m not overly familiar with, but a friend recommended checking out some of her writing after they read my blog on gender.
The interview covers a whole swathe of topics, though the portion on interpreting lyrics of songs that mention teeth is incredible and deeply unsettling in the best kind of way. They also discuss trans art, which has introduced me to a bunch of new media I have now added to my ever growing list of ‘things I need to check out when I have time’. The interview can be found here.
She also a blog on her person website, which while it hasn’t been updated in while contains some absolute fucking gems.
At times I’ve also listed my gender on forms as “80s” or “Daria.” These descriptions might sound inconsistent, but they’re all different ways of getting at the same idea: a kind of gender in which unreality is an essential component. Many trans women would be terribly insulted by the suggestion that they are in any sense “not real women,” but my reaction to that would be “yeah, that’s kinda true” — just not for the reason that transphobic people would think it’s true.
Just absolutely *chefs kiss*.
Bliss Foster - When Personal Style Isn’t Personal
Bliss Foster is a fashion journalist and video essayist, who’s work often focuses cultural context for fashion designs and runways. His content was another friend recommendation, and after furiously consuming as much of his work as I could in a short time frame I would really describe him as a huge fashion dork (incredibly complimentary). Him and his wife do excellent coverage of Paris Fashion Week through, and its so much fun seeing how excited he gets about the shows, often interviewing various designers and diving into the smallest details of their work and design philosophies.
Highly recommend his piece, When Personal Style isn’t Personal, which dives into how we think about personal style and what that really means in the context of the broader fashion industry. Additionally, his series diving into all of the Maison Margiela runways is fascinating.
Dracula’s Ex Girlfriend
A short film written by Abigail Thorne and directed by Valentina Vee, it touches on trauma in relationships through the lens of vampire lesbians (hell yeag!). Its great, and is shot like a stage play, which makes sense given Thorne’s background as a stage actor.