kottke.org posts about fashion
A few days ago, I linked to a NY Times piece about the V&A’s 90,000-piece archive of David Bowie stuff — costumes, photos, drawings, lyrics, etc.
The David Bowie Centre is a working archive with new reading and study rooms. The archive contains over 80,000 items, including 414 costumes and accessories, nearly 150 musical instruments and other sound equipment, designs, props and scenery for concerts, film and theatre. Bowie’s own desk is part of the archive, alongside notebooks, diaries, lyrics, correspondence, fan mail and over 70,000 photographic prints, negatives and transparencies.
The Centre is brought to life with a series of small, curated displays. Highlights include 1970s Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto, a film showcasing performances from Bowie’s career, and an installation tracing his impact on popular culture.
Last week, Open Culture linked to this video tour of the Bowie collection by Jessica the Museum Guide:
Watch video on YouTube.
I imagine it’s not quite like being there in person, but still. (via open culture)
Remember the collection of classic airline logos I linked to a few years ago? The folks at 08 Left have taken some of those old logos and put them on hats, t-shirts, and hoodies.
Watch video on YouTube.
ImillaSkate is a Bolivian female skate collective whose members dress in traditional cholita clothing. This is a great short documentary about the group, the challenges they face, and the change & joy they’re trying to bring to their communities.
Some people in my generation are embarrassed to wear a pollera [traditional skirt]. Because the pollera highlights your features. Your indigenous features. Highlight what we are as indigenous people, as the daughters of women of polleras. It’s a part of my family legacy. And without my family, I’m nobody. It’s about giving the pollera new meaning.
I wrote about ImillaSkate a few years ago as well. I poked around to see if they were raising funds for their activities (lessons, building a skatepark) because I wanted to contribue, but didn’t find anything — if anything pops up, I’ll let you know. You can follow their adventures on Instagram and via their website. (via @lizziearmanto)
Iris van Herpen has an on-going collaboration with CERN. The Dutch fashion designer’s latest project, with photographer Nick Knight, takes place in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, which is maybe the most sci-fi looking thing on Earth.
(via susannah breslin)
We all recall the revelation last year that the ocean’s rebellious teenagers, orcas, have started wearing salmon on their heads. Again. (The official state animal of Connecticut is the sperm whale, which is wholly unrelated to this post, except insofar as whales were just mentioned in the previous sentence. It’s only I just learned this fact 5 weeks ago and can’t stop shoehorning it into every conversation.) And then the recent discovery of the carnivorous caterpillars crawling around spider webs wearing the desiccated carcasses of other bugs either as a defense or disguise, or because they think it looks really cool and who are you to say otherwise.
More recently, scientists announced a new discovery about the parasite Entamoeba histolytica which kills 50K-100K people a year by going through their colon to attack their liver before moving on to their brains and lungs. This parasite wears pieces of dead human cells to evade the body’s immune system, making it difficult for us to fight an invasion.
In 2022, Ralston discovered a major reason behind the parasite’s tenacity: the amoeba develops an ability to evade a crucial part of the human immune system known as complement proteins. These proteins are vital to identifying and eradicating foreign cells. To escape them, E. histolytica ingests specific proteins from human cell outer membranes, then places those proteins on its own outer surface. Two of those molecules block those important compliment proteins from attaching themselves and fighting back. Essentially, E. histolytica wears chunks of human cells as a disguise against its host’s immune system.
Further, gorillas and orangutans have inconclusively been seen wearing leaves in the rain, pom pom crabs carry sea anemone everywhere, dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia carry sea sponges around in their mouths, and, well, decorator crabs.
Today I learned about evacuation aprons, which places like maternity wards use to rescue infants and toddlers in case of emergency or fire. Or as this labor & delivery nurse on Threads put it:
…the goal is to grab your vest and just stuff as many babies as humanly possible in its giant kangaroo pockets before running out the door.
This particular company sells a few different models, like this apron for newborns and this one for larger infants and toddlers that can carry a total weight of 60 lbs. All the aprons are fire-resistant.
There is also something called the Med Sled, which can carry up to 6 infants at a time.
This is lovely: illustrator & cartoonist Stephen Collins drew the progression of shoes worn by each of his three kids.
Back in 2020 we had to chuck the kids’ baby shoes out 😱, so I decided to keep the first ones and draw the rest, in order, starting with pre-walking socks.
When I look at photos of my kids from when they were younger, my eye is always drawn to their shoes and clothes — some of them are so iconic in my mind they almost function as logos for my kids at different stages.
Hey folks. My pals at Cotton Bureau are celebrating their 11th birthday. So, for the next three days (until the end of July 11), all of their shirts come with free shipping!
This includes the handsome Hypertext Tee:
And the Process Tee (dark colors | light colors):
Just use code HBDCB11 at checkout for free shipping within the US and 50% off international shipping. You can see all your Kottke shirt options on the Goods page.
Reminder: 50% of the profits from the Process Tee will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds. Thanks to your support, I’ve been able to donate more than $4,700 to the NNAF so far.
Prior to the men’s UEFA European Championship (aka the 2024 Euros), Belgium announced new kits for their national teams and the away kit is an homage to Tintin and his creator, Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Fantastic! (thx, matt)
From the Center for Research on Vermont at UVM, a pair of eclipse glasses from 1932. I found a product listing for these — they were marketed as the Eclipse-O-Scope and sold for 10¢.
VPR’s Nina Keck recently interviewed Floyd Van Alstyne, who is currently 104 but was 12 years old during the 1932 eclipse:
KECK: It was in the middle of the depression, he reminds me. And while he learned about the eclipse in his one-room schoolhouse, he doesn’t recall too much hoopla surrounding it.
F VAN ALSTYNE: I don’t know. We didn’t think much about general things in those days like they do now. Or we thought about minding their own business, I guess.
(thx, caroline)
Watch video on YouTube.
I didn’t know what to expect from this 1937 video explanation of how wire photos were transmitted to newspapers, but a double stunt sequence featuring an airplane and a death-defying photographer was not anywhere on my bingo card. This starts kinda slow but it picks up once they get into the completely fascinating explanation of how they sent photographs across the country using ordinary telephone lines. The whole setup was portable and they just hacked into a wire on a telephone pole, asked the operator to clear the line, and sent a photo scan via an analog modem. Ingenious!
The Wikipedia page about wire photos is worth a read — French designers argued that the technology was responsible for an early form of fast fashion.
After World War II at haute couture shows in Paris, Frederick L. Milton would sketch runway designs and transmit his sketches via Bélinographe to his subscribers, who could then copy Parisian fashions. In 1955, four major French couturiers (Lanvin, Dior, Patou, and Jacques Fath) sued Milton for piracy, and the case went to the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. Wirephoto enabled a speed of transmission that the French designers argued damaged their businesses.
(via the kid should see this)
Emory Goods is a project run by Erin Emory, a Virginia-based seamstress/artist who, among other things, finds old, damaged, or unfinished quilts and turns them into clothing. As she put it to me in an email (I reached out to make sure I had my facts right), “I like to repurpose cutter quilts, or ones who need a little love, into new, wearable pieces so that we can keep enjoying their beauty, just in a new way!”
Emory sells her pieces primarily through Instagram, and although I haven’t yet tried to buy one, I love knowing they exist. (Emory Goods is also on Facebook, and will be reappearing on Etsy in the next few weeks.)
This is a recommendation for the pattern to the delightful Pengweeno children’s cardigan, by Stephen West. I’ve made three of them — this post is probably/definitely just an excuse to share these photos — and hope to make more.
It’s a good way to use up spare yarn, and the result is supremely cute and satisfying. There’s also an adult version — the Penguono — but for whatever reason only the Pengweeno speaks to me. (Here’s Stephen West on Ravelry, Instagram, and his website.)
Previously: Traditional Maine Mittens. I have to cram as much knitting content as I can onto this blog before Jason comes back!
Last Friday I asked for suggestions on where I might find bright, fruit-themed running clothes for adults (FTRCfA), and I was not disappointed. Commenter Seth wrote:
As a runner myself I always found BOA Running shorts and Chicknleg running shorts to have fun patterns. Last I checked both had at least a strawberry pattern to meet your fruit needs.
I had not heard of either brand before, but he was right, and the strawberry women’s shorts at BOA were even on sale. They also have cute peach ones, for both men and women. At Chicknleg I went for the pineapples and sea turtles. The snails were also tempting. Thank you, and I’m looking forward to wearing these silly, cheerful clothes come summer. I only started running at the beginning of the pandemic, but it has transformed my life. I didn’t think it would change my relationship with clothing, but it’s so much easier to wear goofy, neon stuff this way, and to not feel ridiculous about it — or to enjoy feeling ridiculous.
I love these busy, wordy, and brightly colored sweaters from Kendall Ross. From her about page:
Kendall Ross, aka “I’d Knit That”, is an Oklahoma City based fiber artist. She is best known for hand-knitting colorful, wearable art pieces. She uses intricate hand-knitting colorwork methods like intarsia and fair isle to illustrate images and incorporate her original texts into the fabric of her work. Each stitch on every sweater, vest, mural, and textile is painstakingly planned and knit over countless hours using two needles and wool.
You can check out more of Ross’s work on Instagram.
Watch video on YouTube.
At their recent creativity conference, Adobe showed off Project Primrose, in the form of a dress that changes colors and patterns at the click of a button. The garment could also display animations, including ones that respond to the wearer’s movements. From The Kid Should See This:
Created with small scales or petals that are programmed with Adobe software, the futuristic ‘fabric’ can be used for clothing, handbags, curtains, furniture, and endless other surfaces.
Research Scientist Christine Dierk and her team designed and programmed everything about it. Dierk also stitched it together.
Hey folks. Just wanted to check in with how The Process Tee is going. We’ve sold quite of a few of them so far, and I’ve just sent off the first of hopefully many donations to the National Network of Abortion Funds to the tune of $1288 to support their mission of working towards a world “where all reproductive options, including abortion, are valued and free of coercion”.
Thanks so much to everyone who has bought a shirt so far! If you’d like to purchase one of your own, you can check out the original post for more information and the ordering links.
When you start something new, how do you know where you’re going to end up? Most of the time, you don’t — you stumble around for awhile, exploring uncertainly until, slowly, things start to make sense. That messy journey is all part of the process. Designer Damien Newman and I have teamed up with Cotton Bureau to make some t-shirts featuring his Design Squiggle that illustrate this untidy pattern of creativity. The Process Tee is available in two varieties — light design on dark fabric and dark design on light fabric — and 50% of the profits will be donated to a charitable organization (more on that below).
Newman originally came up with the Design Squiggle (aka The Process of Design Squiggle) more than 20 years ago to explain how design worked to some of his clients. Here’s his description:
The Design Squiggle is a simple illustration of the design process. The journey of researching, uncovering insights, generating creative concepts, iteration of prototypes and eventually concluding in one single designed solution. It is intended to convey the feeling of the journey. Beginning on the left with mess and uncertainty and ending on the right in a single point of focus: the design.
Although it originated in the design world, the Squiggle is handy for understanding or describing the process of many different creative endeavors. If you asked a chef, a scientist, a writer, a programmer, or an artist to describe how they got from their starting point to an end result, I think it would look a lot like the Squiggle. So what’s this shirt about? The Process of Design. The Process of Writing. Cooking. Art-making. Science. Learning a New Skill. Creativity. The Messy Process of Becoming a Better Human.
The Process Tee is short-sleeved and available in unisex, fitted, and youth sizes in several light (white, heather white, heather gray, banana, banana cream, pink, gold) and dark colors (black, royal blue, red, green, purple, orange) with sizes ranging from S to 5X, which I hope will work for almost everyone. I ordered a few test shirts to figure out the sizing and placement of the Squiggle and I think they turned out really well: sharp, simple, and even a little enigmatic.
50% of the profits from these tees will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds. Access to safe, legal abortion is essential health care and we’re supporting the NNAF in their mission to work towards a world “where all reproductive options, including abortion, are valued and free of coercion”.
Update: I’ve sent two donations to the NNAF so far, for a total of $3,640. Thanks for helping support such a great cause — I will continue to update this post with further donation amounts.
Update: Sent another donation from the past month of sales: $432 for a total of $4,072 donated so far!
Update: It’s been awhile, but I just sent another donation from the sales since November: $656 for a total of $4,728 donated so far!
Watch video on YouTube.
Well this is some bizarre good fun — turns out that the campy goofiness of Star Wars and the campy seriousness of high fashion make for a pretty good combination.
See also Lord of the Rings by Balenciaga and Game of Thrones by Balenciaga. Oh, and Hipster Star Wars.
In celebration of the site’s 25th anniversary, I’ve turned ordering back on for Kottke Hypertext Tees for the next day or so. Here’s what I wrote about them last month:
For much of the nearly 25-year lifespan of kottke.org, the site’s tagline has been “home of fine hypertext products”. I always liked that it felt olde timey and futuristic at the same time, although hypertext itself has become antiquated — no one talks of hypertextual media anymore even though we’re all soaking in it.
And so but anyway, I thought it would fun to turn that tagline into a t-shirt, so I partnered with the good folks at Cotton Bureau to make a fine “hypertext” product that you can actually buy and wear around and eventually it’ll wear out and then you can use it to wash your car. If you want to support the site and look good doing it, you can order a Kottke.org Hypertext Tee right now.
You can check out my original post for more details. These shirts were super popular (I sold almost 3X as many as I thought I would) so I figured I’d make them available again for folks who hadn’t seen them the first time around.
Hey everyone — at the end of the day tomorrow (Feb 22), I’m going to shut off ordering for these stylish Kottke.org Hypertext Tees, so if you want one and haven’t ordered one yet, now’s your chance. Here’s what I wrote about the shirts earlier this month:
For much of the nearly 25-year lifespan of kottke.org, the site’s tagline has been “home of fine hypertext products”. I always liked that it felt olde timey and futuristic at the same time, although hypertext itself has become antiquated — no one talks of hypertextual media anymore even though we’re all soaking in it.
And so but anyway, I thought it would fun to turn that tagline into a t-shirt, so I partnered with the good folks at Cotton Bureau to make a fine “hypertext” product that you can actually buy and wear around and eventually it’ll wear out and then you can use it to wash your car. If you want to support the site and look good doing it, you can order a Kottke.org Hypertext Tee right now.
A huge thank you to everyone who has ordered a shirt so far! They have proven remarkably popular — I’ve sold more than twice as many as my top-end estimate and way more than I sold the last time around.1 A few of you have tagged me on social media with shots of your shirts…keep ‘em coming!
P.S. If you want a shirt but your budget doesn’t allow for it right now, I have a small number of discount codes for free shirts (the discount covers shipping too, I think). Let me know and I’ll hook you up, no questions asked (while supplies last). Free codes are all spoken for, sorry!
For much of the nearly 25-year lifespan of kottke.org, the site’s tagline has been “home of fine hypertext products”. I always liked that it felt olde timey and futuristic at the same time, although hypertext itself has become antiquated — no one talks of hypertextual media anymore even though we’re all soaking in it.
And so but anyway, I thought it would fun to turn that tagline into a t-shirt, so I partnered with the good folks at Cotton Bureau to make a fine “hypertext” product that you can actually buy and wear around and eventually it’ll wear out and then you can use it to wash your car. If you want to support the site and look good doing it, you can order a Kottke.org Hypertext Tee right now.
The shirts are short-sleeved and available in men’s, women’s, and youth sizes in three colors (black, white, and heather black) and sizes from S to 3XL, which I hope will work for almost everyone. The text is Gotham Light (from Hoefler&Co., designed by Tobias Frere-Jones) and takes the colors of the current kottke.org header background, which I brightened up to look better on the shirt. Prices are $33 for adult sizes and $29 for kids, plus shipping.
I have several Cotton Bureau shirts in my closet and the samples I ordered of the hypertext shirt look great. If you want my advice, it looks slightly better in solid black, but you can’t go wrong with any of the colors and nothing is stopping you from ordering one of each color.
The Kottke.org Hypertext Tee will only be available to order for the next two weeks — after that: poof, gone. So order yours today!
A father and daughter at a tailoring workshop in Japan have mastered kaketsugi, the art of invisibly mending clothes — that is, repairing holes and tears in fabric so seamlessly and completely that they appear to never have been damaged in the first place. The before and after photos are incredible…you absolutely cannot tell where the repair was made, even under close inspection.
A short 5-minute video of the pair at work is available on YouTube while a 25-minute feature is available here. (via iancu)
Inspired by the online availability of high resolution images from the Rijksmuseum’s collection, design firm Duinker and Dochters created a book of 1400 images of hands from Rembrandt’s work that is wearable as a bracelet. From the Cooper Hewitt:
Designers Lia Duinkers and Lyske Gais, are fascinated by the details Rembrandt achieved in his depiction of hands. From hundreds of images of Rembrandt’s hand illustrations, they created an intriguing book-bracelet, an intricate piece that not only pays homage to the talent of Rembrandt, but also spotlights the genius of Duinker and Gais’s skills in graphic design, bookbinding, and jewelry design. Entitled “Rembrandt’s Hands and a Lion’s Paw” the book-bracelet is comprised of 1400 miniature pictures of hands derived from 303 Rembrandt etchings and drawings in the collection of the Rikjsmuseum and available as high-resolution images on the museum’s website.
Here’s what the bracelet looks like in its storage box:
What a fantastic little object…you can marvel about how it was made on their website. (via colossal)
Watch video on YouTube.
This is a short clip of a PBS American Experience episode called Riveted: The History of Jeans. It traces the origin of blue jeans back to India and Europe:
James Sullivan, Author: We’re not quite sure exactly where the fabric originated, but there are several hints: One is Dungri, India, where as early as the 17th century, they were creating a coarse cloth for workers, eventually called dungaree. There’s the Genoans of Italy, who had a certain type of sail cloth that was eventually fashioned into work pants. And there’s Nimes, France where the cloth there was known as “serge de Nimes.” Not always but very often, these various types of cloth were dyed blue. Probably to hide dirt as much as anything.
Rabbit Goody, Weaver: So, we have blue “jean” from Genoa, we have blue “de Nimes” or denim coming from Nimes but when we make it into pants in America, we end up morphing the garment into blue jeans.
When denim came to America, much of the labor to produce it and knowledge of the process for dying it blue came from enslaved people who had been working with indigo for hundreds of years in Africa:
Daina Berry, Historian: In fact we know the names of all the enslaved people that were owned by the Lucas and Pinckney family. These are generations of families. We’re not just talking about a husband and a wife, or a mom and a dad. We see grandparents on this list. They’re the ones that came from communities that dyed all kinds of cloth beautiful colors. They’re the ones that had the knowledge of indigo; they’re the ones that created generations of wealth for these white slave-holding families.
Evan Morrison, Collector: Back in the 19th century denim really dominated because it’s a strong weave. So with the rise in durable cotton goods, denim made itself the accepted second skin in terms of cloth that was put into clothing meant for laborious work.
Seth Rockman, Historian: So as American cotton manufacturing begins to sort of find its footing in the 18-teens and 1820s, mills in Rhode Island, mills in Massachusetts, mills in New Hampshire, they need a source of cotton. And the only source of cotton that’s available to make these mills economically viable is cotton that’s being grown by enslaved men, women, and children in the American South.
If you’re in the US, you can watch the entire episode on PBS or on the PBS website.
Temperature Textiles are knitted textiles like blankets, scarves, and socks with patterns drawn from climate crisis indicators like temperature, sea level rise, and CO2 emissions. See also Global Warming Blankets. (via colossal)
Artist Sarah Ross’s project Archisuits draws attention to architecture in LA that is specifically designed to prohibit people from sitting on it. Each suit is produced to fit into a specific hostile architectural element so that the wearer can sit or lie comfortably on it.
Brazilian photographer Luisa Dörr travelled to Bolivia and photographed the members of ImillaSkate, a group of Aymara and Quechua women who skateboard, often in traditional cholita clothing. From a slideshow of photos by Dörr in El Pais (translated from Spanish by Google):
I traveled to Cochabamba in September and was struck by the strong prejudice that exists in Bolivian society against indigenous people. There are medical cholitas or lawyers there who radically change their way of dressing if they go to the city and you hardly see young cholitas. It is a culture that is being lost. However, these women, beyond emboldening girls with sport, show their pride in being cholitas.
Here’s a short documentary about ImillaSkate with English subtitles and you can follow more of Dörr’s work on Instagram. See also the Girls of Guanabara.
For thousands of years, Yupik and Inuit people have made snow goggles from various materials (bone, wood, whale baleen) to help protect their eyes from the sun and, more importantly, from the sunlight reflected off the Arctic snow. The narrow slits also help with the wearers’ visual acuity. Clive Thompson explains in this piece for Smithsonian:
This style of eyewear can even improve vision, as Ann Fienup-Riordan discovered one day in 2010. An Anchorage-based anthropologist who works with the Yupik people to develop exhibits and books about their culture, she had recently undergone surgery on her retinas, and “the vision in my right eye was still pretty fuzzy,” she says. But when she held the Yupik goggles up to her eyes? “I could see!”
What was going on? It turns out the slit focuses the light, much as a pinhole camera does. As a result, far-off objects appear sharper “and your vision was much, much better,” Fienup-Riordan says. Long before the invention of eyeglasses with glass or plastic lenses, Alaska’s indigenous inhabitants, including the Yupik people, devised their own corrective eyewear. Phillip Moses, a tribal member in Toksook Bay, calls them “Yupik prescription sunglasses.”
Snow goggles were probably the first wearable corrective device to be invented.
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