Is Fashion in Total Creative Collapse?

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Is fashion in the throes of a total creative collapse? Critic Eugene Rabkin — founder of StyleZeitgeist and author of the new book Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism (amzn.to/4hkJJEh) — joins Amy to make the case. He argues luxury has "devolved into a consumerist spectacle," its lack of ideas papered over by relentless marketing.

They get into the greedflation behind a $140,000 Dior dress, why "craftsmanship" is the industry's greatest con, the Italian sweatshop scandals that never seem to stick, how Bernard Arnault turned the fashion world into the fashion industry — and the death of criticism, and why nobody seems to care.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction

02:30 Fashion's creative collapse: the thesis

08:30 Greedflation & the $140,000 Dior dress

13:00 The craftsmanship con

15:00 Sweatshop scandals: Dior & Loro Piana's vicuña

23:30 The death of fashion criticism

32:00 Bernard Arnault & how he industrialized fashion

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Follow Eugene Rabkin
📷 Follow Eugene on Instagram: @eugenerabkin
📚 Buy the book: Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism (amzn.to/4hkJJEh)

This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.

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