During these first weeks of the new year I want to take you on a journey, a journey that has already begun... Imagine a train that stops at various stations... I swear it wasn't intentional, but I remembered that a Louis Vuitton fashion show, in the Marc Jacobs era ( who we talked about last week), had a train as a scenario. As I'm a fashion nerd, I went to confirm the information and it's the presentation show for the Fall/Winter 2012/2013 collection.

Since we are using the metaphor of journey, from Vogue, which can be considered as a mainstream fashion magazine, we arrive at System, a biannual niche publication focused on the Fashion System itself. According to the editors and co-founders themselves, they intended this to be a mirror of what Fashion is, with a point of view, but without an agenda; informative but that would encourage conversations; document of the various facets of Fashion; giving preference to long and prominent articles.

The edition we will focus on dates from Spring/Summer 2023, however, according to information from The Business of Fashion, co-founders Elizabeth von Guttman, Thomas Lenthal and Jonathan Wingfiel leave the publication in October 2024 with the intention of creating a new editorial project in 2025. According to the same source, the founders left due to disagreements with the then owner of the publication Mike Obenson. Last December they reacquired the publication, which will have a new physical edition this month, during Paris Haute Couture Week, which takes place from January 27th to 30th. In other words, within a few days, this non-article can serve as a tribute to the publication before entering a new era.

Almost a year after presenting my master's thesis, I revisit one of its chapters and the object that gave rise to it. With a new look, through the lens of the time machine.

In Part 1 the interactivity was more self-reflective, in the second part I designed the interactivity for you... Which is not to say that this non-article isn't all completely yours, now that you've read it.

Part 1 - Studying what I wrote

Initially, when I thought of this article, I thought of it as an article in its own right, almost as a republication of a chapter of my dissertation. However, I decided to go further. How? By studying what I myself had written as if it were a school textbook, almost as if I were undoing a piece of crochet to create a new piece with the thread. Even so, I ended up sticking to one of the passages already written that I consider relevant in a transversal and timeless way. These conclusions were reached through the testimony of Susanna Lau in the context of the aforementioned edition of System. Here is the aforementioned passage, which is not a quote, but rather an adaptation.

Susana Lau, better known as Susie Bubble, has an optimistic vision, without losing realism and directness. Despite stating that retail infrastructures are generally complicated. A characteristic that adds to the serious difficulties they face today. A fact that contributes to amplifying what is, in his view, the Achilles heel of emerging designers – achieving longevity.

In terms of visibility, there has never been a better opportunity to be an independent designer. This is the time when we live in a good time to establish such a position of independence as a Fashion designer. However, there is still a dependency component. Dependence on support networks, support and contacts. The hardest thing, from Susie Bubble's perspective, is not being recognized, praised and praised for your talent. The difficult thing is to achieve the continuity of this group of people, who are an asset - as fans, as support.

Part 2 - A new look at System

This second part is not so much an article as it is an amalgamation, a moodboard or scrapbook of written inspiration. This Scrapbook originates from the object of study of the article I wrote for my dissertation and which in turn served as the basis for “Part 1 - Studying what I wrote myself”

Side A

In this edition of System magazine, a questionnaire was carried out with 122 fashion insiders and as listing each one of them would be more boring than reading a high school attendance book, I thought of something more interactive, reducing the list in half and creating something similar to bingo (but without the cards and grid squares). So what are the rules of this game? We have 3 lists, the first will be of insiders that we will all know, the second only those who are all in will check everyone, the third aims to surprise us all and awaken the curiosity to google names and discover bits of inspiration. In such a fast-paced world and industry, it makes no sense to complete the list with positions or titles.

List 1

• Jonathan Anderson
• Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele
• Maria Grazia Chiuri
• Denma
• Edward Enminful
• Carljin Jacobs
• Simon Porte Jacquemus
• Kim Jones
• Stephen Jones
• Andreas Kronthaler
• Isabel Marant
• Glenn Martens
• Stella McCartney
• Suzy Menkes
• Pierpaolo Piccioli
• Rick Owens
• Daniel Roseberry
• Marine Serre
• Dries Van Noten
• Yohji Yamamoto

List 2

• Imran Amed
• Agnés b.
• Nicolas Di Felice
• Beka Gvishiani
• Amelia Gray
• Tom Guiness
• Amanda Harlech
• Irene Kim
• Joe McKenna
• Alastair McKimn
• Tyler Mitchell
• Hans Ulrich Obrist
• Lucien Pagès
• Pierre A. M’Pelé
• Peter Philips
• Vanessa Reid
• Renzo Russo
• Olivia Singer
• Tyrone Dylan Susman
• Juergen Teller

List 3

• Haider Ackermann
• Osman Ahmed
• Sarah Andelman
• Delphine Arnault
• Rami Atallah
• Franziska Bachofen - Echt
• Olivier Bialobos
• Derek Blasberg
• Saskia de Brauw
• Ashley Brokaw
• Casey Cadwallader
• Sébastien Meyer
• Eva Gödel
• Katie Grand
• Pierre Hardy
• Tiffany Hsu
• Arby Li
• Pascal Morand
• Dan Thawley
• Brandon Wen

Side B

One of the freedoms I allow myself with this newsletter is to use and abuse quotes, when the words are too irresistible not to share them.

So in this exercise remembering Dadaism, I curated 10 headlines from the magazine in focus and went in search of their authors, but kept them separate. Why? I want you to be inspired by the words themselves, I want you to read them as they are and then see who signs them. Contrary to the idea of ​​interpreting a garment and its logo, and not just the garment as a piece of fashion and design.

Quotes

1. “The fundamental shift is down to branding. Fashion’s no longer really about design as much,and yet I think that is what we’re all hungering for.”
2. “I was talking with a haute-couture house recently,and they were saying they can’t accept new clientsbecause they aren’t able to keep up with orders.”
3. “I wouldn’t wish those big designer jobs on anyone.The amount of work, the pressure... Look at Olivierat Balmain; he never has a single Sunday off!”
4. “There’s no other industry where the gap between the perceived glamour of the job and the reality of the job is greater.”
5. “There’s no other industry where the gapbetween the perceived glamour of the job andthe reality of the job is greater.”

6. “I think the old model of having the creative director as an all-powerful creature has long succumbed to the complexity of the market environment.”
7. “Fashion doesn’t have to revolve around Paris Fashion Week. You can have a really successful brand and not do any of that. Just exist virtually.”
8. “I would hesitate to call myself a fashion critic, because even though I do write for publications,I am more into the idea of fashion cheerleading.”
9. “Because we created something ourselves, and we don’t have a corporation behind us, we can survive on our own. Without their titles, who are they?”
10. “Being a creative director is way more than just designing clothes. But when the clothes become the least of your worries, that’s when it’s a problem.”

Authors

1. Cathy Horyn
2. Loïc Progent
3. Loïc Progent
4. Hanya Yanagihara
5. Luca Solca
6. Luca Solca
7. Susanna Lau
8. Susanna Lau
9. Bryan Yambao
10. Alexander Fury

What I hope you take away from here, at this turbulent time in the world, is light, inspiring and fun, elements that taken from Fashion and The Fashion Standup take your mind flying, converging and diverging, until your brain screams “Bingo” ! Because this is actually a game! This is not an article!