SSENSE: Luxury fashion & independent designers

Organizations often don’t have the time nor resources dedicated to these types of analyses and forecasts, or don't have their antennae tuned precisely to separate signal from noise. Clients are also biased. They work with their own truths. Cultural strategists and semioticians provide both external insight and foresight.

In short, with democratized access, the web became more saturated than ever before, and as consumers, we began to spend more and more time trying to sort through it all. In a state of analysis paralysis, how do we disaggregate signal from noise?

This problem of overabundance is why I wrote my piece last year. As consumption of digital media increas... See more

More than raw distribution though, exposing your style and sensibility is important. Not just for standing out in the networks and generating dialogue and discussion - but also because senior, ambiguous consulting work relies on navigating a trust gap like no other.

More than raw distribution though, exposing your style and sensibility is important. Not just for standing out in the networks and generating dialogue and discussion - but also because senior, ambiguous consulting work relies on navigating a trust gap like no other.

(In The Death of Trends, Vox's Terry) Nguyen is examining a more abstract consequence of this rapid acceleration, which is that it saps trends of their subcultural context, reducing them to status symbols that represent status itself, like a trail of breadcrumbs leading to more breadcrumbs. Her piece is focused on fashion trends, or aesthetic ... See more

Because curators are able to focus and dig deep, and because they are highly selective in how they socialize, they regularly build influential cultural niches around themselves — whether that be sneakers or denim or food — and often become a source of inspiration for wider trends. Their identity is often deeply tied to the subject matter, which mak... See more

What really works in American fashion is consistency. I’m usually pretty bored by Ulla Johnson ’s shows, but on Sunday morning I couldn’t help feeling dazzled by her three-dimensional florals and dizzying zig-zag knits. (Made me think she’d be a great designer for Missoni, but that brand needs help, and she’s too smart to take on some impossible po... See more