What I Meant to Say

"Whether the end is nigh is rarely the point. What matters is that, when people fear shifts in the cultural tectonics, they tend to reach for myth and the verities. And, while it may seem like a stretch to extend this observation to a sphere as ostensibly superficial as fashion, it was hard to come away form the season just ended here without thinking that dressmakers are spooked by he cold breath of change....And there were good reasons for this. Faced with overwhelming shifts in the way clothes are manufactured; with the widespread dispersal and pirating of information on the Internet; with markets broadening to encompass not just familiar consumer elites, but entire swaths of the globe; and with the knowledge that their boldest efforts seem puny compared with the chess moves being enacted by the multinational titans who employ them, a lot of designers are befuddled."

Guy Trebay can get under my skin. But not so much when he writes like that. NY Times, March 6.

The Women on the Web. FMI (For My Information) Already doomed for failure?

Buying more to have less. Yes, Muji. I'm familiar with the look, and the hook. Being complicated to become simple. Eschewing isms in order to be the best ism. Can't we just have the clean lines and purposeful design without the pretentious doublespeak? I don't have the philosophy chops or time to do the verbal deconstruction. Mon dieu, has the Bush Administration made is so that marketers feel we won't notice if they treat every day as Opposite Day? Anyway, internationally, there is nothing novel about Muji, but the result is appreciated.