Vestoj

03/10/2022

‘Freedom’ is a word that is shamelessly overused in fashion media and fashion marketing. The term is a staple of fashion campaigns – which a brief look at ads of the past couple of years can confirm. Freedom is promised to you, the reader and consumer, as long as you buy a freedom-inducing item.

Read the rest of Ira Solomatina's article here: http://vestoj.com/freedom/

Image: Yosh*tomo Nara, Untitled (“F**kin’ Freedom to You!”) from the series Time of My Life 1992–2000. Courtesy MoMA.

15/09/2022

This week on Vestoj.com, read Felix Choong's take on 'subversive basic' and the slits, straps and cut-outs that dominate fashion now.

'It makes complete sense that the ties and pulleys of this trend conjure to mind a construction site, while the cuts, tears and slices are reminiscent of the surgeon’s table. Faceless e-commerce imagery, outfit shots, nudes, digital filters and editing have all worked to establish a visual lexicon of bodies presented in vignettes and fragments.'
Read the rest: http://vestoj.com/straps-cut-outs-slits/

Opinion Straps, Cut-outs, Slits Eroticism and Immodesty in Contemporary Fashion 15 September 2022 by Felix Choong Keywords: Depop, Dismemberment and objectification, Erotic Capital, Non-Places, Subversive Basics, Sunkissed Thighs, The Algorithm Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attese (Spatial Conce...

09/09/2022

'The great black and gold stoppered boules of Lanvin—Arpège or My Sin on Bette Davis’s vanity in All About Eve, the towering factice of Robert Piguet Bandit in the Paris bathroom from which Ann-Margret applies in delight in Made in Paris spoke to some secret world. Perfumes became the ultimate luxury in my eyes, and the ultimate femininity. My assumption was that this near-mystical sillage, like the distraction of a magician’s smoke, would transport me to womanhood. But I learned a scented path is as complex in its revealings of desire and development as any perfume’s structure.'

Read the rest of Tomoé Hill's story: http://vestoj.com/skin-and-smoke/

Image: Harold Eugene Edgerton, Fan and Smoke, 1934. Courtesy ICP.

11/07/2022

'American Apparel and American Apparel advertisements, CSS, New Young Pony Club, Urban Outfitters, headbands worn across forehands, leggings, Steve Aoki, Alice Glass, The Klaxons, neon, Kate Moss at Glastonbury, early Hedi Slimane, the video for F**k Forever by Babyshambles, complaining about people wearing band shirts when they don’t listen to the band, insincerity, The Teenagers’ Homecoming, ballet pumps, Cory Kennedy, Purple Magazine, bangs, The Strokes, Agyness Deyn, he**in, ecstasy, squatting, squat parties, looking like you live in a squat, lenseless glasses, plastic shuttered sunglasses, an absence of politics, deep V-necks, nostalgia, Topman militaria, high street romanticism, recession glamour, home counties Americana.'

Read the rest of Felix Petty's take on vibe shifts:
http://vestoj.com/and-then-its-cringe-and-its-everywhere/

Image credit: Xenon Straub, Immobility of the Meat Satellite Precursor, When Legs Are of No Benefit, 2001. Courtesy MoMA.

21/06/2022

'In the summer backyard, the child poses by a garden chair wearing a long red cotton yukata printed with tiny white fans. The gleaming metal of her hair, now tightly plaited and coiled, is as reflective of light as her mother’s is absorbing of it. One small hand flickers out from the cool sleeve like a fin; a small fish playing in the waves of Midwestern grass, an unconscious recollection of the gilded koi that swam in the Sapporo pond.'

Read the rest of Tomoé Hill's beautiful story here:
http://vestoj.com/metamorphosis/

Image: Tetsuya Ichimura Kimono, Shinjuku, Tokyo 1964. Courtesy MoMA.

31/05/2022

This week on Vestoj.com Ira Solomatina explores the connetion between orientalism and paisley.

'The idea of time as a crumpled handkerchief offers a welcome alternative to the notion of time as a linear trajectory that is moving in the direction of progress and continuous betterment. Perception of time as linear is one of the legacies of the Enlightenment era which saw history as moving away from ancient barbaric, uncivilised and primitive times towards perfection based on rational thinking and efficiency. Time, according to the ideals of Enlightenment, is not just linear, but also competitive – whereas some are closer to the perceived ideals, others are believed to be losing out, those are the people steeped in timelessness, unaffected by change.'

Read the rest: http://vestoj.com/un-veritable-cachemire/

Image: Richard Avedon, Vogue, 1967. Courtesy ICP and Vince Aletti.

05/05/2022

'Next I take out my morning suit – made in 1938 by Airey and Wheeler of 129 Regent Street for my grandfather, GM Jeffreys. Gordon Michael. English. English. The jacket is a beautiful thing: dark and matte and felty black, quilted interior, swooping lines of tails. Two rear buttons a legacy of some long-lost functionality. Like an appendix, a vestigial organ of tailoring evolution. I recently had the sleeves lengthened by an inch and a half, the beautiful stitching around the (non-functioning) cuff buttonholes replaced with a perfunctory line by a person who did not have the same skills or time or who was simply working for a client (me) with significantly less money than the original client (my grandfather). The trousers have been widened at the waist and taken in again. The legs have been shortened, then lengthened again. The waistcoat, dove grey, double-breasted, is oddly backless – compensation perhaps for the warm weighty heft of the trousers. I examine it all closely with a sense of trepidation, And, sure enough, the tell tale signs of mothery.'

Read the rest of Tom Jeffrey's evocative essay about moths and wardrobes here: http://vestoj.com/moths/

Image: Chuji Yasui, Moth 1935. Courtesy MoMA.

23/02/2022

Conversations On Doubt with Alessandro Michele, Axel Keller, Aymeline Valade, Tavi Gevinson, Virgil Abloh

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

20/02/2022

“Earth is not a globe” by Philippe Braquenier focuses on the Flat-Earthers, a community of people who believe the Earth to be flat. Walking around on the planet’s surface, it looks and feels flat, so Flat-Earthers believe what they see to discern the true nature of the world around them and, in other ways, see only what they believe.

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

16/02/2022

Oil paintings by Gideon Rubin

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

13/02/2022

From “Cimarron #2” by Charles Fréger

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

10/02/2022

Theory On Doubt by Dr. Aurélie Van de Peer and Dr. Merel Lefevere, and Jonathan Michael Square

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

09/02/2022

“Noema” by Michael Swann

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

06/02/2022

“Parliament of owls” by Jack Latham

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

04/02/2022

Over the course of his travels for the last ten years Tiane Doan na Champassak has been collecting Thai erotic magazines dating back to the 1960s and 1970s. With representations of nudity banned at the time, the magazines’ censorship is applied with great creativity and care. For the creation of this project, Censored, the artist drew from his collection of over 4000 photographic details, exploring the themes of censorship and eroticism.

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

02/02/2022

iction On Doubt by Kate Chopin and Irwin Shaw

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

30/01/2022

Prose On Doubt by Dr. Christina H. Moon, Candace Jane Opper, Dr. Renate Stauss and many others

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco

27/01/2022

From “Plant hat” by Orfeo Tagiuri

Vestoj 10, issue On Doubt, is available now on vestoj.com and in the best bookshops
Vestoj is edited by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg and art directed by Studio Blanco