The Misterio Tremendum

-Really funny/interesting/sad look at Brooklyn’s infamous McKibbin Lofts in the NYT. The best/worst part is the end; in a junkyard of a building populated by young 20-somethings we have this:

The oldest residents are believed to be Mel Smothers and his wife, Lizzie Hansen, who are both 61 and live at 248. Mr. Smothers moved from California three years ago to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming an artist in New York, and Ms. Hansen later followed, reluctantly. The McKibbin had the only loft space that Mr. Smothers could afford. The previous tenants were skateboarders, so he had to disassemble the ramp they had -built and the four doghouse-like structures they had slept in. He has since lined his and Ms. Hansen’s tiny bedroom with insulating foam.

“Here’s why I stay. It’s still the cheapest lofts around because it’s so badly managed,” Mr. Smothers said. “Once I make enough money, I’m moving out of here.”

-In my opinion, The Fader is the best music blog/mag out there. Not content with simply offering their well-done physical magazine in .pdf online, they came out with an online-only form of the magazine: F2. At first I wasn’t really sure why they went through the trouble, but looking at it makes their purpose a little clearer. Technically its not really a magazine, or it is, though with minimal text and really image heavy. This is a cool concept, a magazine that really couldn’t exist in physical form (pictures too big and text too small), but on the computer looks really good and is manageable. I like it. It is being produced by Timberland and each issue (it’s a quarterly) focuses on a different movement in contemporary music and profiles 5 different artists that are part of it. Issue 1: The New Disco.

-psfk posted an op-ed from Monocle’s founder and king of lifestyle-porn, Tyler Brûlé. I think it’s interesting and gets at what luxury really means to people (ideas pushed by ads and trendsetters versus what the thing is actually made of and how it is made), especially in today’s outsourced world. He talks specifically about the locally produced goods movement and how its getting people to think twice about why they are paying premium prices for poorly-made lux goods that are being produced in developing countries. It is funny that these brands get some kind of “Italian-made” cache when their stuff’s being made in China next to Old Navy t-shirts. Anyway, I have copied it below (probably illegally) underneath the Vuitton storefront pics from the 5th ave. store in NYC (via psfk).

From Melbourne to Gothenburg to Minneapolis, retailers of everything from vegetables to fine knitwear are surveying the landscape, speaking to consumers and responding accordingly. When these businesses venture out into the wholesale market to purchase goods they’re disillusioned by rails filled with expensive, shoddily stitched garments made in countries with dirt-cheap labour costs and questionable employment laws. They’re unimpressed by porcelain companies that still sell their Swedishness but manufacture in Thailand. They’re worried that there’s no respect for finish or detail and that some of the world’s most respected premium brands (many gobbled up by dim private equity firms all working to the same, short-term strategies) have squandered everything in order to improve their margins while unwittingly offloading the real intellectual property - the painters, pattern makers, seamstresses and master carpenters.

I once asked the owner of a major Italian luxury goods house if she felt she was duping her consumers by playing up her brand’s Italian heritage while quietly manufacturing in China. She responded by saying she was creating jobs in China and that customers no longer cared where things were made and didn’t think about things like “mark-up”. I then asked her why, if she was so proud of her job creation in Shenzhen, wasn’t she proudly promoting this fact on her hangtags and labels? At this point the interview was brought to an abrupt close.

Few companies want to confront the follow-up question. Other than price, what’s the difference when both an original and a fake are cut, stitched, glued and bolted together in China, Vietnam and other low-wage markets? Is it really justifiable to get angry with consumers for opting for a fake when the mark-up for an original is extortionate and there’s no real difference in quality or the working conditions for the people that made the items?

-T. Brûlé