Gareth Pugh is so the New Dior Homme

Not only is was the Gareth Pugh show today the most creative and interesting so far this season, it also showed more taste, judgment, and an alignment with a tradition than Kris Van Assche ever has for Dior Homme. Granted, this was easily the best Dior Homme collection Van Assche has given us to date, but he's had about four opportunities since he took over for Hedi Slimane and all have been objectively duds (literally panned across the board). Things he did right this time:

1. He reached into the house's history to bring back some signature concepts such as the suit, interesting cut, and lush knits.

The above look is actually the best of the show; the skin-tight pinstripe pants show he's thinking about the House's past while the jacket is superb--classic yet interesting. The hair, the makeup, the clothes all cohere to one vision that at once venerates Dior Homme, but also inserts Van Assche's sense of taste (read, the color black, hightop sneakers) into the mix.

Another good look featuring a luscious knit.


2. He didn't make too many objectively ugly things (see the end of "The Best of Mens '08" for the greatest dissapointment to date).

3. He added coherence to the show by creating and readressing themes:

This cowl shirt is one of my favorite elements from the show. I would definitely buy one. He readdresses and reinterprets this element throughout the show.

...But here's where we start to get a little out of focus:

I'm all for addressing the 80's--big shoulders, big hair, big everything--there's a lot of design potential in these trends, but Van Assche just sort of threw them out there and let them sit (something I'd say he's now famous for). This big t-shirt could be okay if he adjusted the outfit and proportion of the jacket. This model just looks like he just got out of bed to get the morning paper. Also, I initially loved the jacket until I realized that there was stretch on the bottom and the sleeves. Not very haute at all.

Oh. And for future reference, hair and makeup are important.


And then he showed some questionable looks that just seemed to take up space, rather than add to a collection (poor coherence). We'd rather have less looks and a better show. Okay Kris?


As for Gareth Pugh. Well. That was just a grand pleasure. It was as if John Galliano, Hedi Slimane, and Rick Owens came together to create this spectacle of what everyone was trying to express (read, every gaunt, dark collection, especially Prada) and concentrated those sentiments into his collection. It was incredible.

The collection has just enough play to be "Couture," while one could also see how Pugh would translate it into stores. The looks were classic and twisted, apocolyptic and modern, black and full of life.

This look could have been from a Slimane-Dior Homme show (minus the Pugh-head piece):



...Actually, all of them could have passed for Hedi-era Dior. Each look has the same cut and proportion of an old Dior Homme model, with the same penchant for loud materials and a relatively slouchy set of knits. But Pugh stamps his signature with a penchant for sci-fi horror fun.

Truly a pleasure.

(Van Assche will get there... eventually. If he isn't sacked first)

Edit in light of commenter's apt criticism:

It seems that the old Dior Homme niche (the one that matters) has been filled by Gareth Pugh; unfortunately, this makes current, Kris Van Assche Dior Homme extremely irrelevant as he can't put a coherent collection together (or even original, tasteful garments).

We (Apparently) Don't Need No Education.

In a piece written by Stanley Fish, esteemed literary critic and professor, he explains that the Humanities (ie all Arts, everything pleasurable to me) will disappear because of a lack of financial viability of jobs You're going to study Art History? In this Economy? That's it. No more college fund until you're ready to be responsible and go to Med School and general lack of interest because of these ingrained attitudes.

Well goddamnit. The last of my pleasures, gone. Once again at the hands of Capitalism. Not only my pleasure, though; what about all of professorship? What will happen when the only three viable jobs are Doctor, Lawyer, or Businessperson--and consequently the dying off of non-trade academia as we know it? Fish cites "Industrialist Richard Teller Crane [who] was...pointed in his 1911 dismissal of what humanists call the “life of the mind.” No one who has “a taste for literature has the right to be happy” because “the only men entitled to happiness . . . are those who are useful” to explain the overarching utilitarian ideals. While I would argue that, no, not only am I not useless, but my peers who have interests in Painting, Sculpture, Music, Acting, and Dance are also not useless but they mostly fuel the economy.

Think about it. No artists, no museums. No Musicians, no music business. No actors, no Hollywood. No dancers, no ballet on one hand, but on the other, no Beyonce in "All the Single Ladies."

Though Crane cited Literature, specifically, didn't he? Well. This might actually hold some weight. Not only is it impossible to distinguish between literature with a capital "L" and "books" these days because a flooded market, but, in America at least, who reads anyway (you, obviously, faithful reader)? There is such a puritanical, vehement hatred for intellectualism in America that most public officials must appeal to the "common man"--the nice way to say "lowest common denominator." Apparently book-learnin is out of the question for most of America, and consequently so is the vast area of Academia which devotes itself to the very study of it. So again, with its unfathomable oversights and greedy attitudes towards money (I'm looking at you, private Universities), Capitalism kills; because learning is a commodity, it has to be downsized just like all others.

But then again, I hugely doubt that Stanley Fish is talking about any system outside America (ie, where the cost of education is still manageable, or actually affordable--sometimes free; in France, taxpayers fund your college experience almost entirely). And since America is on its way out as super-power-world-police, maybe we're due for a Glorious Cultural Revolution (It probably helps a lot that we finally have an intellectual president, rather than a jump-the-gun, trigger-happy one). This wouldn't be the first time an immensely powerful historical event would have sparked both an artistic boom, but also a renewed interest in the country's history (a humanity).

While the Humanities as they exist now are certainly due for a change, I hardly expect that change to be a death--and if it is, the phoenix will certainly rise from the ashes anew, reinvented with a different academia, an affordable, self-directed one.

Oh, how this Hope is contagious!