Kottke: “The September Issue is the much-anticipated documentary that follows Anna Wintour and her staff at Vogue through the process of creating the magazine’s September issue, AKA the world’s thickest magazine issue.” (YouTube)

Tom Ford Spring/Summer 2008

‘Karim Rashid. Industrial Designer. White half the time, pink half the time.’

NY Magazine, One Is the Loveliest Color:

“I was shopping in Europe with a couple friends, and they talked me into trying on a black shirt and black jeans. If you look good in white, you look really good in black.”

Sascha Kooienga and Artem Emelianov

NY Times, The Vanishing Point:

“Credit Hedi Slimane or blame him. The type of men Mr. Slimane promoted when he first came aboard at Dior Homme some years back (he has since left) were thin to the point of resembling stick figures; the clothes he designed were correspondingly lean. The effects of his designs on the men’s wear industry were radical and surprisingly persuasive. Within a couple of seasons, the sleekness of Dior Homme suits made everyone else’s designs look boxy and passé, and so designers everywhere started reducing their silhouettes.

Then a funny thing happened. The models were also downsized. Where the masculine ideal of as recently as 2000 was a buff 6-footer with six-pack abs, the man of the moment is an urchin, a wraith or an underfed runt.”

“Both Shirakawa and his girlfriend like the fact that she weighs more than he does, and is the leader of the couple. “She’s a lot stronger than I am, can lift heavy things and go drinking until dawn. I admire that about her, and feel protected when I’m around her,” he said. Older than he by five years, it was Shirakawa’s girlfriend who made the approach, started the dating process and decided what course their relationship would take.

“Frankly, I think women should be in the driver’s seat. Society and relationships work better that way,” he said. Shirakawa likes to wear his girlfriend’s clothes and often shows up for work wearing her blouse and jeans, to the general approval of his co-workers.

Hirayama said: “For young men, wearing women’s clothes has almost become a status symbol – a confirmation of being slim and pretty and, therefore, desirable. Young women, on the other hand, are less interested now in looking beautiful for the benefit of young men. They dress up for themselves, for their own satisfaction.”"

“Prostitutes are known for their skimpy attire, but Kenya’s coastal port of Mombasa is witnessing a controversial fashion makeover.

The twilight ladies, as the city’s residents refer to the sex workers, have traded their revealing outfits for the more austere buibui – a loose, floor-length gown and head covering favoured by Muslim women.”

(…)

Some female residents say it is a big disgrace.

“I feel so embarrassed that sometimes I contemplate removing my buibui and throwing it away. The buibui has lost its respect,” Mariam Salma says.

BBC: Sex clothes anger Kenyan Muslims (via)

(Zie ook Arnhem en elders.)