Fashion is probably the best reflection of our consumerist excesses. Nowadays we do not buy based on the quality and utility of the things we can get, but on quantity and the amount of social status it will provide.

Being more aware of the way we shop is easy if we make the effort, and there are two tips that always work: not buying impulsively and making lists by eliminating those things that we deem unnecessary. Also, be selective with your wardrobe; worshiping each of the pieces it contains is more satisfying, making the ritual of wearing something much more simple and fun.

The resources of the Earth and the human race are not infinite, therefore sensible spending is vital to ensure the continuity of the planet. We must change our mentality being aware of this fact: consuming more does not necessarily mean a better life.

Source : Allure-Allure & El Fasionista (drawing)

After 15 double espressos, everything still seems slow to me…Says Max on seesmic. Follow the discussion here

At the inauguration of the Slow Gallery spotlighting the Nissan Cube (a.k.a. “the slow car”), we could not help but notice the variety of trends on display. The most important insight here is probably that that the slow trend is not only big on the fashion scene (slow wear / slow fashion) but in design (slow design) and art (slow art, slow music and slow photographie) as well.

Suddenly from Magnus Engsfors on Vimeo.

A sign of the times or economic necessity?

The fact remains that brand communication is always changing.

In the 1980s, an automobile was desirable because it could go fast.

In the 1990s, automotive comfort and safety were selling points.

The late 2000s are seeing some advertisers tailor their communication to fit the slow trend, the concept of sustainable development or simply our awareness that the world’s resources are not unlimited.
On the fashion scene, a rejection of fast fashion is coming through loud and clear in articles by bloggers like Julie or Florence.

In a way, slow fashion is a declaration of independence from the seasonal cycle imposed by fashion brands. Some people just don’t get it: you don’t have to throw out half of your wardrobe because yellow is the colour this spring! What about you? What are you waiting for? It’s time to sign the Slow Manifesto!

Read this post in french original version on enmodefashion.com

CP: Many of my friends are completely crazy about your bags (you know that) and you have a good visibility and a big fan club on the internet, especially on blogs. Do you read some of them?

JD: Not a lot because I don’t have the time. Some times, the girl in the office shows me the blogs and I’m really amazed. It is funny but at the same time I don’t understand how people can spend time writing about a bag. It makes me laugh a lot, but it is another world for me. I’m really pleased. It is interesting because sometimes you get really positive or really negatives things. It is interesting because it comes from people who say what they think. So it helps me to build the collection, but I don’t have that much time to spend on the internet.

CP: Slow wear seems to be the next big thing, many small labels were invited to the last Prêt-à-porter Salon. Do you think that a new designer can start without being ethical?

JD: I don’t know, it is hard to say. There is no rule to begin. If there was a rule everybody would use the same rule and everybody would have the same way. I don’t know if it helps or not. I don’t know if they are obliged or not. I don’t think so yet, but it will come. Now, the problem is that with all the economical pressure we have, it is very hard to launch a new label. I’m really lucky I began ten years ago. Since the day I began to now, there not many designers that came out, because of economical problems it becomes really hard to launch a new label. I was lucky.

CP: Is it more expensive to produce bio-friendly products?

JD: No. It is not more expensive. I’m not paying my leather more than anybody else. Nothing is more expensive, if you just take care.

CP: It is a false idea.

JD: Yes, it is a false idea. Bio things are simple, it is just the material you are using which is bio. After, you just do what you want. It is more about using different metallic pieces that cost a lot of money. So if the leather costs a little bit more you have to be careful about what you are using inside the bags to keep a normal price. So no, I don’t think it costs more money to do it.

CP: Do you consider slow fashion as a sort of luxury? You create objects for the duration, for a life span? You buy a bag for ten - fifteen years, it is a luxury because you buy one thing and you transmit it to your kids.

JD: That’s what I’m dreaming to do. We are trying to work that way, I’m always saying to my clients just buy one bag and keep it for years. But the pressure of society makes people change the colour of their bag every season. I wish one day they will keep it for ten years, which is not going be good for my business, but I don’t care! I’ll go to the South of France and I’ll make cheese.

CP: Is there a men’s line scheduled?

JD: No, all my friends are asking me and some times I do bags for my friends but I’m not interested in seducing men!

CP: What about the future? A come-back in the apparel?

JD: I don’t know, it is always the same problem. I would love to make dresses again but I don’t want to be eaten by the fashion business. I love it and I want to continue to love it. It is good to be far away from it because it helps me to keep dreaming, and I need to dream to be able to create. If I’m too much into that business I don’t dream anymore. When you see the reality you don’t dream anymore. So I’m trying to stay far away from it to be able to dream and to create. That is very important to me.

CP: You are like a rebel

JD: No, I’m not a rebel. I’m just someone simple who is trying to do his job. I’m not looking to be a star otherwise I would have played in movies. It is not my job to be famous; my job is to work with people and to work with my hands. I’m just trying to follow my way.

Read the french version on his blog : www.lemodalogue.fr

Max Vinall, our special Reporter at the Geneva Motorshow, will post videos throughout the next three days from the Cube itself. He’ll be talking to the press and to the public about this unique car to find out more about what they think of it. Will they love it? Will they hate it? He’ll be there to find out. Got a question for Max? Join the discussion on Seesmic Cubed TV

About Seesmic :

Well known European entrepreneur and LeWeb conference organiser, Loic Le Meur, is the founder of seesmic, a video service mimicking and aggregating your favorite web products. Seesmic hits the video scene trying to take advantage of past successes by initially building off their networks rather than building a community and content from the ground up. Currently the service could be described as a Video Twitter. Users can upload video directly from their webcam and post it to a personal page like with Twitter. Additionally, videos that users create can be automatically linked to in twitter (potentially other platforms) and uploaded to YouTube.

Jerome Dreyfuss talks about ‘agricouture’ and Slow Fashion in an exclusive interview by the French Fashion blogger ‘Le Modalogue’.

Here is the complete transcript of the discussion, part #1. Part #2 will be published tomorow.

Christian Poulot: Tell us about agricouture. What is it exactly?

Jérôme Dreyfuss: It is a little complicated. Agricouture is an engagement I have taken for my clients. I give the guarantee to my clients that the animals we are using are coming from land where they live free, which is something really important. They don’t live inside. They are outside running, eating normally. I’m giving the guarantee to my clients that we try as much as we can, not to use any chemical products when tanning the skin. We are also giving the guarantee that the water we use to tan the skin is recycled, which is very important. When I began - things have changed in ten years - but when I began with my leather, all the factories were not recycling the water. In 2012, I think they will all be obliged to do it. At the beginning none of them were doing it and it was hard to find somebody who would recycle the water and not put the pollution outside of the factories. Basically that is the guarantee that I give to my clients.

CP: Where do you make your bags? In a small factory, in an “atelier”?

JD: Yes, I only work in really small factories in Belgium, in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Portugal and in Spain. Unfortunately for us all those industries are dead in France. I work with small “ateliers” and - I as like to say - with little old guys who really know the work. That’s why I’m interested in working with those people because I’m learning a lot with them. It’s important to keep working those kind of small companies in order to learn from them, and to transmit their knowledge to other people. That’s really what makes French luxury, so I think it is my role to work with those people as well.

CP: Do you know why premium brands (except some) or even mass market brands do not communicate on bio (organic)? Do you think it would have a serious impact if some big names showed the way, lead the path.

-          JD: I think they will. I’m not sure they will communicate on it, but I’m sure they will do it because one day they will be obliged to do it. We are going to have laws to oblige people to work with clean products. So everybody is coming to it really slowly. Everyone keeps talking to me about agricouture, apparently I was one of the first to use those materials and those techniques. Now what I see when I’m travelling is other labels using those kinds of products, which is good. I don’t want to be the only one doing it. I hope everybody will. I’m sure big companies will do it, but for big companies it takes a lot to organize and to change factories, it takes time for them. It is easy for me because I am small.

CP: About creation, when we are talking about bio attitude, people are still thinking of something boring: poor colours, poor shapes, etc. But it is certainly not your case, all of your bags have many details, and seem to be very thoughtful. How do you create a new bag, where do you find inspiration?

JD: I find the inspiration by watching my wife and my friends. I’m interested in architecture from the 30s to the 60s. I’m amazed by people like Noguchi, George Nelson, or Jean Prouvé. People who were trying to make furniture for the mass market. They were trying to make everything practical and easy, it was kind of the first slow furniture. Meaning it had to be practical, it had to be cheap. I’m amazed by those designers. When I’m designing a bag, I’m always thinking of what my wife and my friends need to put inside it. I’m designing the bag around what they need to put inside. That’s why there are so many pockets or always a little lamp inside. I’m trying to make a woman’s life easier, which is really hard!

CP: You don’t seem to be under the influence of trends.

JD: No, I am not really interested in fashion. I used to be more than interested in fashion, I used to dream about fashion. But I don’t think fashion is that creative today. I don’t think that things are happening in the fashion world. Fashion became a big business and I’m not interested in Madonna, in Mariah Carey and in all those things.

CP: Not anymore

JD: Not anymore. I was when I was 20, but I’m 30 and I’m not amazed by those people. They are not real people, everything is fake, their boobs are fake, their mouths are fake, their voices are fake. I’m more interested in real things. I’m working a lot with young artists. I have a whole crew of friends who are painters, all kinds of artists. They are more creative than anybody in the fashion business, and they inspire me very much. They don’t have the pressure we have in the fashion business, where we all need to be in the trend, bla bla bla, and all those stupid things. I don’t care about that. I’m more interested in what I feel and just trying to seduce women.

Read the french version on his blog : www.lemodalogue.fr

During the marvellous years of economic boom we have enjoyed, we have constantly bought and thrown out thousands of tonnes of all kinds of products, including clothes. Every day, dustmen found piles of clothes which people had only worn once: the “throwaway” culture taken to the extreme.

Second-hand clothes were talked about a lot, but why did the idea never take off? Thanks to Amancio e Isidoro, fashion clothing was relatively cheap, so we always preferred a new dress to a used one. It’s the same reason why, for many years, it was more usual to buy a flat under construction (and be the first to use it) than to buy an older flat requiring improvements.

However, the age of waste is over. The time for ostentation, the clearly visible logo and the 2,000 Euro it bag has come to an end. But does that mean we can no longer enjoy fashion, shopping and the latest trends? No, indeed not! The new consumer goes shopping as often as before, but:

- She looks for her favourite brands in outlet stores, private sales or the Internet.
- She buys in the Salvation army stores, well-known in first world countries for their network of second-hand stores where they raise money for their charity activities.
- She buys clothes which will last for more than one season, in some cases even with a guarantee of duration of over ten years.
- She rents her children’s clothes (children grow too quickly).
- She arranges bring and buy sales with her best friends.
- She gets discounts for returning clothes to the shops after use

And all this does not imply stinginess or misery. Our capacity for adaptation to the environment is what has helped us survive as a species. This is the real climate change.

The spanish version on Gratis Total ’s blog

These photographic compositions are montages of images taken in Paris and Beirut at different times of year. This project is the result of creative research on the theme of time and space. Time as the subject that was, is and will be. Time unfolding in a city, absent and spectral, devoid of content. There is nothing to own, no body, no action and no framework of history.

We are looking at a clear connection. We must take time to examine these images. Only then can we embrace all of the details and stories contained in them. Each image is the result of symbiosis, a clear connection between different time and space. Winter melts into summer, Paris into Beirut, a rolling steel shutter in a Paris suburb.

Time is at play in several ways. First of all, I took the original image as part of a series of photos shot at intervals ranging from seconds to months. This treatment of time gave rise to another. The idea was not to fill empty space to the point of saturation with characters and codes, but to counteract switching between visual and mental ideas by eliminating every trace of our entertainment-driven society.

Stripped of media and advertising, these scenes permit infinite contemplation. It is a godless world: when it was stripped of the word, He abandoned it. Perhaps these photographs represent the blind eye that makes inner vision possible again.

Inside these sanctuaries with their strange, heavy atmospheres, not a single human is visible and yet a human presence seems to fill the space. It’s like a mirror reflecting something that isn’t there yet influences the unfolding of future time. It’s like a consequence unfolding.

Slow text & photos by James Bort

Scarlett Hooft drags us into her photographic story; her work resides into the paradox between the slowness of the preparation and the instantaneity of the shooting.

Markus Kreiss speaks about his vision of slow movie through his work that you’ll find on souvenirsfromearth.tv

The compulsion to use all of the new high-tech tools available is typical of a stressed-out consumer society in overdrive. Let’s take a step back and do what Marcus Kreiss did so well. Let’s look at these tools as instruments of the slow trend. When “being connected” goes hand in hand with excellence, then it is slow-compatible. The search for relevant content and the construction of intelligent social networks or intelligent navigational modes take both time and commitment. Twitter, Facebook or online browsing become ways to communicate the results of labour-intensive work.

Therefore, a “slow is beautiful” attitude is tantamount to spending time doing what really matters to you.

Slow Surfing by Liw - 3 girls in Paris ’s blog

What’s the bloggers point of view on the SLOW concept? Some of them are following the trend, post a little less but post better. This could be their new motto. Featuring The Junction, Frizzi Frizzi, Cuarto Derecha, I Luw Fashion

Samon Takahashi explains us his work and the vision he has of Slow music. His goal is to create an atmosphere and to hide the speakers behind the Cube’s wheels.

Marcus Kreiss is a video-artist living in Paris. He studied filmmaking in Rome before coming to France in 1986. His works include urban installations, paintings and drawings and can be found in the most important German and French art collections (deutsche Bank, FNAC, Yvon Lambert etc) Since the late 90s he develops a concept for specific videofilms for flat screens he calls “video paintings” and founded a TV channel in 2006 just to show this kind of work: souvenirs from earth TV can be seen all over France in the “free” network and on half of the German cable TV networks.

The art works accomplished by the brothers are conscious of craftmenship, outside the race for rapidness and progress. They are not inclined to use resin to save time or to reproduce in numbers ; thier motto is to look for the millenium materials such as gold leaf, cardboard and wood. No composite or polluting materials are used. By the choice of their work style and materials, La Fratrie has an permanent approach of responsibility towards the nature, questioning about the precariousness of our existence in their metaphorical way.

Scarlett Hooft Graafland - Journey
© Scarlett Hooft Graafland courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary

These photos plunge us into a surreal and intriguing atmosphere, out of time. Humour is very present both as an element of surprise and in the composition of the photos, as if to lead us to question the messages: is this strange place in need of preservation? Is this culture and its folklore to be discovered? Is it a hidden treasure?

Scarlett Hooft Graafland - Green
© Scarlett Hooft Graafland courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary

Many questions come to mind in viewing these images as they are more than just an invitation to escape, they address concerns such as family, cultural integrity, and the environment.

Born in 1973 in the Netherlands, Hooft Graafland is based in both Amsterdam and New York. Her work to date has included sculpture, installations, photography and performance. She has studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, The Hague, Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem and Parsons School of Design, New York. She has had solo exhibitions all over Europe and has been part of group shows at the Metropolitan Museum, New York and Musée D’Orsay, Paris, amongst others.

‘You Winter, Let’s Get Divorced’ by Scarlett Hooft Graafland, at the Michael Hoppen Gallery from February 5 - March 29, 2009. All images © Scarlett Hooft Graafland, courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary

Read this post in french @ very.fr