vfiles as the future of fashion

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Lately I've been spending a lot of time on the VFiles website. In a time when a lot of people are mourning the "death of fashion journalism and blogging" as interest declines, VFiles feels like the next frontier. The social media site/archive is a fresh perspective, a new method of sharing ideas that's dedicated to re-energizing the industry. 

restrain

The website originated as an source of fashion images, a way to present different ideas for a shoot or something; and the ethos behind that still remains on today's website: There are tons of archival photos from runway shows and print magazines that would usually be out of reach for kids who are interested in fashion (60% of VFiles users are under 24).

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In terms of being a kind of fashion encyclopedia, there's also the VFiles Data and Vnacular series that are really short (shoutout to that millennial attention span or whatever), interesting ways to learn about the big names in the industry, how to say mispronounced fashion words, things that are part of the rich, somewhat exclusive/esoteric history of fashion.

All of their shows are available in the VFiles TV section and on their Youtube channel, where they have my two favorites: Model Files and Intern Files. I started watching Intern Files when I saw that this really cool VFiles intern I follow on Instagram was on it. The series follows a group of teens competing for the chance to intern for the company. It manages to strike this weird balance of reality television satire and earnestness where I feel like I'm getting some warped, hilarious version of the very real drama of the fashion industry.

The founder of VFiles describes the website as both a community and a platform, the community aspect being the most interesting to me. All of the media that's on the website right now was uploaded by any of the over 78,000 members.  The setup of the website recognizes the different parts of the organism that are necessary for survival in the fashion industry, and allows designers, photographers, models, stylists, musicians, artists etc with similar ideas to connect. 

photography by jingyu lin

makeup by meredith menchel

Any members on VFiles can browse media and organize it into Files as part of their profile, kind of like moodboards:

vfile by supersabrina

As a creative on VFiles, there are a lot of opportunities to get your work out there if you can't do it in conventional venues by putting your stuff up to be sold in the VFiles shop, or applying to be a part of the VFiles-made fashion show. And the best part of this (though there are some flaws) is that VFiles users are the ones that decide who's chosen.

The footage from the shows of the past few years show a lot of really innovative designers, who have their own aesthetics and definitions of the "cool" that the fashion industry is obsessed with. I have endless admiration for this concept, because it really fits into my utopian image of a fashion industry that is connected and inventive.

What do you guys think of all this-- what does this mean for the future of fashion? Are you as excited about this as I am?

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kanyinsola

loving him was red

by julien rodet

untitled by dr zee

i was thinking about how cool the red made everything look in this post, and then i remembered that a while ago, i started putting together a red inspiration post, but never posted it. this also made me realize that i own barely any red clothing and this is kind of weird to me, because i really associate that color with power and conversely, vulnerability- and i feel like i need that color in my closet in order to feel secure or something: a red shirt, or skirt, or pair of shorts, whatever.

hakaan f2011 rtw via

to solve this problem, i'm looking at this incredibly cool red turtleneck dress from asos.

(this post is titled as such because i lOvEddd taylor swift's Red album, and thought it was a really cool, beautiful act of assertiveness and exploration.)

the velvet underground via

for practical reasons, i guess it makes sense: red kind of upstages everything else you're wearing and doesn't fade into the background or complement what you're wearing like some other colors. but that's kind of what makes it so attractive, it's like a declaration of power, a monopoly over the complexity of your self, without even opening your mouth.

alexander herchcovitch ss09 via

hidden by hrabina von Tup Tup

what does it mean to wear red lipstick? my experiences with it as a woman of color are just a means of protest against the "your skin is too dark for that" or just plain old "the idea of you finding power in your beauty takes power away from me and that's too far" body-policing. sometimes when i need to psych myself up for something, i just put on a ton of makeup (red lipstick is the color of choice), look at myself in the mirror a bit, and then wipe it off and do the thing. 

rihanna via

jane wealleans

are you guys into thinking about colors? what does red mean to you, or what other colors make you feel the same way?

thank you!
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kanyinsola

I'M A GROWN WOMAN (I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT)

jk jk lol

but i am officially 14! every year i realize that growing older is pretty much a scam, i never feel any different; this time i almost forgot it was even my birthday because i was so stressed out by other things. but then each year i convince myself that it will be different the next time: i'll be 15, i'll be a freshman in high school, 16: i get to drive, 17: dancing queen!, 18: college?? the future is so close, so far. everything is uncertain. einstein's theory of relativity is v real to me @ the moment. (on a related note, please tell me your interesting ideas about time in the comments so i can learn from y'all. i no longer have an excuse for being so uncool in comparison to willow smith now that we're literally the same age haha. )

anyway-- when i got dressed, i wanted to at least trick myself into thinking that i was growing, so i went for whatever the responsible, comfortable, mature woman of my future would wear.

part 1:

 heyyo! i'm cool AND i can dance?! the black turtleneck is the same one i wear in every single outfit thank you very much. i made the white culottes for my last fashion show (photos soon, i promise), the grey jacket is super old, idk where it's from, and the holograph shoes are thrifted. 

part 2:

i wore my dad's white shirt, unironed because i'm afraid of my responsibilities tbh; for a difference in shape i added the fringed pencil skirt that i made for my last fashion show, DIY-ed princess pin, and thrifted block heels. 

i accidentally did a google image search for that photo when i was attaching it, and i just really like the search results: 

ok, i'll go back to dressing like a 4-year old now!

thanks, 

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kanyinsola

i'd be lyin if i said i didn't miss you

listening to i'm tired and i hate this song (don't go) by cyberbully mom club  a lot because of it's dreamy tiredness, and the video is really cute:

speaking of cute things! these! powerpuff girls overalls that i've actually had for a while but never got to show on here.

i saw them in a thrift store i think in december but i was in the store for a specific purpose and didn't have enough money for it, so i let it go with a heavy heart tbh. but then i came back like a month later, and they were still there! 

they have really cute embroidery on the front:

but unfortunately, they are made for 6-year olds, so in the words of the woman at the thrift store who came out of nowhere to share this with me: :it's cute but it's a little tight on the fanny".  oh well, i think i'm just going to crop it and make it like a denim t-shirt that i can still wear over something else.

i usually wear it with my thrifted black reeboks. 

another thing i wanted to talk about a bit in this post was the announcement that Conde Nast is turning Style.com into an e-commerce site and transferring all of the content to "voguerunway.com". and i kind of wrote this in response to something on manrepeller about it.

(i just added some photos from fw2015 to make it easier to read instead of just a block of text)

i've always been into fashion in the way that most people are into fashion: i like to look and feel comfortable, i recognize that there is a relationship between the way i feel about how i'm presenting myself and how i feel overall, my emotions, my attitude etc. but i don't remember when or where it was that i realized that fashion was its own universe but i know how. i had started reading fashion blogs because i read something about tavi gevinson in a newspaper somewhere, and when i went deeper into the photos on these websites, marveling at how much they knew about everything  i found the websites where the photos originated from, usually: style.com and vogue.

[this look from and re walker reminds me of something a hip parisian women would wear in the 1920s, if she was also living in a daydream that looked a little like the dystopian future in the adidas x kanye show. ]

 at first it was like a trivia game (i didn't know many people irl who i could compete against though), but i wanted to know everything: if i saw someone wearing something on the red carpet i wanted to be able to identify what season and what show it was from, i wanted to know what pop culture references influenced this look, to be able to chart the growth or identify the calling card of a certain designer.  other websites like vogue encyclopedia helped me too, but i think that i drifted towards style.com more often because they had an app that i could download and i preferred the layout of their website. eventually i would go on the website regularly, to read old reviews and articles written by geniuses  and look at beautiful clothing that felt like it was conceived on an entirely different planet and feel like i was part of it.

from beaufille, i really like the jil sander-ish minimalism. the contrasting layers, the continuation of the trend of turtlneck layering, and POCKETS! IN! DRESSES! the shoes are also kind of yohji yamamoto and exude cool-girl 

that's why i'm a little nervous about this change: i guess it reflects something that's been going in the commercialization of fashion (not as if fashion isn't already commercial art by definition, i just mean it's a bit scary to imagine abandoning what makes it beautiful, and at the risk of sounding incredibly childlike, magical) that reminds me of how i felt when meadham kirchoff was forced to go out of business. it's impossible to have an industry that wants to create something beautiful without falling into what is needed to survive, and style.com is simply being forced to concede to that pressure in the same way that every other brand is. that's just the way it is. e-commerce isn't that attractive/important to me for obvious reasons (i'm a 13 year old girl), but it's also to do with the idea of selling people a more "wearable" version of something that doesn't fit with what i want style.com to be (of course it already is that).

alien mermaids alien mermaids scaly green alien mermaids living on mars who crash-land on our planet soaking wet (marques'almeida)

 the shifting tides away from the value of expert reviews with the rise in popularity of fashion blogs written by "LOOK! REAL PEOPLE" probably has something to do with this too. is there still a commercial value to reviews written by people who "know what they're talking about" in offices in new york, when style.com itself has created a whole generation of people who "know what they're talking about" in their bedrooms in the suburbs.

this off-white outfit is deceptively simple, but the cutouts on the shirt and the slits on the front of the pants make it so cool. also suede boots are a staple of the runway 70s revival (if you want to call it that ) and they look amazing with this. 

idk the river of change never stops following and all of that stuff. i feel a bit like i did watching the series finale of parks and rec: i can't tell if i'm sadder about the idea of style.com being gone or about the actual things that i liked about style.com being gone (photos big enough to cry over, tim blanks and tommy ton, trend reports for someone who loves organization and patterns).

this is the sweater of my dreams wow. i love the minty green/gray color, the embroidery and fringe. and it looks so cool on that skit and those bright boots (leonard!)

--
thank you all for reading, and sorry that this was kind of an unorganized collection of thoughts! graduation is so close! i have a ton of projects to finish up, including one that i'm super excited about for fashion that i will probably post on here when i'm done.

love 

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kanyinsola

as the sun's shining down ... spring rains fill the vast plain

carrizo plain / gardens & villa

Looking up at the sky is one of the many signs that I am almost insignificant - I do enjoy feeling like the center of the universe, but waiting for life to pass you rushes straight to your brain until everything you do is insignificant- nor for the sake of nihilism, but for the sake of doing what makes you happy while you have the chance to be alive because it has no real impact. not only are you insignificant, but so is fear, so is loathing- if nothing means anything in the grand scheme, then why fill yourself up with unhappiness. 

Looking up at the sky makes me feel surreal- I can't possibly be alive if this is changing colors and raining on nations as I'm looking up at it. I'm in the middle of reading the first surrealist novel: Nadja by Andre Breton. The beginning is very dense and kind of mundane and I'm patiently waiting for the plot to reveal itself to me.

About to leave her, I want to ask one question which sums up all the rest, a question which only I would ever ask, probably, but which has at least once found a reply worthy of it: "Who are you?" And she, without a moment's hesitation: "I am the soul in limbo" 

the lisbon girls are surreal because they just did not make sense and i think that surrealism is somehow tied to contradiction it has to be too complex to be understood by a direct method/

a denim jacket i tried to bleach; it didn't really work but it looks a bit like the sky now

the sky a few days ago

time transfixed from a recent visit to the art institute

Magritte is one of my favorite surrealists- maybe because he uses the sky so often- and I was really happy when Opening Ceremony came out with a Magritte-inspired collection, and described it as "wearable art".

sheherazade dress

sheherazade sneakers

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double reality

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the king'ss museum coat

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good connections top

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the blow to the heart sweater

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la cascade bomber jacket

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ladder of fire sweater

I really loved the constant references to the lovers and how the photographer used blue and white and shadows to kind of mask/distort the models' bodies. I would say the stuff inspired by sheherazade is my favorite because I really like how detailed and vivid it is- and I also love the shape of the good connections outfit.

the fabric covering the heads of the models is also kind of reminding me of a combination of commes des garcons (for the almost-grotesque and the white) and a margiela mask.

cdg ss2013 via 

mmm fw2013 via

What do you guys think of all this-the art and the clothes- and (if you’d like to share) how were your days today?

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kanyinsola

Opening Ceremony Photos via

poetry, beauty, romance, love (and thoughts)

i've been in and out of the draft stages of a post re: thoughts on sadness and anger and death and goodbyes and how badly things have been going in the past days/weeks/months/year a ridiculous amount of times and i've finally decided that the actual important thing i've been trying to get out is a rest in peace to everyone who's passed. i feel like i don't have anything particularly new to say (even though everything is so important) but i am very angry and confused and tired.

also: this is a link to a memorial fund for michael brown (which is confirmed to be run by the Brown family) - even though i would assume most of you are teenage girls but i really think it should be out there.

and a petition to launch a full investigation into the shooting. 

i did actually write a post on robin williams but it was confused and confusing:

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i'm writing this post finishing a recovery from a migraine and thinking about death and how futile but radically important it is to say "goodbye" and robin williams and lauren bacall and crying and not crying 

 and how i've been thinking ever since i was young(er) that your embarassingly fragile body should never be the only thing that protects the soul that belongs not only to you, but to everyone who knew you (and how stupid that sounded but i said it anyway)

 and how strange it is feeling like the loss of someone i never really met is like the loss of something inside me.

and that people who seem to be made of nothing but love and happiness that they give so willingly to others could be so sad inside

but i've also been thinking about how everything i really love is a reflection of some part of my self so it's obvious that robin williams' words and kindness and everything beautiful about him probably played some part in my personal development that i'm forever grateful for.

eta: and this quote from robin williams which changes not much, but perspective:

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.”

no matter how sad i am that robin williams is gone- someone who always seemed like one of the world's  perpetual-big-brother or something, felt like it was all too much to live with; i'm even happier that he lived, that he gave something to the world in the genie and mrs.doubtfire and now i'm kind of too sad to talk some more so i'll link to anOther magazine's "Robin Williams: in his own words"

rest in peace.
(goodbye genie)



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