via: Liam Maher of Young Meagher on KDU World News Feed

Sorry for this. I can’t sleep until I get this out of my head and here seemed as good a place to post as anywhere.

Here’s the thing. Waste comes from over-production. Obvious.

It took me 10 years to get around to the homework of my own vocation. But when I finally did read a few books I learned some perspective from James Twitchell’s Twenty Ads That Shook the World.

Twitchell asserts a little new old math.

Industrial + Revolution = Mass + Production. Mass + Production = Overproduction. Overproduction + Capitalism = Need-Creation. Need-Creation x Overproduction = Advertising. Advertising x Overproduction = Mass Consumption.

Get it?

If not, think of it this way; somebody invented machines that made soap faster than anyone could use it up. More soap than society needed. Instead of stopping the machines it made more sense to change society. Easy, just make folks feel dirtier than they actually were. The rest is history. Soap operas, game shows brought to you by…

It may surprise you (like it surprised me) that the first artist-corporate collaboration was not Murakami for Louis Vuitton.

It was Sir John Everett Millais selling his artwork “Bubbles” to the Pears Soap company.

While we’re on the subject, Pears used Lillie Langtry to opinion-lead before Bernard Arnault paid J-Lo to pose for Vuitton.

This whole “art” of branding (thanks to the V&A for raising it to that level) is the result of mass-production’s potential.

I have no answer. The whole train-of-thought leads me to a state of dull panic which I drown out by playing music really loud. Wyclef’s If I Were President is the tune doing this work this week.

But, that last equation in Twitchell’s math is:

Mass + Consumption = Waste

Right? Or am I misunderstanding something?

At the InterTextile event in Shanghai at the beginning of the month this all started to come together in my head. Most folks reading this will likely have some experience with tradeshows. Most of us will have a pretty clear picture of how much trash is pushed behind the convention center as soon as a tradeshow is over. Week X is the Boat Show. Week Y is the Computer Show. The two days between events half the Boat Show exhibition is piled into dumpsters on the not-so-pretty side of the venue.

So it is particularly ironic to see tradeshow exhibition resources dedicated to new “eco” materials. In Shanghai in particular they got the memo. Given China’s reputation for waste management the irony is sharper than ever.

(check the video if in doubt).

Eco is the flavor-of-the-month. Exciting stuff really and I’m not dissing the products on offer. Corn Fabric, Seaweed Fabric, Bamboo Fabric, Wood Fabric, Paper Fabric, Soy Fabric, Recycled Fabric.

But here’s the thing…

The answer needs to be to make stuff that people won’t throw away in the first place. I, for one, relish the idea of employing the new organic fabrics insofar as they represent quality. Only if/when they allow for quality.

Quality is The Point

If we make stuff that folks don’t throw away we’ll pursue a design strategy that is better for the environment nearly regardless of the fabrics we use. Go ahead and use petroleum-based material and go ahead and use fabrics processed with chemicals. Use ‘em right alongside the new organics. But use them all to make a thing that won’t end up in the waste stream.

If you’re stamping out graphic tees you suspect get thrown away after two years, cut it out. Tee shirts are great. I’ve got tees I’ve had for ten years.

Make them in organic cotton if that’s cool. -But in my book it’s even more important to make them in quality yarns. Is Pima cotton good for the environment? I have no idea. How about Giza 45 or Giza 77 or Luxsic or Sea Island or Suvin? I don’t know but I’ve got tees from Visvim and Smedley and APC featuring these fibers and I don’t throw ‘em away. No corn-fabric or soy-fabric or whatever but not destined for a landfill either. Because they’re fantastic quality and to ever throw them out would be insane.

Hiroki Nakamura was investing his spirit and the resources of Visvim into the idea of DeepQuality long before Gore’s film…. But the two things aren’t unrelated.

That’s just the dope on tees. If you’re in bed with a high-street distributer owned brand (DOB) like H&M, Top Shop or Target you’ve got some soul searching ahead of you.

Young Meagher

There’s confusion out there as to why the Young Meagher Project began. I was central to its creation and even I’m not sure. But when we stumbled on the Dogma of the Militant Guild of Rural Tailors we found a code of ethics that were born out of a distrust of mass-production. The mechanisms of our “art” (branding and marketing) seemed to be the source of the Guild’s suspicion. When you read their dogma through a certain lens you can feel these early guild members anticipating some of the triggers that have lead to waste-creation.

External Branding
Built-in-Obsolescence
Artificial Aging (don’t get me started on the irony of this)
Artificial Seasonality

We never thought Young Meagher was, would-be, or should-be alone in its provocation against these industry mechanisms. Since the start we’ve kept a running list of concepts that, at their best, address the same issues our project is aimed at.

The current New York Times Style Magazine appears to struggle to come to terms with what looks like a brief moment of gestalt in this respect.

I’ve always disliked Hedi Slimane’s work at Dior Homme. I’m impressed by the guy as far as I can tell, but the look is straight-up built-in-obsolesce. Same goes for Stefano Pilati, Tom Ford and Thom Browne and dozens of others who define menswear in fashion editorial.

NYT is busy trying to coral the gestalt back into the safe stable of trend. Sadly it probably is. But I’ll take Kris Van Aasche and Paul Helbers for now and I’ll enjoy the moment where the Militant Guild or Rural Tailors’ dogma has accidentally seemed to bump into this year’s hype. I’ll also expect the editorial community’s resistance to Kris will continue.