Backing Black Business.

CREDIT: iStock.

CREDIT: iStock.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) just launched a database of black businesses to support, with the goal of “[building] long-term economic power for Black communities.”

On Monday, the organization unveiled backingblackbusiness.com, an interactive map and directory of online stores where customers can purchase food, health and beauty supplies, entertainment, and lifestyle goods — all from retailers owned by black people. The site also includes nonprofits, and allows business owners to add themselves to the database.

The full article is at Think Progress.

I clicked over to backingblackbusiness.com, and while I’m not in LA or NY, plenty of business owners have online shops, and after perusing a few (I got completely caught up in Loving Anvil, and am plotting on when I can spend money there) I don’t think I’ll have any problems at all, supporting black businesses. The site is brand new, so a bit rough, but there’s a lot to explore!

Nipsters.

cxvqog9uoaacrhb

IDENTITY EVROPA Nipsters.

You’ve probably seen it for a while now. Statistically speaking, there’s a good chance you’re even wearing it. The high-and-tight. The side-fade. The haircut that is has been colloquially referred to, as a recent article in The Washington Post pointed out, as the “Hitler Youth.” Sadly, though, the colloquial moniker—once used jokingly—is starting to ring a little too true lately.

Promoters of white nationalism have recently made an effort to reclaim the haircut, in part due to its historical connection to Hitler’s Germany. According to the Post article, it’s now even being referred to as a “fashy,” short for “fascist.” (Supes cute, you racist fucks.) Needless to say, for hipsters who have long sported the ‘do, it’s a troubling turn of events.

As to the genesis of the haircut’s cultural significance, part of it has to do with Nazi propaganda posters of the 1930s and ’40s—where Hitler Youth were shown sporting the cut—and part of it has to do with basic utility. World War II-era German soldiers had an easier time wearing and removing their helmets when they had it.

Since around 2010, the haircut was popularized by non-fascists thanks in large part to the nostalgia-laden aesthetic of hipster Brooklyn, as well as its adoption by pop cultural figures like Macklemore and David Beckham. Since then, the hairstyle has skyrocketed in popularity. As the Post article points out, “The tidy, chic lines that appealed to the Nazis became the choice of fashionable young men, gay and straight, because it’s both business-like and brash.”

[…]

As Long Nguyen, co-founder of Flaunt magazine tells the newspaper, however, it’s likely not a coincidence. “We call them ‘nipsters’—neo-Nazi hipsters,” says Nguyen. “It’s really important for them to make inroads into young people’s culture, in order to expand their base. It’s a lot easier to do that when they’re stealing the look of a familiar hipster style.”

Basically it’s a warning to us all then: The next time a good-looking guy in a high-and-tight offers to sell you a craft beer, make sure he isn’t trying to also sell you a dose of unabridged hate.

Nipsters. It’s a great word, with wonderful, crisp, mocking snark. I suggest this gets used. A lot. Via Esquire.

Marc Jacobs Apologizes. Sorta.

FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2016, file photo, the Marc Jacobs Spring 2017 collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York. Jacobs was criticized for showcasing white models in dreadlocks during the show. A screengrab showed Jacobs later responding on Instagram that he doesn’t see color or race. In a separate post on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, Jacobs said he was sorry for “the lack of sensitivity” in responding to critics. (Mary Altaffer, File/Associated Press).

FILE – In this Sept. 15, 2016, file photo, the Marc Jacobs Spring 2017 collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York. Jacobs was criticized for showcasing white models in dreadlocks during the show. A screengrab showed Jacobs later responding on Instagram that he doesn’t see color or race. In a separate post on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, Jacobs said he was sorry for “the lack of sensitivity” in responding to critics. (Mary Altaffer, File/Associated Press).

NEW YORK — Marc Jacobs has apologized for his response to criticism over showcasing his models in dreadlocks during the final day of New York Fashion Week.

The white designer was criticized on social media after his mostly white lineup of models was outfitted with rainbow dreadlocks for his Thursday show. Some accused Jacobs of appropriating black culture.

A screengrab shows Jacobs responding to his critics on Instagram by saying it was “funny” that they don’t “criticize women of color for straightening their hair.” Jacobs also wrote that he doesn’t see color or race and that he was “sorry to read that so many people are narrow minded.”

Jacobs apologized Sunday on Instagram for what he called “the lack of sensitivity unintentionally expressed by my brevity.”

“Unintentionally expressed by my brevity”? Really? There wasn’t much brevity to Mr. Jacobs’s initial bristly response, which was very defensive and disrespectful. Oh, he’s another one of those magical white people who don’t see colour or race. Thanks for another stroke of the eraser, Marc. In a world which is seeing its 21st century, women of colour around the world are still being horribly punished for daring to sport natural hair. So, here we get another white male idiot, who thinks they are far above such nonsense, floating about on lofty ideals. No. I can say exactly what was going on – Marc Jacobs liked the look of dreadlocks, thought they suited his clothing designs, and didn’t think even once about doing what he wanted. If Mr. Jacobs knows any people of colour, he certainly didn’t ask them their opinion about freely appropriating a cultural style. Apparently, there’s not going to be any actual apology, either. I fully expect that sometime in the future, Mr. Jacobs will do something equally boneheaded.

While we were still in the camp, I noticed, among a new influx of people, a number of young, obviously privileged, blonde white people, sporting dreadlocks. After I made sure I wasn’t going to choke on my coffee, I spent time being stunned over this arrogant display of privilege. There’s no blindness quite like privilege blindness. Please, white people, check your privilege. Stop appropriating bits of other peoples’ cultures, and if you’re going to pretend to care about the problems that indigenous people face, it might be a really great idea to not wander in advertising your arrogant appropriation on your head.

Via The Washington Post.

Fashionista Jesus.

A stained glass window at Rochester Cathedral depicts the resurrection of Jesus Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters.

A stained glass window at Rochester Cathedral depicts the resurrection of Jesus Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters.

People are not at their best when stretching themselves like a rubber band in order to justify and rationalize, and that’s certainly the case with Fashion Jesus. Unlike many people, I’ve read the bible, cover to cover, more than one version.  Given that reading, I can say that the bible is not overflowing with fashion, hot or otherwise. Well, okay, there’s some interesting bits, clothing-wise in Revelation, but other than that, the bible is a bit skint on the fashion side. That’s not stopping people from claiming they are being inspired by Jesus’s great fashion sense.

…But now Jesus is being put forward as an icon of an entirely different sort – in the world of fashion. The Church of England has given its blessing to London Fashion Week with an official video making the Biblical case for the clothing industry.

Shrugging off the “sackcloth and ashes” image of clergy’s puritan forebears, it argues that – despite criticism of the industry over size zero models and cases of sweatshop factories – fashion and design are ultimately an expression of God-given creativity.

In one extract, the Church’s de-facto catwalk chaplain says fashion designers have told him that they draw inspiration from church interiors, stained glass windows and even Jesus’s cloaks.

The Rev Peterson Feital, the Diocese of London’s “Missioner to the Creative Industries”, said many had been drawn to the “beautiful clothes” Jesus is often depicted wearing.

“Designers ask me about fashion,” said the Brazilian-born Rev Feital, who also runs “Haven+” a charity working with people in the fashion and entertainment industries.

“They are all so interested when they walk into a church building or a cathedral and they see the stained glass windows and what they see there are beautiful figures and Jesus wearing beautiful clothes – a cloak and all that kind of stuff.

“So right there in the centre of our worship there are so many elements in which fashion belongs in that conversation between church and culture.”

Simon Ward, a former chief operating officer of the British Fashion Council, said that despite questions about how aspects of the industry operate and the “image it conveys”, he was convinced fashion itself is divinely inspired.

“He’s a God of creativity, and fashion is just one of those areas that really focuses on creativity,” he said.

“And what did He do first? He created the seasons, so the idea that fashion changes a lot again I think reflects God’s heart.

“All the way through the Bible clothing and fashion imagery jump out of the pages at us. In the New Testament the first Christian in Europe was Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth … The image we get of Jesus in heaven is what he’s wearing, with a gold sash around his chest, and then the New Jerusalem comes down; what are we told about it? – ‘dressed as a bride’.

“So I think God and fashion really are closely linked and if we think that they’re not we’re getting it wrong.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. None of this has the slightest thing to do with Jesus, and it barely has a connection to any bible. What they are copying, and claiming to find inspiration in is the work of artists. As an artist myself, I can say that there was much exaggeration in stained glass art, and other art found in cathedrals. Artists love colour, we love textural things, luxuriant and rich things. It’s doubtful that Jesus, if he existed at all, wore any of the high status clothing depicted in stained glass windows. Rough cloth, rope sandals, and very dirty feet are probably closer to how any itinerant preacher would appear. There wouldn’t be much fun depicting that. The powers that commissioned cathedrals and similar expected artists to portray everything in an overwhelming way, one that would stir emotions along with stimulating the visual sense. For the olfactory, there is always incense burning, and the scent of flowers. For the aural, the echoing silence and wind of whispers. Not one bit of this artistic creation has so much as a single flake of paint in reality.

I don’t think it’s at all wrong to pull inspiration from the work of previous artists and the stained glass of cathedrals. I do take issue with the whole Fashion Jesus lie.

Via Telegraph.

Cool Stuff Friday.

1

A chain of koi fish float through an exhibit space, illuminating their immediate surroundings with a self-contained, warm orange glow. The works come from a familiar yet unexpected name: Frank Gehry. Early in his artistic career, Gehry created several visual installations and furniture designs, many in the late-20th century, that would influence his later accomplishments in architecture. Fish Lamps draws upon the flowing and undulating movement of the water species, an aesthetic that often made an appearance in Gehry’s singular building designs.

I have very few lamps, but I’d be happy to give some of these a home. Full Story at the Creators Project.

What should you wear to keep cool on a hot day? One word: plastics.

A form of polyethylene — the common plastic that makes up ClingWrap — is a promising candidate for a textile that prevents us from overheating, researchers say. Hopefully, it won’t look like those PVC bodysuits that pop up every Halloween.

Many researchers are trying to create cooling fabrics, from cloth inspired by squid skin to electroactive textiles. But the team led by Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford University, was inspired by materials that we don’t usually consider for clothing. In a study published today in Science, the team turned a battery component into a textile that lets our body’s natural heat escape better than cotton. The team hasn’t worn the fabric themselves yet, but Cui insists it feels “very much like normal fabric” and hopes it will be commercialized within two years.

Full story at The Verge.

Supergirl creator developing a Black Lightning TV series.

2

Supergirl and Arrow co-creator Greg Berlanti is reportedly developing a series following Black Lightning, one of DC Comics’ first major black superheroes. According to Deadline, Berlanti is working with The Game creator Mara Brock Akil and her husband to get the drama off the ground, and the trio are currently shopping the project to multiple networks.

Black Lightning has the chance to be DC’s highest profile black superhero series to date. Created in 1977 by writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor Von Eeden, Black Lightning, otherwise known as Jefferson Pierce, is an educator and eventual member of the Justice League with the power to control electrical energy. In the proposed TV series, Pierce will have retired from superheroics, but after his daughter’s life is endangered by his city’s underworld, he willingly steps back into his old alter ego.

Full story here.

Men Meet Women’s Beauty Standards.

Possibly NSFW, view at your discretion. I highly recommend watching this, it’s a great exposé on photoshop beauty standards, which we are all met with every single day, even when we try to avoid them. It’s not a surprise to anyone that models are photoshopped, including male models, but as usual, there’s special standard for women. The Try Guys at Buzzfeed tackle this standard, to see what it’s like to meet a woman’s photoshop beauty standard.

The Advocate has the full story.

Oh For…No. No. No. No.

Starcasm.net - TLC Promo Photos

Starcasm.net – TLC Promo Photos

Earlier, Vincent Schilling had a column up at ICTMN about Native headdress showing up on a reality show. A short while later, Vincent Schilling was able to talk with the designer about this, um, travesty. There’s nothing quite so rabidly defensive as a white person busy appropriating another peoples’ culture and traditions, all while getting it spectacularly fucking wrong in every possible respect.

Before we get to the spectacular fucking up, a word about traditional Cherokee clothing. (The groom in the show claims Cherokee ancestry. If that’s so, I’d think he’d want Cherokee clothing, but I guess “Native American” will do.) Cherokee people were never big on feathers, and they certainly never had anything even close to Plains Indians’ headdresses. There were a few various ways that men chose to style their hair and decorations, but when a headdress was worn, it was in the style of a turban, as in the painting of Sequoyah.

WWsequoyahYou can read up on traditional Cherokee dress here, here, and here. On to the monumental ignorance and stupidity.

Gypsy dress designer Sondra Celli created a Cherokee-themed dress and a Native American-influenced headdress for Hunter and Dalton Smith on the reality series My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.

In an exclusive interview with ICTMN, Celli said that the ‘Native-inspired’ headdress was made by her design team, and the headdress for the groom — who claims Native ancestry — was purchased from a Native American company over the internet.

Celli told ICTMN because the groom was Native American, she did not alter any of the groom’s outfit and that he approved of the bride’s outfit.

“Because he is Native American we made sure we bought a true Native American headpiece made by Native Americans. We bought him a true Native American shirt made by Native Americans. I made sure it came from an authentic Native American company.”

*Resists impulse to pound head into wall* If there is one thing to get into your skull if you are not an indigenous person, it’s this: there is no such fucking thing as “Native American” anything. Repeat over and over until you get it. Indigenous peoples (many of whom are not American) can not be conveniently dumped into a pail of whitewash so we come out with every nation believing the same, having the same traditions, the same clothing, the same housing, and so forth. We are all different. There just isn’t enough eyeroll in the universe for this shit.

What about the bride’s wedding outfit?

She is a gypsy. Hunter is a cowgirl and would not give up her boots. I told her, ‘I am going to Sondra Celli you up’ and I made her a Native American-inspired dress … and [the groom] was real cool with her being her. I am very respectful of the fact he is Native American. This is what they told me — please understand that I am just the designer.

I made sure we did not touch his headpiece and it stayed exactly the way we bought it. The shirt is exactly the way we bought it. We ordered it on the Internet from a Native American company.

I made her headpiece, and the girl who works for me studies Native Americans. She put all of those feathers on. Like we say on television, it is native-inspired. We do not say this is a Native American costume. This is a Sondra Celli gypsy rhinestone costume that is inspired by Native Americans.

Emphasis mine. I’m just going to wander off and scream for a moment.

What is your response to Native people that say this is appropriating Native culture?

I think the fact that their clothing is so beautiful and the detail is so beautiful, they should be accepting of the fact that we borrowed from their clothing. I said “inspired” through the whole show. I never said it was authentic Native American clothing, not once.

Um…Yes, you did say that. You wouldn’t shut up about all the authentic “Native American” clothes. Right up there ^.

I don’t find a problem with putting something inspired from the beauty of Native American clothes on someone who is not Native American. They should be honored that we think their clothing is so beautiful, that we took some of the colors from it.

Honoured. Right. Oh, all you did was borrow colours! Well, that makes it okay.

This is a TV show, so you have to take it for what it is. I do not believe this dishonors people. I would never do that.

That’s convenient. You don’t believe this dishonours anyone, so of course, it doesn’t. White magic.

I’ve taken the idea of kimonos from Japan and they are rhinestoned. I never say they are Japanese kimonos. I say they are inspired.

Every designer from all over the world has taken ideas from Native Americans.

Oddly enough, we notice things like that.

The PBS Museum just had an exhibit, Native American designers that have come into the modern world made Native American inspired clothing with plastic metal who are getting ideas in a way from our world and made really cool clothes with beading. I was blown away.

I think they were inspired by what we do in the modern [world].

Fuuuuuck me. I really do have to scream now. Yeah, just a few of us Indians are crossing the bridge into the modern white world, where of course, we’re stealing ideas from white modernity, while the rest of us are back home in primitive Indian land, everyone dressed the same, all in a tipi, of course. It’s absurd to think that Indians are a part of the world. Christ, she makes it sound like we live in Faerie or something.

As much as I admire their craft, I think they should admire the fact that I took the ideas that they have and turn it into something modern for someone who is not Native American.

Um…oh hell, I give up. White people, please get a fucking clue. In the comments, Beatrice pointed out something I should have noted in the first place:

As if distilling all the variety of different heritages of Roma people into “over the top trashy clown show” wasn’t offensive enough…

This isn’t just spectacularly fucking up Indigenous peoples’ cultures, it’s spectacularly fucking up that of Roma culture as well. I guess all is fair game for a white designer. If you can call pasting rhinestones all over something design.

Vincent Schilling’s article is here.  TLC’s ‘Gypsy’ Wedding Is Offensive to Romani, Too.

Scott Adams and the V-neck Sweater Situation.

Scott Adams.

Scott Adams.

Adams believes U.S. men are under the yokes of women, as evidenced by v-neck sweaters which are a “uniform” they are forced to wear, according to the Daily Dot.

The website cited a June 23 post on Adam’s blog, “The Humiliation of the American Male in 2016.”

“Perhaps the biggest unreported story of this presidential election is the humiliation of the American male. Unless I’m blinded by confirmation bias – which is entirely possible – it seems to me that the humiliation of American men is now institutionalized in the media,” Adams writes. “Check out this commercial for dishwasher detergent. And take careful note of the American man’s v-neck sweater. That’s the uniform of a man who is owned by a woman.”

Don’t worry about Adams, he’s on to the ploy.

“You’re laughing because you know it’s true,” he writes. “How many of the married men reading this blog have received those same sweaters as “gifts” from women? Personally, I’ve received about 25 over the years. None from men. I received three of those sweaters so far this year. I throw them away. Nice try.”

However if the Daily Dot’s Cale Weissman is successful, Adams may soon have a lot more offending v-neck sweaters to throw away.

Yes, Adams truly believes these v-neck sweaters are cozy symbols of Male Oppression. Through this we may have figured out a way to remedy his constant humiliation: Get men to buy Scott Adams v-neck sweaters. Lots of them.

You may be asking, “Cale, what would that accomplish?” Well, maybe if Adams had a real male—that is, a manly man who does manly things like not being controlled by women and obsessively drawing nerdy cubicle workers’ mundane hellscape—buy him some v-neck sweaters, maybe he would form a new association with the knitted garment. Perhaps he would see v-neck sweater-wearers in a whole new light. They are not “men” owned by women but “people” leased by J. Crew.

To that end, Weissman has launched a GoFundMe account where he is raising funds to buy Adams male-sanctioned v-neck sweaters. As of Wednesday morning he’s donated $350 — enough to buy about four or five sweaters from J. Crew.

Full Story Here.

The Collective

The B. Yellowtail Collective is finally up and running, and looking great!

Anthony Thosh Collins - Thoshograpy.com Models: Linsay Willier (left), Shania Russell (center), and Gabrielle Lopez (right). Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

Anthony Thosh Collins – Thoshograpy.com
Models: Linsay Willier (left), Shania Russell (center), and Gabrielle Lopez (right). Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

The Collective will benefit a group of Native artists selling their Native made fashion retail goods on the BYellowtail.com website.

According to a release put out by Yellowtail, the e-commerce retail initiative features jewelry, beadwork, textiles, handbags, and other accessories handmade by each of the artists. All pieces are one-of-a-kind, created through traditional design methods passed down for many generations.

Since the inception of Yellowtail’s clothing line in 2014, the designer says she has envisioned a collaborative project with Native American artists and designers who often lack retail opportunities due to their remote locales.

“What makes The Collective so unique is that the people will now have a direct connection to the authentic, creative source of what they’re purchasing. It is very important to know and understand the artist behind the work,” Yellowtail said.

“There will now be a face and a name behind their work, not just a generic idea of Native American product,” Yellowtail said, “Consumers will be able to see their faces, hear their voices, and understand the significance and individuality behind their designs and concepts.”

 Yellowtail tells ICTMN she was inspired to create the Collective when she was moving from Los Angeles back to her home communities on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne nations. Shifting from the fast-pace of L.A. caused her to rethink and re-evaluate her goals for her company.

She says one moment in particular inspired the Collective.

“I was at a gas station in Lame Deer, MT and a man came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy some earrings he made. I asked him, ‘WOW, how much?!’ They were absolutely exquisite. He said, ‘15.00, I just need gas money.’ That moment, a light bulb went off. At first, I felt really sad because the earrings were incredible and what he was asking for was so beneath their true value. Poverty, unemployment and lack of job opportunities is so real, especially in the Northern Plains region. So, accompanied by several other moments like that while I was living back home, I decided I need to use my platform as an opportunity to create real sustainable change. Launching “The Collective” is just the stepping stone for the true potential of our brand.

Yellowtail says that she hopes to provide more opportunity for artists in her life. She also offered words of advice to aspiring native designers and young native people in general.

byc-7076-edit

Model Martin Sensmeier (left) Necklaces by Alaynee Goodwill & Kendorina Redhouse Cuffs by Alaynee Goodwill & Thomas Yellowtail. Model Stephen Yellowtail (right) Choker by Karis Jackson, Bolo tie by Susanne Stewart, Cuffs by Elias Not Afraid. Photo: Anthony Thosh Collins – Thoshograpy.com

The B. Yellowtail Collective. Article at ICTMN.

Alchemy: Into Flesh.

Japan-based, Chinese designer Leonard Wong creates his latest collection and accompanying fashion video, both named Alchemy. In stark monochrome, the Alchemy video features ferrofluid-like orbs that morph and transform into human figures, namely performance artist Sylvia Lajbig and dancer duo AyaBambi.

Alchemy: Into Flesh:

A mesmerizing video, to say the least. For those of you at work, have a care, this opens with a nude person, however, it’s not graphic. After being mesmerized, I visited Leonard Wong’s site, and oh…well, if I could afford designer clothes, I’d find myself buying most of the lot, both from the collection, and the experimental – particularly the overthrowing tradition pieces. Fabulous! You can read more about Leonard Wong and this current collection at The Creators Project. If you do watch the video, I recommend full screen.

Suited.

Credit: Benedict Evans.

Credit: Benedict Evans.

Tailors Rae Tutera and Daniel Friedman show off their suits for transgender clients in a new documentary, Suited.

The Girls creator and star produced an HBO documentary chronicling the rise of the duo’s store, Bindle & Keep. Directed by Jason Benjamin, the film premieres June 20.

The film follows the stories of clients, many of whom are transgender, as they come into the shop to find a perfect outfit.

“They all have fascinating lives and do really interesting things. Their gender and their gender presentation is just really the tip of the iceberg of who they are,” said Dunham in an interview with W magazine.

For their Sundance premiere, the entire crew, including Dunham, wore suits made by the Brooklyn company.

“I just felt strong and beautiful and powerful, which was really cool and unexpected,” said Dunham.

Via Out. Bindle & Keep.