Good point. I was thinking more of Victoriana resurfacing in the 1960s to become, somehow, 'ironic', or knowingly twee: flying duck theory. The late 20th century - and the 21st century so far - has been good (bad) at displacement, possibly because mankind has run short of original ideas (bar, perhaps, aspects of the Internet). Art has gone from the urinal to the stained bedsheet - any progress there? No wonder John Gall is writing about Hawksmoor. Architecture has gone from the sublime to the mundane to the grotesque to the sublime to the dull, functional or plainly insulting and pretentious. Politics - and business - is usually behind these awful trends. The public, though, is awfully good at having the wool pulled over its eyes, as we know from mass media, food and drink - and clothing. The Weejun - to offer just a single example - is unlikely to fall into a trap devised by, say, Jeremy Hackett. Nor am I.
Ah, I see, yes there were elements of Victoriana around in the early sixties. Now I see what you meant with pastiche and travesty.
I thought that you meant Ivy clothes in the UK, taken out of their American context... An argument that often comes from certain Americans.
Sure!
All modern classics.
Gone forever.
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Watched a documentary last night on Yesterday channel about the 1967 'Summer of Love' and the hippy phenomenon in Haight-Ashbury.
The term 'counter culture' cropped up several times.
By the following year it had all gone bad with disease, drug dealers and criminals holding sway.
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I've just been reading Penny Sparke on batch production. I wonder if Alden still subscribe to that process. Possibly American manufacturers learned something from theirs' (or others') experience during the 1920s, when mass production led to dangerous over-production. Make too much of something and it's likely to wind up as deadstock or in the bargain bin.
I should say conditions in China are almost certainly worse than those under 'Manchester capitalism', communism being the vile thing it is. (All right, to use that obsolete phrase beloved of political scientists during the 1950s, 'totalitarianism': people David Cameron is keen to do business with).
Arnold, that prick Leavis and misery-guts Lawrence were not on my mind when posing those original questions. But are clothes not 'cultural'? Do they not say something about the society in which they are worn? My next-door neighbour would not dream of spending a penny on a decent shirt, but will happily shell out for a big flat-screen TV.
George Simmel's essay on Fashion. Available to download.
Here:
http://www.modetheorie.de/fileadmin/Texte/s/Simmel-Fashion_1904.pdf
The economist Thorsen Veblen also wrote about the Lesiure classes too.
Here:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=104212582
...as an aside. Did Herr Marx ever set foot in a factory? I know his friend and benefactor did, his father owned several.
Now, that's irony.
^ Excellent.
Marx: the enemy of everything decent and worthwhile. But - 'Marxists' often get to the nitty-gritty in a way I rather admire.
And there you have it: for every culture there is a counter culture. Like with a board game, except there's only one counter.
And if you're not bored with this topic yet, you bloody well should be!
It'll die.