“The three main angles.” The technique of film editing. c.1958.

Quilt, 'Blazing Star with Peacocks'

United States, New York, Staten Island, Tottenville, circa 1850

Textiles; quilts

Pieced, appliquéd (broderie perse), and quilted

PETER CHRISTOPHERSON - Untitled (Circa 1979) Photograph.

so what this is isn’t an expansion of what’s appropriate in everyday life but a contraction of the semantic domain of clothing. there’s simply less difference across the board in what someone wears for any given situation than there used to be, and the normalization of athleisure is the latest expression of that. expanding what one wears in private moments alone in the home to what one wears outside the home in public doesn’t add to the ways one can express oneself through dress, it effectively reduces the number of distinct dress contexts. same reason “casual friday” doesn’t really mean anything anymore: gee boss, you mean I get to wear jeans and a polo shirt after a long week wearing khakis cut exactly like jeans and a buttondown shirt made from the same material?

why does any of it matter? the reason i’ve gotten more into fashion over the past couple years is that I love design and it’s the easiest way to design yourself. there’s a whole world of screwing with proportion and color and density and fold and drape that you can use to look all kinds of ways. flattening the semantic domain of clothing combined with the preoccupation with fitness and bodybuilding creates a world in which the only way you can design yourself is by dumping tons of free time into working out. is that the world you want to live in? are the two options on the table shrinkwrapping yourself in slim jeans and bike shorts if your body looks the way you want or hiding in formless hoodies and basketball shorts and joggers if it doesn’t? of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things - i’m writing this in sweatpants right now - it’s the standardization of it all to the exclusion of other options that poses a real threat to peoples’ ability to look the way they want to look or even perceive their looking another way as a real possibility.

it’s untenable, and i predict a coming reaction to this that resembles a lot of young millennials/older gen zs’ reaction to the death of tv and dominance of superhero movies by turning to 70s-80s new hollywood, 90s sitcoms, columbo, horror, hong kong action, and writing about it all on letterboxd. in fact I think it’ll be directly informed by that. there’s only so many times you can see guys looking like this:

and wonder why it is that when you put on your khakis and your button down shirt from old navy you look and feel like this:

Ca. late 17th - early 18th century gold posy ring.