The Improbable, Slightly Surreal, Plan to Save Fashion’s Printed Matter - 2 minutes read


The project is the unlikely brainchild of an unlikely friendship between an almost 70-year-old Zelig of the New York downtown creative scene and the not-quite-21-year-old Tavi of Scandinavia. It is taking place in an unlikely country, and opening at an unlikely historical moment: in the midst of a pandemic, when the value of print itself is under siege.

Yet it has the buy-in of not only the National Museum, which has lent the space and is considering a more formal relationship, but also such revered fashion world names as Comme des Garçons; Harold Koda, the former curator in charge of the Met’s Costume Institute; Shala Monroque, the creative director and Prada muse; Terry Jones, the photographer and founder of i-D; and Vince Aletti, the curator and photography critic. Among others.

The ILFR could turn out to be an elaborate Duchampian scheme to exploit the fashion world’s self-regard and mostly unrequited desire for a seat at the serious table; a real life “Man of La Mancha” quest (but make it style); or a landmark in a whole new field of material culture study.

You couldn’t make it up.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (It’s Unclear Who is Who)

Mr. Klein — not to be confused with Steven Klein, the fashion photographer, and Vogue favorite, whose subversive imagery imbues the beautiful with dread — is a rubber ball-shaped man who wears dark-framed glasses and New Balance sneakers and prefers to exist, as he said in a recent interview “in the shadows.” He calls himself a “freelance outlaw.” He lives alone in an apartment with someone else’s name on the door and no cellphone, and sees his purpose in life as enabling great visionaries, a group in which he includes Ms. Olsen.

Source: New York Times

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