Thea Porter, the fairy godmother of boho-chic, changed fashion from the 1960's, bestowing an iconic register for orthodoxical bohemian rhapsody & suture. Something in the Middle Eastern aesthetic state & opulence of her language & ritual reminds us of free-spirited charm & originality, even seeking to destroy originality & redeem it with a nomadic sense of wanderlust. For this reason Thea Porter represents exoticism & nomadic temptation as a formal infatuation for years to come.  

The physiological aspects of her original silhouettes become clear if we follow her flowing, romantic shapes, billowing sleeves, & sweeping skirts, providing a narrative form with which we can organize an undifferentiated series of drives into distinct images & statements. This power reached its apotheosis in a superabundant force of silk, chiffon, velvet, brocade, intricate embellishments, & vibrant prints; but it also manifested itself in the classical desire to treat the self as a work of art in jewel tones, earthy hues, vibrant prints, bold patterns, intricate paisleys, & geometric motifs. 

The British artist, fashion designer & retailer found aesthetic expression in the primal force & narcotic rhythms of her flowing maxi dresses, caftans, tunics, & tailored jackets with fringed trims, tassel accents, ornate buttons, intricate embroidery, delicate lace insets, & hand-finished beadwork, which intoxicate the wearer into a ‘complete forgetting of the self’.

Sundazed exalts the capacity of fashion to concentrate formless nature into distinct images. Habitual concepts by which we structure our daily lives (such as time, space, causality & identity) as illusions or narrative fictions we impose upon the chaotic nature of experience.

Because what we know as ‘real’ is produced by this type of narrative illusion. Thea Porter followed that dream & visual art which offers a powerful second-order version of the illusion, which needs no recourse to transcendent ideas & trends.

Because what we know as ‘real’ is produced by this type of narrative illusion.

Thea Porter: Time, Space, Causality & Bohemian Rhapsody

Name-calling notwithstanding, I have encountered only one serious kind of shell collector. It concerns not sea treasures per se but certain facts about Alexandra O’Neill, the designer who’s developed & maintained it in a more literal, & referential way.

My point is not that her wit is too subtle for Spring Summer 2024. In fact, the only halfway effective strategy I’ve come up with for exploring O'Neill’s approach this season involves suggesting that much of her approach is actually sort of unsubtle — or rather anti-subtle. The claim is that O'Neill’s molded bag, use of ruffles, scalloped edges, & undulating lines depends on some kind of radical literalization of truths we tend to treat as metaphorical. I opine to them that some of her most profound collective intuitions seem to be stand-ins for seaweed, shells, & tides. 

"The idea was to drift away from mermaidcore without abandoning all of its prettiness," veteran shell collector Alexandra has explained.

O’Neill’s goal is thus both a collection of information & a piece of English countryside estate rhetoric. Her Spring Summer 2024 lookbook's primary appeal is a shell grotto, & its goal is to recast the 'sailor’s valentine' persona: the designer presents herself not as an art-lover or a shell-collector but as more like a Botticelli collector. This is an ingenious tactic. In the same sort of move we can see her perennial favorite on her mood board, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, hence the focus on shells & flowers. The painting is conceived as a floaty floral coat, worn with mini shorts. 

O’Neill's usage dictionary belongs to a particular reference genre that is itself highly specialized & particular, which is quite good indeed (& with no little feeling). The central unmentionable question here appends the prepositional comparative, rather than that “feeling of rebirth & opening up that goes hand in hand with spring” to the main clause & so entails a discussion of whether & how Markarian is different from other recent specialty-products of its kind.

The fact of the matter is that O’Neill's dictionary is extremely good. But the really salient & ingenious features of Markarian involve a narrative of rhetoric & ideology & style, & it is impossible to describe why this narrative is important & why O’Neill's management of it borders on genius without talking about the historical context in which Botticelli’s Birth of Venus appears, & this context turns out to be a veritable shell grotto involving everything from technical linguistics & art history to ideology, & this narrative takes a certain amount of time to unpack before its relation to what makes O’Neill's dictionary so eminently worth your hard-earned reference-guide dollar can even be established; & in fact there’s no way even to begin the whole harrowing polymeric discussion without first taking a moment to establish & define the highly colloquial term SELF.

A Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia of Self. It’s breathtaking. The casting & setting makes all the romantic looks bleed. The whole thing is almost too pretty to stand. There could be no site but change at Markarian driven by fabric choice — here, the sheer dress with puff sleeves in white is one more spectacle.

Way more socialites recognize the Markarian starlets than you’d expect. Double-takes all over the dress-up events. Even if they're just standing around or putting coins in a slot machine of options for Ascot, wedding, prom, dinner parties, the 'naked', long, & short looks become a prime attraction. O’Neill's narrative doesn’t miss a trick.

But there is also here an odd loyalty to & penchant for the very clichés with which we trend-driven fashion consumers weave the veil of myth & mystery that Markarian memoirs promise to part for us. Stuff like this seems way out of touch with reality until we realize that the kind of reality Alexandra O’Neill's chosen to be in touch with here is not just un- but anti-real.

Stuff like this seems way out of touch with reality until we realize that the kind of reality Alexandra O’Neill's chosen to be in touch with here is not just un- but anti-real.

Norman Norell, an emblematic figure in the annals of fashion fatherland, emerged during the mid-20th century as a beacon of sartorial finesse. Born Norman David Levinson in 1900, Norell soon came up in the fashion world, not as an avenger, but as a humble slave, & kneeling before this perfidious woman, he begged her pardon while she pushed him back with her foot. The door was then locked & he heard again the cracking of the whip of which he had been offered a taste. The lifting of the repression sustained by the signifier 'ingenuity' transformed him into a machine, a pure inexhaustible drive of unparalleled craftsmanship & meticulous attention to detail, propelled by the Other to the summit of haute couture.

Revered by all three as a point of departure that makes Norman Norell's legacy present, Norell may have been considered an Extreme pragmatists, emphasizing strenuously the fact of function, of reconstruction, of change, his personal side. He may have been considered more of an Extreme intellectualist, seeing the formal, the structural, the timeless. As in most controversies, a middle position is more likely to be right. Even more so, Norell connected what may be called perennial values with evolutionary values, authenticity therefore with modernity; was his only concern & challenge. Norell's insistence on verification of his impeccable tailoring, clean lines, & constructing & reconstructing the classic 'Little Black Dress,' was anathema to both new & critical fashion Realists. Norell's legacy in relation to fashion will not be of an interpretation, but rather a maneuver by which he appealed for a position by a hostile fusion of American pragmatism with European couture sensibility.

Famed for his ingenious silhouette, pressed very hard against the hips, meets between an earthly human being & the anima, swimming down in the shape of a mermaid; also to be found in the so-called 'Ripley Scroll'. Cf. Psychology & Alchemy, fig. 257. Like long-held echoes, blending somewhere else into one deep & shadowy unison, as limitless as darkness & as day, the luxurious silks, the fine wools, the decadent furs correspond. His use of fabrics & materials, rich & masterful, possess the power of infinite things to praise the senses' raptures.

The argument for the existence of higher & lower modes of fashion design is similar to the view we attribute to Plato in the way that it draws on the phenomenology of perception. Our ability to perceive anything at all—even everyday objects such as clothes & states of affairs—depends on our having an understanding of being, of essences. When we see Norell's monochromatic palette punctuated by rich jewel tones, we don’t simply see the qualities to which the eye, as an organ, is physically responsive. We also see things as having a meaning or significance (we see not just colors, shapes, but also books, doors). However sharp & highly developed our tools for seeing, however excellent our sense of sight, we can never see a book through our sense of sight. We would never see anything like a book were we not able to see in another more primordial sense. To this latter kind of ‘seeing’ there belongs an understanding of what it is that one encounters.

Just as Oscar Wilde loved beauty, both natural & cultural, his highest admiration was reserved for the beauty of nature, which he identified with youth & represented most often as a flower. Art he saw as wonderful or literally supernatural; he viewed them as products of iconoclasm & originality, characteristic of a higher nature. Wilde's sense of art as supernatural is most clearly & playfully presented in 'The Canterville Ghost', where the ghost is described as an actor with a propensity for changing costumes & props. He is also a painter who changes the color of his signature bloodstain by stealing paints from Virginia's palette, & at one point he even paints the stain a bright emerald green.

Norell & Wilde share the notion that Art is magical, in that consciousness can be changed in order that the quotidian becomes significant, imbued with value, sacred or paradoxically suffused with transcendence. But they also use magic in ritual to change things or situations &, more importantly, to change themselves.

The Art of Fashion thus operates with three distinct types of magic, two of which have traditionally been called ‘low’ & ‘high’ magic. In an attempt to get away from the implicit hierarchy of ‘low’ & ‘high’, the S.O.S. uses the idea of a horizontal & a vertical axis to describe, respectively, the ‘magic of everyday life’ & the ‘magic of ritual’. To this can be added the third type of magic—that of ‘Alchemy'. 

The various labels affixed to Norman Norell—such as extreme pragmatist, extreme intellectualist, progressive, & alchemist—have been defined & dissected. The same holds true for Norell's special ritual secrets & frequent applications, confronting us like an intricate labyrinth & adding depth to his oeuvre—such as lace accents, hand-sewn sequins, beading, embroidery, & embellishments, elevating them to the realm of wearable art. 

Norman Norell’s diverse range of styles possessed the aura, the magical sword, the magnetic wand, the consecrated water, & the sacred fire, but above all the vigilant power of his invocation—the only possible mode of communion with souls of a higher sphere, who passed beyond the terrestrial aura by reason of the change called 'Fame' or 'Power'. His evening gowns, tailored suits, separates & cocktail dresses, were embraced by a clientele spanning from Hollywood starlets to society doyennes such as Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Babe Paley, Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly, & Dinah Shore. 

In this twenty-first century, Norman Norell not only is relevant but also contributes a vital & vibrant design philosophy that resonates a sound critical & reflective thinking path to address commitment to quality, craftsmanship, & sartorial excellence confronting the art of fashion & a rapidly changing industry.

The S.O.S. speaks many languages, & its emblems are full of meaning, no matter by what path you may have approached the truth which is at the heart of them all. Yet, through its symbolism, it expresses universal ideas & a particular version of the sacred science. It is a symbolic alphabet, meanwhile an emblematic synthesis of exotic vintage.

Norman Norell’s diverse range of styles possessed the aura, the magical sword, the magnetic wand, the consecrated water, & the sacred fire, but above all the vigilant power of his invocation ...

The CEO spends her afternoons running between my office & the conference room of a woman-owned startup aka Sundazed & Outside Society aka a smoke-filled room where the plans for the party have already been made.

I know that we could depend on her to make sure that everything runs like clockwork, as there aren't too many people just sitting around doing nothing at our office.

But if she puts me in an office without a window, I'll scream bloody murder, so I have to see the boss for brief periods of consideration at the office picnics to talk more about my architectural plans of scaling the dungeon to the main office.

On the subject of office politics, I always try to tell both the clerical workers & the management that Sundazed & Outside Society will take over the Vintage market. Luxury fashion consumers will stock up the wardrobe with rare european vintage this year. Why else would I be staying in the office so late every night?

Meanwhile, I spend my afternoons out of office, running from door to door. I'm always in a hurry (with the urge to escape from everything) so I try rush all our orders through the shipping department.

Things are very tense at work. But of course I still will have to see the boss about getting permission to go. She doesn't say anything, then she must not mind if I go. Silence gives consent.

I like to call it ‘The Daily Resignation’ so that my job won’t ‘Break My Soul’. 

Spring & Resort 2024  (or 1984) designers implore us to get away from everything & anything in organza, fluid charmeuse & gabardine, artisanal-crafted crochets, & voluminous styling gifts in a spectrum of gothic summer sunset hues, christening hard resort wear for those considering a temporary (or even permanent) vacation ...

Our new female CEO really rules the roost. Who rules the roost at your house? 

Academia was trending on the Spring 2024 (& Spring 1984) runways.

It’s an aesthetic motif that improvises on an old theme, perhaps because it invites self-reflection & meditation on happy thoughts.

Academia invites reflection on the joys of being smart & entering into intellectual competitions, of matching wits with one's partner (perhaps with an honorary degree) &  running circles around her with one's clever repartee.

Academia invites reflection on the dramas of growing up & handling or coping with one’s burdens, of enduring one’s difficulties & surviving by being clever with twists that bring the dramas  back to life.

 Academia invites reflection on thinking one should go far & do better, getting brilliant results primarily by working hard & living by one's wits with intricate strategies that helps one get out of trouble.

Academia invites reflection on the way dress codes shape one's self-perception, lending a great deal of color to the slide show of one's own permanent vacation.

Academia invites reflection on having it in oneself, by being a genius with special inborn powers & remembering that genius is ten percent inspiration & ninety percent perspiration.

Academia also provides inspiration for how to be clever & creative within the restraints of formal dressing while working on one's novel while the inspiration lasts.

A look back to school days doesn't  strain for effect so much. The author of one's own drama knew what they were doing, & it’s in the lines already.

On this front, Miu Miu’s disheveled subversion of prep-school uniforms was definitely conspicuous, as was Marni’s café society nonconformists or Chanel’s provocative secretaries. 

Punk   riffs on school girl short skirts from Copova Lowena were easily grasped, an initiative much obliged to Andreas Kronthaler's Vivienne Westwood.

JW Anderson bestowed a claymation narrative of an out-of-dresscode ensemble, while Dries Van Noten liberates the conventional rugby shirt, persuading us that it’s okay to do a bit of peacocking.

Designers are going back to school, the party’s over! 

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