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Is fashion in the throes of a total creative collapse? Critic Eugene Rabkin — founder of StyleZeitgeist and author of the new book Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism — joins Amy to make the case. He argues luxury has "devolved into a consumerist spectacle," its lack of ideas papered over by relentless marketing.
They get into the greedflation behind a $140,000 Dior dress, why "craftsmanship" is the industry's greatest con, the Italian sweatshop scandals that never seem to stick, how Bernard Arnault turned the fashion world into the fashion industry — and the death of criticism, and why nobody seems to care.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
02:30 Fashion's creative collapse: the thesis
08:30 Greedflation & the $140,000 Dior dress
13:00 The craftsmanship con
15:00 Sweatshop scandals: Dior & Loro Piana's vicuña
23:30 The death of fashion criticism
32:00 Bernard Arnault & how he industrialized fashion
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Follow Eugene Rabkin
📷 Follow Eugene on Instagram: @eugenerabkin
📚 Buy the book: Torn: Fashion and Postmodernism
This episode was edited by Chrissi Harris.
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