ICYMI…

• We released our September edition of Dirt. Read Zach Schonfeld on the long tail of Destroyer’s Kaputt, Francis Zierer on farming startups, Madeleine Adams on Jordan Castro’s Muscle Man, and Emily Jensen on the smell of matcha. 

• A new short story in Blank about feeling embarrassed while your wife buys you a birthday present. 😳

• A playlist of songs crowdsourced from our Discord.

Dani Loftus was this week’s Tasteland guest. In addition to editing Ick, she is a founder, writer and investor focused on the digital evolution of culture. Below is an excerpt from our conversation, keep scrolling for the full episode and links to what we’re reading.

Daisy Alioto: Dani, you told me about this book that I had actually never heard of that's being reissued with Apartamento called Happy Victims. Tell us about the book, because it’s an interesting consumer story.

Dani Loftus: First of all, I have a problem where I have to buy clothes all the time. Well, I'm not always buying clothes, but there's something that I find incredibly cathartic and stimulating at the same time about understanding where everything I want is, bidding on it and seeing how cheaply I can get it. It's what I do when I need to switch my brain off. The process of looking at clothes and then finding them very cheaply, there is no mental energy exerted there. It's a bit like going on Tumblr, with some type of financial component.

I also think clothes are an art form, which is the reason this book is very appealing to me. It's called Happy Victims, by photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki. It starts with a beautiful quote:

“There is a kind of accepted hierarchy of collecting in society. At the top are books and fine art, then music, cars and so on. Clothes and shoes come at the bottom. Collectors of clothes don't command much respect, but I have great admiration for these people. That's why I call them happy victims. Many are shy young kids and this is like a salvation for them.” 

Because fashion is, or has been, inherently tied to the body or physical form, it's seen as inherently superficial in a way that fine art collection is not. And I disagree with that—I think there are insane quantities of craft and fashion at the top end. Just because buying fashion at the bottom end is common because there is a degree of physiological necessity to wearing clothes that there isn't with other art, it doesn't negate the fact that you could go to Times Square and pick up a $15 painting as well, or grab something in Soho for $15. And that is still art.

But fine art collection is so much more common, and as such fine art collectors have developed so much more of a narrative around themselves. This is not to mention the fact that historically, fashion collection and consumption has been seen as a traditionally female collector form, and thus has been further denigrated.

Francis Zierer: If you're comparing it to fine art, a fashion collection is like a photography collection in that there's usually multiples in fashion, usually much more multiples than in photography. Whereas with a painting, there's only one of each painting. 

DL: I think it is, but then I also have a couple of pieces where there are only three of them. And for me, the kick with anything is that I like to find stuff that I know is worth a bunch of money that nobody else knows about. And as my mum always said, I'd be a great vintage dealer if I wasn't obsessed with keeping everything. I have stuff from early John Galliano, when he was at Dior. And obviously whoever was selling it didn't know how much it was worth. In the same way as when you're collecting a fine art piece, it's imbued with the history of the piece and then the trajectory of the artist or creative who made it. 

There's also a difference because, in general, the way that you display fine art is static. If I have an art piece hanging on my wall, it being on my wall probably does not mean that it's going to be broken or atrophy over time. Every single time I wear a piece of clothing, though, it is in some way being ruined.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• The Good Pervert (Harper’s)

• Natasha Stagg’s tour diary (The Paris Review)

• OpenAI’s research on AI models deliberately lying is wild (TechCrunch)

• Starbucks workers sue over company’s new dress code (Associated Press)

•  Syria’s quest to build its own Silicon Valley (Rest of World)

• Condé Nast to launch influencer storefront platform (Business of Fashion)

• Pomegranate Ice Box Cake (Cake Zine)

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