The Weekly Roundup (Week of 9.2)
did u guys hear oasis is back together
1. Bidirectional Nostalgia
As Labor Day closes out Brat Summer and my friends discuss buying tickets for the Oasis reunion tour, I see the same dynamic at play. CharliXCX’s mainstream breakthrough is bringing the avant-garde 2010s genre hyperpop to the H&M-shopping masses. Meanwhile, the Britpop aesthetic has been percolating since last summer on TikTok under the moniker blokecore and its femme avatar blokette. In our eclectic hyper-nostalgic era, it’s not enough for The Dare to be crowned harbinger of an “electroclash revival” (80s) by The New York Times; we also need Charli to lead a “hyperpop revival” (10s) and Oasis to herald a “Britpop revival” (90s) as well—by selling 1.4 million tickets in 10 hours, no less.
Sean Monahan makes an astute observation about the nature of todays nostalgia driven trends. He dubs it “bidirectional nostalgia,” – the flight of the cool kids to adjacent decades and aesthetics. “The nostalgia cycle is very predictable in terms of orientation—twenty years is twenty years—which is perhaps why it so annoys the creative classes. When everyone is talking about nostalgia, the self-selected avant-garde never wants to get caught doing it, too.”
2. The Stardom Factory
Very few people have the time to seek out emerging talent and the patience to develop long-lasting collaborative relationships. What you see more often are transactional exchanges and access brokerage that drive buzz and lifts in sales but don’t stick long-term… If everything and everyone is accessible as long as the right number is on a check, developing a point of view and real relationships with people may be the only advantage that’s not as easy to replicate.
A good write up that compares and contrasts the ways in which PR, media and creative strategists used to work in the past, to the modern tactics of today. Read here.
3. Inside Demna and Balenciaga's Daring Second Act
Demna’s honesty has proven to be a commercial blockbuster. When he arrived at Balenciaga, sales hovered around $350 million. By 2022, sales surged to about $2 billion. “I believe Demna at Balenciaga set the fashion agenda in the past years,” says Balenciaga CEO Cédric Charbit. “Demna has the ability to bring the right conversations forward. The rethinking has been 360 degrees…. He has captured our times like nobody else. He is a cultural phenomenon.”
“You only become part of the zeitgeist if you are uncompromising in your vision, and that is what Demna is,” says Balenciaga superfan Charli XCX. “He never falters, he is fearless, and there are no compromises. That’s how you create something that is so cohesive and of the moment.”
A thoughtful and deeply personal profile of the infamous designer who revolutionized modern fashion. Read here.
4. A Suitable Change for Chloë Sevigny
Check out the intimate profile of the legendary Chloë Sevigny. Read here.