May 08, 2005
Defining Some Terms For Andrew Brown Of SoldierLeisure
Pagan Rite, sewing and photography by Catherine King.
by Jerome du Bois
A week ago I received an email from Andrew Brown of SoldierLeisure. He sells t-shirts, jeans, and hats with variations of his logo on them, and calls it "fashion." I was going to ignore his missive, but he used two terms that offended me --"my fashion," referring to his . . . stuff, and "punk," referring to me. So I decided to take it online.
As far as I can tell from images available online, and what I've seen in the stores, he has neither need nor use for scissors, needles, threads or sewing machines. He does not tailor, he silkscreens. He only cuts electronically. He only clips electrons. He's a font-monger. He's off-the-rack streetwear, strictly prêt-á-porter --you wouldn't know his stuff was his stuff without the logo-- and has nothing in common with haute couture. (He says so himself, below.) Now Andy comes lately with a comment about a posting I wrote eight months ago deploring the local fashion scene and bragging about my wife's real, though strictly private, haute couture. I reprint the email below, followed by a fisking. Mr. Andrew Brown should have done his homework on me before emailing, and certainly before calling me a "punk."
greetings
greetings,
i just became aware of your great site from a friend who reads it quite often. hes one of those guys who doesnt have a lot going on himself, he enjoys keeping up with what other people are doing.. i actually got a good laugh while reading one of jerome's write ups on the local "fashion scene". the article is dated sp 04. dude, youre, like, totally cramping my style. i wish someone like you was respected by a large group of solid people, that way my name could have been exposed to a bigger audience. thats what i need at this point for my fashion to shine through. punk.
keep up the positivity
regards
andrew brown
soldierleisure
To fisking.
i just became aware of your great site from a friend who reads it quite often. hes one of those guys who doesnt have a lot going on himself, he enjoys keeping up with what other people are doing . . .
Speaking of not having a lot going on, I notice that your website told us in late February that your products are temporarily available only online; two days ago you (or tgriffin) posted a message about going under the radar for awhile; and that your little motto at the bottom reads "sl:waiting to explode." Aren't we all. Sorry about your friend, though.
i actually got a good laugh while reading one of jerome's write ups on the local "fashion scene". the article is dated sp 04.
Perhaps these were the passages that amused him:
The locals depend on their silkscreened t-shirts. This isn't fashion, it's graphic design, clip art cut-and-paste which really reached it pinnacle with companies like Archaic Smile in the mid '90s. Today, this kind of work is lazy. Andy Brown of SoldierLeisure in shade:
"I have a different approach to fashion," says Brown. "I'm very causal about it. I want everyone to just relax and have a good time. SoldierLeisure is a lifestyle; it's an approach that says work hard [!], maintain yourself [?], do what you like to do [thanks], be cool [oh] be real [ok] and be yourself [huh?]."
Now, please, if you will, imagine this man [?] standing next to someone like John Galliano, for whom fashion is a strange angel, insistent and incessant, one whom he wrestles with all the time; a set of visions he wore his fingers down to the bone for; a muse he slept on bare floors for. I expect he would call Andy Brown a pissant. I sure do.
A pissant is a minor player in a major game. If you want apply the term "fashion designer" to yourself, you should start doing both, instead of mining fonts and clichés, saving them to disk, and sending them down the same old treadmill.
dude, youre, like, totally cramping my style.
Little dude, you have no style to cramp. You vamp the styles of others and slap it on readymade jeans, t-shirts, and hats. You do not design the clothes, either. You noodle at a computer.
i wish someone like you was respected by a large group of solid people,
If I was respected by people that you respect, in this rebarb climate, I would wonder what was wrong with me.
that way my name could have been exposed to a bigger audience.
Well, it may soon be, which may not be welcome news to you. Google works in mysterious ways. We're a small blog, but we manage to irritate some big shots right up under their noses.
thats what i need at this point for my fashion to shine through. punk.
You need something, that's for sure. Repeating your logo six ways from Mother's Day is tired, man. And make up your mind: are you waiting to explode or waiting to shine through? And there's that phrase, "my fashion."
As I said in the article you finally got around to, "It's about the work, about doing the work."
My wife, Catherine King, creates a dress from 200 yards of ribbon, rick-rack, 1-inch strips of satin-shadow-striped flocked voile, 300 pom-poms, and I don't know how many spools of thread zig-zagged across all of it --pictures in the earlier article. She created it from nothing, see? Just endless strips and lines and open circles, and she imagined it in three dimensions, and worked it up, shirring, ruching, darting, flouncing, layering, for hours and hours and hours, with her actual fingers.
You, Mr. Brown, type and mouse for hours and hours. Then you select a t-shirt off a rack and run it through your silkscreen, or maybe machine-sew some varsity letters on a t-shirt. This is not doing fashion. This is prefab assembling, pomo arranging, low-rent adaptation.
When my wife adapts a garment, she starts at the top --say a plain white silk Armani tank top. First she dyed it orange; then she hand-sewed a delicate, half-inch-wide, 3-color lace ribbon collar to it, with tiny orange flowers and green leaves. And called it "Tangerine Fields". Or a French float camisole the color of a see-through cloud. (See top of post.) She had an antique lace doily she found on the street in San Francisco so long ago, with intricate figures: roses on long stems, pipers, and dancers. She cut these out and applied all over the front of the camisole. Maybe we'll post some pictures later. Finally, as I've written before, she took a McQueen t-shirt and created a version of Jasper Johns's Three Flags on the front. By hand. It's about doing the work.
You, Mr. Brown, make play clothes for garage bands.
Finally: I take the term "punk" seriously. It comes from prison and implies the most abject and humiliating compliance. People in the rebarb culture throw it around casually. Well, Fuck you, Andrew Brown. I'm no punk. I am always standing, and left standing. I take nothing from nobody nohow. And now that I've taken a second look at your offerings, I repeat my characterization of you, squared:
You are a pissant's pissant.
Posted by Jerome at May 8, 2005 10:20 AM | TrackBack