Luxury brand executives who declare that their items can be made only in Western Europe because Western European artisans are the only people who know what true luxury is are being not only hypocritical but also xenophobic. They are not selling “dreams,” as they like to suggest; they are hawking low-cost, high-profit items wrapped in logos.
Dana Thomas, Made in China on the Sly. [NYT]
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There has been a long-standing anthropological assumption that things like clothing and art and built form will be a medium for both the expression and the construction of the ideas in culture. But to make it more interesting, the question today is: How does design capture and reflect and construct a culture that is so dynamic and changeable and unpredictable?
Grant McCracken, Our world is noisy with innovation. [Globe& Mail]
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/abriefmessage/~3/178032093/
It’s a weird time for designers.
At a time when we’re on the cover of Business Week and Jonny Ive is getting knighted by the Queen, we’re simultaneously being told by the people praising us to stop doing one of the things that defines our profession: namely, making stuff.
Full text at A Brief Message
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