Hudson Dispatch Clippings Archive

 

When Jersey City’s Journal Square lost its Journal, the New Jersey Room at the Jersey City Library, main branch acquired a new archive of old news.

The Jersey Journal recently moved to Secaucus, New Jersey, because why should newspaper offices actually be located in the nerve center of the city reporters cover when they can reside in an office park constructed in the swamplands.  Prior to the move, the paper donated a vast archive – 18 metal filing cabinets, about five feet tall, 18 drawers in each – of newspaper clippings from the Hudson Dispatch, a long defunct newspaper, although sometimes still referenced by Dislocations.

This archive is not just a comprehensive collection of life in Hudson County as seen through the journalistic lens of  a daily newspaper, it is also a tribute to reportage, newsprint and paper. This archive is not just a vast resource of historical records, but a memorial to a way history used to be recorded. The archive is a memorial to the history of newspaper clips.

 In the drawers are min-manila folders, with sealed sides, essentially index card-sized pouches. They are arranged alphabetically by subject. Each story has been cut out and the subject is carefully circled or outlined in red pencil. There’s got to be millions, certainly hundreds of thousands of stories here – I estimated well over a thousand clips in each drawer (there are two rows of manila folders stuffed with clips in each drawer).

Opening the drawers, the acrid mustiness of yellowing newspaper wafts into your nostrils, slightly stinging your eyes, making them feel itchy. You are immediately aware that by peeking into the past, you actually are in what is left of that past.

 

 

 

The subject lines are carefully typed – by typewriter – on the upper edge of the mini-manila folders. Some folders had a single clipping, must had several, efficiently folded to fit into the small pocket. The preciseness of the how the thin paper was shaped by the scissor, the circling or underlining of the subject, the origami-like attention paid to the folding are breathing examples of meticulousness.

Little is known about this archive, just that it was in Jersey Journal offices and was not going with the move to the meadowlands. The Jersey City public library system saved it from being destroyed, these clips lost forever,.

In the pre-internet, pre computer days, maintaining a clip file was standard operating procedure. A reporter gets assigned a story, he or she first sees what has been written about the subject previously. Stories eventually get indexed in a directory, which are used as a guide for micro-film (or micro-fiche!) archives but for a busy newspaper room, a clipping library was more efficient. By the way, there were and still are, clipping services but back in the day (I’m old enough to have been at the tail end of this era) there were clipping services, subscribing to all sorts of publications and they had clients who needed to be alerted if their names were mentioned in the news no matter how small the circulation or exclusive the readership.

Of course, in this internet era of Lexus/Nexus and google, such archives are as obsolete as the thin paper they are preserving. And while this Hudson Dispatch archive is comprehensive, it is also chronologically narrow and why it was previously owned by the Jersey Journal is also sort of a mystery too. There are no clippings or files from the Jersey Journal or Star Ledger or other papers in the archive. The Dispatch was founded in 1874 and lasted 117 years, it was purchased by the Jersey Journal around 1990 and the “jay jay” folded its one time competitor in 1991. The archives only spans 1970 to 1990, ending with the sale to the journal.

Why only Dispatch clippings? What happened to the clippings prior to 1970? Was an archive kept and destroyed or was there a arbitrary “anno” year or start for this historical record.

 

 

 

 

My hypothesis is that in 1970 or so, for whatever reason – probably the beginning of a new regime at the Hudson Dispatch  – a clipping archive was created. The meticulous duty of clipping, sorting, organizing, creating a folder with a typed out subject and the underlining of the subject in that story was done by some underling, the editor’s secretary – when editors had such things – or some peon or that era’s version of a college intern. The archive was maintained from this arbitrary “year anno” to the Hudson Dispatch sale to the Jersey Journal and the archive ends with the demise of the “Dispatch.”

The archives was part of the acquisition of one newspaper by another, and its usefulness diminished with each passing year. The subjects of the clipping gradually becoming more and more historical than topical references. I imagine the bulky steel cabinets gathering dust, but no one had the heart to dispose of the contents. Maybe some researchers found them useful. A reporter stuck on some facts or background decides to take a shot and goes through the old Hudson Dispatch archive and discovers an epiphany-inducing fact that opens up a great news story.

I just randomly picked through the drawers, mainly for Dislocations pictures. A 1985 story about “Mom & Pop” stores facing market changes, now 30 years later, where are those Hudson County shops, mostly gone, a few reimagined.  Stepping back into history, yet so much of that history is the same stuff, now a different era. Our daily lives may change in detail, but only a few details. The clip files show how news is really not that new. Take a gander for yourself and see how they make you feel.

What a trove of history, and the fact that it will be preserved – the actual paper, the ultimate hard if slowly decaying copy – is a testament to the New Jersey Room’s commitment to Hudson County history, no matter how painstaking the task required by the staff or how incidental the material may seem to the cynical and ignorant.

But good lord, what a task – the cataloging of the contents of the Hudson Dispatch files – every min-folder will have to be inspected, every clip unfolded and read, at least scanned, and recorded. I admire the diligence required, and I both pity and envy those doing this work, which is essentially, a present-day archivist archiving the archival work of an archivist of the pasts.

 Nostalgia for the 70s and 80s remains a permanent part of today’s popular culture, ironically this love of the past seems strongest among the Gen Yers who were either not born or still in infancy back then. Now there’s portal directly to how Hudson County actually lived that era.

 

Gray’s Papaya

 

Empty letters on the façade above taped over windows. Sad, forlorn outlines reminding us something that we knew well is gone forever 

Used to be such a lively place, always lots of customers, take out or scarfing down some hot dogs with beverage. A place to pause for nourishment while in this city on the go.

Gray Papaya had great hot dogs. For the longest of time they sold two for 99 cents. You could eat lunch for two bucks through the 1990s. The hot dogs were loved for the garlic overtones. I liked them, I never really ate there but only because eating hot dogs is not a high priority. I’m more of a pizza slice guy.

But those who loved them really loved Gray’s. A friend tells me when her friend from Philadelphia visits, she insisted on Gray’s for one lunch. Another friend mentioned her days as a club kid, stopping at Gray’s after a long night of partying before getting on the PATH. I remember taking classes and walking a fellow student, she always stopped there to get her hot dogs before heading home. My sister told me of eating Gray’s before this event she went to – she needed something cheap and fast and while they may not have been the healthiest food item, they were great hot dogs.

All just memories now and the hollow frames where bight yellow letters that once tempted your taste buds into straying from your diet now remind us of not just a country that used to be, but how the wealthy class is transforming our surroundings to suit their purpose, and making the life we knew go away.

 

Gray’s Papaya on 8^th street closed without notice to the public. The social media outcry alerted me and while I was far from a regular, the news was another incremental heartbreak about what is happening to Greenwich village. Gentrification is an insufficient term to describe the accelerated transformation from an historic bohemian and working class enclave to a glossy and shallow massive college campus and student quad for the next generation of the privileged class.

Last year, I recorded the passing of the beloved Barnes& Noble, right across the street. The soon to be out of work employees told me that a lot of these buildings were owned by a single landlord who had recently denied, the family sold them to NYU who is jacking up rents because they have a vision of what the 21^st century village should look like, which I guess is to resemble as close as possible a food court in a the most upscale Shopping Mall in Dubai.

Facebook scuttlebutt confirmed the scenario described to me during the final days of 8^th street B&N. Gray’s Papaya rent was raised a whopping $20,000, forcing this outlet of the local franchise to close. It’s not that Gray’s Papaya was not a successful business. A valuable service – affordable food – was provided to a community – about a dozen people were employed and a profit was made – by both the owners of the enterprise and the owners of the property and lease.

But here’s the rub. The goal of the stage of capitalism we happen to be living is that profits must be maximized. It is not enough to just make a profit; and in fact, what is a reasonable profit is no longer specifiable. Greed is the objective. How else to justify an increase that doubles and triples a rent.

Even that explanation falls short of fully telling us why the 8^th street Gray was terminated. A sign says some kind of Bubble Tea (as a die-hard tea drinker (I never drink coffee) bubble tea is an acquired taste I’ve yet to acquire) emporiums is promised, although it is unclear that if this will include Gray’s and the adjacent now closed hat store (a great store that sold affordable headwear, closed around the same time as B&N and still shuttered) or if Gray will become what I can only gather from internet scuttlebutt to be some hideously sounding beverage place called : Liquidteria (does that sound awful or what!)

I find it dubious that these food & BEVERAGE chains, who sound as if they have a trendy and international sheen, will be drastically more profitable than Gray’s. Gray’s had a steady customer based – the place seemed always packed and lively – and was probably the cheapest lunch for a three block radius (there are inexplicably no pizzerias close to this corner, but even getting slices may be slightly more costly than the Gray hot dog special, they certainly are not less expensive). Of course, this is a prime corner, residents, workers, tourists, NYU and New School students and of course those who ride the PATH and consider this neighborhood another environ in our lives. It’s busy, so almost any establishment has a shot generating revenue just because of the potential revenue from the vast numbers of people passing by here any day.

Those same numbers were there for Gray’s. Will the enticement of Bubble Tea so significantly outweigh the proven demand for Gray’s that Bubble Tea generated revenue will cover the jacked up rent, provide a “reasonable” profit to the owners of the franchise, and employee the same number of people (that and their wages are of course, an ignored metric!)

 

I’m… to under-state my opinion… doubtful. If normal business practices and concerns still prevailed, the gamble of getting the jacked up rent from similar (F&B) businesses verses the infeasible rent increase that forced a proven and well established business to close seems like an unwise choice. There is no sort of rent control for commercial businesses; once the lease is up, property owners can do as they see fit. Residential laws are different, mitigating sudden displacements of populations from an area they call home. This contrast results in the urban experiencing of finding yourself living in the same home yet everything you used to know and love being here one year and gone the next.

Gray’s didn’t get killed because it was an outmoded business and “Liquidteria” isn’t moving here because it is some kind of superior business model. The degree of profitability is not the issue at all. Like the closing of B&N (a year later, the building is still fallow) the entire block – actually more than the block – is being transformed into some NYU vision of the village as a massive college campus. It does not take an unjustified leap of imagination to conclude the ultimate financier of this urban planning are the excessive college loans students require to pay for their education, a digression I’ll avoid. Gray’s – a business believed by students but not part of this vision – is only the latest causality. The leases and agreements with the business going into the space will not be made public, and there’s no recourse addressing how justifiable the rent increase was. It’s not like the corner of 8^th street & 6^th Avenue is up to plebiscite. One F&B business is the same as the next to a city’s Planning Board.

8^th street used to be so lively. Now, many storefronts are dark. Besides the cap store, there was the Silver Age Comic Book shop and 8^th Street records, which had a great bootleg selection and other funky shoe stores and clothing boutiques. All gone. The replacements have yet to arrive. I noticed this last year and I purposely walked the street again for this blog and those same storefronts are still dark. An entire year – and obviously more – of no business being conducted, no jobs being created.

All these businesses were profitable, met their lease agreements but when that lease was up for renewal, the increase was purposely too high for those existing businesses to afford. How can owners of property sustain what by all appearances seem to be years of revenue loss.

Because the profitability of Gray’s and the jobs it created and the service provided to the community are inconsequential to the NYU goal of global change. Higher education, especially in the private realm, now that is a money making racquet. No oversight to value delivered or limit to prices charged, students take out six figure loans, augmenting the wealthy spawn enrolled; adjuncts, who teach most classes, get coolie wages while presidents and deans make high six figures. (nearby Cooper’s Union is charging tuition for the first time in its 100+ year existence). The bigger picture is inconceivable to us mere mortals bemoaning the loss of a venerable and landmark hot dog stand. It’s not just abut the corner, or even about 8^th street and what it will become) it is about the entire swath of the isle of Manhatto from 14^th to Houston. Individual businesses and jobs, the fabric of what non-students, non-faculty members and other non-college employees once thought helped define the quality of their lives has been or soon will be eliminated. The business of higher education now dominates what once was a working class haven and bohemian refuge.

It sucks. It was not inevitable. It can still be changed, but there’s no counter plan and next to no hope.

Two economic news items ended 2013 and greeted 2014.

1)      The Stock Market had its best year in like 17 years or something, a year resembling not just a pre-recession financial crisis year, but a 1990’s boom year.

2)      Unemployment did not go down in any significant way and the jobs created pay about half as much as they did in the 1990s. 2013 ended with 20 people looking for every job created.

How can those two economic trends exist?

 

 

Easy. Companies can have increased sales but are under no obligation to create jobs in the United States. Corporations receive no tax breaks or other incentives for job creation. It’s not news that manufacturing is done overseas because workers are paid slave wages and working conditions are unsafe. It’s also not news that the tax laws and other economic policies favor the investor class, who now can pool larger resources to create a chain of F&B dispensaries the stock holders make dividends, a manger of several stores can work his or her ass off for the bottom rung of a middle class salary and everyone else makes minimum wage. Even franchises where there is an onsite owner/manager is an outmoded business model. If you’re an independent business owner, who took a risk on a neighborhood and became one of the stabilizing influences that midwifed the transition from urban decay to urban renewal, you get slapped in the face with an impossible to meet rent hike. If the corporation comes up with a F&B business conducive to the entire transformation of a city into a campus, there’s no risk for the chain’s investors or the investors guiding the ruination then reinvention of 8^th street.

This isn’t capitalism any more. The forces of supply and demand are not work. An empowered investor class intent on increasing investment derived revenue is not some function of an invisible hand. Those who have won will win again and those losing will not just lose more, but grow in number.

The nation’s economic wealth is not longer measured by job growth. In fact, lack of job growth enhances the stock market. Companies cut pay roll to become more profitable and those left work harder, use more technology and when it comes to the hard work of actually making something, that’s all done in other countries.

Those responsible, those making those decisions, they never ate at Gray’s.

Well, you don’t read Dislocations for economic lessons but this was an exception.

Remember Grapes of Wrath, when they push Muley off the land and he asks who is doing it, and he’s the Shawnee Land & Cattle Company, but and it is not a who, but a company, but the company is owned by the Bank in Tulsa, and that manager is just taking orders from banks “back east,” and Muley wants to know who to convince him to keep his land, “who to shoot.”

The man giving him the conviction notice, says “I don’t know who to shoot, if I did, I ‘d tell ya.”

Later, the cats – the large tractors – come by and plow the little shack away but he threatens the driver, who he knows, with shooting him and asks how can you do this against your own and he replies, “$3.00 a day,” telling Muley that everybody is their own look out and if you shoot me they’ll hang you for sure and there will be somebody here tomorrow to finalize the eviction, to remove a way of life, to ensure the profitability of the investment.

That early scene in both the novel and film came to mind as I took pictures of the renovation inside of Gray’s Papaya. The sink still working, the clock still telling the time, but everything else a dismantled mess, a crumpled sign still promising Tabs – you could run a Tab at Gray’s

This corner is as much a part of the life of many Jersey City folks as many corners in our own city. Gray’s is within our orbit, we share in the loss.

Cities change all the time. One person’s shock is another’s gradual process. I hate the idea of being a cranky old man croaking about how life was so much better back in my day.

What is happening now though – and Gray’s Paypa no longer being on 8^th street is the latest example of this – is upheaval. Our society’s priorities are now entirely to make rich people richer. Income inequality is being raised, the new Mayor of New York is a progressive, President Obama seems to fight the good fight but all to willing to settle for incremental victories.

 

 

The change that is needed is comprehensive. The New Deal got us out of the Great Depression by creating the Middle Class, but it was more than just a series of complex economic policies. The New Deal happened by  a change in attitude about the role of government in structuring the economy, a role that beginning with Ronald Reagan and finalized by George W. Bush has so unraveled that any solution now seems unattainable.

We can no longer buy affordable delicious hot dogs and there’s nobody to shoot.

 

 

Lost Soul

 

Taqueria coming soon was on the hand written sign taped to the window behind the gate. Pretty soon we’ll have as many Mexican food joints as pizzerias. I guess Mexican food is the comfort food of choice for the hipster crowd. I’m really starting to hate that word and all its connotations. Hipster. It’s currently synonymous with Gen Y, the post-Gen X gen whose childhoods coincided with the Reagan administration.

Seems to me the 80s saw the first massive wave of Mexican restaurants. Twas the decade when Benny Burrito’s was born.  

They began popping up all over, then I noticed in the 90s, Mexican food declined in popularity, or maybe I had lost my taste for it. I had a few trips to California by the early 90s for business and ate at the Mexican food joints and truly, it’s a whole different strata out west. Here in the east, we just couldn’t compete. That was my simplistic opinion. But when all is said and done, I’m not that into Mexican Food, east or west. More of a fad than a mainstay for me, now only a very occasional indulgence.

However, as this new generation takes over the world is the comfort take out food of their childhoods accompanying their sluggish world dominance?

Jersey City has lost its noveau southern food eatery. Jersey City has lost its Soul... flavors.

What is the difference between Soul Cooking and Southern Cooking I once asked a woman chef, who happened to be black and from the south, and she replied, it depends on who is doing the cooking.

Soul Flavors did a very credible version of this regional cuisine, I ate there a few times. I liked their black eye peas.

 Soul/Southern food had a real revival in the late 90s and 00s. Artisanal, farm to table, and locavore foodie trends all helped push this style back onto our tables. Look at all those pull-pork and rib vendors now ubiquitous at all the outdoor events up here in this Union stronghold.

Has the Mexican food resurgence gained so much momentum that the soul/southern food resurgence is now in retreat?

Who the hell knows. Food is firmly part of pop culture but I’m not quite sure what the trends within that segment say about overall culture. I’m not a foodie, nor do I watch the food network.  This post is not really about food trends, even in Jersey City. It’s about the whims and idiosyncrasies of the hyper-local restaurant business.

Jersey City was christened the Gold Coast somewhere in those optimistic go-go days of the 90s. Restaurant row was what they were calling the blocks around the Grove Street Path. Indeed, new places are opening all the time. But now as this area begins to mature, in order for the new ones to open, old restaurants now must close. It’s a tough business – discerning consumer tastes, consistently providing quality product that meets those tastes, and hoping those tastes do change so drastically that demand for your product does not decline so that your business can no longer be sustained.

Trying to guess what will take in Jersey City can be tough.

There’s other factors too, acts of landlord, acts of nature, your own personal life.  The turnover in the restaurant business in Jersey City is starting to resemble parts of New York, which is just another way of saying it is growing. A few seem to have become established contemporary landmarks, others close and are fallow until somebody else rolls the dice bringing their idea into physical space.

In the case of Soul Flavors,  Sandy finally claimed another victim a year later.

 

 

From the Soul Flavors Website:

OCTOBER 27^th 2013

 

After over 6 years of trading in Jersey City, it is with great sadness that on October 27th we've had to announce the closure of Soul Flavors. When Super-Storm Sandy hit last year, we lost all our food in the kitchen with the power outage, along with the whole of our inventory stored in the basement refrigerators and freezers and store cupboards due to the flooding. Although we have tried very hard for the last 11 months to get back on our feet, unfortunately we have not managed to do so. Although Soul Flavors restaurant is closed we will be continuing with our catering business . Thanksgiving is around the corner and we wanted JC to know that we are taking orders now and can be reached at INFO@SOULFLAVORS.COM. Thank you so very much for being our loyal patrons, we have appreciated your business and could not have come this far without you all. Would you please post this and forward to your database. Thanks so much for all your help now and in the past.

 

Best regards,

 

Wayne B Lyons

President Soul Flavors Inc.

Mobile 917 416-4854

web: www.soulflavors.com

 

 

Creative Grove Kindle

 

I have to admit, The Kindle tempts me, entices me, even vexes me and this vexing can be perplexing.

 

 I read a lot and I’m not against reading on a device. How can I be?  Dislocations is unavailable in print form.

I have thousands of books in my apartment, and they are a pain in the ass to dust.  The apartment is finite but, like the universe, my library keeps expanding. Luckily, Jersey City has a great library but unlike the Amazon selection, is not infinite (and they even have e-books).

Every book I borrow is one more I never need dust.

The Kindle was at a recent Creative Grove.

Creative Grove was the first stop on the Kindle tour.

The Kindle tour is a grass roots marketing campaign targeting art events. The idea is that artists read and they want to introduce them to the device. Also, Jersey City has a newly opened bookstore and there’s another on the way (or so a sign on one of the under-re-development storefronts has claimed since spring).  They were not selling Kindles or selling anything, but maybe being the rare location where one bookstore is here and one is on the way, Amazon realized here was a ground zero to launch their counter-erosion of the print vs e-book market share conflict.

The Kindle cost $119, which is actually pretty reasonable and significantly lower than it first was introduced to the market. The new version features better lighting, said the marketer-teer. There was a stand with a Kindle for demonstration, a booth in which one sat and could experience the different illumination conditions. You  selected a book and then adjusted the ambient lighting, and adjusted the Kindle Screen lighting. I felt so optimized.

I selected The Great Gatsby, the closest thing to literature because I am such a snob and I am dumbfounded that anybody can actually read Dan Brown’s sentences. It was the not the first time I had used a reading device. You cannot exactly skip around like you can flipping pages in a book, but pretty close. The minimal dusting required was the main advantage in my opinion.

I will probably get one eventually, probably two years. I will soon join the growing horde of people reading on the PATH or in Starbucks on screens where nobody can tell what they are reading.

Other than that development, it is worth noting that Amazon found Creative Grove and that a little corporate  inclusion can go a long way. We are now SoHo, Williamsburg and Tribeca, hip demographic ripe for exploitation. I want my frozen yogurt store (oh that’s right, one’s opening on the corner). Is that what they mean when they say we’re becoming just like Hoboken?

I order stuff off Amazon frequently, just like you. The thing with books though, the printing presses employed people, the bookstores employed people, the delivery trucks employed... well you get the idea. With the Kindle, Amazon gets richer and bigger  and the publishers and some writers and their editors receive revenue, but all the middle-men, all those jobs are never coming back. That isn’t mentioned in the booth where you can adjust the lighting to what ever suits your solitude.

Why think of them then, but then when should we think of them?

Later at home, sneezing from the dust  from Algren to Zola as I calculated how much space I would gain by removing the shelves and all of those rows and rows of neglected titles pleading to be reread.

#DIESELREBOOT

 

 

What was the name of that damn show, prisoners on an island and if they tried to escape these huge balloons would come out of the water and push the guy back. British. The Prisoner! That’s it, had a cult following that I never joined. That’s what I was reminded of, walking through Union Square. Inflatables on the northern tip, promoting #DIESELREBOOT.

Diesel, the jeans company, casual sportswear. Didn’t they first appear in the 1980s?

A beautiful young woman, dressed in black, ray bans, long black hair, younger than half my age of course or just about, handing out brochures, which I had to ask for, she was not about to give them to someone so outside the target demographic.

“Diesel. The jeans company?”

“Diesel Reboot,”  she says. “They’re launching the brand.”

“But the new brand is Diesel Reboot, not just Diesel.”

“Yes.” She was barely paying attention to me.

The balloons were colorful, different sizes. Large pillows were people relaxed. Compelling photographs decorated the spherical inflatables. I wondered what the new lines look liked?

“I think I bought a shirt of theirs like 20 years ago. Where are pictures of the clothes.”

“The what?”

“The clothes. What are the new clothes like. I don’t see any pictures of them on the balloons.”

“We don’t have pictures of the clothes. We don’t have any of the clothes here at all. This is Diesel Reboot creative.” She gives me a severe though not unpleasant I’m from the beautiful people world and you were born before Ronald Reagan was president look.

“Can I take your picture.”

“No, I’m working.”

“But it says that anyone here should be prepared to be photographed or filmed.”

“By us.”

 

 

“It’s just that you’re really pretty.” What a snobby glance, what a bemused supercilious smile. She walks away and I continue taking pictures. I don’t think I was the first person in her life to compliment her beauty. I took her picture anyway, but after she walked away.

 

I used to write about fashion, probably just before this young model was born, it was one of my earliest writing gigs. It was fun. Clothes are an expression of cultural trends and a projection of your self; yet they are garments, perform a function so whatever expression they exhibit is not a deep thought. They are by definition frivolous yet they are on the frontline of any potential first impression, even if the person getting that impression you may never see again.

 The fashion world has changed, back then there were mainly independent retailers, and they started the trends, they featured designers. Now it’s the large department stores and designers like Diesel have either their own stores, cutting out the middle man, or set up lucrative deals with bigger middle men to have their min-boutiques within big retailers.

Designer brands are important, but they are more about quality now than status. The cache of wearing the label and having that label seen lacks the cultural significance it once did.

Except for people within the fashion world, and they can still be snobby and out snob any one per center. That’s because most designers and apparel movers and shakers come from the working class and aspire to be noveau rich. The superficiality is so distinctively spectacular, it’s pointless to notice. You’re young and beautiful and those clothes look beautiful on you but what wouldn’t at your age with your looks, which fades just like dreams but now the dream is real.

In addition to the balloon display in highly trafficked Union Square, #DIESELREBOOT is all about the social media. Facebook is so five minutes ago, just Tumblr, instragram and twitter.

 

 

 

From the brochure:

Destruction = Creation

What Have you Destroyed Lately?

This was the question posed by Nicola Formichetti to his vast network of social media followers for the third mission of #DIESELREBOOT, his viral relaunch of Diesel.

 

Using Tumblr to reach a community of young creatives… blah blah blah

Right, maybe the cache of wearing designer clothes will return, maybe a generation will discover the shallow status of designer clothing. Some of them have to be vapid and/or look good in the new brand.

Why sell the clothes when you can sell the brand? Or sell the brand first.

 

So, there’s a contest for the new diesel, a kind open-source campaign that seems to echo the Occupy movement of two years ago.  One of the requirements to enter reads thusly:

“2: Post an original photo of your favorite work of art in the #DIESELREBOOT Installation.”

Okay, so installation is an artsy word, but I love the idea that a photo of an existing work of art becomes an “original photo” but then again the apparel world invented knock-offs. Is a picture of a knock-off more original than the knock-off?

I love the reboot term too, which is from nerd culture – comic books. Hey it worked for Superman this year!

 Call me old fashioned but I still think fashion should be about the fashion not just the concept of fashionable. Clothes should be about clothes, not status. I know I’m not in the demographic they are marketing to, but I wonder if millenials think in terms of designer names when it comes to clothes. Can an apparel brand achieve the status of an I-Phone or Xbox? In spite of the marketing veneer of social media being cutting-edge and ultra-contemporary, the core question of designer status I wonder about. Price and quality seems more important to this new generation than status – and other issues like green and now worker rights, pro-safety and anti-slave label, both issues ignored by the #DIESELREBOOT balloons. Consumer culture is our current form of capitalism and that hasn’t changed but consumer tastes have. Marketing can only do so much no matter how clever and cutting  edge.

 

 

Nonetheless, she was pretty, the balloons were fun and the bright sun shone down on Union Square Park like summer might stay forever.