Battling for the Position of Arbiter of Style

Bloggers have changed the fashion industry, gaining influence and altering the way style filters down through consumers. A thoughtful new piece from Quartz addresses recent slights from both fashion industry editors and the luxury retailer Neiman Marcus regarding the importance—or, in their opinion, negative impact—of opening the doors of fashion to those without a long-standing platform. On one end, the statements reflect the continued struggle …

Nelson Saiers’ “Shortening: Making Irrational Rational” at Alcatraz

A site-specific installation questioning the duration of prison sentences for minor non-violent offenses

Every detail of NYC-based artist Nelson Saiers‘ current exhibition inside San Francisco’s Alcatraz (the famous prison turned National Park) carries depths of meaning. Why would an artist string up football jerseys in the numerical order of Pi inside a former penitentiary? A few reasons. First, inmates often refer to long, double-digit sentences as their football numbers. Second, Pi is an irrational (unending) number. And finally, …

The First Futurecraft Shoe from adidas’ Speedfactory

The Made-For-Germany sneakers demonstrates the factory's sheer proficiency

Not only is adidas making a push toward decentralizing their manufacturing—a move that will make truly local products in record (robotically-powered) time—they’ve also unveiled the first-ever shoe from their flagship Speedfactory concept production facility in Ansbach, Germany. As the name implies, the Speedfactory constructs custom, high-performance footwear rapidly. A second Speedfactory will be opened in Atlanta at some point in 2017, but in the interim, …