Well There‘s Your Problem - Well There's Your Problem | Bonus Episode 38 PREVIEW: Fashion

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

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Yeah, if we go to the next slide, this is one that I wrote, which has much more free form and therefore worse content. We have sexy high heels. Yeah, the sexy high heels, the sexy shoe. The point that I'm getting at with this is something we've kind of alluded to earlier, which is that fashion is one of several ways that you can code gender in your society. And this is very dependent on your society, it's ways of organizing and thinking about gender. It's very mutable. Sometimes it's very alien to our conception. And one example of that is high heels, right, which were originally invented for riding horseback with stirrups by the Mongols, and sort of came to Europe as a form of ostentation that

was specifically male and specifically manly because it made you look imposing and it made you look tall all the same reasons that women like it. And it makes your cows look good. Yeah, it makes you look good as hell. Like high heels make you look amazing. I mean, if you look at that picture of Louis XIV from the last slide, it is specifically arranged to show off his legs.

Like that is part of the point that we made here. It's like, it's like, just like what's his face from Game of Thrones, Con Drogo and like Stilettos. Yeah, I mean, it's like it's, it's powerful and it's elegant. And like, if you, if they get tall enough, then they can also do the same thing of conveying like, I'm too fancy to have to really walk around. It keeps your shoes out of the gusses. I have a horse to do that.

Yeah, exactly. Can also help you give people the Johnson treatment. Yeah. Yeah. And my point with this is only to say that like the ways in which fashion sort of like is used to convey gender change in have changed in ways and are changing in ways that we seldom fully understand and which are often tremendously subtle and if you are the menswear guy you can like use this to own Matt Wolfshaw on Twitter and be like oh interesting you want to take away trans people's

rights are you aware that you're wearing a suit that was originally like designed for like a feminine fate it doesn't matter I don't care that that's a stupid way of dealing with him. I think you should probably be bliped instead, you'll have to bleep that. Bonus, you don't have to bleep anything. Exactly. Yeah, but like it's a stupid own to make. And I hate the fucking menswear guy, but there is a point to be made here about like... The menswear guy, I haven't gotten into it on Twitter. The ways in which gender is socially constructed through clothing.

And that was my slide for this. There's another interesting fact about shoes from this era, which isn't particularly relevant to the discussion we're having here, but it is just interesting, which is that a lot of them were what is called single-lasted, which means they are made to be worn on either foot. So what you would do is you would wear them, you know, one way and then you'd switch them around and it would help the wear pattern even out so they'd last longer. Oh, god. Like you were halfway through that, I was going to make a joke about it being about the wear pattern. Oh no, it's about the wear pattern. Wow. This is like this is the same reason they turn around railroad equipment when they don't really have to.

There you go. Try to only use your powers of psychic protection for good, Ross. It's interesting, by the way, the details on the shoe that are still like extant and modern shoe made. Like, yeah, they're sort of more rudimentary because it's old and it's, you know, like, it's not as sort of like concealed, but like things like a stacked heel that like sort of like hand welted, you know, the seam along the side there, which was then sort of like supplanted by a Goodyear welts, you know, vulcanized rubber and stuff, but it's still in use and like sort of like supplanted by a good year well with, you know, vulcanized rubber and stuff, but it's still in use and like sort of high end shoes. So yeah, I mean, a lot of this stuff,

like as much as fashions change, there are only so many ways to make things. A lot of techniques still kind of survive in unexpected ways or rediscovered and reused in that way. Not to mention that like, you know, even as we've invented faster and cheaper ways to make things, a lot of those older techniques are, you know, considered artisan craftsmanship and wearing them is another way to show off your money because it takes somebody days and days to do that. So yeah, I get my sort of like my fancy English leather boots where someone has like stacked the here and then like, you know, so in the so in the well and everything by themselves. And it's like, yeah, because because I got that podcast money, you know?

Yes. All right. Um, what is the pod? Keep it going. That's life. What is the podcaster fashion? I'm wearing a t-shirt that has the SEPTAS system. Printed.

Yeah. Yeah. Mo hoodie in shorts. Yeah. I'm wearing a t-shirt that says Memphis on it. I'm wearing a boy genius t-shirt, uhshirt and some tactical jeans from Varus to like Alice. I will note that on this t-shirt, Patterson Station is still called AT&T, not NRG.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Sally selling station name right. Naming rights is fucking awful. I wish I had been like better dressed for this just so I could like flex and people would cancel their patrons on mass because I could just be like, yeah, I'm wearing like a like a Prada like linear rossa like. I'm one of those probably.

Yeah, yeah, of course. And all that is. Linnea Ross is proud as like winter sports line. It's like they do the snowboarding stuff. You get a very nice quilted Linnea Ross like red line L I N E A R O S S A. Please sponsor us. No, Paula do not sponsor us. My, my, my, my news secret secondary objective is to fashion pill Liam before the end of

this episode. And like the next time I see, I see him at like a live show or I see a photo of him. My new secret secondary objective is to fashion pill in before the end of this episode. And like the next time I see I see him at like a live show or I see a photo of him, he's just like, Gucci'd out to the nines, like. I really like this. They don't make this in fat guys sizes, but if they did, I'd be, oh, I will be spending your paycheck dollars on the. Oh, the the the rate code goes up to three X. That's not bad.

Is it your three? Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, we'll get into this in the Okato a bit. But like high fashion is like I am like a 25 XL as far as these things go. Yeah, yeah, the European three X is like a medium twink here. What? It's just a guy standing on an iceberg. three X is like a medium twink here. What? What? Get to that. It's just a guy standing on an iceberg. I'm going to shoot this model. This is the funniest thing about like high fashion is you can like it.

You can throw people out and they find exciting new ways to hate themselves. I don't mind being fat. I just mind this. I take that and I just turn it around into exciting new ways to make $650 for a ball of clava. Rich people. I'm just going to name you. Do you want to look at the Gucci mix capsule that supposedly gender neutral, but really isn't. All right. I'm going to blast my calves. I better look fucking good. Do you want to look at the Gucci mix capsule that supposedly gender neutral, but really isn't I'm gonna blast my calves. I better look fucking good

We're recording this on Super Bowl Sunday, but Can be gender neutral if you're not a fucking coward anyway, thank you. Yes, absolutely There's Gucci MLB capsule. What? Why? Oh, this is dreadful. All right. New game is just like I get Liam's earnest first reaction to like any high fashion thing because I think this is my favorite thing in the world right now. Get Liam and the AI generated Balenciaga ad. Oh the the the the the the the the the the the the the

the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the Lensy Aga ads that would like or it was like it was, it was Harry Potter characters. There was a Harry Potter one and then someone did famous architects, which was very funny. All right, cool.

We're so great at aware Gucci. Oh, no, it was like his Star Wars. These are awful. $720 for a t-shirt, huh? That's mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We'll get into like, actually the t-shirts are good lens to explain different like tiers of fashion. So we'll do that.

I got my t-shirt for free at the SEPTA Railroadia. You know what? I like some of the all over awful Gucci print shit. I think that that's pretty good. Thank you, Liam. We got some gowns. Yes, once upon a time we were podcasting. Sorry.

Sorry, sorry. The printing press is introduced to Europe in- Huge mistake, made a lot of people very unhappy. Yes, and in addition to like actual things that can help society like books and shit, this also becomes a way to print what is called fashion plates. These are, they originate with France and Britain, where there's people who are just kind of drawing. These are all like royal fashions,

but there's also just street fashion being drawn and made into these plates that can be printed and sent around two places much easier, much more quickly than just one person going to Paris and coming back and saying, hey, I saw people wearing stuff that kind of looked like this. We should dress kind of like this too. And so what you get is suddenly people start keeping up with trends more and more quickly over a wider area. This is like a subculture too that annoys people, particularly when mendered like, Phops, you know, Dandies.

Phops, Dandies, yes. Macaronis, yeah. And that is actually what the macaroni in Yankee Doodle is, is stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. It's sarcasm, like look at this guy who thinks he's the pinnacle of fashion by putting one feather in his hat, these backwards Americans. Yankee Doodle was originally. That's crazy, he won the war.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yankee Doodle is like still wearing an off-white belt in 2024, six cry-loughing emojis and then loses the war of independence anyway. Well, it started out as a sarcastic song directed at, oh, look at these backwards colonialists. And then the colonial Americans took it and they were like, yeah, that's us. Got a problem with it.

Who won the war? But... I guess who's not in the Commonwealth of Nations. Yeah. I'll show you a special relationship and it's just me flinging off white belts. Oh, I. I always assume that I'll show you an X is just immediately followed by unzipping. No, no, I would have to take off the off white. How much is off white off white?

There's going to be a lot of me doing this in this episode. Oh, this is off. Well, I kind of dig this industrial belt. Oh, I kind of like this. I'm going to drop this in the chat. This is kind of shows you went through seeing one of these for the first time. That was that was very pleasing to me. I'm not going to lie to you, Roz.

I feel like you would you would look at this. Well, I can't see it because I have to. That's not your fault, that's yellow. Yellow is off of white. That is true. I guess in the same way that I'm currently off of a horse. My off horse belt. Well done, everybody.

Thank you. Yeah. So, so, so now you have like a readily accessible, transmissible way of being like, here's what you should be wearing. Yeah. And now, like, I don't think I'm transmissive, I'm seeing you at least. Yeah, exactly.

The thing about fashion is that you can understand it chiefly as a way of making other people feel bad about themselves so that they buy clothes. And now you can do this so much more efficiently. My God. You're not just keeping up with the ladies of the court of your royal family. It's like, fucking everybody's. What are the Swedish bitches wearing this season? And does no repeat itself a couple more times before we're done here. So, alright. Next slide. Alice, I think this one's yours.

That's Liam, baby. Oh, it's Liam. Liam, take us through. Hey, so I contributed very little to this episode. But I want to disagree. I price your contributions. Yeah, I wanted to talk about actually already kind of hit it. I don't know that I'm that I'm adding anything new. But I have the picture here of Rory Antoinette being beheaded. And I wanted to talk about like a fashionist indicator of social

stripe. Subtrait laws are a good piece of that to sort of keep the lower classes in line. There are some modern interpretations of some sort of laws well down to prohibition, cannabis prohibition, that sort of thing. I think what I really wanted to say is, how do our aesthetics project what we intend to project? What are we saying? What are we doing by...

I can talk about this in relation to X already hit on on that with the I Don't have to work fashion. Yeah, and I can talk about this in relation to pants specifically trousers because the sort of courtly aristocratic fashion in Sort of like a French nobility of everywhere's nobility really was Breaches, you know It's short pants. They come to like just below the knee and you have stockings underneath those and

This is a kind of like marker of aristocracy of no bill of nobility Specifically and you're sort of your laborer your worker wears like a longer sort of your laborer, your worker wears like a longer trouser, like something closer to the, you know, what you or I might wear today, unless we're still wearing breaches like fancy lads. And specifically, as a sort of revolutionary movement, the sans culotte, the without breaches, the guys were like, we either are or identify with the laboring classes who because they work, you know, 20 hours a day

in a tannery or whatever have to wear filthy, like ankle length trousers instead of your fancy lad breaches. So yeah, you can absolutely, and this is before we even get to military fashion, look at fashion as a sort of like, locus of class struggle. Absolutely.

And actually the next slide is kind of expands on that. We can go ahead and advance.