News From the Bog #6

What a start to January! We’re already so tired lol! Maybe because we’ve been overdoing it a bit, burning the candle at all of the ends, et cetera. Which is not a very January thing to do, but needs must boglets.

We do, however, think you’ll find that it’s been worth it, we have a bumper News edition to share with you today. Including a very special guest Garm of the Week from the incredible clothing dealer Harriet Vogeler, and a mini interview with Rat Section about their amazing music video which came out last week (scroll to the end if ur too impatient to wait).

We were in Paris for a sec and truly thought that we’d be so inspired that we’d blog about it in the spirit of the mid-century monthly – think, like, a 1950s ‘Paris correspondent’ kinda vibe. We ended up not doing that because we actually spent the whole time catching up with friends, and missed almost all the fashion. Which is how it should be, non?

We did, however, manage to visit a few non-fashion shows which were mostly quite good, with one notable exception that was maybe the worst exhibition we’ve ever been to. And, we assure you, we’ve been to many bad ones!!! We were actually going to write about it in this edition (sorry the dek is kinda misleading) but we think it deserves its own post, so in honour of this truly shit exhibition, we will be sending out our inaugural ‘Bad Exhibition Review’ very soon…… Keep your eyes peeled……………….

As for stuff to do in the next couple of weeks, we’re thin on the ground for stuff to suggest because we’ve been so fkn busy, but gonna be making a stop through at the Perfect Lives takeover of House of Music at the Serpentine tomorrow. We also wish we could make it to the opening of Solomon Garçon’s exhibition at the Kunstveiren Dusseldorf with Taylor Thoroski, Paride Maria Calvia and Precious Renee Tucker (what a lineup omfg); and a Rick Owens furniture exhibition in London is on for a millisecond more. Plus all the cool shit at Condo (like the Women’s History Museum show @ Soft Opening!) Oh, and we will soon be paying a visit to this amazing looking exhibition about ‘war craft’ aka trench art before and after the trenches of wwi.

It’s funny, though, cos you’d think with all these think pieces and podcasts and exhibitions happening about ‘the human side of conflict’ and military dress entering civilian fashion and how everything is the military *all the time* bla bla yada yada there would be a bit more of a move to push for actual demilitarisation amongst the curators and podcasters who are analysing all this. But, we’ve been observing that there are too few commentators in this space who are actively antiwar…. Apart from this small reading group we are deeply sad to have missed (ty for the tip rosie). Interesting, huh? Food for thought.

Speaking of militarised fashion, we have a *really* good garm for you this week from Harriet Vogeler, a clothing dealer we’ve been obsessed with for a while. We must keep how we met a secret, but we’ve been voyeuristically keeping an eye on all the cool stuff she posts on IG for over a year, which eventually culminated in finding out about this week’s garm! Our longtime dream of a bog collab has finally come true <3

In a 1969 edition of American Fabrics and Fashions, designer John Carr Doughty presents a line of garments as a speculative fashion forecast for the year 2000, made using a new technique that links paillettes into knitwear. Hole-punched plates of wood laminate, leather, mirror, metal, titanium and carbon fibre plastic, are all part of the catalogue of materials in development at his knitting mill.

The article reimagines knitwear as a flexible protective system, designed for deflecting violence, with scale arrangements that borrow and aestheticise both medieval and military design concepts for defensive gear; hard plates inserted into, and shells worn over, clothing that could be removed, replaced and repositioned.

Doughty’s knitted armour seems to trade on the structural threats associated with Cold War tensions and post-war unrest, and markets it as a piece of engineered hardware made to protect bodies under hostile conditions. As much as this helps to affirm the garments usefulness, the sensible appearance also adding a layer of technical legitimacy, it calls attention to the practicality of tiled knitwear; how the mechanics of it might affect and restrict movement – plates overlapping and locking – and the feel and weight of wearing metal.

Perhaps for this reason, other applications of this plating technology are decisively high fashion, with evening dresses (similar to those of Paco Rabanne, who famously based his initial metallic designs on the protective structure of a butchers apron) that take the same paillettes into a space-age, pop-futurist, utopia. These corresponding pieces recast the knitwear from tactical-utility to fantasy-fashion, demonstrating the work of the magazine caption in contextualising these garments and how, in turn, it would be possible to reproduce the same armoured looks to a very different effect.

It is in this way, for example, the toughness of armour connects with the glossy mirror-ball finish and mutates into something campy and queer-coded – read: homo-futurism, proto-fetish – that the garment’s appropriative potential deepens. The differences in how this garment is worn, for and against Doughty’s objectives, sets out the complexities and appeal of an object that at once refers back to the past, articulates the present moment, and anticipates the future.

— Harrier Vogeler

Cuba’s probably gonna be invaded in like a week but their shitposting is rly keeping our spirits up. Any time we feel a little bit sad we watch this. Because it’s, like, even though everything is continuing to go to shit, THIS is the spirit we need to keep going. Thank u to the intern at the Cuban embassy who made this <3

We’ve been obsessed with ‘things I racked’ for a while. They just post about stuff they’ve ‘stolen’ which feels both incredibly poignant, as well as wonderfully spirited. Also for legal purposes we, do not condone shoplifting either (yes, we know you are watching mr. p*l*ntir and you won’t get us that easy!) but we do think we should get more invested in normalising shoplifting clothes. Purely for style’s sake, of course.

We hate to admit it but we actually think a lot of music videos are really boring. But Rat Section always has a really simple, clever, funny idea that makes us feel excited. Their latest video for ‘daj mi’ is so fab, and we loved the video so much, we thought we should ask the Rats some questions about it.

Why did you film yourself walking?

The song is about walking but it’s also a love song since ‘walking with someone’ in Polish means to be going out with someone. We were in Japan at the time and we were really into their colourful, patterned flooring on the trains so we decided to make use of that.

I recognise some of those floors. Can you tell me where you shot all of them?

A lot of them were shot in Japan, on the streets, trains and train stations. There are some shots from London too and from the plane.

I think the floor is such an underrated part of our visual and architectural experience. Do you?

We agree! More focus should be placed on floors and ceilings. It can actually be stressful to consciously look at the floor sometimes. You try to talk to some people and they’re always finding money on the floor. Floors in Japan felt much more fun to look at, but maybe it’s a familiarity thing. One of the shots is from Oval station and we wonder how many people disregard or don’t see the floor design there as it is part of their everyday. Maybe some people travel from Japan and find London floors really interesting. There’s a possibility you pay attention to floors if you are in new places but if it’s part of your daily life you maybe are just on your phone or looking out for dog shit.

Your music videos are always so good at capturing these really everyday experiences, and turning them into vignettes of heightened experience. What do you think it is about these oft-mundane, unnoticed parts of daily life in the city that you’re interested in?

We never really thought about it too much but it’s true. The music videos we have put out are all set in public and in a city context but it just made sense with the songs. The video for ‘Chuggus’ was made by our friend Carola Derting who staged a lot of performances depicting simple struggles in public and we love them.

Where do you get your shoes from?

Mostly online although one of us has bought a couple of pairs of shoes in a christian bookshop on the Old Kent Road sold with the promise that they would last an eternity.

Admittedly, we have not yet subscribed to the breakdown so we can read this article about data centres being built on bogs in Ireland, so we’re leaving here for posterity. X

Ciao for now!