My latest article has been published on Whats Haute. It is a feature on the rising New York designer Anya Ponorvsakya. Read it here http://whatshaute.com/?cat=403
Seth F
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A call to end free labor in the arts
Often times in a particular industry or community a way of operating becomes so entrenched that it is accepted without conscious study of its effects or investigation into its origins. My first exposure to the arts as a commercial concern was in theater. I worked untold hours for no pay, building my resume and sharpening my talents. I violated federal labor laws and O.S.H.A standards daily, and it was all legal or unimportant because I was not an employee but a volunteer. I bought into the idea of, "paying my dues" because everybody else I was competing with did and because those who were teaching me told me it was the way things were.
Now two decades later I am in the arts again, this time as a fashion writer and a stylist. Again I am being told that I must work for free in order to make a living at some undetermined future point. Now however, I have rent, bills, and expenses. Now if I were to buy into the "system" I could very well end up starving, homeless, and in serious medical trouble. I would have a great "book" or a list of credits to show prospective employers if I were lucky enough to survive a New York Winter. Consequently out of the most pressing practicality, I have rejected the idea of working for free to become worthy of pay later on. I have only accepted unpaid assignments if they will result in pay upon the very next job from that employer. Or with my writing, I have been accepting work from magazines that have allowed me to increase my exposure and readership in a dramatic way. My latest writing, "job" with Style-ology will be the last unpaid writing work I ever take.
My constant exposure to requests to work for free and the relentless expectation that it is proper to ask artists of all types to do so has moved me to examine with great depth and angry focus the causes of this phenomenon and the case against it. I have come to three major conclusions:
1. Unknown artistic talent is not valued by our society.
2. The commonly accepted business model in the arts of the expectation of unpaid work is not accepted in any other business.
3. The system perpetuates itself only because the talent allows it.
When push comes to shove, cultures and societies show you what they value by where they put their money. If an entrepreneur opened a restaurant and made it publicly known that she or he did not plan to pay their employees but rather that people should work for her or him because it would be a, "great opportunity to gain exposure and experience", that business would have zero applicants. This would be equally true for virtually any other business. However in creative and artistic pursuits such assumptions are presumed daily. The assumption exists because the holders of the purse strings have learned the same cultural lesson as the prospective employees: dishwashers will not work for free but creative people will. This is a cyclical and cynical loop that reinforces itself. Our culture, however, consistently proves its own thinking to be incorrect by the exorbitant sums it will pay for the works of creative artists who "prove themselves". Our culture has consistently allowed creative people to starve to death or die of illnesses and then posthumously elevated the value of their works to an astronomical level. This is madness of the highest order. We build billion dollar buildings to house artistic creations and routinely pay out millions of dollars to writers, directors and actors. Do we feel it's okay not to offer those starting out minimum wage so they can pay their bills and have a place to live?
The only way to stop this is to band together and refuse to accept it. Do not work for free. Require minimum wage to accept any work from any business. If a business cannot afford to pay someone seven to eight dollars an hour, they need to redo their business plan. If they can afford to and refuse to, then, to be blunt they are ethically repulsive people. We as artists must show our prospective employers that we value ourselves. Can any of us look in the mirror and say, "I am not worth minimum wage"? If you read this and it resonates with you, please circulate it.
Now two decades later I am in the arts again, this time as a fashion writer and a stylist. Again I am being told that I must work for free in order to make a living at some undetermined future point. Now however, I have rent, bills, and expenses. Now if I were to buy into the "system" I could very well end up starving, homeless, and in serious medical trouble. I would have a great "book" or a list of credits to show prospective employers if I were lucky enough to survive a New York Winter. Consequently out of the most pressing practicality, I have rejected the idea of working for free to become worthy of pay later on. I have only accepted unpaid assignments if they will result in pay upon the very next job from that employer. Or with my writing, I have been accepting work from magazines that have allowed me to increase my exposure and readership in a dramatic way. My latest writing, "job" with Style-ology will be the last unpaid writing work I ever take.
My constant exposure to requests to work for free and the relentless expectation that it is proper to ask artists of all types to do so has moved me to examine with great depth and angry focus the causes of this phenomenon and the case against it. I have come to three major conclusions:
1. Unknown artistic talent is not valued by our society.
2. The commonly accepted business model in the arts of the expectation of unpaid work is not accepted in any other business.
3. The system perpetuates itself only because the talent allows it.
When push comes to shove, cultures and societies show you what they value by where they put their money. If an entrepreneur opened a restaurant and made it publicly known that she or he did not plan to pay their employees but rather that people should work for her or him because it would be a, "great opportunity to gain exposure and experience", that business would have zero applicants. This would be equally true for virtually any other business. However in creative and artistic pursuits such assumptions are presumed daily. The assumption exists because the holders of the purse strings have learned the same cultural lesson as the prospective employees: dishwashers will not work for free but creative people will. This is a cyclical and cynical loop that reinforces itself. Our culture, however, consistently proves its own thinking to be incorrect by the exorbitant sums it will pay for the works of creative artists who "prove themselves". Our culture has consistently allowed creative people to starve to death or die of illnesses and then posthumously elevated the value of their works to an astronomical level. This is madness of the highest order. We build billion dollar buildings to house artistic creations and routinely pay out millions of dollars to writers, directors and actors. Do we feel it's okay not to offer those starting out minimum wage so they can pay their bills and have a place to live?
The only way to stop this is to band together and refuse to accept it. Do not work for free. Require minimum wage to accept any work from any business. If a business cannot afford to pay someone seven to eight dollars an hour, they need to redo their business plan. If they can afford to and refuse to, then, to be blunt they are ethically repulsive people. We as artists must show our prospective employers that we value ourselves. Can any of us look in the mirror and say, "I am not worth minimum wage"? If you read this and it resonates with you, please circulate it.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
New article on What's Haute
Dear readers, please check out my latest featured article on What's Haute. It is a review of one of my favorite stores in all of New York City. http://whatshaute.com/?p=1049
Seth F
Seth F
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Trends?!
The time has come my fellow fashionistas to define and decide the fate of trends. The American Heritage Dictionary defines trends in the context of fashion as: current style; vogue. But where do they come from? Are they worth following? There is often an amazing amount of similarity from collection to collection in each season. Often these trends are regional to the respective fashion weeks. In New York, Milan, Paris, Seoul etc... a great deal of similarity in themes of prints or shapes and structures will occur. The same theme will be seen on different garments from different designers, such as in London for the S/S 09 season there was a great deal of tea roses and in Milan we saw a multitude of micro florals. I highly doubt that the designers are meeting in secret to coordinate a conspiracy of style. I suspect that it is the influences of other forces that come to the fore through art, writing, travel and events that cause this parade of similarity. Designers who live in, and work in the same country or region are all exposed to the same media and influences. This creates different, (often very different, which is beautiful), interpretations of the same elements. A few seasons ago it was butterflies, but Valentino's use of them was miles away from McQueen's. So trends come from similar influences which makes them neither good or bad.
Give an artist influences and he makes art, give an industry influences and they make bland copies, this is where it all goes horribly wrong. Did you know that many large commercial design companies use trend forecasting software? They use city forecasting, color forecasting, and general forecasting among others. They spend thousands of dollars trying to figure out what the real artists in fashion are doing and what people with real style are going to wear. They offer consumers that most tempting of fruits; convenience. The bulk of the industry produces poorly made, disturbingly similar, cheap clothes and sells them to stores that are very convenient to shop. The industry is so consumed with what's next that they no longer care about what's good. Innovation and risk have been exorcised out of fashion as if they were evils. There are precious few of influence in style and fashion who encourage men and women to discover and develop their own sense of style.
We arrive then at this, if trends are born of similar influences that inspire designers and it stopped there it would be part of a pleasant organic growth process as styles evolved and changed. But as soon as the giant fashion industry machinery gets a hold of those concepts it grinds all of the life out of them and produces assembly line products which are good for no one involved. So where does that leave you and me as we consider trends? The best way to deal with all fashion is to take what you like and leave the rest. If you feel that some new trend is a good expression of you; wear it. Or better yet tweak it, till it's unique. Best of all, don't follow trends; set them by being fearless and thoughtful in styling your looks.
Give an artist influences and he makes art, give an industry influences and they make bland copies, this is where it all goes horribly wrong. Did you know that many large commercial design companies use trend forecasting software? They use city forecasting, color forecasting, and general forecasting among others. They spend thousands of dollars trying to figure out what the real artists in fashion are doing and what people with real style are going to wear. They offer consumers that most tempting of fruits; convenience. The bulk of the industry produces poorly made, disturbingly similar, cheap clothes and sells them to stores that are very convenient to shop. The industry is so consumed with what's next that they no longer care about what's good. Innovation and risk have been exorcised out of fashion as if they were evils. There are precious few of influence in style and fashion who encourage men and women to discover and develop their own sense of style.
We arrive then at this, if trends are born of similar influences that inspire designers and it stopped there it would be part of a pleasant organic growth process as styles evolved and changed. But as soon as the giant fashion industry machinery gets a hold of those concepts it grinds all of the life out of them and produces assembly line products which are good for no one involved. So where does that leave you and me as we consider trends? The best way to deal with all fashion is to take what you like and leave the rest. If you feel that some new trend is a good expression of you; wear it. Or better yet tweak it, till it's unique. Best of all, don't follow trends; set them by being fearless and thoughtful in styling your looks.
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