Part 2 of this very interesting interview, for which I was in the audience, finally made it's way from my Ipad to my Morse & Nobel. In the process I learned that I should make this transfer when on WiFi, rather than on the 3G network, because it errs and I have to restart it over and over again. Anyway, I guess I am trying to come up with a valid reason why it took me longer than usually to post Part 2.
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On the positive: it's never "past due" to listen to intelligent people having an intelligent conversation....
Having a blog taught me a lot of things; about me, about others and about the world, because it forced me to research and stand, with confidence, behind my words, and mostly it forced "out" of my head, what would normally be just thoughts, and materialized them into words. It's a fascinating process and I had no idea I would come to love it and need it, as much as I do, now.
Being in a Fashion School I had the opportunity of listening to many designers/fashion actors giving those sort of "open interviews". I actually took a class, every Monday at 5pm, called "Faces and Places in Fashion" . The instructor was a very well connected older lady, who spoke about 5 languages and had spent an entire life time in the fashion realm, on USA and the Continent, as well: Alice Papazian.
She was on the name basis with the entire fashion world, and she brought in the most interesting people. I liked the class so much, that I made my business to keep attending it, even after that semester ended. I would have taken that class every semester if something like that would have been possible. When the course was closed for good I asked about her. I was told she was sick. The class went down, with her.....Here is the proof that no social media, no internet is ever going to replace the human level interaction as well, as connection. That "one-on-one" thing those newer generations are so uncomfortable with.... Remember that saying that we do business with people we know and like? My school was never able to bring back a cluster of fashion luminaries in a whole year, as she did in one semester, every semester....This made me meditate about the importance of human/personal connection and trust....David Woolf, for example, from The Doneger Group, one of the most respected Fashion Forecasting Agencies was her buddy for 30 years, and it came every single semester to gave us heads-up for what it will come in fashion, two years down the road. That's something! The last guest they had, to talk to us about forecasting, I attended to simply find out what was already on sale at retail. So, people are still valuable and ireplaceble! I just had an epiphany!
The funny thing, which worth mentioning here, is that in, now world famous web-site, "Rate my Professor" -www.ratemyprofessor.com - she did very poorly: 1.7 average out of 5. I don't know if it was my maturity, or my cosmopolitan outlook, but I always came to adore exactly the poorly rated teachers and...fill in the black...for the highly rated ones. Maybe because complicated, sophisticated characters are not easily digestible and surely not a mass produced-mass consumed "product".
Here is what some of the students said about professor Papazian :(
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So, here you have it: the one and only, the king of non-conformists, Dries Van Noten, coming for only two short days to NYC to do this rare appearance, live interview, which I was very inspired to recorded it entirely, with my Ipad. This means...yes! there is one more part to come with the accompanied personal remarks:
**This is where the interview took place, one of my beloved places in The City:
