Tae Kim on Design, Bag Design (Soft Goods) and Abe

"industrial designers like to fix surfaces, they like rigid things they can work with. 
And then fashion designers really aren’t great at understanding space and interaction of volumes. So the soft goods area is trying to get your head around this sort of hybrid of soft versus hard forms and how to make them work together. It’s hard, like it’s one of the hardest design areas to be good in."

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If you could take a step back and say don’t add any cost, don’t use new glamorous material but on your own design ability try to come up with something new. I think that’s when it gets really good.”

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So I could take a Made in America bag and I could just, with no tools I could take it apart and unravel the whole thing. 
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"the Outlier guys are probably one of the best people I’ve ever met who love material design. I’ve known at North Face where there are people who are paid to be experts on materials and –
Tae: ”Abe and Tyler out-passion almost all others…”

Tae: Yeah, it’s the philosophy. By using really common materials and designing it in an interesting way that’s like the key thing I think. 

Some of the Made in America stuff, you could buy them, it’s very expensive and people are down with making in America but the factories here don’t have the technology to make it last for a lifetime.

Ando: And they’re not as passionate as the Outlier guys almost.

Ando: And they’ve worked a lot with Schoeller haven’t they, and a few others and –

Tae: Abe knows so much about materials and it’s because he’s using it, he’s at the factory seeing it and a lot of outdoor designers design everything on the computer."

To me, style is how you treat people and how you inspire people, as well as how you dress. True style breaks down barriers and builds bridges. When I was a young nobody running with another notable rapper’s entourage and crossed paths with JMJ, he was more than personable—he was cool, and made me feel cool. That’s style
- Marc Williamson

Diana Vreeland Movie

No one had a better sense of luxury than coco Chanel

She really had the spirit of the twentieth century

She really understood what women's lives were going to be

That They were going to take subways 

That they were going to walk in the rain.  

Photo on the bridge!!!

A new dress doesn't get you anywhere

It's the life you're living in the dress

She was an extraordinary work of art

Every detail perfect

Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time.

You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes.

1:15 - tonne !!!!!!

Set a deadline

Don't look at competition

Don't get distracted, focus.

Have clear vision of what product should look like a year from now, two years from now

Design is more than the way it looks

It's the way it works on so many different levels

1:16

Our success was by no means instant. We were doing everything ourselves at the time-- mostly active sportswear. It took us at least ten years to find our way. We were kind of fortunate. We started with our knitting machines and found the fabric of the fifties-- knitwear. It really was a field where there was a lot to be discovered.
-Rosita Missoni

"You can wear the same suit from morning to dinner-- but to be really perfectly dressed you cannot keep the same bag. For morning it must be very simple, and for the evening it must be smaller and, if you wish, a little more fancy."
- Dior 1954

"Sporting, practical, and tough, geared toward the modern, mobile lifestyle, geared to city streets, geared to traveling light."
-Bonnie Cashin on her first handbag collection for Coach in 1963
The bags were flat-pack with wide straps and perfect for being flung into the back seat of a car by a go-getting woman on the move. They were closed with strong industrial zippers. One concept was to have several bags layered one over the other.

Cashin's aim was to create a modular wardrobe of clothes that "were simple art forms for living in to be rearranged as mood or activity dictates."

Bags were numered and stamped on the bottom with the Coach seal to validate their provenance.

Ferragamo realized that US methods of mechanized shoe production were the most advanced in the world and wanted to educate himself in its industrial processes.

He set up a business specializing in handmade shoes and repairs for the movie industry.

"Women must be persuaded that luxury shoes need not be painful to walk in; they must be convined that is is possible to wear the most refined and exotic footwear because we know how to design a supportive shoe modeled to the shape of the foot. Elegance and comfort are not incompatible, and whoever maintains the contrary simply doesn't know what he is talking about." To this end, he studied physic, mathematics, and comparable anatomy at the University of Southern California and became an expert on the load-bearing properties of the foot's arch. 
Ferragamo realized that shoes had to be reinforced in that area and began to insert steel rather than the traditional leather shanks or cambrione into his designs for added support. Similarly many of his toe shapes were either overly or subtly rounded during this period so that the foot could stretch and flex.

His daughter recalls, "There was an ambition within my father to know everything he could about feet in order that he be able to them create shoes that would be as close as possible to perfection. Studying the anatomy of feet was no strange thing for him. It was simply part of his desire to be the best at what he did. What he discovered was that deformities of the feet often attributed to hereditary factors were indeed attributable in a large part to poor shoemaking."

The Prada backpack broke the rules of conspicuous consumption with its subtle understatement-- for where were the susual designer logos; the flashy fabrics; the leather, fur, and feathers?
The iconic Prada backpack was modernist, lightweight, fashioned out of cheap industrial material, stamped with a diminutive logo, and presented in austere graphic black.

If this was a bag of lifestyle choice, what sort of lifestyle did it signify for the 1990s consumer?
Minimalist.
The bag became fashion's equivalent of downsizing: a hands-free option for the city nomad; an example of stealth wealth in the midst of a culture suffering from pre-millenium tension.

L.L. Bean was a passionate dear hunter and trout fisherman but grew tired of returning home from the thrill of the chase with blistered feet. His leather boots were waterproof but as the leather hardened when drying they began to chafe his feet. Bean's goal was to design the perfect all-weather hunting boot. "I took a pair of shoe rubbers from the stock on the shelves and had a shoemaker cut out a pair of seven-and-a-half inch tops. The local cobbler stitched them together."

"nothing is so important to your outfit as your footwear. You cannot expect success hunting big game if your feet are not properly dressed."

"At Bean, heritage garments present an interesting balancing act for product managers who want to retain the item's traditional appeal while updating it as better processes or materials become available, or as trends and lifestyles change."

An article in Life magazine described how every item in the catalog has been personally tested by Bean; customers were even invited to try out the waders and fishing rods in a pond adjacent to the store.

Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings, and they will always come back for more.

"nothing is more beautiful than the freedom of the body."
-chanel

Chanel's 2.55 bag was named after the month and year of its release.

The designer first came up with the idea for a practical shoulder bag in 1929 when "sick and tired of holding my handbags and losing them, I stuck a strap on them and wore them slung across by shoulder."
Lagerfeld enlarged the 2.55 bag into attache dimensions and created the female executive's equivalent of the briefcase.

chanel handbag atelier (looks like a laboratory with everyone in white coats!)

burberry

Like many heroic explorers at the beginning of the twentieth century, he was wearing weatherproof Burberry Gabardine. 

Burberry was well known for the invention and innovative use of Gabardine, a porous, triple-proofed cotton cloth, woven from fine compacted Eqyptian threads that were welded closely together. Gabardine was different to the customary rubber or oiled silk used for rainwear because it allowed air to reach the body and so was the perfect material for the manufacture of weatherproof outerwear.

"It resists hot and cold winds, rain or thorns, and forms a splendid top garment for the coldest climates."

In a world in which the whole notion of travel was changing with the advent of the automobile, ocean liner, and airplane, Burberry manufactured a variety of outfits for both men and women. "Lightweight, warm and weatherproof." 

"In his day, motorcars were becoming important, so he pioneered a whole series of clothes for cars that changed the way people dressed." 

An entry in an old catalog reads, "Burberry adapts itself to the exigencies of travel in either closed or open cars and at the same time satisfies every ideal of good taste and distinction."

In 1912 Burberry patented the forerunner to the iconic trench coat, the Tielocken, a weaterproof coat advertised under the title, "The Severest Test. The severest test that a Weatherproof can undergo is a campaign, involving exposure to every kind of weather for months on end and it is under such conditions that the Tielocken Burberry proves itself 'the most effectual safeguard ever invented.' 

The trench coats association with the officer class gave it an elan and heroism that appealed to countless men. Burberry also provided apparel for a whole series of adventurous explorers, skiiers, and aviators.

By the 1920s and 1930s, the popularity of playing and watching sports created a demand for functional, durable clothes with a degree of fashionable style/

cordings

He had decided to set up on his own as a specialist in waterproofed outerwear, such as oiled or rubberized coats and boots that could be bought by gentlemen working in the city to take to their country piles at the weekends or on journeys abroad.
In 1851, a promotion described their Dreadnought waterproof coats and capes as "the best articles ever made up for sportsmen, sailors, and travelers. They will resist the heaviest rain and greatest tropical heat for any length of time, and their durability is equal to their waterproof qualities. Officers and others proceeding in the colonies will find these articles invaluable.

Other items included Sheet India rubber fishing boots, precursors to the rubber Wellington that were "impervious to water and required no dressing to keep them in condition."

"It had the most exquisitely cut jacket. I very shyly tried it on and it was immaculate and stormproof."

bags changing as people's lifestyles change: the story of hermes

As the century progressed and the horse began to be overtaken by more modern forms of transportation, such as the railway and the automobile, the Hermes family realize the company had to adapt in order to survive. The techniques for hand-crafting utilitaian saddle-stitched nosebags and saddlebags were used to make trunks, bags, wallets, and overnight cases that consolidated the company's reputation including the saddlebag inspired by the leather satchels that Argentinian gauchos used to transport their belongings when on horseback.

With the increased possibilities for travel, women needed a larger handbag to carry their personal items for daily use. Bags changed from dainty Edqardian reticules into more sturdy, substantial shapes, and, as shopping became more of a social event, they became a necessity for women who were staying out for longer periods during the day.

Hermes creased a whole series of saddle-stitched bags with elegant, minimalist libes, such as the Bugatti in 1925, a large handbag designed for women who rode in automobiles (it was later renamed the Bolide for legal reasons). Significantly, the Bolide also had a zipper running across the top for ease of closure; Hermes was the first firm to use the toothed zipper in its designs.

The company launched a whole series of luxury items to appeal to the fashionable motoring set, including a range that catered to the latest trend of picknicking. The practice of eating in open air had formerly been associated with the laboring man but with the advent of the automobile it became fashionable to drive to a beautiful spot and eat en plein air.
- Luxe Fashion book