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It’s Time for a Fashion Revolution

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It’s Time for a Fashion Revolution

This year will be a year of seismic change in fashion. That much is a given.

Or actually, it is a given that this will be a year of seismic change in fashion personnel. Starting this month, new designers at eight global brands, including Calvin Klein and Chanel, will be making their runway debuts. As they will at Bottega Veneta, Lanvin, Givenchy, Tom Ford, Alberta Ferretti and Dries Van Noten — with the possibility of more open spots being filled at Fendi, Maison Margiela, Helmut Lang and Carven in the coming months.

Sheesh! Whether that power shift will translate into seismic change in what we wear is a different question.

There has been much speculation as to the source of the turmoil. Much blame has focused on a slowdown in luxury spending (especially in China), as well as global political and economic uncertainty, which has led to a game of Blame the Designer (when in doubt, blame the designer), which led to Change the Designer.

There is a tendency, in such an environment, to play it safe. To fall back into the comfort of a camel coat and assume that what sold well in the past will sell well in the future. To focus on the commercial over the creative.

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This would be a mistake.

It is time for a fashion revolution. The kind of revolution that Coco Chanel created in the 1920s, when she transformed the little black dress, uniform of the serving class, into a status symbol of liberation, apparently causing Paul Poiret to clutch his breast in horror and declare: “What has Chanel invented? Deluxe poverty.” Her clients resembled “little undernourished telegraph clerks,” he sneered.

The kind of revolution that Christian Dior wrought in the postwar era, when he scandalized the world with the New Look, in all its lavishly skirted, wasp-waist glory, inciting riots in the streets against the sheer excess of material. The kind that Yves Saint Laurent ignited during the upheavals of the 1960s, when he adapted the male tuxedo for women, causing Nan Kempner to be cast out of La Côte Basque for the crime of wearing pants.

And the kind that Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons created when she treated darkness and destruction like precious skins as the Cold War collapsed and Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history. Ms. Kawakubo was castigated for promoting “Hiroshima chic,” even as her embrace of the flawed forever shifted ideas about beauty and the body.

Just as, when the millennium turned, Thom Browne was widely mocked for putting grown-up men in short pants (or just plain old shorts) and shrunken jackets. Until those shrink-wrapped gray suits changed not just proportions, but the very meaning of “uniform.”

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Such designs horrified and thrilled in equal measure, but they also rose to the challenge of a changed world and a changing sense of how people dressed — not just at the moment they appeared, but forever after.

Fashion is essentially a story of what the paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge called “punctuated equilibrium,” a theory positing that significant change comes in spurts that interrupt lengthy periods of stability or slow evolution. It’s how we got L.B.D.s, the New Look, pants, the possibilities of destruction.

Out of chaos came creativity. That’s where we are now: at a mass inflection point when the world order is in flux, social mores are shifting, the A.I. era is dawning and it’s not clear how everything will be resolved. The first quarter of the 21st century, with the ascent of streetwear and athleisure, is over. There is a hunger for the defining next.

Hence the outsize reaction to the Maison Margiela couture show last January, when John Galliano, then the house’s designer, offered up a phantasmagorical underworld full of exploding flesh and extraordinary tailoring that was so unlike the current made-for-the-’gram runway that it provoked fits of foot-stomping ecstasy in its audience.

Those clothes were not actually new; they were newly dramatized versions of work Mr. Galliano had done before — throwbacks, with their extreme corsetry and theatricality, to late-20th-century fashion fabulousness. It was the applause more than the actual silhouettes (which haven’t remotely filtered out into the general population) that was telling: the clearly voracious appetite for something that didn’t look or feel like all the things that had come before.

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It was a sign, if any were needed, that the door is wide-open for someone to stop reinventing history and start inventing; to create the thing we didn’t know we wanted, the thing that is impossible to predict, because, by definition, if you can predict it, it isn’t a surprise.

There are designers who are clearly trying: Demna, with his inversion of luxury semiotics at Balenciaga; Jonathan Anderson, with his surreal craftiness at Loewe. These are designers who twist not just items but proportions. Some of their work has jarred the status quo and produced moments of viral indignation (especially Demna, with his haute Ikea bags and eroded sneakers), but as yet, neither has produced a paradigm shift. Wouldn’t that be something to see?

Here’s hoping the new crop tries, that new names and new brains actually make some new clothes, even if at old houses. Thanks to our wildly connected world, the possibilities for one crazy idea of what it means to look modern, to alter the mass sense of self, are almost limitless.

Here’s hoping they seize the moment not to dutifully respect the so-called codes of the house — enough with the codes of the house — but to embrace the abstract ethos of their brands, not the literal shapes from the archives. Not to merely tweak the mold, but to break it and reinvent it. If outrage is the result that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it’s often an outrage when you see something that challenges your ideas of proper dress.

But it’s an outrage with a purpose. And if there is another lesson that history offers, it is that such outrage eventually pays off.

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Until then, it takes courage for executives and backers to withstand the initial backlash and opprobrium; it takes time for the eye, and wardrobe, to adjust. The problem is that time and forbearance are luxuries rarely offered to designers today. If they are to rise to the occasion, if they are to do the unexpected, they must be granted the space and support to do it.

So c’mon, fashion. Surprise us. Enchant us. Shock us. I dare you.

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Comedian Ronny Chieng is thankful he never got a job out of law school

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Comedian Ronny Chieng is thankful he never got a job out of law school

A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: When you’ve watched Ronny Chieng’s comedy, it becomes pretty clear he’s a guy who takes none of his success for granted. He knows life could have turned out differently. What were the odds that a twenty-something Chinese Malaysian guy trying to launch a comedy career after law school in Australia would make it big in America? Whatever the odds were, Ronny Chieng beat them to become one of the biggest names in comedy.

He’s been a regular correspondent on The Daily Show since 2015 and is now a rotating host. He absolutely crushes his role as Jimmy O. Yang’s best friend in the Hulu show Interior Chinatown. And he’s got his third Netflix comedy special out now called Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It, which made me laugh so hard I started recommending it to anyone within earshot.

The comedy in his specials is rooted in personal experience and observation, but this one is especially so. From stories about the challenges and absurdity of IVF to his dad’s death, he weaves in and out of these intimate places in the most hilarious way possible.

Throw in some razor-sharp observations about masculinity and YouTube in the Trump era, and boom! You got yourself an epic comedic journey well worth the ride.

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The trailer for “Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy.”

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This Wild Card interview has been edited for length and clarity. Host Rachel Martin asks guests randomly selected questions from a deck of cards. Tap play above to listen to the full podcast, or read an excerpt below.

Question 1: How do you consciously try to emulate your parents?

Ronny Chieng: I don’t think anything is that impressive. [laughs]

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That’s how I mimic them because they’re not easily impressed by much — but in a good way. So, I think in that way I try to see reality the way they see it, where they’re like, “Oh yeah, this is not that big of a deal. This is not that big of an achievement.” [laughs]

Rachel Martin: I think that would be helpful in your line of work, actually, because there is the risk that things spiral and all of a sudden, you think you’re really awesome.

Chieng: Yeah, yeah. It keeps you working to pursue perfection, right? You never think you’ve achieved it, so it’s good.

Martin: Did that ever cut the other way for you growing up? Like, if you did a thing and you wanted them to be proud of you and they were like, “Hmm?”

Chieng: I don’t know. I don’t think I was that impressive a kid. I didn’t have that many great achievements anyway, so I don’t feel like they wronged me by not being impressed. So, no, I don’t. I was like, “Yeah.” I was like, “You’re right. It’s not that impressive.” [laughs]

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Martin: And do you find that people in your line of work are constantly seeking that kind of affirmation? Do you find yourself falling into that trap?

Chieng: You know, my line of work being stand-up comedy — undoubtedly, we seek affirmation through a crowd response to our jokes, right?

We are looking for a good reaction to a joke, specifically laughter. So, in that way our integrity is compromised.

But we don’t believe in our own marketing. Someone told me, “The best comics think that their material is bad.” And there’s something to that, I think. I don’t know any great comic who’s like, “Oh, my material is the best in the world,” you know?

You’re always looking at other comics and going, “Man, that guy’s really funny. I need to write a better bit,” you know? You never feel like you have the greatest joke in the world. You’re always impressed by someone else’s joke. That’s how I feel, anyway.

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Jimmy O. Yang (left) and Ronny Chieng (R) at the premiere of Hulu's "Interior Chinatown."

Jimmy O. Yang (left) and Ronny Chieng (R) at the premiere of Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown.”

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Question 2: What was a disappointing experience that now feels like a blessing?

Chieng: I couldn’t get a job coming out of law school. My grades were too bad, and I couldn’t get hired. And everyone around me was getting jobs because I went to a very good law school, so everyone around me was these very hyper-competitive type-A people who were getting really good jobs at these big law firms. And I felt a little left out at the time.

But in hindsight, I’m like, “Oh man, I’m so glad I never got hired,” because I think it would have been more difficult for me to quit a job and do comedy. As it was, I just — I didn’t have anything to lose, so I could just do comedy. It wasn’t like I had to pick between comedy and a corporate job. I was just not smart enough like my wife. I went to law school with my wife and she’s like a genius. Her grades are amazing. She got all these job offers. But I couldn’t get a single one.

Martin: So, were your parents disappointed that that didn’t pan out for you?

Chieng: No, they weren’t because I never told them.

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Martin: What do you mean?

Chieng: I didn’t tell them I was doing comedy. They thought I was studying for the bar exam, which I was in fairness. But at that time, I was just doing comedy. And by the time they found out, it was almost too late.

Martin: Wait, that’s awesome. So you just led this separate life — assuming you were in a good enough place that when they found out, they weren’t traumatized. You’re like, “I’m a comedian — and I can pay my rent. So it’s okay?”

Chieng: Yeah. They only found out honestly when I got hired on The Daily Show.

Martin: Wow. Did they know what The Daily Show was?

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Chieng: No, they didn’t know what it was, but after I told them I got hired, they googled it, they found out all about it, they were like, “Oh, you know, this is an important show, this is a very famous show,” and I’m like, “Yeah, I know, I know.”

They kind of trained me to be like, you know, it’s just an opportunity. It doesn’t mean you’re good. [laughs] It just means you have a chance to do something cool, right? Like that’s what it was, so that’s what I took it for. And that’s really what the strength of being on The Daily Show is. Like, more so than fame or whatever, it’s like this opportunity to work with extremely talented people and really become better yourself. Because everyone at that show is so good at their jobs that you don’t want to be the weakest link. And so you lift your game. So, that’s why it’s the best job in comedy. It makes you a better writer, performer, comedian, satirist, you know? That show is — it’s like the Harvard Business School of comedy.

Ronny Chieng on “The Daily Show.”

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Question 3: How have your feelings about death changed over time?

Chieng: Oh, yeah. It’s become more real. It used to be this kind of conceptual abstract, right? And then it’s become very real the last couple of years, seeing it up close. It becoming more real was kind of frightening. I was studying Buddhism recently, and there was this very interesting concept that I’m going to butcher because I’m going to give you the Cliff Notes of it in, like, five seconds. But the idea was something like: we are a different person in every moment, anyway. Our thoughts are different. Our cellular makeup is different in every second, every moment. Meaning — we are different people in every second of every moment anyway. So, the concept of “me” doesn’t really exist because I’m constantly changing anyway.

And so when I die, it doesn’t matter because I never really existed. So that is kind of like the Buddhist answer — one of the Buddhist answers — to that.

Martin: I like that idea. Does that mean that when a person dies, you think that it’s just another transition, or are they gone?

Chieng: I think that, unfortunately, as a person observing someone dying, that person is gone. I’m just talking about me, personally — for me to come to terms with my own mortality. That’s how I view it anyway — that I never really existed. I’m different every moment, so if I go, that’s just another change, right? Dealing with other people, that’s tough. I think that requires a different concept.

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Jets Part Ways With Aaron Rodgers, Moving in 'Different Direction' at Quarterback

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Jets Part Ways With Aaron Rodgers, Moving in 'Different Direction' at Quarterback

Aaron Rodgers
Over And Out In Big Apple
… Jets Part Ways

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New board elects President Trump chair of Kennedy Center

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New board elects President Trump chair of Kennedy Center

Education Artist-In-Residence Mo Willems supervised a 2019 rehearsal at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

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President Trump is the new chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, following through on a promise the president made last week. He posted the following on the social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon.

“President Donald J. Trump was just unanimously elected Chairman of the Board of the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The President stated, “It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!”

Trump was elected by a board that excluded the 18 Democratic appointees purged by the president last week. New board members, according to a statement from the Kennedy Center, include the Vice President’s wife, Usha Vance as well as Susie Wiles, Dan Scavino, Allison Lutnick, Lynda Lomangino, Mindy Levine, Pamela Gross, John Falconetti, Cheri Summerall, Sergio Gor, Emilia May Fanjul, Patricia Duggan and Dana Blumberg.

In a statement sent to NPR marking her departure, former Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter said, in part:

“The goal of the Kennedy Center has been to live up to our namesake, serving as a beacon for the world and ensuring our work reflects America. I depart my position proud of all we accomplished to meet that ambition. From the art on our stages to the students we have impacted in classrooms across America, everything we have done at the Kennedy Center has been about uplifting the human spirit in service of strengthening the culture of our great nation.

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“I have been motivated my whole life by the fundamental values of America – freedom, equality, and a deep belief in the American dream. Core to our American experience is also artistic expression. Artists showcase the range of life’s emotions – the loftiest heights of joy and the depths of grievous despair. They hold a mirror up to the world – reflecting who we are and echoing our stories. The work of artists doesn’t always make us feel comfortable, but it sheds light on the truth.

“Much like our democracy itself, artistic expression must be nurtured, fostered, prioritized, and protected. It is not a passive endeavor; indeed, there is no clearer sign of American democracy at work than our artists, the work they produce, and audiences’ unalienable right to actively participate.”

Trump has boasted about never attending a performance at the country’s national cultural center. He skipped the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018, traditionally attended by sitting presidents. A few of that year’s honorees had vocally criticized his leadership and politics, including the singer Cher and theater artist Lin-Manuel Miranda.

On Monday, a longtime ally, Richard Grenell, was named interim executive director. 

For more than a decade, the Kennedy Center’s board was led by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, who had deferred retirement until next year and told the New York Times that he believed he was on friendly terms with the president. Until recently, the 36-member board was notably bipartisan, with members split equally between Republicans and Democrats. Several had been appointed by President Biden shortly before he stepped down; they included former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and his longtime aide and advisor, Mike Donilon.

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Board members are appointed to six-year terms, and typically, those terms are fulfilled. The Kennedy Center’s leadership addressed the legality of Trump’s actions in a statement on Friday.

“Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the center’s board members,” it said. “There is nothing in the center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.”

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