Native sons.

This is a really interesting post about the recent resurgence in faux-Native American fabrics and patterns, and the resentment it’s created:

Many Native Americans are less than thrilled that this so-called “native look” is trendy right now. The company that’s stirred up the most controversy so far is Urban Outfitters, which offered a “Navajo” line this fall (items included the “Navajo Hipster Panty” and “Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask”) before the Navajo Nation sent the company a cease and desist order that forced it to rename its products. Forever 21 and designer Isabel Marant also missed the memo that the tribe has a trademark on its name; thanks to the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts act of 1990, it’s illegal to claim a product is made by a Native American when it is not.

“The problem,” says Jessica R. Metcalfe, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa and doctor of Native American studies who teaches at Arizona State University and blogs about Native American fashion designers at Beyond Buckskin, “is that they’re putting it out there as ‘This is the native,’ or ‘This is native-inspired’. So now you have non-native people representing us in mainstream culture. That, of course, gets tiring, because this has been happening since the good old days of the Hollywood Western in the 1930s and ’40s, where they hired non-native actors and dressed them up essentially in redface.

“The issue now is not only who gets to represent Native Americans,” Metcalfe says, “but also who gets to profit.”

It’s fascinating, especially since I had only the vaguest knowledge of Pendleton blankets:

“From the beginning Pendleton marketed the blankets to various native communities, but the designs themselves are not authentic,” says Bramlett, a founding member of the Vintage Fashion Guild. “What’s ironic is that the Navajo were making blankets for the white tourist trade, and Pendleton was making blankets to sell to the native communities. That’s kind of a weird twist, but that’s the way it was.

“And the Navajo designs were not even traditional designs,” she continues. “A lot of the motifs that they used were Mexican inspired. Or when traders came to them with oriental rugs, they’d use them as inspiration. So there are oriental motifs in some Navajo weavings, too. It’s just a crazy cross-cultural mix any way you look at it. You’ve got the Pendleton blankets which are a mixture of native and non-native colors and motifs. Then you’ve got the Navajo blankets, which are the same way.”

Via PTO.

Linkwad.

• The Situation’s sublimely awful new tuxedo line, “Down to Formal.” Via the Silentist.
• If you haven’t seen the Onion’s Steve Jobs obituary, you should rectify that error immediately.
• A profile of Clipper City founder Hugh Sisson.
• The coolest use of popsicle sticks ever, via Colossal.

Hipstamatic.

Thought Catalogue tears into style blogs:

What the hell are these people doing? I’m sorry, but a 50-year-old Asian man wearing a Paul Smith suit, a denim jacket, a mink stole, a Louis Vuitton backpack, Air Force Ones, and shutter shades — WHERE IS HE GOING? Does he work at an accounting firm run by Kanye West and a 10-year-old girl? Is he late for an appointment with Willy Wonka at the World Bank? Seriously, this man had one thing and one thing alone on his agenda that day: Stand awkwardly on the corner of the street, smoke a cigarette, and wait for people to come take his picture.

Feed the beast.

Because it’s n+1, this article about Forever 21 and fast fashion is really more about social networking:

Clothes reach stores with practically unspoiled semiotic potential, and consumers are invited to be expressive rather than imitative with the goods, to participate more directly in fashion. We become the meaning makers, enchanting ordinary cardigans and anoraks with a symbolic significance that has only a tenuous relationship to the material item. … Our identity can never be so strong as to render any particular gesture negligible; it is cumulative at the same time that it is totally discontinuous. This has the effect of allowing everything we do to seem either significant or irrelevant, depending on which view suits our needs. … Social-media companies don’t facilitate community any more than fast-fashion companies elevate style; they cater to the fantasy of being a celebrity, the impossible dream of a mass audience for everyone.

Linkwad.

“Capitalism: God’s way of determining who is smart, and who is poor.”

1. I want a print-quality version of the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness [Update: The Internet provides!]. NBC, get on it–you owe us for Outsourced. I only saw the pilot, but it was one of the worst half-hours of my life. So naturally, the show’s a hit.
2. I also loved An Idiot Abroad, Ricky Gervais’ “travelogue” re-airing on the Science Channel (From the article’s comments: apparently, the Science version is sanitized. I’d suggest finding the original Sky1 version.). The show sends The Ricky Gervais Show‘s Karl Pilkington to the New Seven Wonders of the World, taking Gervaisian care to make him miserable. The deleted scenes are also worth checking out.
3. I also want one of these Zzz records tees.
4. Flava Flav: still fucking retarded, via @bengmark.
5. The story of the Soloflex exercise machine involves time in a Colombian prison, assassins, and “the largest load of pot in history.”
6. The largest camera obscura ever (probably), via Giz.