Reviews of Senli and Frye

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London's shopping scene is the most developed on the planet, beating NYC hands down

This is particularly the case for men, and it is on the low, medium, and high levels and secondhand. Sure, one can get a whole range of fine products in NYC, at a price. For the average fellow, the offerings of London are impossible to rival. One barely need mention the offerings on Jermyn street and Saville Row. Everything a gentleman needs is there and the fashion brands that dominate in the States are generally filtered out. There are shops that cater to the middle level customer like T. M. Lewin and Reiss. Whether he is a fussy traditionalist or a slavish fashionista, there is a good deal of choice. The low level is especially impressive though.Witnessing the London high street makes me wonder why exactly the US fashion retail scene is so weak. Topman provides for the hip young male better than any other chain. River Island, though shity, offers on-trend rags that are simply not available in the States. I hate to praise fast fashion, since we are all hoping it's heading toward its demise as consumers invest in better quality (see the latest issue of Newsweek). Still, the brands in England have been very clever about the whole thing. The amount of selection of shoes from the 10 pound to 1,000 pound levels, with few gaps, is perhaps the most impressive aspect of this. There is everything from Office, to Swear, to the selection in Topman, to Grenson, Barker and C&J.England may not make much, but it is the world's best shopping destination for all income levels.

The Worst Fashion Decade

Of course it always depends on one's own taste. For those who dislike flamboyance and the ridiculous, the 1970s would obviously take the prize. Still, I think the 90s is a good compromise that satisfies both the traditional types and the more adventurous. There were probably fewer people wearing traditional Western attire such as suits than ever before; business casual was at its height toward the end of the decade. The suiting styles that were popular were rather mediocre and it was the heydey of the square-toe shoe. The subcultures were not as dandyish or distinctive as had been previously the case (think grunge).
The current decade is not that bad. In both men's and women's fashion it was marked by something of a resurgence in the desire to dress up and a return to styles of the late 1950s and early 1960s. This was definitely the decade of retro.
What has been trendy in this decade for men? Velvet and tweed jackets, skinny ties and lapels, tapering and slim fit everything, plus brogues, brogues, brogues (and captoes). Worldwide triumphs for: skinny jeans, converse, two-button suits and sport coats, and skinny ties. Much of this is what Styleforum backs. Of course it was all aided by fashion fashion, so the quality was generallly poor.
For women, there was, for the most part, a resurgence of more delicate and ladylike styles. Naturally one could take
I'm talking here about the spirit of the times and the choices of style-chases rather than what people might be wearing in most American towns and cities. Outside of international cities, most people wear the same crap they wore in the nineties, but they are not the people who represent the style of the decade. With communication being what it is, I would content that you have to look at the styles of trend-setters in international hubs throughout the world. They are one group. Then you have the non style-concerned of all countries.

The Ugly Cities of Asia - Any hope of beauty for cities built after 1950?

Clearly, there will be those who find skyscrapers, concrete, and glass to be attractive. I don't. I think Tokyo is ugly and Hong Kong is only helped by its natural setting. The cities of China are ugly as sin outside of the part of Shanghai built by foreigners and the hutong area of Beijing. Visiting Europe again and even Istanbul - not even a fully Western city - and seeing the beauty of the nineteenth architecture, even when it is crumbling, is always a painful reminder of just how unpardonably ugly the cities of Asia are. I suppose they were doomed by the materials used in their traditional architecture. Coming to Europe always depressed because of this.

I wasn't talking so much about why East Asian cities are ugly. There are plenty of reasons ranging from bombing to wood structures, to population pressures. I was more bemoaning the fact and commenting that this reality makes me awfully depressed. This was an emotional comment more than a rational one. Also, if East Asian cities looked more East Asian, they wouldn't be ugly. Hence, I noted that Beijing's inner city is nice (though clearly impractical due to the . The problem is that they are an nearly endlessly repeating city scape of concrete, glass and steel. Even the construction minister of China bemoaned the fact that China was "a land of 1,000 identical cities" in 2007. These are the places that matter in the future.The comment about East Asian cities having more energy is absolutely true though. It's too bad. I wish the beautiful places also had the vitality. I fear the places with the vitality have no hope of becoming beautiful.

I actually think the urban poor - or at least the barbarous ones - are better concealed in Chinese cities than in European ones. My feelings connected to East Asian cities combine elitism masking self-doubt, schadenfreude, and self-pity. While China is quickly coming to dominate the world economically and will soon do so politically, its cities will never be attractive like those of the West. The West may be enervated, but at least it is beautiful. At the same, there is no escape from me from concrete, gray, Asia. Strange to call it gray when demographically Europe is gray and getting grayer.

my father has been recommending all day that we visit the "technology place". I just realized he means the dance club next door.

"nese" -Japanese, chinese, etc. as a term of rasism by western people

That's very amusing. It seems as though these were just ignorant people. They may be very intelligent, but they have not experienced the outside world. That is the problem that causes many of the gripes of foreigners on this forum and elsewhere. Usually these amusing little incidents are not a problem with Chinese. They are more of a problem with peasants anywhere. By peasants I mean people that enjoyed neither comprehensive education nor travel and long-term association with educated people from other cultures.

Of course, I should make the obligatory mention of the Opium War and two centuries of humiliation and an education system that reinforces indignation regarding this history. These factors make provincialism here manifest itself in ways that seem like insecurity and what we love to call an inferiority complex, much as you have described. Generally, more worldly Chinese - particularly those that have received something beyond just technical education abroad - are able to get beyond these vexing little provincialisms.

I will be accused of extreme elitism - a sin that may well rival racism - but I have always argued that the complaints foreigners have about Chinese - all of the misunderstandings - stem largely class rather than race. Here I am suggesting a global class structure and rank in it is not determined only by economic wealth or even gentility. After another generation of being part of the global class structure, these views will be harder and harder to find, at least in cities like Beijing.