Time’s Nod to Street Luxury

Agenda Inc recently pointed out that three luxury players, including Karl Lagerfeld, made Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world this year.

Why Karl? It appears that between brunches with his boy toy posse, Lagerfeld has been turning fashion on its head.

According to profiler Zaha Hadid, designer of the Chanel Mobile Pavilion, “the initial context of his work demanded a kind of radicalism. Before Karl, we all looked to couture for inspiration and direction. Now, through his work, fashion originates from the street, the media—anywhere.” Thus Lagerfeld has contributed to the health of the often incestuous fashion industry. Its former tendency towards self-reference and regurgitated repetition brought to mind inbred royalty—a dumbed down pastiche.

It must have been a risk: would “low” culture translate to high? It seems it certainly has. This reverse aspiration has fueled the mad popularity of Marc Jacobs’ Amsterdam arthouse grunge to Patricia Field’s hi-lo pairings and Heatherette’s outrageous neo rave punk.

This street-sourcing approach can also be seen in another of Time’s selections, Takashi Murakami. The Japanese pop artist is behind some of the most inventive, whimsical art of this century, inspiring pop culture icons from Marc Jacobs to Kanye West. For Jacobs, Murakami transformed the iconic Louis Vuitton logo. Another case of popular culture influencing and subverting the staid world of haute couture. This sort of “street luxury” will become increasingly important to an industry overrun by counterfeits, especially in China where Japan is synonymous with cool.

The Time 100