In Style: The high-fashion world was rocked recently when within a week of Raf Simons' departure from Dior, Alber Elbaz left Lanvin. Reports of stresses and pressures on the creative process and the too-quick turnaround for collections has revealed the ragged seams in the lives of couturiers. A few designers have managed to find a balance, as this piece on Rick Owens reveals. I also loved this timely essay in Lapham's Quarterly about the influence of the textile trade in the time of the Crusades on fashion. Are Margaret Thatcher's suits deserving of inclusion in Britain's national collection? The V&A didn't think so.
In School: London's Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design—an institution that reflects the East End's history of furniture and art making—is slated to be relocated by London Metropolitan University. Petitions abound to keep the "Aldgate Bauhaus" and its studio workshops in place and out of developers' hands.
Out of Storage: The Jewish Museum's Masterpieces & Curiosities series continues with a close and myth-breaking look at Alfred Stieglitz's iconic photograph, The Steerage.
On Point: It seems re-reading James Baldwin has never been more potent. Also, this poignant essay on his later life in France.
In Prison: On one of architecture's biggest moral quandaries.
On Film: In New York on November 30? frieze co-editor Dan Fox and I will be discussing depictions of art school on film at this Flaherty NYC event at Anthology Film Archives, curated by Sukhdev Sandhu.
Homepage image: Venus at Her Toilet (detail), by Jan van Kessel the Elder, c. 1650. © Johnny van Haeften Gallery, London/Bridgeman Images; via Lapham’s Quarterly
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