"I don't know what word in the English language - I can't find one - applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly stuffed pockets. The word 'evil' doesn't even begin to approach it."
--Noam Chomsky, from a 2018 interview with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
--Aldous Huxley
“That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
--Mary Oliver, from “Long Life: Essays and Other Writings”
“I don’t believe in perfection. I believe in evolution.”
--Dominique Crenn, from "Rebel Chef"
On this last night of January, here is the powerful Ursula K. Le Guin poem, "January Night Prayer."
January Night Prayer
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Bellchimes jangle, freakish wind
Whistles icy out of desert lands
over the mountains. Janus, Lord
of winter and beginnings, riven
and shaken, with two faces,
watcher at the gates of winds and cities,
god of the wakeful:
keep me from coldhanded envy,
and petty anger. Open
my soul to the vast
dark places. Say to me, say again
nothing is taken, only given.
Seems apropos that love dies in an office, among men in suits, where decisions about humans are made in a void outside of humanity. It's "Death of Love" by James Blake, live with the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. From his new album "Trying Times" out on March 13, 2026.
I don't know how we got here
I think we might be sleeping
I think we might be walking
To the death of love
It never seemed so hard
To say what you really mean
When everything you have seen is from above
It's the death of love (death of)
If we're on an island all the time
And it's yours and it is mine
It's the death of love
Is there no good faith?
Is our love misplaced?
I don't know how we got here
But everything feels different
People are losing interest
In the best of love
It never seemed so hard
To say what you really mean
When everything you have seen is from above
It's the death of love (death of)
If we're on an island all the time
And it's yours and it is mine
It's the death of love
Don't leave me behind
Over one bad hour
Sometimes we come back empty handed
Like bees from plastic flowers
We can't follow you where you're going
We can't follow you where you're going
We can't follow you where you're planning to go
To the death of love
I think we might be sleeping
I think we might be walking
To the...
To the death of love
The work of artist Jake Fischer is astonishing. His skill in portraying the way artificial light behaves in darkness is incredible. He shows a realistic element but in a gorgeous, painterly way. And the resulting mood is mysterious, impenetrable.
I can't move on from this lovely, bittersweet song, "Over You" by Chet Faker (the nom de musique of Nick Murphy)...the trembling intro, the subtle layers of unique sounds and instruments. The effect is cumulative. From his forthcoming album "A Love For Strangers," out Feb 13, 2026.
Keep wondering where the time went so fast
Some part of me that never lasts
If you could see what I could see
I'd put your hands all over me
Been running north to south, hard to breathe
What I feel, what I believe
So tell me what you think of me
'Cause I just lost a memory
Gone in places, lost inside my history
And I don't wanna know love if I can't hold it
Someone set me free
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
You said it's over now, don't feel sad
'Cause I don't think this feeling lasts
And soon we'll just be memories
Someone that you used to see
And if you file my name inside your dreams
Remember how we used to sing
You still got the melody
But some things just aren't meant to be
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
I was getting over you
Jon Hopkins has created the soundtrack to a film called "Wilding," a documentary about Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell's pioneering rewilding project at Knepp Estate in England, and the title track is lovely...
Paris Fashion Week wrapped yesterday and before I move on, I want to share a...it can't be called a fashion show, a runway show...it is performance art colliding with the art of costume. Willy Chavarria topped his beautifully heartfelt show last January, seen here, with this incredible concert / Broadway show / runway happening / film presentation for his Fall Winter '26-'27 collection. The showspace is enormous, the music fitting, and the clothes are on extras wandering around this city scene while a relationship plays out to a tragic conclusion. This is the power of art.
Madame Woo's eponymous brand has been officially showing at Paris Fashion Week since 2003 and was the first Korean brand to do so. No small feat. Yet she has always eschewed designs that touch on her culture. She usually sends out collections that feature impeccable suit tailoring, sweeping silhouettes, and Romantic and elegant touches.
But for this Fall Winter '26-'27 collection at Paris Fashion Week, she took inspiration from the golden age of railway travel in the winter. She thought specifically of the Gyeongin Railway Line which opened in 1899, connecting Seoul and Incheon. And these magnificent garments reflect the time period... and even a bit before. The regimental sense of some pieces made me flash on many decades earlier; several models look like they stepped off the set of a film adaptation of "Anna Karenina" (something about it all feels Russian, with long fur coats and exaggerated Cossack hats of fur and knit). There was a definite Dandy spirit at work as well, referencing the second Dandy era of Oscar Wilde, which she delivered in a collection from 2017, seen here.
Regular readers know that I love a sense of historical dress in a designer's collection, and this is truly lovely. I will take any of these pieces, particularly the suits with that very high stance, but I especially love the red 3/4 length coat in Look #12.
It has been quite a while since I have posted anything from Jung Wook-jun's label Juun J. I am not sure why, other than the simple reason that past collections did not move me to posting. But this Fall Winter '26-'27 collection caught my attention.
Like so many other houses and brands this season, both here in Paris as well as Milan, Juun J. gave a strong showing for men's suiting...but of course not traditional suiting. We don't live in a Brooks Brothers world anymore (if any of us ever did). The suit of 2026 is skewed, exaggerated, titled, asymmetrical, embellished with sartorial details from other traditions or eras or grafted onto other garments all together. And Juun J. showed a collection that brought all of that to the runway.
The designer has always been interested in deconstructing classic menswear but this outing shows an almost opposite approach in a literal sense: constructing classic menswear, specifically the tuxedo, in a way that builds it up, inflating it, with larger and larger shapes until these looks feel as though they might be forged from metal or fiberglass. Shiny materials and leather help that illusion. In fact, it reminds me of Bowie's legendary appearance on Saturday Night Live where Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi carried him to his microphone because he could not move in the enormous, PVC-molded suit he wore.
Juun J. explores more options though, showing stiff suits and ruffled shirts in denim as well! And then about three-quarters through, the collection sends up some pattern and color (look at the wild floral tux and matching shirt in Look #17!), concluding with pieces made in collaboration with Alpinestars Reserve (RSRV), a company that produces motorcycle and motocross leathers!
Bed j.w. Ford's founder Shinpei Yamagishi has always created clothing with a sense of elegance, even when they are casual. He is dedicated to the gesture of dressing and has said, "Today’s fashion is based on what celebrities wear. There is no beauty in that lifestyle, and no elegance."
The industry has pivoted hard this January toward men's suiting and tailoring, but taking that classic sense and doing something artful with it. Yamagishi's FW '26-'27 collection shown at Paris Fashion Week certainly had an elevated elegance, not into preciousness but into a realm of peculiar detail and individual style.
"It’s about the romance I feel for clothing. I jumped into the fashion world not for the power or money or authority, but because of the romance," Yamagishi said of this collection. "That’s what I wanted to convey."
Loose cut suits (some based on a smoking jacket) drape down while blanket wraps rakishly flow off to the side, even on less formal looks that included jeans and an orange worker's jumpsuit. A very slim tie with gold chain fringe showed up at the neck but also pinned to lapels. It all feels like following the rules while doing whatever you want...do click on the images to get a better, up-close look at some of these details.
While not part of Paris Fashion Week, British designer John Alexander Skelton showed his Fall Winter '26-'27 collection through a lookbook (which was shot on effigies inspired by scarecrows by the moors around a bonfire) but also at an event in London that sounds amazing. Fashion journalist Liam Hess for Vogue was there and described the scene:
On a cold, dark, drizzly night in London (what other kind of night is there in January?), a steady stream of nattily dressed fashion and art types could be followed heading down the industrial Old Kent Road in the southeast of the city. Turning off down a lamplit cobbled pavement and past an imposing wrought-iron fence, we soon found ourselves inside the Asylum Chapel, the heart of a complex of 19th-century almshouses. It couldn’t have been a better setting for a John Alexander Skelton show, given his distinctive vision of disheveled, lightly Dickensian glamour, working with the most accomplished makers from across the British Isles.
To wit, a masked figure soon wandered out and climbed up to helm the swiveling spotlight, before a second figure—whose voice was recognizable as Ryan Skelton, the designer’s younger brother and regular collaborator on his short films and runway shows—skipped his way to the center banging a drum to begin the show. “Decimate my humanity, hither and thither,” Skelton Jr. chanted with glee, prancing around the space and leering in guests’ faces as he recited a poem he’d written in response to the collection that invited us to travel into another realm. After each burst of activity, he strutted up to a mannequin and ripped off the cloth that covered it, as the spotlight swung to illuminate each one in turn.
Revealed underneath were a series of Skelton’s exquisitely earthy designs: heavy, textural tweed waistcoats in tonal checks; crumpled linen night-shirts and tunics decorated with talismanic jewelry; jackets with their edges frayed into loose tangles of thread; and shirts decorated with higgledy-piggledy block prints and eerie motifs inspired by Celtic deities. (Skelton noted that the Celts have long fascinated him for their tangled history across the entire European continent, and their skills as craftspeople and traders.)
Folding theater into a fashion show runs the risk of going a little am-dram, but in Skelton’s hands, it always feels like the right way to flesh out his world. That charge of something spiritual, or at least something outside of time and place, could also be felt in the film directed by Skelton’s regular collaborator William Waterworth that was projected on the walls throughout. It featured the masked figures cavorting around a crackling bonfire on the top of a moor, as the winds whipped around them: a kind of orgiastic, The Wicker Man–esque ritual set against a backdrop that could be straight out of a Brontë novel. (Come to think of it, someone needs to get Jacob Elordi in a John Alexander Skelton look for the Wuthering Heights press tour.)
As always with Skelton, what grounded everything was the rugged beauty of the clothes, whether the highly desirable printed shirts with those freaky mask-like faces printed on shirts, or the playful proportions of the layered coats and jackets, or the richer color scheme of lilacs and indigos inspired by the Celtic practice of dying clothes with berries. “I didn’t want to recreate this kind of archaic Celtic costume—it was more based on my emotional reaction to it, how I felt about it,” Skelton added. The theatrics of the evening weren’t just about putting on a show, but allowing everyone else to feel the intensity of that emotional response. Even if that did mean we found ourselves a little spooked walking back to the bus stop afterwards.
After Dries Van Noten's emotional retirement from his house after 38 years (see his final collection here), Julian Klausner is now Creative Director. And the FW '26-'27 collection he presented at Paris Fashion Week holds true to the DNA of the house with an emphasis on the mixing of subtle and complicated patterns, along with a mastery of unexpected colors and combinations. But he deliberately brought in the knitwear section of the house, noting that it had been a while since a collection featured knits.
His inspiration for the look of the collection is rather sweet: he was thinking of young men transitioning from home to life on their own in college and what those first new steps look like with a cobbled together (and maybe thrifted?) wardrobe...and putting things together with an eye toward looking "grown up" but still with an exuberance of youth. Klausner said, "In this second men’s collection, I wanted to explore the idea of coming of age. Not in a dramatic or romantic way, but praising the joy of new beginnings. The unfolding of possibilities; the naivety and the honesty of the first experiments with self out of the comfort zone. It’s the idea of coming of age, growing up from being a teenager, exploring the world, leaving the home, taking the things you love with you, hand-me-downs, your granddad’s coats, your childhood blazer."
Indeed, there is an echo of the younger schoolboy here (at a quick glance, the skirts can be confused for schoolboy shorts) but coupled with pieces like pencil coats and neck ties. I adore how 70s this collection looks without actually referencing the 70s. The striped knit shirt in Looks #3 and #4 make me think of shirts I wore that looked just like that...oh, but that was many years ago. Also of note is the mash-up of Faire Isle prints on sweaters, as though four or five different sweaters had been cut up and patched together in vertical sections. And I am entranced by the paper bag pants with a drawstring, shown with a contrasting top section so that it looks as if one is wearing a cummerbund or a peplum attached to the shirt above...see Looks #16, #18, #21, and #22. At the close of the collection, we see the Faire Isle motif return but this time beaded on coats and sweaters in Looks #32 to #35.
And let's take a moment to look at some amazing shoes from this collection...flat lace ups in mock snakeskin and other patterns. I covet each of them.
"Oh, By The Way" is my digital scrap book of things I like, things I would share with a close friend and say: “Oh, by the way, do you know of this artist/ clothing or interior designer/ model/ singer/ actor/ gorgeous man… or, have you seen this video/ photo/ film... or heard (or do you remember) this song/ band... or, read this book/ poem/ inspiring quote... or, visited this place/ museum/ restaurant/ famous building... or, have you heard of this amazing new scientific discovery?”
I am dedicated to posting the positive, the fascinating, the beautiful, the interesting, the moving, and the inspiring and uplifting. Sometimes I post cultural as well as personal observations, milestones, and remembrances. And just like life, all of these things may often have a bit of melancholy or even sadness in them, which is what makes our time here so lovely and bittersweet and precious.
Some of the photos, art, poetry, and prose are my own original work, credited with my initials, JEF. When it isn't, I always try to post links to the original source material, but often I find photos on the web that are not linked or other material that is not sourced. In these instances, I post them without malice since it is assumed that such things, by being globally posted on something as uncontrollable as the internet to begin with, are in the public domain. If you identify the source of an image that is not linked, please politely let me know (without accusing me of theft) and I will be happy to provide a link. If you are the owner of an image and would prefer it be removed, I am happy to do that as well.
I hope to inspire and entertain my readers with things that inspire and entertain me. There is a startling amount of beauty and creativity in the world and it enriches us all to participate in it.
All-time Favorite Films
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
After Hours (Hysterical, hair-raising ride through NYC at night)
Amelie
American Beauty (Alan Ball)
Baraka (Stunning, transcending—the "spiritus mundi" on film)
Belle et Bete (Cocteau)
Big Sleep, The (The epitome of film noir)
Bringing Up Baby (Hepburn & Grant—the epitome of screwball comedy)
Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, The (Greenaway)
Crash (Cronenberg—DIFFICULT subject, not for everyone)
Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg—ultimate modern gothic horror)
Drowning By Numbers (Greenaway)
Easy Rider
Edward II (Derek Jarman)
Erendira (From magic realist Marquez’ brilliant short story)
Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick's last film)
Fearless (Jeff Bridges—life and death)
Funny Bones (Leslie Caron, Jerry Lewis, and the brilliant Lee Evans)
Holiday (Hepburn & Grant)
Howard’s End (The ultimate statement of the unfairness of class systems)
