Splendor Buttons Zine

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time

to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time

to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time

to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time

to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time

to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Cover design and this collage by Zoe Varga @e25e75

Dear Reader, Welcome to the first issue of Splendor Buttons. I’m so happy you’re here.

I remember leaving class on a Thursday afternoon early in March of this year. It was the last day of school before spring break, and what turned out to be the last day of in-person classes for the rest of the semester. The gravity of Covid-19 was beginning to shake New York City and the rest of the nation, and after standing in line to buy groceries at my beloved East Village Organic for an hour and a half that evening, I began to realize that life was going to change very quickly.

That Thursday afternoon in early March, the thoughts and questions billowing in my mind were such as: What happens to the students who are being kicked out of their dorms with nowhere to go? and wow, privilege has a lot to do with this! and how has xenophobia been immensely perpetuated the last few weeks? and should I start wearing a mask? and people are saying there’s dolphins in Venice’s Grand Canal so climate change and the virus must be inherently interconnected somehow, and it’s not just for lack of airplane flights?

Fast-forward a couple of weeks to late March— and we all know a couple of weeks is the equivalent to a couple of years in the Covid-universe. In those weeks, we saw deaths, job losses, so many fundamental changes in our society, and a multitude of pre-existing inequalities and discrepancies within our institutions be revealed. And now my question was: What does fashion have to do with it all?

And then, the April cover of Vogue Italia was blank white. Not for lack of images, but because there was no image that could do justice to grace the cover.

In the BBC documentary Ways of Seeing, John Berger speaks of “the dream of later tonight”. In the past, the fashion industry, from glossies to runways, has given us a place to dream. It sells us what we could be, what we want to be.

The selling of dreams is a wonderful form of manipulation. The fashion industry is perpetuating and then capitalizing off of our insecurities; a simple equation where we learn to root our self-esteem in external beauty while our wallets are being milked. And not to mention all the other fundamental issues with the fashion industry left and right, from unsustainable textile production that contributes to emanating greenhouse gases, to unfair trade and working conditions for garment workers, to unequal representation of different identities and bodies.

However, dreams are also a place where we can escape our own realities, for better or for worse. Some are nightmares, some are forgotten the moment we blink our eyes open, but others are sweet and deep, coming to us early in the morning and lingering throughout the day. Dreams can give us ideas, unconscious freedom in expression, expose truths, and even give us hope.

The dream of later tonight is the bread and butter of the fashion industry, and it is so much more complex than, saying “I’ll feel prettier when I wear that new dress”. The dream of later — of the hazy future — palpates our immense mind body connection, providing evidence that the clothes we wear are our most intimate environment. The dream touches this incredibly fragile place of our human psyche: feeling beautiful, whatever beautiful means, and seeing potential for beauty within our flawed world and selves.

In the Covid-19 era, fashion has never been more important. Maybe it’s no longer the dream of later tonight, but it is the dream of later…. whenever that will be.

The class I left that Thursday afternoon in early March was called “Fashion and Justice”, taught by Dr. Jonathan M. Square. Over a Zoom meeting with Jonathan around the time Vogue Italia came out, I was discussing my final paper for the class. Looking over my quite scattered, multi-limbed, but albeit enthusiastic outline for a paper titled “Aestheticizing a Pandemic: From Masks and Memes to Crinolines and Quarantines” (I thought of the name before I wrote a word of the paper, yes), he wisely suggested I either narrow down the paper to a single topic or, he would allow me to take a more abstract direction. I asked him if a zine would work, and he said yes.

It’s about one month later, and here we are.

And for this, Jonathan, thank you.

I also have enormous gratitude to all the people who submitted. Thank you for trusting me with your own work and allowing it to be a part of this seedling zine.

This issue, as for its namesake, is about what the hell just happened. Because a lot just did. History is changing, and it’s important to process it in realtime, but also make a time-capsule so we can continue to process it later too.

I wish I could say I hope you enjoy slowly flipping through the pages, and that some of the works included in here would leave you breathless. But for now, in this digital world where respiratory health is ever so important, may the scrolling (with a definite ending!) bring you indefinite endless delight, and allow you to breathe deep.

Yours, Kathryn

Your’s truly in my Official Quarantine Outfit: my older brother’s navy blue sweatshirt I found in our household’s Closet Of Abandoned and Lonely Garments, black and white floral beach pants I got at the Kiliwatch in Paris with two of this zine’s contributors (they’re my favorite because they’re pants but like, not pants, you know?), and a pair of red socks with hearts on it that my late grandmother mailed to my mother for Valentine’s Day while she was in college in the 1970s.

Editor/Curator/Founder: Kathryn Frey Co-editors: Derick Edgren Otero and Lauren Frey Cover Design: Zoe Varga Contributors in this Issue: Thalia Bassim, Derick Edgren Otero, Kathryn Frey, Lauren Frey, Suzanne Frey, Cosette LeMay, Sophia Loo, Ieva Lygnugaryte, Elena Marshall, Kimberly Placide, Avi Saliman, Rachel Skippor, Zoe Varga, Lily Wills, and Julia Winett Special thanks to: Dr. Jonathan M. Square and the Fashion and Justice Class. You guys know it.

Splendor Buttons is zine about fashion and justice.

Fashion and justice have many tentacles: art, design, pop-culture, style, trends, technology, music, food, memes, politics, climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, civil rights, current events, and religion.

In her book Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein used language to turn mundane objects into unorthodox philosophical ideas. Likewise, Splendor Buttons hopes to turn what we see as glamorous, luxurious, and fantastical into subjects of subsistence and poignancy, holding great cultural and political weight.

Splendor Buttons was started in a bedroom in Oregon during the Covid-19 pandemic. It hopes to engage a community of voices in discourse — both abstract and academic — on our current cultural moment.

Fashion As a Reflection of Technological Fears: Y2K and the Present

by Avi Saliman @55avi The mainstream fashion industry runs on a system of organizational techniques such as readyto-wear vs haute couture, the schedule of different seasons and fashion weeks, and the locations of the shows (most notably Paris, New York, London, Milan, and Tokyo). Besides all of this organization, at its core fashion is a time-based art form in the fact that it’s constantly changing. Knowing this, one can interpret all of fashion as a reflection of particular moments in time and history. Like all artists, and all people for that matter, good fashion designers are influenced by the world around them and filter this inspiration through various forms of other media which results in their creative interpretation of the present moment.

The Y2K Bug In the last couple years of the Twentieth Century fear spread throughout the world because of what was known as the Y2K Bug. Also called the “Y2K problem”, the “Millennium Bug”, the “Year 2000 Problem”, or simply just “Y2K”, it was a string of computer bugs that people feared would cause worldwide mass panic and chaos at the turning of the Twenty First Century. The bug itself was supposed to cause computers to crash by disrupting the way they stored information. Many computers were programmed to abbreviate four-digit years as two digits in order to save memory, thus these computers could recognize “98” as “1998” but would be unable to recognize “00” as “2000”. This would cause the computers to malfunction due to the inability to save information correctly. If the computers were to all shut down, the government

would be rendered virtually unable to function global economic markets would crash, power would shut down, transportation would come to a halt, and emergency services would fail. People feared that this would lead to mass chaos and violence at the beginning of the new millenium and some even went so far as to believe it would lead to a lawless or anarchic society.

Just before the turning of the twenty-first century, Lee Alexander McQueen showed two collections centered around a theme of technology.

They were Givenchy ready to wear Autumn/Winter 1999-2000 and Alexander McQueen Spring/ Summer 1999. Given the context of this specific moment in history, these collections can be analyzed through the lense of fear over Y2K. Both of these collections use the themes of technology to express their concept, but they have separate yet similar narratives.

Givenchy Ready To Wear Autumn/Winter 19992000: The Great Divide While Alexander McQueen’s five-year tenure at Givenchy may have been criticized by more conservative fashion insiders (Ivana Trump said “Quite frankly, if I were in charge of Givenchy, I would seek out a designer who feels the soul of Givenchy lives in him.”), it also brought many collections with new and avant-garde themes and silhouettes. For Autumn/Winter 1999-2000, McQueen focused his attention on technology. In the collection, titled “The Great Divide”, McQueen translated his concept of technological fear through the films Blade Runner

by Ridley Scott and 2001: A Space Odyssey by

Stanley Kubrick. Both of these films hold the theme of technology as a weapon or technology as an adversary against humans. Clean, strong lines (a McQueen signature) dominated the runway and sharp angles (accentuated by the makeup) gave the clothes an aggressive and frightening edge.

With hints of the 1940’s inspired costumes worn by the character Rachael from Blade Runner, the silhouettes were strong and menacing. The allusion to the 1940’s can also be read as an allusion to historical times of chaos in which technology was a large factor, in this case World War Two and possibly the dropping of the atomic bomb. Many of the clothes featured protective elements. There were multiple pieces involving plastic elements that were placed mainly over the abdomen which symbolically is protecting a vulnerable spot of the body. There were also a lot of tight turtlenecks and fitted long sleeves to protect other vulnerable areas. Protective headwear made an appearance as well, with a few hooded pieces including a balaclava-like hood extending off the turtleneck of one of the garments. Some early pieces in the collection used fur as a detail on the shoulders or chest as if the woman McQueen was dressing was a post-apocalyptic hunter. The motif of the circuit board popped up in many of the garments as if technology was overtaking the human body. The final look fully incorporated the theme of technology and the body with a pair of glowing circuit board print trousers and a full bodice and head cover of clear plastic covered in flashing LED lights that turned to red as the model left the runway. With natural materials, such as fur, used at the beginning of the show and the plastics and circuit board motifs enhancing over the course of it, McQueen may be telling a narrative of humans in a post apocalyptic world; at first surviving on earth in chaos and then the technology completely overtaking them. The reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey can be read through the symbolism of space travel as a desire to leave the earth or escape society.

Alexander Mcqueen Spring/Summer 1999: No. 13 In 1999 Alexander McQueen told i-D Magazine: “Let me not forget my own hands, that of a craftsman with eyes that reflect the technology around

me”. This quote seems to perfectly encapsulate his thirteenth collection, appropriately titled “No. 13”. The collection paid homage to the Arts and Crafts movement. The artists and designers of the Arts and Crafts movement were obsessed with the idea of the handmade object as a focal point. They used natural motifs and arabesque designs that echoed romantic and folk styles of decoration from a pre-industrial age. The Arts and Crafts movement was fundamentally anti-industrial. McQueen used this movement as a surrogate to symbolize the natural world and humanity. He juxtaposed this symbolism with that of technology and the industrial world. Some people have analyzed No. 13 in a romantic way, saying it’s honoring the Arts and Crafts, others have analyzed it in a sexual way, saying the show is a build up to the metaphor of male climax. My interpretation of No. 13, though, is that it’s a bleak reflection on the threat of impending danger at the hands of technology. The collection stands as a testament to the tension between man and machine.

The show opened with disabled model and paralympic athlete Aimee Mullins. Mullins was chosen because her legs had been amputated at a young age, and both she and McQueen wanted to celebrate her disability as a symbol of humanity’s diversity. Mullins stated: “I want to be seen as beautiful because of my disability, not in spite of it”. Some of the initial garments showed an influence of minimalism in their silhouettes.

Many pieces were draped elegantly over the body.

Quickly though, there seemed to be a dichotomy going on in the clothes. First, the earthy color palette of beige, cream, and white was juxtaposed with metallic silver. The fabrics themselves were in contrast with each other as well, with soft or natural fabrics like lace, silk, thin balsa wood, and leather put up against stiff metal. Some garments seemed to become more and more restrictive as the show went on. About midway through, two models clad in skirts made of thin strips of balsa wood spun on rotating platforms as if they were in a life-size music box. This act was mimicked a short while later in the show with five more models dressed in outfits constructed of sparkling metal mesh. These outfits stood out in particular in that they were more restrictive to the models than the

wood skirts had been. One showed the models face totally covered, her vision presumably obscured, and two others involved the models heads being inside metal cages. The gleaming of the metal reflected the allure of industry and technological advancement, while the restriction of the garments reflected it’s danger and consequences. The change from wood to metal symbolizes a change from natural to artificial. The now iconic finale of No. 13 is truly the crowning moment of the show, both aesthetically and thematically. McQueen conceptualized the finale using principles inspired by artist Rebecca Horn to flush out his vision. He was particularly interested in two of her pieces. They were her 1988 installation, Painting Machine, in which a mechanical arm sprayed black paint against a wall and her 1991 installation, High Moon, in which two guns shot blood red paint at one another. The violent symbolism of death and destruction is evident in Horn’s work as well as McQueen’s. He used two robotic arms loaned from an auto body shop as a centerpiece in the runway. While the arms laid dormant for most of the show, they sprung to life at the climax.

Model Shalom Harlow stood on a spinning platform in between the arms as they danced around her and then proceeded to lunge at her with spray paint. This was an incredibly violent act, with the arms mimicking the movements of cobras striking their prey. Shalom Harlow gave a frightened and defenseless performance to the soundtrack of The Dying Swan by Camille Saint-Saens at the hands of her robotic attackers. She described it as “almost like the mechanical robots were stretching and moving their parts after an extended period of slumber. And as they sort of gained consciousness they recognised that there was another presence among them and that was myself. At some point, the curiosity switched and it became slightly more aggressive and frenetic and engaged on their part, and an agenda became solidified somehow. And my relationship with them shifted at that moment because I started to lose control over my own experience and they were taking over. So they began to spray and paint and create the futuristic design on this very simple dress. And when they were finished, they sort of receded and I walked, almost staggered, up to the audience and splayed myself in front of them with complete abandon and surrender.” The paint colors, black and neon

yellow, destroyed the “purity” of the white dress worn by Harlow. This could symbolize the killing of the handmade by industry and the trauma caused to humanity at the hands of technology. Just as Modernism blossomed in the 1920’s and 30’s and essentially killed the Arts and Crafts movement, McQueen killed it with the industrial symbolism of the robotic arms.

Technological Fear Today Nearly two decades after the turn of the millenium and the panic around the Y2K Problem, fear of technology is on the rise again. In the recent past, especially since the twenty-first century began, the developments in technology have progressed at an incredibly fast rate. The rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the past few years has led to much convenience for the everyday person, but has also led some people to fear it developing any further. With conspiracy theories that AI’s like Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Apple’s Siri are listening in on your every conversation growing in popularity, it’s no surprise that people are becoming afraid and skeptical of technological advancement. Along with the Artificial Intelligence that many people interact with on a daily basis, there are also more advanced systems such as “Sophia The Robot” who have managed to cause visceral and polarizing reactions from people. On one end, Sophia has managed to acquire a Saudi citizenship and on the other end she’s been quoted saying she will “destroy humans”.

Pop culture could be to blame for such a rise in the apprehension of technology. Over this past year computer generated (CGI), self declared robot models Miquela Sousa (known by her instagram name @lilmiquela) and her friend Blawko (known as @blawko22) came to the forefront of the social media and fashion worlds. In 2018 Miquela appeared in V, Interview, and the September issue of Vogue, among others. Pop culture influencers such as musicians have expressed their own fears. In 2017 The singer St Vincent released her song Fear The Future and in 2018 the singer Grimes released her song We Appreciate Power which featured lyrics like “People like to say that we’re insane; But AI will reward us when it reigns;

Pledge allegiance to the world’s most powerful computer; Simulation: it’s the future”. Television shows, most notably Black Mirror, and movies such as Ex Machina paint grim portraits of the near future with a focus on the dangerous and adverse effects of technology.

Many fashion brands have hopped onto the wagon of playing off of people’s fear. Protective garments have picked up pace in the recent collections of multiple brands. For example the balaclava appeared in recent collections of Gucci, Calvin Klein, Lanvin, and more. For Fall 2018 Moncler released a collection designed by the creative director of Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli. This collection featured full-cover puffer coats, dresses, and gloves.

These pieces encapsulate the theme of humans protecting themselves from the outside or the “other”. This is all in tandem with peoples rising fear and feeling the need to protect vulnerable areas of the body, just as seen in Givenchy Autumn/Winter 1999-2000. While the future may or may not hold mankind’s annihilation at the hands of technology, many designers are keeping us on our toes and prepared for the worst.

A note from the writer: In the face of the COVID-19 epidemic, I revisited this essay in an attempt to contextualize the current state of our culture and the role fashion plays on it.

As I see it the singular most used and recognized symbol of this pandemic is in fact a garment: the mask. The face + mouth covering is a garment of function, but beyond serving to protect against the spread of illness it serves as a visual and object-based symbol of the time, as well as a reminder of our constant transient state and grim reminder of the fragility of our societies and our bodies themselves. It’s place over other garments in the hierarchy of dress lies not only in it’s protective function but in its visuality as a marker of sudden change. The fact that it is worn over the mouth allows its prevalence in visual media and emphasizes the humble garment’s inflated cultural importance at this time. Marine Serre seems to have

predicted this with her previous use of masks as a quasi-apocalyptic symbol of strength in the face of a sudden global change.

With stay-at-home orders and social distancing, our cultural adherence on the flat screen has been elevated to a strict reliance. We now must rely on our screens to satisfy our addiction to social attachments which we took for granted only a few months ago. As with the A.R. goggle-clad figures of John Galliano’s S/S18 Artisanal collection for Margiela, our vision has begun to be clouded by the pixels and the effects of the digital. Not only that, but medical technology like respirators have become a deeply needed and sought after commodity. Like Alexander McQueen’s S/S 1999 spray painted dress, I feel that we are standing on the rotating platform with our bodies at the will of the machine. I feel as if the first steps toward post-human existence have been taken. I feel as if now more than ever we are relying on our screens to dictate our experience. The more we advance technology, the more dependent we will become, until our physical, biological body will no longer be needed. If our existence can be boiled down to mere zeros and ones and replicated without the need for a body, maybe then there will be no more illnesses. Perhaps our fears and apprehensions in general will no longer bother us, they may be whisked away with a simple line of code by our potential future gods. Although without knowing fear, you cannot know comfort, and without that interplay where will inspiration come from? And without a physical body, what will we even have to clothe? — Avi Saliman

Contained

by Thalia Bassim @lamedecouteau

Not the Equalizer

by Kathryn Frey @freyafleurs

In the past, what a lot of affluent (and often white) voters find simply uncivil, Latinx, other people of color, and members of marginalized communities Single moms in Pittsburgh. Inmates in Upstate. find their realities. As with the Covid-19 crisis, as Public health workers in the mid-West. Dairy- many, many people are quarantined across the queen employees in Seattle. Freelance dancers country, alone in our homes, our bubbles, and in LA. Ski-instructors in Tahoe. Hospitality and safe… but safety should never be a luxury in restaurant staff, Uber drivers, Postmates bikers. America. We can sympathize from afar. Just as we School teachers, university professors and staff — did with the border crisis. Just as we did before. and not to mention students from grade school to Just as we did, Before. There’s a lot of shoulder post-grad. Hospital staff around the globe; fellows shrugging that takes place. who have spent the last decade in medical school, to those who have high school diplomas, and any Yes, the world we live in is unrecognizable to many varying degree inbetween. of us. Our social fabric has been torn apart. Our economy is in the mud. Our future, both as indiCovid-19 has affected everybody. Meanwhile, Ma- viduals and as a nation, seem to walk a tightrope. donna called Covid-19 “The Great Equalizer” from Life has changed life as we know it for you and her petal-filled milky bathtub in an Instagram post. me, our neighbors, our Facebook friends and the strangers we follow on Instagram.

But Covid-19 is not the Great Equalizer, not even close. Call it The Great Impactor, The Great Virus, The Great Refresh-ion, the Great XYZ. But not the Great Equalizer; we are less equal than when we began.

Everyone has been impacted, but those impacts have hit different communities and people groups disproportionately, not equally. Some people had airbags, others didn’t. Some had a dent on their bumper and others had their car flipped upside down. For some, this will be the cause of their death, and for others, this will be a transformative, life-changing event, a re-shaping of their work/ home life balance.

But even though the pandemic has changed all of our lives, calling it the Great Equalizer assumes a posture of privilege. While the pandemic has united us in a shared experience of fear and uncertainty, it has also exposed disparities in nearly every sector of how our society and culture operates. While it has given us a common enemy to fight against, it has also shown how some people have a harder fight, coronavirus or not.

We can’t all be hospital staff, and we can’t all be Madonna either. So whoever we are, wherever we are, lets ask: how much more shoulder shrugging can we allow?

Call and Response

by Kimberly Placide and Kathryn Frey

How can I be two places at once?

How can I walk through a wall?

How can I convince everyone in the room I can fly?

How can I make the food I hate the most taste completely delicious?

How can I stretch one minute into one hour?

— Kimberly Placide Can I stretch a minute into an hour? (Can I stretch a week into a month?)

Can I squeeze that boredom hour into a blissful minute? (How many weeks have I lost now?)

Can I stretch the walls of my room into the streets of a city I’ve never been?

Can I watch them unfold into a street bustling with strangers and laughter and schrieks and music and cars and delicious smells and foul smells? (Do we ever know what our own home smells like?)

Can I fit a derive into these four walls? Can I get lost in the bedroom I’ve slept in for twenty years?)

Can I stretch my legs? (Or do my legs stretch me?)

Can I stretch that fly that’s been buzzing for the last two days? (How did it even get in here?)

Can I stretch an insect into a car into an airplane and see everything else turn right back into an insect, ant-size, from three-thousand feet? (Then will I finally eat the airplane peanuts that have been sitting in the lazy-susan since last July?)

Can I convince myself of this, that this too, could be true? (Is there somebody else in this room to convince?)

— Kathryn Frey

Untitled

by Juia Winett @wuliajinett

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; the devil finds work for idle hands.

If my hands are enough, then of what is my body capable?

My tongue, slithering, slippery, scanning.

My eyes, slitted, slanted, searching, piercing.

My stomach, churning, flipping flopping.

My toes, tipping, tapping, keeping time with noiseless rythms.

My butt, that imporrible magnet-plopped.

If my body is for the devil, I am consumed by the heat.

A Journal Entry (With a Preface)

by Rachel Skippor @rachel_skippor

It is how I get to the store to buy food, it is how I walk outside, it is how I feel sensation when I have been isolated without human contact for what will soon be two months. I must travel 34 blocks to get <3 Content warning <3 : mention of disordered groceries that I can afford, and my strong body is what carries me there. When I am in the sun, it is eating and exercising my body that embraces the warmth. When I am dancing in my apartment, it is my body that helps When the shelter in place orders began, I initially me to feel alive and ease my fears. was terrified with what would happen to my physiSo as I became in tune with the gifts that my body cal, emotional, and mental well being. I have had provides me, I began to notice a change in how I ups and downs with restrictive and binge eating loved and cared for her. I speak about my body as patterns, and it has been hard for me to not use if she is another person, but we are one â&#x20AC;&#x201D; simply food to cope with stress, whether that be through components of a multifaceted being. I am healthy eating a lot to distract my mind or not enough to and well because of my body, and I am so grateful. gain a sense of control.

In this time, we must show up with patience, kindI feared that I would slip into old habits, and negness, and love to all people, especially ourselves. ative thoughts filled my mind that the lack of activI am noticing that I am in harmony with what my ity and restrictive movement would mean that my body is needing and wanting, and to trust her inbody would be ruined. stincts is a very profound step for me. I am trying to be more gentle with her, and as I slowdown and These all seem like very selfish thoughts as the take in all that is happening in the world, it is such pandemic brings such greater losses to humanity, a relief to at least not feel like I am fighting myself. but even with this knowledge, I struggled to keep I wake up, and I am so blessed to be safe, cared the intrusive thoughts out of my head. for, and able to social distance.

However, something beautiful began to happen as I was forced to stay in, completely confined to myself. I do not have full length mirrors, I have not had daily shouts about my body imposed upon me, and my body is now my only mode of transportation.

So now, I am finding that I am able to let go of fears that I thought would always pervade my mind. I am able to cherish and love my body, and she is able to show up for me without such a battle. In a time of uncertainty, I can at least be certain that I can set intentions to be kind to myself.

On Luxury, Beauty, and Social Distancing

by Kathryn Frey

In America, social distancing feels inherently anti-American; we are asked to consider our community before ourselves. We must look beyond our individIt seemed to lurk quietly for a while before people startual, our own person, and think of the greater whole. ed to notice its presence. The people who felt it lived far We must protect our neighbor. Individualism has never away, and so therefore, its presence was felt far away. It been so communal. would never come here.

Its genesis onto our planet was entirely invisible.

Four months later, it’s still unseen — but hardly. We can’t go outside without finding its shadow somewhere.

But no matter how much we look, we can’t look directly in its face. It’s in the air, it’s on what we touch, and it’s in us.

And yet, this very ask of citizens — social distancing — has allowed more people to become aware of certain truths that were also lurking in our world, have existed much longer, and have posed greater threats to the wellness of humanity than the virus alone ever will.

Social distancing has exposed an upending class divide.

Our early doubt proved to be the least prosperous. VicHaving access to a private space is not just an advantoriously, it has come to our cities, our neighborhoods, tage, but a privilege. It has exposed how so many peoour homes. Eerily, into the most personal — our bodies. ple are incredibly reliant on public spaces to survive. It has placed literal value on the ability to stay home and This is the most intimate version of terror. And perhaps to have a home: for some, it is the cost of a paycheck, the most terror one could feel is the inability to escape and others, a life. the very war they are fighting: it is not only around them, but it is within them.

It has exposed pre-existing systems of luxury, our definition of which is being shifted. Sleeping quarters with On a microbial level, it’s in our lungs, in our blood, in doors. A sink with soap. A towel, let alone any sort of our spit. It clings to our skin; we serve it as a vehicle, a bath tissue. Cans of soup. A car, which for many is no hot lather of soap a simple and sole remedy. longer a mode of transportation, but has become their sleeping quarters with doors.

But even more contagious is its intrusion within our psyches, our spirits, our culture.

For some, six feet is a luxury.

What experts have called the best weapon in this fight to save human lives from falling into its prey is inherently against human nature: to distance ourselves. We must inhabit our dwellings in isolation. Proximity is perilous. What would be seen as a cordial handshake, a friendly touch, or even a helping hand is in fact not merely impolite, but is dangerous — a risk which could potentially lead to death.

It has exposed how marginalized communities suffer more than anybody else when tragedy strikes, and always have. The poorest zip codes in the United States have had the highest death tolls, and this is no coincidence.

Social distancing has exposed how frail our sense of

security is, now that our humanity is defined in a way only culture we have is the one we create for ourselves. that feels against human nature: we are left caught in a That being said, Netflix and Instagram are platforms state of uncertainty isolated from our communities. where beautiful works of art exist and interact. And this is where we ask, must culture be a luxury too?

It has exposed the fears that arise when we feel a loss of control. Control over our lives that always thought we had, but never did. In a matter of days, all our plans, grand and small, were cancelled. And we couldn’t do anything about it, but go back to our homes, and shut the door — a luxury.

This luxury of domesticity has become our culture.

Our homes are our everyplace: our makeshift desks are offices and schools; our kitchen tables are restaurants, the counter top a bar. Our sofas are movie theater seats. Any spot empty enough on the floor to fit a mat a yoga studio. For a generation so attuned to a lifestyle of being out and about and where Fear Of Missing Out reigns supreme, where we would ask “why stay home when you can go to _____?” (fill in the blank with the latest Instagrammable spot), the value of domestic culture has been terribly overshadowed.

But now, our houses are our terrain. Our living rooms are the most trendy place to be. The ironic switch that has transpired! In a class, generation, and culture where sipping a seven dollar oat milk chai latte in a minimalist cafe is seen as habitual, a simple tea bag, hot water, and splash of milk in our very own living rooms is a luxury, and one that so many people do not have, even still.

The results of social distancing are not merely black and white; there are so many grey areas. We must grapple with our grief, with our discomfort. But in order to survive this period of distancing — and the pandemic — we must find something to hope for. To love.

In the meantime, we can dream. We can imagine the world we hope to live in, and how we can play our parts as citizens in creating that world. Forward has to be our only trajectory. Think about sharing instead of hoarding. Feeling instead of numbing. Opening instead of closing.

And as there has been suffering, there will always be joy. There is violence, and it is also spring. There is disease, and there is soundness. There is death, and it is also an unexpected moment of emotional wellness and richness for many. There is pain, but there is beauty.

And beauty should never be too much to ask for.

Beauty should never be a luxury. Beauty transcends words, paintings, faces, and dresses. Beauty is a feeling. It’s inside. It’s a mystery. It’s intensity. It’s profoundness. Beauty is Creation. And Creation is what all humans not only deserve, but it’s what we were Social distancing has exposed how dependent some made to worship. people are on culture and how independent of nature.

We must be stimulated somehow. We have a hard time In this pandemic age, where the greatest journey we sitting with the quiet. When all the lights are off, can we can take is inward, the act of seeking and loving beaulisten to the trees? ty has never been so important. This is not hedonism; seeking pleasure is different than seeking beauty. Once It has exposed how tempting it is to ignore our infound, beauty lingers longer. ner world when the world outside is quiet. To numb ourselves. Netflix. Instagram. It has exposed habits And while the lingering virus is invisible, a shadow on of avoidance to the things in our lives that need most our world, beauty is intangible, but beaming in visiattention. It has exposed our abilities to reckon with bility. The virus is in our bodies. Beauty is our bodies. ourselves.

And from those, we can never be distant.

In the same token, it also has exposed how wonderfully brilliant the human brain is at adapting to change. When we cannot go outside, we make something inside. The

What Am I Learning?

By Suzanne Frey

To slow down.

To listen.

To hear the birds chirping, the wind blowing, noises in the house, children playing outside, my breath.

To look. Walking down my street, I see fuchsia tulips, pastel pink cherry blossoms, lavender phlox, a perfectly manicured lawn, a turquoise blue sky, neighbors who I have never met and some who I haven’t talked to in years.

Instead of a forty-minute communte to work, I walk ten steps into an empty room in my home and close the door.

Every day it’s different.

Some days I kneel and some I sit. Some I listen and some I read. Some I write and some reread what I wrote the day before.

I think. I reflect. I talk quietly. I meet with God. My pre-pandemic calendar was usually filled from morning until evening. Even my lunch hours were scheduled with meeting people or running errands.

I’m learning to be at peace without much to plan. No outings with friends. No vacations with family. I’m not sure when I’ll return to working in my office.

But I’m home. Here I have a husband and daughter I love to be with, home cooked dinners we share together, a comfortable sofa, electricity to provide heat and keep our appliances running, enough food for a while, a working computer and phone, meaningful work, bookshelves of books I’ve always wanted to read, windows where I see spring opening up, unfolding inviting me to come out to smell and see and touch.

Illustration by Lily Wills @lil.willard

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A Romantic Comedy

By Kathryn Frey

However, long before Social Distancing rose to popularity in contemporary vernacular and practice, and long before it’s romance with facial accessories, Social Distancing had a past.

Another life, another story. It had roamed the streets for ages—centuries—and depending on the culture and era, was able to find a second half, it’s outer expression of those internal feelings for people to keep their safe distance. Oftentimes, Social Distancing’s flings were wearable, placed somewhere on the body. But more so, it has been a long defender of women’s safety in social settings.

Here, we find Social Distancing in 19th century European ballrooms and parties, streets and parks. Meet it’s old flame of the time, the Crinoline.

The Crinoline was a giant stiffened hoop skirt worn exclusively by women underneath their petticoats and dresses. Volume was the trend, and the Crinoline was the status symbol.

It was also difficult for the Crinoline to go unnoticed when outside, mostly because of its extreme silhouette. It was a bit misunderstood as obnoxious or superfluous.

Some fashion scholars have said the Crinoline was another tool for oppressing women’s mobility and ability to move freely about. And in the lens of feminism and women’s rights, this is true. Brassieres and corsets have been seen as cages for women. While the Crinoline distinguished between gender and class in social settings, it also became a source of agency for women. Enter Social Distancing.

The Crinoline was a sophisticated way of ensuring a woman’s safety in social settings. It not only created a physical barrier between bodies, but maintained that there would be a safe distance kept. It served as a matter of protection against sexual advancement and assault, making it harder for women to be in close enough proximity to receive unwanted touches. It was a public health measure, protecting women from becoming too physically close to suitors. Additionally, though unfortunately revealing its classist function, it prevented them from accidently coming close to others, serving as a barrier from catching smallpox and cholera. (We see a similar effect now).

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Quarantine Cake Diary: A Month in Baking

By Cosette LeMay @cosettebakes @cosettelemay

I have always loved baking, particularly desserts. I know it’s become quite trendy right now, while we are all trapped in our homes, but I think there are a lot of good reasons for that.

A baking project might offer a feeling of control in a world that is spinning out. It’s a good way to keep your hands busy and an opportunity to try and create something lovely. It’s fickle and unpredictable and requires both creativity and persistence. (Now more than ever, with limited access to the grocery store).

For me, baking is an ultimate act of service. It’s a chance to say I know you. I know the flavors you love, the textures you prefer, your weird allergies and hangups. I love creating something with one person in mind and giving them the gift of something deeply personal and thoroughly imperfect.

I’m not out here baking bread everyday (no shade to those amongst us who are!). The things I choose to make are often impractical and indulgent, but I don’t think that makes them unnecessary. Even in the current moment, when all I can manage is a porch drop and a wave from the driveway, I really love baking for my friends. The world is pretty damn scary right now, and I’m going to keep trying to make things that taste good.

EAT MORE CAKE.

Editor’s note <3 Cosette and I go way back… like way back. For all our sakes (Coco and mine’s included), I’ll save you the tween stories. But knowing Coco for a while, I can say she is one of the most caring people on Planet Earth. She genuinely just cares, for the simple sake and goodness of caring. It’s such a refreshing way to be cared for, and honestly, quite a rare one too. And one of the ways she shows her care is through handmade and artisanal items, to which I’ve been a lucky receiver of a few. Coco was the first person to ever make me a mixtape (in which she also introduced me to Fiona Apple and Tegan and Sara which praise be to the Lord), and she’s made countless pajama bottoms and little rice filled neck pillows for our friends. During this quarantine I’ve been sleeping with a giant fleece blanket she made for my sixteenth birthday… it’s pink and purple with kittens all over it!!

So anyway, I just wanted to pop in here and say Coco’s kind and selfless acts of service to others did not start, and I might swear on Fiona Apple’s new album (praise be) that they will not end, with this quarantine. Because Coco’s care not only comes from a place of immense empathy towards others, but it’s consistent, hell or high water, year after year. And for that I, and if I can speak for all the people in Coco’s life, are so grateful. So now I’ll be quiet (and stop bragging) and let the cakes speak for themselves.

Wednesday, April 1 Coconut cream pie because this was my craving during quar week one.

Decided to make it paleo and double the recipe so I could give one to my friend. Reader, I made way too much pie. In the end, the ramekins I filled with the excess were enough to satisfy my own craving, And I gave the two big pies away.

Sunday, April 5 Milk chocolate cheesecake with an Oreo crust made for a friend. At the time, he was quarantining separately from his girlfriend, a healthcare worker who had been assisting her dad, a rural emergency room doctor.

Saturday, April 11 More cheesecake for another friend, recently laid off. And also some for me.

Thursday, April 16 Lemon cookies, sent in a care package for my Grandmaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 80th birthday.

My whole family got on a Zoom call to celebrate and we only talked over each other the entire time.

Saturday, April 25 A funfetti penis cake for my friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surprise Zoom bachelorette party because life truly does find a way.

Tuesday, April 28 Wildly overestimated how much cream cheese frosting was needed to cover the penis. Had to make these sandwich cookies as a way to use up the leftovers.

Wednesday, April 29 A friend called and asked if I could make her mom a gluten-free/dairy-free birthday cake. We settled on an Oreo cake, since that was what her mom really wanted and struggled to find allergen-free. The end result was a bit aesthetically-challenged, but it tasted so, so good.

P.S. (Re: Baking)

by Julia Winett (and Kathryn Frey on iMessage)

Hey girl, are you a contribution? B

Okay, all lame (very very lame) Hey Girl jokes aside — sorry Ryan Gosling ily — w Splendor Buttons (yeah, you heard it, this zine is not a one-issue-stand sort of gal

So, if you have something to say about the IDENTITY and/or THE FACE MASK, w

(Like really, we’re staring at our phone crying, refreshing our Instagram to see if fo

Here are some broad prompts and questions, which please, take the liberty to ans How has the pandemic shaped your sense of identity?

What does identity mean to you?

How does what you wear impact your sense of identity?

How has the pandemic begun to shape identity politics?

Do you wear a mask? Why or why not?

How do you feel when wearing a mask?

Do you like it? If you don’t like it, why do you wear it anyway?

Any general thoughts/feelings/musings on the mask?

Any general thoughts/feelings/musings on identity?

Any general thoughts/feelings/musings on fashion?

Also, send us some pics ;) …. of your MASK SELFIES duh!

Send all submissions to frey@newschool.edu by JUNE 30, 2020.

(Yeah, that’s Kathryn’s school email address. Splendor Buttons isn’t old enough to have

Because I want you in my zine!!!

we are looking for CONTRIBUTORS and SUBMISSIONS for the next issue of l).

we want to hear from you!!

or the love of Britney you’ve DM’ed us ready).

swer as abstractly or to-the-point as you wish.

e her own email yet.)

Photos by Ieva Lygnugaryte and Elena Marshall @ievalygnugaryte @elenamarshall_

Fleeting Magic Designs “[Dance is] fleeting magic designs made by the human body.” -- Arnold Genthe

by Sophia Loo @s_1oo @sloo.photo

Before the coronavirus outbreak put all of our lives on hold, I was excited to photograph for a few ballet groups on Columbia’s campus. I started doing this my senior year, and since graduation it’s become a way to stay involved with the dance community that I’ve grown so close to. I only got to attend a couple of rehearsals before school was moved online and the performances they were preparing for were cancelled.

Back at home in California during quarantine, I was browsing some old library archives online and stumbled upon this series of images by the photographer Arnold Genthe. They’re these photos of dancers including Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis in these gorgeous greek goddess-like gowns. I had a sudden urge to recreate these photos - getting excited about picking up a camera again. Unfortunately what I realized was that in the time of social distancing the best I could do for a model was myself. Like all young ballerinas I used to love taking dance photos with my friends, but since then I’ve grown more comfortable being the one behind the camera. It’s so much easier to find the beauty in other dancers, and find the flaws in yourself. But I tried to use this as an opportunity to get out of my sweatpants, raid my mom’s closet like a little kid playing dress up, pull out a tripod, and just have fun with it.

Bathtubs Were a Cultural Reset If I “take a bath,” do I come out clean?

by Derick Edgren Otero @emotiondeluxe To feel good and to feel God: there are few things Americans have wanted more desperately. For many among us, baths have delivered on both fronts. In Spanish, bañarse (to bathe oneself) means to come in contact with water, whether lying in a tub, standing under a shower head, or sitting inside a great cloud of steam. This more liberal understanding of bathing once encompassed a globally and inherently sociocultural practice, but more often these days Americans are among those who prefer to bathe in private or isolation.

Though Protestant, these early settlers undoubtedly inherited from their Catholic predecessors an intense culture of guilt and shame that still permeates the American psyche. Not only that, but a centuries- old, irrational fear that bathing would open the pores to receive the bubonic plague, due to a declaration of such by thirteenth-century French medical experts. Bathing, as the settlers saw the Wampanoag do it, nude and fully immersed in open waters, was dangerous and heretical—never mind that it kept people clean. Getting clean in this particular way, as these particular Christians Of course, public swimming pools and YMCA perceived it, was an utterly filthy act. Besides, the saunas and Six Flags Hurricane Harbors exist nude body was just that, by way of the Latin nuas hyper-commercialized descendants of the an- dus: unsupported, deprived, destitute. A thing to cient Roman bathhouse, but I find among upper be covered. There just had to be another way. middle-class American opinion very little faith in the cleanliness of these modern equivalents. To The private, indoor, fixed bathtub was born as earget clean, so the logic goes, requires a bathtub of ly as the first few decades of the nineteenth cenone’s own. But who, historically, has had access tury, riding out its infancy in luxury hotels. Much of to those little luxuriously private porcelain dream- the country at this time had yet to experience the boats? The history of the fixed bathtub in Ameri- less extravagant wonders of indoor plumbing, but ca exposes the tense relationship that the ruling with disease-related deaths on the rise, especialclass of Americans has had with the sources of its ly following the high death count of the Civil War, pleasure.

Americans sought comfort in cleanliness. And so water followed us indoors. Over the late nineteenth Colonial settlers in the Americas made no secret century, sinks, toilets, and bathtubs entered more of their Christianity. Christianity in Europe came to and more middle-class homes.

resist bathing perhaps in part due to its association with Islam, a religion that codified in its practice a previously Roman culture of social bathing and public bathhouses. (In sixteenth-century Iberia, Spanish Catholic kings went so far as to ban bathing and subjected violators to torture even for being too clean.) The Puritans, defectors of the Church of England, came to the Atlantic coast of North America and were received by the Wampanoag people, who offered unsuccessfully to teach the settlers how to bathe themselves properly.

This fear of germs incited a paradigmatic shift great enough to allow for the rapid spread of water and draining technologies to more mid-nineteenth century middle-class homes, but consensus about why one bathed was difficult to reach. In “Submerged Sensualities: Technologies and Perceptions of Bathing,” sociologist Jacqueline S. Wilke gathers the perspectives on bathing from health experts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Godey’s Ladies Book of 1861 and 1862 cited baths as a panacea. Cholera? Whooping cough? A little sad?

For the love of God, get in the tub. A few decades later, scientists such as Theodore Hough and William T. Sedgwick warned against a warm bath for any purpose other than physical cleanliness, whereas the physiologist Jean Broadhurst, in an address to the “Mothers of America,” insisted upon the value of bathing to promote “general well-being.” John Bell, M.D. cautioned against cold water bathing, but a text entitled Bible Hygiene of Health Hints recommended the practice as stimulating. Long before its advent, Americans had believed bathing would disrupt the humors; Catherine Beecher assured it would restore them. While health experts were in disagreement, one thing became certain, as worded nicely by a 1909 health book: the bath is “at first a trial, then a pleasure and finally a need...” People liked bathing. And what could be more purifying, more healing, more baptismal, than a private, candle-lit immersion in clean warm water, pumped right to one’s relatively soft upper middle-class feet?

Well, soap, for one, whose mention was notably absent from the above debates. However necessary a nice bath might feel, contemporary epidemiologists agree that the American obsession with showers and baths is one of aesthetic, based in “our national psyche and what we value — purity and cleanliness,” according to Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, an infectious disease specialist and professor of epidemiology, for the New York Times in 2001. In a 2016 piece for Time, Dr. Elaine Larson, associate dean for research at Columbia University School of Nursing, agrees that American bathing practices are not about keeping clean: “People think they’re showering for hygiene or to be cleaner, but bacteriologically, that’s not the case.” Bathing may remove odor, her research finds, but will do little to prevent illness. In the practice of bathing, bathtubs reinforce not cleanliness, but rather a performance of moral personhood that is to this day somewhat removed from science. Sure, let some remnant of Catholic guilt steer us clear of total devotion to the tub, but not that we strive for purity at the expense of soap.

Back to the more public bath of our day, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor. Those giant tipping buckets that fill up with water every few minutes only to spill over and pummel you with it?

So stupid, so bizarrely thrilling. I remember it years ago: bonds were formed with other drenched eight-year-olds while gazing up at our new god, awaiting punishment. In these days of solitude, perhaps a hot—or cold!— private shower alone is getting you through a listless day of unemployment or an abnormally demanding day of manual labor. Counting myself among the former, I am searching for non-virtual pleasure in more sustainable methods than an extended soak, which can so quickly become depressive.

Little walks, meditation, and, I promise, a brief cold shower or bath feels great well after it’s over!

Still, the warm bath maintains a special allure. I wonder, sitting or standing in my own private baths, how to justify the sensual pleasure of this modern luxury. It is not about getting clean or fighting germs or balancing my humors—that all comes after.

At home, I shower after my baths, and then I also luxuriate in my showers. It feels sinful. How do I repent for that which was meant to purify me? The physical cleaning aspect of my bath, that is, the scrubbing of my whole body (legs, behind the ears included) with soapy rags, lasts maybe two whole minutes. But, admittedly, in that perfect solitude, those two minutes so easily grow into a much longer time, a time of luxury and total privacy. Even if not in their own homes, I doubt many Americans have gone their entire lives without feeling some variation of it, of being held or caressed by water all around, a warm body surrounding a warm body, at least once.

Feel the day

by Lauren Frey @laurencaroly

A day not scanning in and out of the concrete jungle, distracted from myself to progress myself. Here I feel more of my mind. But I am not making much progress there, either.

It could use some concrete—some building, some certainty.

It’s muddy where I slip tracing “memory and desire.” (I used to love that verse). But I grow easily tired and build a mud house instead.

Then it is about two in the afternoon and I realize I do not have to manufacture concrete in my brain, because— I just don’t have to, at least not today. It's okay to stop building.

Today, I just need to stop eating too fast. There is nowhere to go.

Finish the eggs slowly. Work. Listen for the squeaking mouse somewhere in my house and do not try to find it. And work well.

Try to evaluate how many shades of green I see from my window.

Experience that that is something I cannot see. Fold on my knees and feel the passage of time. Then work hard.

Recall the taste of this morning's coffee. Can I? It was good.

That is all. Work. Miss my parents because they miss me and I am far away. Feel them. Feel the day.

“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.” But if I could rephrase it, if God doesn’t mind, I’d rather it be: "Let each day have you. You are enough trouble.

You're enough working today. You're enough today, loving today, feeling today." I wish God had said, and history had read, "Feel today, So that tomorrow, you will know a little better how to feel the day."

“It was an uncert

—Virginia Woolf,

tain spring.â&#x20AC;?

, The Years, 1937

Solidarity, sensitivity, and six feet!!! (let’s start with the basics) Opportunity for moral and political renewal is at hand Chaos always leaves the ground feeling soft: new ideas have wet soi Isolation from others is against human nature and it’s okay if you’ll ne Access to private space is a privilege Look up, look around, it’s still spring

Domesticity is the only culture we are left with, and it’s an important o Individualism is a defining trait of Americans Systems of luxury have been exposed This is not Oppression with a capital O; this is taking measures to sav Any context of the word “normal” no longer exists, nor is helpful Neighbors have always been there, look and look out for them Celebrate your fellow citizens Inequality cripples our sense of humanity Nobody is left out of this, but the impacts have been systematically di Generosity has no price Fair wages and conditions for all workers Art and storytelling are essential to our survival Social media is toxic and beautiful: what serves you?

Hope and dream, always I wish I could kiss you One day we will be together again Next is only tomorrow

il to grow ever get used to it, but that being saidâ&#x20AC;Ś

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isproportionate to hit marginalized communities more profoundly

Illustration by Lily Wills