StyleZeitgeist Podcast

Our guest is the award-winning Dutch novelist Oscar van den Boogard, the author of The Six: The Untold Story of the Antwerp Six, an oral history of the origin of one of the most enduring myths of contemporary fashion. Through many hours of conversations with the six legendary Belgian designers, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkimbergs, Dirk Van Saene, and Marina Yee, as well as the contemporarie...

We are back with fashion journalist and critic Philippe Pourhashemi to review the Spring / Summer 2027 men’s season at Pitti Uomo in Florence, Milan Fashion Week(end), and Paris Fashion Week. We talk about why many big fashion houses are starting to look like Acne Studios, our most and least favorite shows, why Lemaire is an exemplary world builder, and conversely why there are so few designers left who built a coherent aesth...

On this episode we host the American artist Banks Violette. While this is not an episode about fashion per se, Violette and StyleZeitgeist have much in common culturally. He has been working for over two decades at the intersection of fine art and youth culture, making compelling work that deals with the dark side of the American society and the counterculture it produces. We talk about growing up in Reagan's America, channeling te...

This special episode of the StyleZeitgeist podcast was recorded live at MoMu, Fashion Museum Antwerp, as part of the opening weekend program for The Antwerp Six exhibition on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their first collective showcase. 

Just like for many fashion enthusiasts, The Antwerp Six loom large in Eugene’s and Philippe’s imagination. On this sprawling episode they talk about how the Six have infl...

We are back with the fashion critic and writer Philippe Pourhashemi to review the Fall / Winter 2026 women’s season. Eugene and Philippe discuss Demna’s runway debut at Gucci, the sophomore outings of Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, J.W. Anderson at Dior, Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford, Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and much more. We talk about the killer collection Daniel Lee presented at Burberry, and offer differing take...

On this episode we speak with Jeppe Ugelvig, the editor of Viscose journal, and a scholar, writer, and curator who works at the intersection of fashion and art. We talk about the fall of the fashion media and why independent media and criticism are paramount if we are to have a thriving fashion ecosystem, the problematic relationship between luxury fashion and its clients, the no less problematic relationship between fashion and ar...

On this episode we discuss the Fall / Winter 2026 season with the journalist Philippe Pourhashemi. We talk about nice clothes versus fashion, the trio of shows at Pitti Uomo, the increasing irrelevance of Milan, about auteurs like Rick Owens and Rei Kawakubo, who all delivered strong collections, why Sacai keeps going from strength to strength, why Dior and Louis Vuitton continue to disappoint, and much more. Eugene and Philippe of...

Intern Pierre (not his real name) is a professional investor who runs an eponymous Substack where he deftly dissects the smoke and mirrors put up by the luxury sector. His specialty is sharing access to privileged, investment grade information that lay people are usually not privy to. On his first ever podcast appearance we discuss the importance of reading a financial statement, on the insolvable paradox of exclusivity and constan...

In this two-part episode Eugene Rabkin and Philippe Pourhashemi discuss this past season of many debuts, whether the so-called "great reset" was successful, and address two main narratives that are gripping the fashion media, the power and tact (or lack thereof) of the sideline fashion commentariat, and whether designers are out of touch with the needs of modern women.

In episode one Eugene and Philippe discuss New York, London, and...

In this two-part episode Eugene Rabkin and Philippe Pourhashemi discuss this past season of many debuts, whether the so-called "great reset" was successful, and address two main narratives that are gripping the fashion media, the power and tact (or lack thereof) of the sideline fashion commentariat, and whether designers are out of touch with the needs of modern women.

In episode one Eugene and Philippe discuss New York, London, and...

Our guest on this episode is Gene Pressman, of the great retail family that made Barneys into a New York fashion institution that has become part of the city lore and that has left an indelible mark on fashion itself. Barneys was a trailblazer, a temple for true fashion cognoscenti. Gene's new book, out September 2nd is called "They All Came to Barneys: A Personal History of the World's Greatest Store." We see no lies; Barneys was ...

Our guest is Patrick Van Ommeslaeghe, one of the most talented Belgian designers you have probably never heard of. We speak about his career arc, from assisting Josephus Thimister at Balenciaga to building out the womenswear at Jil Sander with Raf Simons, to the short but brilliant life of his own brand, why he quite the fashion rat race and has quietly worked behind the scenes at houses like Loewe, and why the current fashion syst...

The Turkish Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan burst onto the London fashion scene with a brilliant 1993 graduate show Tangent Flows. With work that blended philosophy, science, technology, history and fashion, Chalayan became the pinnacle of conceptual fashion. Today, Chalayan designs and makes art, teaches at HTW in Berlin, and is a mentor at Forecast Mentorship Program 2025. In this wide-ranging episode Chalayan we discuss his ca...

We are back with the fashion journalist Philippe Pourhashemi to reflect on the Spring / Summer 2026 menswear season. We discuss many collections, starting at Pitti Uomo in Florence and ending with Paris. We dissect J.W. Anderson's debut at Dior, including the new ad campaign, Julian Klaussner's runway debut at Dries Van Noten, Rick Owens's moment of grandeur, Craig Green's return to the Paris catwalk, how the Japanese continue to m...

On this episode we speak with the German fashion designer Lutz Huelle, who has built a brand with a cult following from scratch. Lutz tells us about growing up in a small German town in the '80s, his friendship with the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, the dream world of the '90s London youth culture and Central Saint-Martins, how he ended up designing the Artisanal and knitwear lines during the golden years of Martin Margiela, and ...

Apologies for the hiatus, but we are back with a bang! On this episode we speak with Patrick Scallon, Paris-based communication consultant who was the head of communications at Maison Martin Margiela from 1993 to 2008 and at Dries Van Noten from 2008 to 2023. In the fashion world Patrick is a legend, having helped shape two of the most iconic independent brands. He was awarded the Chevaliers des Arts et des Lettrés by the French mi...

On this episode we speak with Robert Williams, Luxury Editor at the Business of Fashion. We start with Robert's unique career journey as an American student in Paris (it wasn't like Emily's), before going on to discuss the challenges of maintaining independence in fashion journalism. We explore the evolving landscape of the fashion industry over the past decade, discussing the intersection of fashion and marketing, the challenges f...

On this episode we speak with Emily Segal, the founder of the brand strategy agency Nemesis, publishing house Deluge, and the author of the novel Mercury Retrograde. Emily came to fame in the 2010s as the co-founder of the collective K-Hole, which coined the term "normcore." She went on to work with everyone from Prada to Supreme, and learned a few things along the way, some of which we discuss in this episode. We mostly concentrat...

We are back with Philippe Pourhashemi to review the women’s Fall / Winter 2025 season. We discuss the debuts of Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein, Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford, Sarah Burton at Givenchy, and Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten. We also give our impressions of what is likely to be the last collection of Daniel Lee at Burberry, and dive into the shows of Undercover, Rick Owens, Comme des Garçons and more.

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