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Spain

Alexander Wang - Why Balenciaga's New Top Designer Shuns The "Chinese" Label

Is the American-born Wang the Jeremy Lin of the fashion world?

Fashion, Wang style
Fashion, Wang style
By A Guai and Wang Yong

BEIJING - So it’s Alexander Wang after all. The Chinese-American designer has been plucked to take over at Balenciaga as its new artistic director.

Speculation over the last month as to who would be designated by the French company was rife in fashion circles. Women’s Wear Daily claimed that it was going to be the British designer Christopher Kane, after which a long list of names were trotted out by a fervent press including Wang, Joseph Altuzarra, Mary Katrantzou and Pedro Lourenco.

As attention centered around these new names, all seemed to forget about Nicolas Ghesquiere, though it was thanks to him that the doddering brand made it back to the top of the fashion world. Just a few months ago, his Spring-Summer 2013 collection for Balenciaga was the talk of the trendy town. Alas, fashion is a very fickle world indeed.

The biggest concern now is what will Alexander Wang bring to this time-honored Parisian house? Is he going to be like Mark Jacobs who has succeeded in building both his own brand and that of Louis Vuitton? Who will benefit most from the reshuffle, himself or Balenciaga?

A recent post online captures Wang’s design style. In the post, Lindsay Lohan wears a white T-shirt, and readers are asked to guess which designer’s clothes the Hollywood bad girl is wearing.

The answer was given real fast, Alexander Wang. Why? A white shirt is the most basic design piece. Its details can be ever-changing or immutable. But the side pocket that Wang always adds on his white shirt is a sort of personal trademark.

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Fashion's new star, Alexander Wang - Photo: Ed Kavishe

Beyond excelling in this kind of fine processing on details, Wang is also very skilled in the way he treats cashmere. Since he launched his first ready-to-wear collection in New York in 2007, his model-off-duty-look concept has gained recognition. He is convinced that good clothes shouldn’t look good only on the cat-walk, but that they should also be suitable for daily wear.

Though an ethnic Chinese, Alexander Wang is what some refer to as a typical “Banana:” Asian on the outside, Western on the inside. He has Chinese physical features, but doesn’t speak Chinese. Born to Taiwanese-American parents in Los Angeles in 1983 he moved to New York when he was 18 years old to study fashion design at the Parsons New School for Design.

He dropped out in his sophomore year, but by then he had already worked an internship with Marc Jacob and Vogue Magazine and laid down a solid network of contacts in fashion circles.

Not only does Anna Wintour, the famous Vogue editor-in-chief, adore him, but Diane von Furstenberg, the President of the Association of American fashion, gave him mentor-like guidance. This fantastic human network and his own excellent design talent won him, in 2009, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award and, in 2010, the Most Potential Accessory Designer Award.

Just like Jeremy Lin who set off a publicity whirlwind at the NBA, now the Chinese fashion world is also jumping and cheering about an ethnic Chinese designer gaining worldwide recognition.

However, Wang isn’t really so keen on being identified as an “Ethnic Chinese designer.” When I interviewed him last May in Beijing at the opening of his second global flagship store, he felt that he had nothing to do with this concept of being Chinese. “We are doing this in English, right?” he asked anxiously before accepting the interview.

Wang certainly doesn’t hold the idea, like most Chinese designers, that “Chinese elements” ought to be put in the clothes he designs, nor does he adhere to “promoting traditional Chinese culture,” as so often claimed by Chinese designers.

When asked whether or not his ethnic background affects his design, Wang firmly denied it. He put it in a very smart and impeccable way: “ I have lived in New York for more than ten years, but I do not design for New Yorkers. I feel my clients are all world citizens. My design is broader and more sensual. We are a generation linked together through culture, music and experiences -- not background.”

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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