There is a popular myth that Boss designed the uniforms, especially the most iconic black “Allgemeine SS” uniform, but he just manufactured them. It’s probably because today people think of Boss as a designer fashion label, but at the time it was a uniform and workwear factory that wasn’t really in the design business.
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“sequin-encrusted corporate balls” <<<< I had to read that sentence again 
Not to mention George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott, who helped finance Nazi Germany until 1942 when his assets were seized under the Trading With the Enemy Act. Not a captain of industry like Ford but a Nazi supporter 2 generations removed in terms of history.
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Let’s not forget Coco Chanel. Or pretend that anyone in the fashion industry is anything other than a self-serving social climber with sociopathic tendencies.
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Boy, the room just loved it, didn’t they? Looks like he played his part of rowdy trouble-maker well, and everyone got to feel hip and cool by laughing along.
“…a self-serving social climber with sociopathic tendencies.”
Having known a few people who worked in that business as leaders of their respective companies, I’d certainly agree with the first part of your idea. The second part feels a little harsh, given that sociopaths (IANAD) are pretty much the worst of the worst, as in ‘it puts the lotion in the basket’. Or was that some snark that I didn’t catch?
Edit: And let me tack on to the rest–I loved Brand’s acceptance speech and his post-writeup.
That’s a mutant ability? I do the same thing all the time.
X-Men unite!
As @KarlS notes, Hugo Boss himself or even someone under his employ may not have actually designed the iconic uniforms.
But as you suggest, they know that people know they did the Nazi uniforms, and that people think the Nazi uniforms were damn sharp (because they were). The brand’s style (since the late 70’s when it took off as a designer label) is sharp and severe, but trim and elegant. Stuff serious Nazis (and movie villains) with money would wear when out of uniform. They know, and in 1980 or so started designing with that aesthetic in mind.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the style. It’d be just one more otherwise generic thing that the Nazis ruined for everyone (like swastikas, that one lettering style, etc.) if there wasn’t an attempt to reclaim it, so to speak. It’s more than a little absurd that Hugo Boss - without even bothering to rebrand when they had the opportunity - is the company that did it, though, and that the people who buy their clothes seem to be ok with that.
Uh, Venture Capitalists were commies at some point…? Boy, have they changed!
Edit: Ah, VietCong! That explains it.
In his piece in the Guardian Russell Brand said half the audience stopped laughing. He knew he hit a nerve.
If they understood practicality and pragmatism, they wouldn’t be in the Fashion wold.
No, lotion-in-the-basket is psychopaths. Sociopaths are superficially charming and able to navigate society to their own advantage, they’re not chainsaw-wielding cave-dwelling cannibals.
Look, I like Brand and all, but a couple of things have to happen before this actually means anything.
To wit:
- Corporations are, in fact, people. They are not collectives, but individual entities with moral responsibilities.
- Corporations, as individual entities with moral responsibilities, are extraordinarily long-lived.
If 1) is true, then we’re kind of fucked because we’ve created, if not life, then at least golems. If 2) is also true, then we’re sitting in the midst of Bronze-age mystical bullshit reasoning:
…but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:7).
I mean, really: Hugo Boss is dead. As are his flunkies. How does moral responsibility transfer from dead guys to a GQ gala craptacular with Russell Brand in attendance?
If you drill down it’s all a bunch of posturing unless you’re willing to grant reality to some very unpleasant things that mean we should really be killing goats and pouring their blood into broad shallow bronze basins that we then empty onto altars several times a year, very messy.
Which reminds me of Cabin In The Woods, but it’s late and I should shut up now.
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LOL - oh, is that what he said?
Yes he did.
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