In Stores Now: Lohi Journal #4

Are we finally approaching a cultural paradigm shift?

This week, our fourth issue is hitting the stores.

We have gone from publishing quarterly to making it a biannual publication. The reason is that things turn out better when they’re not stressed, when we have more time to select the topics, think of how one article can complement another, creating a coherent whole.

A friend told me recently that he thinks that we live “in the era of ugliness”. He referred to Miuccia Prada, who famously stated that she’s fascinated by ugliness and has deliberately infused the brand with it, as it’s more interesting than beauty.

Prada is a clever business woman with a keen understanding of the zeitgeist, and when she made ugliness one of the core design strategies of her fashion house, she manifested what was happening in the world around her.

Modernity is defined primarily by two things, (high) speed and (large) scale. The faster and the bigger, the better. That’s why McDonalds is a household name and it’s the reason that Shein is the world’s largest fashion brand.

Currently, quality is not as important as getting things done quickly.

This is also why AI has been so romanticized. Many seem to think that it will revolutionize the world, but what it does is that it helps people to not think for themselves.

When machines even write love letters and wedding vows, what’s left of the human experience?

One of the most important books on the market at the moment is the newly published The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna. They expose the AI experiment as the IT bubble of our time, and claim that many AI platforms are just “synthetic text-extruding machines”. AI has not much to do with actual intelligence.

At Lohi, we’ve never used AI (and I doubt we ever will). I’ve seen plenty of old acquaintances and friends, skilled photographers and writers, be replaced by these programmes, as clients are more than happy to spend less by replacing people with machines.

Not to sound like a luddite, but what happens when human creativity is replaced with mindless machines who don’t know what they’re imitating? The world becomes more superficial, especially if people continue to think that this has anything to do with actual intelligence.

In this, our fourth issue, we visited Villa Bled Roknine in the outskirts of Marrakesh, learning about its rich history and important part in the story of Saint Laurent. When Catherine Deneuve posed in the bathtub of the villa, to celebrate the brand’s 40^th anniversary, the fashion industry was very different from what it is today, which became evident through our conversation with Andreas Palm, co-founder and CEO of CDLP.

Fashion is not really fashionable anymore, and many consumers are looking to spend their money on other things. This could be good news for Dusty Deco, whose showroom we visited in Palma earlier this year (you’ll find an interview with co-founder Edin Kjellvertz in the magazine).

I want Lohi to be an inspiring guide to life, giving helpful tips on where to go, what to read, and what to buy, from small things like a new moisturiser or a bottle of wine to a new sofa or a weekend in a place you’ve never thought of visiting before.

Going back to the idea of living in an era of ugliness – what if it’s now time for a paradigm shift, and for us to create a world of beauty?

I hope that Lohi can help lead the way in this shift.