u/Normal-Philosopher-8

This is not the same thing as saying that I LIKE Law Roach, but I do think he’s the correct judge for a show like this today. Not because he’s a good judge of fashion, knows how to sew, or design, but because the world of fashion itself has changed.

For years, now, we’ve seen fewer and fewer competitors come on the show hoping to be a fashion designer in the tradition of a Michael Kors. Think of all of the competitors across all of the years, and only Christian, one of the very earliest competitors, accomplished this. Other competitors and a handful of winners managed some limited success, but PR never could deliver on what it promised - access to sustained lines of credit and real understanding of fashion from securing fabric to the logistics of factory work, shipping, distribution and THEN all of the “fun” work of product placement, marketing and advertising. PR quickly became a place where you could give contestants the “fun” mostly American based option, but there is sooooo much that has to happen before even getting to that point.

What the show did start to offer, and eventually completely became, was a place to showcase and advertise work for an individual client to commission. It’s done really well for contestants here - but Michael Kors didn’t get wealthy for creating looks for Celebrity A, or Athlete B. They became household names by selling upper middle class products in mass production.

Over time, the competitors and producers seem to have realized this. Plenty of people have tried to make different shows offering a more realistic approach (the first season of Making the Cut certainly tried to at least show how fashion is a global enterprise, not something you could do anymore from your garage) but these shows didn’t have the charm and nostalgia the PR earned.

So now you have an industry that isn’t about runways, models, and splashy glossy magazines. But in some ways, we still wish it were, because that’s what we remember. Fashion today is everything about creating a look, not a line. It’s about red carpet photographs, not a fall line. Nina Garcia and her “editorial” take are not as relevant, but customers (including Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks) still are.

25 years ago, people like Michael Kors were the gatekeepers of the fashion industry, and impressing him meant a ticket to advance. But these years, people like Law Roach - the stylists, the dressers - are the gatekeepers. If you impress Law and his counterparts, you gain access.

In my opinion only Joseph MacCrae seems to be an actual fashion designer. He’s rooted into using his own signature in various types of looks and ways. This would be completely understandable to a Michael Kors, but Law Roach isn’t looking for a designer, he’s looking for an outfit. A designer’s signature would quickly look predictable if his client wore it all the time. He’s not creating and curating stores, he’s creating and curating closets.

Viewed this way, the show now makes sense. Who the contestants are, who the mentor is, who the judges are, including Law. But for anyone who is nostalgic for the show in its hey day, it feels mean and sometimes very small. Because it is kind of small, now.

My 15 year old is attending her first Lollapalooza with her dad, and evidently, dads are not the coolest person to hang with! Shocking, I know. But she’s really excited, and I’m wondering if there are any teen hangouts or ways to maybe meet with other teenagers who might also be there with a beloved, but uncool person?

One of my oldest friends died suddenly in Youngstown, OH. We’ve talked to the investigator for her case in the Mahoning County Coroner’s office, and they told us she died of natural causes and as of today, the body had not been picked up by a funeral home. It has been almost a week.

Here is where it gets tricky. She has one brother, but they were estranged. I have not been able to successfully contact her family. She also had no money, so any arrangements will have to be made and paid for by someone else. I’m concerned about the length of time the body is there, and I don’t want her body to be unclaimed.

Is anyone here in this part of Ohio who can give me some idea of a timeline? If her brother is going to handle it, I don’t want to be insensitive. But I know bodies can’t be kept for long before the state/locality steps in. I’m trying to thread a needle, and am just asking for any help that might be offered here, as I am hundreds of miles away, and only want to help my friend for the final time.

A few years ago I did a deep dive into early American settlements, most specifically Jamestown and Plymouth. I believe the show creators are borrowing from these settlements, especially Plymouth, in the creation of Fromville.

When Europeans first came to what is now Massachusetts, they had been blown wildly off course. They all were lost in the most traditional sense. They were also very isolated from everything they used to know, and couldn’t get back. They were in a land they felt was filled with natural and supernatural terrors.

Because a plague, directly linked to European interaction, had wiped out thousands of people, the Plymouth settlers came into a former settlement that still had scattered bones throughout it - the European illnesses had sickened and killed indigenous tribes so quickly, there weren’t enough people left to bury the bodies.

The Europeans felt their landscape was otherwise empty of life, because they saw so few living indigenous. However, there weren’t enough people pits filled with food - we know this had been harvested and stored for future indigenous use, but to the colonists, the food magically appeared for them when they needed it most.

Of course, there were actual people who lived there, but to the colonists they appeared as scary and even monstrous in their ability to blend into the natural landscape. They moved often with deadly accuracy.

There are stories that as the colonists began to die off, they took their bodies and scattered them around their settlement, often giving them defunct and rusted guns yo make them appear as sentries. The official version is that every body was buried. However, some journal entries recorded decades later hint otherwise.

In the Jamestown settlement, cannibalism did occur, so desperate were the colonists. These were communities where there were only a handful of children to start, and many born did not live long. Indeed, these original settlements had death rates unfathomable to us today - greater than 50%.

Most of the show has taken a lighter hand with religion - but magic, talismans, monsters, evil spirits, madness itself were all part and parcel of religious and secular life then.

And even as more Europeans came, often in waves, as when several ships came at once, the cycle of wars with indigenous people, disease, hunger, tremendous loss of life played out again and again and again for decades - even centuries.

Not everyone came here willingly - some were, if course, enslaved Africans, starting in 1619, and indentured servants and former convicts were often brought in, whether they wanted to come or not. Children were often indentured for 21 years in order to provide their parents with freedom. Like those in From, almost all of us in North America are “from” somewhere else. And those who weren’t, survived by hiding and attacking as the cycles went on.

Perhaps the problem with Fromville is that when you forget your history, you are doomed to repeat it.