The File: An Introduction
This page is intended as a platform for culture from a heterodox perspective. It will cover ideas on fashion, style, and the erotic while championing freedom of speech and expression.
Over the past few years fashion media has contracted into a repressive focus on divisions of identity while becoming hostile to diversity of thought. The File rejects that orientation in favor of the approach exemplified by creatives such as Finn MacTaggart and Ayishat Akanbi; writers such as Andrew Sullivan and Conor Friedersdorf; organizations like FIRE; and entrepreneurs like Chloé Valdary. It prizes individuality over community. It embraces a tradition of radical thought originated by William Blake, who believed in creativity as a “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” and the Marquis de Sade, who encouraged those who believe in liberty to shun the dictates of “cold and shabby moralists.” It establishes an exploration of fashion in agreement with George Packer’s assertion that “good writing never comes from the display of virtue.”
