Fred Ho retweeted
Interested in multimorbidity, physical activity and muscle strength? Join our fully funded Wellcome Trust PhD for health professionals and work with global cohorts.
Apply: bit.ly/4Aam0xp
Fred Ho retweeted
Why is Tom Holland here less well dressed than the King of Spain?
This is a very good question.
I will give you my perspective.
The King is wearing a bespoke suit made for him by a bespoke tailor. Bespoke means the garment was made from scratch. In this case, a tailor measured the King's body and then used those measurements to produce a custom pattern (the term pattern refers to the garment's architectural blueprint). The garment was then made through an series of three iterative fittings — basted, forward, and final — each stage bringing the garment closer to its final form.
Tom Holland here is wearing a suit from Boss, the premium label of Hugo Boss. The garment here is made using a pattern that the designer and their team developed using a mix of things: an idea of their target market, their idea of style (often influenced by trends), and a fit model (someone who professionally tries clothes on so the designer can see whether something fits). Tom Holland was not involved in any of these stages.
Celebrities often wear things at big events due to a series of backdoor business deals. Sometimes it's as simple as a brand giving them something free to wear. Sometimes they are paid. Sometimes they are working with a stylist who has an agreement with a brand. The key thing is that these are business relationships motivated by profit (the brand is trying to make money through publicity).
This is where Holland comes in. Once the suit arrives to him, it's adjusted much like something you'd have adjusted at a local tailor. But since the garment is already made, you can only do so much.
In this case, the trousers are too slim for his legs, so they crumple below the knee. The jacket is also a bit too short, but dedicated followers of fashion often tell me, "this is the style." (Or, as the French say, à la mode).
More importantly, as the suit travels down this production path — from the designer's head into Holland's hands — it becomes increasingly removed from people with technical skills. True, the alterations tailor is skilled, but they are limited in terms of what they can do. The stylist is not skilled in a technical sense; they are hired to buy clothes and put them on a body.
This isn't to say stylists don't have skills or that they're necessarily bad. Indeed, I think Colman Domingo is among the best-dressed men alive today. Much of his style — although not all — can be chalked up to the fact that he works with some very talented stylists.
But on average, stylists' work is often less convincing than costume designers'. Why so? In my opinion, it's because costume designers are often more technically skilled.
The same is true for the King of Spain. There's no distance between him and the technically skilled person who made this garment — the bespoke tailor is literally laying their hands on his body. No profit motive exists beyond paying the tailor to produce a garment. The tailor's only motivation in this sense is to produce the best garment they can.
In the other instance, the development of ready-to-wear systems has produced a network of intricate profit motives. Here, the brand tries to create desire in consumers by putting its clothes on a famous person. But the garment isn't created specifically for that person — and it follows "la mode." It also travels a path that puts Holland further and further away from the technical people involved in production.
Of course, this is not to say that you will get an equally good outcome by going to a bespoke tailor, as not all bespoke tailors are so skilled. It's also worth noting that many people who are not technically skilled masquerade as tailors. For instance, it's common for business people and salespeople to run made-to-measure shops, where they drape a tailor's measuring tape around their neck. They may even describe their business as "bespoke." But they are not actual tailors, as they don't have any technical skills (they neither cut nor sew). Instead, they send your measurements to a distant factory, where someone who never sees you makes the garment. Thus, the same problem arises.
I'm answering this question partly because I've been thinking about this issue in relation to AI. I suspect AI will do things comparable to the Industrial Revolution: lower production costs and, thus, increase how much you can consume.
But I also suspect that it will lead to some deskilling. If you can generate an illustration with a prompt, there's no reason to spend decades learning how to draw by hand. Perhaps sometime in the future, someone will ask why one drawing looks so much worse than another, and someone will give an explanation similar to what you've read here about tailoring. There are fewer technically skilled people involved in the image you see on the right.
Replying to @dieworkwear
Why is it when I see photos of the king of Spain, his shoulder and arm sillohuete are two straight lines that meet at a point. But Holland, who surely has a professional stylist, appears to have tiny wings at his shoulders.
Surely Holland has been fitted. Is it stance and posture?
Fred Ho retweeted
I’ll admit - i was sceptical about the idea of AI psychosis. Not the specific cases, which were all too believable, but about the scale. How much was this happening? And anyway wouldn’t better models make it go away?
Then I read a paper by Anthropic and the University of Toronto which has strangely received very little attention
Fred Ho retweeted
Congratulations to Dr Zhou on successfully passing her viva on Wednesday - a fantastic achievement! 🎉 @fredho42 @ziyiiizhou
When should we adjust for a covariate in a regression model? My new Methods Primer paper in @BMJMedicine summarised some key principles: bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/…
Fred Ho retweeted
Replying to @fredho42
@fredho42, @_antocannata, & I have been gathering helpful health data science resources and references. What do you think? What are we missing? github.com/jocelynfriday/Use…
#healthdatascience #r #stats #epidemiology
Fred Ho retweeted
New study by @UofGSHW and @UofGSCMH finds overall declines in most types of cardiovascular disease in the west of Scotland.
But the rates of heart failure, stroke and peripheral artery diseases have increased among those aged 51–64 years.
More 👉openheart.bmj.com/content/12…
Fred Ho retweeted
New study in #BMCMedicine by Nakada S. et all @UofGlasgow shows that genetic susceptibility for Cardiovascular Disease #CAD doesn't explain the clustering with #AnxietyDisorder and only partly explains clustering with #Depression.
bit.ly/4hxHhHF
@fredho42 @jill_p_pell
Fred Ho retweeted
The number of important routine health measurements – particularly blood pressure checks - taking place since the pandemic has substantially reduced in England, with implications for missed diagnosis and increased health inequalities.
Read more➡️
gla.ac.uk/news/headline_1128…
New exciting PhD position to use machine learning, medical imaging to look at health inequality - led by @rockNroll87q.
More information here: gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvls/grad…
Apply here: findaphd.com/phds/program/mv…
We have written a blog post based on our recent published paper on Childhood Maltreatment, Obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes: How Early Adversity Shapes Long-Term Health @EdWhittaker2 communities.springernature.c…
Fred Ho retweeted
Our study using data from @uk_biobank revealed different associations of lipid traits and fracture risks published in @JCSM_cachexia : higher HDL-C a/w higher fracture risk, partially mediated through BMD; while Lp(a) not a/w fracture risk
doi.org/10.1002/jcsm.13611
A paper led by our visiting intern Tamta who examined the association between childhood maltreatment recall with obesity and type 2 diabetes nature.com/articles/s41366-0… @ProfMinnis @DannyMackay12 @EdWhittaker2 @bjirapitcha @carloscelism @ikedhiah @HulvejRod
Fred Ho retweeted
England and Wales had the 10th highest #InfantMortality rate in 38 OECD countries (2021).
A new study led by @fredho42 identifies 4 key factors linked to higher infant mortality rates in deprived areas of England. 👇
gla.ac.uk/news/headline_1110…
1/3
Fred Ho retweeted
Great study lead by @fredho42 looked into factors contributing to the association between deprivation and infant death. Targeting moderating factors may mitigate some the effects but will not stem the rise in infant mortality. #heathinequalities
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
Fred Ho retweeted
Our team, led by Fanny Petermann and Fred Ho, has just published a study in Nature Communications exploring how diet affects the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of severe alcohol-related liver disease.
Check it out here: nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
Fred Ho retweeted
New paper: Use of nature 🌿 is associated with reduced inequalities in child mental wellbeing🧠
Read the OA paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.202…
#children #nature #mentalhealth #greenspace #natureHealth #healthequity #greenspace #bluespace #PhysicalActivity #inequality #GPS
Fred Ho retweeted
Well done to our wonderful PhD students who presented at our Public Health Meeting this week 👏 can’t wait to see future results! @petermacp @jill_p_pell @fredho42 @DrClaireEHastie @don_sci



























