The difficulty of cutting through the packaging is not lost on us. Every day, it seems, the drops are becoming more difficult to unpack and virtually impossible to understand. A box arrives — if you are lucky enough to avoid being sent to a pick-up location — and you open it, only to find a series of Matryoshka tests waiting for you inside. First is another box. Then another. And another. Then a sleeve. A bag. Each one is stamped with its own insignia. When you get to the actual thing you ordered, the fashion object, it’s unclear what, exactly, is in front of you. Is it merch, a limited-run ready-to-wear, an exclusive collection? Even the QR code can’t tell you.

We are drowning in a glut of garments. To say nothing of the waste — more on that later — there are so many sweatshirts, so many tees, so many dad hats. Apparel is the Aperol spritz of the brunch all the brands are attending. Restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, luxury companies, Costco, bars — all make clothes to mark the occasion of, well, their existence. Commemoration is a priori. Even the bootleggers, beacons of egalitarian fun, are feeling the oversaturation. They can’t escape the resale markets, taxonomies, hierarchies either. That guy hawking Clippers jerseys on 11th and Figueroa was always dynamic pricing. Now he’s doing so alongside streetwear pop-ups, furniture sample sales and fashion shows on a disruptor website.

The real thing is hard to find no matter how hard you look and what apps you use. Which is why, in L.A., we place such a high value on letting the senses be our guide. There are myriad ways to cut through the oily sheen of marketing and gimmicks. Our preferred method is by making ourselves available to feel what the clothes are giving.

The third installment of “Image Makers” is a return to the essence. This is a concept album full of The Real’s many manifestations. This isn’t about what is being sold, or resold. Circulation is often nothing more than accumulation and repackaging with no end. Many choose to ride the wave of someone else’s vision or put their spin on a trend that might speak to the hypebeast’s short attention span. Too often, the question when it comes to fashion is “Who all in 丑别谤别?” when it should be: “What is 丑别谤别?”

Essence don’t need no other body, the song goes; it is what it is. When it comes to the fashion that defines us, the clothes must slap. That is: They must say something to us.

Designers communicate through clothes. L.A. style speaks on its own terms, in a language carefully and meticulously constructed, according to a creed born from the lived realities and imaginations of its most faithful practitioners.

The committed bear witness, they ruminate, they envision. They expose the fa?ades of what’s not it and open new realms of what could be through their offerings to the fashion gods.

The Image Makers are clear about who or what they serve. Each piece is in conversation with the very rules they betray. Their textiles are merely mediums through which to transmit from another place. A new world of extreme openness, in a future built from the L.A. that was.

Ian F. Blair Editor in Chief

Image logo by Jake Garcia For The Times