anecdote
May 2015 NO.1 £8 / $13
Briony Campbell
Ayishat Akanbi
Mike & Claire
A matter of perspective £8 UK $13 US
Tim & Phil
Interaction forms who we all are, every one that you have ever had contributes to who you become and how you are then able to interact with others - Briony Campbell, page 20
Anecdote Spring-Summer 2015
Editor-In-Chief Jane Chanakira
Contributors
A special thanks to... Dennis Maloney - Ellis Court - Ellie Biddle - Jelka Hofman - Mala Mutinta
Anecdote is a quarterly print, endorsing creative ideas and stories to fuel and inspire creative thoughts. Printed in the UK by Pollards Print company. For enquiries, contact: magazine@anecdote.co.uk All rights reserved Š 2015 Anecdote magazine
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Prologue T
here are stories that move, touch and inspire; and at Anecdote magazine, we talk to the creative minds behind them. Through acts of courage, fearlessness and go-getter attitudes, they live by their own rules and invent new, or challenge ways of thinking and seeing. Good taste, bad taste, right or wrong, fantasy and reality all merge into one through their narrative-fuelled craft. From fashion, art, film and photography; London, Uganda, to New York – there are stories to tell and be heard and Anecdote is the raconteur that connects these worlds and innovative perspectives. In our inaugural issue, we talk to photojournalist Briony Campbell, whose success has been created by an anticipated adversary and documenting her footsteps around the world. We also interview celebrity stylist, Ayishat Akanbi who finds incentives from hip-hop to Sociology to inform her personal style and taste; then there’s the fantasy landscape of avant-garde characters explored by Mike and Claire, a gender-bending performance artist duo. In I Robot (page 46) we discover how technology is influening design and shaping our future, and uncover the symbolic and cultural meaning of shoes (page 36). And of course no story is complete without a visual imagination so we have crafted a series of images inspired by these poetic storytellers, Here Comes The Sun (page 40) anticipates the season’s insouciant spirit. We also specially commissioned Ellis Court for a piece to accompany I Robot - envisioning the imminent human-machine interfaces. We hope to accompany you on your odysseys – the personal, metaphorical and the physical, and hope to serve as a place for inspiration. Most importantly, we want you to experience the many emotions that these works are designed to make you feel: thrilled, empowered, jovial and beyond.
Jane Chanakira Editor-In-Chief
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Anecdotes . . . page 46
Characters
page 40
11. Be Spectacled 12. Mike & Claire 20. Briony Campbell 32. Ayishat Akanbi
Stories
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14. A View From The Bridge 36. The Anatomy of Your Soles 40. Here Comes The Sun 46. I Robot
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54. The Notebook 56. Epilogue 11
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The blogging duo shine a light on fashion’s most underappreciated accessories
Know much about eyewear? Neither do we, but Tim Chan and Phil Birnbaum’s blog The Spectacled is designed to feed our knowledge plus more, with notes on upcoming releases, collaborations and designers’ inspirations. “This site represents how we see things…through our four eyes and a camera lens,” they pen on the blog. Putting a quirky and playful spin on fashion, they focus on spectacle-clad street style gems and interview eyewear designers, ranging from high fashion to the high street. Their light-hearted approach translates into their minimal blog design - they assort and index designers from A-Z, (from Acne, Le Specs to Christian Dior) to make it user-friendly. And they aren’t just regular folks with a camera and a computer; Phil is a freelance photographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, “he started wearing glasses when he was six, maybe
seven. They were huge and unfortunate.” Tim is a fashion writer and contributor to Nylon magazine, “he’s worn glasses ever since the fifth grade. His first pair was clear and plastic and from an Asian discount optical shop.” Deriving from personal experience, the concept is raw and authentic; they use their insight to inform and advice on the stylish and functional designs. Each pair is assigned a personality trait and characteristics, they once described a pair of Miu Miu’s as “whimsical….slick and sultry.” What’s most charming is their self-deprecating humour and ability to laugh at themselves; a trait lacking in the fashion blogosphere.
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Storymakers The world according to Mike and Claire is a playground with characters and no rules
“Mike and Claire are artists working and living in New York,” their bio seldom says, but enough said because their work speaks volumes. Full names Michael Bailey-Gates and Claire Christensen, met at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan where they both studied photography and began their collaborative journey. Through their photography, costume design, performance art and film, they have culminated an impressive portfolio of work poking fun at and destabilising beauty ideals. Whilst their approach is both youthful and playful, their message is powerful, loud and clear: check your beauty standards. The duo comment on gender, sexuality and otherness through their costumes, an homage to the people they have encountered living in the city as well as projections of their own personas. Their aesthetic is an enchilada of influences, think Boy George, Lady Gaga, Tim Burton and Rei Kawakubo as the ingredients. “We are interested in pushing the boundaries of photography through moving image and in camera techniques,” they revealed to InRealLife magazine. “We are focused on gender and exploring all the in betweens of what we can feel can be massive separations.” Distorting the line of what constitutes good taste and bad taste; from a glance their work looks kitsch - like child’s play, but despite what taste you deem it to be, underneath it are thought-provoking arguments. They claim fashion as a main source of inspiration naming Alexander McQueen as having a profound impact on their work, and its evident alongside a concoction of Maison-Margiela and Comme des Garcons aesthetics. At heart, the main concept is “radical styling” which looks at “how the body can be easily changed,” Mike divulged to Unlimited magazine. Take their project ‘Mutants,’ it features a
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cast of six masked characters in garments that distort and exaggerate body proportions in vivid costumes and one-piece suits. Underneath the costumes are friends or themselves acting the part - but they prefer the dual roles of photography and modelling themselves because they often find that in using friends, their vision gets lost in translation, “Claire and I would explain stuff to people and we couldn’t always get what we wanted. We’re not always good at verbalizing what we want people to do in front of the camera so we decided to start doing it ourselves,” Mike told the CreatorsProject blog. Their homepage is peppered with images and gifs, that when clicked lead you to the entire visual story. A click of each icon is akin to entering a room, each filled with joie de vivre, because melancholia doesn’t exist in their creative vocabulary. And in these rooms are worlds, their playgrounds and nirvana, each with vivid characters, the sort you want to meet and know. The idea of roleplaying via gender-swapping characters is a central part of their work, which they attribute to Cindy Sherman. Social media also informs their character development, “it’s cool meeting somebody and realising their internet persona is totally different, yet that other person still exists,” adds Mike. In front of the camera, they have taken on the roles of a grungy-slash-hobo Bishop, cheerleader, creature and a devil to name a few. There’s something bittersweet about the characters they portray though; their ability to laugh at and celebrate themselves in another world. But this sentiment is balanced well with the characters’ admirable carefreeness and solace. It’s as if to them, they are not secluded, they fit right in.
Photo: Mikeandclaire.com
mike
Claire
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Photo @humzadeas
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE 16
In this age of Instagram, anyone can be a photographer, but these New York talents scale the city’s bridges and skyscrapers to capture it in exhilarating views
ing more than an arm and a leg is more than just a sadistic act of thrill-seeking. “Being this figure who people think is wearing red and blue spandex swinging a rope through New York, has helped me as an artist and more as a person,” says Deas. “It has lead to so many different adversities that put me in a mental position to create my own path.” And undoubtedly, when you can negotiate your way up and down a life-threatening 98m high bridge, then you can talk your way out of anything. This rang true when he was caught climbing a 53-storey building and charmed his way out of an arrest. He had an exam the next morning. “The world I see,” Jason Bourne discloses as the mission statement and motive behind his work. Under the alias, @lastsuspect, he also sees this world on top of buildings and bridges and shares it with motivational captions. One picture, on an empty over-ground rail track, he tells his congregation of 135k followers, “even if you are on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Though the locations in these artists’ work crosses over, there are personified nuances. For Bourne, it’s his signature use of light: sparks, flickers and bulbs of it exaggerated in portraits of the city that create a sense of movement and speed. He also coats the images in purple, blue, pink and yellow hues that make New York look like a videogame backdrop, perfectly fitting for Need for Speed. For Deas, it’s the panoramic views of the city from these heights with buildings sometimes from the ground as they disappear into the clouds, a chimera of roofs blending into one or experimenting with eerie empty spaces in derelict buildings. Where Bourne’s looks hyperreal, Deas’
Photos Top-Bottom: @humzadeas, @lastsuspect, @ abrooklynsoul
Under the belly of Instagram’s hubbub of food porn, hashtag-no-filter selfies and snaps of yesterday’s make-up hauls, are a group of urban explorers changing the game. Scaling New York’s tallest buildings and bridges, they take breath-taking aerial shots of the city from often illegal and off-limits places. The results are ethereal cinematic visions with thrilling views that can make an acrophobia sick to his stomach. But an enthusiast would feel like a superhero, picture it; Spiderman perched at the highest point of the Manhattan bridge, Iron Man’s view from his Stark tower, or the caped crusader, Batman overlooking the city for delinquents in Gotham city. It’s no coincidence either that the bridges have featured in films, the Manhattan bridge has made cameos in The Avengers, Godzilla and Peter Jackson’s King Kong; as well as The Dark Knight Rises (also featuring the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges). Humza Deas, one of the popular explorers with 129k followers location scouts on ground, finding spots in the city that he reckons would look remarkable from above. With his signature of shoes in view, he lures you in the illusion of the first-person perspective. But that’s as much as Humza will show of himself, he purposefully remains a mystery like the enigmatic Batman, “the reason why I do that is because I’m not trying to show you who I am, my work isn’t about me,” he reveals. But those who really know him bombarded his phone with messages last July asking if it were him that swapped the Star Spangled banners for two white flags on the Brooklyn bridge. German artists, Mischa Leinkauf and Matthias Wermke later claimed it as their work. But ascending these heights and risk-
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finds the elusive balance between reality and fantasy, and they are both equally compelling. Humza Deas emphasized that painting the city in a new light as the key motivation behind his work, “so many photographers capture this city in the same way. I saw an opportunity to capture New York in a way I have never seen before.” But there’s a danger too in this movement becoming “pseudo-art” soon and flooding Instagram feeds like aerial shots of coffee. A case like the Sarah Scurr and Marisol Ortiz plagiarism dispute highlights this imminent threat; in February 2015 Ortiz accussed Scurr of plagiarism after she took a picture of an iceberg whilst on a ship cruise off the coast of Chile in 2006. It was later agreed based on
gerous train station shots. “It’s that place that everyone could feel at home even if you’re not from there,” Alonzo says. And the moments he reveals feel very personal, there are children riding bikes, a barber giving a shape-up and intimate liveband performances. These are all comforting moments we recognize and are familiar with and show a city lived in. He also adds, “there is so much culture, energy, flavor and soul here.” The borough has had a great influence on American culture too; producing icons in music, literature and the arts. The most inspiring to him being Spike Lee, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Notorious B.I.G, Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan. However Alonzo’s main source of inspiration comes from film, it is the combination
“I seek out places that are not very popular nor well known in an effort to give the viewer a slice of New York you don’t often see. I find that the stuff that isn’t well known often makes for a better story and is less saturated by commercialism” the photos metadata that the two women happened to be on the same cruise and took the photos at the same time, proving Scurr innocent. But with their track-record for creativity and fearlessness; proving that creativity has no bounds, Deas and Bourne need not to worry about this catching on. And if it does, then they’ll be miles high ahead of the game. “My photography seeks to document my everyday travels and coming of age experiences in New York most specifically in Brooklyn.” Darius Alonzo, @Abrooklynsoul, has found an approach that merges groundwork and height together. Away from the noise of the city, his documentary-style photography feels more down to earth and candid; capturing people on the move, moments and hidden gems in Brooklyn. A glance at any image resembles a paused scene in an Indie film, there’s a feeling of stillness and calm - a sharp contrast to Deas and Bourne’s use of space, speed and light. But the bridges are there too, as are the dan-
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of storytelling and character portrayals that captivate him. In films such as Do The Right Thing and Crooklyn (Spike Lee) and Gordon Parks’ Superfly, their ‘use of urban spaces’ is closest to his heart. Some of the places he portrays, for instance Fisherman’s Cove - a Jamaican eatery, Pastry coffee shop and Prospect Park seem like places that may not graduate onto a tourist’s New York ‘to do’ list. Or even exist on a native New Yorker’s map, but that’s intentional. “I seek out places that are not very popular nor well known in an effort to give the viewer a slice of New York you don’t often see. I find that the stuff that isn’t well known often makes for a better story and is less saturated by commercialism,” he explains. And certainly, Brooklyn feels a lot different to New York city through Alonzo’s photographs, even though it’s an apple from the same tree.
Photo: @humzadeas
“Being this figure who people think is wearing red and blue spandex swinging a rope through New York, has helped me as an artist and more as a person.� 19
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Photo: @Lastsuspect
“Shine bright like a diamond”
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Briony Campbell It’s A Matter Of Perspective
The globetrotting photojournalist sets out to uncover relationships between people, places and to confront our perceptions of them
“I’m kind of excited by abstract, more fine art photography than what I do which is a bit more conventional,” says Briony Campbell in a soft-spoken voice. What Briony does is create warm and inviting photographs concerned with capturing the way people relate to and with each other. When we speak, she’s just returned from a twomonths trip from Uganda (funded by the Arts Council) as part of her ongoing project Britain Loves Africa. In this series, she aims to undermine the stereotypes of a poverty-ridden and hopeless Africa.
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“I certainly have things I believe in and I am very lucky that my clients have given me things I am happy to work for”
The first time she visited Africa, she was 19 and on a gap year teaching English in Zanzibari, and it was there she fell for a boy, “my relationship to the island was hugely influenced, if not defined by, my feelings for Saidi – both familiar and beguiling,” she shares on her website.
I struggled to find the balance between dedicated to his needs and distraction from my grief,” Briony confided on her website in regards The Dad Project. Her father, David Campbell was a researcher and clinician known for introducing family therapy in the UK and globally, but in 2009 he lost his battle to a
Before the love affair with the continent began, Briony had been on a plethora of art courses; she studied A-level Art and then pursuing the subject at Camberwell College of Arts, on a year in Art Foundation. “That was one of the most exciting years of my art education I think,” she says, testifying it for the pleasures of being fully immersed in one subject and giving it undivided attention. In 2003 she then graduated from Leeds Met with a BA in Arts and an MA in Documentary Photography in 2009 at London College of Communication. What triggered her penchant for photography was “the magic of the dark room,” she says. “I just wanted to feel that magic moment of watching pictures come out of nowhere.” Now, she boasts an impressive oeuvre of work with a variety of styles and topics to choose from: weddings, promotional videos, to Estate – a series of images to accompany Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s film about the destruction of Haggerston Estate in Hackney which was replaced with luxury apartments. “I wouldn’t like to think I’d work for anyone who’s funding arms dealing or nasty fucked up pharmaceutical companies that are exploiting people,” she replies about where her artistic integrities lie. “I certainly have things I believe in and I am very lucky that my clients have given me things I am happy to work for.” The clients have also been arts organisations, theatres, and educational campaigns commissioned by Bookstart and The National Skills Academy. “Being a good daughter to my dying dad was tricky.
terminal cancer. At the time, she had enrolled on the Documentary Photography course and it was one of her tutors who gently encouraged her to take photos recording his last six months. Briony as her dad
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“Interaction forms who we all are, every one that you have ever had contributes to who you become and how you are then able to interact with others, is formed by the basis of previous experiences�
Routes To Roots
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The Dad Project
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“I couldn’t be a photographer when this happened, I was a daughter. After I’d swept up the glass I paused, for what felt like a long while, before managing to photograph the milkshake stain. Perhaps I’d proved (to myself or my parents? I’m not sure which was the necessity) that I was a daughter before a photographer.”
- Briony on The Dad Project
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“This shiny American identity was really prevalent when I was an English Primary school kid, that’s certainly seemed to have faded in the last 10 years”
But it wasn’t an easy choice to make, she fell in a conundrum with her integrities as a daughter and photographer. “I never planned it obviously, it’s not something I ever thought I would do if you proposed it to me, I would have said no – I wouldn’t do that kind of thing,” she reflects. But it’s turned out to be her most well received work, featuring in the graduate’s show Fresh and Wild Eyed at The Photographer’s Gallery, The BBC World Service podcast, The Guardian and in Damien Poulain’s annual photography book series, The Female POV. “My Dad Project was definitely the most formative and has the most resonance with the audience. I feel like I will never really top that, it spoke to a lot of strangers on quite a profound level,” she elaborates and expresses her gratitude towards him for contributing to the project. The familial support behind her also made the process easier, “in a way, making the project togeth-
much less like that, they have festivals and events that celebrate the dead and remember lost loved ones.” Her essay on The Dad Project is also featured in the academic book The Power of Death: Contemporary Reflections in Western Society by Ricarda Vidal. In it she writes, “I knew that doing The Dad Project we could look at the half-full-glass together. That seemed to me the best we could do with our little time.” Another one of her captivating projects is New World (2011), a collaboration with Duncan Nicol Robertson. Briony personally wanted to compare today’s America against that of her childhood where she grew up visiting her grandparents and recalls “having this lovely cosy holiday feel.” As a child, her view of America was that it was “all shiny and wonderful,” with a monopoly on music and movies, the ultimate land of dreams. Even the Americans she interviews in the short-film seem skeptical about the country’s future and their own with-
er meant here we are, we are together we can talk about difficult sad things but its with a purpose and my dad could see that it was giving me something that I would take forward in life and that’s really valuable,” Briony reflects. Generally, the subject of death is not an easy one to discuss; where do your start and how? What can you and shouldn’t you say? Though, speaking with Briony about it certainly didn’t feel intimidating or tense; we discussed the cultural meaning of the subject and tried to uncover what makes it uncomfortable. “I think we are very uptight about death in this country, and it’s a shame. I think that makes people’s grieving a lot harder when you feel like you’re really not supposed to talk about it,” she intimates. “I think other countries are
in it. “This shiny American identity was really prevalent when I was an English Primary school kid, that’s certainly seemed to have faded in the last 10 years,” she observes. There’s something to be said about the way Briony approaches her subjects and issues, often touching on controversial topics, she paints them with a tender brush. Take Britain Loves Africa, she invites you into private moments and spaces between interracial couples – a topic still sensitive today, but Briony’s confident and yet gentle approach depicts the characters’ passion so vividly and with warmth. As if the history and debates surrounding their relationships are non-existence; but perhaps that’s down to Briony’s rapport with her subjects – their ease in her presence permeates through
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New World Project
photographs, almost suggesting the artist is absent. And even more so that even Briony’s intentions to portray the “off-balance” feeling of being a White person in Africa, gets lost. Even though her experiences have been pleasant and engaging, she still feels there’s an aspect “where you’re always the White person and everyone notices and probably treats you like it. And I think that awkwardness is missing in my pictures,” she remarks. “Whenever I’m asked that question I feel like I have got so many works that I like,” she ponders when on the subject of her influences. She doesn’t like to narrow them down to one but she appreciates different aspects of various artists’ work, depending on concepts and aesthetics. Essentially, what she enjoys the most are images and work that invites the audience in and is relatable to them, which is much of what she does. At the top of her head, she manages to name Vivien Sassen, filmmakers Claire Denis and Lynn Ramsey (We Need to Talk About Kevin) as inspirations. She also mentions the documentary, Bombay Beach by Alma Har’el which follows the lives of three young boys from different cultural backgrounds and living in California. Har’el emphasizes how their upbringing and backgrounds affect their lifestyles and coming of age experiences. Much like Briony’s work, the documentary examines alternative realities and how people interact with each other based on those differences. “Interaction forms who we all are, every one that you have ever had contributes to who you become and how you are then able to interact with others, is formed by the basis of previous experiences,” she declares. For the future, Briony hopes to produce personal projects that feel less documentary-inspired and more abstract, with strong concepts and aesthetically driven. As of now, she is working on a proposal to submit to the British Council to fund a collaboration between Nigeria and UK female artists. Aside from photography, she is experimenting with film for her projects, a medium she used to document the Uganda trip, but she is adamant that she will always remain faithful to photography and its “magic of making a perfect still frame.”
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Ayishat Akanbi The stylist proves that fashion is not for the faint-hearted and can be a jaggernaut for change
“The problem in telling people that the purpose of life is to be happy, is that any other emotion is seen as a problem instead of human,” Ayishat Akanbi posted to her followers on Twitter. Her profile bio reads ‘the garment composer,’ but she is more than that. She has taken on the multiple roles of a celebrity stylist, visual consultant, fashion writer and contributer to Invididualism, a debonair menswear blog. “I had dreams of becoming a stylist through my love of clothing and more accurately the psychology behind fashion and style – how you can transform one’s perception based on the change of a shirt,” she disclosed to Girlinmenswear blog. Ayishat could have been a DJ; claiming hip hop as her first love, she was enthralled by the genres use of music to depict the struggles, lifestyle and fashions of African Americans. But the career route was diverted by her mum’s fondness for luxury fashion which gave her an insight into the industry, and it was then she appreciated how clothes could equally be used to communicate. What started off as a hobby helping friends ensemble looks and through experiments with her own wardrobe, has led to a career of mingling with her childhood heroes and reveling in the pleasures of working for herself. One of her biggest clients to date is singer/ songwriter, and record producer Labrinth whom she met before he was signed, and at that time she was out of uni and unemployed. After making her first styling pitch to help create his image, she worked for him unpaid until Simon Cowell welcomed him on his Syco Music label. It was a perfect symbiosis that married both of her interests whilst establishing her creative portfolio, now it is brimming with musicians, Alexandra Burke, Wiz Kid, former band JLS, and boxer Amir Khan. Soon after being signed as Labrinth’s stylist, she
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opened her visual consultancy company, Ayishat Akanbi LTD which gave her an unrivaled insight into the industry. It has cemented the notion that hardwork in fashion is often downplayed and concealed by the glamour at face value. In terms of her role as a stylist, her key principal is to not be easily swayed by popular opinion and not have your own, equally, to be confident in your own skin. “I’ve learnt to be just me, that’s the best thing that works for me and that’s essentially what got me here in the first place,” she shared with StyleRevolt. Even her designer muses - fashion’s provocateurs (Comme des Garcons, Junya Watanabe and Thom Browne) are equally seasoned. She also enlists Nick Wooster (fashion editor of Neiman Marcus and Bergdof Goodman) as a style icon, and describes her own as “Spike Lee meets Saville Row.” The latter is an accurate observation as she frequently pairs button up shirts, shorts with blazers and trainers or boyish shoes; a mix between casual and dapper. Ayishat graduated with a degree in Media and Cultural studies from Kingston University whose alumni includes Shelley Page (DreamWorks Animation), Glenda Bailey (editor of US Harper’s Bazaar) and fashion activist, Caryn Franklin. With her background in disseminating and analyzing social behaviour, the sociological influences are apparent in her menswear-inspired style, a purposeful statement about gender identity and decorum. “Dressing like a girl is someone else’s idea of what it means to be a woman - I don’t want someone else’s idea to define who I am, I just want to feel comfortable and express who I am freely,” she explained to GirlInMenswear blog. The fast-paced nature of the industry has in someway forced her to overcome her insecurities abruptly: confidence and self-belief. And to have achieved so much within a short space of time at a tender age required a large dose of self-assurance, and that was a case of fake it til you make it, she proclaimed.
Photo: QTheMusic
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Photo: Eastpack
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Photos: via Instagram @AyishatAkanbi
“Happiness is overrated, it’s frustration and dissatisfaction that has driven every noble, brave person that we now call revolutionary”
Like most of us in our youth, Ayishat wasn’t immune to the stubborn ideals of beauty and pressure to look a certain a way, and growing up in Southampton she felt that people didn’t get it: her style, predilection and her vision. But after moving to London, she didn’t have to try to fit in and felt free to be herself; embracing braids and dreads with crisp shaven sides. She also opts for boots and brogues instead of heels, she has never found them appealing. And for the dresses and skirts that supposedly make the woman a…woman, she has never taken a liking to them. In 2011, Ayishat took the Google Campus stage for the Give Me 10 Minutes talk to advise aspiring18-24 year olds on how to break into the industry. She reckons if she had similar programs available to her when growing up, they would have provided a better insight into the industry. But she isn’t resentful nor does she dwell on it now that she is in the position to make that positive impact and pass on her wisdom. Her legitimacy about who she is and what she stands
for is undeniable and consistent. She takes to social media for her daily “philosophical ramblings,” tackling a variety of issues from film, adulthood, Kanye West’s rants, an appetite for burritos and capitalism’s demise. She even offers style advice on the platform, sharing that “style should be fun, nothing worse than people who take their style too seriously. It’s clothes bro.” And then, “happiness is overrated, it’s frustration and dissatisfaction that has driven every noble, brave person that we now call revolutionary,” and it’s true, her story alone is a testimony. Her malaise with gendered fashion, racial and gender prejudice and their impact on self-esteem have served as ingredients for her work and led her to become the woman she is. Her readiness and courage to put question marks on topics and issues that can be easily overlooked is consoling and heartening; that someone is able to confront and make you question things you have been accustomed to or accepted as normal. It truly makes you think and question yourself; are you being true to yourself? Are you happy? And what will you do about it?
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The anatomy of your sole A look at how shoes serve as cultural symbols and more than just fashion statements for feet
On reading that three museums in London are dedicating their show spaces to exhibit shoes, the iconic, the banal and esoteric, it provoked a question about the significance of these everyday objects. It may be a case of making a big deal out of a ‘frivolous’ subject, but FashionUnited’s prediction of the footwear industry’s value, £154 billion by 2018 suggests otherwise. What exactly do shoes have to do with culture, history and identity? Historically, shoes served as signifiers of wealth, culture and time. Ancient Spanish cave drawings are said to be the earliest record of them; showing feet clad in fur and animal skin for protection when hunting in the wilderness. In the 1400s, they were both commodities and status symbols; it was in this period that middle-class women wore gravity-defying platforms known then as chopines. With heights reaching 20 inches - the higher they were, the more money spent on fabric for her clothes and aid from servants to dress her and walk. During Henry VII’s reign by mid-century, wide-toed duckbills took over that role; the wider, the richer – as did pointed-toe poullaines in the Renaissance Era. After war, in 1920 dresses became shorter and women opted for heels that flaunted their legs making Flapper Girls the first women to fashion high heels. By the 1950s, heels were a badge of women’s newfound freedom and
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Photo: Ishiuchi Miyako
Frida Kahlo’s prosthetic boots by Ishiuchi Miyako
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“Growing up, I watched TV shows like Sex & The City or movies with high-powered female businesswomen in heels, and I quickly learned that confident women wore heels…to me it was just what strong, fashionable women should do”
hinted strongly at sexuality and gender; the same era that both Marilyn Monroe and Playboy magazine catapulted into mainstream culture. The stiletto was appropriated to signify - in it’s literal definition, a weapon as a tool for women’s empowerment. “Growing up, I watched TV shows like [Sex & The City] or movies with high-powered female businesswomen in heels, and I quickly learned that confident women wore heels…to me it was just what strong, fashionable women should do,” Radhika Sangdani wrote in her piece The Real Reason Women ‘Choose To’ Hobble Around In High Heels. But some Feminists argue that the empowerment of stilettos is a fallacy; as Germaine Greer proposed, “if she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?” Chopines and foot binding in 19th Century China similarly denied women of that freedom –the ability to roam free; it was a form of patriarchal control to monitor their leisurely ventures and ensure a watchful servant assisted them at events in the absence of their husbands. In some Muslim and Arabic cultures, shoes are political objects of protest and disdain, verified by the famous incident when Iraqi journalist Muntazer Al-Zaidi threw his at then U.S President George W. Bush in 2008. “The shoe is considered dirty because it is on the ground and associated with the foot, the lowest part of the body,” explained Caroline Gammell in Arab Culture: The Insult of The Shoe for the Telegraph. She also describes how the Al-Rashid hotel in Baghdad used a portrait of Bush on their entrance mosaic tiles so all who entered stepped on his face. But in 2003, it was destroyed by American soldiers and later replaced with Saddam Hussein’s face. “The shoe is such an offensive symbol that it is seen as culturally rude to cross an ankle over a knee and display the sole of the shoe while talking to another person,” Caroline adds, even Mosques forbid wearing shoes inside, as bare feet are regarded as a
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token of humbleness and obedience. “Shoes represent fun, creativity and the ability to show off my sense of style,” Kimberly Lynn of SoulsOfMyShoes blog responds about what they represent to her. In a conversation, Julie Benasra, director of the documentary God Save My Shoes, echoes similarly that “they represent a different side of my personality. I think women are nowadays forced to play multiple roles in their lives – they’re mothers, they’re working, they’re married or not…each represents a different part of who you are and what role you are in.” She then adds, “all of my shoes, represent a story, a moment in time. For each pair I possess, I remember where I bought them, why and what they represent emotionally speaking,” and she holds an old pair of tattered camel boots that she bought on her first time working on a documentary; they’ve become a comfort blanket, despite their ragged condition. In March 2015, Converse released their Made By You campaign to commemorate 100 years of Chuck Taylors. True to the brand’s ethos of individuality and self-expression, the campaign featured signed pairs by Andy Warhol, Patti Smith and more, even including submissions by fans. Gallery spaces in Hong Kong, New York and London set up installations and murals of the worn and torn shoes in celebration. “The Made By You originated from a simple human truth – we all want to be our true, authentic self in this world,” said Ian Stewart, vice-president of global marketing at Converse to Hypebeast. And part of what retains their iconic stature is the personalization of the canvases; popular historically and thriving today, they have been worn by Elvis, Kurt Cobain to the hip-hop mogul Jay Z; each wearer baring a distinctive stamp. And with Converses, according to the brand’s own philosophy and fans the older and dirtier, the better; a sign of shoes that have been there and done that. Undoubtebly the shoes have become cultural phenomenons in their own
Vincent van Gogh ‘A Pair of Shoes’ 1888
right, alongside fictional pairs, Cinderella’s Glass Slippers and Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers on the list of renowned and most storied shoes. This July, at the Michael Hoppen gallery, photographer Ishiuchi Miyako’s Frida Kahlo exhibition unveils the artist’s wardrobe and personal items that were recovered in 2004. Among these is a pair of black brogues with the right foot’s toes cut out to accommodate her injury from the calamitous bus accident in 1925, after which Frida spent a year in recuperation and it was then that she resorted to art to express her suffering. “The form of her shoes shows that Frida accepted the physical scars she had been burdened with all of her life and changed them from something negative into positive,” Miyako deciphered to AnOther magazine. Frida’s shoes spark phantasmagorical imaginations about her health – a mirror to her pain, as it deteriorated, her right leg was eventually amputated and she wore prosthetic boots, also to be featured in the exhibition. Knut Hamsun wrote in his 1890 book, Hunger about his own pair, “as I had never seen my shoes before, I set myself to study their looks, their characteristics…something of my own nature had gone over into these shoes; they affected me, like a ghost of my other I – a breathing portion of my very self.” It feels reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s still-life
“As I had never seen my shoes before, I set myself to study their looks, their characteristics…something of my own nature had gone over into these shoes; they affected me, like a ghost of my other I – a breathing portion of my very self ” painting, A Pair of Shoes, a depiction black tattered, lackluster boots; the leather no longer fresh and upright, sags and leans lifelessly, folding here and there. They look exhausted, perhaps worn too many times and walked too many miles. Philosophers Jacques Derrida, Meyer Schapiro and Martin Heideger have argued back and forth about the painting’s true nature and prominence in art and culture, but they shared the sentiment that they represented something profound. Popular art criticism, like Miyako’s reading of Frida’s soles, has interpreted the boots as the windows to Gogh’s troubled soul, a reading he confirmed two years later when he took his life away. More than just accessories, those were not just shoes but autobiographical artifacts that narrated an emotional and melancholic life. Personally, the metaphorical idiom, ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ best captures the essence of their symbolism. When new and fresh out of a box, like a pair of Converses - shoes are a blank canvas, once worn they become embellished with memories and moments. Particularistic to the wearer, they too become a mirror of our portraits, reflecting our paths of the past and our present. And even if we have the same pairs, our roads and reminiscence aren’t as identical as the soles on our feet.
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here comes the sun Be swept away by the season’s fuss-free pieces, from free-spirited 70s flares to playful denim
Photography Jane Chanakira
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Hair & Make-up Julia Edwards
Stylists Ellie Biddle & Jelka Hofmann
Assistant Mala Mutinta
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This page & Previous: Model Deandra (BODY London) Turtle neck top, &Other Stories, Wide leg trousers, American Apparel, Platform Sandals, Opening Ceremony
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Mickey Mouse ears, Disney, Denim waistcoat and jeans, Acne, boots, Sandro, cotton-blend top Alexander Wang
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NEIL HARBISSON JUNYA WATANABE
STELARC OCULUS RIFT
KENZO
CRAFTAR YING GAO ALEXANDER McQUEEN
HOW TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN ARE CONVERGING TO CREATE NEW IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
I ROBOT
Character Model by Ellis Court
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James Cameron wrote the script for Avatar in 1994, but technology had not yet caught up for his 2009 avant-garde motion picture. In 2015, as we are playing catch up with it, it’s difficult to cast the mind to a time when technology was inefficient. The spring/summer fashion collections and technology releases prove we are just years away from becoming human-machine hybrids and our relationship with technology is going to be more personal and transformative than we have seen before. In its earliest stages, technology was designed to make the mundane tasks more bearable and practical. It helped to keep us connected, eschewing letter writing to phone-calling, burying heads in books to Googling, Skyping to Snapchatting. In the modern age, filmmakers are advancing the cinematic experience beyond a few depth of field tricks to more immersive entertainment that evokes the illusion of really being there. In January, Cineworld in Milton Keynes opened its doors to the first British 4Dx screens premiering Kingsman: The Secret Service. The feature simulates the senses, by allowing the audience to experience attributes such as the weather, motion, scents and lighting in the film, in real life. At the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015, Birdly, a two-minute virtual reality flight simulator garnered mass attention (than 10 other virtual reality experiences at the event), and with more than two-hours of queue waiting time. “Filmmakers are drawn to this medium like moths to light because of the powerful immersion that VR delivers,” says Shari Frilot (filmmaker and curator at New Frontier, a company that celebrates filmmaking, art and multimedia technology) told PCWorld. Using a pair of glasses, Oculus Rift and CraftAR, can augment and simulate spaces; entering the horizons that the Internet only shows glimpses of. Whilst Oculus Rift has been criticised for its gimmicky function of endorsing none other than the bound-to-wear-off awe and a passive-audience experience of virtual reality. CraftAR’s promotional video shows the potential to fill that void, the glasses are designed to encourage the wearer to interact with the simulated spaces and the real physical world simultaneously. In the few years to come, even those glasses will be replaced by contact lenses or chips embedded in our eyes courtesy of iOptik. In an interview with DeZeen, an architecture and design digital magazine, architect, Pernilla foresees that “in the near future it’s really conceivable that we will start travelling the virtual world instead of the physical world… it will give us a really life-like experience of being
in that place.” These new territories alone threaten social media, where before you may have relied on the wisdom of crowds from Twitter or TripAdvisor, eventually you will be able to project places and experience them yourself. But as of yet, the games and film industry are the only privileged landscapes for these prototypes. The fashion industry has its own take on immersive wearable technology, prepping us to look the part for the realities to come. It prophesies that our bodies will become sites for technology to manifest itself, and clothes will replace social media’s role in serving as a platform of self-expression. It’s an old function taking on a new form, wearing your heart on your dress. Take Ying Gao’s Facebook As A Pop Up Book, a soft white structural dress, though not emblazoned with the logo, adverts or status posts, it’s designed to resemble a 3D book. Each of the five ‘pages’ represent her closest friends’ profiles through esoteric symbolism and patterns. (No)where (Now)here dresses are more interactive and infused with photoluminescent threads that are lit up by eye-tracking technology, a response to the onlooker’s gaze. Francesca Rosella also embraces technology in her designs, but its to campaign for sustainable fashion with her brand, CuteCircuit. In her collections, micro LEDs are woven into fabrics allowing you to customize your clothes by colour and pattern via syncing with a Smartphone app. Similarly, Benjamin Males from Studio XO is looking into clothes that can shape-shift and morph into different styles by infusing micro-robotics and transformable textiles. With designs such as CuteCircuit and Ying Gao, wearing clothes will becomes a transformative experience that takes personal style to a new level. “They allow you to express yourself, suiting your mood and the situation you’re in with your friends,” Rosella told DeZeen, the architecture and design magazine.Though as of yet, these styles haven’t filtered down to the masses but have so far costumed Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and U2 on stage. At Paris Fashion Week, Kenzo’s spring-summer 2015 skatepark showspace incorporated large screens with portraits of a multi-lingual digital avatar, Knola who narrated the show’s notes. “She represents this multi-cultural vision of humanity in the future,” Humberto Leon commented after the show. “We’re definitely embracing technology and looking at what is our vision for the future.” Junya Watanabe’s interpretation was pessimistic - his models wore cyborg-like PVC outfits, their dazed expressions and static winking eyes made to signify a technical fault; advocating a dystopian fu-
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“She represents this multi-cultural vision of humanity in the future...we’re definitely embracing technology and looking at what is our vision for the future”
From top to bottom: ‘Knola’ avatar at Kenzo Illuminescent dress at Richard Nicoll, Masks at Alexander McQueen by Pat McGrath
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Photo: Stelarc by Nina Sellars
“Now we can engineer additional and external organs to better function in the technological and media terrain we now inhabit. It also sees the body as an extended operational system – extruding its awareness and experience” ture. At Richard Nicoll, an ethereal slipdress opened the show, glowing in the dark with the model faded into the background. The soft illumination, its fibers (by Studio XO) resembled the tendrils of the Tree of Souls in Avatar and it was a gentle but remarkable statement; symbolising an embodiment, a metamorphosis: the intrusion of the human body by technology. The dress wore the body, hinting at the question that Alex Garland’s film Ex-Machina proposes: are we becoming more like machines or are we designing them to be more like us? Not all design has been centered on sustainability, for instance, Imogen Heap’s music gloves are designed to aid disabled people to create and perform music with a gesture of the hand. Neil Harbisson, Artist and Cyborg Activist, born colourblind, he uses an ‘eyeborg’ to hear colours; the device transmits colours into sound through a chip linked to his skull. Harbisson was officially recognised as the world’s first cyborg in 2004, and holds a passport wearing the eyeborg. Harbisson assumes that in a few years, pieces of technology will be embedded into our bodies and it will serve “to extend our abilities, our knowledge and our perceptions of reality,” he predicted to DeZeen. Transcending trends and going beyond its accessory/aid stature, technology as Harbisson sees it will transform art, fashion and design into new sensory experiences; like CuteCircuit, designs will become very personalized and enable the owner to express themselves in unanticipated ways. Merel Bekking’s Brain Scanning aims to tailor and customise designs to individual tastes based on ‘scientific evidence’ from the MRI scans. Researchers will affirm “perfect” designs based on the subjects responses to colours, shapes, images and textures shown during the scans. Perhaps the most accurate example of technology as a transformative and embodiment experience is demonstrated by Stelarc, a performance artist whose work explores the relationship between human and machine interfaces through body modification. His
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performances include his embodiment as “Exoskeleton,” a walking six-legged robot, and a phantom choreography using electronical stimulations connected to muscles which are controlled by a remote. In 2007, he underwent a surgical transformation, implanting a real-life size ear on his left arm to connect to people across the world through the Internet by transferring sound he hears to his recipients. “The body needs to be Internet enabled in more intimate ways. The Ear On Arm project suggests an alternative anatomical architecture,” the artist explained on his website. “Now we can engineer additional and external organs to better function in the technological and media terrain we now inhabit. It also sees the body as an extended operational system – extruding its awareness and experience.” Renowned make-up artist, Pat McGrath’s black glossy masks framing the models’ faces at Alexander McQueen’s summer collection hinted at this surgical implantation. But there’s something eerie about their permanent appearance, suggesting a dehumanization, appearing as if the human and machine are assuming each other’s appearances or awaiting a face transplant, a not so foreign concept according to Italian neurosurgeon, Sergio Canavero who argues that the first-human head transplant will soon be feasible due to technology’s advancement. Whether these technological changes are idyllic utopian fantasies or dystopian terrors, is still elusive and undecided; even the summer blockbuster’s Terminator: Genysis and Avengers: Age of Ultron straddle the line between villainous or heroic machines. But with the ever evolving developments in technology it seems inevitable that design will be like the Tree of Souls, and will transfer our human bodies into our digital avatars.
Photo: CNN
Photo: Studio-Beat
Mozart (“Queen of The Night”) sound painting by Neil Harbisson
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The Notebook
Anecdote’s guide to summer
Style Is Eternal
The first UK exhibition solely dedicated to Yves-Saint Laurent will take residence at the Bowes Museum in County Durham, featuring 50 outfits that until now were exclusive to Paris showrooms. The location was selected by the late designer’s former partner, Pierre Bergé who heralds it for its timeless beauty; a said reflection of Saint-Lauren’t designs (11 July – 25 October 2015). Website: www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk
Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon The National Portrait Gallery reminisces about the actress’ life as told through legends of their craft, photographers Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and more. It will boast her career highlights as well as unseen moments with family and behind-the-scenes on movies (2 July 2015). Website: www.npg.org.uk
FestivalAsia
Making a debut at the Tobacco Dock, this three day event celebrates a mix of Asian cultures through music, dance, fashion, food, martial arts and tea ceremonies. (15 -17 May 2015). Website: www.festivalasia.co.uk
Mad About you Shoes The Spanish footwear brand Camper looks at how technology has affected the industry in their Life On Foot exhibition at the Design Museum (13 May – 1 November 2015). At the V&A more than 200 pairs of shoes will be on display, exploring their designs through history, culture and technology (13 June – 31 January 2016). Worn by Marlene Dietrich, Vivien Leigh and Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding in 1947, the British brand Rayne will display some of their famed shoes in the Rayne: Shoes for Stars exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum (22nd May 2015). Websites Rayne Shoes For Stars: ftmlondon.org Shoes: Pleasure and Pain: vam.ac.uk Life of Foot: designmuseum.org
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Bob Mazzer – Underground
Last year the photographer released a 200-paged book on the pleasures and perils of life on the London Underground from the 70s to the 80s. This year, they are available for viewing at the Howard Griffin Gallery in Shoreditch (June 12th -13th July). Website: howardgriffingallery.com
Drones - MUSE Muse returns with their seventh studio album, Drones, a follow-up to The 2nd Law (2012) produced by Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Nickelback and Billy Ocean). Customarily the theme is centered on a multitude of political and environmental influences from ecology to the conjectural possibilities of a World War 3. Lead vocalist Matt Bellamy said of the album to NME, it’s “a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy.” Website: drones.muse.mu
NWA
Straight Outta Compton This biographical film looks at how N.W.A influenced hiphop in the 1980s by relaying their encounters of growing up in a violent Compton, Los AngelesW. The group is praised for lyrically rivolting against authority and giving a voice to a silenced culture – even uniting notorious rival gangs through their music. “Our art is a reflection of our reality,” Ice Cube, who co-directs the film alongside Dr. Dre said at a press conference (13 August 2015). Website: www.straightouttacomptonthemovie.co.uk
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Epilogue “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
- Steve Jobs
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N .1 O
A Matter of Perspective
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