Catalogue Magazine Issue 9

catalogue $9.95 NZ $10.95 inc GST

HANNAH MURRAY

ON SKINS, GAME OF THRONES AND CULT TV

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT THE PLEASURE AND THE PAIN

THE FUTURE OF FASHION

WITH HI MUM I’M DEAD, ECKHAUS LATTA AND PATAGONIA

BUFFY

GIRL POWER, WITH VAMPIRES

KATE LYN SHEIL FROM INDIE FILMS TO HOUSE OF CARDS

FKA TWIGS SHE’S ELECTRIC FKA twigs photographed

by Dima Hohlov

YOUNG & RESTLESS

ISSN 2200-8950

Who We Are and Who We Wanna Be in the 21st Century 9 772200 895007

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DRDENIM.COM.AU

SALASAI

cataloguemagazine.com.au Photographer Lin Zhipeng (AKA No. 223) on identity and politics in communist China

EDITOR’S LETTER

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“Everybody here has one thing in common: we were all born before the 21st Century began.”

little while ago I went to see St. Vincent live, and it totally blew my mind. It blew my mind because that was her reason for performing: to provide a visceral experience that couldn’t be digitally recreated, and a warped, computery version of her voice directing the audience to “refrain from using digital technology in order to enjoy this experience” to enforce this.

During the show her banter with the crowd was weird as all hell, but one thing she said really stuck with me: “Everybody here has one thing in common: we were all born before the 21st Century began.” I think this statement stuck with me because, as someone born before the 21st Century began, I totally get what she’s saying: in the face of the tech explosion, what does it mean to exist, and how are we dealing? She, and I – and probably you – are equal parts excited and nervous about all this stuff and, more importantly, how it’s going to affect us in the long run. We’re being overwhelmed, but it’s cool because we’re young, we’re restless, and because of that, we’ll totally get through it.

This issue of Catalogue is kind of a big deal for us: we’re now bigger, bi-monthly, online, offering subscriptions (the lovely people at Elvis et Moi are giving our new subscribers a beautiful silver bracelet) and we’re giving away a tote bag with each copy (head to our Facebook to win one of three tote bags filled with $1600 of prizes from the likes of Kate Sylvester, Meadowlark, Salasai, Logitech and more). You may have also noticed we’ve done your Googling for you in our new Index section; we’ve underlined interesting people and ideas throughout our features and write about them at the end of the magazine – it’s basically eight pages of little conversation starters. Because of all of this change we decided it was a good time to discuss the biggest of issues, too: who we are, who we want to be and who we’re going to become.

For better or for worse, nothing has affected our generation more than the Internet and social media. St. Vincent’s show may have inspired me, but over the past few months the Catalogue office has been mesmerised by FKA twigs, one of this issue’s cover stars (let the record state I am more than a little jealous of her hair). On page 90 I go head-to-head with a 21-year-old millennial to find out what we really think of each other (do they think we’re totally hopeless, do we think they’re narcissistic punks?) and we discuss the “me generation” with rising New York art stars Carly Mark, Jane Moseley and Kay Goldberg. Zachary Handley explores London from the perspective of CCTV with quintessentially English model Charlotte Wiggins in The Watchmen, and while we may not know what the future holds, we still gotta fight for it, right? Photographer Max Doyle and our fashion director Elle Packham deliver a punchy editorial, featuring our other cover star, New Zealand model gone global, Emily Baker.

On the flipside of this insidious possible future is the fact that the Internet has given everyone a voice. Outsiders still exist, but they can find like-minded individuals online; everyone can be an insider without having to change, which totally rules. Elle Packham teams up with Jo Duck to recreate the pop stereotypes of the outsider; you know the ones – Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You. Speaking of those awkward teenage years (you know, the years that defined us forever and always), I argue that we’ll always love Dawson’s Creek regardless of how ridiculous it actually is, and Hannah Cooke concludes that, out of all the Vampirish incarnations we – via the grrrl power, kick-ass Buffy – got the best one.

This issue is our snapshot of who we are right now; everybody who, to quote St. Vincent, is “trying to make sense of their world and get pleasure here, or avoid pain there. I wanted to talk about how people actually are because that’s fascinating to me”. It’s fascinating to us too, and we really hope you enjoy the issue. And we hope you find a little bit of who you are, who you want to be or who you think you’ll be in here, too.

For more information: +32 33375023 or www.komono.com

CONTENTS

PEOPLE

BEAUTY

YOUNG & RESTLESS

44

80

PIECES OF THE PEOPLE WE LOVE

By Bec Parsons and Elle Packham

FASHION 50

THE EDIT

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20

We pick the best of the best, so you don’t have to.

The English indie star goes stateside, and international, with Game of Thrones.

New York’s underground film star on cyber-stalking and House of Cards.

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HANNAH MURRAY

KATE LYN SHEIL

SHE’S GOT THE LOOK

The faces of the future from Next Model Management in New York.

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LABEL WATCH

UNIF.M Simple is as simple does.

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LABEL WATCH

VERNER Have your cake and eat it too.

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30

The “new Lena Dunham” talks about her new feature film, Appropriate Behaviour.

Artist Petrina Hicks and model Ollie Henderson discuss art, activism and feminism.

DESIREE AKHAVAN

ART AND ACTIVISM

CREATE, AND CONTROL

The rise of the creative director with Hedi Slimane, Alexander Wang, J.W. Anderson and Nicola Formichetti.

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JOAN DIDION

The legendary writer by Kat Patrick.

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CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD

Why that truly terrible television show, Dawson’s Creek, will be very important to us forever and ever and ever.

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THE ME GENERATION

Future New York art stars Carly Mark, Kay Goldberg and Jane Moseley on making things and taking selfies.

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US V THEM

Two millennials go head to head to find out what the other thinks of their social media habits.

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BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER The cult classic by Hannah Cooke.

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94

SILVER PLUME Now that I’m older.

The influential photographer by Alissa Nutting.

LABEL WATCH

FRANCESCA WOODMAN

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THE FUTURE OF FASHION

As it relates to the environment, design and society with Patagonia, Hi Mum I’m Dead and Eckhaus Latta.

104

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

The inspiring art and tragic life of this New York art star.

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HOLD ON TIGHT, FIGHT THE FIGHT, ENJOY THE RIDE, AT LEAST YOU TRIED

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42

The future of music talks drag queens, social work and writing her debut album, LP1.

The Australian filmmaker gets to the bottom of feminist protest group FEMEN.

FKA TWIGS

KITTY GREEN

By Max Doyle and Elle Packham.

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THE WATCHMEN

By Zachary Handley and Silvia Bergomi.

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I GREW UP A SCREW UP

By Jo Duck and Elle Packham.

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EDITOR IN CHIEF

Steve Bush

steve@cataloguemagazine.com.au

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Markell Hughes

markell@cataloguemagazine.com.au

EDITOR

Courtney Sanders courtney@cataloguemagazine.com.au PHOTOGRAPHER MAX DOYLE FASHION DIRECTOR ELLE PACKHAM PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT MASON STEVENSON DIGITAL OPERATOR ALEX REZNICK FASHION ASSISTANT RACHEL COLLESS HAIR DALE DELAPORTE AT NAMES MAKEUP NAOMI MCFADDEN AT NAMES MODEL EMILY BAKER AT PRISCILLAS Prada coat and dress, Lisa Marie swimsuit top Earring by Holly Ryan

FASHION DIRECTOR Elle Packham

elle@cataloguemagazine.com.au

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

Laura-Jade Harries

laurajade@cataloguemagazine.com.au

SUB EDITOR Melissa Ellis

melissa@cataloguemagazine.com.au

EDITORIAL CO-ORDINATOR

Jillian Tasker

jillian@cataloguemagazine.com.au

FASHION ASSISTANT Rachel Colless

assistant@cataloguemagazine.com.au

INTERN

Olivia Suleimon

PHOTOGRAPHER DIMA HOHLOV STYLIST KAREN CLARKSON MAKEUP SOICHI AT SAINT LUKE USING BUMBLE & BUMBLE HAIR NAOKO SCINTU AT SAINT LUKE USING MAC PRO NAILS IMARNI AT SAINT LUKE USING CIATE Tod Lynn top, REO Jewellery necklace

Alt.Control.

CONTRIBUTORS Alissa Nutting Anthony Nader Bart Celestino Bec Parsons Bobby Whigham Cleo Braithwaite Dale Delaporte Diane Dustings Dima Hohlov Djinous Rowling Dominic Corry Durga Chewe-Bose Fiona Duncan Filomena Natoli Gadir Rajab Hannah Cooke Hunter Ryan Jaclyn Hnitko Jo Duck Jody Rogac Jonathan McBurnie Karen Clarkson Kat Patrick Lei Tai Marcel Laurie Max Doyle Miguel Lledo Naomi McFadden Nick Hudson Oliver Rose Ollie Henderson Peter Beard Petrina Hicks Ray Boriboun Sarah Nicole Prickett Shibon Kennedy Silvia Bergomi Taichi Saito Zachary Handley Tzarkusi

facebook.com/cataloguemagazine @catalogue

CATALOGUE 123 Reservoir Street Surry Hills NSW 2010 Australia cataloguemagazine.com.au info@cataloguemagazine.com.au

Distributed by Network Services +61 2 9285 9011 Catalogue is published four times a year by Alt.Control. © Alt.Control. 2014. All rights reserved.

The contents of this magazine, including stories, photographs and artwork, are strictly not to be reproduced without the express written permission of the publisher. The advertisers and suppliers of editorial information and photographs warrant that any material published in Catalogue is in no way an infringement of the Copyright Act or other such acts, is not unlawful, defamatory or libelous or does not infringe the Trade Practices Act or other regulations, laws or statutes. Advertisers and suppliers agree to indemnify the publisher against any claims, damages or costs including legal expenses, penalties or judgments occasioned to the publisher in consequence of any breach of the above warranties. All information and prices are correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of print.

Printed by Offset Alpine Printing 42 Boorea Street, Lidcombe NSW 2141 under ISO14001 Environmental Certification.

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CONTRIBUTORS MAX DOYLE PHOTOGRAPHER

DURGA CHEWE-BOSE WRITER

Hold On Tight, Fight The Fight, Enjoy The Ride, At

Kate Lyn Sheil, page 20

Least You Tried, page 114

Durga interviewed Kate Lyn Sheil for this issue. They hung out at a café for a while, after which Durga described Kate Lyn Sheil as “thoughtful”.

Speaking of thoughtful, Durga is “more prone to poetry – my voice on Twitter, my tweets that is – than I am, say, in person or via email”.

Max Doyle runs a really cool fashion magazine, Doingbird, and is in a great band, Songs. He says he “doesn’t really have a virtual identity, but if I did I’d be way more interesting than Real Life Me”. He’s totally not telling the truth.

OLIVIA SULEIMON INTERN The newest member of Catalogue, Olivia has fulfilled the relentless demands of the team for this issue’s editorial cycle. On top of all of this, she can take a mean selfie: “My online identity differs quite a lot from my real life identity. I love taking selfies, but in real life I’m reasonably reserved and not overly vain.”

KAT PATRICK WRITER

GADIR RAJAB PHOTOGRAPHER

NAOMI MCFADDEN MAKE UP ARTIST

Label Watch: Verner, page 68

Joan Didion, page 83

Kat Patrick is a English freelance writer who has a massive thing for both Joan Didion and New Zealand native birds (she has tattoos of most species): “In real life I definitely don’t have as many friends, but I do care about moas as much as it seems like I do on Facebook.”

Gadir’s hyper-colour film photography has been featured in Catalogue for a while now, and for this issue he photographed new label Verner. He “doesn’t feel like he has a virtual identity, but the Internet has been great as a platform to showcase my work on”.

Pieces Of The People We Love, page 44

CLEO BRAITHWAITE WRITER

JONATHON MCBURNIE WRITER

Kitty Green, page 42

Jean-Michel Basquait, page 104

Cleo is that rare breed of human being: somebody who works in publishing who effortlessly submits their work on time with no problems attached. It’s surprising then that she suggests that her “IRL identity could use more editing”. She’s just being modest.

The Art Editor of our brother publication, Sneaky, Jonathon wrote about Jean-Michel Basquiat for this issue. As an artist himself he describes the difference between his In Real Life identity and his virtual identity like this: “I’m a better artist in real life, but a worse driver.”

DIMA HOHLOV PHOTOGRAPHER

LAURA-JADE HARRIES MARKETING

FKA twigs, page 34

Dima teamed up with friend and stylist Karen Clarkson to photograph FKA twigs in London, and they created something magical. Which is the opposite of how Dima feels about the Internet: “What I care about is my real life identity... my online identity is just a way of communicating.”

Naomi did an absolutely incredible job of creating six separate, personality-driven looks for our beauty pages this issue, and her virtual self is all about keeping it real.

“With my virtual self I try to stay as true to my actual self as I can – if anything, my virtual self has a little more confidence.”

Loads of stuff throughout the magazine

LJ is a recent addition to the Catalogue team and has already proven her worth in millions of ways, like recounting her obsession for Dave Grohl, which was then used for an article. It’s a funny story, and confirms LJ’s claim that her “jokes get more likes in real life”.

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Daks tailored jacket

HANNAH MURRAY English actress Hannah Murray has mastered the outsider in her two breakthrough roles – as Cassie in Skins and as meek, completely adorable Gilly in the worldwide phenomenon Game of Thrones – and this year she’s got her sights firmly on the silver screen as a co-star in new indie flick God Help the Girl, written by Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch.

WRITER DOMINIC CORRY PHOTOGRAPHER ZACHARY HANDLEY STYLIST TZARKUSI STYLIST ASSISTANT ARUN COOK

“Games of Thrones just pushes you into viewers’ consciousness.”

Issa London top and skirt

PEOPLE / HANNAH MURRAY

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he’s only 25-years-old, but English actress Hannah Murray already has two iconic TV shows under her belt, one of which counts as a bonafide cultural phenomenon.

After breaking hearts the world over as the doe-eyed, troubled and vulnerable Cassie in the first two seasons of controversial British teen drama Skins, she went on to recapture them as the doe-eyed, troubled, slightly less vulnerable, but often in peril new mum Gilly in Game of Thrones.

Now, however, she’s leaving all the misery behind for a moment for a new role in the unique musical film God Help The Girl which was written and directed by Belle & Sebastian lead singer Stuart Murdoch and features songs from his album project of the same name.

Murray co-stars as Cass, one of a trio of young music lovers (with Enter The Void’s Olly Alexander and Australian actress Emily Browning as the other two) who haphazardly form a band over one blissful Glasgow summer. Although life keeps threatening to get in the way, they remain resolute in their love of the joy of music.

The dream-like film stands apart from other musicals, so when I recently got the chance to chat to Murray I was intrigued to know how it was pitched to her.

“It was mainly sold to me on Stuart and Belle & Sebastian in a ‘you might know this band and now their lead singer is making a movie’ kind of way. There was quite a lot of content I could look up as the album had already been released. There was no script initially so I got to know the story through the songs first and it was obvious it wasn’t gonna be Les Mis or Chicago given the kind of music that was being used. So I think if you’re familiar with Stuart’s band, which I was, then there’s a kind of aesthetic that you sort of imagine would go with that, and I think the film is very much in keeping with that feel. It’s the kind of movie you would’ve imagined Stuart making after listening to his songs.”

Indeed it is, somehow capturing the gentle, poppy wistfulness of Belle & Sebastian while successfully tying it to some poetic character portraits. As you can probably tell, Murray was and is a big fan of the band, which strongly motivated her involvement and kept her hungry throughout a prolonged development period. “It was quite a long audition process – about a year from when I first heard about it to getting cast. The first audition I had, I could pick any song that wasn’t a Belle & Sebastian song and I did a Regina Spektor song. And then all the other auditions were songs from the movie.”

Had she sung before? “In the shower. I’d had a few singing lessons when I was younger and I’d been in the school choir and things. I’d always liked singing but I’d always been quite nervous about it because it feels like a very exposing thing to do, and so most of the pleasure that I took in singing was singing on my own when I felt like it. I was quite nervous about the idea of singing on camera, and I was very nervous at the first audition. But because it was something that I loved, and because I think it can be so emotionally uplifting when you sing, I’d kind of been thinking in the back of my mind that I’d love to get a job where I could sing. Because then I’d have get over my fear of doing it in front of people. I was really excited to do a musical, and that felt like an exciting challenge.”

The film’s climax centres on a huge, show-stopping number from Murray called I Just Want Your Jeans, and her performance in this scene suggests the young actress could have a fair shake at a pop career if she wanted one. “I’d been singing it loads and loads and loads to myself, and I’d done some work with Stuart. For me it was about relaxing into it and finding the character in it and having fun with it.

Plus a tiny bit of really basic choreography for some of the hand gestures and things; if I had to be more still, I’m not sure it would’ve worked. I think it’s such a beautiful song, so I felt very lucky to get to sing it. I was doing Game of Thrones at the same time and I Just Want Your Jeans happened on my last day before I was due to leave. So it felt really special. ” Ah yes, Game of Thrones. That little show you might’ve heard of. No stranger to success before being cast in the widely-adored fantasy crossover series, I was keen to find out if Murray had felt a tangible

Mother of Pearl dress, Daks turtleneck (worn underneath) difference in her career since the show started to really explode over the past few years. “Yeah, I would say so. I just did a movie in New York called Lily & Kat – which isn’t out yet – and that was offered to me without an audition, which had been quite rare for me. I think the director had watched Skins, but Game of Thrones just pushes you into the viewers’ conciousness a bit more.”

Murray is clearly grateful for the opportunities the show has given her. “I think it’s been wonderful for so many people’s careers. And I think it’s really fantastic in that it’s an almost exclusively British cast, but that it’s so succesful in America. I’ve made friends on set and I’ve had friends join the show. I did series two, then on series three, one of my friends from university, Ellie Kendrick, got cast [as Meera Reed].

Then Jacob Anderson, who plays [badass unsullied leader] Greyworm – who was at one time my flatmate – got cast.”

With such a huge number of people seeing her work, does Murray feel like she’s at all in control of her public identity? Or does she think such concerns are fruitless? “I just take it job by job, pretty much. I think you could drive yourself crazy trying to make people think you were a certain thing or not a certain thing; I think you would just end up being quite frustrated because I don’t think that you can control how other people see you. For me, the main thing that I’m really motivated by, and the only thing that I want to be motivated by, is doing work that I think is good. Or choosing scripts that I think will be interesting or fun to do.

If you do a movie that ends up being rubbish or no one watches it, then at least you know it comes from a pure place. You can never really go wrong if you follow your heart.” c

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“The main thing that I’m really motivated by, and the only thing I want to be motivated by, is doing work that I think is good.”

Bora Aksu collared jumper

PPQ mini-Corset dress, COS shirt, Jasper Conran trousers, Orla Kiely shoes, Topshop socks

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PEOPLE

KATE LYN

SHEIL In the past few years Kate Lyn Sheil has starred in an impressive number of diverse projects, playing everything from “a sex addict with a proclivity for asphyxiation” to her most publicised role, as a social worker in Netflix’s hit House of Cards. Her latest project is Zachary Wigon’s Kickstarter-funded feature The Heart Machine; a film that uses an online relationship to address the construction of digital profiles, the age of surveillance and the paranoia that can manifest as a result. In other words: something we’re all dealing with right now.

WRITER DURGA CHEW-BOSE PHOTOGRAPHER BOBBY WHIGHAM STYLIST SHIBON KENNEDY HAIR AND MAKEUP KRISTI WILCZO STYLIST’S ASSISTANT SAMANTHA FLETCHER

T

ranscribing my interview with Kate Lyn Sheil is an easy, near-leisurely undertaking. The New York-based and sometimes LA couch-hopping actress speaks at a metered pace, seldom hurrying to express her thoughts, as if carefully rationing her words until they form a complete sentence. Because her tone is both warm yet stony – optimal for narrating an audio book, dolling out sensible advice to a flighty friend or helping a lost tourist navigate a subway map – Sheil has that rare quality of sounding like she’s listening even when she’s talking.

There’s just one thing. Sometimes Sheil’s voice tapers off, rendering it almost impossible to catch what she’s saying without turning up the volume on my recorder.

This vocal attribute of Sheil’s is something the indie star is mindful of, conceding that ADR re-recording of dialogue is often inevitable in post-production. But more so, her penchant for quietly building character has distinguished her as, some might say, the >

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The Row jacket, Joseph turtleneck, Joseph pants, Tibi shoes

Tibi jacket, Carven dress, Hadria ring

“I would love the challenge of going a little farther away from myself and to like, fit myself into roles that are not so up close, like playing a lawyer or something.�

Ter et Bantine top, Daniella Kallmeyer pants, Osklen shoes

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10 Crosby Derek Lam knit skirt and tunic, Hadria bracelet, Luxury Rebel boots

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“I want to generate my own work. I don’t want to be frozen in a moment of time. I want to be an evolving person.”

Carven jacket, Daniella Kallmeyer shirt, Suno skirt, Carven shoes, Joseph scarf

PEOPLE / KATE LYN SHEIL

face of New York’s micro-budget indie filmmaking scene. In just seven years, Sheil has acted in a whopping 38 productions including a recurring role on season two of Netflix’s political drama and cultural zeitgeist, House of Cards. Sheil’s capacity for wordlessly steering mood and menace is unerringly illustrated on You Tube in a video of collected scenes from Amy Seimetz’s 2013 couple-on-the-lam indie noir Sun Don’t Shine. In the clips, Sheil looks beaten down by the Florida sun; burdened and hauntingly preoccupied. A cadaverous stillness occupies her stare.

Naturally, the You Tube ode is titled “The Soundless Fury of Kate Lyn Sheil”.

While Sheil is established in independent film as a Slow-Burning Strong Female Lead (tallying for instance, three or four premieres a year at South By Southwest and Sundance combined), she is looking to expand beyond the sedate but stormy parts she has portrayed in the past. “I’ve played a number of roles where a female character is collapsing slowly before you, or struggling with something but not outwardly,” she says. In 2011 she starred in Sophia Takal’s 2011 female jealousy thriller Green, and that same year in Joe Swanberg’s Autoerotic, wherein Sheil plays a sex addict with a proclivity for asphyxiation. “I would love the challenge of going a little farther away from myself and to like, fit myself into roles that are not so up close, like playing a lawyer or something.” She pauses, her long Modigliani face and glassy grey-blue eyes looking especially dewy on this overcast May afternoon. “While I’ve always loved psycho sexual movies, there’s something about those performances that are maybe a little opaque and unreadable, whereas I think I’m sort of like an open book.”

This summer Sheil stars opposite John Gallagher Jr. in Zachary Wigon’s romantic drama, The Heart Machine. The film explores the fine balance between intimacy and self-preservation in a relationship, and wonders if distance – fabricated in this case – can prolong attraction or simply manipulate desire.

Sheil plays Virginia, a woman who claims to be living in Berlin while sustaining a “long-distance” online relationship with Cody (Gallagher Jr.), a socially awkward though well-meaning guy living in Brooklyn. Gradually Cody grows more and more suspicious of Virginia’s actual location and soon their relationship devolves into paranoia on his end and catfishing withdrawal on hers.

While structurally, technology plays an integral role – we first meet Virginia through Cody’s screen (Sheil’s porcelain face aglow in blue laptop light) – the film’s main preoccupation is what initially drew Sheil to the project. “I understand the idea of keeping somebody at arm’s length so you can continue to live your life and not give yourself entirely to that person when you don’t think that the person you are at that moment is like, ready to be seen by another human being,” she says. “I could really relate to it. It’s just the ultimate exaggerated version of ‘Let’s take it really slow’.” What also appealed to Sheil was the story’s dichotomic appreciation for both Virginia and Cody’s point of view; that Wigon chose to make a film where the woman is not reduced to a figment of the man’s imagination or a fleeting cipher he attempts to decode. “It’s not just from John’s perspective,” she says. “It goes into her world and flushes her out, and lets the audience know she’s a human being.”

While Sheil studied acting at NYU where she graduated in 2006, her foundation in film began as an avid fan, as a movie buff who worked at

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Kim’s Video in the East Village; the now sadly shuttered video store that for years was downtown’s nucleus cum clubhouse where cinephiles would convene. It’s there that she met fellow video clerk Alex Ross Perry, who in 2009 cast Sheil in his and also her feature debut, the post-WW2 and Gravity’s Rainbow-inspired odyssey Impolex. Perry, along with Swanberg, Seimetz and Ti West, are just some of the directors (and actors) who Sheil has worked with on numerous projects, typifying the friends making friends’ movies amity of the nano-budget indie scene that has gained considerable momentum in the last couple of years.

Premiering at Sundance this year was Perry’s third feature, Listen Up Philip, co-starring Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman and, of course, Sheil.

Asked what it was like to transition from shoe-string budget sets to working on House of Cards, Sheil describes the experience as “surprisingly seamless” despite being nervous the entire time. On the show Sheil plays Lisa Williams, a social worker who befriends and begins a relationship with Rachel, a former prostitute who is trying to change her life.

When I tell Sheil that I didn’t recognise her at first when as I was watching the show, she yelps unexpectedly, “Yes!” Sheil looks pleased with herself, her cheeks revealing rosy, ruddy warmth. “I want to do fewer roles with more transformation for each of them,” she says. “To have the grace period of time and to be able to do character work.”

In her off time, Sheil writes. She co-wrote a period drama with her boyfriend, set in Kentucky and called Men Go To Battle. She also cooks and watches movies. Lately Sheil has been revisiting certain performances from films she estimates are “pretty unequivocal masterpieces”. Isabelle Huppert is a mainstay, as well as Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. “I watched Niagara the other day,” she adds. “Marilyn Monroe.

You can be super expressive and still be a great actress while not being the most subtle.”

“Subtle”, it turns out, is a word critics deploy liberally when characterising Sheil’s performances. Just Google her name followed by the word “subtle” and pages of links will pop up. “I don’t think people mean for it to be, but it does sometimes sound like a backhanded compliment,” she says looking down at her lap.

The same is true for the word “breakout”, a term that has been ascribed to Sheil for years now. “I think it’s just a convenient word to package an idea in,” she says diplomatically. “The first time I was like: ‘OK. I’m going to capitalise on this!’ But something about a breakout performance renders you powerless in a way because... now what? Do I wait to be plucked or something?” Sheil recoils from the very word plucked. “Which is not how I’ve ever wanted to pursue my career. I want to generate my own work. I don’t want to be frozen in a moment of time. I want to be an evolving person. I feel like all of my friends who are actresses are plagued by the same thing. When does it stop? When you can’t have a breakout performance anymore or when you’re Julia Roberts or something?” Sheil laughs. Her offhand and depreciating “or something”, is what I come to learn as quintessential Sheil. And while I’m tempted to point out to her that she has most certainly passed the point of “breakout” star and moved on to bigger, more challenging and transformative roles, something tells me she already knows. c

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PEOPLE

DESIREE AKHAVAN WRITER FIONA DUNCAN/PHOTOGRAPHER JODY ROGAC/STYLIST ELLE PACKHAM

Desiree Akhavan is the writer, director and star of new film Appropriate Behaviour, in which she discovers who she is via her relationships with others. She’s been called “The next Lena Dunham”, which is appropriate when you consider her use of embarassing, relatable moments, but less appropriate when you consider that Akhavan’s Iranian-American, bisexual identity immediately makes said work much more diverse.

Regardless, Dunham approves: Akhavan has just been cast in the new season of Girls.

O

n my way to meet Desiree Akhavan she texted me a description of her outfit, as if I wouldn’t know what she looked like. Leopard print top, she relayed, far back of the cafe. The cafe we’d arranged for our interview was on the Upper West Side, near her. The weather that day was erratic in a way that must’ve brought fearsome validation to climate change dooms-sayers – first sun, then spit, spongy wind, humidity, a sky half-asphalt half-azure. I was late. Desiree was gracious as I blustered in making failed jokes about blind dates with cougars. When I explained that her text was unnecessary because of course I’d be able to pick her out of a crowd – I’d spent the last couple days looking at her face by re-watching her first feature film Appropriate Behaviour – she echoed my “of course”.

Akhavan’s initial obliviousness to her obviousness in this situation is telling of how unpracticed the writer/director/actor is at the media side of her profession, or, how uninterested. In New York, entertainment industry talk is so common, you have to make an effort to not feel like you’re in an interview all the time. Especially if you’re being called the “next big thing” in well-circulated press, which Akhavan is. But Akhavan acts unaware. Sitting across and down from me (the bench she’s on is not at the same level as my chair), she twice repeats the most important quote of our interview: that her primary ambition, her priority, is “trying to be a good girlfriend”.

Desiree Akhavan has been on the Brooklyn indie scene for a while now, but her “breakthrough” moment came at Sundance this year where her film Appropriate Behavior was accepted, screened and celebrated. Because Akhavan wrote, directed and starred in the film, and because it’s set in the Brooklyn of young gentrifiers, and because it features candid sex and nudity, and because all of her work feels so funny-but-true as to have to be at least in part autobiographical, Desiree Akhavan has been repeatedly called “the next Lena Dunham” (also, like Dunham, who got her HBO show Girls in part from the success of her short web series Delusional Downtown Divas, Akhavan’s

first public screen foray was with a comedic YouTube series called The Slope). The problem with this statement though is that Dunham comes out of a scene and moment, as does Akhavan. Where there are the two of them, there are many: Brooklyn is a borough full of aspiring young creatives, many of whom are turning technology on themselves; framing, editing and sharing versions of their lives online. Calling Akhavan the next Dunham is both an understatement and undermining, as once such status hierarchies have been declared, it becomes hard to see the work itself.

And Akhavan’s work deserves to be watched with clear eyes.

If Appropriate Behavior is to be compared to anything, it’s Woody Allen’s classic New York romance Annie Hall, which Desiree makes direct reference to in the film. Like Annie Hall, Appropriate Behavior is the story of a relationship’s full arc, from hookup to breakup.

Desiree’s film borrows both Allen’s innovative structure – “the dancing back and forth between past and present”, as she explains it – and his pathos: “That slipping between comedic farce and tragic melodrama” that she so admires. Desiree winks at Annie Hall’s influence in her script with a queer recreation of the famous bookstore scene from Allen’s Oscar-winning film. In Akhavan’s iteration, a neurotic and bespectacled woman (Maxine, played by Rebecca Henderson) gives her impetuous younger girlfriend (Shirin, played by Akhavan) a stack of “serious” books to consider. Appropriate Behavior is Annie Hall from Annie’s perspective – if Annie were a bisexual Iranian-American living in the 21st century.

What’s most novel about Appropriate Behavior is its character’s cross-sectional identities. Like Desiree herself, the film’s protagonist Shirin is a bisexual IranianAmerican. Desiree insists, however, that the film is not “about identity”. Shying from labels, Akhavan ends up describing herself and her characters by actions. For instance, she’ll specify “I’ve been romantically involved with both men and women and I was raised in New York by Iranian immigrants”. The filmmaker says she’s often asked if she prefers “queer” to

“gay” or “bi” and “Persian” to “Iranian” but that she “never has a good answer for this; it’s hard for me to say because I never found a home in any of these communities, so I don’t feel any sense of identity linked to these words”.

Bisexual is the one label she’ll take on, and only strategically. “I’d like to de-stigmatise it,” she shares with a smile. In the end, Akhavan says she identifies “as a human being”. And now, as a filmmaker.

The title Appropriate Behavior refers to protagonist Shirin’s inability to act according to expectation in any situation. In family, work and love, “by simply being herself”, Desiree explains, “she will always be inappropriate”.

Shirin is charming in her faults, though.

Simultaneously blunt and stumbling, open and stubborn, she becomes entangled with others easily. She picks up Maxine on a Brooklyn brownstone stoop on New Year’s Eve with a water bottle filled with tequila and a series of playfully insulting compliments. “I like girls like you”, Shirin tells Maxine two minutes into meeting. “You know: manly but a little bit like a lady.”

“I guess I love embarrassing stories,” Desiree confesses. Growing up she was a huge fan of glossy magazine embarrassment tell-alls: “I’ve been collecting stories like these since my eighth-grade class voted me ‘ugliest girl in school’,” Desiree laughs. That experience, at first devastating, taught Desiree the value of storytelling: how one person’s humiliation can become that same person’s funny story, that it’s just a matter of perspective.

In the months since our meeting the headlines following Desiree Akhavan went from “The Next Lena Dunham” to “The Next Star of Girls”. After seeing Appropriate Behavior, Dunham asked Akhavan to read for a role and immediately cast her as a creative writing grad student named Chandra on the third season of the HBO Original Series. Filming had just wrapped when I checked back in with Akhavan.

“It was an incredible experience,” she says.

“Very inspiring.” She’ll spend the next few weeks touring with her film at international festivals. As success continues to follow the multitalented New Yorker, her priorities remain ever grounded: her relationships come first. c

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PEOPLE

BAGGING ART AND ACTIVISM

You will have received a complimentary tote bag with this issue of Catalogue emblazoned with either Venus by Petrina Hicks or one of Ollie Henderson’s House of Riot slogans. Here, both the artist and the model-turned-activist talk to us about what inspires them.

PETRINA HICKS VENUS (2013) www.cataloguemagazine.com.au

HOUSE OF RIOT (2014) www.cataloguemagazine.com.au

“There are often two opposing forces within each work.

This could be purity versus evil, animal versus human, organic versus inorganic.”

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OLLIE HENDERSON Model-turned-activist Ollie Henderson recently started House of Riot, and is encouraging the fashionable to get political.

PETRINA HICKS

Petrina Hicks is a fine artist who creates photographs that address the representation of gender in society.

What first interested you in art?

The process of bringing forth metaphorical ideas created in the mind, into physicality.

Photography was the tool that allowed me to do this.

How did you develop your style?

I worked as a commercial photographer for many years before returning to art making, and I continued to employ commercial photography techniques in my art making so the works have a glossy, airbrushed, commercial feel.

Your work has been described as having “alternative truths beneath the surface”. Is this a fair statement? Can you elaborate a little on any themes that you explore in your work?

There is a polarity between the glossy surface of the works and the underlying content; the surface of the works is harmonious and appealing and singular and easy to read. It’s the alternate truths and layers beneath the surface that create the open narrative; where meaning is void and impossible to arrive at.

Your work is simultaneously innocent and insidious. Why is it important to strike this balance, and what are you trying to communicate here?

I like to explore duality within each image.

This could be purity versus evil, animal versus human, organic versus inorganic.

This issue of Catalogue addresses the idea of identity in its various iterations. I guess

everybody inherently communicates their own identity in their work, but do you purposely communicate themes of identity?

Yes, everyone communicates their identity through their work; their work is like a mirror they are holding up to themselves. I only really make work about things I know, it’s always familiar territory. There are often elements of nostalgia.

Do you identify as an Australian artist? Do you see a different approach to art making by Australian artists compared to artists from different parts of the world?

Yes, I do identify as an Australian artist. I think the isolation and space affects art making here. We also don’t carry as many burdens as say European artists do. This combination of isolation, space and freedom has an impact on our art making.

We’re re-printing your 2013 piece Venus on our tote bags for this issue. Can you explain this piece to us?

Venus uses mythology and art history to explore representation of women. The earliest representations of women in art strongly relate one thing: the female as a life-giver; fertility and childbirth. Traditionally, the conch shell has been used as a symbol of fertility in many cultures. The spiral formation of the conch shell is symbolic of infinity and also alludes to the Fibonacci sequence that appears in nature as the underlying form of growing patterns.

How did House of Riot start?

It began with Start The Riot, a campaign I ran at Australian Fashion Week this year: I hand-painted 100 t-shirts with positive political slogans for my friends to wear during the week. Slogans included “Welcome Refugees, Save Lives”, “Save the Reef” and “Reject Racism”, and the aim was to have a sea of people being photographed wearing these messages. The campaign had a great reception: I was contacted by magazines and individuals from around the globe who wanted to know more and to get involved. So this is where House of Riot started; this encouragement inspired me to keep going.

Why did you choose the slogans you did for the t-shirts?

I had a few that I felt strongly about but I actually tried to get people to come up with their own slogans: I wanted people to really care about the issues they were representing.

If they had trouble coming up with something, we discussed the issues they cared about and developed a slogan together.

We also had quite a few great nights in the workshop with pals drinking wine and throwing around political puns – it’s a pretty fun game once you get into it!

House of Riot seems to promote protest and people standing up for what they believe in, rather than any one cause in particular, >

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PEOPLE / PETRINA HICKS / OLLIE HENDERSON

right? What is House of Riot’s manifesto?

Definitely: the whole idea was just to wake people up. Our generation often gets labelled as apathetic but I don’t think it’s really apathy, I think it’s that people don’t know what to do. I want to show people that it’s easy to get involved: just wear a t-shirt, repost something on your Facebook wall, start a conversation.

A lot of your slogans are directed towards the current Australian government and policy decisions they’ve made. What are your biggest concerns with this government?

Ha! Where do I begin? ALL OF THEM! Okay, the Australian Government are ignoring climate change, they’re fucking up the reef, we will soon no longer have free health care and education fees are going up, again! I could keep going but we might be here all day.

(I feel a little bad sending these things out to the world: Australia is a great place, we just have an idiot in power!)

Do you have a particular area of interest when it comes to these issues?

My main focus has been on equality via feminism, LGBTI rights and human rights. But more recently I've started working closely with UK-based activist group The Future on climate change. They have representation in Japan and

throughout Europe, and I’m building a team in Australia.

Fashion is a controversial industry with regards to human rights and manufacturing processes.

What are your thoughts on this?

You’re right, but I feel like that’s changing. The treatment of workers by big brands is being exposed, and there's a strong movement towards ethical fashion. Even the fact that we have the term “ethical fashion” is a step forward.

How do you strike a balance between using the fashion industry to convey these messages while also being aware of the problematic nature of the industry itself?

With the apparel made by House of Riot we only use W.R.A.P. (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production) certified facilities where staff are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions. It’s great that organisations like W.R.A.P. exist because it gives people a way of knowing how their products are being made without having to travel to the factory. I’ve spoken to friends of mine who are designers about this and it does seem like a tough time to be in fashion because you have competitors who don’t care about ethical standards and can therefore produce much cheaper clothing. At the moment it’s easy for

“The whole idea was to just wake people up.”

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me to maintain these ethical standard as I only produce t-shirts and I have no investors worried about financial return. It may become more difficult in the future but I feel strongly about this and will always only produce clothing with facilities that share my moral standards.

Are there any past political movements that you are inspired by? I wrote a feature about Kathleen Hanna and Riot Grrrl for the last issue of Catalogue and House of Riot seems similar in that: A) it’s using a cultural medium to translate political ideas and; B) there’s no a definitive message – rather the message seems to be “get politically motivated, open your eyes, let’s talk about this stuff”.

I’m a big fan of the Riot Grrrl movement and political action through music in general. My friend Kitty and I made a playlist that was the inspiration for Start The Riot. It was filled with what I call “Political Dad Rock”. In Australian music during the ‘70s and ‘80s there were so many popular songs with political themes from the likes of Midnight Oil and Skyhooks, and also in indigenous music like Yothu Yindi and Warumpi Band. I think it was a really inspiring time in music and I don’t feel like there’s enough current popular music that speaks about important issues. Could we please chill on the girl meets boy heartache? c

WIN A FEW OF OUR FAVOURITE THINGS 3 AMAZING MEGA-PRIZE PACKS WORTH OVER $1600 EACH!

Tote bags are built for carrying around everything you may need or want at any given moment. So for this one-off competition to celebrate the new-look Catalogue, we’ve pulled together our favourite needs and wants from some of our favourite brands and stuffed them into three of the tote bags we produced especially for this issue. There's one

by Petrina Hicks, one by Ollie Henderson's House of Riot and a special limited edition Catalogue tote, each filled to the brim with over $1600 worth of goodies. And we’re giving one mega prize pack away to three lucky readers!

EACH OF THE THREE TOTE BAGS INCLUDES THESE AWESOME GOODIES: A Sterling Silver Meadowlark ring; a pair of Kate Sylvester sunglasses; a pair of waterproof Converse Chuck Taylor All Star rubber sneakers; FKA twigs’ new CD LP1; a striped t-shirt dress by Salasai; a Logitech Fabric Hinge Folio for iPad Air, a Logitech iPhone 5/5S case and tilt (in a white/gold colourway exclusive in Australia to this giveaway) and a Logitech bluetooth speaker; a DL & Co. candle; Model.Co’s Tan in a Can, Fat Lash, Eye Brow kit and lip gloss; Grown Alchemist’s Age Repair Serum, Hydra-Mist and Eye Makeup remover; a camisole by MLM; a Caravana clutch bag.

Head to facebook.com/cataloguemagazine.com.au to enter* *Competition closes 31 September

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PEOPLE

FKA

TWIGS Meet our cover star FKA twigs; a resilient, independent artist who is going her own way, directly into the hearts and imaginations of the generation from which she hails.

WRITER COURTNEY SANDERS PHOTOGRAPHER DIMA HOHLOV STYLIST KAREN CLARKSON MAKEUP SOICHI AT SAINT LUKE USING BUMBLE & BUMBLE HAIR NAOKO SCINTU AT SAINT LUKE USING MAC PRO NAILS IMARNI AT SAINT LUKE USING CIATE

T

wo years ago I had a conversation with my Step Dad and told him that I was going to be a wedding singer; I told him I was going to be a wedding singer for the rest of my life,” explains FKA twigs – real name Tahliah Barnett – over the phone. I chortle (yes, embarrassingly, I chortle; a kind of awkward marriage between snorting and laughing) in response to this comment from a 26-year-old on the brink of becoming internationally adored. “I’m serious!” She exclaims. “I got a friend to make me a logo and I thought I was going to have to get some photographs shot, and take all of my piercings out. I used to perform at these bizarre, underground cabaret clubs where all these circus kids would perform. It wasn’t proper performing; I would sing Wanna Make Love to You while wearing a blue dress with Swarovski crystals all over it, with high heels and a red lip, you know what I mean?” Sort of, but considering her current look – dreadlock hair, >

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Acne Studios polo neck top, Slim Barrett metal pearl trimmed waistcoat, Acne Studios trousers, REO Jewellery earrings

PEOPLE / FKA TWIGS septum piercing and penchant for leather – it’s quite a hard image to conjure. “I was, like: ‘I’m going to have to do this for the rest of my life, and it’s not what I planned, but it’s absolutely fine’.”

Down the line from 4AD, her record label’s offices in London, it’s pretty apparent Tahliah is that evasive, mystical, breed of human: a creative who has her shit together. She esoterically describes her passion for music, and to a lesser (but still very intense) extent, dance, while also matter-of-factly explaining her rise, and the realistic alternatives open to someone who doesn’t “make it” in an in industry that’s notoriously hard to “make it” in.

It’s the dichotomy she was raised with, too, in rural Gloucestershire amid “lots of tractors and lots of grass” by a Spanish dance teachermother and hard-working step dad. “It’s the kind of place where you grow up and stay there. You marry the boy you fancied at high school and you have kids and your kids go to the same school you went to,” she explains. “I knew that I wanted to get out, and as soon as I was old enough I moved to London and never really went back.” She began taking ballet classes when she was little, which offered her an occasional, metropolitan reprieve. “I started doing ballet when I was seven or eight, and through my dancing – I took it really seriously and did it to quite a high level - I was able to get to London and do dance competitions and explore more of the UK than other people who come from where I come from,” she explains.

She credits her mum, a spirited woman herself, for nurturing her creative vision. “I was good in school, when I used to go, but I used to bunk off a lot,” she, kinda reluctantly, admits. “I know, I know, I was terrible! But it was never to do nothing! It was always because I wanted to go to dance class or finish a drawing that I’d started at home. It was bad because my Mum pretty much let me do what I wanted; if I was staying home from school she didn’t really mind, as long as I was doing art course-work or had my nose stuck in a book. I don’t know... maybe for another kid that approach would be irresponsible, but for me – because my mum knew what type of child I was – she knew it would be perfect.” She met her biological father when she was 18, and any lingering doubts about why she is who she is were vanquished. “Obviously there are genetics at play, because his creativeness has definitely been passed onto me. He’s a jazz dancer and he’s made music; he’s a wayward creative person who always has really great ideas and stuff,” she explains. “I come from a really strange and broken family, but for me it’s perfect. Even though it’s been hard, all of the cracks in my family are perfect – they’ve made me who I am.”

She continues: “When you’re a teenager you hate it, and you can be so conflicted by anything that’s outside of ‘normal’; you’re so hurt by it.” Tahliah started making music in “bootleg” youth clubs in Gloucestershire where >

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“Drag queens taught me how to do my make-up. I can put false eyelashes on super well because all the drag queens would teach me how to do that, and how to put my lip liner on, and they also taught me how to do my hair.”

Acne Studios polo neck top, Slim Barrett metal pearl trimmed waistcoat

“Two years ago I had a conversation with my Step Dad and I told him that I was going to be a wedding singer for the rest of my life.�

Balenciaga grey wool flannel jacket, Acne Studios trousers, REO Jewellery earrings, Pebble London necklace

“I come from a really strange and broken family but for me it’s perfect. Even though it’s been hard, all of the cracks in my family are perfect – they’ve made me who I am.”

Acne Studios black leather top with red detail, REO Jewellery accessories

PEOPLE / FKA TWIGS she would stay until “11 or 11.30 at night”, and when she moved to London she worked in them. “I started going to youth clubs, and when I was a little older I became a youth worker to help other young people make music in the same way I was helped. I worked with these young people, and even if they couldn’t sing I’d help them write poetry to help them express themselves and the things they were going through.” She describes the emotional demands of social work as “exhausting in this really weird way”, and you can definitely feel that vibe on her forthcoming album LP1, a “collection of my experiences over the past two years”. Give Up is a song she tried to describe to me as “happy” and then “realised that it’s not really happy at all”. It may not be happy, exactly, but it’s fighting and spirited, with sentiments like “Just nod your head and get up / I’m not going to let you give up” rolling, in FKA twigs’ soothing falsetto, across sleepy, glacial sonic waves.

The Conservatives won the 2010 general election in the UK and proceeded to abolish funding for youth organisations (along with everything else vaguely arts-related), and Tahliah found herself unemployed and with time on her hands. “Literally, overnight, I got sacked because there was no money. All of the classes stopped and there were no facilities to do them in,” she explains. “It was really heartbreaking, but in a way – just trying to look on the bright side – it was what I needed to concentrate on myself. I was doing it like five times a week and then obviously, if I’m writing songs with four other people, the last thing I want to do is to come home and concentrate on my own work; I just wanted to come home and watch something mindless on TV.” Good things come to those who wait. And wait. And wait. Around the same time Tahliah was planning her Wedding Karaoke Takeover, help arrived in the form of a crazy stalker man. “I didn’t know he was in A&R at my record label – he’s so wild and crazy! I met him in a club and he just wouldn’t stop pestering me. I was like: ‘Who is this guy?!’ I remember I was in New York and he was messaging me over and over again and I was like: ‘OMG this guy is a stalker!’” she explains, describing respected producer, and A&R at Young Turks, Tic Zogson. “Eventually I was like: ‘Fine, I’ll meet up with you’. It was absolutely pouring down with rain on the day we arranged to meet and we’d arranged to meet really early, at like 10.30 in the morning. I walked all the way to Dalston, which is quite far from my house, in the rain, and he didn’t turn up for three hours! I was just sitting on the doorstep of this studio for Three. Hours,” she exclaims. “He’d gone out the night before and his phone was off, but somehow I just knew he’d turn up.”

These early recording sessions – in “not even a studio, it was a black hole of death with speakers in it” – became EP1 and were released online at the end of 2012. And a mystical figure was born. I was editing a music website at the time and wrote this very inspired news post about her: “Twigs [she had to add FKA to her moniker after another artist named Twigs complained] is a very mysterious solo artist from the UK who has released a couple of music videos, a couple of live photos, and absolutely zero press releases.”

Everything we could find out about her, which was limited to her music and her burgundy lips and décolletage care of EP1’s artwork, fuelled our interest. I ask Tahliah if this was on purpose? “No way. I really hate the idea of pushing my music onto people; I love it when people discover it for themselves. In the music industry today there’s a lot of ‘ramming music down people’s throats’, and I’ve never really liked that approach; if you play a song enough times to someone they’re going to start singing it and they’re going to start liking it... it’s only natural. But with me I’ve

never been about that – I want people to discover it in their own way.”

The Internet interest for FKA twigs is comparable to the interest surrounding Grimes and the interest surrounding Lorde at the beginning of their careers, and it’s got less to do with them all being young women and much more to do with what they’re all saying and how they’re saying it. Last year Stereogum published an article in which they coined the term “monogenre” to describe young artists – Grimes, Lorde, FKA twigs included (they also mentioned a collaboration between Coldplay and Rihanna as an example of this “monogenre” which only just worked in their favour) – who are writing music in the same way the Internet presents it: digitally, and without differentiation between genre or style.

And people, used to consuming music via an endless flow of image links and videos on Tumblr, or via iTunes, or via Vimeo channels, are totally digging this new, democratic sound.

It’s important that most of these “monogenre” artists are “bedroom artists” too, using consumer-available technology to work things out pretty autonomously.

Tahliah stresses that making LP1 was “a lot of hard work” – she wrote and produced everything herself – and describes it as “a good stamp. This is the best thing I could do in that moment, it’s the level I could reach”.

My immediate reaction to LP1 though is how effortless it feels. Her words – which seem to detail incredibly honest, romantic experiences (“When I trust you we can do it with the lights on” – Two Weeks), float across glassy, shiny, subtle beats in the sensual way reserved for people who are in total control of their physical and psychological form, which Tahliah totally seems to be.

Listen a little longer, however, and you can feel her fighting spirit everywhere, from Give Up’s resistance to failure to Video Girl’s industry condemnation to her demand for respect in Two Weeks. LP1 is basically the lovechild of Massive Attack and TLC, and it’s intoxicating.

As on her album, FKA twigs has something going on in her visuals and in her video clips. Like Grimes and like Lorde – but, of course, completely different to both of them – she can translate huge ideas into compact little pieces, and Tahliah’s visual direction, somewhat ironically, coincided with her blue Swarovski-encrusted dress days, performing in those underground Burlesque clubs. “Drag queens taught me how to do my make-up. I can put false eyelashes on super well because all the drag queens would teach me how to do it, and how to put my lip liner on, and they also taught me how to do my hair... all while I was sitting backstage.” She also, as an insane aside, made friends with “Romanian girls who have been in the circus since they were five years old and now they’re contortionists and can shoot apples from bows and arrows with their feet while in a hand-stand”. Tahliah’s transition from singing other people’s songs into singing her own, a kind of modern, ugly duckling-to-swan transformation, is palpable throughout LP1: on Video Girl, for example, insidious, thwomping (but y’know, a restrained kind of thwomping) supports sentiments like “The camera’s on you, ain’t that enough” and “Looking at the game, trying to make a stand” before breaking down into “You’re lying, you’re lying, you lie”.

And while we’re busy selling her into the fame game, all of her experiences, from her upbringing to her dalliances with contortionists, mean that she certainly isn’t buying. “I was waiting at the bus stop in my gym gear and a guy saw me and came up to me and said: ‘I can’t believe it’s you and you’re just sitting at a bus stop!’’’ she explains. “I told him that I’m just like every other girl around, like every, single, other girl who waits at the bus stop.” The wonderful thing about FKA twigs, despite her excellent album, her opulent video clips and her photo shoots for like, all of the magazines, is that she still vehemently believes this. c

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“They kept warning me against it but at the same time I got to tell the story that they all missed.�

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PEOPLE

KITTY GREEN

K

Melbourne-based documentary filmmaker Kitty Green hot-footed it to Ukraine after seeing an image of feminist protest group FEMEN discarded in a train carriage. It’s exactly this intuitive knack for (and decisive pursuit of) the story that enabled Kitty to uncover the startling truths underpinning FEMEN, which she details in her new film Ukraine is Not a Brothel. By Cleo Braithwaite.

itty Green is painting her nails and can’t get her headphones out of her ears in time to answer my initial Skype call. “That sounds so vain doesn’t it?” she laughs. I’ll admit, it’s not what I was expecting going in with my mind set to “feminist”. But then again, FEMEN are far from a feminist cliché.

Since they formed in 2008, FEMEN’s theatrical protests and trademark bare breasts have caught the attention of press worldwide.

Their initial raison d’être was to challenge the sex tourism trade in Ukraine. They’ve since expanded to protest patriarchy in all forms with the brand of topless activism they’ve dubbed “sextremism”.

It was the bold image of one of their protests that jumped out at Kitty on a Melbourne train one day from a page of a discarded commuter tabloid. “It had a picture of one of the girls in it and she was holding a sign that said ‘Ukraine Is Not A Brothel’ and she was topless and I thought it was a really beautiful image,” says Kitty. “There was a naivety to it but... she also had a strength…so I was excited by the kind of contradictions of it.”

Some people, they get a song stuck in their head. For Kitty, that paradoxical postcard from Ukraine rang loud against the monotone of commuter travel. The VCA film school graduate already had her own connection to the country – a Ukrainian grandmother – and this planted the seed of a trip to explore the family tree. In Kiev she looked up FEMEN and saw that they were planning a protest in the town square. “I went down and filmed it and it was insane… they were being dragged away by the police and beaten and screaming. And they were all gorgeous with these flowers in their hair, and it was just absolutely…beautiful and bizarre at the same time. So I kinda got hooked instantly and stayed for 14 months and made a film.”

“Because I’m young and blonde – like, I fit in,” she explains. Then there was also the solidarity provided by her Ukrainian heritage. Kitty laughs: “Yeah, as soon as you say your grandmother’s Ukrainian they say ‘Well, you’re Ukrainian then! Let’s pour some vodka’.”

The local hospitality proved useful for both Kitty’s unborn film and putting a roof over her head. “I needed somewhere to stay and to learn some more Ukrainian and Russian, so they let me live with them and there were six of us in a

two bedroom apartment.” Living in such close quarters forged an inevitable bond between the girls. As Kitty explains: “Because I really had a friendship with them and they trusted me, I was allowed to tell the story that other journalists couldn’t tell”. In the film, that trust between the women is palpable; as members of FEMEN are interviewed on camera, their eyes frequently look beyond the camera to Kitty as their confidante.

It’s a contentious approach for a documentary maker, earning Kitty her fair share of criticism.

“We’d have journalists there every day – from like CNN and the New York Times and the biggest European papers – and they would see that I was living with the girls and say ‘What are you doing? You can’t do that... you’ll lose all objectivity’. They kept warning me against it but at the same time I got to tell the story that they all missed.”

The more time Kitty spent with FEMEN, filming their protests on her digital SLR, the more she observed the inner workings of the organisation. It was becoming increasingly clear that behind this feminist movement was an unexpected choreographer: a man by the name of Victor Svyatski who, somewhat antithetically for a Feminist organisation, hand-picked the girls based on their physical attractiveness.

“When I discovered that it was quite depressing and I was thinking ‘Well, do I want to make a film about this movement if this is the reality of it, if this is the way it’s run?’” It was a pivotal moment for Kitty: “I sort of thought – maybe I should just go home.”

Sensing that the girls were restless and ready for the organisation to evolve (in the film one of the girls explains that “we are psychologically dependent on him and even if we know and understand that we could do this by ourselves without his help, it’s psychological dependence”), Kitty resolved to make the film she thought needed to be made, albeit involving a degree of subterfuge about what she would reveal. Despite the ethical grey area, looking back she has no regrets. “I got a lot of calls [from journalists] after the Venice premiere saying ‘How can this be true? You’ve made it all up! How could we have missed that story?’. So that was really amazing. I thought ‘Well, it does pay off to do what I did’.”

The happy post-script is that FEMEN has made significant positive changes within the

organisation since Ukraine is Not a Brothel was made. Watching the film it becomes apparent how deeply entrenched the gender inequality is. For Kitty it was an eye opener. “I mean, I was raised in a very progressive kind of area of Melbourne. I never knew there was such a big gender divide to be honest. I guess I became more of a feminist by finding out just how bad women have it across the world.” She reflects: “We’re not actively that feminist [in Australia] because everything’s okay. Whereas in a country like that you can’t just sit by and watch it happen, you’ve got to stand up and kind of get involved in order to get things to change.”

With her slight frame and pale blonde hair, Kitty doesn’t look dissimilar to the girls protesting. You’d be forgiven for thinking she had momentarily wound up on the wrong side of the camera. Did she ever take part in a protest?

“No… I got asked all the time but I shot all the protest footage and I would always say to the girls ‘Well, who’s going to shoot the protest if I’m protesting?’”

Far from being immune to the action, when Kitty accompanied FEMEN to Belarus to protest against “Europe’s last dictator” – Alexander Lukashenko – she made headlines back home after being detained by the KGB. Taken to a darkened room, denied a translator, her phone and camera confiscated only to be returned hours later with the protest footage deleted, she was finally escorted across the border into Lithuania. The FEMEN girls were said to have suffered even worse treatment; taken in a van to a forest near the Ukrainian border where they were stripped and beaten. In a job that can feel “like being a war reporter”, Kitty takes a fairly pragmatic approach to assessing her odds: “I did all the research before I went and asked my Dad to Google how many foreign journalists had been killed. And he did. He sent me a two-page summary on it… and he didn’t tell my mother, which was good.”

Does she feel strong ties to the country? “I guess my interest in it came from my grandmother. I speak the language, which I guess helps, and I feel very at home there. It’s strange how comfortable I feel in that country,” she says. And yet she finds herself still “a little bit of an outsider”.

An outsider on the inside. For a documentary filmmaker that seems like a good place to be. c

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BEAUTY

PIECES OF THE PEOPLE WE LOVE

Where are you from?

The Sunshine Coast

OUTER GLOW Summer is all about looking sun-kissed! While nature will do most of the work for us we still need a little help from our friends, namely a liquid bronzer (smoothed into the contours of the face to create dewiness) and, of course, ModelCo’s Tan in a Can (because the only safe tan is a fake tan).

PinkLouLou Australian Flag necklace

PHOTOGRAPHER BEC PARSONS DIGITAL OPERATOR BART CELESTINO CREATIVE DIRECTOR ELLE PACKHAM MAKEUP NAOMI MCFADDEN AT NAMES AGENCY HAIR DIANE DUSTINGS AT DLM MODELS LILLY AT PRISCILLAS, EDEN, RAE, INEZ AND OLLIE AT CHIC, TAYLA AT IMG

What’s your favourite song?

Purple Rain by Prince

GLITTER While this look might not be all that suitable for the office, it’s a pretty fab alternative party look, in part because it’s incredibly easy to achieve. Mix your choice of glitter with MAC Mixing Medium (alcohol based for the body, water based for the face), go forth and sparkle! (Oh, and good luck getting it off your hands.)

Lots of water

WET LOOK This look is to make-up as 50 Shades of Grey is to literature: sexy. Spritz skin, apply a water-based foundation (like MAC Face and Body), add a highlighting product (Becca Shimmering Skin Perfecter) and – and this is very important – drink at least eight glasses of water per day.

Fella swim top, PinkLouLou silver and gold chains, ASOS choker

What’s your beauty secret?

BEAUTY

What’s your star sign?

Leo

CURLY HAIR No longer reserved for high school dorks before hair straighteners were invented, girls with curls are cool, OK. If you’re naturally straight and want to take a walk on the wild side, spray your wet hair with Original & Mineral Surf Bomb Sea Salt Spray, blow dry, curl sections with curling tongs and then run your fingers through and shake it all about.

What’s your favourite colour?

Red

BOLD EYE Christina Ricci’s blue eyeshadow in Buffalo ‘66 is pretty much the coolest make-up look we have ever seen: we love it, we want it, we will have it, and you can too. Pick a colour, any colour, in a wet-to-dry eyeshadow (Maybelline Colour Tattoo Cream Gel Shadows are excellent). Wipe across your eyelid from the centre outwards with your fingertip, and add highlight to the inner corner (MAC Cream Colour Base used here).

Model’s own leather jacket

BEAUTY

Purl Harbour crochet bikini top

What do you look forward to?

My Birthday

ANDROGYNOUS Some things look easier to achieve than they are, but this one is all about ease. Side part, then comb Upper Featherweight Pomade through your hair then tie loosely at the back.

That’s it: kick-ass ‘tude accomplished.

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Emma Mulholland pants $300 and top $80 (worn throughout), Sole shoes $170 (worn throughout)

PHOTOGRAPHER OLIVER ROSE STYLIST ELLE PACKHAM HAIR RAE BORIBOUN MAKEUP LEI TAI MODEL KATE AT IMG

THE EDIT WE PICK THE BEST-OF THE-BEST SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

HIGH WAISTED PANTS

SABA wide-leg pants $199

Jamie Ashkar pants $395

Desert Designs pants $190

Handsom pants $130

Arnley pants $350

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BROWN

Maison Scotch top $110, Arnley pants $480

Daniel K top $295 and pants $370

Jude jumper POA, Kaylene Milner shorts $299

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Daniel K pants $370, Vanishing Elephant shoes $240

Penny Sage singlet $140, Arnley leather shorts $565

Zambesi top $190 and skirt $210, Vanishing Elephant shoes $240 (worn throughout)

THE EDIT

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Georgia Alice top $280 and skirt $680, River Island shoes $40 (worn throughout)

THE EDIT

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Kaliver skirt POA

Hansen and Gretel skirt $240

Georgia Alice skirt $775

ASOS skirt $39, MLM top $110

MIDI SKIRT

Kaliver skirt $425

Camilla & Marc skirt $360, Georgia Alice top $299

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SHE’S GOT THE LOOK

Whether it’s a steely gaze or a gap-tooth smile, these are the features and the faces of the future.

EHREN

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Acne jacket and pants

PHOTOGRAPHY NICK HUDSON AT 1+1 MANAGEMENT FASHION DIRECTION ELLE PACKHAM/MAKEUP MIGUEL LLEDO HAIR TAICHI SAITO/PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT DEAN PODMORE MODELS NEXT MODEL MANAGEMENT, NEW YORK

SIBUI

Camilla & Marc bustier, The Vintage Clothing Shop pants

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CONSTANZA

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Scanlan And Theodore leather shearling coat, Calvin Klein bra

VASH

Tibi top, Zambesi belt, Creatures of Comfort pants, I Love Mr Mittens socks

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LERA

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The Vintage Clothing Shop beaded bib, stylist’s own bra, Zambesi belt, Nobody jeans

ASTRID

Tibi jumpsuit, Samuji shirt

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LABEL WATCH

SIMPLE IS AS SIMPLE DOES UNIF.M PHOTOGRAPHER GADIR RAJAB STYLIST ELLE PACKHAM HAIR AND MAKEUP FILOMENA NATOLI MODEL SYDNEY AT IMG

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NIF.M are a Sydney-based design collective who, in their own words, look like “ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ” and are inspired by “everyone”. There’s more (although physically less, which is the whole point) to them than that though, considering UNIF.M started six years ago and have since created a cult following for their attention to detail, as they explain: “It’s easy to design dream garments but they’re not so easy to produce. Our production backgrounds force us to strip back the design to focus on the technicalities of the design and production of the garments.” For summer 2014-15 they’ve expanded on the refined elegance of the past few seasons by fraying their denim and adding a native Australian floral print. Basics are still the label’s base – “Traditional silhouettes and shapes are inspiring to us… we incorporate small details that may not be particularly noticeable; tabs, cuffs, collars” – and, for summer 2014-15, grey marle t-shirts and sporting separates fill this normcore space. c

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Cropped bomber and elastic waist shorts

Full length fringe dress

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Mini dress in pop pink

Backless fringe dress

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LABEL WATCH

HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO VERNER PHOTOGRAPHER HUNTER RYAN STYLIST MARCELLE LOURIE HAIR AND MAKEUP SARAH GIBBS MODELS NIKITA AT IMG, ASHLEE AT GIANT

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ngrid Verner’s new fashion label Verner is only a few seasons old and has courted its fair share of attention in this short time: the label’s winter 2014 collection “White Wash” addressed “white Australia policy” which, until 1950, intentionally favoured European immigration. It takes a brave and intelligent fashion designer to address social and political issues, and while it makes for the best results, Ingrid arguably gained so much attention because there aren’t very many designers who do it. She’s moving onwards and upwards for her summer 2014-15 collection “Eat Cake” which she describes as “stemming from the infamous quote that Marie Antoinette never actually uttered – “Let them eat cake” – and our modern age of entitlement through “Now you can have your cake and eat it too”. Using Antoinette, and France more generally, as a jumping-off point to discuss Australia’s cultural inferiority complex, the silhouettes in the range are, as Verner explains, a marriage between “French culture and ideas of established luxury” and “Australia’s more relaxed approach to dressing”. She continues this “juxtaposition between high and low brow throughout, as the wearer is generously offered multiple ways of wearing, encouraging all to have their cake and eat it too”. We’ll have a piece of what she’s having. c

All clothing Verner unless otherwise credited

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Comme des Garรงons shorts

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Issey Miyake pants

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Target long sleeve tops

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Comme des Garรงons halter top

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LABEL WATCH

NOW THAT I’M OLDER SILVER PLUME PHOTOGRAPHER BEC PARSONS DIGITAL OPERATOR BART CELESTINO STYLIST ELLE PACKHAM STYLIST ASSISTANT RACHEL COLLESS MAKEUP PETER BEARD AT WORK AGENCY HAIR ANTHONY NADER AT VIVIENNE’S CREATIVE MODEL ERIN SHEA AT IMG

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oday, with new trends and new products finding us via every available medium, it’s easy to forget that sometimes older things can also be better things. Enter Silver Plume American Indigenous Jewellery Store and Gallery located in Double Bay, Sydney. Silver Plume is curated by Tad Anderman, who relocated his space from Santa Fe to Australia after 23 years in the business of understanding the historical, cultural and ethnographic significance of vintage American Indian jewellery. Each piece immediately evokes the skill of its craftsperson, its symbolic importance and, most importantly, (and despite the opinion of almost everybody, everywhere) each piece proves that some things do indeed get better with age. c

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CATALOGUE / ISSUE 9

YOUNG & RESTLESS Right now our generation is young and restless: we’ve experienced more technological change than any other and, as a result, our world, our jobs and – most importantly – ourselves, are in total flux.

In this section of Catalogue we navigate how we’re using our virtual worlds to define who we are, to create meaningful (and, of course, less meaningful) output, and how these virtual worlds are affecting the fashion industry. Which they are.

In every way imaginable.

We also celebrate the things that have made us who we are today, most significantly: Dawson’s Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because if our generation has proved anything, it’s proved that television will always be very, very important.

Slimane is packaging “cool”, J.W. Anderson is packaging “modernity” and Alexander Wang is packaging “downtown”.

Diesel Fall 2014

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

CREATE, AND CONTROL The Internet and social media has changed how we do everything – how we work, how we shop, even how we think – and has demanded an evolutionary response from everyone who wants to survive the transition; adapt or die, basically. The fashion industry has adapted by replacing designers with creative directors – Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent, J.W. Anderson at Loewe and Nicola Formichetti at Diesel for starters – who can effortlessly communicate their brand to the world in tiny little square images and 140 characters or less. By Courtney Sanders.

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ourtney Love thinks it’s hilarious Angeles, which also happens to be where that Hedi Slimane can recreate Slimane moved the offices of the unequivocally babydoll dresses – identical to the French house upon his appointment. All of this ones she found at thrift stores and culminated (or became confusing) when he popularised in the ‘90s – and sell shot Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster album cover. them for tens of thousands of dollars. After Before Saint Laurent, Slimane was the attending Saint Laurent’s 2013 presentation she creative director for Dior Homme. He took to Twitter “having gasms at the idea of rich revolutionised the house by revolutionising ladies buying what we used to wear”: a gothic men’s clothing and men’s body image by black floral babydoll-style mini-dress from that street-casting lanky, thin, awkward-looking collection retailed for a staggering $68,000. Courtney Love’s connection to Hedi Slimane’s house of Saint Laurent goes beyond Twitter updates: Slimane recruited her for his winter 2013 campaign, the “Saint Laurent Music Project”, alongside Ariel Pink, Marilyn Manson and Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth. These musicians were photographed by Slimane in his signature monochromatic, gritty and – in Love’s case in particular – unkempt style for Saint Laurent’s seasonal advertising which, because of the Saint Laurent by Hedi featured talent, went totally #viral.

Slimane Fall 2014 Slimane has been documenting music for two decades. In 2004 he started his “Rock Diary” blog in collaboration dudes (he went on what he described to The with NME journalist Alex Needham and has Guardian as a “boy safari” in order find them) since photographed basically every goodand dressing them in exquisitely tailored, looking musician around, including the Arctic exquisitely thin suits created with rock ‘n’ roll Monkeys, No Age, Sky Ferreira and Franz stars in mind. He then dressed actual rock ‘n’ Ferdinand. In 2005 Steidl published London roll stars like The Libertines and Franz Birth of a Cult, a book in which Sliamne Ferdinand for shows that – alongside the documents then-unknown musician Pete stateside uprising of artists like The Strokes – Doherty alongside his fans. The latest Saint re-invigorated rock ‘n’ roll. “I could do my own Laurent campaign, promoting his gold lamejeans line because I have legitimacy in heavy summer 2014 collection, features Cherry launching the skinny jeans in fashion,” he told Glazerr, a garage-rock three-piece from Los the Huffington Post in 2011, and it’s true.

Slimane’s penchant for photographing and befriending rock stars enabled him to design clothes that rock stars wear and then everybody else wants to wear.

The Internet and social media have irrevocably changed everything over the past decade. At the Techonomy Conference in 2010, moderator John Kirkpatrick introduced then Google CEO Eric Schmidt by delivering the mind-blowing fact that today we create as much information every two days as we did between the dawn of time and 2003, which is an amount of information my brain can’t even fathom. When it comes to the creation of information and knowledge, the Internet and social media is the printed book or magazine on crack. A good book will either animate a fictional story or argue a factual point by vividly detailing all of the possible threads of said story or argument across several hundred pages. A good Internet op-ed will use links and pictures and GIFS and videos to do the same thing in less than 1000 words, and a good Tweet will do the same in less than 140 characters. In his book (a best-seller because occasionally people still read) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, author Nicholas Carr explains that the Internet “is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski”. For better or for worse the Internet makes us desperate for new, little, >

“Hedi Slimane’s penchant for photographing and befriending rock stars enables him to design clothes they wear and everybody else then wants to wear.”

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YOUNG & RESTLESS / CREATE, AND CONTROL delightful, interesting, often completely the indefinable, and these creative directors useless pieces of knowledge that are timehave mastered exactly that. sensitive and shareable (cats and emojis! lists Courtney Love may laugh at Hedi Slimane’s and quizzes!). ability to sell a $68,000 dress to rich, clueless This has affected the fashion industry big chumps, but doesn’t she know how invaluable time. Physical retail has turned into digital her Tweets are as a part of the transaction? In retail, trends stay current for weeks instead of 1962 Everett Rogers published Diffusion of seasons, High Street stores – complete with Innovations, a book that contained a thing production might and remiss of a moral called The Adoption Curve. “Innovators”, he compass – reproduce argued (in this case, Hedi runway collections before Slimane), make up 2.5% of the actual runway the population, “Early collections hit the actual Adoptors” (in this case, designers’ stores. The Courtney Love) make up market is flooded, the 13.5% of the population, industry is in flux, and and in order to sell a lot of because of our shallow something, this 15.5% of the attention spans on-air population need to talk to time between a fashion the remaining 84.5% of the label and their customer is population. Everything Hedi scarce. To succeed, labels Slimane does at Saint need to communicate Laurent – from using their unique vision via one musicians in his advertising little square photograph or campaigns to recruiting in 140 characters, or in a musicians for his catwalk (preferably hilarious) show soundtracks to status update. Hedi snubbing fashion media’s Slimane is a photographer elite (he infamously chose and Hedi Slimane is a not to invite Cathy Horyn, designer, but more fashion editor at the New importantly Hedi Slimane York Times, to his debut is a creative director with presentation for Saint one obvious, thin, Laurent) to sending out monochromatic, rocking multiple, conflicting press and rolling vision that releases about what the works on every social house will be called under media platform because his reign – aim to tip this the vision is so consistent balance. (Malcolm as to make the meaning Gladwell’s book The inherent, and he’s Tipping Point describes revolutionised two fashion this exact phenomenon.) houses because of it.

Perhaps only Nicola Likewise, design Formichetti does it better. wunderkind J.W. Anderson “The 2010 decade is was recently hired as the being increasingly defined creative director at luxury as the age of the director as Spanish fashion house opposed to the designer,” J.W. Anderson Fall 2014 Loewe and is completely explains Susie Lau of Style redirecting the brand. Print Bubble in a recent post advertisements showing Penelope Cruz discussing Formichetti. “The former’s remit is reclining against a gaudy gilt mirror to oversee branding, store design, publicity photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot materials, marketing strategies and social have been replaced by images from Steven media engagement, in addition to the actual Meisel’s archive that sit alongside and aesthetics of clothes. They direct a whole host “interpret” Anderson’s relaxed suede handbag of designers working under them to determine range. “When I first came to Loewe I saw that it the nitty-gritty of the clothes. Creative doesn’t have to be all about fashion,” Anderson directors at houses are not merely designers told the New York Times about his first and don’t sit at their desk drawing endlessly, advertising decision for the house. “In my own but instead literally ‘direct’ teams to achieve brand I exercise fashion. If I’m going to be the correct ‘direction’.” Nicola Formichetti, challenged in a different way, it has to be about creative director at Diesel, is arguably the most a cultural landscape.” influential creative director today. He began his Hedi Slimane is packaging “cool” for Saint career as fashion editor at Dazed and Laurent, J.W. Anderson is packaging Confused before becoming Lady Gaga’s stylist “modernity” for Loewe and Alexander Wang is before becoming creative director at Mugler packaging “downtown” for Balenciaga. To sell before becoming curator and designer and product today brands must effortlessly define artistic director at Diesel. Alex Fury, writing for

To sell product today, brands must effortlessly define the undefinable.

These Creative Directors are masters at exactly that.

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The Telegraph, also describes this industry shift with specific reference to Formichetti.

“Direction, either artistic or creative, is postmodern fashion’s epithet of choice,” he explains. “It implies a remit far larger than merely clothes, spanning advertising campaigns, shop-fits and all facets of visual presentation… It’s a diviner rather than a designer.”

Nicola Formichetti has a vision that he can take viral today, and today viral is the tipping point. Before his debut runway presentation for Diesel earlier this year at Venice’s Arsenale dockyard, he told Grazia that under him the label would make its own rules. “I think if we had been in Paris or London I might have been more stressed, but this is our territory,” he explains. “Rather than sharing models and doing that whole Paris thing, we wanted to offer an experience.” The experience included 87 street-cast models who, wearing one of Diesel’s four pillars (denim, leather, military and sport), reinforced Formichetti’s ideology.

He also recruited “modern-day rebels, heroes and just cool people” from Tumblr for Diesel’s fall 2013 campaign.

Marc by Marc Jacobs recently followed suit by running a competition on Instagram whereby hopeful Marc by Marc Jacobs campaign models used the hashtag #CastMeMarc, resulting in 70,000 entries and nine finalists. The lucky nine (including Australian model Suzy Leenaars) were photographed by David Sims and styled by Katie Grand for the label’s current print advertising, and Marc Jacobs told WWD the competition was devised “to be fresh and reclaim the spirit that the collection had when we first conceived of it – to be another collection, not a second line.”

High Street is no different. Jacqui Markham spent 14 years at Topshop before becoming the design director at one of the most successful online platforms in the world, Asos.com, in 2013. While her core role is to enable the performance of the design team, she acknowledges that bringing all of this work together as a brand across multiple platforms is absolutely imperative. “We operate on so many platforms and communicate with our girl in so many different ways, we definitely have to ensure a consistent approach as to how we present our brand. This comes from a clear idea of our customer, focusing on what a 20-something wants and thinking about how she lives her life. Tone of voice, choice of models, how our magazine images are shot – everything needs to be consistent.

Communication between all of the functions is key.”

An understanding of the big picture has always been an important attribute of a visionary person, but now that visionary needs to be able to do something else, too: they need to turn that big picture into a really tiny picture – a Tweet, an Instagram, a hashtag.

How does one fit something really big into

YOUNG & RESTLESS

THE DILEMMA OF DREAMS JOAN DIDION BY KAT PATRICK

F JOAN DIDION is a great American writer who has contributed to Vogue, the New York Times, Life and Esquire, and has carved an inimitable space in literature’s lineage via her books, which encourage being true to yourself, and to other people, and in today’s society, that’s more important than ever.

KAT PATRICK is a British freelance writer who has spent her twenties living between England, France and New Zealand and therefore understands a thing or two about her own identity (and how to construct an appropriate one when required).

or Joan Didion, writing is a search for identity.

It’s the fundamental force that drives her to the typewriter, as she explains in her essay Why I Write: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means”. It’s an axiom present in all her work, from the disparate characters of her fiction to first-hand tragedy in The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.

It’s easy to think you know Joan Didion. Her opus is extensive, varied and a veritable timeline of her own self-discovery. It’s painful to follow her life; through her time as a young woman starting out in New York (Goodbye To All That) to the eventual loss of her husband, then her daughter. She has written both fiction and nonfiction, worked for Vogue and penned political articles and screenplays. She spent the ‘60s coolly delving into counterculture: waiting in recording studios for Jim Morrison to show up, chasing Joan Baez and tracing the Charles Manson murders. She’s the type of writer who collects fans rather than readers: her spare, honest prose speaks so directly to her audience that they believe their reaction to it is the most important to ever take place. Didion is an icon.

There are critics, of course. Her transparency of identity is bound to prompt accusations of narcissism, and of writing simply for the sake of self-expression. “There are some books that shouldn’t be written out of habit – the habit of writing,” exclaimed Slate magazine critic Stephen Metcalf.

But he’s incorrect. The wonder of Joan Didion is her ability to draw us into her world from a safe distance, the perfect distance from which to learn from – but not wholly absorb – her personal tragedies and tropes. Didion’s pace, reticence and sparse, Hemingway-like sentences leave breathing space, allowing us to examine our own identity alongside hers. It’s the early essays that still ring so true, confronting the reader with Didion’s personal realisations, and as we traipse through our own peculiar notions of who we are, there are a few crucial dogmatic Didion moments that are worth bearing in mind.

As one of America’s greatest essayists, her early collections are a well of hard-earned truths. On Self Respect (her second piece for Vogue) unveils how to respect oneself: “The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life... is the source from which self-respect springs” because without it “one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home”. To Didion, the virtue of self-respect must be consciously maintained because modernity makes it increasingly difficult to acquire.

On Keeping a Notebook advises us to “keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not”. She encourages us to keep a record of our past selves and to respect them, “otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, hammering on the mind’s door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know

who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends”.

In her later work, her tone changed as she responded to great tragedy. Losing her husband – fellow writer and soul mate John Gregory Dunne -– saw the cathartic aspect of her work magnified in The Year of Magical Thinking as she attempted to make sense of the abyss created by such an enormous, sudden absence. Opening with the poignant “Life changes in the instant. In the ordinary instant”, the work explores how narrative can make sense of the chaos of existence: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience”. Didion’s rhythm resonates, laying bare our desperate human attempts at reconciliation of self and context as we try and make sense of the world.

In an era that is infected with guidelines for ideal living and bettering ourselves that include positive mantras, meditation and green smoothies, it’s refreshing to return to these Joan Didion moments: there’s a realness that has started to evade during a time in which identity has never been harder to fathom. Generation Y is faced with the dilemma of dreams. We’ve been raised to believe that settling for less than a perfect life is complete failure – it’s panic inducing, pervasive and exponential. We are well-equipped with tools that help us carry out stylised versions of happiness; across the Internet we post filter-heavy photos of our organic muesli, our organic honey made by organic fluffy bees and of sunlight shafting through our organic workspaces. But we’re generating a public realm of unreal identities; we’re losing real foundations.

Joan Didion has been abused by this culture. She’s mishandled on social media, reduced to romantic imagery and her neatly quotable aphorisms: the elegant, ex-Vogue editor, waif-like, hunched over a typewriter, peering out at the ocean or behind the wheel of a Corvette. This is abusive, because her work is the antithesis to our modern tendency to construct self: she pursues substance, character and actual experience.

It’s crucial we not lose sight of genuine identity. As Joan said herself in her commencement address at the University of California, Riverside, in 1975: “I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.”

Demand an identity, rather than artifice, and feel the world open up. c

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD Dawson’s Creek is a truly terrible television show that all women who came of age in the late ‘90s share an unapologetic and absolute love for. This specific, definitive love can be explained by a confluence of nostalgia, the Global Financial Crisis and Pacey Witter. Pacey Witter is very important.

By Courtney Sanders.

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re-watched most of the show for this piece, and guys: Dawson’s Creek suuuuuuucks.

The stereotypical nature of the characters, the two-dimensionality of the women, the 100% repellent leading man all combine to create something totally offensive to the adult eye.

And yet, none of this matters. Not one little bit.

Dawson’s Creek still means so much to me, and to every single other woman who came of age in the ‘90s. It’s been 10 years since the show finished and we care about Dawson’s Creek enough to celebrate Pacey Witter, to lament Dawson Leery, and to connect with the lyrics of Sixpence None The Richer’s Kiss Me in a way that we would consider ultimately lame had the song not

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appeared in the show’s soundtrack. I think this inexplicable, unbridled and – at least for now – undying love by us for Dawson’s Creek can be put down to one thing: teenagers believe in magic.

Well not magic, exactly. But teenagers do believe in true romance and happy endings, and these are basically the same thing as magic for adults: appealing, but silly and untrue.

Teenagers can separate their head from their heart via a thoroughly delightful lack of experience and, therefore, disappointment.

Case in point: we listened to the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack in the Catalogue office one afternoon and collectively reminisced about the perfection of Pacey. A colleague made the statement that, around the same time she was obsessed with Dawson’s Creek she went to see The Foo Fighters play live and half-way through the show violently burst into tears when she realised, for the first time, that it’s possible to be deeply in love with someone (in this case Dave Grohl +_+), and they could have no idea that you exist. At that exact moment she stopped believing in magic. She stopped believing in magic, but she didn’t stop believing in Dawson’s Creek.

Our teenage ability to deny Real Life might explain why we fell in love with Dawson’s Creek in the first place, but it doesn’t really explain why we still love it so much now, which is totally cool, because a dude called Constantine Sedikides did that when he began to study (and re-define) nostalgia in 1999.

Sedikide defines nostalgia (in an article from the New York Times) as something that “made me feel that my life had roots and continuity. It made me feel good about myself and about my relationships. It provided a texture to my life and gave me strength to move forward”.

Consider the above, then consider that, according to researcher Damien Barr (who wrote Get It Together about the particular tribulations of our generation) 20-somethings today are overly nostalgic because “we are less prepared for our difficult present by having had a very easy time of it when we were very young… we grew up in a boom, we are living in a bust… we are going back to the bands, the TV shows, the films – all the things we enjoyed at school and at university”. Erica Hepper, a psychologist at the University of Surrey in England, agrees: “Nostalgia helps us deal with transitions. Young adults are just moving away from home and/or starting their first jobs, so they fall back on memories of family Christmases, pets and friends in school”. Now consider both the above and then consider that: A) Dawson’s Creek actually embodies nostalgia (four best friends who fight their fear of the future by reminiscing about the past); B) we were introduced to it during the most nostalgiainducing period of our lives, and; C) we are the most nostalgia-susceptible generation ever. We may no longer believe in magic, but because of all of this Dawson’s Creek is the next best

thing.

Of course there were other reasons that we loved Dawson’s Creek over all other television programs – let’s talk about sex, baby. Even though I dislike Dawson Leery with the burning passion of a thousand suns, his desperate attempts at love (what he says he wants) and sex (what he actually wants) are very important: they pulled at our virginal heart strings like nothing else, and they pulled at them hard. There’s nothing like a celluloid representation of something you desperately want but cannot (yet, at least) have to make you addicted. When the virginal Dawson and Joey aren’t sharing a bed or talking (and talking, and talking) about why it’s no longer appropriate for them to share a bed, then a sexy, mysterious, rebellious teenager has been exiled from New York to her very religious Gram’s (sic.) cottage in the country, primarily because she has been having too much sex.

When the core teenagers aren’t thinking about or talking about sex, then the Dawson’s Creek’s writers are exposing their pubescent viewers to their worst nightmare: sexually active middle-aged people via Dawson’s buff, stereotypical dad and a mother who wants more than all of that, namely her news co-anchor.

Pacey unites these distinct worlds by having a very Pacey affair with his teacher: “The truth is you’re a well put together knockout of a woman who’s feeling a little insecure about hitting 40.

So when a young, virile boy such as myself flirts with you, you enjoy it. You entice it. You fantasise about what it would be like to be with that young boy on the verge of manhood. ‘Cause it helps you stay feeling attractive. Makes the aging process a little more bearable. Well, let me tell you something. You blew it, lady. Because I’m the best sex you’ll never have”. (Pilot A.K.A Emotions in Motion).

That line, from Pacey to Tamara Jacobs, is important for two reasons: because it describes sex, and because it describes sex in the kind of confident, insightful way that no 15-year-old describes sex, which is the way every Dawson’s Creek characters describe everything, which is exactly the way we – as young adults who desperately wanted to be treated like actual adults – liked it, and wanted it.

Pacey’s sexual arc is, obviously, one of the most important things about Dawson’s Creek because, while my work colleague fantasised about Dave Grohl and I fantasised about Eddie Vedder and you fantasised about, like, Ethan Hawke, everyone fantasised about Pacey. Pacey is Generation Y’s unicorn: he embodies all the positive characteristics we desire in a man, and none of the negative. Which is to say he is magical, and not real, and we love him because of all of this. We also love him because, when something is compared to the worst version of that thing, it is always going to seem pretty awesome.

Enter Pacey Vs. Dawson. Buzzfeed recently did an excellent job of comparing the relative merits of things like their foreheads and their

“Pacey is Generation Y’s unicorn: he embodies all the positive characteristics we desire in a man, and none of the negative.” ability to kiss foreheads, but comparing their differences, while hilarious, is inconsequential: it’s like comparing adorable little Nemo to a shark that systematically tears humans to shreds and being like: “Oh, I wonder which one I like more”. No. Pacey didn’t really have any competition from anyone else, either. Dawson’s Creek aired between 1998 and 2003 and, luckily for them, there was absolutely fucking nothing else culturally exciting happening during this time (although Hannah Cooke makes a fantastic argument in favour of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on page 92). The US had a hangover from grunge, the death-rattle of Brit-pop was taking place in the UK, and these transcontinental anti-movements manifested as a universal music landscape dominated by bands determined to convince us of profound life truths like how much it sucks to be rained on all the time (and that this will happen to you if you lie when you’re 17 years old??), boy bands and “sharkie” sunglasses (which have made a comeback alongside active wear – Kirin J Callinan: why?). The Real World had just wrapped on television but was, thanks to every unimaginative person employed in the television industry, survived by an onslaught of reality TV shows including Survivor and Big Brother.

(Feature length films were actually incredibly strong during this time. Classics like Fight Club, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich and Girl, Interrupted were all released in 1999 and 2000. The only assumption I can make from this is that the people, like me, who popularised Dawson’s Creek could neither afford to attend nor “understood” these kinds of movies yet.)

1998 was perhaps the only year since television was invented that a teen drama featuring four teenagers who talk about the exact same things teenagers talk about and live in a town whose defining feature is a creek (the smallest and most boring of the flowing bodies of water) could take off.

Which isn’t to say 1998 wasn’t good for some things. I’m writing this for a fashion magazine in 2014 because I’m part of the generation who came of age during the ‘90s and who is now re-hashing the decade we know best and selling it back to everybody. Culture eats its own tail this way every 15 years or so and, while we are definitely re-visiting Dawson’s Creek by being overly existential and self-reflective (Girls) and sexually liberated (everything, everywhere), we are mostly re-visiting Dawson’s Creek by wearing Mom Jeans.

Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer were Kevin Williamson’s claims to fame before he created Dawson’s Creek, which is to say that up until this point, his female characters were unanimously stalked and slaughtered by men. Jen Lindley and Joey Potter are definitely not progressive female characters, but they are progressive dressers.

“Normcore” may have been invented by trend forecasting website K-Hole earlier this year, but it was alive and well in Lindley’s twin-set cardigans and utilitarian A-line denim skirts. It was alive and well in Joey Potter’s high-waist stonewash jeans and white spaghetti-strap singlets. It was not alive and well in Leery’s man-jewellery, but you need only look once at the haze of practical fabrications buoyantly walking across the sand, under the boardwalk, in the show’s opening credits to know that these four teenagers are, in the words of a piece by the New York Times about this current but-really-very-’90s phenomenon: “mall chic for people who would not be caught dead in a shopping mall”. There probably wasn’t a decent mall in Capeside either, which means Dawson’s Creek’s interpretation (invention?) of “normcore” is no cheap Chinese knock-off. It’s built to last, and last it has, right up until today.

Nostalgia. Sex. Mom Jeans. These are the things our Dawson’s Creek-loving generation enjoy thinking and talking (the talking thing is very important with regards to Dawson’s Creek) about because they define us, and we may as well spend our time musing on definitive things because, in the immortal words of Shooter (who I had never heard of before reading the liner notes of the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack, and therefore conclude that this was their exclusive hit): “Life’s a bitch and then you die”. c

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

THE ME GENERATION

Meet three up ‘n’ coming New York artists who are using and documenting their own (often online) experiences in order to understand their place in this vast, ever-changing world.

PHOTOGRAPHER BOBBY WHIGHAM/STYLIST SHIBON KENNEDY HAIR KRISTIAN BANKSTON/MAKEUP DOMINIQUE FARINA

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n our article Create, And Control on page 80 of this issue, we discuss the advent of a group of creative directors in the fashion industry who are using social media to create powerhouse brands. Kay Goldberg of The Prettiots, artist Jane Moseley and YouTube sensation Carly Mark are three creatives who refuse to be defined by one train of thought or one medium and are using their multi-platform output to discuss what it means to exist in a multi-platform world; it’s meta stuff. Considering the social media nature of their work, we decided to ask the girls a series of the weirdest questions Silicon Valley super-companies have made potential employees answer. The answer to a question like “How would you market ping pong balls if the game of ping pong became an obsolete sport?” tells us a little bit about how the girls think, which is appropriate when that’s exactly what their work does, too.

LEFT: Karen Walker blazer and shorts, Santoni loafers, Jeremy Scott x Linda Farrow sunglasses MIDDLE: Opening Ceremony top and skirt, Santoni shoes, Karen Walker sunglasses RIGHT: A Détacher romper, Karen Walker sunglasses, stylist’s own belt, Miu Miu shoes

CARLY MARK, 27 is a video artist who spends a lot of time in front of Photo Booth. In the latest video on her website she smiles into the camera with vampire fangs and a cigarette in her mouth and blood running down her face, and we’re sure this is saying something very meaningful.

Do you remember “deciding” to be an artist and, if so, when and why did you choose this path?

I do not.

There seems to be broad themes that underpin all of your work.

Honestly, everything is about heartbreak.

What influences – artistic or otherwise – inform your work?

Florine Stettheimer, Goya, going to the grocery store, texting.

You work a lot in the medium of video: what drew you towards it?

Boredom, narcissism and anxiety. Painting is what’s important to me but it takes me a very long time to make one, during which time I’ll make something quickly, like a video, so I don’t lose my mind.

What made you want to make yourself the subject of your work?

Art-making is inherently selfindulgent and to some extent the work is always about me because I’m the one making it. I only started including myself because I realised that when you’re an artist people want to know you, like: “Here is what I look like as well as what I do”.

How do you think the “selfie” has affected the generation who have grown up with it as a natural part of their lives?

I don’t take the “selfie” seriously as artwork – it’s funny to me. It’s something that is, again, >

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YOUNG & RESTLESS / THE ME GENERATION fuelled by boredom, narcissism and anxiety.

How do you think your generation is different from older generations as a result of your exposure and comfort with social media?

We know our angles...

What are you working on at the moment?

Collages of car crashes, paintings of snack bags and drawings of football players, cigarettes and flowers, then relating that back to art history.

I’m also working on not dating assholes or eating too much candy, then relating that back to art history.

What’s your message?

I have no idea yet. I do know that we’re all bored, narcissistic and anxious. Also: direct messaging works.

If you were a street sign what would you be?

“Hump”, the sign that indicates a speed bump.

Tell me something that you’ve done in your life that you’re particularly proud of: I woke up this morning.

Why wouldn’t I hire you?

Because you’d rather fuck me LOL. Which three people who you don’t know do you admire the most and why?

Taylor Swift because: fearless. Cady Noland knows how to art good. Fred Durst because: Limp Bizkit.

How would you test an elevator?

Go through its phone.

Why do you think only a small percentage of people make over $125,000 per year?

Cold pressing, juice cleansing, cold brews and more.

How would you market ping pong balls if the game of ping pong, the game, became obsolete?

Balls.

JANE MOSELEY, 28 is an artist who creates incredibly creepy, intricate sculptures that immediately evoke Japanese horror films and the sleepless nights that result from watching them.

In a recent biography it stated that you’re a “young artist who started out as the pioneering female in the art frat of hot dudes called Still House, young artists from Los Angeles who struck out as a team with group studios in New York City”.

Can you elaborate a little bit about this?

It was basically me and my friends in an awesome abandoned office space that was ours for free for a few months, and we just hung out and made work. I was still working on ideas I had come up with in college so it wasn’t so exciting for me personally on an artistic level, but it was a cool experience.

What influences – artistic or otherwise –

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inform your work?

My environment, art history and stories.

Do you have any ongoing themes that you explore?

Just weird shit.

There’s a dichotomy between lightness and dark in your work... what draws you to compare the two?

It’s a part of every living thing.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m at a standstill and just trying to think stuff through.

With regards to the confluence or technology and creative exploration, do you think we’re at an interesting time for art?

In time all will be revealed. I have fun with Instagram but I also hate myself when I’m on it all the time.

If you were a street sign what would you be?

“One Way Street”.

Tell me something that you’ve done in your life that you’re particularly proud of: I put me lighting my farts on Instagram.

Why wouldn’t I hire you?

Because I’m lazy.

How would you test an elevator?

I would put my friend in it and see what happens.

Why do you think only a small percentage of people make over $125,000 per year?

Because the world is unfair.

KAY GOLDBERG, 24 is the frontwoman of indie-pop three piece The Prettiots who have written a song called Dreamboy which pretty much summarises girls and all of their little contradictions, with particular regards to the dating of a perfect dude.

You’re a fashion student and you’re in a band: multi-talented! How do you define yourself, and what would say you “do”?

No big deal, this is just the question that keeps me up at night. I am a musician who also does a lot of other stuff I guess!

You’re the frontwoman of the band The Prettiots. I’ve been listening to you guys and I really dig it – there’s an insidious cuteness there that reminds me of The Moldy Peaches (although I hope that comment doesn’t offend you because it’s also who everybody on the Internet compares you to!). How did you form, and how would you describe yourselves?

First of all thank you for listening to my band – that is still a huge deal to me! Second of all, of course I’m not offended by a comparison to The Moldy Peaches! We grew out of a solo pop project I was doing for a while that wasn’t really working because I needed my amazing band mates! I guess we fall into the indie-pop category.

You play the ukelele. What drew you towards that (pretty unusual) instrument?

Honestly, I bought one on eBay when I was

drunk and 17 and have loved it ever since. It’s easy and sweet-sounding!

You grew up in New York: this must have shaped your appreciation of, and access to, music right?

I definitely grew up going to shows all the time, but until late high school they were mostly terrible, local jam bands and stuff. It wasn’t until I got into the punk and DIY scenes that I gained any actual “education”, and that was mainly in Providence where I went to college.

What interests you about fashion?

I studied fashion for four years at school and worked in the industry pretty consistently during that time. It’s great because it has an immense capacity for truly great beauty, but there’s toxicity in the industry that is pretty impossible to ignore. My personal style has basically devolved to white in the summer and black in the winter, but for the band I keep it really girly and pop-y: the three of us match, with a lot of florals and prints. It’s sort of Clueless meets Japanese pop.

How do you know Carly and Jane?

The first time Carly, Jane and I met was when we were getting in my car to embark on a 25-hour road trip to Miami – it was a pretty solid foundation for our friendship!

In this “Young & Restless” issue of Catalogue we’re asking people how they identify themselves. Do you identify with a particular movement?

I’m part of any movement that involves young artists making work because I am a young artist making work. There’s definitely a lot of Girl Power going on that’s really great, and I think as an all girl band who sing about being girls, we’re part of that too.

If you were a street sign what would you be?

“Slow Children At Play”.

Tell me something that you’ve done in your life that you’re particularly proud of: Finally finishing these interview questions.

Why wouldn’t I hire you?

Because I’m no good, and because it took me so long to answer these questions.

Which three people who you don’t know do you admire the most and why?

Werner Herzog, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Brian Chippendale because they’re all amazing artists.

How would you test an elevator?

Something about Solange and Jay-Z here.

Why do you think only a small percentage of people make over $125,000 per year?

Earth dollars.

How would you market ping pong balls if the game of ping pong became obsolete?

As a flotation device for kittens. c

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LEFT: Osklen top, Joseph skirt, Miu Miu shoes, Karen Walker sunglasses MIDDLE: 3.1 Phillip Lim jacket, Edun top, Ports 1961 skirt, Miu Miu choker, Tibi shoes RIGHT: Ports 1961 jacket, bustier, shorts, shoes

YOUNG & RESTLESS

US VS THEM

Two millennials, a decade apart in age (which is, like, a million years in Internet speak), go head-to-head on how they feel about their attachment to social media.

In her essay for the New York Times, Say Everything, Emily Nussbaum argues that the size of today’s generational gap between parents and their children is superceded only by the divide created by the advent of rock‘n’roll counter-culture in the ‘50s. It’s true: parents just don’t get us or the social media age we live in. But there’s a much more nuanced divide too: between millennials who didn’t grow up with social media and those who did, and it’s small but mighty (“I can’t believe how many selfies she takes” versus “Like, why doesn’t she have a Twitter account?”). We asked a millennial from each side of this age gap about how they use social media compared to the other and how that makes them feel, and we received some salient – and ironically, quite parental – advice: everything in moderation.

DJINOUS ROWLING

Freelance writer, born in 1994

W

riting about the Internet and social media culture is an odd thing. It gives me an uncomfortable, embarrassing feeling, like I shouldn’t admit to it being a huge part of my life, which it definitely (and unfortunately) is. It’s that feeling you get when you meet someone who announces they don’t have Instagram or Facebook; that slow, hot, creeping, shameful feeling as you look at their judging eyes and imagine them tallying roughly how many hours you’ve spent blankly staring at your phone screen instead of reading, or going hiking, or whatever the fuck it is that other people do. I look at people my age, and then at people in their late 20s early 30s and I envy them a little. I was definitely born right smack-bang in the middle of Internet madness.

I’m envious because I don’t feel like those people need to define their lives via the Internet.

Figuring out why isn’t too difficult. I grew up with a computer in my room, and not having one to call my own is a foreign concept. My first memories of the Internet are from primary school, using MSN Messenger. Being 10 years old and using MSN messenger without parental monitoring is, in hindsight, a really scary thought. I don’t think my dad knew the tween angst he was unleashing when he popped that massive computer in my room, but that big machine with dial-up internet is definitely tied to some of my first experiences with boys my age, and – because I was a bit of an awkward adolescent – rejection.

I grew up in a home where reading was forced upon me (thanks Mum and Dad), and I’m forever grateful. There’s definitely a palpable

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divide between what you read on paper and what you read on the screen, and it’s easy to say that words on paper will usually resonate with me more, mostly because I feel like I’ve made a conscious decision to read something.

But, no matter how well I feel like I’m doing with my reading list, I get a pang of jealousy when I see the amount of books and newspapers my Dad reads. Having all current news at your fingertips is a great thing, but it makes you lazy.

If you wanted to know what was going on in the world around you in the past you had to physically buy and physically read a newspaper.

I find it incredibly hard to imagine what day-to-day life would be like without being able to look up things I don’t know in five seconds but, out of the thousands of pages of Wikipedia I’ve flicked through, I wonder how much I’ve retained.

I’m not sure whether this is a positive or a negative effect for my generation, but I’ve found out about a lot of shitty things previous boyfriends have done via the Internet; no matter how sneaky someone is they never seem to be able to effectively cover their web-tracks.

(Disclaimer: I am not some mental woman logging on to all my boyfriend’s accounts online, I swear it.) One night my boyfriend never came home and when he uploaded a Twitter picture of a girl he definitely was not meant to be with, I knew why. I laugh about the absurdity of the situation now, but at the time it was definitely not funny. There’s no escape anymore. You break up with someone; they show up in your feed. You delete them; they show up on your friend’s page. You block them; you look crazy.

I’m getting tired and stressed out just writing this!

Do I ever wonder if people my age would be more fulfilled and happy without the

pervasiveness of social media? I do, a lot. I wonder how many things I could’ve happily not known; how many photos I could have happily not Instagrammed. In her column for Vogue, Karley Sciortino recently argued that Instagram is “ruining lives”; taking the enjoyment out of your own life and encouraging you to envy other people. Which is even more significant when you acknowledge that absolutely no one is honest online. I don’t Instagram photos of the $2.56 in my bank account, and neither do you. It might be real life for me, but there’s a reason no one posts stuff like that: it’s fucking depressing.

Social media may look like a nice way to keep in touch with your friends and let people know about important things in your life, yet most people use it as a weird, rather untruthful form of self-promotion. The beautiful thing about this (pretty embarrassing) fact for people my age is that we’ve never known anything different so we don’t get too self-conscious about it. This is where I get a bit curious about older people joining and indulging in the self-promotional circus; they must be more aware of the absurdity than we are.

Balance is what’s important, and it’s what I’m going to be trying to master in the years to come. We all need to embrace that technology is going to keep charging ahead at a great speed, and we have to keep up. Just don’t forget to actually look at the sunsets while you’re taking a photo.

COURTNEY SANDERS Editor of Catalogue, born in 1985

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et’s talk about New Balance sneakers and jeans. The most vivid popular culture reference I have (until recently,

at least) of this casual wear duet is when Ryan Gosling asks Steve Carrell if “he is the billionaire owner of Apple computers?” in Crazy, Stupid, Love. Carrell tells Gosling that no, he is not Steve Jobs, and Gosling declares that he therefore has “absolutely no right to wear jeans with New Balance sneakers”. Right now, New Balance sneakers are so much hotter than either Steve Carrell (not hard) or Ryan Gosling (quite hard). When the New York Times popularised “normcore”, two camps emerged. There were the “initiators” of this anti-fashion trend: fashionable people who, repulsed by the “fast fashion” and trend-oriented nature of the current industry, rebelled by wearing the least trendy clothing they could find. Then, because semifashionable people look toward these very fashionable people for advice, a second group emerged: early adopters who wear New Balance sneakers with jeans because it’s totally cool guys. Jerry Seinfeld (and my Dad) is crowned the King of Style for 2014, Topshop packages “normcore” for the masses and the world makes sense again.

There are a couple of important things to note in regards to this New Balance sneakers-paired-withjeans landscape. Firstly, there are fewer differences than similarities between those people who wear New Balance sneakers to rebel against High Street and those people who wear New Balance sneakers because they’re “cool”.

Neither of these groups are Steve Carrell in Crazy, Stupid, Love, because Steve Carrell in Crazy, Stupid, Love is my Dad’s on-screen alter ego: a Baby Boomer; a man who dove for cover outside our house while I was on the phone to him because the Google car had just driven past his house and under absolutely no circumstances must he or my Mother be “documented” by it. While the difference between the first group and the second group may be small, it’s also pretty profound, and it’s the same invisibleto-the-naked-eye-but-important-nonetheless difference that separates my generation (born in the ‘80s) from the “I Grew Up With Social Media” millennials.

Before I moved to Australia I lived in a share house with a couple of people my age who had a bunch of friends younger than we were – 19 years compared to our 28 and 29. We have a couple of things in common with them: we’re both absolutely obsessed with celebrity news.

Celebrity news, and Harry Potter. The Harry Potter obsession is very important (we are two sides of the same coin, after all) but the obsession with celebrity news is more telling.

Firstly, the 19-year-olds wanted to know more – nay, yearned to know more – about celebrities than we did. While we were content to find out that Bieber smoked weed this one time, they needed to find out that he smoked weed with Vanessa Hudgens while collapsed in the back seat of his SUV on their way to Leonardo DiCaprio’s house to play illegal poker alongside Tobey Maguire*. And then they would watch the

“I don’t Instagram photos of the $2.56 in my bank account, and neither do you.

It might be real life for me, but there’s a reason no one posts stuff like that: it’s fucking depressing.”

video in which all of this happens. It’s not that I don’t care about the finer details of celebrity’s lives – I would like to think that I care deeply.

It’s just that I am less skilled, and therefore slower, and therefore lazier, at finding this information out. My younger peers are entirely comfortable summoning the Internet’s complex network of search engines, tagging, key words et al. to find these tiny little details out, because what they (and everybody, and absolutely nobody) really need is more Bieber. I guess I’m just warier and – much like my Dad, I guess – I actually kind of care that both the government and Google can, and are, watching us. I see two possible futures to our co-existence with the Internet: a democratic, intelligent Utopia, and… 1984. And that’s because I’m old enough to have read 1984 in high school and I remember a time before Google Maps, and for some inexplicable reason (because I love the convenience of Google Maps) I remember that time being purer.

Being unafraid of how much personal information you put online and being able to find out anything and everything you want online culminates in one major phenomenon: over-sharing. When that younger, savvier crew finds out as much as they possibly can about, for instance, Bieber (which is more than anybody else) they go on a sharing rampage. They share this information, and it’s less an act of “Hey! Check this out because it’s cool/funny/retarded” and more an act of “Hey! Not only can I find this information but by sharing this information I’m shaping my identity”. Sharing is more important than experiencing – sharing almost is the experience.

When you think about it, in most super hero stories (as in Harry Potter) the “baddie” and the “goodie” have similar origin stories and are therefore similar in more ways than not.

Lord Voldemort even has to go to the effort of – spoiler! – tracking down the elusive Elder Wand in order to attempt to kill Harry because, as his and Harry’s wand share the same Phoenix feather, neither can kill the other with their own wand (or in the words of J.K. Rowling: “neither can live while the other survives”). It’s very important that both ends of the millennial generation like things like Harry Potter; it binds us together in this fluid, everlasting cultural way. But perhaps it’s those tiny little differences – in age and in online action - that make us irreconcilably different. Which really begs a bigger question: Who’s Lord Voldemort and who’s Harry Potter? c *This may not have happened.

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

FELL IN LOVE WITH A GIRL BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER BY HANNAH COOKE

I BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is – as you all know – Joss Whedon’s ass-kicking, feminist addition to this bloodsucking pop cult.

HANNAH COOKE had posters of both Hanson and Leonardo DiCaprio on her wall as a teen, which basically means that every girl everywhere who came of age in the ‘90s can relate to her.

t was the year Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died; the year Microsoft became the world’s most valuable company; the year I watched Titanic six times and created a tiled poster wall in my bedroom. Pulled exclusively from TV Hits magazine’s special “Poster Power” issues, the wall reflected my fluid and discerning pop culture tastes.

From Hanson to Party of Five, Leonardo DiCaprio to Savage Garden, these floppy haired heroes watched over me while I hogged the family phone line and chatted on MSN. It was 1997.

In pride of place on my wall was an A3 poster for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Against a swirling plume of red smoke, the heavy-browed Vampire-without-a-cause, Angel, eyes cast down, reached for Buffy’s neck. Buffy – blonde, lithe, in a tank-top – gazed coolly out into the distance. My parents hated it; the poster was tacky and just a little too intense for their daughter’s bedroom wall.

On the surface a simple mix of teen-romance and horror, Buffy was Joss Whedon’s direct response to the trope of “the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie”. Instead of a wan victim in a nightgown, the titular Buffy was a pretty 16-year-old with an iron will, super-human strength, a quippy Clueless vernacular and a team of misfit friends.

The series followed the “Scooby Gang” as they struggled to get through high school and college, all the while battling, and occasionally dating, an array of demons and vampires. A little (OK... a lot) silly, by the final season in 2003, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a bona fide cult hit, acclaimed by critics, academics and fans for challenging clichés and pushing the boundaries of the medium.

As a fledgling teenager, nerdy with a big mouth, Buffy the Vampire Slayer sang to me. The show was gleefully camp and schlocky with terrible special effects. You needed pop-culture expertise to enjoy the throwaway lines, winking intertextual references and genre subversions. The regular concerns of teen dramas were at turns amplified and downplayed as the Scoobies dealt with them in the wider context of their high school being built on a literal hellmouth. How do you live a normal life when the world around you is descending into the abyss?

This overarching concern gave Buffy an adult-friendly depth and paved the way for other genre shows like Lost, Battlestar Gallactica and, of course, True Blood.

In Our Vampires, Ourselves, Nina Auerbach wrote “what vampires are in any given generation” is part of “what I am and what my times have become” – their

vampiric traits mutable, reflecting social anxieties of the time. The Romantics had the Byronic vampire, all swirling capes and dark eyes. Victorian vampires sent ladies into fainting swoons on chaise-lounges. In the early ‘90s we had Lestat, a throwback Byronic type played by the toothsome Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire. By 1997 we had Buffy, and the vampire genre shifted again. With a couple of notable exceptions the vampires on Buffy were soulless, twisted reincarnations of their former selves. For the first time they weren’t the interesting part of the story; just bodies for staking with “Mr Pointy” while Buffy’s metanarratives of friendship and redemption began to unfold.

If, as Auerbach says, each generation gets the vampire it deserves, isn’t it great that we scored Buffy, a show Whedon created to celebrate “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it”? Teenagers today have only just come out of the throws of a Twilight obsession in which sucking on deer blood is seen as a curative to boring, middle-class life. Twilight’s vampires don’t behave like vampires at all: they’re beautiful, rich, reflective (in both mirrors and mindset) and can walk in daytime with few problems. They make the world a better place instead of, as Buffy’s vampires are wont, constantly trying to destroy it. With their limitless wealth and saintly lifestyles, Twilight’s vampires are, theorist Angela Stapleford writes, “the American dream personified”, reflecting America’s current “fantasy of aspiration – a conservative, consumer heaven”.

Buffy, meanwhile, shows the failure of that dream. In Buffy, vampirism was a curse, and a world with vampires in it was depressing and hellish. In Twilight, over the course of four books about vampires and werewolves, no main character died. In Buffy they died all the time and sometimes, as in the case of Buffy’s mother, of natural causes. During the series, characters experienced sexual violence, addiction and depression, school shootings and terrible jobs in fast food restaurants. Having superhuman strength and magical friends didn’t stop pain, poverty or death.

It sounds bleak, but it wasn’t. And for teenagers like me, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a salve. Finally a show that didn’t underestimate how funny, sad and true teenagers could be. Finally a show that knew life wasn’t a “very special episode” that ended neatly with everyone happy, problems resolved. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, life is hell, inexorably leading to certain death, so you might as well not take it so seriously. c

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

SHE WAS IN FULL CONTROL FRANCESCA WOODMAN BY ALISSA NUTTING

I FRANCESCA WOODMAN was a hugely influential American photographer who challenged our understanding of female sexuality through her haunting and tragic self-portraits.

ALISSA NUTTING is an American writer who released her controversial debut novel Tampa last year. Her novel’s narrator is a young female teacher who is sexually obsessed with her underage male students, and it is controversial because it challenges our understanding of female sexuality.

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was around 13 the first time I saw one of Francesca Woodman’s photographs in a library art book – she was naked and had gotten inside a museum vitrine (at the time I thought it was a fish tank); parts of her breast and thigh were smooshed up against the glass. This image felt like contraband in a very new way to me. I lived in a Catholic household, so any image of nudity was something I’d (unsuccessfully) been told to frown upon. But the photo challenged all of the previous information about the representations of female nakedness that I’d secretly pieced together. I was used to the naked female body being used as either an advertising tool, to sell something to women, or something created by and for the male gaze.

Those images had nothing in common with this one.

Woodman was the artist and also the subject. She was clearly commenting on objectification, having quite literally put herself in the display case, but was also subverting it, purposefully using the glass to alter and transform the appearance of the very body parts the male gaze would normally focus on. The lighting was sombre rather than the luminous flashbulb backdrop popular with pinups. Her naked body was not a simple sexual image.

She was in full control.

It was one of those moments of shifting perspective that made me realise I’d absorbed certain cultural messages as truisms without ever challenging them: young women were props and models for artists but not artists themselves. Women’s bodies can only be shown in sexually flattering ways. Woodman’s photo proved to me, instantaneously, that those ingrained messages were false – I had to see it to believe it. Belief, relief, gratitude, I felt all of these things.

I wrote her name onto my skin in ink, and when I got home I wrote it again in a journal and again on another piece of paper. The Internet era was only beginning so I couldn’t Google her, but I knew that I had to remember her name at all costs. The very act of writing her name down onto paper felt revolutionary. I’d recently read Orwell’s 1984, and as I dwelled back upon the photo that I’d seen, I felt guilty of thoughtcrime. It seemed too good to be true, that a young female photographer had taken the exact photos I needed to see in order to feel like I could own and represent myself in the world.

The boom of her work’s larger mainstream publication, as well as the technological advance of easy online access to digital images, were both still several years away, but I was eventually able to find more of it anyway. The images were haunting and alluring: blurred faces, leg flesh bound off into segments with clear tape, the nude female body

stretched or contorted into unusual poses. I was impressed even then, knowing the photos were around 15 years old, at how contemporary and challenging they seemed (now that they’re around 30 years old, this is more impressive still); her work continues to confront our stereotypical images of the female body in a way that’s only gotten more relevant with the passing of time.

The work seems dateless, simultaneously antique and futuristic – it tells a story of a fight for physical representation and ownership that for women is old as history.

But the particular time in my own life, when I was lucky enough to encounter Woodman’s work made a transformative impact that I can’t overstate. I was a very superstitious teenager who looked for coincidence and pattern in everything, desperately wanting to mitigate the frightening random chaos; I didn’t want to believe in chance. When I found out that Woodman committed suicide in 1981, the same year I was born, I took this coincidental fact deeply to heart; in my mind it helped further explain the feverish interest I had in her work – we were cosmological siblings. Perhaps she’d been exiting through some vital door at the same time I was entering. Perhaps we’d high-fived in some spirit realm, and when I saw her photographs I recognised her.

This intimacy I feel with Woodman of course speaks to the strength of her images, and is hardly a unique response on my behalf – the vulnerable strength she exhibits in her work makes viewers feel like she is confiding in them. Her photographs have always said to me: Here I am, creating art with a body that others would have me believe I do not own. With a body whose sexuality others try to say is not even mine to represent. I am not embarrassed to be bold or to be naked. I am not embarrassed to be female in the way I choose to be, despite society’s instructions. Seeing her photographs always felt, and still feels, like an inheritance: I’d been a young woman who thought she had to have her worth given to her by others. Woodman’s art showed me how valuable we female selves are all on our own – that the unique reflection we choose to offer up doesn’t have to look like anything we’ve ever seen before. c Francesca Woodman images courtesy of George and Betty Woodman and Victoria Miro Gallery, London.

Victoria Miro Gallery are hosting the Francesca Woodman Zigzag exhibition between 9 September and 4 October.

Alissa Nutting is speaking at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney on 31 August.

Please head to cataoguemagazine.com.au for more information.

Self Portrait, Providence, Rhode Island, 1978 (P.075). Gelatin silver estate print, 20.3 x 25.4cm (FW 520)

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From Space2, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976 (P.010). Gelatin silver estate print, 25.4 x 20.3cm (FW 517)

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Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976 (P.054). Gelatin silver estate print, 20.3 x 25.4cm (FW 518)

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YOUNG & RESTLESS

THE FUTURE OF FASHION

As dedicated followers of fashion who identify ourselves via what we wear, we decided to drill down into the fashion industry to find out what’s happening, what the key movements are and who’s pioneering them. We’ve looked at three key elements: Environment, Design and Social, and interviewed key thinkers and key creators in each area. You’re welcome! knowing your fashion ABC’s is very on-trend right now. By Courtney Sanders PHOTOGRAPHER DANIEL GURTON/FASHION DIRECTOR ELLE PACKHAM/HAIR DALE DELAPORTE AT NAMES AGENCY MAKEUP NAOMI MCFADDEN AT NAMES AGENCY/MODEL CLAUDIA AT IMG/JEWELLERY AANA JANAKIS

ENVIRONMENT

DANE O’SHANASSY PATAGONIA I believe there was a turning point for Patagonia in the ‘90s when, facing financial hardship as a result of overambitious growth, Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard decided to wholeheartedly inject his environmental goals back into the company by sourcing organic textiles. These changes increased retail prices but also increased demand. In this age of price-driven consumption it’s hard to believe this worked! Why do you think it worked for Patagonia?

Patagonia has always been committed to its mission – to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”. This commitment and focus is what has set Patagonia apart from much of the fashion industry around the world. I believe that these values resonate with consumers globally, and that people are prepared to pay a premium for products that support them.

During your time in the fashion industry, and working with Patagonia, have you noticed a change in the general public’s and the media’s attitudes toward consumption?

It does certainly seem that, recently at least, mainstream media are taking greater interest in the fashion industry’s production cycle. I’ve certainly become more aware of the issue myself over the last decade. While there has been a big trend toward “fast fashion”, for many companies and consumers there’s a growing

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tide of both businesses and people who are taking a greater interest in their impact both environmentally and socially. This goes beyond fashion into many areas of life including food, construction and many others. Patagonia has been working on some exciting programs including our 100% Traceable Down Supply Chain project, our Worn Wear campaign (a celebration of making clothes last) and our most recent push into sustainable food with Patagonia Provisions.

Because Patagonia produces outdoor equipment and clothing, its customers are arguably more likely to be sympathetic to the environmental message, which is great! Do you think this philosophy is gaining any traction industry-wise or could gain traction industrywise? How do you see a shift occuring in which the average fashion consumer adopts this mindset?

We hope it does. We are totally committed to using business to inspire, and that means making our products, processes and innovation available to others out there to pick up. A great example of this is the Yulex Wetsuit program Patagonia has been working on over the last couple of years; developing a plant-based bio rubber based on the guayule plant to replace traditional neoprene in wetsuit production.

Patagonia has made this

innovation available from the start to any other surf brand out there who wants to explore how to make a less harmful wetsuit.

Patagonia is committed to reducing consumption, often by encouraging customers to sell their second-hand Patagonia product to new users. How do you balance encouraging people not to buy things with, well, selling product?

We believe that by making great products with amazing quality, consumers will see that as a reason to buy, not to avoid. We offer a great range of products to suit all sorts of purposes and people, and when people discover what Patagonia is all about, we find we get a lot of repeat customers.

Patagonia is a member of The Textile Exchange. Can you explain a little bit about what this venture is and what membership to The Textile Exchange means?

Patagonia was a founding member of the Organic Exchange, a non-profit group formed in 2002 to increase global sales of organic cotton apparel and home-textile products. Renamed in 2010, The Textile Exchange continues to promote organic cotton (an estimated $4.3 billion worth last year), but has expanded its role to include all bio-based, organic and recycled fibres. Patagonia only uses 100% organic cotton across its lines.

NOTES ON ENVIRONMENT Conventional cotton production is nasty ● Cotton covers 2.5% of the world’s cultivated land but uses 16% of the world’s pesticides – more pesticides than any other crop. ● Clothing uses 60% of the world’s cotton production. ● These pesticides are harmful to people, animals and the environment.

270,000 cotton farmers have committed suicide since 1995. This is thought to be caused by high seed and pesticide costs which result in unmanageable debt.

Buy organic cotton ● There are movements promoting organic cotton, the most impressive being The Textile Exchange, which raised $4.9 billion last year. ● Gosia Piatek, director of New Zealand’s Kowtow, believes in organic: “I wanted to create a truly sustainable fashion brand, and using certified fair trade organic cotton seemed like a good way forward as the entire production chain from seed to garment is monitored for best sustainable practices.”

We buy way too much Each person in the UK purchases 35kg of clothing on average per year. 30kg of this will end up as landfill.

Statistics from organiccotton.org, The Guardian and The World Health Organisation

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YOUNG & RESTLESS SOCIAL

ZOE LATTA AND MIKE ECKHAUS ECKHAUS LATTA How did the two of you meet? I hear there’s an interesting story about the gifting of white sweatpants?

We met back at Rhode Island School of Design. We knew each other peripherally for a while but our first “real” interaction was during a sale that Zoe was having where she gave me a very special pair of white sweatpants. We’ve grown up a lot since then, but let’s just say they were christened in a sort of gestalt way by her Russian aunt.

How do you think studying at Rhode Island – somewhere you’ve described as “a place of fallen industry” – affected your design aesthetic?

Providence is a post-industrial city and has a really strange dilapidated quality that makes you feel like you live in a lawless world. There’s a sort of suspension from reality in attending art school in a place like Providence.

There are a lot of ghosts there and grounds for experimentation inside and out of the educational institution that make it feel very fertile and new. I think that idea is something that has made its way into our collections.

This question goes back to last year when you released your Telecast from Berlin video. Can you explain where the idea for this video, which is filmed in a mundane urban environment, came from, and how it relates to that collection’s clothes?

The initial idea was to play with the popularity of live-streaming fashion shows. We thought it was a funny gesture to fabricate one and present it in New York during Fashion Week at Anthology Film Archive, and it was kind of insane how many people believed that we were actually going to do a live-stream from Berlin while being in New York. We are often attracted to familiar things that have nuanced qualities. The Aldi we shot at is near the canal in Kreuzberg and its parking lot is elevated above the store itself. The physicality of the space seemed so out of place and bizarre. There were all of these kids who would hang out there while we were shooting, sort of like American mall slums. There was a nice back-and-forth in staging a runway in a location where its normal actions just kept happening. There was no “Stop! this is a fashion show!” We also loved the shopping cart graveyard sensation of a grocery store parking lot.

There seems to be this relationship between the mundane and the futuristic in your work – between the real and the imagined...

Everything we make is for today, or the day we made it. We’re not trying to tell anyone what the future will be, nor encourage people to mourn the past.

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IDENTITY

“There was a nice back-and-forth in staging a runway show in a location where its normal actions just kept happening. There was no ‘Stop! This is a fashion show!’”

THE FUTURE OF FASHION NOTES ON SOCIAL “Normcore” is more than an Internet trend Normcore may have people dressing like Jerry Seinfeld’s daggy children but the movement itself isn’t without value as Fiona Duncan (who popularised the term in her piece for the New York Times’ The Cut) explains. “I just concluded a multi-city tour of the Western world: New York to London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and Montreal. Along the way I kept noting how homogenous youth culture looked from one metropolis to the next. There are localisms but there’s also an undeniable globalism: Zara and H&M and those tacky tourist storefronts are in every metropolitan city, selling the same things at the same time.

What they’re selling is a seemingly infinite supply of subtle markers of difference; Zara produces countless garments a season, from Rick Owens- to American Apparel-style looks. I saw ‘subculture’ in every city I went to but didn’t feel or experience it.

Punk, hippy, hipster, street and skate style: these trends look different and have different histories, but step backwards and you’ll see that they’re worn by young people today in more or less the same way as a fashion you can take on or off, not as a symbol of one’s core being. In this context ‘normcore’ is about looking not like the cool young kids in a developed city but like the tourists visiting the place. It’s adopting, ironically or not, the look of the middle class who are touring the safe bits of the Western world, the places designed for them to feel comfortable in. The statement is: everything is already the same, already white-washed by American convention and market interests, so why not go with the most generic manifestation of that, with the most ‘normal’? It’s what’s inside people’s minds – in this case, not what they’re wearing but why... that fascinates me. I take that very seriously.”

More choice doesn’t actually mean more choice Political philosopher Sheldon Wolin coined the term “Inverted Totalitarianism” in 2003. It describes the event, occurring today, in which High Street fashion

stores wield so much marketing, power production and employment power that they dictate what consumers will purchase; they find a trend, produce product based around that trend and market that trend – probably straight into your email inbox! Fashion Philosopher and Professor at Parsons the New School for Design Otto Von Busch has written extensively on this topic, and describes it to Catalogue: “We as consumers have no influence at all in the decisions made in the world of fashion. Even if we are to ‘vote with our dollars’ we know perfectly well those dollar votes are not equally distributed.”

(Read the full interview with Otto Von Busch at cataloguemagazine.com.au.)

Let’s care more about where our clothing is made 24 April 2014 marked the first anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza; a clothing manufacturing building in Bangladesh. 1133 people died, 2500 were injured and 800 children were orphaned in this disaster, and it stands as exemplary of the extortion of labour in developing countries to provide cheap clothing to us. The good news? Since this disaster: ● The Bangladesh Accord and the US-based Bangladesh Alliance, which commit businesses to inspect their third party factories, have both been established. ● 5000 more factories are being independently audited. ● The Bangladeshi government is allowing workers to join unions without consent from the factory they work in.

American Apparel and Honest By are steps in the right direction ● American Apparel lead the charge toward ethical production.

All of their product is produced onshore in North America and they pay their workers a living wage of between $12 to $14USD per hour. ● Honest By, a website by Bruno Pieters (ex-Creative Director at Hugo Boss), is pioneering transparent production by making the production history of every part of each product available.

Want to know where the buttons on a coat you are thinking about buying come from? It tells you, without you even having to ask.

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YOUNG & RESTLESS / THE FUTURE OF FASHION DESIGN

PAULY BONOMELLI HI MUM I’M DEAD What first attracted you to fashion design?

I started doing fashion after high school ‘cause I wanted to perfect and learn more about the process of screen-printing. I didn’t really know or have any concept of the world of fashion before I started studying – I was too busy enjoying life and being a ratbag teenager.

Before branching out into your own work you collaborated with the likes of Romance was Born and Dion Lee. What did you enjoy about these experiences?

All of my work with these people came from my friendships with them, first and foremost. I met Anna [Plunkett] and Luke [Sales] when I contacted them to buy a jumper. We vibed and that started a long-term working relationship. I met Dion Lee when he was still studying and we were mates, and years later he asked me to do some drawings for him.

When did you start doing your own thing?

I’ve been producing my own work for years, but I’ve never done anything with it; I’ve always made stuff for the love of making shit rather than as a business move. I still make the stuff that I want with very little thought about its viability. I do it for fun ‘cause I like playing music real loud and making stuff.

What themes underpin your work?

Youth, sustainability, metal, punk, pop, Zef, S&M, pornography, offensive imagery, “D.I.Y. or Die”... my work is my commentary on where I’m at and where I think the world’s at.

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You use a lot of reclaimed materials. Is sustainability something you think about in your own work?

Definitely. There’s already enough waste in the industry. The more I try to be resourceful and reclaim, recycle and use a combination of new and discarded material, the more peace of mind I have.

Staying with sustainability, what are your thoughts on the “fast fashion” that dominates the fashion industry at the moment? How do you think it’s affecting the industry and us, as consumers?

It’s consume consume consume, marketing and branding these days. Fast fashion is killing design. Established designers can’t afford to present ideas that they’re afraid won’t sell; their ideas are scrutinised and filtered into “sellable” ranges. From discussing this with some of them, they definitely want to do crazy shit but they can’t anymore. And if they try to do something new and exciting, the chain brands are biting at their heels creating more wearable versions of their designs and stealing their customers. Everything is pumped out in mass numbers for mass consuming, to be worn now and then thrown away when the next “cool” piece comes along. Today, kids are taught to buy what bloggers or celebrities wear so they can be “cool-stamped”. Style is a rare thing these days; it’s rare to see someone doing their own thing, wearing what they love and embracing their uniqueness. I have favourite things I wear all the time. They aren’t “fashion” items, they’re clothes that represent memories or times or feelings in my life; t-shirts I’ve nicked from my brother or my dad that they wore when I was younger, shorts that I wear all the time when I paint or screen-print until they’re so worn they’re falling apart. I’m not anti-fashion, I buy and appreciate fashion things. I bought those massive Givenchy nose rings, not ‘cause they were Givenchy but because I thought they were an incredible idea and I hadn’t seen anything like them. It’s really sad that today designers have to be super careful with what they present to their markets as they face huge losses by making pieces that may push their aesthetic that bit too far. Fast fashion is killing creativity.

What’s your creative process?

I think it, I dye it, I screen print it, I airbrush it, I cut it out, I embellish it, I sew it, I iron it, I upload it. It’s a one man army with no out-sourcing!

There’s a subversion of mainstream fashion culture and branding present in your work, right?

Yeah, it’s like I said earlier: don’t be sheep, do your own thing, don’t blend in, don’t be shy, don’t be scared to visually say what you think.

I like weed, Nike and Wu Tang, so I printed it down the arms of some garments made to “wear it on your sleeve”. I love bootleg items and the battle against the mega-brands, so I incorporate these common symbols in irreverent ways. I add a bit of aggression and punch and rip holes and tatter garments to make people more comfortable with wearing the “worn”. It’s not groundbreaking detail but I guess it references me, how I think and feel, and what I’m about.

With the advent of the Internet there’s an argument to be made that culture and subcultures have become homogenised; that geographically, socially and politically profound subcultures don’t have the time or space to germinate any longer. What do you think?

The Internet has made everything accessible; everything is there, everything is easy to find so it’s harder to excite with something new.

Unless we talk about the deep web – which is totally fucked and scary – underground subcultures don’t exist anymore. These days the accessibility to things online has allowed kids to see everything, and nothing is new. I try not to spend a lot of time on the Internet but if I find something and show someone they’re usually all like “yeah, I know”. The best research you can do is old books and magazines ‘cause people don’t look at them anymore so you’re more likely to find “new” research material; something every man and his dog hasn’t seen on Tumblr.

You’ve collaborated with a bunch of celebrities too. What were those experiences like?

I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with some great and influential people. But, I dunno... when it comes down to, it humans are humans. I love a friendly or funny or excited customer no matter where they are in society.

What are you working on at the moment?

Chanel AW15. It’s a bit of a punish.

Do you think Australia has a strong fashion design aesthetic and industry?

Australia rules! It has a great bunch of incredible and talented people doing great things, but I reckon in regards to visual creativity – particularly if you’re trying to do weird, unconventional or a little bit more directional things – Australia isn’t as quick to jump on it. They seem to love natural beauty, and I accept that – maybe I just have a different idea of what’s beaut in this world.

‘Cause to me it isn’t a clean face, blue jeans and a white t-shirt. c

s

“I think it, I dye it, I screen-print it, I airbrush it. It’s a one man army with no outsourcing!”

NOTES ON DESIGN Craftivism Otto Von Busch, a Professor at Parsons the New School for Design and a fashion philosopher, coined the phrases “Fashion Hactivism” and “Fashion Craftivism”. Otto argues that we can simultaneously challenge the political status quo of the industry and create ethical product by re-using and recycling, as he explained to Catalogue: “Hackers make things, crackers break things.

To hack means to open the machine, re-examine and re-circuit it, share the method, make something better.

‘Craftivism’ is an approach to craft that uses craft techniques and materials to challenge the political status quo, especially our current consumer culture.

It’s not about going primitive, but rather about recognising the political agency of the hands and the capabilities that craft may offer on a societal level.”

(Read our full interview with Otto Von Busch at cataloguemagazine.com.au.)

Back to Nature ● “Why can’t we believe in the beauty of the garden without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it, too?” is a question from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that Richard Dawkins placed at the beginning of his book The God Delusion. ● Nike understand this; they describe their “Hyperfeel” shoe as “nature amplified” and it uses flywire technology to imitate the ligaments of the foot. ● Elaine Ng Yan Ling is a textile designer who works for Samsung and uses “Mimicry” to create seamless, ergonomic integration between her work and its environment.

(Read an interview with Elaine Ng Yan Ling at cataloguemagazine.com.au.)

This is just the beginning of the conversation! We’re going to keep investigating the ever-changing fashion industry and interviewing the designers and thinkers at the forefront of this change online at cataloguemagazine.com.au.

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“I DON’T THINK ABOUT ART WHEN I’M WORKING, I TRY TO THINK ABOUT LIFE.” Jean-Michel Basquiat was the graffiti artist turned art superstar who lit up the New York scene in the ‘80s but died tragically young at the age of 27. Here, Jonathan McBurnie talks about Basquait’s brief but dazzling career and Fashion Director Elle Packham re-interprets the artist’s unique sense of personal style.

WRITER JONATHAN MCBURNIE PHOTOGRAPHY NICK HUDSON AT 1+1 MANAGEMENT FASHION DIRECTION ELLE PACKHAM HAIR SHINGO SHIBATA MAKEUP MIGUEL LLEDO MODEL NUR HELLMANN AT DNA MODEL MANAGEMENT

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W

hat is it that still fascinates us about Jean-Michel Basquiat?

Like his friend and mentor Andy Warhol, Basquiat was Postmodern without being a Postmodernist. And like his friend Keith Haring – another artist who caught the world’s attention through his grafitti work – Basquiat felt free to explore the different aspects of his own life through his painting. His fearless visual wanderings explored abstraction, neo-expressionism, primitivism, fauvism and pop art with a restless enthusiasm. Basquiat’s work borrowed from everywhere but belonged nowhere.

It is easy to lose sight of just how starkly new and groundbreaking Basquiat’s presence was in his early 1980s rise to fame. Many today claim the art world is still a straight, white, rich boys club, but this idea becomes dubious when we consider just how many brilliant (A-list or otherwise), female, queer and multicultural artists we are fortunate enough to be familiar with today compared to 30 years ago. Basquiat faced a resistance mentality within the art establishment and overt racism in his everyday life. To his credit, he persisted and smashed it wide open. This aspect of Basquiat’s identity both enriches and complicates his work. Basquiat’s critics claimed his achievements owed something to white liberal guilt, which both downplays the artist’s contribution and condescends the critical faculties of the audience.

Consider the differences between Brooklyn today and the Brooklyn Basquiat grew up in. Hip-hop was still a decade from being absorbed into the mainstream. Graffiti was still considered subversive, two decades away from becoming the councilapproved, trust-fund brat expression of choice it is today. Basquiat was most definitely “black” to the average SoHo gallery patron, but such a clear-cut identity was not always allowed outside of the privileged white institutions of New York. Indeed, his own mixed-race heritage was more commonplace in the streets of Brooklyn, but a pre-existing cultural identity to relate to was not in the offing. Instead, Basquiat’s early development was nourished by his mother who began taking him on trips to galleries and museums upon noticing the young child’s fascination and ease with drawing. Almost from the start, he embodied a collision of

Junya Watanabe newsboy cap from dot.COMME, Acne jumper

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cultures, and that tension ended up defining him.

From 1977 Basquiat formed a kind of graffiti collective with friend Al Diaz called SAMO, traversing nocturnal zones of lower Manhattan and subjecting walls to oblique, unaffected (and clearly-lettered) statements. A typical SAMO graffito would display a cynical eloquence, criticising racism, cultural malaise and institutionalised corporate greed.

This flew in the face of the two seeminglyeternal pillars of graffiti – the crude, run-bynight tag and the more time-intensive flourish of the mural piece. SAMO self-imploded along with Basquiat and Diaz’ friendship in 1980 with the self-conscious signoff-cum-salute “SAMO IS DEAD”. Diaz wished the exploits of SAMO to remain anonymous whereas Basquiat was hungry for notoriety. It was no mistake that the lion’s share of SAMO’s exploits were executed in the SoHo district, then (as now) known for its many galleries.

While Basquiat would later distance himself from the exploits of SAMO, it was not the only collaboration that would whet the young artist’s appetite for interdisciplinary boundary-smashing. He had sporadic dalliances with music, most notably with his noise-jazzart-rock outfit Gray; a testament to Basquiat’s relentless search for new stimulus no matter what the medium. Eventually his painting career was enabled with a loan from a friend and accelerated by his SAMO groundwork and his familiarity in the bohemian circles of SoHo. Basquiat’s canvases grew alongside his notoriety. Sadly, he didn’t deal easily with his fast rise to fame. A heroin habit dogged the artist until tragically catching up with him in 1988. Surviving interviews see Basquiat at turns pretentious and cool, sincere and vulnerable. Like his work, Basquiat would adopt different affectations, different rhythms and marks; a sort of post-punk usurper of Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly tempered by hip-hop, jazz and popular culture. He re-wrote his own mythology as he went and echoed this in his work.

Basquiat is frequently imitated but rarely done justice. The hubris lies in the imitator’s poor judgement, for it is often (wrongly) assumed that Basquiat’s great artistic power was a stylistic one, and the imitator recycles what they see. His great power was his nervous, syncopated energy and his burn to make new work which, of course, can’t be faked. This is why we see so many failed attempts to emulate Basquiat in art schools the world over. It’s said that he’d work with music playing, stacks of open books lying around and the television left on. In retrospect, Basquiat was a visual arts equivalent of proto-hip hop and electro experimentalist Afrika Bambaataa, colliding text and samples in a collage soup of associations and intuitive improvisation.

In the end we’re left with a legacy of beautifully disturbed lines, heated colours and a patchwork of text and image made by a strangely awkward, unknowable figure. Maybe that’s enough. c

“I was determined not to go home again. I thought I was going to be a bum forever.”

Basquiat

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“Jean-Michel Basquiat first became famous for his art. And then he became famous for being famous. And then he became famous for being infamous.”

Richard Marshall THIS PAGE: Purl Harbour jumper. Jac + Jack shirt.

Ben Sherman tie. Comme des Garçons pants from Claire.Inc RIGHT: Comme des Garçons strip mesh jacket from Dot.COMME, Acne pants, Lacoste runners

“He was one of the people I was truly envious of… but was too fragile for this world.”

Madonna Yohji Yamamoto tea stain suit from dot.COMME, Jac + Jack shirt

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Comme des Garรงons peacoat from Claire.Inc., By Johnny shirt

“I shaved my head when I left home as a disguise.”

Basquiat Brooks Brothers trench, Comme des Garçons pants from dot.COMME, Lacoste runners

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PHOTOGRAPHER MAX DOYLE FASHION DIRECTOR ELLE PACKHAM

HOLD ON TIGHT FIGHT THE FIGHT ENJOY THE RIDE AT LEAST YOU TRIED

PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT MASON STEVENSON DIGITAL OPERATOR ALEX REZNICK FASHION ASSISTANT RACHEL COLLESS HAIR DALE DELAPORTE AT NAMES AGENCY MAKEUP NAOMI MCFADDEN AT NAMES AGENCY MODEL EMILY BAKER AT PRISCILLAS SET DESIGN AND BUILD SAM KELL

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Acne Studios bustier dress, Lisa Marie Fernandez swimsuit

ABOVE: Dion Lee dress, Christian Louboutin shoes, Voodoo stocking socks RIGHT: Willow kimono suit, Faddoul bralette, Pinkloulou necklace (worn throughout), Holly Ryan earring (worn throughout)

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ABOVE: Prada scarf and dress LEFT: Ginger & Smart dress

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ABOVE: Christian Dior suit RIGHT: Camilla and Marc dress, Calvin Klein sports bra

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PHOTOGRAPHY ZACHARY HANDLEY AT THE ARTIST GROUP STYLIST SILVIA BERGOMI WRITER COURTNEY SANDERS HAIR OSCAR ALEXANDER AT ERA MANAGEMENT MAKEUP KENNY LEUNG AT ERA MANAGEMENT MODEL CHARLOTTE WIGGINS AT SELECT LONDON

THE WATCHMEN As government surveillance of both our physical and digital lives rapidly increases, how far away are we from The Hunger Games or 1984 or V for Vendetta in real life?

W

e’re currently in the middle of the promotional blitz for the third and final installation of The Hunger Games. For those who haven’t seen it (which is probably none of you) the first trailer for Mockingjay takes the form of a political statement from President Snow to the inhabitants of Panam promising that his dictatorial government will “nourish and protect” while threatening that “if you resist the system you starve yourself; if you fight against us, it is you who will bleed”. His soothing, grandfatherly voice compliments his heavenly, all-white suit and surroundings as well as the three-dimensional words that rise up before him: Unity, Prosperity, Sacrifice.

A Social Contract, as identified by Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques-Rousseau in their books Leviathan (1651) and The Social Contract (1762) respectively, is the agreement between the government and the governed that the governed need to cede some of their individual power, usually in the form of identification and surveillance, in order to keep the rest of it out of the grip of you know, the Bad Guys. The Hunger Games is Suzanne Collins’ interpretation of what happens when a government uses this power for evil, and it’s an interpretation that’s been doing the rounds for a while.

George Orwell most famously created Big Brother London in his groundbreaking 1949 >

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Miu Miu coat, shirt and skirt, Jil Sander shoes, American Apparel sweater

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Costume National vest and pants, Acne t-shirt, Jil Sander shoes

Jil Sander novel 1984, and Aldous Huxley envisaged (with the aid of plenty of psychedelic drugs) a genetically engineered, test-tube-bred population made and controlled by the Government via an incredibly strong antidepressant known as Soma (further immortalised by The Strokes in their song of the same name) in Brave New World. Alan Moore contributed The Watchmen and V For Vendetta to this genre, and there is a scene in the excellent film adaptation of the latter in which “V” hijacks the State-controlled television station to deliver his message about injustice and to encourage civil unrest: “The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission”.

He finishes by declaring: “People shouldn’t be afraid of their Governments, Governments should be afraid of their People”.

Why have we imagined this scenario so often, and why is it so popular at the box office (notwithstanding the fact that Jennifer Lawrence rules)? Because this fight between the government and the people is essentially a fight between good and evil, which in turn is a fight about human nature, and it’s a fight – or rather debate – that can’t really be resolved. Thomas Hobbes thought people were “brutish”, while John Locke declared in The Second Treatise of Government (1690) that “man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule”, and that this would be totally fine and nobody would try to take advantage of anybody else. Even Stan Lee admitted that “with great power comes great responsibility” in Spiderman and suggested that Spiderman was a “hero” and would therefore use said power for good. Ask yourself this: if you had Spiderman’s powers (which actually aren’t all that great) wouldn’t you

seek a little revenge occasionally? Or this: do you think Batman is hero or villain considering he saves the lives of innocent people but also exacts hardcore revenge on criminals? Both answers are right, and the fact that both answers are right – that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to the deepest, darkest urges of human nature and power – is what makes these kinds of stories so exciting. It’s exciting, and it’s kinda scary.

It’s probably scarier now than it’s ever been, too. In the last issue of Catalogue I interviewed American electronic artist EMA who based her latest album, The Future’s Void, on dystopian “Cyber Punk” literature because she “feels like a lot of output from this genre had something like today in mind as the Dystopian or Utopian future”. In this fashion editorial, photographer Zachary Handley takes the position of a CCTV camera, voyeuristically following model-of-the-moment Charlotte Wiggins around London. According to an article by The Independent published last year, there is one CCTV camera for every 11 people in Britain, and the average Londoner is caught on camera 300 times per day. Which is insane. There are this many cameras in London and yet, according to The Guardian, no evidence to suggest that CCTV prevents crime. What is all this surveillance being used for then? While this is happening on the streets, the National Security Agency (the NSA) is combing everything everyone does online and storing that information in a place called the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center in Utah which, according to The Monthly, has enough capacity to easily hold everything ever written (!!) as well as every phone call and text message sent for the next century.

For a democracy to function, most of us would agree that a Social Contract is necessary. But the line between protection and control is fine, and considering how much surveillance is in place today, that line is unequivocally being blurred. When will it be crossed? c

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Isa Arfen coat, Jil Sander shoes

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Ann-Sofie Back dress, Jil Sander shoes

I GREW UP A SCREW UP

(L-R) Carly Hunter top and skirt, ROC shoes LIFE with BIRD top, Dion Lee skirt, ROC shoes, American Apparel socks Jac + Jack jumper, Camilla and Marc skirt, ROC shoes, ASOS socks

PHOTOGRAPHY JO DUCK FASHION DIRECTION ELLE PACKHAM PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT DANIEL KNOTT FASHION ASSISTANT RACHEL COLLESS MAKEUP JACLYN HNILKO AT THE ARTIST GROUP HAIR DALE DELAPORTE AT NAMES AGENCY MODELS LAUREN VISSER, VITA WEST AND HYUN JI AT IMG MODELS

ABOVE: Purl Harbour crop top, Lee Achieve jumpsuit, Fabrique Vintage letterman jacket LEFT: Bonds sweatshirt, Bonds trackpants, Converse shoes (from General Pants) Jac + Jack jumper, Adidas trackpants, Converse shoes (from General Pants) Jac + Jack jumper, Calvin Klein trackpants, Converse shoes (from General Pants)

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TOP: Lone Wolf t-shirts by Luke Perillo ABOVE: (L-R) Purl Harbour singlet, Fabrique Vintage blouse, Holly Ryan x Wrangler top RIGHT: Fabrique Vintage jacket, pants and belt

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ABOVE: Zambesi blouse, Wrangler x Holly Ryan vest LEFT: (L-R) Topshop coat, Wrangler dress, ROC shoes, ASOS socks Antipodium shirt, Vanishing Elephant skirt, ROC shoes Jac + Jack coat, Zambesi polo, Holly Ryan x Wrangler shorts, ROC shoes, American Apparel socks

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ABOVE: Fabrique Vintage Betty shirt RIGHT: (L-R) Topshop coat, Wrangler dress, ROC shoes, ASOS socks Antipodium shirt, Vanishing Elephant skirt, ROC shoes Jac + Jack coat, Zambesi polo, Holly Ryan x Wrangler shorts, ROC shoes, American Apparel socks

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It’s a kind of magic

catalogue

NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 6 OCTOBER

INDEX THE PART OF THE MAGAZINE WHERE WE DO THE GOOGLING FOR YOU

There’s a huge number of interesting people, events and things mentioned throughout every issue of Catalogue. But we simply don’t have enough space in the features to go into all the fine detail. That’s cool, because we’ve hyperlinked them and included more information about them right here because we think it’s very important that you know, for instance, that the average temperature on Venus is over 450°C. You’re welcome! Compiled by Courtney Sanders

A

Right now it’s hard to separate Woody Allen the director from Woody Allen the-guy-with-thecontroversial-personal-life, which is a shame because his 1977 film Annie Hall is a work of genius. Starring Allen and Diane Keaton, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture and was critically acclaimed for its modern presentation of a relationship, its spontaneity and its frequent breaking down of the “fourth wall” between the film and its audience. Also – and this is very important – Diane Keaton’s wardrobe in the film is absolutely killer.

scenarios in which we would meet and share exquisite cocktails with him. Because of this, I revisited all of the work of director Sam Mendes, who in my opinion addresses the destruction of this American Dream better than anyone else. The desperation of his characters at the realisation that they’ll never achieve any kind of happiness based on society’s pre-conceived ideas of how they should live their lives is intense and palpable in Revolutionary Road, in Jarhead and – most notably – via incredible performances by Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning and Mena Suvari in American Beauty. It’s a must-watch for anyone who knows a “white picket fence” existence isn’t for them. Which most of us today do.

American Beauty

Aldous Huxley

(Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,

(The Watchmen, page 122)

Annie Hall (Desiree Akhavan, page 29)

page 84)

About five years ago I became so obsessed with Jonathan Franzen, his novel Freedom and the complex, depressing nature of the post-WWII “American Condition” that a friend and I started a blog with the sole purpose of describing imaginary

when they’re not there. I imagine this also happened to Aldous Huxley after he took the psychedelic drugs required to write The Doors of Perception, his novel about taking mescaline. This is probably totally fine when you’ve clocked life by writing something as profound as Brave New World (in which he describes a futuristic world of manufactured, drugcontrolled people). Huxley did, in 1932.

C

catfishing (Kate Lyn Sheil, page 20)

Catfishing is the term used to describe purposely misleading potential romantic partners on the Internet, and if you haven’t watched the semidocumentary film of the same, name do so right now and learn from their mistakes.

Cathy Horyn (Create, And Control, page 98)

I have a friend who took so much acid as a teenager and young adult that now he sees rainbows in the sky

Public squabbles with Hedi Slimane withstanding, Cathy Horyn is a fashion journalist known and respected for her

Comme des Garçons (Verner, page 68) There are facts about Comme des Garçons: it’s Japanese, it’s designed by visionary thinker Rei Kawakubo and was founded in 1969. Also, Comme des Garçons means “like boys” in French. And then there are ideas by Comme des Garçons, and they deserve much more space than we can dedicate to them here.

Let us just include one of their beautiful campaign images and say that it shimmers like the top of a lake with exciting and revolutionary depths below, and leave this piece right here as something to be continued in our next issue...

unflinching honesty in an industry where it’s pretty uncommon (she argues that her non-invitation to Hedi Slimane’s debut presentation for Saint Laurent was due to a negative review she wrote about the designer’s work in 2004). She edited

influential fashion blog On The Runway for The New York Times for 10 years between 2003 and 2013 and has contributed to Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, as well as The Washington Post and a bunch of other respected newspapers. >

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INDEX

E

Show. Which we’re totally OK with.

Emily Nussbaum (Us v Them, page 90)

Emily Nussbaum is the New Yorker’s television critic and she wrote the best takedown of The Newsroom’s first season – appropriately called “The Artificial Intelligence of The Newsroom” – that includes ripping quotes like: “The Newsroom gets so bad so quickly I found my jaw dropping”. As television supercedes everything else as the cultural medium we collectively share and then collectively discuss (usually in list form, usually online) Nussbaum’s poignant commentary on everything celluloid is basically defining who we are. And do you know what is great about Emily Nussbaum right now? She’s speaking at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney (alongside Salman Rushdie) about how “Television Has Replaced the Novel” on 31 August.

And, speaking of The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Alissa Nutting – who wrote about Francesca Woodman for this issue and released her controversial and critically acclaimed debut novel Tampa (about a 26-year-old female paedophile who becomes a teacher so she can systematically seduce her students) – is speaking, too!

F

Fibonacci sequence (Bagging Art And Activism, page 30)

J

Jacqui Markham (Create, And Control, page 98)

FEMEN (Kitty Green, page 42)

FEMEN are an international feminist protest group founded in the Ukraine in 2007.

They rose to infamy and prominence last year when they stormed Nina Ricci’s summer 2014 Paris Fashion Week presentation. The two FEMEN women who stormed said runway were topless and had slogans painted across their chests and floral fascinators in their hair – a look that has become synonymous with them. The FEMEN website describes their ideological principles as “Sextremism, Atheism and Feminism” and their goal as “complete victory over patriarchy”. Several criminal cases have been launched against FEMEN, including “hooliganism” and “desecration of state symbols” in response to their protests, and the organisation’s leadership left the Ukraine “fearing for their lives and freedom” in August 2013.

that this was an exact replication of the Fibonacci Sequence, and that if we looked at the arrangement of leaves on a stem, the pattern on a pine cone or the way a fern uncurls, that they would be in this exact sequence, too. And while I’ve never been smart enough to entertain the thought of a career in mathematics or science, at this exact moment I thought they were both totally magical (but also rational and explainable, which actually makes them more impressive), and wished I could have.

G Game Of Thrones During my brief stint of science at high school I remember our class being led outside to count the sequence of branches on a tree and counting it as “1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8” before being led back inside to be told

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(Hannah Murray, page 14)

Is finished for another season x_x George Orwell (The Watchmen, page 122)

Maybe you read 1984 at high school and maybe you

didn’t, but I’m sure George Orwell’s name will ring a bell in that deep, dark part of your brain that locks away names to investigate later. Orwell imagined a totalitarian, futuristic society in which Big Brother controls every person’s every move, and the dual facts that the reality in which he envisaged is starting to take place today, and that he wrote it way back in 1948, make him an incredibly impressive person.

God Help The Girl (Hannah Murray, page 14)

Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Glaswegian pop band Belle and Sebastian, has taken his penchant for delightful melancholy to the silver screen by writing a musical feature-length film in the form of God Help The Girl. It recently screened at the Sydney Film Festival and follows Hannah Murray, Emily Browning and Olly Alexander over a summer of whimsical ‘60s existentialism; they’re three teenagers who are enthusiastically jumping into adulthood completely without fear. It will turn both Hannah Murray and Emily Browning into leading ladies in independent cinema, and it will turn you, the viewer, into delightful mush.

H

House Of Cards (Kate Lyn Sheil, page 20)

AKA The Kevin Spacey

You may not recognise her name but you will definitely recognise Jacqui Markham’s work. She’s currently the women’s wear design director at Asos.com where her role is “to lead our team of designers to set the trends for next season and to anticipate what our girl is going to want to wear in nine months time”, as she explained to Catalogue in a recent promotional trip to Sydney. “This encompasses shape and silhouette through to fabric and colour direction – put simply, anything to do with product and trend. Our team of 33-strong designers extensively research and develop their ideas to put

together desirable styles with global appeal”. Before taking her position at Asos. com, Jacqui spent 14 years designing for Topshop, just casually.

John Gallagher Jnr. (Kate Lyn Sheil, page 20)

John Gallagher Jnr. is an American actor who the Catalogue team are obsessed with due to his role in Aaron Sorkin’s excellent, newish (two

seasons in with a third confirmed) HBO television program, The Newsroom.

In the show he plays Jim Harper, a news producer and generally intelligent and awesome human being, which is very similar to his underwhelming-but-verynice-nonetheless persona in The Heart Machine and in the critically-acclaimed 2013 film Short Term 12, in which he stars alongside Next Big Thing Brie Larson.

You may also recognise him from Law & Order, NYPD Blue and The West Wing.

So, all the crime dramas, then.

culture product based on the case, which – alongside the media representation of the murder at the time – bears little resemblance to the actual facts (Brian de Palma’s 2006 film The Black Dahlia falls well inside this category, too).

K

Keith Haring

Kim Gordon (Create,

(Jean-Michel Basquiat, page 104)

And Control,

Keith Haring’s purposely naïve pop art is a significant part of our collective cultural history. He worked in New York in the ‘80s alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and while he pioneered blurring the lines between creative and commercial objectives, it was his addressing of social and political issues in his graphic, public murals that is the most significant

page 98)

Kim Gordon was the bass player in Sonic Youth, is now in an experimental two-piece, Body/Head, and is one of the Catalogue team’s strongest influences. Please listen to either Daydream Nation (1988) or Goo (1990) on repeat to understand why.

Katie Grand John Gregory Dunne

(Create, And Control, page 98)

(Joan Didion, page 83)

When researching either Joan Didion or John Gregory Dunne the other inevitably arises because the pair basically personified the term “soul mates”. They were married in 1964 and moved to rural California to both pursue writing careers, and they collaborated on a myriad of journalism assignments and columns until Dunne’s death in 2003. While Didion is more recognised, Dunne actually wrote several novels, including True Confessions which is loosely based on the murder of “The Black Dahlia”, a nickname given to Elizabeth Short, a young woman who was gruesomely murdered in 1947. The case remains unsolved and Dunne’s novel is only one in a myriad of

Check out Katie Grand’s Instagram account and you’ll find snapshots of the most recent fashion campaigns by Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Bottega Veneta and Balmain, among others. Not because she’s a fan of those labels and is posting out of adoration, but because she styled them. All of them. Katie Grand is the most sought-after fashion stylist in the world right now, and as well as collaborating with the biggest luxury houses on advertising campaigns, she works tirelessly for them across the four major fashion weeks, and manages to hold down editor-in-chief of LOVE magazine, too.

Casual. Before all of this she headed up the team at Pop and was the fashion editor at Dazed and Confused as well as The Face... straight after she graduated from the prestigious Central Saint Martins.

If you look at that Instagram account of hers you’ll also see that she’s mates with Jarvis Cocker and Cara Delevingne, and may we just say: Katie Grand, we are extremely jealous of love you.

attribute of his work.

Haring reflected the social concerns present in New York in the ‘80s from the beginning of his career, but it was his representation of sexuality and AIDS in his later work that is particularly direct and memorable. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and entered a period of unbridled creativity and output, as he told Rolling Stone at the time: ““That’s the point that I am at now, not knowing where it stops but knowing how important it is to do it now. The whole thing is getting more articulate. In a way it’s really liberating”. Media is a message, and few people understand that as well as Haring did.

Kirin J Callinan (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, page 84)

If you saw Kirin J Callinan walking down the street without knowing that he is, in fact, an inimitable musician who released one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2013, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a futuristic homeless person complete with some really dark social proclivities. As it stands, his affinity for utilitarian active wear, “sharkie” sunglasses (you know the ones), abstract haircuts and, quite frankly, a somewhat terrifying attitude, all reinforce at

least one of the characters he plays on his album Embracism, whether that be the multiple Victorias he takes the form of in the video clip for his song of the same name, or the embodiment of the failure

of the American Dream in the Cara Stricker-directed clip for his album’s title track. For a dashing version of Mr. Callinan, I suggest you refer to the black and white images Hedi Slimane took for V magazine.

L

The Libertines (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, page 84)

While The Strokes were releasing Is This It and defining what it means to be young, reckless and lost Stateside in 2001, The Libertines were doing the same in the UK. Carl Barat and the now infamous Pete Doherty met at university (they were both studying drama) and created a fairytale in which they sailed a ship from Albion (the gritty streets of their England) to Arcadia (creative Utopia). They then captivated a generation of disillusioned kids (including me) with songs like Time for Heroes, Can’t Stand Me Now and What a Waster, as well as their unfiltered approach to band-on-fan relations (they would often host gigs at their flats, announcing these gigs in online fan forums). It all ended rather unglamorously in a shower of drug and alcohol abuse and prison but, considering the silvery, foreboding knife-edge on which they existed during their peak, we really couldn’t have expected anything else.

Let them eat cake (Verner, page 68)

Even though historical opinion suggests that Marie Antoinette was completely clueless as to the plight of >

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INDEX

the people of France during her reign as Queen, she was not, in fact, so out of touch to suggest, when the peasantry were starving because of a shortage of that diet staple, bread, that they revert to eating elaborate baked treats that they obviously couldn’t afford. The term actually first appeared in Jean Jacques Rousseau’s autobiography Confessions in 1782 when Marie Antoinette was just 10 years old, and it’s therefore thought to have been coined by Rousseau himself. (As an aside, I’m personally in favour of making cake a dietary staple.)

M

monogenre (FKA twigs, page 34)

I’m not sure if music website Stereogum invented the term “monogenre” but they were certainly the first place I heard about it. Chris DeVille wrote a piece at the end of 2013 where he described the current music landscape as one completely void of subcultures and genres as we’ve come to know them.

He describes young, popular artists like Lorde, HAIM and Vampire Weekend and their complete Blurring of the Lines (yes, he cites that song too) between groups of sound and calls it the “monogenre”; a sort of Tumblr-style musiccreating process. Which makes complete sense when you consider that most of these artists grew up after traditional,

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geographically significant subcultures stopped existing and indistinguishable rabbit holes of words, images and – most importantly – sounds started existing.

R&B, hip-hop, rock, grunge, electronica: these can all fit together, right?

Hey, why not? It’s not like music movements haven’t joined these dots in the past (hello post punk, hello new wave), albeit with very specific rules in place. With “monogenre” the rules are that there are no rules.

O

Orla Kiely (Hannah Murray, page 14)

She’s an Irish fashion designer who began her career by making hats. Her spring 2014 ready-to-wear collection was inspired by safaris, camping... and Suzy from Wes Anderson’s film Moonrise Kingdom.

my Dad likes who also like wearing Dad-like, totally naff things (colour-lens eyewear) (U2), bands that my Dad likes who also like getting involved in politics for the dual goals of genuinely trying to do something positive and advancing their own career (U2). Also Coldplay, when they wore those ridiculous French revolutionary jackets for both the cover and the Entire.

Promotional. Cycle of their album Viva La Vidi or Death and All His Friends. Not to say that political music is lame! I entirely agree with Ollie Henderson when, in her article, she states that she wished more musicians would write about political and social issues today. My current favourite band that does this are Parquet Courts; check out their latest album Sunbathing Animal for a succinct explanation of the plight of the social and financial plight of our generation.

R

Richard Dawkins (Future of Fashion, page 98)

P

Political Dad Rock (Bagging Art And Activism, page 30)

I think Political Dad Rock means different things to different people. To House of Riot founder (and Australian) Ollie Henderson, Political Dad Rock means politicallymotivated bands she grew up with such as Midnight Oil. To me, Political Dad Rock is the culmination of a few things: bands that my Dad likes (U2), bands that

Richard Dawkins is an English evolutionary biologist and writer who released the best-selling book The God Delusion in 2006. He is one of the most famous proponents of atheism and critics of creationism in the world, and has released an inexplicable amount of content regarding the subject of science versus

S

Savage Garden (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, page 92)

If you don’t know who they are, don’t even worry about it. If you do, let’s reminisce, together, right now (Truly Madly Deeply forever).

religion as well as founding the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Sixpence None The Richer (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, page 84)

Did you know that Sixpence None The Richer are a Christian rock band?

Guys: a Christian rock band! I find it confusing that a Christian rock band would write about “being kissed under the silver moonlight”, which is obviously a metaphor for wanting to be more than just “kissed under the silver moonlight”, and then allow a television program that revolves entirely around

pre-marital sex and adultery to lay claim to their song and therefore immortalise, in celluloid, the union between song and pre-marital sex.

Skins (Hannah Murray, page 14)

If you haven’t heard of Skins you obviously weren’t watching any

television whatsoever between 2007 and 2013.

With popularity to rival Game of Thrones, Skins was England’s answer to American teen dramas like The OC and Dawson’s Creek except that – in classically gritty, English style – instead of just talking about sex, drugs and teen pregnancy the characters in Skins actually did all of these things. Hannah Murray played the strange, malnourished elf Cassie who battled an eating disorder alongside all of her more general teenage concerns, namely what dude to date and what outfit to wear. Skins aired for six years and the cast was replaced every season or two so the show could continue to be set in high school (name one teen drama, aside from Gilmore Girls, – because, Logan –that has successfully transitioned into the university years of its characters). But the first >

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Hansen and Gretel

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americanapparel.net

hansenandgretel.com

Pink LouLou

Arnley

I Love Mr. Mittens

pinkloulou.com

arnley.com.au

ilovemrmittens.com

Ports 1961

Asos

Issa London

ports1961.com

asos.com/au

issalondon.com

Prada

Balenciaga

Jac + Jack

prada.com

balenciaga.com

jacandjack.com

Purl Harbour

Ben Sherman

Jamie Ashkar

purlharbour.com.au

bensherman.com

jamieashkar.com.au

Reo Jewels

Bonds

Jasper Conran

reojewels.co.uk

bonds.com.au

jasperconran.com

Richard Chai

Bora Aksu

Jennifer Chun

richardchailove.com

boraaksu.com

jennifer-chun.com

River Island

By Johnny

Joseph

au.riverisland.com

byjohnny.com.au

joseph-fashion.com

Roc Shoes

Camilla and Marc

Junya Watanabe

rocboots.con.au

camillaandmarc.com

dotcomme.net

Saba

Calvin Klein

Kahlo

saba.com.au

calvinklein.com

kahlo.com.au

Santoni

Carly Hunter

Kaliver

santonishoes.com

carly-hunter.com

kaliver.com

Scanlan and Theodore

Carven

Karen Walker

scanlantheodore.com

carven.com

karenwalker.com

Scotch & Soda

Christian Dior

Kaylene Milner

scotch-soda.com

dior.com

kaylenemilner.com

Slim Barrett

Christian Louboutin

Kenzo

slimbarrett.com

christianlouboutin.com

kenzo.com

Soles Shoes

Claire Inc.

LaCoste

soles.shoes.com

claireinc.com

lacoste.com/aus

Sportsmax

Comme des Garçons

LD Tuttle

sportsmax.com

comme-des-garcons.com

ldtuttle.com

Suno

Converse

Lee Jeans

sunony.com

converse.com.au

leejeans.com.au

Ter et Bantine

Cos

Levi’s

teretbantine.com/en/

cosstores.com

levis.com.au

Creatures of Comfort

Lisa Maree

The Vintage Clothing Shop

creaturesofcomfort.us

lisamaree.com.au

+61 2 9238 0090

Daks

Lonely Hearts

The Row

daks.com

lonelyheartslabel.com

therow.com

Daniel K

Longchamp

Tibi

danielkonline.com

longchamp.com

tibi.com

Daniella Kallmeyer

Maison Scotch

Todd Lynn

daniellakallmeyer.com

scotch-soda.com.au

toddlynn.com

Desert Designs

Marc Jacobs

Topshop

desertdesigns.com.au

marcjacobs.com

topshop.com

Design By Jude

Miu Miu

USE Unused

designbyjude.com

miumiu.com

use.co.hu

Dion Lee

MLM Label

Vanishing Elephant

dionlee.com

mlmlabel.com

vanishingelephant.com

Edun

Mother Of Pearl

Willow

edun.com

motherofpearl.co.uk

willowltd.com

Emma Mulholland

Nanushka

Wrangler

emmamulholland.com

nanushka.hu

wrangler.com.au

Fabrique Vintage

Neo Dia

Yohji Yamamoto

fabriquevintage.com

neodialabel.com

dotcomme.net

STOCKISTS

Pebble London

143

INDEX cast were by far the most memorable; Nicholas Hoult turning from About a Boy ugly duckling into precocious, adorable, pre-Jennifer Lawrencedating swan, anyone?

T

Tampa (Francesca Woodman, page 94)

particular kind of teenage boy, “undeniably male but not man”. She seeks out her sexual satisfaction heartlessly and methodically and, as you can imagine, mayhem ensues. Nutting was actually inspired to write Tampa by the true story of a teacher at her high school: in 2005 Deborah Lafave, a 25-year-old teacher at Greco Middle School in Florida, pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious behaviour after having sex with a 14-year-old boy.

The Real World (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, page 84)

Tampa is the controversial 2013 novel written by Alissa Nutting (who wrote an homage to Francesca Woodman in this issue and is speaking at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney at the end of August). The story follows Celeste Price, a beautiful 26-year-old teacher who just happened to choose teaching because she’s sexually obsessed with a

The Real World is credited with inventing the reality television format as we know it (a format that’s a terrible scourge upon man and one that we will never forgive MTV for). But if you remove the worst parts of reality television – the pre-arranged plots, the

stereotypical characters, the cutting of footage to suit the aforementioned pre-arranged plots – then what you have is an insight into the lives of everyday people, and therefore human nature. The Real World provided an insight into the lives of everyday folk before you could get it by stalking people on Facebook, and as such it was MTV’s longest-running TV show. While it apparently devolved to play out the problematic tropes of reality TV in later seasons, it was celebrated through early seasons – it first aired in 1992 – for presenting a realistic depiction of young adulthood to young adults.

It tackled issues, man, including sex, drug abuse, religion, abortion, illness, AIDS (housemate Pedro Zamora died of AIDS hours after the airing of the finale of the 1994 San Francisco season in which he featured), eating disorders and politics. Which is more than you can say for, like, Master Chef or something.

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (Create, And Control, page 98)

Nicholas Carr is an

American writer who wrote the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” for The Atlantic’s annual Ideas Issue in 2008. The article heavily criticised the way in which the Internet and social media are affecting our cognition, and his 2010 book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains extends this argument. Carr starts by examining our current understanding of what is called the “plasticity” of the brain; the fact that the physical construction of the brain will change depending on the kind of information technology we consume. He then applies this to the major changes in information technology through the ages, with particular reference to the Internet. “The Internet, as its proponents rightly remind us, makes for variety and convenience; it does not force anything upon you. Only it turns out it doesn’t feel like that at all,” explains Carr. “We don’t feel as if we had freely chosen our online practices.

We feel instead that they are habits we have helplessly picked up or that history has enforced, that we are not distributing our attention as we intend or even like to.” It’s compelling – and frankly quite scary – stuff.

The Slope (Desiree Akhavan, page 28)

The Heart Machine (Kate Lyn Sheil, page 20)

The Heart Machine is a 2014 movie directed by Zachary Wigon and starring Kate Lyn Sheil and John Gallagher Jnr. that was funded by Kickstarter. It deals with very right now questions like how truthfully do people represent themselves online compared to In Real Life, and is internet dating awesome or a big waste of time? Watch it to find the answers to these very important, very current existential questions.

144

The Slope is a made-forYou-Tube show, created by

Desiree Akhavan and Ingrid Jungermann, that follows the lives of a lesbian couple living in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Slope contains the same liberal arts-influenced, First World Problems as both Girls and Akhavan’s Appropriate Behaviour, which is probably why we relate to it so strongly.

U

Utilitarianism (UNIF.M, page 62)

I stand by the argument that, rather than being a ridiculous fashion trend involving dressing like Jerry Seinfeld or my Dad via New Balance sneakers and turtle necks, “normcore” is a social and political

movement started by fashion-forward people who, sick to death of high street chain-stores dictating trends to them, revolted by wearing the least trendy items of clothing they could possibly find. These unfashionable pieces are also practical because, in uncertain economic times, we buy pieces built to last, right? While Utilitarianism is originally an economic term invented by John Stuart Mill in his book Utilitarianism to describe the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority, it’s become a useful description of functional clothing design.

It’s Margaret Howell’s English minimalism or Alexander Wang’s greymarle t-shirts and like, “totally cool” sweat pants.

And it’s awesome because

profound (i.e. not very often), I find myself trying to slip a quote from V for Vendetta into the mix, even though I read/watch/ listen to a bunch of diverse stuff, promise! I know that this is partly because I’ve read the graphic novel by Alan Moore and watched the film by the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix) so many times that the quotes are embedded somewhere quite close to the surface of my brain, but also because they’re profound and – like George Orwell’s 1984 – extremely relevant to what is, or what could be, happening right now.

WIN THIS

KOMONO X BASQUIAT WATCH

Unicorns (Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, page 84)

They’re magical and I love them.

wearing pyjamas during the day is one of my favourite things to do.

V

Venus (Bagging Art And Activism, page 30)

I really didn’t think I was going to be particularly interested in the physical attributes of Venus, the second planet from the sun, but science is actually kind of amazing. It’s often described as Earth’s sister planet because of their similar size, gravity and composition, and is the hottest planet in the solar system, boasting an average temperature of over 400 Degrees Celsius, which is just slightly warmer than the average temperature of Australia.

It’s the brightest natural object in the sky after the sun, which is probably why it was named after women,

right? More specifically, the planet Venus is named after the Roman Goddess Venus, and the northern continent of the planet is named Ishtar Terra after the Babylonian Goddess of Love. The southern continent of the planet is named Aphrodite after the Greek Goddess of Love, and it’s great that there’s all of this girl power going down on Venus because no other planet in our Solar System is named after a woman. (Which seems a little bit unfair actually.

Scientists: explain please.)

The symbol for the planet Venus is the same as the biological symbol for female, while the symbol for Mars (which is named after the Roman God of War) is also the biological symbol for male, and this probably explains the name of that book Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus which I’ve never read but that at least 50 million other people have; it was apparently the highest-ranked work of non-fiction of the ‘90s.

V For Vendetta (The Watchmen, page 122)

Every time I go to write anything even slightly

W

Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (W.R.A.P.) (Bagging Art And Activism, page 30)

W.R.A.P. is a non-profit organisation, dedicated to creating ethical and lawful conditions for workers in the clothing production industry, which, considering the catastrophe that took place at Rana Plaza last year, is a very worthy cause indeed. The organisation instituted a series of practices that factories must abide by, including (but not limited to) “prohibition of child labour”, “health and safety” and “freedom of association and collective bargaining”.

In order for factories to be compliant and W.R.A.P-accredited, they must sign a statement declaring that they will abide to these practices, and submit to independent audits by W.R.A.P-certified auditors.

10 KOMONO WATCHES WORTH $140 EACH TO BE WON Catalogue believes in the collective creative subconscious: in other words, because of our universal access to information, two people can come up with the same idea at the same time while living on opposite sides of the world. Our fashion director Elle decided to shoot an homage to the amazing artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (the stunning results are on page 104) around the same time that Komono designer Raf Maes decided to pay tribute to Basquiat via a collection of watches. Because it’s only natural, we’ve teamed up with Komono to give away 10 awesome Komono x Basquiat watches – valued at $140 each – to our readers. All you have to do is head over to our website and take it from there!

Head over to cataloguemagazine.com.au to enter.

145

INDEX

THE LAST WORD

CHARLOTTE WIGGINS Charlotte Wiggins is the English model with inimitable cheekbones and piercing green eyes who went from being scouted while on a school trip to being the face of Topshop, a favourite of Christopher Bailey at Burberry and featured in “The Great British Model” spread in British Vogue. And all while holding on to the relaxed attitude that’s probably one of the reasons for her success. Considering our penchant for girls who have their own thing going on, Zachary Handley photographed her in London for our fashion story The Watchmen on page 122.

Hey Charlotte! How are you? What are you up to at the moment?

I’m great, thanks. I’m just busy working in London.

How did you get into modeling in the first place?

I was scouted by Select Models on a school trip.

Did you have much interest in the fashion industry before you started modeling?

No... I had zero interest, really. I was into sport. I suppose I watched the occasional America’s Next Top Model though, haha…

What have you been most surprised by about modeling compared to what you thought the job would be like?

Everybody says this, but it’s definitely not as a glamorous as people think.

What’s been your favourite job so far?

I loved a shoot I did for British Vogue because it was with my mates. We just had a laugh in the countryside for two days!

I’ve read that after you were signed you basically went straight into castings for Fashion Week. What was it like walking those first few shows? How were you in heels when you started?

Really nerve racking! You don’t really know what you’re doing, and it all happens so quickly! I definitely wasn’t good in heels when I started haha!

I’m still not that great now, to be honest...

Looking at your Instagram account (er, because we’ve been stalking you), it seems like you’ve made a great bunch of model friends. What’s the comradery like between models?

At Fashion Week there’s definitely comradery because we’re all going through the same thing and coping with tiredness and stuff. It’s really nice to go to Fashion Week and see all the familiar faces. I’ve forged amazing friendships, and the girls who I live with I met in the industry.

Vogue touted you as a “Great British Model”... how did that make you feel? What do you think makes you particularly British?

I was extremely grateful! And British? Well, I drink a lot of tea. And I like The Beatles!

This issue of Catalogue is our “identity” issue. If you had to define your identity in a few words (which we admit is almost impossible, but we ask the tough questions here at Catalogue), what would you say?

Laid back, up for a laugh, a good friend... hopefully.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m re-reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

What are you listening to at the moment?

My friend’s band Propellers – check them out!

What are the best things about modeling?

Travelling, meeting new people... and money.

And the worst?

You can never make definite plans – as soon as you try to book a holiday or go home for the weekend, a job will come up. .

Before you started modeling, what were you planning to do after high school?

I wanted to go to uni and study Sports Science.

What are your future plans now?

I want to continue to model for a bit longer. I wouldn’t want to do a thing else at the moment!

c