The CIFF Gazette

The

Gazette

3rd Edition August 2013

ciff.dk

CHRISTOPHER Ræburn p.14»

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY p.18»

Thanks to this young Brit designer, you no longer have to choose between style or ethics

Summer FASHION p.4»

Technology as a second skin is making progress but it’s not quite there yet

BYREDO p.16»

Daniel Riera uses his home town of Barcelona as a dramatic backdrop for S/S 2014 collections

ELEMENTS OF STYLE p.35»

Learn how a former basketball player’s ‘Plan B’ is shaking up the staid world of fragrance

In the world of skateboarding, style reigns over substance.

But what is it?

GOSHA RUBCHINSKIY p.22»

Meet the young Russian artist/designer who may be the voice of his generation

Copenhagen International Fashion Fair (CIFF) is the largest fashion fair in Northern Europe The Spring/Summer 2014 season will be unveiled 8 – 11 August at the Bella Center, Copenhagen. Follow us @CIFF_DK

K R I S T I A N W. A N D E R S E N

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E d ito r i a l

By Kristian W. Andersen Photography Daniel Riera

Welcome to the 41st season of The Copenhagen International Fashion Fair and to this, the third issue of The CIFF Gazette. Our theme for the Spring/Summer 2014 collections is sportswear and we’re tremendously excited to bring you some of the most cutting edge sportswear and streetwear brands around.

Once socially acceptable only for athletes and small children, sportswear is now all around us, its rise no doubt closely linked to an evolving lifestyle. Whether due to our growing interest in fitness and health, our enthusiasm for technology or our heightened environmental awareness, we are choosing to go about our lives differently from previous generations.

We therefore need products including apparel that reflect these changes. As the traditional boundaries between design disciplines continue to melt away, lifestyle is emerging as the common thread running through fashion, gastronomy, architecture and product design alike.

Nowhere is this more acutely on display than right here in Copenhagen. As a city, we have long been at the forefront of this quest for quality of life as we’ve striven to achieve a healthier work/life balance. That quest recently earned Copenhagen the title of world’s “most livable city” according to Monocle, and our laidback lifestyle is now the envy of the world. From the gastronomic scene to the architectural and design

arenas, Copenhagen is bubbling with innovation and creativity and the ripple effect is being felt far beyond the borders of Scandinavia. The implication for our industry is clear: Lifestyle is the new black.

Not surprisingly, sportswear emerged as one of the dominant trends in menswear for S/S 2014. A quick look at the catwalks of several leading luxury fashion brands in London, Paris and Milan and you’ll see clear shades of Danish menswear designer Astrid Andersen emerge. In the few short years since founding her label, Astrid is already blurring the lines between sportswear and traditional menswear, forcing us all to think about mens’ style in a bold and exciting way.

Also noteworthy for his innovative take on activewear, British designer Christopher Raeburn’s most recent collection featuring a water-resistant stretch fabric embellished with satellite imagery made a strong argument in favour of polished utilitarianism in fashion. His ethical approach to fashion design and appropriation of army surplus garb is forging a compelling solution for the style-conscious consumer committed to an ethically-minded lifestyle. His collections offer consumers the luxury of not having to choose between being ethical or being stylish.

Christopher’s peculiar blend of environmental commitment and love of technologically advanced fabrics is forging new paths for our industry.

As I’ve said many times before, in an industry where change is the only constant, no one can afford to stand still for long. Here at CIFF, we believe we have the potential to become a world-class platform from which to propel the entire Scandinavian fashion industry forward. As we continue to roll out our new strategy, we’re excited to bring our customers the tools and services they need to successfully navigate the increasingly borderless industry that is fashion.

Most recently, we have unveiled 10,000 square metres of state-of-the-art, fully serviced showroom facilities to house menswear, womenswear and shoes.

We hope you’ll come take a tour and experience them for yourselves.

Fashion will always be about renewal. Performanceenhancing technological innovations, once the exclusive purview of elite athletes, are now available to all willing to pay for them. Cutting-edge fabrics once reserved for military use are now gracing the catwalks of the world’s fashion capitals and influencing the way we dress. We live in an increasingly borderless, hyper-connected world thanks to digital media and mobile technology.

Regardless of where these currents may lead us, they make for a thoroughly exhilarating journey.

We hope you’ll take this issue of The CIFF Gazette with you and keep it to read and enjoy throughout the season.

Editorial Director and CIFF Fashion & Design Director Kristian W. Andersen Creative Director Pierre Tzenkoff Editor-In-Chief Hélène Le Blanc Design Director Mark Jubber Editor-at-large Arnaud Vanraet Editor Martyn Back Colour Management Alain Touminet Printing Rosendahls

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FASHION

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Stefani wears tanktop Calvin Klein Chloe hotpant Hummel

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Juan wears unicolor swimtrunk Ron Dorff

FASHION

FASHION

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FASHION

Brian wears t-shirt Astrid Andersen y-front brief Ron Dorff

FASHION

Marta wears tanktop Ron Dorff Oxford Court swimshorts Robinson Les Bains

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12 THE CIFF GAZETTE Daniel wears Oxford Court swimshorts Robinson Les Bains Juan wears swimshorts Bjorn Borg

FASHION

FASHION

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C h ristop h er R æ b u rn

Put ti ng the ‘ F un ’ i n F un c ti o n Christopher Ræburn plays with utilitarian and military traditions

By Jonathan Poh Photography Carl Burgess

Christopher R æburn is the sort of designer who enjoys the process of creation as much as the end result. Known for his unique reinterpretations of military fabrics, along with a focus on details, function and fun, Ræburn has become one of British menswear’s most compelling designers – surprising, perhaps, for one who graduated in 2006 with an MA in womenswear. His Spring/Summer 2014 collection was inspired by a World War II reconnaisance unit known as the Long Range Desert Group and continues an ongoing fascination with protection, surplus garb and modern technology. The collection, titled “Sandstorm,” will be shown at CIFF, where the designer will make his debut alongside a handful of other first-timers in Copenhagen. For the occasion, Ræburn recently spoke with The CIFF Gazette about fashion and function, the current menswear landscape and his use of animal mascots each season.

Would you consider yourself a ‘fashion’ designer in the traditional sense?

I’m fortunate enough to work within the fashion industry, but I particularly enjoy ‘process’ – the opportunity to develop something from research, fabric innovation and through to final product. The Remade concept within our collections is one medium of this process; it could equally be applied across product design, furniture or architecture.

What elements of your work would you consider fashion-driven, as opposed to purely functional?

How do you achieve a balance of style and function?

The interaction between fashion and function is very

interesting and balance is a very important principle for us. The functional element comes from our research, which often focuses around original military pieces which are inherently functional. This ‘archaeology’ is balanced with the sourcing or development of new, innovative fabrics which help add that element of modernity.

Remembering our customer and our retailers plays an important part in achieving this balance – hopefully we offer a product that has been developed in a unique way and is also desirable in appearance.

Spring/Summer 2014 continues your exploration of ‘protection.’ Can you tell us more about your fascination with this idea?

There is something fascinating about the emotional relationship between clothing and the wearer, and protection is a particularly intriguing facet of that relationship. For us, it really comes back to our fabric research and development, finding that story-telling element. For instance the Fall/Winter 2012 men’s “Scorch” film showcased the fireproof elements of the Remade garments by setting a man on fire.

With Spring/Summer 2014 menswear specifically, protection and layering were a natural progression from the main inspiration, the Long Range Desert Group. I was intrigued by the idea of surviving extreme conditions through the weight, colour, pattern and fabric of your clothes.

You’re known for the use of some very unconventional fabrics, both old and new (the rubberized tent materials this season come to mind).

What are some of the other fabrics that feature for Spring/Summer 2014 and how do you go about sourcing and integrating these materials each season?

We used British standard issue bivouac tent fabrics as well as Schoeller, an amazing four-way stretch material that we used to reference the desert concept through a striking print. We like to contrast these ‘synthetic’ materials with natural fibres that fit well into our overall concept each season, such as wool for Spring/Summer 2014 that revealed unexpected properties like breathability and source sustainability.

Our sourcing process is now quite broad and involves a few different elements. The Remade concept each season stems from us travelling to warehouses and digging through deadstock, but we are also increasingly sourcing from fairs such as Premiere Vision and contacts in Japan for recycled fabrics. We also look for left-field elements such as the desert hunting mesh used in the Spring collection.

The Remade range for Spring/Summer 2014 again makes use of surplus and vintage fabrics, yet the collection as a whole looks and feels thoroughly modern. How did you go about achieving that effect?

Although we re-utilise military fabrics, we’re specifically designing more modern archetypes and forms.

Essentially we try to make everything feel modern with high-quality fabrics and clean, high-spec Swiss hardware.

We also take a holistic approach to the way the brand is presented, from the collection to the graphic

C h ristop h er R æ b u rn

design. I collaborate closely with a Swiss Art Director named Regis Tosetti who brings a strong modern design element to our branding and content.

and I’m very proud that the studio can do this to a high standard, but still in our own way, for instance with the lizard print mac or the hunting mesh jacket.

We like to play with traditional archetypes.

Your collections seem to feature some sort of animal mascot each season. There’s a desert lizard this season, for instance. How did this begin and is it something that you’re consciously including in your collections going forward?

We’ve now produced eight collections, each with a different animal. The idea originated from utilising the off-cuts from the production processes at the studio to offer as gifts to our retail partners, or as inflatables for installations. The animals grew in popularity and we decided to offer them to customers. We’ve also been incorporating the animals more and more into collections, such as the print for Spring/Summer 2014 menswear or the bags for Fall/Winter 2013 womenswear. Our concepts and fabric choices can be quite serious, particularly because of the military references, so it’s great to add a sense of playfulness and humour as balance.

» There is something fascinating about the emotional relationship between clothing and the wearer, and protection is a particularly intriguing facet of that relationship «

You’ve also been edging closer to a more tailored approach in your collections with the inclusion of formalwear archetypes. Can you tell us more about that?

We’ve made a conscious move towards a cleaner and smarter silhouette. In terms of pure business, we have a growing presence in markets such as Asia that gravitate towards that style, but I also think it’s conceptually underpinned by the British-ness of our brand and our history. There’s a skill in producing soft tailoring

At the same time, there’s still an emphasis on technology and sportswear-based silhouettes in your work that feels timely in the current menswear landscape. Why do you think there’s been a recent shift towards more casual sportswear and tech fabrics?

I think it’s a combination of things. People are looking for comfort and want clothing that suits the reality of the world they live in, which is more travel friendly than ever.

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Layering is an important element of this; rather than one heavy coat in winter, people look for a hybrid garment that they can change or layer to suit their needs.

Functionality, technical fabrics and sportswear are obvious developments from this need.

The interesting part is the potential for hybrids between technical fabrics and natural fabrics. One of our Spring/Summer 2014 jackets is constructed in Schoeller and wool; it offers a really functional garment – showerproof and breathable but also incredibly comfortable and cooling in summer.

Can you describe the process of working with Porter on the Remade In Japan bag range?

It’s an honour to be working with Porter. I’d like to see how we can broaden our Remade in England concept here at our studio and always look to collaborate with the leading brands in each speciality – for instance, Moncler for outerwear, or Rapha for cyclewear.

A natural development of our growth is accessories so I wanted to meet with one of the leading accessories brands. I met with the Creative Director of Porter and we arranged to work on a Remade in Japan collection.

I think we’ve developed a range that has strong quality and value in each piece.

What can we expect from you next?

As well as our ongoing work with Victorinox, we’ve already begun work on Fall/Winter 2014 menswear, but just before that we’ll be unveiling Spring/Summer 2014 womenswear at London Fashion Week this September. I’m looking forward to the upcoming challenges.

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BYREDO

Seven years ago Ben Gohram tentatively launched four fragrances inspired by childhood memories. Now operating in forty-five countries, the former pro basketball player is taking the Byredo brand into a new era. He talked to us about his venture

F ro m S l a m d un k to Re d o len c e

By Lili Barbery-Coulon Photography Andrea Öhlund

It all began when he made a scented candle in his kitchen in Stockholm: an early experiment with fragrance that attracted the attention of a handful of beauty professionals. Raised in Sweden by an Indianborn mother and a Canadian father, Gorham became a pro basketball player but brought his career to an abrupt halt when he was just twenty-five. In a complete change of direction, he signed on for an applied arts course, where he met perfumer Pierre Wulf who kindled an interest in creative fragrance. In 2006 he launched his first four perfumes in Sweden, developed with the help of fragrance experts Jérôme Epinette and Olivia Giacobetti. Christened Byredo, short for “by redolence”, the brand was soon gracing the shelves of high-end outlets such as Colette in Paris and Barney’s in New York. Three years later Gorham opened his first shop in Stockholm and launched a major collaboration with M/M Paris art directors Mathias Augustyniak and Michaël Amzalag, who asked him to create what they called “a reminiscence of black ink on the skin”. The resulting fragrance, M/Mink, came out in 2010 and secured Ben Gorham a place in the creative perfumery Hall of Fame. He is now taking his offbeat brand to a new level thanks to an unprecedented capital injection. In Paris to manage the transition, he seems more determined than ever to take on new creative challenges. He talks to The CIFF Gazette about his experience.

Byredo just reached a new milestone. Can you tell us about it?

Yes, Manzanita Capital, which already owns the Diptyque perfume brand and the British beauty chain Space NK, just purchased a majority share in Byredo. I retain a significant stake in the company and I remain the creative force behind the brand. This will allow Byredo to continue to grow thanks to new sales outlets. Today we have two Byredo stores, one in Stockholm and the other in the Middle East, and we hope to open in Paris and New York in 2014. We started from virtually nothing and in just seven years we’ve entered forty-five different markets. Thanks to Manzanita Capital, we’ll be able to shift up a gear because we’ll control the entire production chain, making us more responsive to demand.

How does the Byredo brand differ from other fragrance brands currently in the market?

I’ve always been surprised by our success but I think that meeting our customers I’m starting to understand why people buy our scents. We create unique products

in a market that’s been quite saturated, offering a lot of uninteresting stuff. Today, we’re not only in competition with the niche perfume market. We’re sold in major department stores alongside the top perfume brands. And I hope we’ll gain more and more ground and pose a real threat to the top names – not just the most exclusive lines.

Will this lead to new perfume launches?

Over the past five years we’ve developed a number of fragrances and we certainly won’t be changing the pace. However we will be broadening the creative scope of the brand by trying out new approaches outside of our main thrust. That might involve new materials – silk or leather for instance – but my basic method will always be the same: attention to detail backed up with sensitivity. Byredo isn’t just about perfume and packaging; I think there are other ways of expressing who we are.

Byredo also offers a bespoke fragrance experience.

Is this a service you intend to expand?

I don’t want to develop bespoke scents on a grand scale, first of all because it’s impossible as it’s very time-consuming (it takes three meetings and four to six months to finalize a fragrance) but also because we want it to maintain an extremely high-quality. At the start it was ultra-exclusive: a few French, American and British customers approached us and asked us to make a fragrance just for them. But over the last eighteen months the waiting list has got longer and longer, so we know the potential is there for developing the service.

Do you ever miss your life as a pro basketball player?

I put an end to my career ten years ago when I was twenty-five. I started playing basketball when I was eleven and it was the only thing I knew how to do.

I trained every day for fourteen years – it was my life.

I used to watch videos of matches with my friends, we used to pretend to be our favourite stars and play all the time, rain or shine. We thought about nothing else at school: the way the big teams are put together, game strategies and so on. When things got really serious at a professional level, it kept me out of trouble.

Also, basketball came into my life at a time when it was becoming very big in cultural terms. In the late 80s and early 90s, streetwear, hip-hop and sneakers were suddenly really popular, and the greatest basketball players were bringing out their own models. It influenced a whole generation, even people who didn’t

actually play the sport. Today when I watch the NBA finals I see all these players I started out with and grew up with, and I often wonder what would have happened if I’d carried on.

But why did you stop? Were you injured?

Not at all, I quit when I was at my peak. I was in great shape and I was very eager to take things to the next level. I had to pull out because of a stupid problem with my ID papers. I needed European citizenship to join a European team and despite the fact that I’d grown up in Sweden my application was turned down. It was a really tough time for me. Basketball was all I could do – I could barely read! I had to rebuild myself from the inside out. I started working in a supermarket, then in construction. I ended up at art school. Just before I stopped playing basketball, in my last year at university, I’d taken an interior design course. It was the only time I’d really enjoyed something that wasn’t sport. As I became interested in the applied arts, art history, painting, sculpture, and different kinds of experimentation, I understood that I had a creative flair. Things did turn out okay, didn’t they [smiles]? People often ask me how my basketball career informs what I do today. I suppose the answer is that I’m a real perfectionist and I still have that same competitive drive; I think I’m just as ambitious as when I was on the court.

You were denied European citizenship, but hasn’t Sweden made you into an emblem of success?

I don’t think of myself as a standard-bearer for anything. Let’s say that the Byredo brand was born in Sweden and it’s very relevant to the people who live there. When you live in a small country isolated from the rest of the world, success draws people’s attention like a magnet. I think there’s a creative movement in Scandinavia that’s constantly on the rise. Collectives like Acne inspire young designers because they give them confidence in their own potential. But the Scandinavians have to learn to recognize and support local talent – something the Americans are really good at.

Every day I meet people in Sweden who design chairs and shoes and come up with really innovative food. I think that’s great but all these young entrepreneurs should get more government support. It’s really hard to start a business in Europe; it seems a lot easier elsewhere. And I think young companies should be taxed at a lower rate. When you’re still small, it’s hard to shoulder such a heavy burden. It can be very discouraging.

BYREDO

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WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

The R i se o f W e a r a b le Te c h The body becomes a new interface for technology completely untethered to mouse, keyboard or other peripherals

By Alex Maeland Photography trashhand

Nike FuelBand Black Ice

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WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

»

We no longer have to cater to technology, rather, technology is built to cater seamlessly to us and look stylish at the same time.

«

The functional value of a product isn’t usually what clinches it for me. Nine times out of ten, if given the option of choosing something that looks good versus something that works well, I’ll choose form over function. And yet a year ago I strolled into the Nike+ store in Shoreditch, London and dropped $175 USD on Nike’s latest innovation: The FuelBand.

For the first time since “wearable tech” came on the scene, I found aesthetics and functional performance rowing the same boat. But although the FuelBand marks a step towards mainstream adoption of wearable technology, we’re not quite there yet. If it’s going to catch on, it’ll have to overcome three fundamental hurdles: look, price, and value.

What is Wearable Technology?

Wearable tech is based on the idea that clothing and accessories can be synched with computer applications and electronics. It proposes innovations that not only have broad lifestyle implications but can also genuinely improve our lives in a non-intrusive way.

Rather than requiring us to adapt to technology, the idea is that technology should cater seamlessly to us and look stylish in the process.

The concept of wearing functional devices is hardly new (eyeglasses date from the thirteenth century, and wristwatches from the early twentieth), but we could be on the cusp of a new era where computing and advanced electronics make fashion items more interactive and smarter. Here are some of the most notable examples to date.

Augmented Reality Perhaps the most talked about technological innovation of late has been Google Glass. While the concept of technological eyewear isn’t completely new, the fact that a tech giant such as Google is throwing substantial weight behind an augmented reality optical invention is hard to ignore. And it seems that the timing couldn’t be better.

From room-sized computers to the desktop PC to more portable tablets and smartphones, things have been gradually getting both smaller and closer to the body’s private space. Google Glass is an attempt to take this one step further by projecting data directly into your field of vision. The body becomes a new interface for technology completely untethered to mouse, keyboard or other peripherals. Google Glass can connect to a smartphone to project text conversations, media, emails, web pages and other cloudbased data literally before our eyes.

Housed within a set of lensless frames, the Google Glass Prism Display is a major milestone for augmented reality. It allows the wearer to take pictures, film video, access location data from Google Maps, and find translations in real time. Combining functional value with modernist industrial design, it has already been seen on the runway, when Diane von Furstenberg equipped some of her models with Google Glass. Google’s overall goal is to allow easier lifestyle integration by breaking down social barriers using good design.

tech while placing the emphasis on good design. The sportswear company first made advances with its initial Nike + iPod integration. Nike+ and FuelBand is a core invention within the “quantified self” movement, which allows the wearer to track distance and measure personal health metrics (calorie count, dietary data, overall activity level and so on).

The FuelBand is a wearable bracelet that measures overall activity using internal motion sensors; this is then quantified via proprietary “NikeFuel” points.

It connects via Bluetooth to a user’s mobile smartphone and allows synching and tracking of physical performance. The FuelPoints aspect also adds a layer of gamification to the experience by setting goals and offering rewards when they are met. Offered in a range of colours, the streamlined look of the FuelBand is minimalistic and fashionably executed, with semi-transparent colourways that expose the interior electronics. Again, its unassuming look and feel make it potentially appealing to a wide range of consumers.

Nike has also set the pace for tech-geared footwear.

Via innovations such as Flyknit, Flywire and Lunar, Nike is redefining the way in which individuals interact with and wear their sportswear and trainers.

Nike’s Flyknit shoes for instance are crafted from knitwear to cut back on manufacturing waste and have the added benefit of substantially lightening the shoe, enabling runners to streamline their speed both on and off the track.

Without wanting to minimize such technological advances, it must be said that Nike’s success owes a lot to the products’ aesthetic appeal. Technologies such as Flyknit have created a demand for a type of footwear that had previously only received attention from a smaller, more tech-savvy running crowd. As technical runners continue to become more aesthetic and design-driven, we’re seeing traditional track and running footwear silhouettes adopted by not only the likes of Nike and adidas, but also higher end footwear designers such as Raf Simons and Rick Owens, who have both collaborated with adidas on a range of running footwear.

Making Athletes Better adidas has confirmed its status as a major tech sportswear player with its miCoach initiative. The adidas miCoach SPEED_CELL sets itself apart by tracking the movement of athletes in a variety of different ways – not just monitoring forward motion. The miCoach tracks speed, speed zones, distance and number of sprints, synching data for analysis via mobile apps and cloud-based account tracking.

The system crossed a new barrier with the inclusion of a heart rate monitor that works in tandem with the miCoach via Bluetooth. The miCoach SPEED_CELL sits comfortably within the footbed of adidas footwear or in a sports strap, allowing for completely unobtrusive and seamless use. Its small size and sleek look make it an easy addition to any active lifestyle.

Lifestyle Technology and Apple Quantified Self Nike has been at the forefront of the movement, both setting the pace and the standard for wearable

When Apple first introduced the iPod in 2001, the mainstream shift towards functional devices with a strong aesthetic agenda was effectively set in motion.

While mobile music was nothing new at the time, the iPod was one of the first devices to re-imagine the mobile music experience in a way that would lay the foundations for user-friendly technology interactions.

The creation of the App Store and the eventual inclusion of things like the Android Market forever changed the way we interact with our electronics.

Technology was no longer an isolated foreign object, but instead something deeply integrated into our dayto-day lifestyle. Moreover, as any follower of the late Steve Jobs will know, Apple’s designs were not only driven by new functions and good integration capacity; they had to look extremely good as well.

Perhaps this is why Apple’s recruitment of former Yves Saint Laurent CEO, Paul Deneve, set the tech and design worlds into overdrive recently. Deneve, an alumnus of Apple Europe back in the 90’s, has extensive experience in the world of luxury fashion including stints at Lanvin, Courrèges, Nina Ricci and most recently, YSL. According to the company’s official press release, Deneve will oversee a mysterious “special projects” division and will report directly to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook. In true Apple fashion, nothing more is known of the appointment but given Deneve’s well-rounded fashion and tech resume, many tech observers are speculating that Apple may be eyeing the wearable tech market sooner rather than later. It also adds insight to Tim Cook’s May 2013 comment about Apple still possessing “several more game changers”.

What’s Next?

While wearable technology holds a great deal of promise, we’re really only at the beginning of the push towards integration of technology into our daily life.

To date, the trend has mainly gained traction within the fitness sector where it offers clear value in terms of using personal data to provide health metrics and enhance performance. It is, however, just the tip of the iceberg.

As companies continue to experiment with tech-enhanced garments and accessories, aesthetics will be of paramount importance to adoption by mainstream consumers. For wearable tech to really catch on and gain broader acceptance, it needs to be not only unobtrusive and affordable but also add value both in terms of functionality and appearance.

To cite an earlier example, a pair of frames from the Google Glass Explorer Program with a $1,500 USD price tag are hardly accessible to the mainstream market. Even advances such as the Nike FuelBand and adidas miCoach are only tapping into surfacelevel data and have yet to yield reliably accurate feedback. For fitness purposes, greater precision and added functionality will only serve to heighten the exposure of wearable tech.

Companies like Nike, adidas, Apple and Google have made significant strides in creating beautiful devices that have tapped into the latent value of fashionable, wearable tech. However, there is plenty of untapped potential for innovation that adds value for the mainstream consumer beyond personal health data.

Restaurant or movie recommendations, car key locators, seamless social interaction capability, personal climate control... the list goes on.

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COLETTE

Sarah, co-founder of cult Paris concept store Colette, may indeed have fun with her collaborations, but don’t let her lighthearted approach fool you. The Right Bank mecca for fashion aficionados and trend hunters alike has been setting the tone and influencing the influencers for well over sixteen years.

Along the way Colette, through various collaborations and partnerships with brands big and small, has been instrumental in putting sportswear and lifestyle on the fashion map.

As early as 1997, long before sportswear had gone mainstream, Colette started carrying sneakers. Fast forward to 2013 and it seems that every major fashion and luxury brand has introduced their own high-end version of the once humble athletic footwear, either on their own or in collaboration with a sportswear brand. It is precisely that kind of prescience that has cemented the concept store’s reputation as an oracle of design trends. The moral of this story? Just because she doesn’t take herself too seriously doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

The G i r l J us t Wa nts to H av e F un How do you decide when a brand collaboration is right for Colette?

No big strategy as such. We just want to have fun!

What prompted you back in 1997 to take Colette in the direction of sportswear?

Even back then, for us, a sneaker was already a pure object of design and fashion. The connection was obvious.

How did you know this was the direction to take?

Like everything else we do, it was purely spontaneous.

How influential would you say the sportswear trend has been on fashion?

Valentino sneakers, Pierre Hardy sneakers, Adidas

by Rick Owens sneakers, Adidas by Raf Simons sneakers…

Do you think the sportswear trend has run it’s course?

I think the marriage of sportswear and fashion will live on indefinitely.

C olette

‘Chapeau’ cap by Pieter Ciezer and New Era

Set of 6 baby socks by Etiquette for Colette

‘We Will Always Have Paris’ T-shirt by A Question Of for Colette

Timberland Special 40th Anniversary model shoe for Colette

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G os h a R u bc h inskiy

Wo r k e r' s Re vo luti o n Gosha Rubchinskiy channels the youthful spirit of today’s Russia

By Jonathan Poh Photography Gosha Rubchinskiy

“I am not very good at skateboarding,” Gosha Rubchinskiy admits, “I’m more into shooting pictures.” Maybe so, but skateboarding remains key to the young Muscovite’s lifestyle and the main subject of his work as a photographer, filmmaker and fashion designer. Gosha is putting the finishing touches to a clothing collection for Spring/Summer 2014, part of a multi-disciplinary art project due out later this year.

The artist’s Fall/Winter 2013 pieces – along with a preview of next spring’s garments – will be shown at Copenhagen International Fashion Fair, where he once again has the backing of Comme des Garçons CEO, Adrian Joffe. The Fall collection, Gosha tells me, was inspired by Russian modernist and avantgarde artists such as Rodchenko, Mayakovsky and Kandinsky, along with elements from 90s Russian subcultures. “They broke the rules and started new things,” he explains, “I think that we’re in a similar moment now where we need a new revolution.” It’s a recurring sentiment in his work. As I learn more about the 28-year old artist and designer, I get the impression that Gosha Rubchinskiy dwells simultaneously in two very different – but not entirely contradictory – worlds. On the one hand, he’s the present-day documentarian of post-Soviet youth culture – the Russian skaters, graffiti artists and punks who have made Moscow’s Gorky Park and similar venues their home. On the other, as when he’s speaking of art, or Russian history, or the period of creativity following the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s very much a nostalgic.

Or better still, he’s a quiet revolutionary whose work distills both worlds into one holistic – and optimistic – vision of a new, post-Soviet Russia.

Gosha’s career as a designer began in 2008 with “Evil Empire,” a reference to Reagan’s Cold War-era description of the USSR. It was a collection created for his friends, clothing comfortable enough for skateboarding, graffiti writing or clubbing. The show was presented in a stadium where the models – streetcast

youth from Moscow and St. Petersburg – ran for an hour dressed in tracksuits, graphic T-shirts and anoraks. It was a spectacle that would also introduce Gosha’s ongoing exploration of Russian youth culture, often seen through the lens of skateboarding and art. Its follow-up, “Growing and Expanding,” was shown in a run-down Orthodox church repurposed as a Sovietera boxing ring or gymnasium, where models wore a procession of tracksuits, sweats, fingerless gloves and scarves. Completing the trilogy was “The Sunrise Is Not Far Behind The Mountains,” Gosha’s third collection, and an interdisciplinary project composed of three distinct components – a video shot in St. Petersburg; a book of photographs; and the clothing itself.

Amidst a surge in interest from Russian fashion editors and the international press, the trilogy served as a first, unique look at an enigmatic, often-misunderstood demographic, and cemented Gosha’s status as the artistic voice of his generation.

The next few years would prove to be bittersweet.

Gosha tested international waters with 2010’s “Slave” – his fourth collection and part of London Fashion Week’s Fashion East Menswear Installation – and later that same year, a corner at Rei Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market in London. But despite growing successes, Gosha would soon face his biggest hurdle and one of the grim realities of becoming a coveted fashion designer. In 2011, he took a break from clothing design, citing difficulties with production and distribution and questioning the profitability of shipping large orders from Russia. “Fashion is not art as a business and I'm not a businessman,” Gosha explained.

Leaving fashion to one side, he chose instead to focus on visual art and on his ongoing projects in film and photography. But Gosha’s “big art project” felt incomplete – growing up, he had made up his mind to become either a rock star or a fashion designer, and he had been on his way to accomplishing the latter. So when Adrian Joffe and Comme des Garçons came ☞

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to the rescue, offering to keep his dream intact, it was met with a sigh of relief. “It wouldn’t be the same without fashion,” Gosha says.

For now, another sabbatical seems unlikely. Fall/ Winter 2013 is one of Gosha’s most confident collections to date and, in many ways, it’s also the most daring. There are more of the seasonless silhouettes that have become Gosha’s signature – creatively zippered knitwear, voluminously cut pants, utilitarian outerwear, along with Cyrillic-graphic tank tops and crewnecks favored by the skateboarding set – but in elongated, or cropped silhouettes and unexpected materials. There’s colour, too – bright crimson, olive green and salmon pink. The collection, as always, will be accompanied by a wealth of artistic material, most of it photographs of rugged, sinewy Russian youths

G os h a R u bc h inskiy

with shaved heads, tattoos and piercings from “the places of power” – Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yalta.

There’s also a new film for Fall, along with a book of visual artwork. But amidst the ongoing documentation of young Muscovite skaters for Fall/Winter 2013 are more serious undertones to Gosha’s street-punk collage – sculptural iconography, abstract art and the busts of great Russian figures. As is often the case, look past the rough-hewn, teenage veneer of his work and one will find the parallels he draws from history with the current, uneasy reality of post-Soviet youth culture.

Gosha’s fascination with the past is nothing new.

Transfiguration, an installation shown at New Holland in St. Petersburg in 2011, melded films and photographic collages of his preferred subjects with

ancient marble statues, some holding the same poses as the models. An earlier collection took as its point of reference Arkhangelsk – the first major port in Russia during the Middle Ages and now the centre for the study of oil in the Arctic – using the image of an ice-breaking vessel as a central motif. There’s also his nostalgia for the ‘90s, which has had a profound impact on his work. Rodchenko, Mayakovsky and Kandinsky, Gosha tells me, remind him of that period – his favourite – a time after the Berlin Wall when things were new and forbidden, when rules were broken and creativity flourished.

Gosha recalls with fondness the fall of Soviet Russia in 1991 and the cultural scene that sprouted from the rubble – pop and rock music, television, magazines and club culture, music videos and commercials.

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You must direct all your energies to things that you love and what you want to do. Only your work shows an example. I think that might just change something, not talking and complaining.

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Back then, he read magazines like OM and Ptuch and watched videos of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Queen and Michael Jackson. Some of his earliest creations were costumes inspired by Freddy Mercury and paintings of his favorite actors and pop stars. Burzum, the controversial one-man metal band helmed by Varg Vikernes, remains a favorite of his, and the typeface from its first demo cover in 1991 – the year of Russia’s “new birth” – has been used in Gosha’s previous collections. “I think it is interesting to look back to the past,” he explains. “It helps me to understand the present and to dream about the future.”

These days, he says, Russian youth have become too comfortable and, all too often, apathetic.

In the bigger cities, adolescents have become indistinguishable from other European youngsters.

Skateboarders in Moscow and St. Petersburg “look like skaters from everywhere now,” he says, and today’s Russian youth dresses “the same as any other teenager in any other city in the world.” He points to the current crisis of art and laments the passion and spirit of independence of the ‘90s. But he’s also wary of revolution without thoughtful action, without the knowledge that comes with experience – and work.

“You must direct all your energies to things that you love and what you want to do. Only your work shows an example. I think that might just change something, not talking and complaining,” he told Dazed and Confused last year.

Despite his concerns, Gosha remains an optimist.

“I hope for the best and I'm sure that things will change soon,” he says as he readies himself for his

first visit to Copenhagen, along with the planned December release of his Spring/Summer 2014 collection. He’s certainly doing his part to provoke change.

For now, Gosha continues to skate and channel the spirit of youth, rebellion and independence through his art – a place where nostalgia, Russian traditions and the passions and dreams of his peers co-exist in a vision of a bright future. And, despite growing international acclaim, there are no plans to move to any of Europe’s more traditional fashion capitals anytime soon. “I am Russian and we are in Moscow. That’s why I have an interest in culture of my country. It is around us all the time and it’s amazing.” What’s next for one of Russia’s newest – and most compelling – voices? Anything and everything, he tells me, “All is possible!”

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SOULCYCLE

So u lc yc le : A Wo r ko ut P owe r e d

by Co mmun it y Candlelit studios, thumping music and motivational mantras.

SoulCycle, the innovative NYC-based fitness concept is about to arrive on our shores. Will Europeans embrace it as heartily as New Yorkers?

By Hélène Le Blanc Photography Candy Kennedy

Received wisdom dictates that we entrust the fitness of our bodies to our personal trainers and the fitness of our minds to our therapists or spiritual leaders. That approach might soon seem antiquated if SoulCycle, the trailblazing fitness concept currently working its way across the U.S. has anything to say about it. As the NYC-based fitness brand prepares to make its European debut in London in 2014, co-founder Elizabeth Cutler chatted with The CIFF Gazette about workouts, entrepreneurship and the power of community.

At first blush, the idea of hoisting yourself onto a stationary bicycle in a windowless room lit only by candles to have an instructor recite inspirational mantras like “We inhale intention and exhale expectation” while you maniacally pedal to high-energy music might seem a tad odd to some and downright annoying to others. Adepts will tell you however that the intense cardio workout that combines indoor cycling with light upper body weights for a full body workout has transformed their lives. More importantly, what seems to keep people coming back is less what the workout does for their bodies than what it does for their minds. “Our idea from the outset was to create a sanctuary, a place where people could come work out but also just let loose and have fun” explains co-founder Elizabeth Cutler.

Spinning, a high-intensity form of group cycling that mimics real life terrain and the experience of actual cycling but indoors, reportedly originated on the West Coast of the U.S. in the late 1980s, the invention of an endurance cyclist by the name of Johnny Goldberg. SoulCycle has taken this form of exercise

and given it a peculiar twist, infusing it with ambiance (candle-lit rooms) and adding invigorating playlists designed to pump up cyclists. Each class starts with a brief mediation and instructors recite motivational mantras to guide riders through the workout.

It is this motivational aspect of the workout that sets SoulCycle apart and seems to provide the key to the overall experience. Could the road to better health and overall wellbeing really be travelled on a stationary bicycle?

The use of psychology including motivational and visualization techniques in sports is hardly new. World class athletes, professionals and amateurs alike, have been borrowing from behavioral sciences for decades to enhance performance and prepare mentally for competition. It has for the most part been a complement to training and not, as in the case of SoulCycle, a component hard-wired into the exercise concept itself. Ironically, neither of SoulCycle’s founders hail from the world of sport. “I personally don’t like to exercise”, readily admits Cutler. "I was intimidated by gyms. With SoulCycle, Julie and I wanted to create a workout that was accessible to all and enjoyable so that people would really stick with it.”

Elizabeth Cutler hails from the world of real estate, while Julie Rice is a former Hollywood talent agent.

The two met through a mutual friend and bonded over a mutual dissatisfaction with the Manhattan gym scene. With no sports background and using their own seed money supplemented with loans from family and friends, the pair opened their first studio in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood in 2006.

In doing so, they unwittingly set the course for their

impressive trajectory which today includes eighteen locations with plans to have a total of twenty-five studios opened by year’s end – including their first European location in Shoreditch, London.

The workout with its motivational mantras and candle-lit studios can seem a tad strange to the uninitiated and the thought of working up a sweat in a darkened room with a group of strangers might not appeal to everyone. The darkness however has the benefit of providing a cover for those who might feel self-conscious about their bodies, a factor that tends to keep many people away from the average gym with its usual parade of taut flesh and rippling muscle on display. It also creates a sort of cocoon, a sanctuary to borrow Cutler’s term, where one can block everything else out and focus exclusively on the moment. “When I ride”, explains Cutler, “I want to check out. I close my eyes and I tune out everything else. It’s my time for me. The darkened room lets me do that.”

From the outset, the brand cultivated a communitylike feel to the classes and a pay-per-class model that remains in place today. “We knew pretty much what we wanted from the very start. We set out to put the joy back into exercise so that it wasn’t just another item on your ‘To Do’ list,” explains Cutler. “It took us a while to get here and we continue to evolve the brand as we go”.

With no membership agreement to bind customers, classes work theoretically on a first come, first served basis. While they may have had to give away classes in the early days, before long, word spread across Manhattan and demand for classes grew. Today, long waiting lists of people clamoring to get into the 45-minute classes are a given with people reportedly logging on

SOULCYCLE

to the brand’s site the minute the weekly class schedule is posted to secure a coveted space.

Of course, in a status-conscious place like Manhattan where having access to something others do not is a key benchmark of social success, fear of missing out is a powerful motivator. But that alone cannot explain the fervour and loyalty of SoulCycle enthusiasts.

“We’ve worked hard to build a community, explains Cutler. “And SoulCycle is very much a real community. We know our riders by name. We listen to them and take what they have to say to heart.” That community extends online as well with a savvy use of social media to connect with riders outside of the studio including a blog featuring personal stories about instructors and customers alike. A SoulCycle employee known only as ‘Soul Fairy’ helps shepherd customers towards available spots in sold out classes using the #SoulFairy hashtag on the brand’s Twitter account. To a cynic, this may sound like a self-serving method to ensure every spot is filled, an important factor in a pay-per-class model. To a customer however, it communicates a level of service and attention rarely on offer at most gyms even for privileged members.

SoulCycle’s expansion kicked into high gear when in 2011 the American gym chain Equinox, purchased a significant stake in the growing business. The two companies continue to operate as separate entities however and Rice and Cutler, who are instrumental to SoulCycle’s image and management, remain personally invested in the business. While workout classes remain the brand’s core business, SoulCycle has since branched out into merchandising with a custom indoor bicycle designed for home use, a SoulCycle can-

dle developed jointly with the popular interior design guru Jonathan Adler, and branded exercise apparel for both adults and children. The latter is an especially astute move given that it not only brings in significant revenue but also cleverly reinforces the sense of community which is at the core of the brand’s success.

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In a densely populated city like New York City where the relentless pace can sometimes leave individuals feeling alienated and struggling to find their place, that sense of belonging can have a powerful allure.

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“SoulCycle is a lifestyle brand and our merchandise is a logical extension of that” explains Cutler, adding, “Everything we do comes from an authentic place. We have a strong brand voice and our merchandise helps us to express this.” What started out as an inexpensive means of raising brand awareness in the brand’s early days however has become much more. Sporting

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the SoulCycle t-shirt and branded apparel outside the studio marks one as a member of an elite community, a desirable tribe. In a densely populated place like New York City where the relentless pace can sometimes leave individuals feeling alienated and struggling to find their place, that sense of belonging can have a powerful allure.

Of course, with any business expansion, scalability is a crucial factor. SoulCycle’s reliance on fostering a sense of community amongst its customers means that expansion of their core business, especially the kind of rapid rollout of studio locations currently underway, may make scalability a little trickier. While you can import equipment, train instructors and reproduce studio decor easily enough, cultivating a local community requires energy, commitment and time. There is also a cultural issue to consider. The average European is not nearly as enthusiastic about fitness as the average New Yorker. Will the SoulCycle concept travel well beyond New York City and L.A? Can the brand replicate its success beyond its Manhattan/Hamptons axis?

We’ll find out soon enough as SoulCycle prepares to launch its European expansion in London. “We feel there’s a special connection between New York and London”, explains Cutler. “We already have a lot of British customers who ride at our various NYC and Hamptons locations so it was logical for us to start there first”. Only time will tell if Londoners embrace SoulCycle as heartily as New Yorkers have. It wouldn’t be surprising if they did however. After all, notions of belonging and community tend to be universal. In the end, we all need a tribe.

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B r e a k p o i nt

FIONA BANNER

“The other gu y yells ‘Freeeze...’ again and the car squeals off. He’s there holding the gun dead straight in front of his face, peow, peow, peow, peow.”

Realised in 1998 by Young British Artist Fiona Banner, Break Point recounts an extended car-chase scene in Point Break, Kathryn Bigelow’s cult action film detailing the adrenaline-charged lifestyle of a gang of surfing bank robbers. Fiona Banner, who won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2002, is particularly known for her hand-written and printed text ‘wordscapes’ or ‘still films’, which transform narrative sequences from the world of cinema – such as Apocalypse Now or The French Connection – into words visual environment.

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Fiona Banner Break Point, 1998 Marker pen and acrylic paint on canvas 2744 x 4273 mm Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London Š Tate, London 2013

A fanzine from the makers of Dank magazine — Page 1 of 7

Elements of Style­­­

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Notice the way Henning Braaten places his board in this frontside nosebluntslide. The almost vertical placement indicates that Henning is going really fast.

As speed makes all skateboarding look better, it is also an important element of style.

Style – or good style, rather – is the most important factor in skateboarding. The term, however, is a slippery one. Ask twenty different skaters and you’ll be hard pressed to find a coherent answer on what actually defines good style. Still, you have to try, right? Looking to identify the most fundamental hallmarks of good style, we sat down and discussed the term with Tobia Sloth and Anton Juul of Streetmachine and Norse Projects. Some of the central movers and shakers of the new wave of European skateboarding also weighed in with their views on the topic. Follow us on a journey through skating’s obsession with minute details.

Before we start, let’s get one thing straight – skateboarding is not a sport. You are excused for thinking it is, however.

After all, skateboarding does have obvious things in common with activities like cross-country skiing, football or tennis.

They’re all exhausting. Like other sports, developing the skills necessary to thoroughly enjoy it at a decent level takes years of hard work. Like many sports, skating is great exercise.

There’s a reason why you hardly ever see a husky skater pushing through the city streets. The similarities, however, end when you examine the criteria with which patrons and participants judge and appreciate the activities in question.

Appreciation of sports proper – from ice hockey to table tennis – is inextricably linked to excellence and the realization of goals. If you cross the finish line first, you are automatically the best sprinter. Score one more goal than the opposing team in a championship match and you get a shining trophy. The focus is on results. The point is to win.

In skateboarding, recognition is not contingent on quantifiable results. What matters is the sum of your entire being on a skateboard. The way you dress, the way you perform certain tricks, where you choose to do your tricks, what tricks you do. The way you carry yourself mid-air, the strength with which you push from A to B. The sum of these parts is referred to as style, a concept that completely dominates the cultural discourse.

Indeed, skateboarding has gotten to the point where skill level is almost irrelevant. It’s no longer about what you do, but how you do it.

“Style in skateboarding is the way you move and carry yourself on a skateboard. It’s what makes a skateboarder obviously unique and immediately identifiable, much like the features of someone’s face”, says Vivien Feil, French professional skateboarder and founder of Magenta, one of the most influential brands in the new wave of European independent skateboarding. Feil promotes a very personal vision of skateboarding. As a skateboard cinematographer, he champions the quirky spots, preferring simple tricks done well to mind-blowing technical wizardry. When he points to the very personal nature of style, likening it to a fingerprint, Feil also highlights one of the most universal laws behind what kids these days refer to as “swagger”. You play with the cards you are dealt. “Takahiro Morita and Soy Panday are two skaters who have great styles. You can tell them apart from anybody else at first glance. What contributes to this, I believe, is their choice to embrace the capacities of their own bodies rather than projecting someone else’s vision and approaches onto themselves”, Feil says. To him, style is something that develops over time. “It seems to me that people with unpleasant styles to watch are the ones who focus too much on other people’s contribution and try to emulate it, regardless of how their own body flows. A style that is truly yours can hardly be bad”.

One of the gravest sins in skateboarding, and a sure-fire catalyst of negative YouTube-comments, is the “after-bang”: In attempts to imitate the effortless air of seasoned pros, some skaters adapt an excessively relaxed roll-away after

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A staple of the Copenhagen street skating scene, Jarmers Plads has been the most famous Danish spot since people first started skating here in the early nineties.

Through international coverage and constant presence in local skateboard media, Jarmers has become synonymous with Danish skateboarding.

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A kickflip is only as good as the extension of the front foot mid-air. In this picture, Henrik Lund pops a kickflip over a rail with proper form, extending his right foot in a fly-kick-esque motion. The hand, folded to a claw, gives unique expression and serves as an easily identifiable aspect of Henrik’s style.

landing a trick, trying to conceal the fact that the move in question pushed them to the brink of their abilities. For Danijel Stankovic, Malmö-based professional skateboarder for the National Skateboard Co. and Nike, footage of skaters pretending to be asleep after tricks is fantastically uninteresting. “What I hate is when people are nonchalant, skating with no expression.

It gets almost robotic”, he says. Questioning the notion that effortlessness equals aesthetic value, Stankovic highlights two very unique skaters when asked to exemplify his understanding of the term style. “Jason Lee had this smooth way of pushing around, big pop and a great bag of tricks. Everything he filmed looked spontaneous and fun. Kareem Campbell had a crazy force and power in his way of skating, full speed, great pop.

I like riding that looks genuine and natural. That’s usually what gets me turned on, Stankovic says, keeping with Feil’s definition of style as something that emanates from yourself, a sum of the particularities found in every skater.

Skateboard forums are rife with threads on the sartorial choices of the world’s biggest skaters. Take a look at Dylan Rieder, for instance, a 25-year old professional skater from California who, for the last couple of years, has come to be associated with a style of dressing more akin to Hedi Slimane’s work for Dior than the racks at your local skate shop. Though ridiculed by certain groups of skaters for for wearing black high waters, dress shoes and white button ups, Rieder gets

away with it because he’s one of the greatest skaters of all time, with a very distinct personal style on the board and an eye for tricks, something which in turn gives him a sartorial pass even among the harshest of critics. Pros that emulate Dylan, in turn, are not so lucky.

“I think clothes can contribute to bad style, dare I say it”, says Henry Kingsford, photographer and editor of the excellent London skateboard magazine Grey. “Someone like Jason Dill can get away with wearing what he wants, but sometimes out-there gear – really tight jeans, for example – can put me off watching someone’s footage”.

A skater’s eye for details often makes for interesting results when applied to other creative outlets. Artists such as Raphaël Zarka and Cyprien Gaillard make art influenced by a skater’s way of approaching his immediate surroundings.In fashion, you see the same thing. Copenhagen-based skater Anton Juul has been skating since the late eighties. Ever since he aired out of his first launch ramp in Christiania as a kid, Anton has been an integral part of the Copenhagen street skating scene.

While staying involved with Streetmachine, the cornerstone of Copenhagen skateboarding, he has spent the last nine years managing the Norse Store and turning Norse Projects into the brand it is today. To Anton, an aesthetic perspective and a keen eye for details explains why many skaters do well in creative lines of work. “It’s a way you learn to think. For example, you

Daniel Gemmel could have slumped this frontside kickflip around just to land it as quickly as possible. He didn’t. Instead, Daniel consciously tried to get as much pop – or air time – in the trick as possible. Doing a trick as properly as possible is a hallmark of solid style.

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Notice how Jan Henrik Kongstein’s nose is not resting on the ledge while performing this frontside nosegrind. Rather, he is balancing solely on the truck of his board. By doing so, he increases the level of difficulty. The choice not to rest his nose on the concrete also serves as a subtle nod to late nineties’ east coast skateboarding, when balanced nosegrinds were all the rage.

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can find a spot that you know is really good good, but you don’t want to skate it because you know it doesn’t look cool. As a skater, you think in images. A trick can be good for video but not for photos, the same with a spot. So you learn to think like that at an early age when you start filming, and then you just get better at it”, he says.

It’s a rainy Sunday in Nørrebro. The day before, Anton took on the role of a skateboarding tour-guide. Having met up at the Norse Store, Anton showed the way to Jarmers Plads. About fifteen locals soon met up to session the plaza and enjoy the June sun. Jarmers Plads is by far the most iconic space for street skateboarding in the Danish capital. The slightly rugged flat and the perfect marble ledges have been the epicentre of Danish skating since the nineties. From Jarmers, we skated around the city centre, hitting new and old spots, ending up with a cold beer at Islands brygge. As the rain falls outside, Anton sits comfortably in a classic, almost Parisian café, sipping Earl Grey while he discusses the roots and founding ideas of Streetmachine. Soon, the shop will launch its own board brand, with Anton at the wheel. The brand does not yet have a name, but things are falling into place. “I have a feel of what I don’t want to do and also what I want to do, but things are always, like Norse, going to develop in the process”, Anton says.

With the creation of Norse, Streetmachine became a springboard for projects that span well beyond the realms of skateboarding. Though Norse Projects exists in a sphere distinctly separated from skating, the story of Copenhagen’s most interesting menswear brand started with a Parisian skate shop. Norse brand architect and founder Tobia Sloth is out of town during our stay in Copenhagen, but chimes in with stories about the beginning of Streetmachine via e-mail some days later. It all started when Tobia was six. His family travelled to New Zealand, where they joined a group of idealist hippies on a two-year sail to promote global peace.

The journey, a success despite shoestring budgets and limited navigational skills, made him a firm believer in communal effort and team spirit. Years later, aged 18, Tobia left Copenhagen for Paris to get a change of scenery. “I saw the trip to Paris as a good way to force myself to start something that could provide some of the adventure and excitement I had experienced as a kid”, Tobia explains.

A chance encounter with a local entrepreneur led to the opening of Streetmachine Paris in 1989. A playful mix of skate brands and emerging fashion labels meant that the

shop soon attracted a diverse crowd. When skating hit a short lull, Streetmachine branched into techno music and the club scene. By doing so, the shop’s clientele became even more eclectic. “The store was visited by everyone from fashion editors to Jean Paul Gaultier, the founders of Radio Nova and the team behind M/M Paris. Streetmachine became a “spot” where everyone would meet, leave flyers and catch up. It was really an incredible time, with an amazing amount of creative people. Many of them later went on to found successful ventures and companies”, Tobia writes, listing the crew behind Kitsuné as an example.

In 1996, Streetmachine Copenhagen opened its doors.

Anton was one of the first skaters to be put on the team. By joining forces at the Copenhagen branch, Tobia and Anton inadvertently took a big step towards the founding of Norse Projects. “I skated for Streetmachine and went on tours, did the whole normal skate thing, and then me and my other friend – who was more into graffiti at the time – got bored of what went on in skateboarding and graffiti. We wanted to start something that showed more of the culture surrounding the two, so we started this little label called Castle”, he explains.

“We did exhibitions and some caps and some t-shirts, but then we found out that if we wanted to do this we had to put more time into it. We talked to Tobia about it, and he was into the whole idea, and then we opened the Norse store in 2004 – to do our own label and sell other people’s stuff – but it took quite a while before we got further with the brand. We got to a point where we thought “we started the brand to make clothing, and now we’re only running a shop, and we should either do it properly, or not at all”. So that’s when Tobia really got involved.

He’s pretty much the director, he’s the guy who took Norse to the level it is today”, Anton says.

Writing from a hotel room in Italy, Tobia provides a veritable statement of purpose for the yet-to-be-named board company coming out of the Streetmachine camp. “The project will embody all of the passion and feelings we have for skateboarding and what it represents. It will hopefully connect the past 25 years of Streetmachine with the future 25 years of the company. I think it’s important to be inspired by your past, but even more important to be looking to the future and introducing new ideas. On that note, Streetmachine will continue to be part of the zeitgeist and do things in its own way, and hopefully continue to act as a catalyst and enabler of all the things we love about skateboard culture. If we can

This set of stairs in Oslo’s harbour is dangerously close to the water.

Not willing to risk an icy plunge, most skaters have left it alone. Jan Henrik Kongstein chucks a switch frontside heelflip down the set with ease, thereby claiming new territory. Finding new spots is just as important as the trick itself.

Rolling away from a difficult trick is one thing. Mastering a technical slide to the point where you can control how long you slide is a different ball game. Emil Hvilsom slides this frontside bluntslide over a sizable gap. In doing so, he demonstrates that he masters the basics. Control is one of the most central elements of style.

Photography graphic design and art direction by Jørn Aagaard — Creative direction and words by Eirik Traavik “Elements of Style” is a specially commissioned supplement to The CIFF Gazette — Page 7 of 7

do that I’ll be happy”, Tobia states. Though he has never skated actively himself, Sloth has a deep-rooted personal affinity for skating. “I think that artistic people are naturally drawn to skateboarding because it offers them the freedom of social inclusion within a group, but on their town terms and with the possibility of a totally independent expression of who you are.

No other activity blends an artistic activity with movement around town, social relations and self-expression. This is what I love most about skateboarding”.

Reclining in his Nørrebro café seat, Anton weighs in on the importance of aesthetics in skateboarding. The puddles are drying up, chances of getting a session in are increasing by the minute. As a skate-enthusiast and a designer, it is only natural that Anton has strong opinions on the importance of aesthetics in skateboarding. “You either have good style or you

don’t, but I think there are ways to work around it. You can approach skating in new ways. There are skaters that don’t have obvious good style, but they become interesting due to their history or the tricks they choose. Style is just something that people do, and they don’t control it themselves”, he says.

When I postulate that the whole question of style appears to boil down to authenticity, Anton nods. “If you are trying too hard to hide what you think are flaws, then it’s not your style anymore. I think it’s really important to have those little flaws. You think they look bad, but other people can find them inspiring. I definitely know that I have some moves that I don’t like about myself. For example, my right hand is always like this”, Anton says with a smile, stretching his arm towards the guests at the next table. “But it really doesn’t matter in the end. It becomes a signature”.

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ART

The A rt o f B oa r d i ng

By Viviana Birolli Photography Thomas Campbell

“Real art is that which does not seem to be art”: this is the idea at the heart of sprezzatura, a term that grew up in the Italian royal courts of the sixteenth century to define a sophistication of manner achieved with deliberately effortless ease: the mark of any truly elegant gentleman.

At first glance it might be surprising that Richard Leydier has chosen this word as the key to interpreting the world of surfing, skateboarding and Kustom Kulture. Nonchalance, physical endeavour, youth and melancholy are the conceptual references he uses as he attempts to unravel an area of sport he recently encountered first hand.

Richard Leydier curated Dernière Vague, the impressive exhibition at the Friche de la Belle de Mai in Marseille that explored the countless implications of these subcultures in contemporary art.

According to Richard Leydier, the fascination of so many artists for surfing and its terrestrial spinoff, skateboarding, is rooted in the ancestral and tribal origins of surfing: a little plank of wood and the finiteness of Man faced with the untameable, capricious power of the wave – like legendary surfer Gregg Noll, immortalized by John Severson in the Sixties coming face to face with the huge Banzai Pipeline wave in Hawaii, or the figure in The Bright Flatness (2003), a watercolour by Raymond Pettibon in which a man faced with a blue wall of water is both a contemporary hero and a metaphor for human frailty. In both cases, we see a wager made with the elements reminiscent of more classical Romantic paintings by Caspar David Friedrich or William Turner.

The works of Australian multimedia artist and skateboarder Shaun Gladwell only bear out this hypothesis of a return to classical themes in a contemporary, street-savvy form: his ‘landscape performances’ and videos set in motion a dialogue between art and sport in the framework of a gestural choreography that is complex and rich with implications. His video Storm Sequence, where he skates on a smooth expanse against the background of a looming, menacing storm, might put us in mind of the tempests described by the poet Lucretius and the painter Giorgione; but they are also evocative of the constantly returning figure of Godot in Samuel Beckett’s play, as the video, presented in a loop, hypnotically perpetuates a movement which, by definition, is intended to be unique.

To explain this complex relationship between risktaking, nonchalance, youth and melancholy, Richard Leydier rightly mentions the vanitas: those still lives in seventeenth century Dutch paintings where the beauty of things is both a celebration of life and an allegory of its transience. Half memento mori and half carpe diem, the link between the vanitas and surfing and skateboarding is far from abstract: after all, youth is a wave we never want to end.

Ryan McGinley and Larry Clark are but two of the photographers who have made this link between endless youth and latent melancholy the subject and theme of their work: in McGinley’s photos, Edenic naked adolescents express the idea of youth as a metaphor for absolute freedom and purity, while in Larry Clark’s work the world of skateboarding is elevated to the status of a metaphor for a lifestyle that is free and nomadic and above all strictly excludes adults. The same radical incommunicability is found, in a darker

vein, in Kids (1995), Clark’s controversial, no-holdsbarred film that revealed the talent of screenwriter Harmony Korine, who was just nineteen at the time.

Since then, this filmmaker who grew up in the underground milieu of New York skateboarders has never stopped looking at youth culture with a familiar yet provocative eye.

bound up with the chimeric fantasy of endless youth.

The colourful history Richard Leydier agreed to tell us in a Paris café is also a complex web of youthful encounters and offbeat lifestyles, where legendary episodes and less familiar anecdotes come together.

Skateboarder Craig R. Stecyk III, for instance, began his career on the beaches of California in the 1970s,

The documentary that has fired the imagination of surf culture since 1966, embodying carefree times unaffected by the rhythm of the seasons, is The Endless Summer by Bruce Brown. It follows the movements of surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August around the world, searching for an endless summer that is also

recording the no-limits lifestyle of Clark Gable’s sonin-law, millionaire surfer Bunker Spreckels, before the latter died of an overdose. But it was his work at Zephyr, the surfing and skateboarding shop in Venice, that allowed him to witness and immortalize on film the Dogtown Revolution led by the Z-Boys: a legendary

ART

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The fascination of so many artists for surfing and its terrestrial spinoff, skateboarding, is rooted in the ancestral and tribal origins of surfing: a little plank of wood and the finiteness of Man faced with the untameable, capricious power of the wave

team of skateboarders including figures such as Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta. These were the very same skateboarders that Craig Fineman, a major exponent of surf and skateboarding photography in the 1970s, portrays in his book Pools, recently published by Dashwood Books in collaboration with the Stüssy brand: his pared-down, restrained black and

other sports is, according to Richard Leydier, their almost subliminal ability to generate narratives and to shape oft-recurring images: the blue screaming hand designed by Jim Phillips in 1973 for the Santa Cruz brand, for example, is famous all over the world, but each skateboarder customizes his board and clothing so that they express his own personality.

white close-ups of members of the skateboarding club called The Extreme make a sunny South Californian afternoon into the backdrop for a vibrant choreography, providing a physical record of a spectacle intended to be a one-off occurrence.

What sets surfing and skateboarding apart from

Art and skateboarding come together as one in The SK8room, which just opened in Brussels after a long career on the Web: the gallery’s proud collection of customized boards sees great names in skate culture rubbing shoulders with the most bankable artists of our time – George Condo, John Baldessari, Jeff

Koons, Richard Prince, Juergen Teller and Takashi Murakami to name but a few.

By the same token, it’s hardly surprising that artists involved in the urban skateboarding subculture produce zines: these low-cost publications, distributed under the radar and most often printed in short runs using photocopiers, now become valuable collectors’ items before the ink is dry.

One iconic tome, again published by Dashwood Books, features all fifty-two issues of Anyway, the series of zines by Ari Marcopoulos produced at the impressive rate of one issue a week for the whole of 2012.

And the first edition of The Golden Age of Neglect, Ed Templeton’s catalogue-zine published in 2002 for his exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, is now almost impossible to find.

But the world of zines is a constantly changing scene whose distribution and dissemination processes are often a closed book to the uninitiated: Pat McCarthy, for instance, still in his twenties, sells toasted sandwiches from a customized bike near the half-pipes of New York. His offbeat journeys have fuelled Born to Kill, the fanzine in the form of a restaurant menu he regularly publishes, telling of his weird nights spent under the stars.

Best known for his giant replicas of toys, Tom Sachs is just one of the contemporary artists who have succumbed to the allure of the zine aesthetic: his fanzine How To Skate was a skateboarding handbook published in 125 Xeroxed copies. Published in 2009, it is now impossible to get hold of.

Mark Gonzales, better known as Gonz, talks adamantly about the relationship between art and sports subcultures: “skateboarding has to remain a sport, not an art form”. Dubbed the most influential skateboarder of all time in December 2011 by the magazine TransWorld Skateboarding, he’s certainly well qualified to deal with the subject. He’s done just about everything in his skateboarding career: invented street skateboarding, published ultra-desirable zines, and designed boards for top brands. Another star of the half-pipes, Ed Templeton, skates all day, paints, takes photographs and publishes zines full of extreme images – and has still somehow found the time to create a skateboard brand, Toy Machine.

But this is just the beginning, and the crossover between sport and art knows no bounds. Aaron Young is perhaps the artist who has most successfully caught this wave. His “motorcycle art” series takes up the principles of kineticism and random body movement typical of American action painting, except that in the 21st century version motorcyclists paint patterns on the canvas with the tyres of their bikes as they perform complex and objectively dangerous movements.

Surfing nonchalantly between art, fashion and various media, Young has managed to create a brooding poetic ethos around himself and his work, fired by an ever-present sense of transgression that is as radical as it is glamorous. What better example of the encounter between two worlds replete with contrasts and extremes, where the blazing summer sun and the darkest depths of the night go hand in hand?

Thomas Campbell, Nazal Fully Crazalled (Dane Peterson, Santa Cruz, California), 2011, courtesy Thomas Campbell

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SOCIAL MEDIA

The C l a ssy Issue TheClassyIssue.com provides men with daily style inspiration, interiors, good looking girls and music.

Niclas von Schedvin who runs the site shares some of his favourite Tumblrs and SoundClouds

By Niclas von Schedvin

SOUNDCLOUD

Soundcloud.com/hucci

SOUNDCLOUD

Soundcloud.com/hoodinternet

SOUNDCLOUD

Soundcloud.com/fortune-sound-club

SOUNDCLOUD

Soundcloud.com/urbannoize

SOUNDCLOUD

Soundcloud.com/theclassyissue

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SOCIAL MEDIA

Tumblr

Kennysweeney.tumblr.com

Tumblr

Mansguilt.com

Tumblr

Lifeonsundays.com

Tumblr

Artcomesfirst.tumblr.com

Tumblr

Tommyton.tumblr.com

Tumblr

Coffeestainedcashmere.tumblr.com

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Previous spread left to right Marta wears visor LaContrie undershirt Adipure by adidas leggings Falke Aergonomic Sport System Viktorija wears sportbra Falke Aergonomic Sport System Chloe hotpant Hummel Stefani visor laContrie Angelina top Hummel leggings Falke Aergonomic Sport System This page Viktorija wears giant beach towel Ron Dorff

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Opposite Juan wears wide stripe swimtrunks Ron Dorff This page Viktorija wears hoodie Okay designed By Rasmus Storm jewels Black Dakini sunglasses Mykita for Storm underwear Yasmine Eslami

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This page Daniel wears sweater Redgreen Stefani wears sportbra Adipure by Adidas Opposite Daniel wears tropical print jacket AMI swimshorts Saint Martin Robinson Les Bains in collaboration with AMI Stefani wears tanktop Calvin Klein Chloe hotpant Hummel

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Brian wears Meribel beach trouser Robinson Les Bains Y-front brief Ron Dorff

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This page Marta wears denim shirt Redgreen shorts Lollys Laundry Opposite Brian wears denim shirt M.A.B

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Marta wears Chloe hotpant Hummel Lorenzo Martone wears sweatshirt in blue cotton with cut-out Carven logo Carven Jogging sweatpants Brand 8 discipline coach cap Ron Dorff Gramercy bicycle Martone Cycling Co.

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FASHION

Viktorija wears jewels Black Dakini Photography Daniel Riera Fashion Yasmine Eslami & Joy Sinanian Hair and Make-up Maria Martinez Hair and Make-up assistance Manuela Pane Digital tech John Enos Dickey Photography assistance Pedro Beraldo Retouching SĂŠbastien de Oliveira Photography management David Bault at Jed Root Production Tzenkoff

Models Brian Shimansky at Success, Daniel Hull at Marlene Barcelona, Juan Betancourt at Elite Management, Lorenzo Martone, Marta Stempniak at Traffic Barcelona, Stefani Brietzig at Elite Management & Viktorija Bauzyte at Sight Management Locations Playa de Garraf & Hotel Dolce Sitges Spain

FASHION

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Juan wears Yale swimtrunks Robinson Les Bains

GAZETTE BRAND LIST

GAZETTE BRAND LIST

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Explore all these brands in the Crystal Hall at the Bella Center, Copenhagen 8 – 11 August Ami amiparis.fr Armoire d’Homme armoiredhomme.com Art Comes First artcomesfirst.com Astrid Andersen astridandersen.com Christopher Ræburn christopherraeburn.co.uk Gentleman’s Brand Co. gentlemansbrand.co Gosha Rubchinskiy gosharubchinskiy.com L’Homme Rouge lhommerouge.com

M.A.B martinasbjornbjerre.com Martone Cycling Co. martonecycling.com Mismo mismo.dk Robinson Les Bains robinsonlesbains.com Ron Dorff rondorff.com Sapusmidjan sapusmidjan.is Storm stormfashion.dk Stutterheim stutterheim.com

Triumph & Disaster triumphanddisaster.com Ursa Major ursamajormen.com DESILLUSION curated space: dslmag.com Loser Machine & Dark Seas losermachine.com Poler polerstuff.com The Death of Cool by Desillusion thedeathofcool.tumblr.com