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fall/winter 2014
contributors Olivia Aylmer Alisha Bansal Joshua Boggs Victoria Campa Celeste Cass Ursula Cedillo-Johnson Sarah Chorsi Devin Choudhury Alexandrina Danilov Gissel Espinoza Madeleine Graw Sasha Henriques Marcus Hunter Sofia Karliner Isabel Lasker Stella Louise Paulina Mangubat Tsarina Merrin Natalie Moore Alejandra Oliva Natasha Przedborsky Imani Randolph Alicia Schleifman Lexie Sokolow Anisa Tavangar Ama Torres Ava Tunnicliffe
Sponsored in part by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University. This funding is made possible through a generous gift from The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
masthead Editors-in-Chief Krista Anna Lewis Andre’ Fuqua Menswear Editor Whitney Wei Lifestyle Editor Arianna Friedman Features Editor Rachel Clara Furst Beauty Editor Layla Caroni Copy Chief Najet Fazai Illsutrations Zoë Flood-Tardino Treasurer Eric Wong Blog Director Nancy Chen Design Director Henry Murphy Photo Editor Esther Jung Womenswear Editor Jackie Luo PR Jenny Mayrock Corinne Teschner
augusta
photographed by esther jung styled by olivia aylmer
wearable tech
We’ve all seen those runway ensembles that look like they belong in the Museum of Modern Art rather than on the street. Perhaps a dress doubles the model’s width or trails behind her for a quarter mile. Or, maybe the strips of fabric barely cover her essentials as she teeters in six-inch stilettos shaped like the Eiffel Tower. The acclaimed world of high fashion has long since been heading in a direction of admirable yet hardly wearable merchandise. However, the age of technology demands an extreme reevaluation. The high fashion industry – immersed in its own artistic impracticality – might need to soon embrace practicality in order to survive. Hundreds of technological advancements lie beneath the surface of all we thought we knew about the fashion world. Futuristic fashion will soon surpass metallic nylon and modern shapes. In fact, the strides already made toward technology-inspired fashion could baffle the public. From virtual changing rooms to three-dimensional printing to social fashion to wearable technology, our generation sits on the cusp of several fashion-world altering breakthroughs. Technology has become integrated into the fashion world in a variety of ways. For example, Karl Lagerfeld has placed iPads in the changing rooms of his London store so that shoppers can send friends a quick photo of their outfit for a second opinion.
by sofia karliner
Similarly, several stores, such as Topshop, have recently introduced virtual in-store fitting rooms so that shoppers may try on clothing without actually trying it on. Undoubtedly, this trend has begun to percolate upward towards online shopping websites. The phenomenon of three-dimensional printers has also become integrated into the fabric of the fashion world. Three-dimensional printing has existed for about a decade, yet model Dita von Teese’s debut of the first printed dress – designed Michael Schmidt in March of 2013 – has popularized this new technology. Recent innovations have resulted in rapid manufacturing, in which a purchased printer allows the user to print merchandise from home rather than waiting for it arrival by mail. What shoppers purchase has also become equally, if not more, transformed by technology. A recent upsurge of wearable technology competitions have resulted in the creation of countless new innovations, such as The Hand Tree air purifier by Alexander Kostin, which uses a refillable carbon filter to recycle air. Apple and Google’s iWatch has become the most popular of several company technology trends. Designer Asher Levine has inserted tracking chips into clothing and a created the customized TrackR app, which allows one to easily locate a garment lost in a vast closet or
messy room. Wearatble Solar, a start up company, has been developing clothing that incorporates flexible solar panels into the fabric with the capability to charge phones and iPods. With this new technology, just an hour in the sun can leave you with a fully-charged phone battery! That being said, appearance-based technological innovations have also infiltrated the fashion world. One might assume that these innovations – with their awe-inspiring beauty – will become incorporated into the high fashion world, allowing designers to pursue technological advances without sacrificing their artistic impracticality. Designer Amy Winters incorporates holographic leather into her designs. This material responds to sound and, as the volume cranks up, the material illuminates to create what she calls “visual music.” Meanwhile, designer Ying Gao uses eye-tracking technology that allows patterns to move when they are being watched. Luxury clothing label Moon Berlin incorporates soft-circuit LEDs into their fabric, which gives it a luminescent glow. These technological trends will undoubtedly spread, but the variable remains how they will diffuse into the fashion world. Will high fashion be forced to assume a practical stance in order to have the first say before the products trickle down to the mainstream market? In my opinion, designers may soon adopt this position. A few designers will likely refuse to sacrifice their idea of fashion as visual art, and thus focus primarily on the flashy technological elements rather than the practical ones, but the larger industry needs to be taken into account. Visually, high fashion is art, but, industrially, it operates as a dramatized prototype for less expensive wearable brands to mimic.
If the high fashion industry neglects to incorporate technology in practical ways, other tech and start-up companies will take the reins. Consequently, brands such as Dior, Chanel, Versace and Balmain will soon become obsolete in comparison to entrepreneurs and visionaries within the wearable fashion world. The high fashion world must either shift away from its adoration of total impracticality or watch as the runway transforms from the face of a multi-billion dollar industry into a moving art show.
devin photographed by esther jung styled by whitney wei & joshua boggs
fashion is art
by alicia schleifman
Is fashion a form of art? There may not be a definitive consensus on this age-old question, but, in recent years, high fashion certainly has drawn inspiration from the adage of “art for art’s sake.” Several of the industry’s most prolific houses – Junya Watanabe, Rick Owens, Haider Ackermann – are known primarily for their outlandish, surreal runway shows, which aspire towards art in several respects. Certain brands have been the subjects of blockbuster museum exhibitions, which elevate their more esoteric and recherche pieces to the status of art objects. Most notably, the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute produced an Alexander McQueen exposition in spring 2011 that broke attendance records and resulted in hours-long entry lines.
Take, for example, the aforementioned Alexander McQueen: his infamous scaly armadillo heels from Spring/Summer 2010, which are meant to appear like lobster claws and measure in at ten inches, are most likely not intended for regular use. This statement could also apply to the same collection’s voluminous, origami-like insect-print coat. Just by nature of their lack of functionality, level of craft and impracticality, many of these pieces approach the “art object,” and serve more than anything else as artistic representations of the brand’s essence. If this idea is most clearly expressed in the socially hermetic world of runway fashion, how does the concept of fantastical dressing trickle down to street style? Its influence is perhaps most visible just outside the Lincoln Center tents or around the Tuileries during Fashion Week. In recent years, industry personalities, journalists and bloggers have begun to adopt the artistic fantasy of runway shows and incorporate them into their street wear, particularly during Fashion Week. Though calling their clothing art might be something of a stretch, they have no concern with the practicality or broad aesthetic appeal of what they wear. Of course, because the clothing of the fashion glitterati tends to attract media attention, the Internet in particular has become something of a gallery for the eccentric outfits that crop up during Fashion Week.
The public personas of many of these people have been built around the fanciful way that they dress. Daphne Guinness and Anna Dello Russo, for example, are primarily known for how they style themselves more than for anything else. All that said, the fashion industry’s espousal of the concept of dressing up as an art form could be viewed both as an offshoot of the fantasy regularly depicted in fashion shows and of the new accessibility of fashion through the Internet. Because shows are so heavily covered by online and print fashion journalism, bloggers and personalities compete for media coverage by wearing such impractical, imaginative outfits. Though their inspiration may be rooted in the insular world of fashion, these bloggers reach a broader audience by treating dressing as something of an art form. New fashion has become something of a spectator sport. Blogs and magazine act as a portal through which everyone in the world can access its inaccessibility. Though this manner of dressing may not be practical for most people’s everyday lives, its novelty invites attention, opinions and, in the case of fashion websites, pageviews. The fascination with artful fashion likely has less to do with its translatability to what the rest of us wear, and more to do with our desire to simply sit back and watch.
ama
photgraphed by krista anna lewis styled by krista anna lewis & ama torres
evolution of the suit
by sasha henriques
Bond. Sinatra. Draper. Grant. Clooney. Gatsby. All of these men – fictional or real – are certainly well-known. But, a single element ties these modern heroes together: the suit. The suit has been the tradition for men’s formal wear in the West for almost 400 years. Despite the abundance of structural changes during its inception, the suit has remained as constant as ever for the last hundred or so years. Why does such a powerful entity have such little impetus for embracing change? And, despite its popularity and status, is the suit due to die out or has womenswear given the suit the salvation it has needed? This timeless and classic look just might be reaching its peak. Ancestors of the first “lounge suit,” as it’s officially referred to, go as far back as the 17th century. In 1666, King Charles II of England officially decreed that men of the court must wear subtler uniforms, with long coats, waistcoats, cravats, wigs and knee breeches. By dimming bright fabrics, the court placed emphasis on structure and form, causing extraneous details gradually disappear. In the 19th century, style-enthused British dandy Beau Brummell further redefined, adapted and popularized this menswear style. During this period, men’s
dress – with its well-tailored fit and somber colors –emphasized simplicity. Brummell summarized his thoughts on style, stating “If people turn to look at you on the street, you are not well-dressed, but either too stiff, too tight or too fashionable.” In the regency era, men wore long tailcoats with non-matching trousers, cravats and tall boots à la Mr. Darcy. Then, the Victorian era gave us morning coats and the tuxedo. In the 1920s, the closest relative to the modern suit was born. Trousers became creased, wide, and straightlegged. Jackets retained the vent-back style preferred for horseback riding. Both jacket and trousers were now typically made of the same matching material. Military silhouettes, flat lapels (which evolved from flattening the traditional stand-up collars on military uniforms), and cuff links remained (the buttons on cuffs, coincidentally, were designed for 19th-century surgeons who needed to roll up their sleeves to keep their hands free). The 20th century took the suit from the ankle-tapered zoot suits of the ‘20s to the wide-collared flared suits of Disco, with various looks in between. They went from loose to snug, as Western society embraced a whole range of patterns and colors – some of them quite awful, especially in the ‘80s. Suits are the ultimate form of menswear. They represent homogeneity, a uniform, a common code of dress. For those more sartorially inclined shoppers, there are ties, fabric, cuff links, shoes, dress shirts and socks – the new “It Accessory” – with which to contend. For those less fashion-forward members of society, a simple, well-cut black suit remains the infallible standard. In the 20th century, the way the world viewed suits changed, as women decided that the suit wasn’t just for men anymore. Sure, women had been wearing “suits” since the 1660s. Their version of the tailored jacket with matching skirt was sturdy, practical and best utilized for horseback riding or travel. However, these
“costumes” remained uncommon, expensive, and feminine in structure until the 1910s. Suddenly, in the ‘20s, women began embracing masculine style in an unprecedented manner. Some lady-trendsetters began wearing men’s pantsuits, hats and adopting masculine accessories, such as canes and monocles. This style took off in the late 1960s, when designer Andre Courreges’ groundbreaking runway collection introduced long trousers for women’s fashion. Then, in 1966, Yves Saint-Laurent introduced a womenswear version of the tuxedo. Finally, Lady Chichester wore a pantsuit to her husband’s knighting ceremony in 1967 and the style became solidified in the sartorial vernacular. Though at first disliked, pantsuits soon became the go to for women in business. Today, pantsuits are as accepted as they were once deemed inappropri ate. Until 1993, women weren’t allowed to wear pantsuits, or any kind of pants, on the United States Senate floor. I can’t imagine Hilary without her pantsuits. Women’s pantsuits are now ubiquitous on and off the runway. Saint wLaurent’s Spring/Summer 2013 collection – with its glammed-up pantsuits made from flowy fabrics and sheer button-downs – has proved the style’s evolution beyond its stodgy, formal past. The suit is a staple—no doubt about it. While the future of mensw ear may provide more style options than ever, the suit will surely stick around for a while. But, as author Finis Farr once wrote, “No woman really knows anything about men’s clothes. How could she? After all, she’s conditioned to obsolescence, to the principle that things go out of fashion. Well-dressed men know that nothing worth-while is ever outmoded, that a superb tailor’s work is ageless.” Mr. Farr, I see where you’re coming from, but ladies have understood the brilliance of a well-cut suit for some time now.
isabel
photographed by ava tunnicliffe styled by ava tunnicliffe & tsarina merrin
daytrippers The Evolution Store 120 Spring St. The Evolution Store most closely recalls a German wunderkammern, or perhaps a nutty biologist’s office. I went to The Evolution Store to purchase a vertebra. One of my professors wears a found seal bone around her neck and, since seeing the look, I knew I desperately needed my own backbone (see “Assorted Mammal Vertebra: $4”). It’s worth visiting the store just to marvel at the preserved animals (think morbid zoo). If you’re looking to buy, the shop has everything from Renaissance fair skull beads to one-of-akind insect collections. The menagerie of taxidermied animals would merit approval from both Roosevelt and Hemingway. A true cabinet of curiosities, the upstairs level includes a comprehensive collection of mounts and Victorian death posters. Alejandra Oliva
Lumpia Shack Snackbar 50 Greenwich Ave. Lumpia Shack Snackbar has quickly made name for itself in the West Village. Playing up popular Filipino snacks (fast-food) with responsibly and locally sourced ingredients, the dishes are inspired by the owners’ cultural experience of moving from Manila to the United States. I recommend the tomato garlic fried rice bowl: warm brown rice, cilantro salad and homemade spam – yes, spam – topped with an egg yolk and sweet coconut and spicy-red sauce. For an eatery that calls itself a shack, the ambiance feels quite homey. Picture a cozy wooden nook decked with soft lighting, painted brick walls, and mellow jazz murmuring in the background. Each meal is reasonably priced and extremely filling. For a change of pace to a monotonous hump-day slump, hop on the 1 train and get ready for a sweet, savory and salty ride. Imani Randolph
The Morris-Jumel Mansion 65 Jumel Terrace Do you ever long for the days when Washington Heights served as a site for idyllic country homes? If so, walk down Slyvan Terrace to the oldest house in Manhattan, The Morris-Jumel Mansion. Built by a British colonel in 1765, The Morris-Jumel Mansion fell into American – specifically, George Washington’s – hands by autumn of 1776. Over the next 128 years, the mansion operated as an inn, a family home and, finally, the non-profit museum that it remains today. If you’re getting serious with a special someone, you can always follow the steps of former vice president Aaron Burr and get married at this historic site. But, don’t follow Burr’s example any further than that. We don’t want you entering any dangerous duels! Celeste Cass
nightcrawlers The Jane Hotel 113 Jane St. The Jane will never have an “off ” night. The DJ always busts your jams, harmoniously remixing “Go Shorty” with “Say Aah”. You’ll get your dose of T-Swift, Miley and even a throwback to Shaggy, as everyone sings and dances on tables. There is certainly something positive to be said about a club where everyone around you knows all the words to “Shake It Off.” Unlike many New York City hotspots, The Jane won’t blast EDM that causes you hearing failure for the following 24 hours. No need to spend two hours deciding what to wear either because, at The Jane, you can get down and get funky. It’s dark enough that no one will judge your outfit, but light enough that you can notice the taxidermy and hip men by the bar. The Jane is also within walking distance of Artichoke Basille’s Pizza, which – just saying – seems pretty hard to resist at two o’clock in the morning. Lexie Sokolow
Angel’s Share 8 Stuyvesant St. Tucked away in an unassuming Japanese restaurant in the East Village, the smoky, dim-lighted speakeasy-style parlor boasts an atmosphere reminiscent of the Jazz Age, complete with polished wood tables, heavy drapes, damask wallpaper and warm wood paneling. Bring a date or bring your friends (just limit the party to a mellow four) for an intimate night of sophisticated, epicurean cocktails. I recommend Charlie Brown (dessert cocktail), Smoke in Your Eyes (flaming whiskey), Serenity (one word: lychee-cello) or Sleepy Rum (lavender-infused rum with lemon). The weekend swarm slows down service, but sit tight (mind the no standing policy), splurge on a memorable cocktail and revel in the fact that the party won’t be raided any time soon. I won’t tell you how to find it, of course—that’s half the fun. Sasha Henriques
Prosperity Dumplings 46 Eldridge St. If you can discern this hole-in-the-wall shop amongst Chinatown’s throngs of red and yellow awnings, you are one step closer an economic epiphany of prolific proportions. If there was ever a commodity that shattered your theory of value (I’m looking at you, Marx), it might be Prosperity’s 100-piece frozen dumplings ($15!). This affordable find is the stuff of urban legends and the savior of college budgets. But, keep in mind these few simple guidelines. First and foremost, if you’re not getting dumplings (five for a dollar), buns or pancakes, then you’re doing it wrong. Fried is better than boiled, get extra sauce, and, most importantly, always order your food to go. Stella Louise
make up by sarah chorsi
Monday Start the week with a fierce cat-eye. Instead of applying your eyeliner to a clean lid, first use a neutral cream shadow. I used a MAC paint pot in Groundwork. To prevent spending the majority of your morning trying to get your eyeliner symmetrical, with your eyes open, draw a guiding base line for the flick of your cat-eye on one eye and then to the other. By keeping your eyes open, you can easily ensure you symmetry. Also you can make any quick corrections before filling them in.
Tuesday By Tuesday, the week picks up, and trying to accomplish a flawless cat-eye first thing in the morning might leave you looking like a Picasso painting. As an alternative, simply apply a warm brown shadow over the top lid, bringing some of the shadow under the eye. Be sure to blend away all the harsh edges. Pair this with dramatic mascara and voila! In under a minute, you are ready to seize the day.
Wednesday Jazz up the middle of your week with a sultry lip. Don’t be afraid to wear dark lipstick during the day! In fact, a statement lip color can boost your confidence. To create a warm eye, apply taupe eye shadow to the eyelid and blend bronzer into the crease of the eye. This taupe will complement a plum lip color. I’m wearing a Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Palais Royal.
Thursday Brighten up your day with some shimmer as you approach the end of a hectic week. First, apply a rose-gold eye shadow to the entire lid. Next, line the eye with black eye shadow. Then blend in the black shadow for a soft, feminine look. This is great because as you blend in the liner, it allows for a lot of smudge room – you can simply blend away any imperfections.
Friday As December approaches, it’s hard not to get into the holiday spirit. Pack the lid with gold shadow for a festive look – the more the better. Then line the top lid with liquid liner to define your lashes. Finally, use a metallic brown pencil on the waterline and blend it down under the eye. I used a Laura Mercier Kohl Eye Pencil in Brown Copper, which is universally complimentary. Saturday If you’re thinking about a traditional dark eye this Saturday night, it’s time to reconsider. Live a little and instead try a green smokey eye. I can assure you that this beautiful alternative will call for many compliments. Here, I use MAC eye shadow in Sumptuous Olive. Sunday It’s often difficult to get out of bed, so this day calls for a laid back look. Just brush a matte, light taupe eye shadow over the lid and apply mascara. The eye shadow creates a background that accentuates the lashes. To make the lashes appear thicker, apply liner to the inside of the upper lid. Here, I am wearing Buxom Lash Mascara.
the fault in our stars by paulina mangubat
Associating a famous face with a controversial issue can inspire critical conversations, even if the espoused language is as comfortable as picking up a well-worn copy of Us Weekly. But just how much does our fascination with celebrities distract us from the very issues they’re campaigning for? This summer, videos of half-naked celebrities drenching themselves in ice water to promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS, took over the Internet. The “Ice Bucket Challenge,” which enjoyed a heyday lasting from July to August, raised over $100 million for the ALS Association and spread awareness about a little-known disease. On the surface, the Ice Bucket Challenge seemed like a riotous success, as viral videos of celebrity Ice Bucket Challenges hastened civilian involvement. By the end of the summer, practically everyone had dumped chilly water on themselves in the name of charity. Star power arguably played a crucial role in the Ice Bucket Challenge’s popularity, providing the momentum necessary to scrape together the first $1 million. However, celebrity involvement also transformed the Ice Bucket Challenge into a glamorous spectacle that shifted the attention away from ALS, as actual survivors of ALS remained largely absent from the “fun.” As the Ice Bucket Challenge aged, it became a
self-congratulatory field day activity rather than an awareness campaign – public interest in the disease itself deteriorated rapidly. The public backlash from Miley Cyrus’ unexpected homeless awareness public service announcement at the 2014 VMAs became equally distracting. At the event, her date Jesse Helt, a 22-year-old homeless youth, spoke in lieu of her acceptance speech for an award at the 2014 VMAs. Celebrity crusaders are often denounced for figuratively “taking the microphone” away from the marginalized peoples that they try to help. In this case, Cyrus literally handed the microphone to Helt; nevertheless, her involvement ushered in a bombardment of misdirected criticisms. The media conjured up a slew of unsavory information about Helt’s personal life—including the fact that the Oregon police were searching for him at the time of his appearance at the VMAs. Cyrus tweeted her frustration with the public for allowing Helt’s criminal status to muddy her original intent of raising awareness of youth homelessness in America. She wrote: “Does looking down on the homeless help people excuse their inaction?” If the classic adage “any publicity is good publicity” rings true, then any publicity that results in charitable donations must be a mitzvah. Helt’s criminal record – as well as her own contro
versial image and public uproar – stained Cyrus’ attempt at altruism. Yet, the Prizeo campaign for My Friend’s Place, a Hollywood-based shelter for homeless youth, would not have received attention from donors had Cyrus not promoted it. However, the millions of dollars raised by our A-list apostles come at an expense. Given our short, stardom-obsessed attention spans, celebrity involvement has the power to call public attention to ostensibly any issue. Although, in doing so, said attention minimizes the lived experiences of minorities and other oppressed groups. Moreover, it diminishes the contributions of established activists and scholars. For example, in her song “Flawless,” Beyoncé employs key lines from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s feminist TED Talk to reaffirm her feminist identity. Obviously, Beyoncé’s distilled interpretations of feminism do not adequately substitute for feminist theory. But, does that matter if Beyoncé has now inadvertently surpassed prominent feminist theorists and become a feminist icon for the masses? (Though she might have to fight Emma Watson for that title, as Vanity Fair called Watson’s United Nations speech promoting the contentious gender equality cam-
paign HeForShe called “game-changing”.) And what of Leonardo DiCaprio – after marching in the People’s Climate March – being named UN Messenger of Peace and accepting the Clinton Global Citizen Award for Activism? Although the participants marched under the same umbrella, DiCaprio ultimately received recognition and a prestigious award as a result of his fame. Contrary to DiCaprio’s accreditation, the voices of indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups directly affected by climate change and detrimental environmental policies once again remained subdued. Objectively, there is no right way or wrong way to enact change; thereby, celebrity activism can neither be condemned nor glorified. Rather than placing all the blame on the celebrities or even on the activist organizations that employ said celebrities, we must question our role as consumers in a society that adores star power and craves social justice. Trending topics come and go, but larger social issues remain. There’s no telling when the newest celebrity activist craze will arrive, but, when it does, let’s make the conversation more nuanced than a hashtag.
natasha & alisha
photographed by victoria campa make up by anisa tavangar & sarah chorsi
byte me
by arianna friedman
Like the forbidden fruit with which it shares its name, Apple, once again, has challenged the resolve of humanity. On September 9, 2014, U2’s new album Songs of Innocence instantaneously appeared in the libraries of 500 million unsuspecting iTunes customers. But, what was intended to be a generous gift came across as a flagrant invasion of privacy. Several bands have forgone conventional distribution in the past. Recall Radiohead’s audacious pay-want-you-want digital release of In Rainbows in 2007, or Jay Z’s $5 million partnership with Samsung that launched the debut of Magna Carta Holy Grail with a giveaway of the album to the first million Android customers in 2013.
the future.” In an online Q&A session with U2, one Facebook user asked U2 never to do it again, noting, “It’s really rude.” Rapper Tyler, The Creator quipped that discovering Songs of Innocence on his iPhone was “like waking up with a pimple or like a herpes.” Reports speculated U2’s undisclosed contract with Apple to be valued at $100 million, practically handing news outlets “insert-sell-out joke-here” headlines. Yet – despite these criticisms –, at the end of the day, artists got paid handsomely and 500 million consumers got a free, new album.
However, the unorthodox insertion of Songs of Innocence constituted the biggest album release in history. Guy Oseary, U2’s new manager, gave an interview with Billboard Music earlier this fall, in which he stated, “[The album] can actually be shared with 7% of the planet in one push of a button. That’s a pretty big concept.”
In this respect, this approach seems better than that of Spotify, whose policies have recently come under fire after a very public falling out with Taylor Swift – arguably the biggest name in today’s music industry. When interviewed by Time this past November about her decision to leave Spotify, Swift asserted, “I think that people should feel that there is a value to what musicians have created, and that’s that…This shouldn’t be news right now. It should have been news in July.”
The magnitude of this action was not lost. The shot downloaded round the world prompted a flurry of dissenters to take to social media. Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker’s pop music critic, wrote, “Don’t shove your music into people’s homes…Lack of consent is not
The struggle to salvage the integrity of music began long before Swift dropped the microphone. In 2013, artists such as will.i.am, Thom Yorke, Pink Floyd, The Black Keys and Aimee Mann publically criticized streaming platforms like YouTube, Spotify and iTunes for
profiting off of the ubiquitous consumption of culture without investing in the creators. However, Dan Ek points out that Spotify has paid over two billion dollars to music labels and publishers since 2008 and, while musicians may consider their work undervalued (according to Spotify’s 2013 payout formula, artists receive an average of $0.006-$0.0084 per stream), Spotify has helped cut down music piracy and adheres to a more transparent model than other streaming platforms, such as YouTube’s new YouTube Music Key. Nonetheless, it seems farcical to let Spotify take credit for changing the music landscape when technology remains the real MVP. Technology transformed a US DVD-by-mail company to the world’s most popular video-streaming service. Technology disaggregated the A-sides from the B-sides so that entire discographies could be sold song-by-song. These advancements reshaped the consumption of music, television and movies, rendering record stores and Blockbusters obsolete. Cable is next on the digital chopping block as more companies jump on the broadband wagon. This past October, HBO CEO Richard Plepler confirmed that the company, despite past steadfast relations with cable providers, plans to offer online independent subscription services (similar to Hulu Plus or Netflix) within the United States at some point in 2015.
While this seems like a win for the American public, can we really call this consolidation of assets a step towards open culture? The significance of “open” or “free” in this context seems so ambiguous that both words ostensibly lose their meaning. Technical terminology euphemizes what actually happens behind the scenes, which is why Apple and U2’s Songs of Innocence snafu felt so unnerving. For a second, Apple revealed the inconceivable scope of their influence. Moreover, the tech titan imprudently demonstrated the ease at which it can infiltrate something so intimate, such as a music library. Ironically, this moment of cognitive dissonance seems redolent of U2’s new song “This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now”. However, if Apple hadn’t made that misstep, how long would it have taken another company to do so? AS the cultural production chain undergoes more public scrutiny, the U2 debacle seems like just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it is not unrealistic to think that the free culture argument will someday be brought before the Supreme Court. Some will experience gains, while others will face losses. However, we must understand the consequences of these tradeoffs to fully consider the worth of open culture. After all, there’s no such thing as a free stream.
nails
by anisa tavangar
ombre Stripe the three or four shades of your ombre (light, light-middle, dark-middle, dark) onto a basic makeup sponge. Pat that onto nails that have been painted with one of the middle tones. Don’t worry if it looks a little questionable at first— topcoat will seriously smooth it out for a perfectly faded finish. striped half moon Update the classic “half moon” manicure by painting stripes over a metallic shade of your choice and keeping that “half moon” area at the bottom of your nail the solid color. To get the perfect cut out, place a reinforcement sticker on the bottom of the nail while painting the stripes.
graphic lines For a graphic contrast, paint the entire nail with the outermost color and move inward, painting the next inner section of the nail and so on. Rotate the nail along with the polish brush. Transitioning from dark to light will create a cleaner look, but using contrasting colors with similar tones will result in a more eye-catching look.
wintry mix If clean lines aren’t your forte, take a pen, pencil, bobby pin or tack – anything with a pointed or rounded tip – and use it to dot multi-colored circles that fill the nails. Instead of starting with painted nails, stipple large dots in a dark color first and then fill in the gaps with lighter colors.
arrow tips To quickly jazz up plain nails, start by painting a triangle at the tip of each nail. Add the arrow lines after letting the solid, triangular base dry. Use the polish bottle brush to create the foundational triangle and a thin striper brush to paint the lines and to clean up the edges.
andre’ photographed by natalie moore styled by andre’ fuqua