HYPEBEAST Magazine Issue 25: The Mania Issue by Hypebeast

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PUBLISHER KEVIN MA EDITOR IN CHIEF KEVIN WONG EDITOR VANESSA LEE DESIGN ED O’BRIEN DESIGN CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MALLORY CHIN KEITH ESTILER AKIHARU ICHIKAWA PETAR KUJUNDZIC ARBY LI ISAAC ROUSE FELSON SAJONAS JAKE SILBERT GUEST EDITORS JAMES BIRD JOSH DAVIS ADVERTISING JAMIE CHAN CRYSTAL CHOI ZOE GAUNTLETT LANDON LEWANDOWSKI PAUL LE FEVRE VICTORIA MORRIS HUAN NGUYEN LILY RICHARDSON JACQUELINE RUGGIERO ALYSIA SARGENT TIFF SHUM VIVIAN TAM DIGITAL PRODUCTION SERENA CHENG KAREEM COOPER NIRVANA GARREFFA HEISON HO ALEX LAU EMMANUEL MADUAKOLAM KYLE REYES RYAN STALEY MADRELL STINNEY JUN TSANG

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SPECIAL THANKS PAIGE BRADFORD YUKO BURTLESS JOANNA CHEUNG CHERYL CHIU NICK DIERL JULIA ENGELBRECHT FLIGHT CLUB MARIUS GAMSER SHOHEI HABATA CANDICE HAN ALEXANDRE HECKEL CHRISTINA HOLDEN JASON KOTARA NICK NG SAORI OHARA LOUISE ORAM GUILLAUME SALMON EDGAR SANTILLAN OLIVER SMITH DAVID G. SWITZER ED TINOCO BENSON WAN CONTACT MAGAZINE@HYPEBEAST.COM 10TH FLOOR 100 KWAI CHEONG ROAD KWAI CHUNG HONG KONG +852 3563 9035 PRINTING ASIA ONE PRINTING LIMITED IN HONG KONG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ISSN 977-230412500-0 13TH FLOOR, ASIA ONE TOWER 8 FUNG YIP STREET CHAI WAN, HONG KONG +852 2889 2320 ENQUIRY@ASIAONE.COM.HK HYPEBEAST.COM PUBLISHER 101 MEDIA LAB LIMITED 2019 APRIL © 2019 HYPEBEAST HYPEBEAST® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF 101 MEDIA LAB, LTD.

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EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LETTER

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HIGHLIGHTS

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TYSHAWN JONES

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ROCKSTAR GAMES

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TAKASHI MURAKAMI

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SHADES OF BLUE

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GRANT ACHATZ

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PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

RECOUTURE

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JOE HOLDER

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COME TEES

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THE WAY TO EASTON

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NICK ATKINS

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DELFIN

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DAVID ALTMEJD

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GUIDE

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Mania

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HYPEBEAST 25

We live in a volatile time where our youth are being pulled in all different directions. Buy this, look like that, make sure people know, take a photo of ourselves every day, go to concerts and watch them through our phones, go on holidays and record the best parts for other people. Our obsession with material goods and appearances, our blind panic to own the best and latest—or at least look like we do—has birthed a kind of paranoia unique to this generation. We worship images that aren’t real, chant mantras that offer not peace of mind but diminishing self-worth and incessant comparisons. We serve as enthusiastic proponents of celebrity culture, stanning the talented and talentless with equal abandon. Is it because we really can’t tell the difference, or because we simply stopped caring which is which?

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EDITOR'S FEATURE LET TER

The currency that matters here—influence, “clout”—

Maybe this is why we’re so fascinated with people

admittedly has been driving hypebeast culture for a long

who seem to be “Doing Something,” whatever that

time. Our living quarters are piled high with mountains

something may be. People who, despite all that’s

of stuffed toys and trinkets that presumably fetch happy

going on, are still able to make art, to make music, to

market prices, yet the sight of them constantly begs the

offer themselves up to the world blissfully unaware of

question: how much is any of it actually worth? How

whether they’re being judged or not, whether they’re

much longer are we going to shell out $1,600 USD for

adored or ostracized, and 100 percent too absorbed in

a pair of Louis Vuitton sneakers or $500 for a Gucci

what they’re doing to care. They show us a different sort

graphic tee?

of craziness up for grabs: the kind of manic possession capable of making all the mess and noise fall away.

We’re a generation facing the future of a broken planet

Maybe these people are the ones who give us hope—

and dubious government heads, unafraid, outspoken

whose personal liberty in turn directs us towards a

social warriors who are also distracted by pictures of

brighter day.

other people’s lunches and stuff we know we don’t really want but buy anyways. We’re angry yet jaded, “woke”

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yet complacent, a generation that labors under nihilism so extreme that we may as well meme our way through

Kevin Wong

national crises and film ourselves eating Tide pods.

Editor in Chief

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sacai X Nike LDV Waffle Daybreak

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The brand’s rework of Nike’s Daybreak silhouette first caught the sneaker and fashion world’s attention when it made its debut on the runways of Paris last year. Playing on the theme of doubles, sacai’s leading lady, Chitose Abe, playfully incorporates twice as many details found on the classic Nike silhouette, such as the Swoosh insignias, heel counters, tongue tabs and color-contrasting laces to give this eclectic pair an eye-catching patchwork-esque look. Elsewhere, the Daybreak’s EVA-foam protrusion midsole and quarter panels climb up to the Nike x sacai co-branded heel. The sacai x Nike LDV Waffle Daybreak is available now at select stockists for a retail price of $155 USD.

Louis Vuitton LV Trainer 408 Sneaker Boot & Mid-Top

Paying homage to decades worth of iconic basketball silhouettes, the LV Trainer marks Artistic Director Virgil Abloh’s debut sneaker for the French luxury house. According to Abloh himself, each shoe is crafted in Italy and takes around six hours to assemble all 106 components; the sole alone is constructed from 20 pieces. Seen here is the LV Trainer 408 Sneaker Boot ($1,600 USD) and the LV Trainer Mid-Top ($1,300 USD), which are both crafted from calf leather and feature a padded collar. The high-top variation sees an “Advanced Tech System” marked Velcro strap while the midtop incorporates “LVM” (Louis Vuitton Malletier) on the tongue tabs. Special “Louis Vuitton” branding handwritten by Abloh adds a final signature touch to each pair. The Louis Vuitton LV Trainer Collection is now available at select Louis Vuitton boutiques and on their website. 014

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NUBIAN X NEEDLES Track Pants

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The collaborative effort seen between Japanese fashion labels NUBIAN and NEEDLES has challenged one of sportswear’s staple items, the track pant. Updating the silhouette with a new elegant take, the once court-bound item has flourished into a new formalwear option. Collectively, the two imprints have managed to broaden the pant’s versatility from just being worn with sneakers to pairing them up with leather loafers. Constructed from velour materials, the loosefitting pants have been accented with side stripes and NEEDLES’ famous butterfly embroidery inspired by Steve McQueen. Available in three colorways of gold, dark grey, and silver, the NEEDLES x NUBIAN Narrow Type Velour Track Pants can be purchased now at NUBIAN outposts for $220 USD each.

Ambush Multi-Cord Hoodie

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Husband and wife team of Verbal and Yoon have applied their signature eclectic tastes to a cozy white cotton hoodie. Known for their quirky jewelry line, this everyday essential has been embellished with various multi-colored cords, reminiscent of shoelaces, which run through the entirety of the hood portion. The sweater includes a large front pocket to keep all your belongings safe, a final “Ambush” logo emblazoned on the front left chest, and a silver clasp that adds a bit of elegance to the demure item. Ambush’s Multi-Cord Unisex Hoodie is available now at select retailers for $550 USD. 017

1017 ALYX 9SM Hiking Sneaker Boot

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As trekking footwear returns to the fold, Matthew Williams’ lauded label 1017 ALYX 9SM has added its own spin to the hiking silhouette for Spring/Summer 2019. Constructed from premium black leather, suede and rubber paneling, the low-top hiking boot has also been updated with technical stylings and a bold red Vibram sole unit. Giving this model a utilitarian upgrade is a detachable “Arctic Grip” harness, which offers the wearer protection on their journeys, as well as a breathable mesh liner, bungee strings, and metal hook fastenings. 1017 ALYX 9SM’s Hiking Sneaker Boot is available now at select ALYX stockist for approximately $760 USD. 018

Rimowa X Bang & Olufsen H9i Wireless Headphones

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Considered a holy grail of collaborative efforts, German luggage purveyor RIMOWA has joined forces with luxury audio and lifestyle brand Bang & Olufsen on a pair of limited edition Beoplay H9i wireless headphones. Marking the first crossover between the two labels, the design of the headphones is heavily injected with the former’s ethos while incorporating the latter’s technical prowess, helping to celebrate the unique link between travel and sound. Delicately crafted from anodized aluminum and genuine leather, the cordless accessories are then housed in a signature RIMOWA case, worthy of any globetrotter’s journey. Tech specs include noise-cancellation and an innovative touch interface. The RIMOWA x Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9i Wireless Headphones are available now both in-stores and online for $900 USD.

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A Tree Grows

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RYA N P L E T T Z A N D E R TA K E TO M O

in Soundview Tyshawn Jones 021

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He irreverently wore a do-rag and Supreme box logo tee, Jay-Z’s “Hova Song” playing in perfect, glorious syncopation. In that moment, all was right with the world. The best New York skater in a generation, skating for New York’s iconic fashion brand, to the tune of New York’s greatest artist. Young, gifted, and black. As both a skater and a native New Yorker, this was like watching waves align, the summer solstice, and The Resurrection—all at once. I knew I was witnessing history, and that I was a part of it. And that’s because I knew what it took to get there.

With his arms victoriously stretched to the heavens, eyes locked beyond the lens and into the viewer’s soul, rolling brazenly out of the frame into some infinite glory, Tyshawn Jones concluded Supreme’s second full-length skate video, BLESSED. 023

I grew up in New York City, downtown, removed from Chinatown’s chaos or Alphabet City’s hustle, in a working-class Jewish-Dominican pocket called Two Bridges. By most comparisons, it’s a quiet area, blissfully stuck in a perpetual Sabbath. Canes outnumber strollers. The closest subway station is a 15-minute walk from my mom’s apartment. But Monday through Friday, I took buses, trains, and, when I was late, taxis to my school on the Upper East Side. It was an hour away, but getting there was important. My mother, put through private school on a receptionist’s salary, knew the power of an education in that zip code. For years, I was a passenger in the city I was born. I watched brown project buildings, clumsily repaired with mismatched bricks, transition into majestic, vine-covered prewars on FDR Drive. On the 6 train, I watched my friends’ customstitched L.L. Bean bags go home with their owners, my years-old North Face still soaking whatever lives on a train car floor. That’s how I saw New York: point A to point B, living life from the cabin—not the cockpit. But when I was 14, that all changed. A friend brought a skateboard to school. Another 14 years later, I’m still hooked. Skateboarding totally changes your worldview. Not just how you dress or talk, but in a way that unlocks the potential in everything from weather to architecture. From what I hear about acid trips, the effects are similarly profound and permanent. If you ride the 6 train above Manhattan, you eventually reach Soundview, where Jones grew up. It’s a workingclass Hispanic and black neighborhood in the East Bronx. He got his first board from Target, a Kryptonics setup, with $60 his mother gave him, his uncle, and his brother. Jones first started skating in Hackensack, New Jersey, while living with his father, but started taking it seriously when he moved back to Soundview. ”I learned

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the streets and all that in the Bronx,” he says. “I learned how to travel around my city there.” Jones was 10 when he started, but progressed quickly. Although he was skating with older friends, he outgrew the obstacles near his house. A friend drove him to River Avenue Skate Park, near Yankee Stadium, a bit closer to Manhattan. “The people I was first skating with, they wanted to stay in the Bronx—they didn’t want to go anywhere,” he remembers. “I wanted to progress.” People from around the city gravitated to the River Avenue park, and eventually he met kids in other boroughs. By the age of 12, Jones learned to take the train himself and visited friends in posh TriBeCa and Battery Park, hubs for skating in their own right. And yet, Jones didn’t really participate in “skate culture,” as it is commonly understood. He didn’t watch the full-length videos that many skaters cite as seminal: Lakai Footwear’s Fully Flared or Alien Workshop’s Mind Field. He liked Baker Skateboards, but missed Baker 3, the video that inspired countless quotes, firecrackers (both trick and pyrotechnic), and Google searches for Lou Reed. “To this day, I haven’t seen any of those videos. On God.” And honestly, he’s better off for it. The same goes for his relationship with Supreme, a brand whose inner circle many try to buy their way into. At first, Jones was skeptical of being down—even for free. Impressed by a clip of Jones skating, Supreme family member Ty Lyons invited him to the Lafayette Street store. But Jones didn’t actually visit Supreme until six months later, when his friend needed to pick

up some new hardware. Lyons, who was at the store, asked Jones why he didn’t come the first time. “I didn’t want to be that kid asking for stuff. I’d rather just buy it.” But Lyons insisted, and soon, Jones went from receiving small boxes of shirts and hats to featuring in a short clip opposite Jason Dill, titled Buddy. That was in 2012. Six years later, Jones is practically the face of Supreme. Now, imagine being so obsessed with skateboarding that you not only master tricks, but get paid exclusively to do it. Imagine that you’ve just released your magnum opus—a love letter to your hometown featuring its most famous monuments, signed in blood, sweat, and kickflips. Imagine that it paid off, so to speak. Two months before we talk in a lofted Bushwick photo studio, Tyshawn Jones, now 20, was elected Thrasher Magazine’s 2018 Skater of the Year. It’s the skateboarding industry’s highest honor, and he’s the first winner from New York City. He’s only the second black winner. But when I bring up winning the award, Jones seems tired. Not physically tired, not really tired of talking about it. More like tired of being expected to be excited. “I’m very proud to have achieved it,“ he says. “But at the end of the day, you should just have fun and skate. If it wasn’t an award, I don’t think that would change skating.” It’s a pragmatic perspective that could easily be misinterpreted as blasé. And yes, in person, he does speak about stuff pretty casually. But here’s the thing:

“THE PEOPLE I WAS FIRST SKATING WITH, THEY WANTED TO STAY IN THE BRONX— THEY DIDN'T WANT TO GO ANYWHERE. I WANTED TO PROGRESS.”

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he’s just thrown himself down staircases and over handicap barriers, wrestled with overzealous security guards, and waited for foot traffic to clear out of his landing space. Two years straight. And that’s just on the board. Off of it, Jones opened a restaurant in his neighborhood—Taste So Good (Make You Wanna Smack Your Mama)—and started his own label, Hardie’s Hardware. The brand released its first products in March 2017; the restaurant opened in October 2018. I honestly got tired just listening to his accomplishments, let alone thinking of doing them. “I think with everything, it doesn’t really hit me ’til later… I got on adidas, and a year in, I [actually] realized that I was on adidas. That’s a big company,” he told Thrasher in December 2018. Yes, skaters do tend to have tunnel vision. The mechanics of how a trick should be performed, at what time, and where are all stress points. Clearly, that attention to detail has crossed into other areas of Jones’ life.

he said that, the narrative of growing up in New York City rushed through me. I remembered sitting in Sylvia’s with my dad as a child, seeing a former celebrity shamefully beg for a free meal. I remembered doing homework on the long ride from school just so I could skate as soon as I got off. I remembered a friend telling me he could be a rapper because Jay-Z dropped Reasonable Doubt when he was 26. The feeling is a mix of the optimism and resilience ingrained in New Yorkers. Like Lot sprinting away from Sodom, eyes fixed on the horizon. Like any misstep could ruin everything. Like stagnation, in an unforgiving city, is scarier than any 20-stair. And so, Jones has kept up his momentum. He began 2019 promoting adidas Skateboarding’s 3ST.004 design. Don’t call it his personal creation, though. It’s not. “At all.” Rather, Jones’ forthcoming shoe design has been in the works for over a year. Working closely with footwear designer and former pro skater Scott Johnston, Jones has worked to develop a mid-top silhouette that draws influence from basketball shoes. Whatever he makes, it won’t be average. “I feel like everybody takes the safe route and makes a low-top,” he says of the skate shoe climate. “Money’s cool, obviously everyone wants to make it. But I feel like if you make something genuine, it shows. And that will make money by translating to skaters.” So far, Jones’ career is entirely based on being genuine—unyielding, even—to his life’s grand blueprint. And so far, he’s been exactly correct. Why stop now?

But there’s more to it than that—Jones is hardwired for success. “I’m the type of person where if I want something, I get it. Whatever it takes,” he tells me factually, without refrain or remorse. Growing up in the Bronx as a black skater, there was no room for selfconsciousness anyway. “People would definitely try to tease me, but I don’t care. I’ve never been a follower. I feel like that would only affect a weak person,” he said. “I always knew what I wanted to do with my life. Even if it wasn’t skating, I had a vision of what I wanted to accomplish, and how I was gonna go get it.” When

“I'M THE TYPE OF PERSON WHERE IF I WANT SOMETHING, I GET IT. WHATEVER IT TAKES.”

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Pop culture is the cornerstone of mania . From the humble beginnings of cinema , people have flocked to see moving pictures and its subsequent evolution from spectacle to storytelling device . 036

From noir to westerns, people would flock to the movies to see John Hustonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Maltese Falcon or Sergio Leoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, much like the hysteria today for the Avengers: Endgame opening weekend. Rockstar Games, the developers responsible for Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne, are students of pop culture. They have developed games that tackle popular genres within pop culture in a way that satirizes its themes but also celebrates them. As such, Rockstar Games and their titles have become part of pop culture and the genres that inspire them. Before superhero movies dominated cinema, gangster movies were what everyone wanted to see. The obsession with people illegally carving out their own success allowed audiences to live vicariously through the characters on display at a time when the American Dream had been all but extinguished in the United States. Although Rockstar already had a franchise in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2, neither of the games really had any substance outside of its core gameplay of jacking cars and outrunning cops.

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However, in 2002 the developers revealed Grand Theft Auto III, which saw the titular mechanics of the game fleshed out into a storyline revolving around gang life, crime lords and an explorable urban environment called Liberty City that’s drenched with violence, just like the movies that inspired it. GTA III allowed people to live vicariously through these digitized avatars, and even vent some frustrations by causing unbridled mayhem in the streets. GTA III satirized the American way of life through commercials on in-game radio stations, referencing major corporations in the sneaker industry outsourcing child labor and how most citizens didn’t seem to care, just like in real life.

enough, folks in the limelight like Dave Chappelle were doing satirical skits about the satire-based video game on the biggest show in America. This, alongside its Mafioso storyline and controversy for ultraviolence, shot the franchise into the stratosphere of popularity and pop culture itself. Games were just getting around to becoming more cinematic at this time. However, Grand Theft Auto III withstood the test of time and remains relevant because American lifestyle and media, the things Rockstar satirizes, will always stay relevant. The key to that sort of insight is always having a pulse on what’s popular in entertainment, something Rockstar Games has had since the release of GTA III. Rockstar Games has gone on to explore all aspects of contemporary criminal life, from the cocaine-slinging, loud button-up-shirtwearing days of Miami, Florida, circa 1980s to the epicenter of gang culture in Los Angeles, California, in the ‘90s. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, respectively, tell these tales in typical satirical fashion, leaning into the plots of classics

The explorable sandbox format had various hijackable cars for the main protagonist, Claude; several satirical billboards to drive by and ill-mannered pedestrians that react in true New York fashion if players did anything to offend them. Rockstar crafted a living, breathing world with pristine attention to detail that would only be refined as time went on. As a result, the game became a smash hit with gamers and the mainstream alike. Soon 037

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like Scarface and Boyz n the Hood, films that define those eras in pop culture, allowing gamers to exist in those time capsules within an open-world setting. For San Andreas specifically, Rockstar even brought in DJ Pooh, the rapper and co-writer of Friday to make the game’s setting and presence all the more authentic to black culture, as this was the first title in the franchise to feature a predominantly black cast of characters.

but never heard them so candidly admit. A relatable sentiment for American society, who chase after their own interpretation of that dream while being aware that dream may be built on a fabrication. Not the type to rest on their laurels, Rockstar Games released another title that still dealt with crime, but within an entirely different genre: westerns. Red Dead Redemption also explores the ideals of America and civilization against the lifestyles of those who chose to remain on the open road, unfettered by the bonds of societal expectations. Two opposing ideals, at a point in time where the cowboy era was on the cusp of becoming obsolete. The title may be a satirical play on the notion of the wild, wild West, but it is truly focused on showcasing the contrast between both worlds. The game may even side against the emergence of civilization, as it suggests that American expansion was the cornerstone where many of the problems within our current infrastructure is rooted: the banking system, taxation, corrupt law enforcement and more. Red Dead Redemption was not only praised for its story but also for

GTA IV rounded out Rockstar’s exploration of the American Dream. Our main protagonist, Nico Bellic, is a European war vet who left his troubled past to start fresh working with his cousin. However, he soon finds himself involved in a life of crime and betrayal that leaves him weary and emotionally damaged by the very end of the game. We see our foreign protagonist, who came to Liberty City looking to grab his piece of the American Dream, stand in front of the game’s version of the Statue of Liberty, calling the American Dream a lie. He concludes in the game’s final moments that the promise of that dream is empty and unattainable, something we’ve learned from the franchise’s protagonists before 040

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Not too long after, the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released during the end of the PS3’s and XB360’s life cycles, and again with revamped graphics on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One a year later. The polish introduced in GTA IV paled in comparison to how gorgeous and detailed GTA V is. Just as GTA IV let us revisit Liberty City through a whole new lens, GTA V did the same with the setting of San Andreas. Deep customization of your character returned, extending beyond the massive amount of swappable clothing items and including a ton of in-game activities such as golfing, BASE jumping and scuba diving. Those experiences mimicked actual tourist attractions one would attempt when visiting California in real life.

its open-world depiction of the United States during the final years of the American Frontier. Many initially described Red Dead Redemption as “Grand Theft Auto but with cowboys,” but that oversimplification wasn’t such a bad thing. The game captured the criminal lifestyle of its era just like the GTA games before it, as well as the toll that sort of lifestyle takes on those who lived it. This was showcased in many facets: in protagonist John Marston’s titular path of redemption from the rotten life he once lived, as well as in antagonists Bill Williamson and Dutch Van Der Linde, respectively. Williamson was trapped in an outlaw’s existence, unable to live any other way. Meanwhile, Dutch desperately clung to the ideals of being a cowboy despite that lifestyle being on the brink of nonexistence. Red Dead Redemption was one of the first games set in the era of cowboys that actually made you feel like a cowboy with its mechanics— horseback riding, lassoing commands and old-time duels and gunfights like the outlaws in High Noon.

GTA V has been out for six years at this point, but lives on with constant updates to its multiplayer companion mode called GTA Online. There, you can create and customize your own character and carry out missions and other mini-games alongside other players around the globe. You can even create a crew with your online friends. They had updates to celebrate certain holidays

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You could practically live in the environment Rockstar has produced with Red Dead Redemption 2. The various clothing options, guns, hairstyle customizations it offers seem so minuscule and standard when compared to how one gun’s firing mechanic totally differs from another. Or how the clothes you pick affect your gameplay depending on whether it’s hot or cold outside. None of these customizations are frivolous cosmetics like they used to be. Everything you do matters and has a sub-function to it. This is the true progression of what Rockstar Games has been aiming to do since GTA III, and that’s building a world within a digital landscape. The more you can fine-tune mechanics and graphics, the more the player is immersed and invested in the fantasy presented; RDR 2 is the pinnacle of both. A movie serves as a piece of entertainment and form of escapism for as long as the film’s runtime allows. This game alone features over 60 hours of content, and that’s just in the main game’s campaign, not including all the side missions and activities players can experience.

and in-game activities, all the while introducing new cars, guns and modes such as Heist that allowed you to rob banks with your friends. This amount of content has allowed the game to exist well beyond the typical life cycle of your standard video game. Rockstar Games knew ahead of time that the new class of online gamers would want a more refined online experience than GTA IV. This companion mode would successfully carry over to their next game, Red Dead Redemption 2. The sequel to Rockstar’s acclaimed Western-based action-adventure has subsequently become the company’s magnum opus because of its painstakingly detailed gameplay mechanics and functionalities. The immersion in this title has no equal in terms of just how much of its content and mechanics mirrored real-world physics and technicalities. It ceased to be known as “Grand Theft Auto but with cowboys” and turned into a title so meticulously fine that it would be described as an actual cowboy simulation game.

With Rockstar’s generation-defining titles, the company, along with its subsidiaries, has solidified itself as one of the best the gaming industry has ever seen. Right behind the likes of Minecraft and Tetris, Grand Theft Auto V is the most sold game in the world, creating a frenzy upon its initial release, grossing a billion dollars in 24 hours. Rockstar has elevated and created trends within the industry several times over, being one of the first to utilize cinematics in games to bring something with substance to the medium. Like the westerns and noir films of old, people now flock toward games, which has evolved into a medium able to further analyze these subgenres. Rockstar’s games were once derivative of the genres it inspired, but those titles have since become classics within a platform that’s become less about spectacle and more about telling a story—with newer titles like Red Dead 2 becoming The Good, the Bad and The Ugly for a new generation. Movies used to be the pinnacle of entertainment—making it the subsequent central hub of escapism. Yet the quality of digital landscapes today means the most vivid of distractions can be accessed with the push of a button. How can we resist freedom with such an easy way out? 043

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Playing the Part

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Instagram, Takashi tells us later, is very important to him; he spends three hours a day on it. From the outside looking in, it would be impossible to tell Takashi is running up against the deadline of opening day for his grand solo exhibition, one that boasts 30 new works, including a 50-foot-long, 17panel painting on canvas and a 16-foot-tall, gold-leaf statue of his signature flower character.

Just before the opening of his “GYATEI2” show in Los Angeles, Takashi Murakami is seated inside a hollow Gagosian gallery. Besides him is friend and personal stylist “Cherry,” casually donning a hooded sweater with Mickey Mouse-like ears.. The two are laughing and chatting with each other, while their eyes are fixed on their phones, thumbs scrolling in synchronicity..

While a couple dozen staff are scattered around the space, it’s eerily silent inside one of Hollywood’s most prominent art galleries, the only sounds coming from Takashi’s 12-man personal production crew, who he famously flies in from Tokyo to assemble the artworks and add any finishing touches. Since landing in LA just yesterday, Takashi and his team have been stationed at the gallery around the clock, quietly racing to bring the exhibition to life on time. The surprisingly serene scene is a stark contrast to the one set to take place in the following days, where A-list celebrities and Hollywood elites will frolic, and countless selfies will be taken. Upon our first encounter with the celebrated artist, we inquired what his plans were during his time in LA, to which he responds: “Me? Nothing. I’m a nerd. I have nothing else to do,” he laughs. This was hard to believe, coming from the man who is often seen posing beside arguably un-nerdy company such as Kim Kardashian and Pharrell Williams. He‘s also frequently spotted outside fashion’s most distinguished runway shows in Paris – immaculately dressed in the latest designer pieces from Louis Vuitton to Sacai. Not stopping there, in the past year alone, Takashi has also stayed busy working with Kid Cudi on his album artwork, manufacturing a fashion collaboration with Drake’s OVO, and, more recently, producing a music video for budding singer Billie Eilish, not to mention a collaborative art exhibit with Virgil Abloh as well as a handful of solo shows. It’s a far cry from having “nothing to do.” But to understand Takashi Murakami, you need a bit of background on Japanese culture – specifically, otaku culture. The term is defined as one who is obsessed with a particular interest such as Internet culture, anime and manga, so much so that it is a detriment to their social skills. While Takashi is not what you’d consider a typical “nerd,” he has long identified with otaku culture.

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“I’M JUST DOING THE SAME AS I'VE BEEN DOING SINCE DAY ONE. EVER SINCE MY EARLY 30S I'VE BEEN SELLING SMALL, LIMITED ART PIECES AND MERCHANDISE PRODUCTS, ALL THE SAME.”

In fact, Takashi sees what he does now as all part of this otaku lifestyle—connecting it to his newfound fashion sense, and the seemingly curious portrayal behind his personal branding and online persona. “Before working with [stylist] Cherry-san, I used to just cosplay a lot. What I'm wearing right now is basically cosplay,” Takashi explains, while draped in a multi-layer Raf Simons jacket and a custom Porter side bag. Cosplay is a type of performance art that involves dressing up in costume to play a character, closely related to anime and manga culture. Takashi’s resonance with otaku culture is clearly evident in his artwork. As we follow behind him, meandering through the gallery, examining his artwork piece by piece, we can see in eye-watering detail the bold, multicolored protagonists in his artwork, placed inside gleeful scenes—his works further highlighted by the “superflat” style which he famously developed early in his career. We watch as Takashi walks right up close to his works, the grave air of examination and quietness of the gallery interrupted somewhat unceremoniously, as Takashi absentmindedly whistles Post Malone and Swae Lee’s new hit single, “Sunflower,” with his face inches from the canvas.

more progressive works, such as a 1998 piece titled “My Lonesome Cowboy,” which featured a fully nude manga statue of a boy masturbating. “The darker, self-loathing side of my art doesn’t resonate with them [the Japanese], and they don’t like it.”

The signature flowers and innocent characters he often depicts are quite the contrast from his trained art background, which began with a PhD in Nihonga painting, a traditional Japanese painting style from the 1900s. Behind the superficial bliss seen in his paintings, Takashi tells us there’s a somber underbelly to them from his own dark side, which he hides behind an omnipresent smile. When asked which of his artworks is most representative of him as an artist, he references a specific piece inside the Gagosian: “Mr. DOB’s face all mangled and puking. I think that’s the essence. Just puking – and it usually means you are blanked out and feeling sick. That’s the essence of it.”

Takashi has long exhibited a provocative attitude to art as an institution, longing to explore the truth of art’s reality within modern society. A prime example is his stance towards consumerism in art. This struck a new chord within the art industry as a whole, he explains, which “blurs the boundaries between design and art… turning the operational structures and values within the art and design industries.” This came in the form of creating and selling merchandise early on, which, in the art world, has always been taboo, due to the idea that merchandise devalues the artwork through the increase in supply and subsequent lowering in demand. Now 20some years later, dozens of collaborations with fashion brands like COMME des GARÇONS and Supreme, album iconic covers with Kanye West and Kid Cudi, along with thousands of plush pillows later, this is now accepted as the norm and used as a strategy for driving

Unbeknownst to his younger audience, whom he professes to cherish just as much as his art collectors, Takashi’s artwork has never been met with open arms, ever since he made his start at the age of 29. This is especially apparent in his hometown, where his early art was seen as controversial and even looked down upon as an unwanted representation of the country and its culture. Even today, while he reigns as arguably the most well-known living artist from Japan, he explains, “In Japan, they barely carry my artwork. I'm being ignored. I didn't think too much of it when I was younger, but it's pretty bad.” Granted, his earlier work did consist of

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TAKASHI MURAKAMI IS THE THREAD THAT TIES TOGETHER SEVERAL OTHERWISE DISPARATE WORLDS.

the demand for consumer and fine art alike. “I’m just doing the same as I’ve been doing since day one. Ever since my early 30s, I’m still selling small, limited art pieces and merchandise products, all the same. So, I feel like I haven’t really changed.” Indeed, the Tokyo-born artist has remained the same through his two decades as an artist in the brightest of limelights. Misunderstood by his hometown observers on one hand, yet also not fully understood by his foreign fans on the other, the one thing that continues to evolve is his progressive process for creating and producing greater work, both in quality and quantity. Today, his painting production team alone holds 45 people at his Japan studio and 16 at his studio in Long Island City. His painting teams work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in rotation—not to mention dozens more in other departments including PR, animation, computer graphics, and sculpting. His artistic process has no shortage of technological advances and new-age techniques, from sketching to scanning and creating “paints” on Adobe Illustrator and then printing on silk screen. It has been said that Takashi took notes from Bill Gates in having staff members type reports each day of what they work on.

an artist, the art is the main priority. I just wore a black suit and black tie not to stand out. This period lasted for a while. Now that I'm older and I don’t want to alienate the younger audience, I decided to go into cosplay again.” Later in the afternoon, Takashi and his team are visiting the Broad Museum, where he has several pieces currently on display and even more merchandise on sale at the gift shop. As we arrive at the contemporary art section, throngs are gathered around his pieces, posing and taking selfies. The scene grows dramatically upon Takashi’s arrival: patrons take turns asking for selfies with the artist, the artwork itself immediately falling by the wayside. It begs the question of which holds more value: Takashi’s art or his cultural prevalence? Surely, the age of access and social media plays a big part in his celebrity status, but we wonder would Koons cause such a scene if he stood beside his Balloon Dog? Would Barbara Kruger be stopped in her tracks for a selfie?

Alongside Takashi’s exponentially growing body of work, his personal fame has continued to skyrocket. Whether new fans are initiated through Takashi’s merch or his work with artists like Kanye, Takashi is quick to admit his work with pop and youth culture was huge for his career trajectory. “ComplexCon and collaborating with Kanye West—this was a turning point in my degree of publicity. Young hip hop fans started to recognize me.” It is clear that this is perhaps Takashi’s most remarkable achievement to date, managing to bridge the art world with mainstream or “commercial” culture in the all-encompassing, seamless way that he has. Takashi Murakami is the thread that ties together several otherwise disparate worlds—that of streetwear culture and fine art, for example, or with the luxury market, which in actuality have a lot in common.

Now, nearly three decades deep in the business, the 57-year-old artist has staged over 200 exhibitions globally and has produced over 30 collaborations in fashion, design, and music. While it’s never been a point of emphasis for the steadfast artist, Takashi Murakami and the fantasy world he’s carefully crafted have slowly but surely taken on the (real) world.

It’s nearly impossible to plan for, or anticipate, the level of cultural omniscience that Takashi has achieved. The veteran artist’s collaborations, with the exception of Virgil’s, have all been requests sent to his studio or him directly. Takashi himself has simply stayed true to his otaku self and interests. It’s just that now, the world’s appreciation for his ideas has caught up with him. “There was a time when I believed that since I'm

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From planning a menu of constantly changing, mindbending fare to grappling with design (“Why does a restaurant need to have tables?” he had asked, to the consternation of business partner and now-longtime friend Nick Kokonas), this was going to be a restaurant that held nothing sacred: not its food and certainly not convention. Even the restaurant’s name staunchly reflects these values: an alinea is the typographical character which denotes a new train of thought.

On May 3, 2005 , the night before Alinea opened its doors for the first time, 60 people stood together in the middle of a brand-new, unused kitchen, whose head chef-slash-owner was but 29 years old. This was a restaurant that Grant Achatz had built from the ground up..

As Grant looked around the kitchen, at spotless, stainless steel tables that had yet to see a plate or a crumb and at pans still untouched by heat, he at last addressed the team gathered around him—friends from before, new faces—together in this place that was going to be quite unlike any restaurant that any of them— himself included—had worked in before. “Here’s the deal. Tomorrow we’re going to open the best restaurant in the country. And anything less is gonna be a failure.” Even over the phone, we could hear his voice warming at the memory. “At that moment, I won. ‘Cause I felt like I accomplished what I set out to do.” He paused. “Even though the food could have really sucked,” he added, and laughed. Fifteen years on and three Michelin stars later, Alinea has not only established itself as America’s best restaurant, but as one of the world’s best. Now, widely known as one of the most unparalleled culinary minds in the world, chef Grant Achatz has thoroughly proven that the food, in fact, doesn’t suck.

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The career of a chef is especially grueling: thankless 14–16 hour shifts in the high-octane rush of a restaurant kitchen, hands in furious unison with sharp blades and searing pans that could melt flesh—all of it second nature by the time Achatz was 15 years old and working at his parents’ family-style restaurant in Michigan. The diner was a place of community and gathering, serving familiar faces who had been ordering the same thing every day for years. After growing up with the basics—western omelets, hash browns, burgers—he decided to pursue a different expression of food at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. He then went on to work his first stint at

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“IF WE CAN MAKE PEOPLE TAKE NOTICE OF THE ACT OF CONSUMING FOOD—IF WE CAN MAKE THAT SOMETHING SPECIAL... WE GOT THEIR ATTENTION. YOU KNOW?”

a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant, Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, and then afterwards, with legendary chef Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, California. Achatz cites his time at the French Laundry as the pivotal moment of his career. Chef Keller’s kitchen and work ethic is what would set the table for Achatz’s own team a few years down the road. “Every night was an incubator of creativity and extreme dedication, passion, and push. He was in the kitchen—first one in, last one out—teaching, mentoring, guiding the team,” Achatz recalls fondly of his time at the French Laundry. This environment was something Achatz worked extremely hard to keep at his own restaurant years later, even in 2007, when he was diagnosed with—and eventually beat—stage IV tongue cancer, just as Alinea was hitting its stride to culinary infamy. He attended chemotherapy

sessions all while plowing forward with prepping and service at the restaurant, and continued to create new dishes with his team even after the radiation took away his sense of taste. “If there’s a better excuse to not go to work, I don’t know what it is,” he quipped. “I always reflect on my time at the French Laundry and you wanted Chef Keller to be there. That’s the lightning bolt.” Though Achatz is often armed with intimidatingsounding equipment like nitrous canisters, liquid nitrogen or the Anti-Griddle (which flash-freezes food surfaces—like a griddle, but opposite), he off-handedly compares it to the first time someone has ever used a gas stove—science is simply a tool, not the main attraction. That early experience of food as communion and connection from 15-year-old Achatz’s first foray into the culinary world is one of the elements that makes his food so memorable. Guests share a dish plated straight on the table, watch each other try to eat a bite of food dangling off a bouncing wire without using their hands, and speak to each other at chipmunk pitch from having just consumed an edible helium balloon. Sounds of unbridled disbelief and deep, stomach-clenching laughs are common in Alinea— and undoubtedly rare for a three-Michelin-starred restaurant. It’s a shared experience that, at the end of it all, brings us together like any good meal—only that meal is also a paradigm-shifting journey that redefines what it means simply to eat. “If we can make people take notice of the act of consuming food—if we can make that something special...”—he trails off— “we got their attention, you know?” 083

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the-box thinking mentality. It’s always kind of existed. As a technician, though, it came early on ‘cause I was sort of born into it, you know. Long lineage of cooks in my family.

When did you fall in love with cooking? That’s sort of impossible to say, right, because it alludes to a quantification in falling in love. I realized, probably when I was in high school, that it was a craft that I excelled at. At that young, impressionable age when you and your friends are trying to figure out what to do for the rest of your lives, a lot of people tend to gravitate towards things they excel at. So it became pretty apparent to me, right around 15 years old, that I was going to try this as a career. That's sort of the surface way of looking at it.

The interesting thing about food is that everyone knows it so intimately. Everyone has a relationship with food. How do you feel that plays into food as an art form for you? I remember our first night. We had the food critic from the New York Times. So here you are, you got the most important food writer in the world on night one, which is obviously the very worst night to have any critic in your restaurant. And then he wrote kind of a—he didn’t smash us. But he questioned the relevance of that style of cooking and he sort of poked fun at it. And so you get offended. As a young, brash, immature person—most chefs have that clichéd reputation of being egotistical and over-confident —then all of a sudden, this really important person said, meh. It’s not that good. But then over the years, that became a creative driving force. It became a rite of passage in a way like, hey, people are making fun of us, or criticizing us, or calling us “nonsense

Then there’s the more romantic way, where, even when I was very young in elementary school, I was artistic. I drew in charcoals and pencil drawings, liked to use my hands a lot in terms of model car and airplane building, and just had this immense curiosity. I think if you really want to pull back the layers, all the building blocks were there to the type of food that I’m doing now at Alinea, where there’s more of an exploration, more of an out-of-

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upon stilts”—maybe there’s some validity here. Maybe we are disrupting it in a good way. Food is such a complicated thing. We see it every day. Where people grow up in the world, people grow up here in the United States, people in the Midwest, people on the west coast, east coast, people in southeast Asia, western Europe. Their palates are tuned because of their upbringing—how their parents cooked, were they in a cosmopolitan area, were they in a rural area, were they tight with their family, did their grandmother cook for them—all this stuff really, really influences their opinion. And all you can do as a chef… you simply cannot please every single person at Alinea on any particular night. We do 130 people every night. Some people are gonna be jumping up and down in their seats out of excitement; some people are gonna go, eh, it was all right. I prefer 11 Madison Park. I prefer Per Se. I like Pierre Gagnaire. You just have to get over it and feel good about what you do. What’s the meaning of food to you? Has that changed at all over your career?

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What were some of the service pieces that made the guests rebel a little bit? We had one in particular that was called The Antenna. And the reason I could quote to you the 12–14 inches off the table surface thing is because we measured it [before]. We wanted people to eat without their hands. We had this very thin wire that was counter-weighted at the bottom, and it suspended a single bite of food above the table, about 14 inches. So the front-of-house would put this thing on the table and, as they put it down, the wire would bob up and down. And we would say, “You need to lean forward without your hands and bite the food off the end of this wire.” People would be laughing so hard watching their other dining companions do it, or thinking of doing it, that it would take them forever to eat a single bite of food.

It has a multifaceted meaning. Growing up with my family owning a restaurant where it was a community gathering place—same people came in, sat at the same seat, and ordered the same thing, every day—was it really about that terrible cup of coffee and those western omelets we served that kept them coming back for 20 years? No! It was about the sense of camaraderie, sharing highs and lows—and that all happens over food.

Can you tell me a bit about the creative process that happens behind these dishes? It varies wildly. Sometimes it’s just me alone, trying something out, writing something down. I’ll see something, smell something, touch something, whatever. Other times we’ll sit as a group—say, the executive chef of Alinea, Simon Davies, and two sous chefs—and go, how do we best harness this smell of rain on concrete? Sometimes it’s ingredient-driven. So that could range anywhere from just silly questions like, What is a tomato?

When I worked at the French Laundry … Now we’re onto something, because Chef Keller is clearly expressive with his cooking. There’s a sense of humor there. That energized me. I was like, man, I can make people feel with food. And not just a sense of comfort, but a sense of wonderment, exploration, and adventure.

On Chef’s Table, we talked about What is a tomato? And somebody just said, “Red.” Well, yeah sure. Then I’ll go, what else is red? Cherries, raspberry, hibiscus tea… And all of a sudden, you have a legal pad full of foodstuffs that are red. And then we go, well, why don’t we make the tomato look like a strawberry? And the strawberry look like a tomato? Next thing you know, we’re out here manipulating shapes and flavors and pairing it with weird stuff. That came from somebody going, “Well, what is a tomato?”

If we talk humor, like an edible helium balloon the flavor of bubblegum, or cotton candy—now you have everything. Having a grown adult, 65 years old, being presented with edible floating food and then saying to them, “Okay. You’re going to suck the helium out of this and talk to your dinner companions like Mickey Mouse.” Then, when they start to pull in that helium, they taste cotton candy from a carnival when they were eight years old, walking around, holding hands with their parents. You’re all over the map emotionally. Sometimes that backfires. We had guests that would refuse to eat something [because] the act of eating it was weird, or in their minds it has some sexual connotation or whatever.

There’s no way anyone can do any of this alone. And so we really try to engender the collaboration aspect, ‘cause everybody has awesome ideas to contribute. Alinea’s turning 15 years old. Throughout the years, I’ve been

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thinking about all the people that worked here every day, coming to work with this unified goal to make this restaurant creative and great. That’s kind of rare. It’s pretty amazing to have such a dedicated, passionate, creative team. You’re still so hands-on in everything, right down to the prepping. Nick [Kokonas] criticizes me for that. It still feels right for me. I’m 44; I don't feel that old [laughs]. First of all, I love doing it. It’s the most rewarding thing for me. To see an idea on paper or in conversation come to fruition— to have a guest come into the kitchen and tell me how they’ve looked forward to this for so long, they’ve booked the reservation three months prior, they flew in from San Francisco, Hong Kong, Barcelona or wherever, and they had the best meal of their lives—all that stuff is so amazing. How often, in any industry, are you able to get that sort of satisfaction and gratification on a nightly basis? It really bothers me when I see chefs not in their kitchens a lot, not guiding their team, not mentoring their team. Not invigorating the restaurant with new ideas. That was one thing when I went through cancer. If there is a better excuse to not go to work, I don’t know what it is. But I would come to work early in the morning, then I would go to the University of Chicago Hospital to do my chemotherapy. I’d come back to work, I’d prep, I’d go back down for round 2 [of treatment]. Then I would go back to the restaurant for service. It felt like the right thing to do, personally and for the team. They all wanna see me; they all wanna know what I’m thinking about food or service or the beverage program. I always reflect back to my time at the French Laundry – you wanted Chef Keller to be there. That’s the lightning bolt. And when he wasn’t there, it’s still an amazing restaurant. But hearing him talk, hearing his ideas on food—that stuff’s infectious. As a cook I wanna be able to provide that as long as I can.

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Holding hands and chilling on rooftops in the center of nighttime capital cities all over the world on your Pinterest. Tweeting to each other constantly. They’re wearing each other’s clothes, going ‘round each other’s houses, and making lunch together right in front of your eyes. You wish you were in a relationship like this. All hearts in eyes and hands on waists and scarves around necks. Forget your Love Island duos or your Bieber and Baldwins. At the moment, they’re the ultimate “it” couple. A relationship to dream of. Football and fashion, right now, are getting on extremely well indeed.

Look: there they are again, you think, as you scroll scroll scroll your thumb down your phone and doubletap the screen. Can’t move for seeing them at the moment. Making out with each other somewhere nice on your Instagram feed. 096

It hasn’t always been like this, you see. We talk about influencers and we talk of early adopters and we talk of the youth. Those people with the sharpest eyes, the most nuanced tastes, and a collection of phenomenally well-positioned contacts. And these people, up until a few years ago, were almost certainly not wearing a St. Pauli scarf alongside a retro Boca Juniors shirt with a pair of Umbro trackie bottoms. Your dad might have been when all his checkered shirts and jeans were in the wash, but Gully Guy Leo was not. Every dog has its day, though, and football’s doggy day in the puppyeyed high-fashion world came. And quick. The announcement, in December 2010, that the World Cup 2018 would be held in Russia was deemed as controversial to the West for obvious political reasons. But culturally, it would prove intriguing. The Soviet visual aesthetic would go on to penetrate and dominate the cultural space, and nowhere would it be more cutting than in the fashion world. The planet’s gawking eyes would be focused on the World Cup in 2018. On Russia. On football. Football would be trending, and those brands that were most on the ball would be making the most of it. And so, they did. Gosha Rubchinskiy dropped capsules of shirts, shorts, and Astroturf trainers covered in Cyrillic text and dripping with football references. Palace reimagined the iconic adidas Tango ball and whacked their logo all over it. Vetements, in 2015, dropped a football scarf and put it on the catwalk. Fashion was not just flirting with

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“AS A FOOTBALL CLUB, WE'VE BEEN TAKING A LOT OF RISKS.”

So, in the past few years PSG have made denim jackets with denim legends Levi’s. They’ve created T-shirts, motorcycle helmets, and skateboards with the actual Rolling Stones. They’ve done hoodies with BAPE a nd sweaters with Hirofumi Kiyonaga. In 2017, they launched a collaboration with Parisian designer Christelle Kocher and her label Koché at Fashion Week in a church in Paris. And in 2018, they announced a creative collaboration with Jordan alongside a bunch of shoes, outerwear, and football kits for the first team. In November of that year, PSG wore the white shirt, stitched with the Jumpman logo, for a game against Liverpool in the Champions League, and your dad sat there shaking his head. “Not in my day would a football team be wearing a shirt with a basketball logo on it.” Your younger cousin, however, will have been thrilled. He’s probably bought the shirt, stuck Neymar on the back, and is practicing his dunks in the backyard as we speak. A backlash was split down the middle: older fans thought it was weird, younger fans were excited, but football teams have been sponsored by a pick-n-mix bag of strange companies for years. Portsmouth were sponsored by soft toy makers Ty back in 2002, Atletico Madrid got to the Champions League final with literal country Azerbaijan on their shirt in 2014, and this year Everton have Angry Birds on their sleeve. A game about exploding cartoon aviary. Football’s weird. It always has been.

football, but trying to roll around in the back of the net with it. And, Paris Saint-Germain, with a financial and trusting backbone provided by owners Qatari Sports Investments, were going to explore that to the absolute max. “As a football club, we’ve been taking a lot of risks,” Guillaume Salmon tells me. Guillaume once led communications for legendary Parisian institution Colette, and when it closed down, he opened an agency. Their first client was PSG. And since then, PSG have gone onto collaborate with brands from far outside of the football sphere. They’ve moved, quite quickly, from football club to cultural crossover specialists. PSG isn’t just about sticking the ball in the mixer anymore—it’s about identifying trends, chopping up tradition, and highlighting the products that the contemporary, young fan is looking for. They’ve been doing it differently. If other teams have been playing long ball with the upturn in fashion interest toward football, PSG started to play TOTAL FOOTBALL. Pass and move, pass and move, pass and move.

The scouting system at PSG is no longer in place to merely find the most talented footballers of the future. It’s no longer about heading south to Marseille to f ind a talented 15-year-old striker or having an extensive group of spotters searching Brazil for the next Thiago Motta to help the side win that elusive Champions League trophy—it’s about finding the next big thing of any creative medium. “It’s very interesting for us in the long term to be able to find the young talent of tomorrow,” Guillaume says, “whether that be in fashion or street art or music or any form of expression.” They’re doing bits all over the shop. 101

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Fabien Allegre is chief brand diversification Officer at PSG, and he says that the work they did with Christelle Kocher (If you haven’t seen the collection, it’s insane. Good insane. Think football shirts cut up and stitched back together to make dresses with huge flower prints and quarter-zips. Again, your dad will not like it.) is a statement as far away from muddy park pitches on a Sunday morning as possible. But as part of the brand evolution at PSG, it makes total sense. “We strongly believe that she will be one of the top designers in the next couple of years. That’s also part of our mission” Fabien says. “Sure, we’ll work with big brands like Nike and Jordan, but the objective for us is to make sure that we can help young talent, and not only French young talent. We want to speak to all community of fans. It’s very important that PSG stays right on type for the next trend across all forms of future.” The PSG brand is one of the only clubs—Juventus’ logo change in 2017 signaled someone at the club had an idea of how football branding was evolving, but they haven’t done much since except for a largely disappointing “Icon Collection” featuring some very dodgy denim—to really dip their feet into the waters beyond creating culturally significant fashion collaborations outside of their actual sponsorship.

Doing something with Colette or Jordan turns you from football team to fucking boutique. You’re watching the club concentrate on throw-ins one minute, and then perfecting the hem on a dress made from a cut-up tracksuit the next. PSG are combining the recent upturn of interest in football fashion with a sledgehammer to everyone else. They’re making you think, making you sigh, and making you rap with Santan Dave and AJ Tracey about Thiago Silva. PSG are doing the bloody lot. Football is evolving rapidly and being consumed in myriad ways. Younger people are becoming less likely to watch a full ninety minutes and more likely to watch thirty-second highlights on Twitter or Snapchat. The impact of the off-pitch on the on-pitch is becoming more prevalent: look at COPA90’s David Vujanic getting Bernardo Silva to do his “Have a Nice” celebration. Look at Balotelli celebrating a goal by grabbing a phone off a cameraman, logging into his Instagram, and taking a story of himself and his teammate while still on the pitch. Look at OWNAFC—an app that is inviting fans to own part of a football club and make real-life decisions with real-life consequences for real-life people. They could

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be enforcing substitutions while sat on their sofa in a pair of mucky pants.

the institution wherever you are in the world. It’s not just about trudging down to the Parc des Princes in the rain anymore—it’s about opening club shops in Tokyo, talking to influencers in Seoul, releasing capsule collections in New York at bookshops. “Look at the kits: we have four of them. In theory, there’s one for every type of fan,” Fabien assures. “You still need to care for that core base. You have to keep that jersey that has history, but with the others you can go a bit wild. You want the old, core fan to wear it, and then you want the influencer or the fashion model to cut it up and wear it to the nightclub.”

But what about the core fan? That man or woman who’s been going down to watch the game for forty years? They’ve seen the club relegated, seen the stands empty, seen the dross on the pitch boot balls out of play under no pressure. They’ve tasted the mud and drank the Bovril and smelled the bad breath and the piss from the toilets since before anyone had a mobile phone. They’re wearing a shirt that’s twenty years old and when they’re not at the game they listen to it on the radio. They haven’t heard of Snapchat. They are the roots that hold the club down. Where do they fit in?

Guillaume explains that “the idea is about being able to nourish ourselves from a diverse range of people from a diverse range of backgrounds.” Which makes absolute sense. Football is becoming more global in terms of its communications. In terms of the way it is consumed. In terms of the conversations. Many clubs now have social media channels in various languages, the acceleration in the popularity of e-sports is allowing access to clubs from continents all over the world, and many kids are now supporting players rather than teams. And, with Kylian Mbappé, PSG have the most exciting one of those in the world.

Fabien tells me that at PSG, they are trying to rub out the individual identity of the fan and always trying to take care of the modern football fans who are driving a real and deep shift away from old voices. “We’re always, always guided by innovation to mark the difference and a real vision for the future in line with all the different tribes of fans, consumers… ethics and diversity: that’s the Paris Saint-Germain brand project.” PSG are taking a more global approach, an approach that removes the need for localities and allows you to be a part of

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“IT'S VERY INTERESTING FOR US IN THE LONG TERM TO BE ABLE TO FIND THE YOUNG TALENT OF TOMORROW, WHETHER THAT BE IN FASHION OR STREET ART OR MUSIC OR ANY FORM OF EXPRESSION.”

Mbappé, right now, is world football’s poster boy. Making his debut as a 16-year-old for Monaco in 2016, he helped the club win their first Ligue 1 title in seventeen years, and then transferred to PSG for €180 million: a world record for a teenager. Nike made him their poster boy for the 2018 World Cup with a corker of a billboard campaign featuring the words “‘98 was a great year for French football…Kylian was born.” Mbappé stepped out of that poster, whirred his legs on the pitch, and at 19 became the second teenager after Pelé to score in a World Cup final. France won. Mbappé won. PSG won. He wore Nike Mercurial Vapor 360 x Virgil Abloh boots in a domestic cup final. He wore Skepta x Nike Air Max 97 trainers to arrive at the French national side’s training base. He’s from Paris. He’s cool. He’s talented. He’s intelligent. He’s young. He donated his World Cup-winning bonus to a charity. In terms of extending an unnervingly talented phenomenon from the pitch, to the stands, to the streets of your city, to the streets of anyone else’s city: Kylian Mbappé is your main man. And if he’s rocking up to the Champions League in a

PSG x Jordan tracksuit, really, we all want to be rocking up to the Champions League in a PSG x Jordan tracksuit. It hasn’t always been like this—football and fashion. But football, for many football fans, simply is fashion. Trackie bottoms and graphic football scarves and baggy jerseys have been a part of the football community’s natural uniform since lazy strikers have been given offsides, and no matter where fashion’s current flirtation with fashion heads, it will always exist in footballing communities across the world. It’s stitched into the fabric of those who love the game. And PSG, a club that represents one of the most hip, diverse, and football-loving cities in the world, is repeatedly finding the back of the net whilst it does.

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Between the Bind

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F E L S O N SA J O N A S PHOTOGRAPHY

A K I H A R U I C H I K AWA TRANSLATION

H I SA S H I T E R AO

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Yet we’re witnessing the emergence of a new wave of customization, thanks to Japanese craftsman Shun Hirose and his fledgling customization label, RECOUTURE. It’s hard to pinpoint Hirose’s aesthetic. He uses popular sneaker silhouettes and fits them with outsoles from boots, brogues and many other shoe types—just not sneakers. The result is a design that instantly elevates the everyday. At times, Hirose refits the shoes’ upper panels with nume leather—the same class of leather used in luxury giant Louis Vuitton’s leather accessories. Some notable silhouettes that have received the RECOUTURE treatment include Adidas Stan Smiths, Nike’s Air Max 95s, Air Jordan 1s, and even Birkenstock sandals.

The art of customizing sneakers has changed dramatically since the early 2000s. Names like Mark Ong (SBTG) and the Shoe Surgeon (Dominic Chambrone) have been pivotal in popularizing the artform with their striking illustrations and use of luxe materials. 112

Before RECOUTURE, Hirose was focused on shoe repair and restoration, and pivoted to leather goods and accessories with the aim of being more original in this industry. RECOUTURE owes its beginnings to a wornin pair of Nike Cortez that were given a second life courtesy of Hirose’s skill and fine attention to quality and craftsmanship. His efforts have not been in vain. Just this year, cult Japanese brand Children of the Discordance partnered up with RECOUTURE for a series of Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars that were turned into boots. Since then, Hirose has also become more experimental in terms of materials and design. A number of his newer creations feature Hermes scarves as footwear uppers, multiple suede Swoosh symbols, and Jordan logo metal plates. There’s a subtlety to RECOUTURE that makes a refreshing change from the flamboyant makeovers we see from many custom designers. Hirose creates a very distinct aesthetic, with a meticulous focus on detail reminiscent of the most revered Japanese brands of today, such as visvim, Engineered Garments, and Hender Scheme. We speak to Hirose about his humble beginnings as a cobbler, the art of customization, and his unique sneaker-boot hybrid

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up not closing down. After that, I was offered a position as an owner of a store for a nationwide shoe restoration franchise called “Riat!” But running a franchise has a lot of restrictions, so I decided to go independent. In April 2014, I opened Kokubunji Shoes. It was a pretty typical repair shop. I did a wide range of work from heels and boots to high-end leather shoes like John Lobbs. We focused on restoring the shoes to as true to their original form as possible. On the other hand, I started to want to experiment with doing more original work, so I began making small leather goods like bags in my downtime. As an extension, I started reinstalling soles for worn-out Cortez sneakers. I guess you can say this is how RECOUTURE got its start. Of course, the background to my current line of work comes mostly from shoe restoration, but knowing how to work with leather to make things like bags and wallets definitely helps. Specifically, knowing how to work with “nume leather,” like making specific shapes, and working with how the leather softens with use. It’s crucial to understand the characteristics of nume leather to create high-quality products. Nowadays, others perform similar types of customization, but nume leather customization is more than just swapping the Nike swoosh to a new material, and it’s pretty difficult to execute.

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What kind of store is RECOUTURE? “RECOUTURE” is a neologistic term that combines the prefix “RE”, and “COUTURE” from the word haute couture. The term means to “disassemble, repair and rebuild.” My main line of business for the past decade was shoe repair, but because of our recent exposure on Instagram, we’ve shifted to customizing sneakers. Sneakers are expendable items by nature, and old, worn-out pairs often have a lot of damage on the soles. That's why we first detach the soles to minimize any damage to the upper portion of the sneakers and seamlessly stitch on functionally superior Vibram soles. This way, our customization still maintains the great qualities of the original.

When did you first realize that RECOUTURE “made it,” so to say? It was a big decision for me to relocate to Shibuya, and, to be honest, I don’t know how long this type of customization will continue to be as in-demand as it is now. So we try to keep things fresh and keep challenging ourselves. We don’t see our relocation to Shibuya as some sort of milestone—we actually see it as the beginning. Right now we’re not restricting ourselves to customizing soles, but challenging ourselves to new types of customization and brainstorming projects for next year and onwards.

Tell us about your career before RECOUTURE. My mother ran a clothing restoration business, so restoration was kind of second nature to me. After dropping out of university when I was 19, I started working part time at a shoe repair shop, and that got me started in this industry. There was a time where I left the shoe repair industry, but the owner of a repair shop that was supposed to close in three months asked me to work for them and that’s how I got back into the business. The store actually regained its sales afterwards and ended

Why did you decide to do repair work on midsoles and outsoles? I wanted to bring out the originality in restoration work, 117

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We have a background in shoe restoration, so we do have a bit of a finer finish compared to conventional customizers. For example, our soles should be more flexible when compared to other customized pairs. We also often cater to customer demand, and they seem to like that a lot. Customizers such as the Shoe Surgeon have a business model where they sell what they customized, whereas I start on a made-to-order basis. Tell us about the leathers and soles you use for customization. The leathers I use include one of the Japan’s finest, tochigi leather, to the nume leather used by Louis Vuitton. Leather is a crucial material for us and we don’t compromise on that. Can you tell us about your customization process? First, I peel off the soles. Then I attach the leather that best fits the sneaker’s shape to its upper, then stitch it on. From there, I sew the leather and the midsole together, then I attach the outsole. These are the basics.

and do something that’s different from the typical kinds of customization that you see today. People often have to repair their shoes due to the soles undergoing hydrolysis, or wear-and-tear. We want our customers to cherish their shoes and be able to wear them for many years to come. This all loops back to the idea behind our store name “RECOUTURE”.

It takes about four hours per shoe. Working alone, we make a maximum of two pairs a day. The most nervewracking part is when I’m getting the mold and cutting the outline. If I don’t do this carefully, the final product will be ruined. The sole also has to be carved to follow the silhouette with perfectly smooth lines and that needs to be done very, very carefully.

Tell us about the first pair of shoes you ever customized. At the time, I was busy repairing boots, and I saw my old pair of Nike Cortez with the soles peeled off. Back then, I was really into boots from Red Wing and didn’t like the volume on the Cortez soles. So, to add volume to the edge and soles, I installed boot-type soles. Then I uploaded the result to Instagram, and they turned out to be a hit. From then on, we had a lot of requests come in for more, even from outside the country. If I remember correctly, the first custom I ever did for a client was a N. Hoolywood x Converse Weapon.

Where do you see the brand 5 to 10 years from now? I’ll still be working on sneakers! But I’d like to try customizing clothes since I know how to restore clothing from before. Maybe not at this store, but in the near future, I have plans to open a shop to take custom orders for apparel. We want to turn RECOUTURE into an original, standalone brand. I don’t think many people have disassembled the variety of shoes and worked with them in the detail that we have. I think we can come up with some interesting stuff.

Can you tell us why there’s such a unique appeal to RECOUTURE?

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“RECOUTURE IS A NEOLOGISTIC TERM THAT COMBINES THE PREFIX ‘RE’ AND ‘COUTURE’ FROM THE WORD HAUTE COUTURE. THE TERM MEANS TO DISASSEMBLE, REPAIR AND REBUILD.”

Favorite shoes? My favorites are Nike Air Force Ones and Converse Chuck Taylors. I also like Adidas Superstars. They’re the roots of their labels, iconic. Besides sneakers, I was also really into leather shoes, so the Irish Setter from Red Wing is also one of my favorites. The quality at that price point, along with the amazing balance—I have to say that’s one-in-a-million. What are your thoughts on our obsession with sneakers today? Right now, the chunky soles with lots of volume are popular, but I think it’ll die down and sneakers that are more streamlined will make a comeback. I think it’s great, if you ask me. However, with the freedom that brands, manufacturers and customizers have nowadays, the change of trends, what’s “in” and what’s not, is getting harder to distinguish, for better or worse. DIY is so common now. Because of this, I feel like customizers like us are more accepted. So I think we never know what new trends are coming next. I personally like boots too, so I’m hoping leather brands such as Red Wing will start making sneaker-type shoes, kind of like visvim or Cole Haan. In fact, my customization work is kind of a blend between sneakers and boots.

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SETTING THE BAR

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VA N E S SA L E E PHOTOGRAPHY

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Enough hubris exists following our cultural obsession with health and wellness that it’s now an industry worth $4.2 trillion worldwide—engendering a whole new view on the old adage “health is wealth.” Despite the “luxury” side of the wellness industry being his bread and butter, this idea that health is something that not everyone can afford is one that Joe Holder is working to change. His celebrity trainer status—with clients the likes of Virgil Abloh, Naomi Campbell and Derek Blasberg—puts him in a unique position to recalibrate the way we currently view health and wellness as a luxury commodity. “What’s the point of being an influencer if you can’t use your influence for good? I’m sure a lot of people don’t give a fuck and just wanna use their discount codes, pile up the money and look good on Instagram,” he says, trying—and failing—to sound impassive. “But that’s not how my parents raised me.”

Twenty years ago, most people wouldn’t have been able to relate to our current obsession with wellness: a glutenfearing world of juice cleanses, step counters, countless supplements and the discovery of a new superfood every other week. 127

Joe Holder is in a unique position to take it all in, having had a health-conscious upbringing as a child and young adult. His father is a doctor of integrative medicine who practices a combination of standard and alternative methods in a clinic attached to the family home. His mother grew her own wheatgrass, made smoothies and fed her seven children wholesome, organic fare. There was a Vitamix in the house for as long as he could remember. An Ivy League-educated college athlete, Joe is also deeply aware of the infrastructure in America that places African Americans and other minority groups at a socioeconomic disadvantage. “I exist in a culture that doesn’t fuck with me,” Joe says calmly. “It hasn’t respected African Americans or people in general when it comes to food, unless you’re in a high socioeconomic bracket.” Simply look at how much it costs to eat a week’s worth of McDonald’s versus buying a week of organic produce at Whole Foods.

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To spread the practice of health and wellness as simply a foundational human right, he created System of Service. The goal is to “use service like a muscle” by connecting with local communities through action-based service. System of Service brings his work and employers such as Nike and Smartwater together with local charities, and it’s common to see his high-profile clients at the events in full support. It wouldn’t be right to call Joe’s approach new age. There’s something quite old-fashioned about how he prioritizes the basics above all else, from spending a Saturday making sandwiches for the needy to how he speaks about “upgrading the analog” in client training rather than throwing them on the latest high-tech fitness equipment. The way he conceives of wellness is at once something extremely simple yet exacting in approach, and ultimately about much more than just fitness. His modern wellness model, OchoSystem—an acronym for “one can help others and others can help one”—shares a foundation with System of Service. By regaining control over our physical health, we’re better able to take care of our mental and spiritual health—the final result being that we’re all in better shape to take care of the world around us. Given his roster of high-profile clients, that’s a lot of extremely influential voices making the world a better place. “Why can’t a community service event be run like the best Fashion Week party?” he muses. Judging from that single sentence, it’s easy to see that right now we don’t have many people around who think like Joe. And this is exactly why we need him around right now. 130

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Can you tell me a bit about your diet and personal regimen? I have this thing called Plant-Based Gang, so basically I follow a mainly vegetarian diet. It just works for me and helps me with my energy. It also helps in those moments where you have to eat a little shittier. In my opinion, the body can just handle it better. A lot of people think I’m always super strict, but with my lifestyle that just can’t be the case. I just try to eat nutrient-dense foods and I restrict my caloric intake so I never eat until I’m full. But I really just think people should eat more fruits and vegetables in their diet. I’m cutting out meat but I’m also including more nutrient-dense foods, yet also going out into the world and understanding that I exist in a culture that doesn’t fuck with me. It hasn’t respected African Americans, it hasn’t respected black males, it hasn’t respected people in general when it comes to food, unless you’re in a high socioeconomic bracket. I’m not gonna indulge in that. If I have a situation where I’m going to go out every day and make more mindful decisions about the way that I eat, it’s a bit of a middle finger to the food culture that hasn’t really respected me or my people or, currently, a lot of people. Do you think the saying “health is wealth” goes backwards, where having wealth is actually health? Yes and no. I would say it’s easier, but at the end of the day, we’re still in a public health crisis regardless of socioeconomic status, with the levels of obesity, with the levels of struggle. But it just becomes that hindered health is a means of control on the population. It hinders a child’s ability to succeed in school if they don’t have enough breakfast. Then the blame is put on that family, or that there’s something wrong with the child, but it’s the cultural infrastructure that makes it hard for them to succeed. That’s not to take away individual responsibility. Everybody needs to have that, but it’s taking away that neoliberal meritocracy myth where if you’re not succeeding, then it’s all your fault. Which isn’t really the case. Health definitely is wealth, but it should be a bottom need. It shouldn't be this super luxurious—which is what’s being seen now—situation, where basically you’re just making people who are healthy healthier instead of raising the line overall. That’s what I struggle with day to day, 133

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“HEALTH DEFINITELY IS WEALTH BUT IT SHOULD BE A BOTTOM NEED. IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS SUPER LUXURIOUS SITUATION, WHERE BASICALLY YOU'RE JUST MAKING HEALTHY PEOPLE, HEALTHIER.”

it’s happening, but also making sure we give back to the people that need it the most. Health can’t be a new currency—it’s a human right. The ability to achieve decent health is a human right and you have to help push the envelope for it. Can you tell me why people say you’re a trainer ahead of the times? Who said that? Tell them I wanna send a thank you note. I mean, [sighs] not to sound like an ass, but I’m lucky. I’m an Ivy League-educated black guy, that played a sport, that had a family, that is invested in health, dad is a doctor, I don’t take that for granted. I don’t think there’s been an influx of people like me into this space, and I provided a different perspective on it. I’m not in it for the money, I’m really in it to help. I’m in it to curate and be multidisciplinary, and to really just raise my father’s legacy. I like to bring in other disciplines besides the one I’m supposed to be focusing on. Because fitness, at the end of the day, is the easy part. A lot of people want to do these crazy bodysuits, use the newest fitness equipment etcetera. I look at it the other way. How do I first upgrade the analog, and only through there do you utilize these other tools for the best results. So I think it’s because I flip it.

figuring out how to get more involved in that. I started System of Service and some other community outreach things and I try to keep my hair a little closer to the streets. I don’t take for granted the access that I have, the people that I work with, the things that I can do. But long term, I just want to help bring the world to a better place. How much of the health industry has now become a luxury industry? Capitalism takes its course. If you look at research into the global health institute or whatever, everyone who’s been looking at trends has been predicting this and calling it a problem, calling it the “reverse ghettoization of wellness.” These ivory towers are created where access is restricted by money. We’re creating a situation where people who need access to health can’t get it because there’s an artificial barrier of money.

Where do you want to take the fitness industry from here? I want to reduce its importance. I know it sounds weird. That’s the only way, I think, to create autonomy. I want to figure out better ways for people to rely on themselves instead of other people. I want to raise what the definition of modern wellness is. I want to take that concept of wellness where, in five to ten years, it’ll be thought of as totally different. I want to take away the idea of fitness as being the end-all, be-all not because of working out, but because we need it. The world would be in a much better place and we wouldn’t have to deal with all these health issues we’re dealing with.

We have to play to the benefits that that may have. So if there’s luxury involved, it means it’s infiltrating the cultural zeitgeist, and there’s more opportunity to utilize corporations’ existing infrastructures to make access more achievable for everyone, whether that be through social justice initiatives or CSR (corporate social responsibility) stuff. Luxury isn’t a bad thing. It only becomes a bad thing when you lose sight of the total vision. My thing is, can we innovate into the luxury side to make sure that

I wanna upgrade the algorithm, what’s the new wellness? What’s the new fitness, how do we upgrade our own emotional IQs? I think fitness is going to take a bit of a drastic turn where it starts to refute all the glitz and the glam, and we really just get back to upgrading ourselves instead of upgrading the places we go to work out. Fitness is going to have a quantifiable self and get more mainstream. People will want to do data-driven simplicity, instead of tool-driven opulence.

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Art Imitates Life

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JA K E S I L B E R T PHOTOGRAPHY

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Each meticulously crafted shirt, hat, or pair of vintage jeans is one-of-one—screen-printed, deconstructed, and hand-painted in Sombreuil’s Los Angeles studio.

Sonya Sombreuil’s COME TEES is equal parts art project and subversive streetwear imprint, underpinned by the effortless cool that can only be afforded by limited-run garments. The clothing isn’t exclusive because of corporate hype machinations, however; COME TEES goods are limited merely by the amount of time she’s able to allot to creating each one. 140

A painter by trade, Sonya’s staunch DIY attitude anchors every aspect of COME TEES, going beyond the handmade imagery to the community-driven mentality that inspires special releases. The bread and butter of COME TEES are silk-screened garments crafted via a laborious method that settles the ink deep into cotton T-shirts and hoodies, creating long-lasting, vibrant colors. Special editions are frequently launched, simply in the name of charity. Sombreuil has partnered with designer peers such as Election Reform! and Eckhaus Latta, accenting the well-intentioned releases with playful accessories such as the ceramic shoelace plates launched in February. Though COME TEES remains in tune with its local roots, the brand is on the verge of skyrocketing into mainstream consciousness thanks to celebrity fans like Rihanna and Kanye West. These high-profile admirers don’t shake the designer’s hearty appetite for experimentation, however, with plenty of adventurous items cropping up on the brand’s website with little notice. Sombreuil’s impromptu collections are perhaps the most diverse of all the West Coast do-it-yourselfers, with lush colors spilling out across vintage Dickies work shirts, chore jackets, and even the occasional maxi dress. The breadth in COME TEES’ creative output is indicative of the label’s fervent creative energy; Sonya’s signature style of artwork manifests this restless attitude to fabrication. Jagged lines, scribbled text, abstract swirls of color and surreal imagery rich with context are frequent motifs in COME TEES goods. These aggressive strokes of color hint at the messages embedded in each garment as she references feminism and body politics; religion and jazz; utter despair and effervescent positivity. Balancing the earnest, querying designs are light-hearted one-offs, like the Japanese Jane’s Addiction shirt seen on Kanye West.

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While the graphics clearly speak for themselves, the craft behind COME TEES’ actual garments is a crucial element of the brand’s ethos. Sombreuil sources deadstock French terry, lightweight cotton, and pre-loved vintage garments as the base for her work, transforming each blank canvas into special COME TEES pieces. Furthermore, most items are realized with slouchy, easygoing cuts to embody the effortless California cool that informs the entire label. Beyond the boxy fit, however, Sonya often chops up her shirts, piecing them back together with raglan sleeves, vertical seams, shortened hems, and unexpected panels—all accomplished in her studio. COME TEES’ distinct fits and equally individualistic imagery are at the heart of the brand, but it’s Sonya who gives COME TEES life; she’s intertwined with her one-woman operation, each item an extension of her own consciousness. More than mere streetwear, it’s hardly unfair to call each COME TEES garment a work of art, each upcycled wearable meant to be loved until it becomes vintage once again. 143

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chop and screw my clothes, my environment, and my life. It’s an impulse that is native to my spirit.

How did COME TEES begin? COME TEES started because I was always involved in the music scene and a huge music lover but not a musician. In 2009, I worked two days for a screen printer and thought, “I can do this.” I bought a small press and some ink and started making band shirts and eventually shirts for bands that didn’t even exist...Like music, T-shirts are easy to circulate and very much about linking with other people.

Do you try to maintain a consistent theme? The way I see it, I'm always trying to tell a "human story," which is why my work is often figurative. Faces, hands... these are things that relate instantly. I love language, in particular song titles, bits of music and lyrics. I know there is a message or subtext that goes throughout my work, but I'm not sure it can be said directly. What inspires your imagery? My inspiration is always changing, but I love graffiti, primitive art, religious art, traffic signs, anime. I go through little phases where I am interested in simple things, like a pair of colors or an old skate graphic.

How did you first begin creating art and designing? Art is how I process the world. I was always an artist and my very earliest memories are of making art. Designing and art didn’t limit themselves to the page. I wanted to

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“COME TEES IS A PET PROJECT FROM MY HEART. IT'S FANTASY THAT COMES FROM ONE PERSON, FROM THE SPONTANEOUS AND UNIQUE NATURE OF MY EXISTENCE.”

Who's wearing COME TEES right now, and who would you like to see wearing it? It’s difficult to say. I see a lot of diversity in who wears my stuff. I’m a small brand and I think it’s a small audience who are in the know and down to wear something bold and outside of the realm of brand logos and known quantities. It’s a little bit of a freak flag and that really satisfies me.

Bits and pieces of weird album art, or shrouded personal references. In a weird way, I feel like I am narrating my personal life and sometimes the designs are kind of an evocation. Like recently I have been feeling really romantic and sexual so I made the COOKIE AURA shirt, which is meant to invoke a juicy ‘90s R&B energy. What does COME TEES means to you? COME TEES is a pet project from my heart. It’s fantasy that comes from one person, from the spontaneous and unique nature of my existence. I feel that the energy of my little dream can be heard by other people and somehow vibe with their little dreams. I want to make things that feel personal and human and paradoxically make people feel more individual and more themselves.

What’s on your plate right now? Right now I am working on expanding my denim line and creating new silhouettes with COME TEES textiles. I love making T-shirts but I want to break out of that. I’ve always loved denim fits, workwear, uniforms, and nowadays I really like menswear, so I am interested in making things that are more formal and structured then a T-shirt.

What do you see when you envision the label’s future? I want to be able to grow and mature artistically through time. I love having a following and keeping my audience tight and close and I want them to grow with me and be down for any sudden turns I make because they trust me. I want to make more stuff out of plastic and wood, I want to design kicks, I want to make jewelry, I want to collaborate with other brands.

What’s the story behind the name COME TEES? I came up with a list of names and my brother told me COME TEES was stupid. Can you walk us through your daily design process? I listen to a lot of music and my designs are often composites of a bunch of things I am into at the moment.

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P H OTO G R A P H Y MR. IOZO

HAIR & MAKE-UP LAUREN CITERA

STYLING FREDERICK MARFIL

MODELS SCOTT BONILLA MILOS DRAGO

P H OTO G R A P H Y A S S I S TA N T S JCD TAJ KADREE CHRIS LAURENT

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PHOTOGRAPHY: EDDIE LEE

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New York City-based multidisciplinary artist Nick Atkins has been painting, sculpting, and designing for a while, from oil paintings to ceramic bowls, sculpture, jewelry, and even stools. With Better Gift Shop and Dover Street Market capsule collection under his belt more recently, he speaks to us about his many projects currently underway.

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How would you describe your style? I’ve tried in the past ten years to refine my style into something very recognizable , whether it’s a sculpture or a painting or a graphic; my goal is for the viewer to know it’s me who created it. When I get asked this difficult question my go-to answer is: pop. Favorite projects you’ve done so far? It was a trip to see the paintings I had in The Newsstand —a project from 2014 with the collective 8ball—get lovingly recreated in the MoMA in 2015. That meant the same paintings were shown in a grimy subway newsstand AND a preeminent museum. I like the duality of that. From the bowels to the crown. Me and Weirdo Dave also threw a dance party down there in The Newsstand at the Lorimer L train station from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. It was nuts. I’m not sure if anyone else has done that shit. What mediums do you work with? I feel, and this is strictly personal, that If I want to call myself an artist that I have to be proficient in all mediums. All of ‘em. From oil painting to sculpture to design to even poetry or dance, I have to be able to express what I want to convey thoroughly through that medium in my style. It would only be successful to me if you as a viewer would be able to tell that was me who created that dance. Can you tell us how you started dabbling in fashion? And tell us what projects you’ve done so far. I’ve been interested in fashion since I was very young through skateboarding. I always thought it was incredible how people would express themselves through their brands and the graphic language they used and I was inspired by the many influential companies that existed in the early ‘90s. Fashion and design certainly is an art, and I personally feel it’s necessary to be fluent in all forms of expression to consider myself a competent artist.

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Can you walk us through what Electro Magnetic Studios is about? Electro Magnetic Studios is the name of my studio. The place where I create. A mental place as well as a physical place. Right now Electro Magnetic Studios is in a new space on Broadway, which I’m happy about. How did you get into art and design? For as long as I can remember, art has been the place I go to connect to myself and hopefully to other people. It’s pretty much all I got. Since I was little, I always loved drawing, and my parents nurtured that. In elementary school, being an artist kind of got me out of doing certain work. I would trade funny comics I would draw to kids for all sorts of things. Everything just progressed from there. What are some things you’re working on now? A series of sculptures for a book about the disconnection of humans to the earth. And a new series of moth cutout paintings for an upcoming show

Today, I have the honor of working with one of the most preeminent clothing brands in the world as my job outside of my studio. I also get to communicate through personal projects in collaboration with smaller brands which is super satisfying for now. It’s like being signed to Atlantic Records but releasing 7-inches on a friend’s independent label. The balance is important to me.

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is a symbol for many things: psychedelic experience, drug abuse and addiction, ecstatic happiness, perversion or shifting of an image to create contrast and un-comfort, and much, much more. I also use it a bit like a trademark so a viewer can instantly recognize my work. That face cannot be credited to me, though—I have seen it used throughout history, from pre-Columbian clay sculptures and Mayan murals to Native American trickster imagery to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and on and on. I suspect it may be alien.

Tell us about your background in design. I did attend art school from 2000 to 2004 but I gained more from the streets and museums of New York than I did from school. Not hating on art school, I was just young and found inspiration elsewhere. I am grateful for the experience, though, as it laid a raw foundation for my practice. I learned, like most people, by doing. I worked for a small yet influential downtown brand for a while after college and pretty much gained everything I needed to know to make a living from design from there. To anyone who is passionate about art or fashion or design and feel you have something to contribute to this world but are unsure of how to achieve your goals, the best advice I can give is dive in headfirst. If there’s a brand or an artist that inspires you, ask ‘em for a job or an internship or to clean up their studio and study their moves. Or just start your own brand or studio and learn as you go. Do both. Try it all. Work hard. I believe you get what you put in in this world .

How did the Better Gift Shop / DSMNY collaboration come about? I’ve have always had huge respect for Comme Des Garçons and enjoy being in the varied atmospheres of all the different Dover Street Markets. I know Avi from Better through a mutual friend, Shaun Crawford. Avi approached me about working on a small collection of things based off of what was going on in my studio, with an emphasis on objects outside of the normal clothing one thinks of when the term “collaboration” is used. Things like the stools, the bowl, the rug, and the candle by Olga Goose stand out to me. Thats why I like to call these type of actions “extensions.” They are extensions of my studio practice for the public. There will be a Better/ Electro Magnetic Studios Extension at Dover Street Ginza in early April followed by London. Each one is different and individual in their own way, just like the cities they occur in.

I see a lot of distorted faces as a running motif through your art. Any significance to that? The distorted face or “Party Fanatic Smile” is a common theme in my work. For me the face with the grid-like smile

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With sixteen exhibitions under his belt at the age of 24, Delfin Finley is one of Los Angelesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; emerging talents within the fine arts scene. His work in oil portraits focuses on capturing the essence and emotions of his subjects along with bringing awareness to social injustice issues. Here, Delfin speaks to us about being a young, successful artist in the fine arts within a contemporary space.

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My eye was always automatically drawn to the more realistic paintings. I was amazed to see how paint could be manipulated to make a flat surface look so threedimensional. Why portraits? People are the most interesting to me. It’s amazing how much just a single facial expression can say. Sage, Tyler, Nakel are a few of your subjects. How do you decide who you want to paint? For my personal work, I just paint my friends and family. For me, it’s important to have a personal connection with the subject. I think it shows in the final product. Once I have a concrete idea of what I want a painting to look like, I try to think of who I know personally that would best represent what I’m trying to convey with that specific painting.

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How do you want to portray your subjects? I want to capture their likeness and emotions with reverence.

When did you first get into art and what were your biggest influences growing up? My parents were both fashion designers. So I lived my early years on the pattern table and around the sewing machines in their studio. Art and creativity were everywhere. Fabrics, color swatches, and leather were their tools of choice. Creating has always been in my blood since day one.

Was there a specific moment when you thought/ realized, “I can be an artist. I can do this for a living.” I was fortunate enough to have stepped into being an artist without the process of wondering what I wanted to do with my life. I can’t really remember wanting to be anything else but be an artist. I’m glad my work can support my day-to-day life. Most importantly, it allows me to live on my own terms.

I’ve been drawing my entire life. Once I entered middle school I really got into graffiti, so that made a really big impact on me all the way through high school. Then I saw the paintings my older brother, Kohshin, was making at art school and I figured I should try it out. And I haven’t stopped since.

What’s been the most challenging part of navigating the art world? The most challenging part of navigating the art world is dividing my time between creating and making myself accessible through social media. It can be a struggle to stay disciplined and yet also make it a habit to get out to the openings and shows. Making connections and seeing other artists’ work is critical. This takes planning and it

What compelled you to choose painting as a medium and realism as a style specifically? Throughout school, I became a regular at the local museums and art shows. I tried to soak up everything that I could.

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Is there a specific painting of yours that holds a special meaning? My painting Maybe When It Snows in Summer is always going to hold a special place in my heart. It’s my most introspective and personal self-portrait yet. And it gave me the visibility that led to my first solo show.

can be hard balancing the two without losing your focus and inspiration on your current work. No matter what, my priority as an artist is to produce art that represents my vision. Not what critics or curators expect, but what I feel strongly about. How do you feel about the roles digital media and social media play with artists today? As much as the art world thrives from the power of the new digital culture and social media, it’s really important to see art through our own eyes and not just on screens. There’s a lot that will go unnoticed if it’s not viewed in person. There’s always elements that enhance the experience, whether its lighting, color, texture, depth, and scale. So many subtle nuances that can only be captured through the direct contact of the paintbrush on canvas would be missed if not viewed in person. It really is magic to see art in the right environment, and as the artist intended. Social media should be used mostly for exposure to have your work reach more people. But it shouldn’t ever replace having your art seen in person.

Your solo exhibition from a couple years back focused on racism and representation in our society. Has your work always had such focus? Do you see it continuing to? Making a social statement wasn’t my focus when I first started painting. I was more focused on just trying to learn oil painting as a whole. I really tried to work on my skill set. Once I got to a point where I thought my skills were up to par, I wanted to make work that really had some substance and people can gain something from. So my personal experiences and observations about social injustice have continued to take center stage in my current work. I can’t say it’s always going be a driving force in my art, but it definitely is for the time being.

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Montreal-born artist David Altmejdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surreal-yet-hyperrealistic creations are capable of bringing viewers to new dimensions. Describing his work as both seductive and repulsive, he speaks to us about his latest exhibition, investigating the ideas of identity and spirit.

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All the “portraits” investigate how identity, when caught in a cycle of construction/fragmentation/crystallization/ dissolution, reveals spirit. What work(s) do you feel have been most significant for you and why? Sarah Altmejd (2003) is a portrait of my beloved sister Sarah, with a “bottomless” dark hole instead of her face. It’s the sculpture that is the most profound and mysterious and spiritual I’ve ever made. I don’t know why exactly, but the sculpture itself feels like an event that happens outside of time, on the edge of reality, very close to what some would call God but that I call pure consciousness. It’s a mystery to me. I love that. Let’s talk about your heads—what are they about? Early on, they were severed werewolf heads, with crystals growing on them. The werewolf represented transformation and made the objects strange and grotesque. The crystals were also about transformation and made the objects more magical and seductive. I saw them as containing a strong tension and, therefore, an energy. So I saw the heads as batteries. Later on, I started working on them on poles, at eye level, with open eyes. So they were staring at me as I was making them. This intimacy made me much more interested in personality and identity.

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How would you describe your work to the uninitiated? Complex, weird, seductive, repulsive objects that very often make reference to the body and that seem to contain a tension and an energy that makes them “alive.”

What made you go from full-size/oversize works such as the plexiglass forms and the giants, bodybuilders, etc., to focusing on just heads? For me, the most fascinating objects are the ones that contain infinity. So for a while, the way I would suggest infinity was through the development of an expanding form. Since then, I’ve become aware that even a small object can contain an infinite volume. The heads let me explore infinity on an intimate scale.

Tell us a bit about your youth and your journey to the fine art world? I grew up drawing a lot, but intended to become a biologist (I started university in biology before going to art school).

Can you tell me about the kinds of themes and ideas that interest you as an artist? I used to be all about contrast and transformation. For me, without contrast, things don’t exist. Contrast was the most important aspect of my work, its foundation. That was very intuitive back then.

I moved to New York to do my MFA in visual arts and I’ve stayed there ever since. Soon out of art school, I participated in a few group shows that got a lot of attention. What's the idea behind your latest exhibition? It’s a series of busts, portraits of characters built with a weird “pretty” and “gross” combination of my fetish materials (quartz, epoxy clay, glass eyes, hair, cast hands, glass...).

Today, I realize how spiritual this idea is. And since I’ve become much more spiritual, my main interests revolve around the idea of consciousness.

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Can you tell us about your creative/design process? I start working on a sculpture with a very loose direction. Once the object’s meaning and attitude become clear, I figure out ways of pushing it in a new direction, for example by adding an element that changes its meaning completely. And then I follow that new direction until it becomes too clear, and I twist the whole thing again. So at the end, I end up with an object that I can’t make sense of. A sort of trickster that is always showing you a different face, or a slippery fish that you can’t grab. For me, that's magic and profound. Your work is obviously very much surreal and fantastical, yet also very anatomical and classic—reminds me of the Roman busts and marble statues. Am I accurate in drawing this parallel at all? Does this have anything at all to do with how you blend the grotesque and sublime? It’s true that I’m always aware of a sort of classical elegance. I think it’s important to situate myself in this classical historical sculpture frame, not because I find it interesting in itself, but because it offers me a solid frame inside of which I can be completely free and very uncontrollingly experimental. I feel there’s a very kinetic energy to your work—hands moving, broken things, growing things, things that look like they’re being scraped, widened, or swallowed whole. Is this something you try to show in all your work, and what does it mean to you? Yes, I want my sculptures to feel like living objects that are able to build themselves. Are there any characters or elements that provide continuous inspiration for your work? Sometimes, some characters start defining themselves from inside the work, like apparitions. When that happens, the same character might reappear in future sculptures. What I’m trying to say is that a lot of the things that inspire me come from the work itself. Except crystals. I collected them when I was a kid, and they have been part of my work ever since. What do you want people to think about when they attend one of your shows? It’s more what I don’t want them to think about. I don’t want them to have preconceived ideas of what art is supposed to be, and I don’t want them to feel like they must have an intellectual control over everything. They should let themselves be repulsed or fascinated by the work, like kids walking through nature.

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F E AT U R E D : AIMÃ&#x2030; LEON DORE QUCON NEPENTHES T E R R I B L E BA BY SA LT O F PA L M A R N OT R E

C H I CAG O, U SA N E W YO R K , U SA

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Our obsession with documenting every country we visit and each sunset we witness begs the question of whether we were really there. Within the ensuing pages are some new places to be remembered as well as visit, but not necessarily document. These are times when the perfect shot is worth less than what lies in front of us.

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New York label Aimé Leon Dore’s new flagship sits on Mulberry Street with its understated tones of white and green alongside vintage mouldings throughout the storefront that evoke an old-world feel. The Greekinspired concept café dubbed Café Leon Dore, is the label’s first venture into food and beverage offering patrons an assortment of pastries, coffee and teas alongside a selection of magazine titles. Outdoor seating is available on days when it’s nice out, and most times patrons are able to sip their caffeinated beverage

of choice while surrounded by Aimé Leon Dore’s carefully-curated goods. The timeless aesthetic of the store reflects its offerings inside – simple and welldesigned with bright pops of color. Classic, picturesque furnishing such as plush, caramel leather sofas, an oriental rug and gold accents sit against a palette of creams and muted mosaic flooring, while shelves and racks are hung with brightly-colored goods from the label in a clash of old and new.

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Q&A TEDDY SANTIS, OWNER

Can you walk us through the aesthetics and concept for the store? The store’s a unique opportunity for us to bring together everything in our universe. We can showcase our culture and ethos in a really immersive way. We wanted to build something that will still speak to the brand in 10-15 years.

also introducing new people to the brand outside of our retail space. What do you feel is the most gratifying thing about being in retail today? As we’ve mentioned, Aimé is all about community. The flagship is a place where we get to interact with that community every day. We see how they grow and change, and it gives us an opportunity to watch them experience the product in real time.

Some of your favorite things in store at the moment? I love all the small accessories we are offering this season. It allows for everyone who loves the ALD universe to walk in and feel like they left with a part of it.

It may be too soon to ask, but any future plans to share? Nothing definitive that we can share just yet, but we’re working hard and staying focused on giving the current moment all the attention it deserves.

Why a cafe? The brand is really driven by community. The idea of a cafe was to give our community a place to congregate, while

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Qucon

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With its expansive interior concealed by solid red brick walls, Tokyo’s newest streetwear establishment boasts more than just T-shirts and sneakers. Qucon, located in Toranomon, just a stone’s throw from the more bustling Ginza District, is the creation of Evisen Skateboards founder Katsumi Minami and his close friend Shinpei Ueno. The retail space, spanning 1,507 square feet across the entire ground floor of a nine-story building, seamlessly fuses a traditional retail experience

with experiential design—a glossy, pure-white event space that mimics a skatepark, with ramp and all sitting at the back of the shop. Qucon offers a real skating experience, with a lengthy concrete skate course sitting just outside. The sleek new shop carries all the fundamental items of a skate and streetwear shop. T-shirts, hoodies, cargos and, of course, skateboards, line the walls and shelving

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throughout the space. The retail establishmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eponymous label has already produced a collaborative collection with streetwear godfather Hiroshi Fujiwara and his brand, fragment design. This limited run of T-shirts and hoodies released in March to commemorate the official opening of the brick-and-mortar.

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Nestled in the quiet, prestigous neighborhood of Bloomsbury, London, is Japanese imprint Nepenthes’ latest location. The black-painted storefront with white-paned windows is a seamless addition to the historied surroundings where, in addition to fashion additons, are monuments to London’s deep cultural and literary heritage such as the British Museum, numerous educational institutions, along with being the namesake of famed intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury set—among them poet and author Virginia Woolf, economist John Maynard Keynes, and novelist Edward Morgan Forster. The brainchild of Keizo Shimizu and Daiki Suzuki’s London outpost blends all their stores into one, in their signature eclectic mix of wares and labels which brings something novel to the retail landscape in London, yet at the same time still feels oddly familiar. Dark wood panels line the walls and floors, with peeling vintage furnishings and black lacquered steel racks holding colorful offerings from Engineered Garments, NEEDLES, AïE, SOUTH2WEST8, Sasquatchfabrix. and much more. The store opens out into a small garden, lined in dark brick and delicate foilage, managing to pay homage to Nepenthes’ newest English home at the same time as it does to its Japanese roots.

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Hong Kong nightlife is one that revolves around transience—endless little hubs in the flashing dark, popping up and disappearing seemingly overnight, with an equally transient crowd moving through each of these places with fickle abandon—never silent yet, more remarkably, never still. One of the more unsettling things about the city is the high turnover rate expected from its inhabitants—a limited shelf time for eating, playing and working. Limited space and an extremely competitive F&B industry contributes to the habit of just “going for one,” then moving on. At Terrible Baby, a spacious, retro-esque bar nestled in the heart of oldtown Hong Kong, “let’s go for one” is just the namesake of a cocktail. Located inside the newly restored

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historic Eaton Hotel, Terrible Baby is a bar comprising a lounge area, a music room and a massive roof terrace which overlooks a side of Hong Kong rarely celebrated today: a place of decades past where a mixture of old shophouses, postmodernist architecture and unwavering neon signage reign supreme. It’s been said that the best bars are actually hotel bars—they offer first-rate drinks and there’s always good people-watching to be had. However, Terrible Baby is more than a hotel bar—it is a place for the young creative class of Hong Kong to gather and celebrate local talent through dedicated music and art programs taking place every Thursday to Saturday.

Much like the burgeoning creative youth of Hong Kong who often express concerns regarding the lack of space to thrive in the city—you need space to create, and space in Hong Kong is the most expensive per square foot in the world—the nightlife and bar culture of Hong Kong is driven by the same energy; space is too much of a luxury to just be used for doing nothing. Yet space is plentiful at this place, from the skylights in the multistory ceiling, where one can see glowing elevators whizzing up and down, to the terrace filled not just with places to sit but couches to sink into and relax, to the way bar manager Edgar Santillan takes us through the top-shelf mezcal and gin (of which there were plenty) behind his bar, Terrible Baby is a place that invites you to stay—not just for one, but for a while.

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Mauritius is a country with a bit of everything. The beauty and diversity of its natural environment is eclipsed only by its populace: generations of African, European, Indian and Asian descent that together make up a unique corner of the world where different cultures truly breathe in unity. An island fringed with the finest eggshell-white sand dotted with black volcanic boulders and aquamarine water at perfect swimming temperatures year-round; jagged mountaintops, waterfalls, sugarcane plantations and thickets of jungle crowd together inland. SALT of Palmar is a hotel built into the east coast of the island, where Mauritian architect Jean François Adam of JFA Architects worked

with renowned French artist Camille Walala to create a building that celebrates the island both in form and in practice. Locally made furnishings such as handmade ceramic serviceware and rattan furniture figure prominently throughout the establishment, and travelers are also immersed in Mauritian culture and cuisine through a unique “skill swap” program with local communities where they trade skills with local potters, weavers and fishermen. Walala’s first venture into hotels sees SALT bedecked in her signature geometric patterns and bright colors which also pull inspiration from the local 200

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architecture. She says, “People paint their houses in the most amazing tones that really stand out against the lush tropical setting. When choosing the colors for SALT of Palmar I wanted to try and get a balance between natural tones and bold pop colors. The space is supposed to be fun and hero the beauty of the incredible island.”

of luxury resorts and holiday homes for the ultra-rich concentrated along its shores. Sometimes the culture, natural wonders and uniqueness of the island itself— home of the dodo bird (hunted to extinction long ago) and one of the few places on the African continent devoid of natural predators—falls by the wayside for tourists eager to enjoy some of the most objectively beautiful beaches on the planet. SALT presents Mauritius as more than just another beach destination, allowing guests to see the island through the eyes of local people and love the country as they do.

Surrounding foilage and trees were integrated into the hotel building, in line with SALT’s values on sustainablility and deference to the island nation’s natural beauty. A country whose economy depends largely on tourism, Mauritius sees an increasing amount 201

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Notre

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Longtime Chicago-based streetwear retailer, Notre has reopened its doors on the West Loop after a months-long renovation to an expansive 4,500 square feet. Taking over the art gallery that formerly abucted the retail store, the renewed Notre now features a range of selections including womenswear—just in time for Spring/Summer 2019—home goods, reading room and an apothecary. Over 4,600 reclaimed bricks from a local supplier line the shop floors while huge slabs of rock doing table and garment duty act as a rugged foil to the clean aesthetics of the décor.

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Designed by local Chicagoean architect Norman Kelley, the 113-year-old building interior is rendered in a neutral palette of steel, natural materials, black and beige, with the merchandise acting as the sole additons of color to the space. An events space capable of accomodating 80 people is the crowning jewel of the shop, manifested in a sloped ramp-slash-stairway— dubbed the “stramp”—which also acts as the store’s entrance. The space is intended for lectures, readings, and special events to add another arts events hub for the city of Chicago.

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Q&A MICHAEL JAWOROWSKI, CO-OWNER

We started “Notre Talks” with Chuck Anderson, an instore interview series which has featured notable speakers such as Carlo Rivetti, Stephan Schneider and chef Grant Achatz. A pleasant memory for me, was getting an email from Chuck Anderson when we opened the shop saying that he lived in the neighborhood. I was a big fan of Chuck’s No Pattern work when I was younger, his image “Places You Can’t Imagine” was the background image on my laptop while I was working at Premier in Grand Rapids, circa 2006.

Tell us about the beginnings of Notre. I’m not even sure what to really say here. The past five years feel like a blur... it’s been a lot of just hard work and late nights with many more to come. I started Notre alongside Jose Villanueva and brothers Andrew and Charlie Nordstrom, our team is approaching 30 members now and we wouldn’t be where we are without them.

Can you walk us through the recent design? For this project we partnered with architect and design firm Norman Kelley, Oslo Builders ran the construction, Benjamin Gott jumped on as the project manager, and local collector Ryan Kortman helped with art curation.

Notre comes from the French meaning of “ours” and we knew, from the beginning, that we wanted the purpose of the business to be a platform for our community. We opened our first location in 2014 on the north side of Chicago and rented the apartment above it. Eventually, our living space gave way to a photo studio, desks, and by 2016 all of our bedrooms were packed with boxes of inventory.

The goal was to create a space that would positively impact the city of Chicago from a retail and community perspective. We still have some work to do, but we want

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the space to feel more like a home than a retail store, that feeling of comfort again, so we dropped the ceilings, added more furniture, artwork, four great fitting rooms, a hallway for apothecary and home goods that leads to the last room which is for our publications. We want the experience of the space to be a feeling of discovery, the store is comprised of several rooms so the first time through is really full of finding something new and getting a little lost.

unfamiliar subject. We source our old and new inventory for the publication room by hitting our favorite local bookstores like Myopic, Quimby’s, Open Books, and The Graham Foundation to name a few, so it’s pretty random as to what someone might come across. Currently, my desired article in the shop is the Native Blanket from visvim. It’s an item that can last a life-time and be passed down. I think about my family a lot, it’s what drives me, to hopefully one day support them. For whatever reason, I think about the memory of my dad’s faded yellow Chevy pick-up truck that he drove when I was young. For nostalgic purposes I envision myself getting old and driving a pick-up truck with this blanket laid out in the driver’s cab; but for now, all I need is a new pair of Acne Jeans.

How do you want people to feel when they enter the new store? Comfortable. What are some of your favorite items in store at the moment? My favorite experience in the shop is our publications room, it’s a good spot for when I want to get out of the office for a bit to clear my head, connect with the team at the shop or thumb through the selection of publications, taking a moment to sit down for a few to dive into an

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MANIA

ISSUE 25

HYPEBEAST Magazine Issue 25: The Mania Issue

Articles inside

COME TEES

RECOUTURE

Paris Saint-Germain

Grant Achatz

Tyshawn Jones

Takashi Murakami