ISSUE 31 THE CIRCLE ISSUE by Hypebeast

DISCOVER THEIR STORIES clarks.co.uk

INTRODUCING OUR COLLECTIVE SONNY HALL JOURDAN DUNN MARCELINO SAMBÉ

EDITOR’S LETTER

WORDS BY KEVIN WONG The past several years have seen us all become intimately familiar with solitude, and the accompanying technologies which enabled us to live this way seemed like a godsend of seismic proportions. We have the option of becoming self-sufficient units, literally left to our own devices and not much else. Advances with automation and the recent buzz around AI has us interacting with algorithms and programs which are supposed to know all about us, and provide conversation, information, stimulation. Our world is now increasingly configured for us to exist in isolation, putting to question the necessity of having anybody around at all. When did data become a substitute for companionship? More importantly, have we finally arrived at a point where we no longer need to share our passions, interests, and experiences with the people around us? A circle brings to mind many ideas: perfection, completeness, continuation. It’s why we call our close group of friends our “inner circle” and we sit around bonfires in a circle. We often dance in a circle. More than just a place to eat, a round table is a longstanding symbol of equality. The ouroboros, a serpent biting its own tail, stands for the infinite cycle of life and death— the circle of life. The earth (depending on who you ask) is a sphere. As we live out our lives within this sphere, we inevitably form smaller ones out of all the things around us: our environment, interests, relationships, talents, and resources, how they affect our existence and eventually transform into a miniature planet of our own creation. Living detached from our own circles for so long has ignited a desire to re-examine exactly what matters to us. At the end of the day, it all boils down to what we decide to spend our time on. What we obsess about. Who we want to keep around. In this issue, we want to highlight those who were able to build their own lane, eventually finding people to share it with—and together, world-building with such sincerity that even outsiders are welcome to get lost inside. Our lives can be likened to a collection of demi-worlds. As we continue down our chosen paths, our own circles intersect with others, meeting in commonality, distinction, discord. Whatever ends up in our circles is ultimately shaped by choice. Our circle is a continuation of all the decisions we made: in the end, we choose how and where to draw them, along with who and what they contain.

Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date

Beijing · Dresden · Chengdu · Hong Kong · Macau · Seoul · Shanghai · Shenyang · Tokyo · Vienna · Xi’an · Zhengzhou

MASTHEAD

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kevin Wong ART DIRECTOR Vasun Pachisia FEATURES EDITORS Ross Dwyer, Shawn Ghassemitari, Sophie Shaw GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Franny Fuller, Phuong Le EDITORIAL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Marc Wong EDITORIAL COORDINATORS Samantha Su, Crystal Yu CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Eric Brain, Arthur Bray, Keith Estiler, Dylan Kelly, Adrian Madlener, Alice Morby, Isabel Norsten, Keisha Oleage, Elliot Santiago, Brycen Saunders, Matthew Velasco, Naomi Zeichner CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Chris Behroozian, Philip Nkansah Boakye, Jack Bool, Marta Camarada, Nadia Lee Cohen, Nolan Hall, Alex Henery, Chanhee Hong, Pavielle Garcia, Michael Kusumadjaja, Eddie Lee, Jesper D. Lund, Garey Quinn, Nayquan Shuler, Scotty Tsunami, Darren Vargas, Yuthanan CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS Keyla Marquez, Shiva Mizani CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS Bijan Berahimi, Michael Boswell, Scott Massey SPECIAL THANKS David Bishop, Nick Dierl, Justin Goldberg, Kyle Reyes, Vince Ricci, Addam Rodriguez, Elana Staroselsky, Jon Thorson, Duncan Will, Jordan Zwang FOUNDER Kevin Ma ADVERTISING Huan Nguyen, USA Steven Appleyard, EMEA Tiff Shum, APAC Advertise@Hypebeast.com Hypebeast.com/advertise CONTACT Hypebeast Hong Kong Limited 40/F, Cable TV Tower No.9 Hoi Shing Road Tsuen Wan, New Territories Hong Kong +852 3563 9035 Magazine@Hypebeast.com

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 PUBLISHER Hypebeast Hong Kong Limited 2023 April © 2023 Hypebeast Hypebeast® is a Registered Trademark of Hypebeast Hong Kong Limited

Ch. 1 The Kids Are Alright Every Day Is an Adventure Turnstile: The Heart of Hardcore Nature’s Colorways

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Ch. 2 It’s Julian Klincewicz’s World Neutral Corner A New Day Katsu, Your Drone’s Favorite Painter For the Record: Channeling Frequencies With Benji B Ninja Tune Kompakt Record Bar In Sheep’s Clothing The Swell Dispatch How to Be KidSuper Revolutionizing the Creative Process

54 66 80 92 102

054— 143

116 126 134

Ch. 3 Masterminds of Controversy Infinity Loop Nadia Lee Cohen, A Character Study Dismantling the Formula Finding Equilibrium Do Not Sit Here Attention Undivided

022— 051

146 162 170 182 198 208 220

146— 233

Ch. 4 Style Gone Viral Rarefied Reading Step-By-Step: Natural Dyeing

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236— 255

IMAGES COURTESY OF ABRAHAM CAMPILLO

Double Cylinder by Waka Waka

FROM $1,760 USD WAKAWAKA.WORLD

Based in Los Angeles, CA, Shin Okuda’s Waka Waka makes handcr a f te d w o o d f ur n it ure a n d functional items. One of the label’s signature pieces is the Double Cylinder Chair—Okuda’s reimagined version of a back chair. It’s structured with a duo of horizontal cylinders to form its back and comes supported with

dowel connectors and stainless steel hardware. The chair is available in a variety of colors: natural oil-finished Baltic birch plywood, black and white options, and lacquer-finshed Pompeii red, indigo, grey, purple, and forest green styles.

IMAGES COURTESY OF AUDEMARS PIGUET

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding

$61,500 USD AUDEMARS PIGUET BOUTIQUES

CAT WWR ®

Audemars Piguet’s watch catalog expanded in the early months of 2023 with new styles, one of w hich is the Royal Oak Selfwinding. The Swiss luxury timepiece manufacturer strung this new offering together with an opulent 18-carat yellow gold build, offset by a bold natural

turquoise dial. The signature hexagon face diameter sits at 37mm while the total thickness of the watch measures out to 3.9mm. Additionally, it’s equipped with AP’s latest self-winding movement caliber 5900 that bears a 60-hour power reserve.

REDEFINING ORIGINAL WORKWEAR. Available at select Nordstrom stores nationwide. www.catwwr.com www.cat.com | www.caterpillar.com ©2020 SRI Apparel Limited CAT, CATERPILLAR, their respective logos, “Caterpillar Yellow,” the “Power Edge” trade dress as well as corporate and product identity used herein, are trademarks of Caterpillar and may not be used without permission.

ISSUE NO. 31

IMAGES COURTESY OF STEM

IMAGES COURTESY OF MARCO GALLOWAY

Noel Mercado + USM Modular System

Stem Projector by Kano Computing

$1,000 USD STEMPLAYER.COM

$10,500 USD USM SHOWROOM

Chicago-based multimedia artist Noel Mercado’s works draw inspiration from found, repurposed, a n d vinta g e ite m s, a n d h e’s brought this ethos to one of USM’s iconic Modular Furniture Systems. Titled I can see my house from here, the piece was part of

Mercado’s One And The Same exhibition at the USM showroom, and it consists of six USM Haller storage units, grouped together and equipped with light bulbs that illuminate their interiors to form a unique floor lamp.

After working alongside Ye to roll out the Stem Player, Kano Computing threw itself back into the technology spotlight by formally introducing its all-new Stem Projector. The neutral-toned, puck-shaped device is built to “summon a cinema, anywhere” and allows users to play movies, STEM Music, or wallsaver art from the palm of their hand. There’s also a creative element to the product as users can also rotoscope characters, alter the shape of the screen, adjust the color palettes

of films, and form constellations from similar movie scenes with its sensory touch controls. Its internal storag e a m ou nts to 256GB, but you can add more by inserting your own microSD card. Additionally, the portable gadget comes with internal stereo speakers that can be linked to other a u di o s ys te m s a s w el l a s a built-in kickstand so you can position it on various surfaces and at different angles.

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EXAM INA TION Chapter 1

The Kids Are Alright Every Day Is an Adventure Turnstile: The Heart of Hardcore Nature’s Colorways

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THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT WORDS BY ERIC BRAIN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHILIP NKANSAH BOAKYE

How creative collective FREE THE YOUTH is paving the way for Ghanaian representation.

LEFT PHOTO: “JOEY LIT” JONATHAN COFFIE CO-FOUNDER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHED BY LHIYA NURKIC RIGHT PHOTO, FROM LEFT: “GILBERT Q” GILBERT QUANSAH MEMBER, MODEL AND PRODUCTION ASSISTANT “KELLY KURLZ” KELLY SEFAKOR FOLI CO-FOUNDER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND PRODUCTION LEAD “KWEKU MAPOSH” RICHARD KWEKU ORMANO CO-FOUNDER, HEAD OF OPERATIONS AND LOGISTICS

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“Others talk about pain through music. Ours is our pain through cotton.” That’s the sentimental ethos driving the Ghanaian collective and clothing brand FREE THE YOUTH. Together, co-founders Jonathan “Joey Lit” Coffie, Richard “Kweku Maposh” Ormano, and Kelly “Kurlz” Sekfafor Foli (as well as Winfred “Shace” Mensah, who passed away in 2021), prove that creativity is a viable way to not just live your life, but create a life for yourself. FREE THE YOUTH wants to inspire the next generation—and they’re doing it through fashion. This message starts with clothes that speak to the Gen Z and millennial streetwear communities in Africa. Next, FREE THE YOUTH tells the story of life in Ghana with transparency and authenticity. Theirs isn’t a hype mentality, it’s one of lived cultural experience. As such, price points are affordable, often aimed around $40 USD, while graphics are centered on representing African life: think Afrobeats, strong matriarchal women, and digs at government corruption. “Our ‘bigger picture’ goal is to make it easier for every African youth to dream big,” explains Coffie. “We got it hard and we don’t want it to be hard for the next generation.” To achieve this goal, FREE THE YOUTH operates a store in Accra, Ghana with a deeper purpose than just selling clothing—it’s a creative community hub that welcomes anyone and everyone into its space to make friends, listen to music, create T-shirts, or just feel a sense of community. The brand also aims to tell the story of Ghana—from the country’s trials and tribulations to its love and success—globally.

WHAT DOES THE PHRASE “FREE THE YOUTH” MEAN TO YOU? Kelly Foli: The name came very naturally. Kids here in Ghana don’t always get a chance to do what they want to do—to pursue the career that they want. It’s chosen by their parents. After we finished high school, our love for fashion, art, and culture really inspired us. We took outfit pictures for Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook, and that was new and fresh within the Ghanaian community here in Africa. Some people called us black sheep for how we defined ourselves because we looked different. We wanted to ask for the freedom to do what we want. The name is bigger than us. WHAT IS GHANAIAN STREETWEAR AND CULTURE? Richard Ormano: Ghana is the place that the world is trying to tap into right now. They’re coming for our music, our style of fashion. FREE THE YOUTH brings traditional fashion into the present day. The streetwear here is not popularly known, but because we are leading the path, everyone is trying to tap into FREE THE YOUTH. We are the breadwinners of streetwear culture in Ghana and we’re trying to bring up the little ones. KF:

Everything happens naturally here. There’s a hustle. It makes people entrepreneurs, to do their own thing in their own way. It’s fresh, and there are no rules to it.

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DO YOU THINK FREE THE YOUTH IS INSPIRING KIDS TO FOLLOW THEIR PASSIONS? RO: If everyone is trying to have a career in medicine, what happens to the creative world? It dies. We’re showing how we can make the country a good one by using the creative scene. KF:

If you go to primary schools in Ghana, 90 percent of the kids are really good at art, without even taking art lessons. There are a lot of great painters in this world and many come from Ghana. We can’t let this talent go to waste.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE PAVING THE WAY FOR GHANAIAN STREET CULTURE? RO: We’re overwhelmed with gratitude to be recognized as a brand that tells African stories. But there are always more stories to tell. FREE THE YOUTH is known for those stories, and people relate to them. We give the kids hope through the clothes. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT REALLY CHANGED THE GAME FOR FREE THE YOUTH? RO: Hard work and consistency. But what really changed things for us was our collaboration with Virgil Abloh. It’s still in the pipeline, though. It’ll be crazy for Africa—an African brand, doing everything in Africa and collaborating with someone of that stature—when it comes out. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

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“GROWING UP IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE CREATIVE ART SCENE IS NOT WELL-REGARDED CAN BE CHALLENGING. EVERY KID LOOKS UP TO YOU...YOU ARE THE INFLUENCER.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WORK WITH VIRGIL ABLOH? RO: Working with him was so easy—he comes from Ghana so he has the same ideas, the same experiences, and he easily communicated them. KF: We learned how fast things are. Even after his passing, he’s still teaching us through his books. Anyone who wants to know how to start a brand should read them. He taught us a lot—everything in fashion right now has been influenced by Virgil. HAVE YOU FACED ANY CHALLENGES?? RO: Growing up in a country where the creative art scene is not well-regarded can be challenging. Every kid looks up to you, so like it or not, you’re the “influencer.” ARE YOU THE INFLUENCER OR THE ROLE MODEL? KF: We’re role models for these kids—each one teaches one. Our shop is a creative hub for them. They always come here, ask questions, and support each other. We want to pass on what we know so they can pass it on when it’s their turn.

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YOU’VE SAID THAT YOU DON’T SELL CLOTHES, BUT STORIES. WHY IS THIS APPROACH SO IMPORTANT? RO: Think of how many clothing brands we have in the world. What are you selling to the people? To make the difference, you have to have a story. You have to stay true to yourself and be authentic. That’s the only way people can relate to what you’re saying. DO YOU THINK THAT AUTHENTICITY IS MISSING FROM STREETWEAR? RO: People are just doing it for the clout and for the bag. If it’s just for the bag, why are you doing it? If it’s your passion, the bag will come. You should start from somewhere, they should see the suffering, they should be able to relate. We’re in a warzone. There’s a lot of stuff in Africa that people need to know and pay attention to.

EVERY DAY IS

WORDS BY SHAWN GHASSEMITARI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY YUTHANAN

It’s difficult to describe the allure of Japan. Surely nowadays, in the hyperconnected world we live in, you can find the same fashion, food, and technology no matter your location. But there is something that still persists about Japan that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Historically speaking, this stems back to the 1600s during the Edo period, in which Japan, fearing the spread of Christianity from Spanish and Portuguese missionaries, began to close off its borders. Known as Sakoku, which literally translates to “chained country,” Japan began developing each aspect of civic life to its own unique customs. This lasted until 1868, an exorbitant amount of time for a country to be isolated from the world. Much has been written about the ramifications of the Shogunate’s (military dictatorship) strict policies, esepcially on the lower classes, but amongst the positive outcomes, Japanese life during the Edo period was sustainable and slow-paced, centered around wasting as little as possible and appreciating quality—values that are still held today. Caught between the old world and the new, the country continually reinvents itself with one foot planted in its distant past, while the other is high above, slamming towards the future. Nowhere is this more present in Japanese society today than in its myriad forms of pop cultural exports—anime, manga, the list goes on. Nicolas Chalmeau, better known by his middle name, Yuthanan, didn’t care for any of that. Nor did he have any real interest in Japan before going on an impromptu trip with a friend when he was 15. Born in the 11th arrondissement of Paris to a French father and a Thai mother, Yuthanan had an early interest in the fabrics and textures of modern clothing. Unlike Japan, France does not have a strict uniform for students, so he remembers being able to express himself as a kid. He also recalls hearing people make fun of him from a distance for some of his fashion choices, but he paid it no attention—a resilience that helped shape his career path later in life.

Yuthanan eventually worked at several Japanese brands and retailers while saving up to move to Japan—an ambition that he was dead-set on after coming back from that first trip. Funnily enough, prior to leaving, he spent nearly all of his savings on Lemaire and a stream of new fits so he could look his best for interviews upon arrival as he didn’t have a job lined up. With only €1,000 EUR to his name, Yuthanan had just enough to afford a month of rent in a tiny apartment. Thankfully, he landed a job with a local brand and would eventually be in charge of its PR, marketing, as well as photography, despite having little training in the medium. Six months later, he left as he did not enjoy the rigors of Japanese work culture. Yuthanan wasn’t built for the nine-to-five, not in the traditional sense at least. Instead, he always followed his passions, to the point where they took him over 6,000 miles eastward where he met his wife and began his label, Sillage. The brand is very much a reflection of Yuthanan’s far reaching interests—from Indian and Indonesian textiles and spiritual objects found across Africa and the Middle East, to his own French heritage and the craftsmanship well-revered in Japan. As the brand’s motto goes, Sillage is “Inspired by the world, made in Japan,” a simple but powerful ethos that has galvanized a likeminded collective of people from across the globe. Instead of following the fashion cycle, he releases small capsules throughout the year to better match the many ideas that orbit in his mind. Unlike virtually all brands, however, Sillage only offers one size for most of its garments. Roomy and oversized, each article is made of the finest materials and craftsmanship, draping over the wearer and freeing the body of its rigidity. Amongst many things, Yuthanan is living proof that you can follow your passions and galvanize a global community, regardless of your background or level of expertise. As members of that global community, we caught up with Yuthanan to discuss Sillage’s genesis and what the future has in store.

It may look like Yuthanan had everything figured out, but by no means was his life linear. He dropped out of high school when he was 16 and worked any fashion-related job that would hire him—from shop staff to manager, wholesale to sales, to director, designer, and photographer. “I did everything from the bottom, so I experienced everything,” he says.

AN ADVENTURE

A conversation with Yuthanan reveals how the Japan transplant embraced the country and its core values to build Sillage, a more meaningful clothing brand. 30

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A SELECTION OF GILETES YUTHANAN HAS CREATED FOR SILLAGE’S ARTISANAL COLLECTION.

“THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET IN SOMEONE’S CHARACTER IS BEING CURIOUS.”

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HOW HAS THE TRANSITION TO LIVING IN JAPAN BEEN? It’s a country that’s almost 6,200 miles away from France, so it’s completely different. The culture, the regions, the food. But if you have the chance to come, you’re already halfway there. The other half requires you to adapt. That’s not for everyone. There are not many foreigners in Japan. In Tokyo, I know almost all of them. It’s a reset to the way you think. Of course, you keep all the knowledge and experiences you’ve known from previous countries, but you have to find a balance between both worlds. Japan already has a system that is working without you. As a foreigner, your value is far less than that of a Japanese citizen. You need to make yourself accepted in this market. Like a USB drive or an SD card, you need to find your port and plug yourself into the society. It’s difficult to start, but once you have space, you can make it grow. After six years, I can say that I’ve found my way to contribute to society through fashion. FROM AN OUTSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE, YOU CAN PASS FOR JAPANESE THROUGH THE WAY YOU PRESENT YOURSELF VIA INSTAGRAM. NOW THAT YOU’RE FULLY ASSIMILATED IN THE CULTURE, WITH A FAMILY AS WELL, WHAT ABOUT DAILY LIFE IN THE COUNTRY MOST INSPIRES YOU? I’m lucky to work as a photographer and director. My team is here and we work with many different brands and magazines to create content. Through this, I’ve had the opportunity to travel around the country to find locations. Tokyo is just one percent of Japan. If you travel one hour north, you’re in the mountains; you go left, you have Fuji; south is the beach. There are so many different ecosystems in Japan. Daily life here is unreal. I don’t really have any negative things to say about Japan. Of course, there are flaws, but there are so many good things about this country that it makes sense why so many people around the world love Japan. It’s number one in a lot of things. I’m French and I love my country. The food is great. Paris is so old and beautiful. I think France created cuisine, but Japan mastered so many things. There is a timeliness to everything in Japan. Unlike some things in Europe, when you buy something here, it is meant to work for a long time.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE GENESIS OF YOUR BRAND SILLAGE? It was very random. Before quitting my previous job, which was my only job in Japan before my brand, I went to a party in Tokyo and met my wife that night. It was my first month here and I wasn’t really looking to party. I was only focused on my work. Having a girlfriend or even a wife was not in my head. She introduced me to her friend Masa, who is now my partner for Sillage. He saw my struggle at the shop and told me “You should make something,” because I had 5,000 followers. At that time, 5,000 was a lot, whereas now, it’s common to have 100,000 followers. “You don’t like your job, so let’s find a way to earn money and do something fun,” he said. I had an idea in my head that revolved around pants. For me, pants are the most important part of your fit. They should create your silhouette. The first item I designed was the Hakama pants. I was never into anime, but I always liked the big wide pants that people wear in judo, kendo, and traditional hakama style. I used my knowledge from fashion school to draw the pants and gave the drawing to Masa, who has 16 years of experience in the industry. He’s worked as a buyer and knows a lot of different factories in Japan. I had no money to invest, but he said, “I’m going to invest in your first sample and make it. You promote it via Instagram and it’ll start with a preorder.” I only had a small compact camera at the time, but ended up using all my savings to buy a Canon 6D Mark II. I practiced for months in the streets, night and day, until the sample was ready. I shot the first campaign with my friend. Masa was in charge of production and I did everything else, like the marketing, images, etc. It took a while for the preorder, about two months of waiting. Nobody wants to wait two months to receive a pair of pants. When I first launched, I got maybe five or six orders on the first day. Step-by-step, I got enough money to invest in another sample and after a few months, I could buy a stock and get rid of the preorder. It’s been five years and we’re launching items almost every week now, but I still do everything not related to production. YOUR AESTHETIC IS OVERSIZED, BUT IT CLEARLY HAS A UNIQUE SPIN ON BOTH JAPANESE SILHOUETTES AND TIMELESS GARMENTS. WHAT’S YOUR IDEATION PROCESS LIKE—FROM HOW YOU SOURCE YOUR FABRICS TO THE VENDORS YOU WORK WITH TO CREATE THE FINAL PRODUCT? My brand is Japanese because it’s made in Kyoto, Okayama, and Wakayama, but I won’t say the design is Japanese. The design is more French, because of my own nationality. I didn’t really copy the Hakama pants, it’s my interpretation of them. It’s only “Hakama” in name, really. My brand is my vision of Japan. Japanese brands size very small. I’m about six feet tall and cannot find many clothes my size. I like many brands here—Comoli, Auralee—but they’re all too small for me, so Sillage was also a way for me to find clothes for myself. It’s fun to think of it in that way and the design process is very easy. I see so many brands who are just copying each other. There’s so much in the world and things created by our ancestors that can be used as inspiration. But if you don’t travel or take time to research, you cannot make good clothes. I would say the most important asset in someone’s character is being curious. My brand is made in Japan because the quality is best in the world. But in terms of design, it comes from everywhere and I like this mix. Of course, you need to respect the country that inspired your collection. Many brands just copy-and-paste. I rework traditional items and make them more contemporary because they’re for people in our time and must be wearable. I also only do oversized because I want people to wear oversized. I’m born in France and there is this culture of skinny everything. Are you really happy in these clothes? They’re tight and uncomfortable. My way of telling people to stop wearing skinny is to make Sillage oversized and one size—people have no choice. Although it’s one size, we engineer our clothes in a way that it fits everyone. We always use raglan sleeves, for example, so it will always fit well. If there is a problem with length and sleeves, it’s easy to amend that at your local tailor, but the body shape and width should be wide. I like the beauty of layering and mixing textures and colors.

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An outfit is a way to tell the world who you are. It’s not just about expensive clothes or money. Anyone who has a body can express themselves through clothing. In Japan, people are sad and always wear blue or black. Even in cars, it’s similar to France, where everyone buys white or grey colored cars. It’s sad that people don’t show who they are. I was happy to hear that a Sillage customer let me know how happy they are to express themselves now. That’s one of the goals of Sillage: to allow people to express who they really are inside.

It’s crazy that in that time I’ve learned enough to create an agency with a team of professionals—filmmakers, producers, everything. I’m really thankful to everyone who has trusted me throughout.

CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE DICHOTOMY BETWEEN JAPANESE FASHION AND WESTERN FASHION? In France, Europe, or the USA, a lot of people have forgotten that price isn’t everything. You also need to look for quality. That’s why I make clothes in Japan. Sillage is not cheap, but not as expensive compared to other brands. Sure, you may be able to buy two pairs of pants from another brand for the same cost of one pair from Sillage. But it’s better, in my opinion, to buy one pair of high-quality pants than two mediocre pairs. There’s so much waste through fashion and it’s so bad for the environment. My way of fighting that is to encourage people to buy good clothes.

Besides that, there are so many other projects I want to work on—for example, a Land Rover garage in Japan.

THE ANTIQUE COLLECTION, IN PARTICULAR, SHOWS SO MANY DIFFERENT CULTURAL REFERENCE POINTS—FROM INDIAN, AFRICAN TO NEPALESE TEXTILES. WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE ILLUSTRATION WORK THAT GOES INTO THE CLOTHING? The design itself is based on the silhouettes of our regular collection. We have artisans and craftsmen who are great at patchwork, like an amazing woman in Tokyo who created the whole collection. We send her fabrics we source from around the world and we trust her to craft the collection from there.

I also just launched my soap brand, Onze, which is where I’m born—the 11th arrondissement in Paris. The recipe is inspired by the Savon de Marseille, from the South of France, with Japanese ingredients. So it’s a mix of Japan and France.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE WHO REMINDED YOU OF YOUR YOUNGER SELF, SOMEONE WHO WAS MOVING TO A FARAWAY COUNTRY TO BEGIN THEIR CAREER? You need to find the courage and it takes a lot of time and effort to move. Once you have the financial means to move, then you’re already halfway there. The reason I bought a Land Rover Defender is because that car represents adventure and my life represents that. Everyday life is an adventure. If you don’t try, you won’t make it. Everyone has something to give to the world.

The main reason for doing individual collections is to showcase what I’m into in the present moment. That’s why we have a very short launching date and need to launch every week. I’m always finding new inspiration and changing my mindset. Once I finish an idea, I go to the next one. I don’t wait on seasons, I do it now. If there is an artist I want to work with, I tell them, “Let’s do it next month.” In terms of the Antique Collection, I’m constantly sourcing via Instagram and buying fabrics when I travel. I have two separate entities: Sillage and my What We Wear store. The latter is focused more on items that I can’t sell on Sillage but are still important to the brand’s community, like home goods and accessories.

“AN OUTFIT IS A WAY TO TELL THE WORLD WHO YOU ARE. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT EXPENSIVE CLOTHES OR MONEY. ANYONE WHO HAS A BODY CAN EXPRESS THEMSELVES THROUGH CLOTHING.” 36

THE BRAND IS SUCH A REFLECTION OF YOURSELF. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE GARMENT OR COLLECTION THUS FAR? The most fun is the Antique Collection and using old fabrics, because I like the fact that we’re creating something new from the past. Some people say that you’re destroying history, but I don’t think so. If a young person wears an antique piece, it’s a nice way to make it even more timeless. I trust my community and people who buy Sillage. They will not trash it and will rather take good care of it. It’s a great way to pay tribute to history by working with these antique fabrics. WHAT’S NEXT, FOR BRAND AND AGENCY? Sillage has been around for about five years, and I just started my own agency, Yuthanan. Six years ago, I got into photography and step-by-step, I accrued more clients. Back then, however, I had no idea how a camera worked.

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WORDS BY ROSS DWYER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX HENERY

Memorable grooves, no-holds-barred energy, legendary live shows. This is Turnstile, a band that’s introducing hardcore to an entirely new audience, while still pleasing purists. 38

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“TETHERING YOURSELF TO WHAT’S ‘TRADITIONAL’ ONLY LIMITS WHAT FEELINGS ARE OUT THERE TO DISCOVER.”

Turnstile’s Brendan Yates is a firm believer in following your heart, even if it leads you on an uncomfortable path. “Your heart’s desires can pull you to a vulnerable place,” says the Baltimorebased hardcore band’s lead vocalist, “but if there’s not a little bit of discomfort along the way, you’re not pushing yourself.” Yates’ belief seems to be at the center of 2021’s GLOW ON, the album that’s rapidly propelling the singer and his bandmates— bassist Franz Lyons, drummer Daniel Fang, and guitarist Pat McCrory—toward superstardom. GLOW ON was nominated for three awards at the 2023 Grammys, helped Turnstile land a spot on Blink-182’s summer 2023 tour, and has been pegged by pundits as a seamless evolution of the hardcore genre. Turnstile deserves a large measure of credit for the hardcore renaissance taking place in mainstream music. Rappers, rockers, singers, and producers all seem to be trying to capture some of the raucous energy and fierce authenticity the genre was built on. Just look at how seemingly every rapper tries to incite mosh pits at their shows. But while other musicians are trying to bottle up hardcore’s sound, Turnstile is uncorking it, spreading it to a wider, more diverse, and more inclusive audience without diluting what made it appealing in the first place. Hardcore’s roots can be traced back to the late ‘70s, and the genre came of age in the ‘80s thanks to bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Black Flag, who provided a stark contrast to the avant-garde new wave music that was popular at the time. Harder, faster, and more aggressive than previous versions of punk rock, hardcore has always prized speed, intensity, and, yes, authenticity. “There’s a freedom in hardcore,” says guitarist Pat McCrory. “As long as you’re singing about something you really care about, the audience will be able to listen and understand.”

As lifelong students of hardcore, Turnstile’s members respect its customs and traditions, but they’re also willing to push the boundaries of the genre like no band before. “GLOW ON” is full of the thrashing guitars and rapid tempos associated with traditional hardcore music, most notably on “T.L.C.” and “DON’T PLAY”, but they’re buoyed by outside elements across the entirety of the album. The band’s sharply-honed groove is apparent on tracks like “HOLIDAY” and “MYSTERY”, while “BLACKOUT” ends with an intricate drum solo. “FLY AGAIN” features a soaring, majestic vocal performance from Yates, while radio-friendly rhythms and riffs can be heard on “NEW HEART DESIGN” and “UNDERWATER BOI.” “I think that all of us enjoy life more when there’s no concept of ‘traditional’,” drummer Daniel Fang says when asked about the expansion of Turnstile’s sound. “Our band will always be rooted in certain sounds, cultures, communities, and histories. But sometimes, we love to follow our feelings toward what scratches a certain itch. Tethering yourself to what’s traditional only limits what feelings are out there to discover.” Besides the unmistakable sound, the live show is a key part of hardcore. When a hardcore show is done right, the only real distinction between the band and the crowd is who’s playing the music. It’s a cathartic experience, a beautiful shared release of emotion, and a therapy session in the form of mosh pits, stage diving, headbanging, and releasing inhibition in pursuit of transcendence. “You can sing as loud as you want, you can mosh, you can stage dive, you can express yourself however you see fit,” says McCrory. “What the band is doing and what the audience is doing is the exact same thing—we just happen to be holding the instruments.”

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To attend a Turnstile show is to immerse yourself in a palpable energy, an energy that’s so thick and rich you could cut it with a knife. You surrender yourself to the undulating mass of the crowd, sharing in sweat and spirit. Bassist Franz Lyons isn’t exaggerating when he says, “you really gotta see it live to get it” on GLOW ON’s “NO SURPRISE.” “The goal is to try and have as little distance as possible between the band and the people who come to support us,” says Lyons. “We want everyone to feel like they’re part of something, to embrace whatever’s coming their way at our shows.” Yates agrees: “It really is the coolest thing to share that experience with people from so many different walks of life.” There’s an inherent intensity to the world of Turnstile, but all the members of the band are disarmingly kind and open in person, devoid of pretentiousness or anything resembling a stereotypical rockstar attitude. “Franz does the best switch heelflips,” says McCrory when asked to share something fans might not know about the band. “Dan has the best squatting form I’ve ever seen, and Brendan is good at literally everything he does—he could play sports if he wanted to.” “I just love these guys so much,” says Lyons. The genuine bond between the four members of Turnstile (and their current touring guitarist Greg Cerwonka) is proof of the band’s deep-rooted authenticity. So is Turnstile’s heartfelt connection with their fanbase, even as their fame grows. “Whenever we do anything, we put every ounce of energy we have into the intention behind it,” says McCrory. “I think our audience can feel that intention, and it speaks to them personally, just like our sound does.” Thirteen years, five EPs, and three studio albums later, the band’s process hasn’t changed, even if the sound has evolved. “We put out music if it feels good to us—simple as that,” says Lyons.

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“Our goal has always been to be connected with ourselves individually, so as a group, we can make music that we can connect to,” adds Yates. “I think that when we do that, it naturally creates an opportunity for others to connect as well. That’s what’s magical.” “Magical” is an apt adjective to describe the Turnstile story, from the formation of the band to their rise over the last decade-plus and to the widespread critical acclaim they enjoy today. It also describes their appearance at the 2023 Grammys, where they shook up the red carpet with clothing that displayed their unique personalities—from Lyons’ hand-distressed Carhartt pants and Louis Vuitton x Nike Air Force 1s to Fang’s stainless steel mesh top from womenswear line Fannie Schiavoni, Yates’ Bottega Veneta culottes, and McCrory’s Our Legacy knit vest. Music executives in charge of manufactured boy bands could only dream of such a mixture of individual style and group cohesion, but it came naturally to the four band members. Authentic expression is at the core of what they do, musically, personally, and sartorially. “Choosing a Grammy outfit isn’t much different than the creative choices that go into songwriting or live performance,” says Fang. “We work to find a way to speak our individual languages in unison. It’s very important to us that we always remain honest in our creative expression. Finding group cohesion shouldn’t mean sacrificing individuality. That mindset applies to how we express ourselves aesthetically, just as much as how we play on stage.” From tiny crowds in small clubs to global tours with punk icons and Grammy Award nominations, from self-manned merch tables to head-turning red carpet fits, it’s been a wild ride for Turnstile. The band is flying the flag for hardcore in 2023, and it’s not a responsibility they take lightly. “The same mentality and intentions we had a long time ago are still there,” says McCrory. “It’s a joy to have people think of us when they think of hardcore.”

Lookout

WORDS BY KEVIN WONG

Wonderland

Nature’s Colorways

PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE LEE

Niki Tsukamoto has dedicated 20 years to her craft, one she describes as a “well-researched happy accident.” Admittedly, I had only stumbled across her enchanting work a couple years ago when she was responsible for hand-dyeing Stüssy’s Air Force 1 sneaker collaboration—a project that saw five unique natural-dyed colorways, each transformed from within her Lookout & Wonderland studio. ISSUE NO. 31

When first meeting Tsukamoto, she is quick to clear up that she’s not Japanese by descent but has taken her husband’s last name. She did, however, spend many years in Japan studying under indigo farmers, which she explains, was a path that brought about its own challenges as a foreigner and a female studying the medium. After years of learning, practicing, and perfecting her craft, Tsukamoto has situated her practice in her studio of eight years, tucked amongst the local families and small businesses in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Her space is a wonderland, a kaleidoscope of fabrics of all colors and hues—none too bright or too dull. There was a natural warmth in her studio, and it didn’t just come from the large boiling pots of indigo, or the sunlight emanating through her plant-dyed patchwork blinds, or the pot of organic green tea she carefully brewed for herself while talking through her work. The warmth I felt, I realized later, came from her excitement towards her craft; the pure joy of sharing the beauty behind the process of natural dyeing. 46

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“MY ENTIRE ART PRACTICE IS A LIVE MEDITATION.”

CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE PRACTICE OF NATURAL DYEING—BOTH RELATING TO YOUR WORK AND YOUR PROCESS? I believe they’re one and the same, honestly. Plant work and medicine have been a part of my life since I was a child. My great-grandmother and mother both kept gardens, which is where I initially learned to tend and process plants into food, medicine, and color. I studied natural health and herbalism as a child, in college, and through apprenticeships. I also grew up surrounded by craft, so to include these aspects of my lineage in my art practice felt like a natural progression. So much of my work is about examining consciousness and the way mythmaking and language affect our view of reality. These intrinsic, mundane acts of weaving, sewing, and coloring fiber are also a part of our shared humanity. It has always felt very important to center this work in my art process because it’s an honest part of my personal story. ARE THERE CERTAIN COLORS, FABRICS, OR PROCESSES THAT ARE MORE MEANINGFUL TO YOU THAN OTHERS? The foraging of plants and coaxing color out of the flowers and leaves where I live connects me to the ecosystem; it shows me how things grow, change, and become fallow throughout the year. It also takes me back to the long walks I would take with my mother as a child. She’d teach me about the plants and animals we would find along the way, and never pretended to know something she didn’t. In that way, she taught me to be curious, to feel excitement in not knowing, and to seek out answers and experiment. Indigo is also close to my heart. My journey into indigo began in Japan nearly 20 years ago. It was a long, windy, serendipity-filled road to finding people willing to teach me the previously secret ways of indigo. This was before the Internet was really much of a thing, so it was coupled with many instances of what felt like divine grace—stumbling upon long out-of-print books that were gifted to me, friends returning from travels and gifting me blue cakes and powders that they just knew I’d want, being introduced to people with indigo farming relatives…so many beautiful people contributed to indigo finding me. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIFIC DYEING METHOD? HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE? I’ve been a student of natural dyes since the early ‘90s. I never stop learning or experimenting and I don’t consider myself any sort of expert, because my ego stays in check and I still fuck things up to this day. I embrace imperfections and things that most people would see as mistakes. That is something inherent to my work, seeing the beauty in the imperfect and holding it up as purposeful. Allowing space for imperfections and mistakes to exist. My entire art practice is a live meditation, so I allow it to just be. WHERE DO YOU SOURCE FABRICS OR PRE-MADE ITEMS, DYE MATERIALS, ETC.? These days, I often work with deadstock, vintage, and antique fabrics. Working with local, small fiber mills was and still is a foundation of my art practice, but I find myself in the space of working with waste and excess again. As far as clothing or any goods I make, I’ve worked with a beautiful local seamstress for many years. All of the artwork and commission-based work I sew myself with the help of my invaluable studio assistant, Rosie Barker. Most of my dye materials are swept up from the floors of woodworkers’ and sculptor’s workshops, off of

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trees in my local environment or from farmers that ethically grow botanical dyestuff. WHAT DYE MATERIAL DO YOU USE? Heartwood from trees is often prevalent in my work. Redwood and Osage Orange are typically trees that have fallen and are then removed by tree services or woodworkers. Fustic, Sappanwood, and Logwood are trees that I source from farmers who grow and harvest ethically. I have an abundance of eucalyptus and oaks for galls and leaves, seasonally we have black walnuts and loquat leaves. I adore weld and have a few contacts that grow it well. I work with medicinal-grade turmeric and madder root that come from an Ayurvedic medicine distributor in India. The indigo I’m using now is from Botanical Colors and it is grown by a community of women in India who support their village through the cultivation and sale of the prepared dyestuff. I also adore the work and dye being created by Stony Creek Colors in Tennessee. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE TYPES OF FABRIC TO WORK WITH? It really depends on the type of work I’m doing. For example, if I’m weaving then I may reach for the opportunity to work with local sheep and alpaca farmers to support their carbon sequestration and use that gorgeous wool. Protein fibers are just so much easier to dye and often the color is more wash and light fast. Of course, I always choose the more difficult process, so much of my modern work is centered around flax and cotton canvas…both can be beasts to dye. I do try to keep the fabric I use as local as possible but I make exceptions for a few things. Mulberry silk from Japan is one of my favorite fabrics to dye and I’m a huge supporter of hemp farming. There was a lovely family of farmers in China that I used to work with who had been cultivating and processing it in their old ways for generations, but I’ve unfortunately lost contact with them due to the pandemic. ARE THERE ANY UNIQUE OR FUN MODIFIERS WITH THE PROCESS THAT YOU USE OR WOULD SUGGEST? Yes! Use all the modifiers and assists. Play with iron (safely) to darken or, as we call it, “drab” colors.” You can take a boring tan and shift it to soft or charcoal gray. Calcium carbonate will deepen madder root colors and will help create a clear, true yellow with weld. Cream of tartar will soften wool and brighten colors. Baking soda, citric acid, soda ash, and slaked lime are all easy to obtain and will shift pH and create various shades from a single dye bath. I use all of them in my work. Be aware that any time you’re working with something powdered you must be sure to wear protective gear—just because it is “natural” doesn’t mean it can’t cause harm. Even milled flour can cause baker’s lung.

FORM ATION Chapter 2

It’s Julian Klincewicz’s World Neutral Corner A New Day Katsu, Your Drone’s Favorite Painter For the Record: Channeling Frequencies With Benji B Ninja Tune Kompakt Record Bar In Sheep’s Clothing The Swell Dispatch How to Be KidSuper Revolutionizing the Creative Process

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It’s Julian Klincewicz’s World WORDS BY ADRIAN MADLENER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAVIELLE GARCIA

And We’re Living in It

THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHY, MUSIC, FILM, FASHION, AND PRINTED MATTER, THE SAN DIEGO-BASED PRODIGY WORLD-BUILDS CAMPAIGNS FOR MAJOR BRANDS AND MUSICIANS—BUT ALSO FOR HIMSELF.

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Before Julian Klincewicz was a multifaceted creative force, he cut his teeth in Southern California’s influential skateboarding scene by making films on an old-school VHS camera. The nostalgic quality of the medium inspired him to fully embrace a lo-fi approach that’s as much about communicating compelling and relatable stories as it is the visceral materiality of analog image-making. What sets Klincewicz apart from his contemporaries is his ability to incorporate complementary art forms—and formulate human-centric narratives—into his work. Major players in pop culture and fashion have also sought out his intimate and emotional style for almost a decade. At just 27, the versatile talent has worked with everyone from Virgil Abloh to Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons as well as top labels like Louis Vuitton and Nike. Now, Klincewicz is looking to balance his wealth of commercial work with personal endeavors—a line of accessories, a new album, and a book on surf photography, all of which represent a new chapter in his creative journey.

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“The more elements you can use to shape a world, the more chances you have to reach different people.” 58

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TALK ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND. HOW DID YOUR EARLY EDUCATION INFLUENCE YOUR PERSPECTIVE? I was born in Chicago but moved to San Diego when I was seven. My mom taught at a Waldorf school and made sure my sister and I could attend. Waldorf schools are all about learning with your hands. From kindergarten to eighth grade, you don’t even have textbooks, and students in higher grades make their own textbooks. You might be sewing one day and learning blacksmithing another. You learn how to draw, write, and play instruments based on what you’re passionate about. It’s very pursuit-driven. As an adult, I realize how much this experience shaped me as a creative. I was trained to be self-motivated, do what feels natural, forge my own path beyond the standard definitions of specific disciplines, and understand how those disciplines can influence each other. Early on, I realized you could world-build by bringing different approaches together. It lets you communicate ideas in a language that’s accessible. Though a well-written book can get the job done on its own, the more elements you can use to shape a world, the more chances you have to reach different people—for example, pairing textural images or music with words gives viewers a little more to latch onto.

HOW DID YOU BEGIN MAKING MOVIES? It all stems from skateboarding, which was my window into Southern California culture. Skateboarding is a world unto itself: the graphic design, urban architecture, fashion, photography, videography, and even dance choreography it incorporates are all fascinating to me. I started watching a lot of skate videos, and seeing how they were able to communicate all of that at once was the perfect creative baseline for me. I was filming videos of my friends skating on my phone, and then switched to a VHS camera my aunt found when cleaning out my grandmother’s attic.

WHY HAS LO-FI TECHNOLOGY BEEN SO CENTRAL TO YOUR OUTPUT? It all happened serendipitously. I just started shooting lo-fi and fell in love with it. I really appreciate how utilitaratian the medium is. These lo-fi formats were made to be consumer-grade. People used them to make home videos and so they automatically have a very nostalgic and personal quality. There’s also a graininess to shooting on Super 8 or video. Because of this, the image becomes less literal and more abstract or painterly, which makes it easier to communicate an underlying message. You get to see all of the nuance and it becomes this window into the beauty of banality.

WHAT LED TO YOU WORKING IN MUSIC AND FASHION? For fashion, it was the projects that I developed for skateboarding clothing companies. Those projects were less about fashion with a big “F” and more about creative people getting their work out into the world by telling holistic stories. You’re communicating those all-encompassing narratives through photography and videography. I think there’s also a strong sense of community in fashion. It’s the same way I feel about skateboarding. If you go to the park regularly, you get to know a lot of people and embed yourself within the culture. Music has always been a big part of my creative process as well. I was in high school band and played several instruments—I still play the guitar today. When I edit the material I shoot, I usually organize everything around the sound. Developing music videos came naturally because I was able to illustrate what I was hearing.

HOW DID COLLABORATING WITH VIRGIL ABLOH AND OTHER PROMINENT FIGURES SHAPE YOUR CAREER? I was very fortunate that Virgil saw my work and reached out. He had just become Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of menswear and was looking to shake things up. We worked on several videos and video portraits together. He was a master communicator who knew how to package concepts—even those he didn’t believe in wholeheartedly—in a palatable way. He always gave me a very clear sense of what he wanted me to develop, even if the starting point was vague or esoteric. Virgil was trying to make things he wanted to see regardless of disciplinary boundaries. The experiences I had with Virgil opened the door to new collaborations and projects. Recently, I’ve done a lot with Givenchy. I always try to collaborate closely with multidimensional artistic directors, like [Givenchy creative director]

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“Everything I do is very fluid. It all depends on what I’m fascinated by or what feels right in the moment.”

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Matthew Williams and find adjacent reference points. I need to be able to respond to something in their output on an emotional level to clearly translate what it is—a lyric, a shoe design, or whatever else. For me, it’s less about getting to work with specific brands and more about developing interpersonal working relationships with the people involved.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE ALBUM YOU’RE CREATING? Most of the music I make is soft and a bit blue. It’ll almost be like a score; a sonic world that I’m building. There’ll be a bit of a motif, but the idea is really to write a poem that I’m illustrating in sound. I’m not so much concerned with making an album but constructing an environment, the same way I produce a video and photo series. So far the songs are all quite arpeggiated, and a bit meandering. They’re based on acoustic guitar, but we’re bringing in a wide range of instrumentation that broadens the world out. When making music, I start out by experimenting for a while with no predetermined goal. Slowly, I find a little motif or chords that feel right and then dive deeper. A good example is the last song I put out called “Pure Michigan,” which was all about my childhood summers spent in the state. I found a sound that resonated with that experience and paired it with spoken word, a poem I also wrote. I then built out the arrangements to sort of “score” the poem. The result was a kind of theatrical or cinematic piece that feels very visual. This is how I’m also approaching the new album.

WHAT ELSE ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? Though the fashion campaigns are still very fulfilling, I’ve branched out and started to develop personal projects. For me, it’s become important to establish a work-life balance and set my own boundaries as an independent creative. I want to be more intentional and present in what I’m accomplishing, not just endlessly make work to stay busy. A few years back I decided to make my own clothing and host a fashion show. It was an opportunity to bring everything that I was doing and thinking about together. The “Hey I Like You” collection—which was also joined by a silk flag installation I created—morphed into the new Mimosa Pudica brand. It’s a concept that ties back to the San Diego skater and creative community I’m still very much a part of. I’m developing it on and off but not with a set goal in mind. Everything I do is very fluid. It all depends on what I’m fascinated by or what feels right in the moment. I’m also putting together a book of surf photos I took while scouting in Hawaii with [musician] Evan Ma in 2020. In keeping with the idea of world-building, the book will be as much about the actual surfing as the landscapes in which it takes place. It’s coming together like an allegory for the creative process.

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U PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK BOOL

STYLING BY SHIVA MIZANI

(PREVIOUS SPREAD + THIS SPREAD) SHORTS: SUPREME, SHIRT AND SHOES: MODEL’S OWN

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70 ISSUE NO. 31 SWEATER AND PANTS: ERL, SHOES: ASICS

(LEFT) SHORTS: SUPREME, SHIRT AND SHOES: MODEL’S OWN (RIGHT) SWEATER AND PANTS: ERL, SHOES: ASICS

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(LEFT) JACKET: ERL, PANTS: WALES BONNER X ADIDAS, SHOES: MODEL’S OWN (RIGHT) SWEATER: DSQUARED2, SWEATER AROUND WAIST: ERL, PANTS: MODEL’S OWN, SHOES: ASICS

74 ISSUE NO. 31 SHIRT: MARTINE ROSE, SHORTS: SUPREME, SHOES: ASICS

76 ISSUE NO. 31 SHIRT: MODEL’S OWN, SHORTS: 424, SHOES: 424 X ADIDAS

(LEFT) SHIRT: MODEL’S OWN, SHORTS: SUPREME (RIGHT) SHIRT: MODEL’S OWN, SHORTS: 424, SHOES: 424 X ADIDAS

78 ISSUE NO. 31 MODELS: ALEX AYODELE, KEVIN MORGAN, SANTINO GAGLIARDUCCI, ANGELO LUCA GAGLIARDUCCI

79 PRODUCTION BY AUTHORIZED DEALER, LIGHTING BY GAREY QUINN

WORDS BY SHAWN GHASSEMITARI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS BEHROOZIAN

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fisk founder Bijan Berahimi is one of many

members of the Iranian diaspora who has reconnected with his cultural heritage to spread more awareness and dismantle the misconceptions about his mother country. We speak to the artist and designer about his annual Nowruz collection. Much of Iranian art appears as if in a dream. Symbols float in space, capturing the hopes and fears of a generation—from the ancient monoliths of Persepolis and miniature paintings of the Middle Ages to the ornate rugs that continue to capture the imagination. For Iranians today, however, these depictions are only that—a dream, suspended in time. Bijan Berahimi is the founder of design studio FISK and, like many members of the Iranian diaspora who grew up in the USA, his cultural identity was something he could only revel in private. “Coming from a different background wasn’t something I was proud of growing up—nor was it something kids understood. So for a long time, being ‘American’ and ‘Iranian’ were very separate worlds,” he says. To understand Berahimi’s story, one must learn a brief, albeit oversimplified, history of Iran both before and after the Islamic Revolution. In 1979, Iran experienced what has since become commonplace in the Middle East—socio-political instability, mistrust of the West, and wealth disparity that sparked a revolution whose shockwaves are still being felt. Prior to this period, the country was seen as a leader in the region—where tradition and modernity were being fused to envision what the new world might look like. Eight years prior, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran’s last monarch, was rapidly modernizing the country and nursing budding relations with the West. On October 14 of that year, the Shah threw an extravagant $635m USD party to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. Leaders from all around the world converged in lavish tents set up on the ancient ruins of Persepolis. By the end of the decade, however, his own empire would lie in ruin thanks to the rise of exiled clerical leader Ruhollah Khomeini, who galvanized many of the country’s religious clerics—along with Iran’s poor, rural population, who felt isolated by the Shah’s reforms and brutal rule as well as the country’s wealth disparity. Progress turned to peril, peril turned to desolation and for over 40 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been mired in disarray. Tensions with the outside world are high and Iranian citizens fight for basic human rights. This is the climate that Berahimi was born into.

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COMING FROM A DIFFERENT BACKGROUND WASNT SOMETHING I WAS PROUD OF GROWING UP NOR WAS IT SOMETHING KIDS UNDERSTOOD SO FOR A LONG TIME BEING AMERICAN AND IRANIAN WERE VERY SEPARATE WORLDS 86

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BERAHIMI FAMILY PHOTO

Santa Clarita, California is far removed from the Middle East and, like virtually all Americans, Berahimi grew up with fast food, cartoons, video games, and basketball. “That was what my graphic sensibility was based on growing up in the suburbs: McDonalds, The Simpsons, and NBA jerseys from the ‘90s,” he says. Unlike his friends, though, Berahimi felt a general sense of confusion in his formative years, where even something as simple as the frequent mispronunciation of his Iranian name gave him anxiety. Berahimi has made quite the impact on the world of graphic design—branding for Nike, album covers for Toro y Moi and Alicia Keys, a gallery and shop component to his Portland-based studio—so you’d be surprised to know that he was a shy child who didn’t even open his eyes to the field until attending college at CalArts. While the design world can often feel lifeless and rigid, Berahimi’s aesthetic is a refreshing spin subconsciously formed by the expressive motifs seen across the history of Iranian art and cuisine. Color is a “sensorial experience” for Berahimi, who notes the “vibrancy of the greens” when cooking a sabzi polo or the colors of Iran’s many rug styles. “As an adult, I see a lot of parallels in the use of colors, symbology, and ornamentation,” he says. Particularly within his passion projects, there is a “reflection of the grid of a rug and the grid of a computer screen,” which are both based on geomety and then “inherently nuanced through the human hand.”

The Berahimi family comes from Shahreza, part of Isfahan province in the center of Iran, and have been making rugs for generations. When one thinks of a Persian rug, oftentimes an Isfahani or Tabriz design will come to mind. For the young Berahimi, however, his fascination has always lain in the more nomadic rugs made by the tribes of Iran. “I like the creativity and spontaneity that happens in this style of rug specifically,” he says. “My grandmother started making rugs at the age of eight. As an adult, she wouldn’t make sketches beforehand and would weave rugs based on memory or or thoughts that crossed her mind.” Like many Iranian men, Berahimi has not been to Iran for many years due to “Sarbazi,” the country’s mandatory military service for males aged 18 and above. Instead, he recently traveled to Turkey, where he worked with local artisans to create his first rug, which appears as a complementary exploration to his upcoming “Nowruz” collection. Nowruz, which translates to “New Day’’ in Farsi, is a spring festival with mythic roots in ancient Persia. Today, the secular holiday is celebrated around the world and ushers in the Iranian New Year, which according to the Solar Hiji calendar, will be going on 1402 this year. At the core of the celebration are seven symbolic elements that lay on the spread, known as a haft-sin: wheat grass (renewal and growth), pudding (power and strength), dry fruit (love), crushed spice of berries (sunrise), vinegar (age and patience), apple (beauty), and garlic (health). Other notable elements that are used from household to household are a bowl of fish (life), painted eggs (fertility), and a mirror (the future).

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“THERE WERE SO MANY FIRST-GEN KIDS OUT THERE THAT DIDN’T HAVE CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATION OF THEIR CULTURE IN THEIR DAY TO DAY LIVES.” Berahimi started his “Nowruz” collection three years ago as a way to reconnect with his own heritage, rebut misconceptions about the Iranian community, and educate the world about the Nowruz festival. “There were so many first-gen kids out there that didn’t have contemporary representation of their culture in their dayto-day lives,” he says. “When the first Nowruz collection came out, I wondered how my childhood self would have felt seeng Iranian culture represented in this way.” The response across social media has been remarkable, not just from Iranians, but from people of various backgrounds, who were equally as interested in the traditions of this ancient nation. “It’s been a beautiful way for me to connect with the diaspora— especially other brown creatives who have had a similar upbringing to me. I never expected that,” Berahimi adds. “I’ve felt isolated in Portland over the last decade, and connecting with creative Iranians around the world has made me feel more at home. These new relationships and knowing there’s more people like me working in the industry has been so inspiring.” Like many Iranians across the world, the death of Mahsa “Jina” Amini was profoundly felt by Berahimi. On September 16, 2022, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was killed at the hands of the country’s morality police, who punished her for improperly wearing her hijab. Since then, many in Iran have revolted against its authoritarian leadership. The regime has cut off Internet connectivity around the country, and over 500 men, women, and children have died, with over 20,000 protesters being arrested or tortured as well. At the time of writing, nationwide protests and global rallies calling for an end to Iran’s regime are still taking place. Berahimi is not a politician, but he understands that everyone has the ability to contribute to a cause in their own unique way. “As an Iranian creator with family in both America and Iran, it’s a really sensitive subject,” he muses. “What I’ve learned within the last few movements—whether it is Black Lives Matter or the Women’s March— is that I can support these communities through the things that I’m skilled at, like designing and printing posters that communicate clearly, are free, and are readily available to make supporting the movement easier for others.” That started through the dissemination of poster designs for the Iranian Green Movement in 2009 and the woman-led protests of today, which have been dubbed “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi,” or “Woman, Life, Freedom” in English.

GRAPHIC DESIGN BY BIJAN BERAHIMI

Leaning into the notion of a “New Day, New Year,” Berahimi sees the latest “Nowruz” collection as a metaphor for where his mother country is at. “This is an opportunity for a new Iran.”

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KATSU, YOUR DRONE’S FAVORITE PAINTER FROM OUTFITTING DRONES WITH SPRAY CANS TO TAGGING AROUND NEW YORK CITY, HIS IMPRINT ISN’T RESERVED TO THE CONFINES OF A WALL OR CANVAS.

WORDS BY KEITH ESTILER

ARTWORK BY KATSU

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“COMING TO NYC WAS THE ONLY WAY FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND MY PLACE IN GRAFFITI AND UNLOCK WHAT MY ALIAS WOULD LOOK LIKE.” 94

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Over the past decade, KATSU has introduced a novel way of painting by utilizing specially designed drones—that can be fully or partially controlled— to paint directly on a canvas. K ATSU’s fun, striking, and thought-provoking work raises questions about the future of art and whether the use of technology in its creation is a natural progression from the practices of artists like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and Takashi Murakami—who often don’t create their work themselves, instead relying on a team of skilled studio assistants to bring their artistic vision to life. KATSU’s use of technology also highlights the growing importance of digital media and the increasing role of machines in our lives as he explores themes like authorship, identity, commodity, and the relationship between humans and technology. KATSU’s diverse background informs his art practices. He was raised in Kyoto, Japan, which greatly influenced his appreciation for aesthetics,

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technology, and art. As a young child, he’d draw for hours on whatever he could find, including receipts and junk mail envelopes. In his teenage years, KATSU became interested in graffiti culture and moved to New York City to immerse himself in the scene, where he was fascinated by the scale and competitiveness of graffiti and the way it blended colors, graphics, letters, and characters. Over time, he developed his own signature character: the KATSU Skull, which has become a symbol of family and a source of meditative trance for him. In addition to traditional graffiti techniques, KATSU has explored the relationship between fine art and graffiti in his practice, with intention being the defining factor between the two. The transition from graffiti to commercial art was inspired by his desire to reach a wider audience, while exploring new mediums and showcasing work in an international setting.

“THE DRONE PAINTINGS REQUIRE ME TO LET GO OF MY INFLUENCE ON THE TOOLS, CHALLENGING MY AUTHORSHIP, AND RIDDING ME OF ANY VISION OF HOW A WORK MAY END UP. THE PROCESS IS BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL, AND THERE’S A DEEP LEVEL OF ACCEPTANCE EVERY TIME.”

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WHAT DREW YOU TO NYC GRAFFITI CULTURE? Graffiti was born in NYC, and the scale that it existed at brought me here. If you painted a spot in the city, it had a real chance at surviving and being noted by other writers. NYC is also an arena where you’re competing amongst the most creative, daring, and aggressive graffiti writers in the world. Coming to NYC was the only way for me to understand my place in graffiti and unlock what my alias would look like. When I moved to NYC in the late ‘90s, the culture was completely secret. You had to learn everything, from tools to locations, by word of mouth and rumor. The aesthetics and styles were completely locked off, and you had to study and be mentored to create a name of your own. WHAT INSPIRED YOUR SIGNATURE KATSU SKULL CHARACTER? About 25 years ago, I became interested in speed tagging as single stroke tags and throw ups seemed like a more effective way to get up. While I was doing that, I stumbled on a primitive version of the skull that I could paint quickly. Now, it’s more like a family symbol for me. I’ve probably drawn or painted it a million times. When I do it now, it’s like a little meditative trance. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUR FINE ART AND GRAFFITI PRACTICES? The relationship constantly fluctuates, but intention is the defining factor. Graffiti is an active behavior, which is really difficult to put in a gallery, where drone painting, for instance, is removed from the street or public entirely: it’s an intimate form that can only exist in the studio. THE WORKS SHOWCASED IN MECHA, YOUR EUROPEAN DEBUT EXHIBITION AT OMNI, EMPLOYED SPECIALIZED SOFTWARE AND CUSTOM-MADE DRONE TECHNOLOGY. TELL US ABOUT USING THIS INNOVATIVE APPROACH. My current drone paintings are a combination of technology and painting by hand. I’ve become infatuated with using a drone to hide the human touch and that duality is what my current work is about. The show exhibited many forms of my amorphous definition of “drone”: stationary drones, flying drones, and rail drones made the works in MECHA. WOULD YOU SAY YOU PLAY AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THE CREATION OF THESE DRONE-PAINTED WORKS? The Gutai movement, which I draw a lot of inspiration from, puts a large emphasis on the process of painting and making art. The drone paintings require me to let go of my influence on the tools, challenging my authorship, and ridding me of any vision of how a work may end up. The process is both physical and mental, and there’s a deep level of acceptance every time. WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON HOW TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL ADVANCEMENTS ARE AFFECTING THE FUTURE OF ART? Tech is forming the bridge—it’s our stage in current biology. I think the use of tech in art will continue to grow as it does in our lives. ChatGPT has made me wonder exactly how I “feel” about the connection between art and literature. I want an intention. How could I be profoundly affected by words that cannot be linked back to a human? Is it the wordsmithing of the artist that I should appreciate? Fuck my life.

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CHANNELING FREQUENCIES

FOR THE RECORD:

W/ WORDS BY ARTHUR BRAY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTA CAMARADA

Benji B Ninja Tune Kompakt Record Bar + In Sheep’s Clothing

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While it’s fair to say that technology allows for greater possibilities, one can argue that we’re also growing further away from organic nuance—that is happy accidents. Perhaps this stems from a machine’s inability to provide nuance, which, in its absence, affirms human connection and personal complexity as irreplaceable. London-based radio station NTS, proudly states on its homepage that “as the algorithm takes over, the real music community is more important than ever.” Now, take the time-tested physical record, which serves as a relic of traditional music sales. Once synonymous with the success of an artist, record sales have largely been replaced for by digital streams. Once the only way DJs could share music to the masses, the record is now an artifact synonymous with niche music lovers. Despite the changing times, a core ecosystem of DJs, record shops, and record labels continue to support one another in this niche circle. Here, we speak with Benji B, radio presenter and DJ at BBC Radio 1, Jonathan More, co-founder of London independent imprint Ninja Tune, Jinmoo Choi of Seoul’s Kompakt Record Bar, and Jonny Garciaros of Los Angeles’ In Sheep’s Clothing record shop to learn more about what vinyl means to them and how their relationship with record culture has changed with the times.

WHAT VINYL MEANS TO YOU... BENJI B (BBC RADIO 1): For my generation, if you were into music and had a desire to be a

DJ, then your first addiction in life was usually vinyl. I was a teenager in the late ‘90s and all my influences—nightclub culture, DJing, and music—came from vinyl. So it was like a prerequisite growing up, that you had to have a very extensive vinyl collection in order to be able to even think of yourself as a DJ. Vinyl is the baseline standard of how I grew up experiencing music. Any pocket money I had, I’d choose to buy records rather than takeaway meals. Now people fetishize vinyl like it’s some cool thing, but really if you were from my generation, that’s just what DJing was. JINMOO (KOMPAKT RECORD BAR): I started DJing and collecting vinyl because of my love for hip-hop artists like Grandmaster Flash and Jam Master Jay. DJing helps me build new relationships with an audience through music. Vinyl has given me this meaning and purpose in life. JON (NINJA TUNE): I have an existential crisis about vinyl on a regular basis. I love it, almost to an addiction level, but should I be consuming so much physical stuff? It’s made out of fossil fuel, I’ve got a stupid amount anyway. Am I going to have time to listen to it? My years on this planet left versus the actual listening hours are incompatible. After the crisis subsides, it’s straight to the Internet again, where I’m hunting on Bandcamp, contemplating whether I should get the digital or vinyl, and getting the vinyl. There’s beauty in order, but there’s also beauty in madness. I veer between those two states often. JONNY (IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING RECORD SHOP): I started buying records a little over 10 years ago. There was a Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers) song I discovered from a BBC1 radio show that was only available on vinyl, so I decided to take the plunge and get my first record. I was DJing for a few years at the time but only via CDJs and Ableton, so transitioning into playing records was a tough learning curve, but rewarding in the end. There is a connection and confidence you get from playing your physical records over digital files.

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THE REVIVAL OF VINYL.. BENJI B: The audiophile community has always been massive in Japan. JBS and Bar Martha are two of the originators. Mr. Kobayashi in JBS is a bit of a celebrity. Lion Cafe is a crazy place where you feel like you’re in a weird school that plays classical music on hi-fi speakers. People resonate with listening bars in different ways and that is due to novelty, because for many, this is their first time interacting with vinyl as an object. The majority are responding to something they can’t define, where it’s nice to have a physical manifestation of artistic ideas. JINMO: I used to be focused on the vinyls that I could play at parties or hip-hop singles, since it was hard to find the original records at that time. Now with the digital generation, most music is readily available, so I look for originality and exciting genres. Over the years, my perspective towards vinyl has changed to consider it more than just music. The genre, artist, the year it was pressed, artwork, and condition all play a part.

JON:

JONNY:

WHY DOES PHYSICAL MATTER? I’ve always gravitated to things based on reality. There’s something special to me about the in-person connection and real-world community of record exchange. There’s something invaluable to holding a physical object from a project you care about. Physical possession is similar to buying gold or diamonds. I trained as a jeweler in art college, so I can really appreciate vinyl as an ornamental form of expression. HOW DO RECORD SLEEVES COMPLEMENT THE MUSIC? Any sort of art-buying is special because there’s a human connection, putting a mark on a piece of paper. That connection, however tenuous or obscure, is still there between an artist, musician, and the formats that they create. When you pull a record with an old and tattered sleeve off the shelf, you might discover something out of the ordinary, something that speaks to you. It’s a bit like gambling. I kind of like buying vinyl where I know nothing about it. It’s like “try me.” There’s plenty of great records with ridiculous artwork, but I tend to keep an eye out for interesting cover art, choice of fonts, credited players, and versions such as dubs or remixes. The correlation between graphic design and music production quality are two mediums that make digging exciting.

GOOD MUSIC IS GOOD MUSIC, NO MATTER THE FORMAT… BENJI B (BBC RADIO 1): I still enjoy vinyl the most as a format, but I also am absolutely in tune with the fact that it’s what’s on the thing that’s important. However you choose to DJ fundamentally doesn’t matter. However you choose to make music, doesn’t matter. Music is what’s important, right?

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WHEN YOU PULL A RECORD WITH AN OLD AND TATTERED SLEEVE OFF THE SHELF, YOU MIGHT DISCOVER SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY, SOMETHING THAT SPEAKS TO YOU. IT’S A BIT LIKE GAMBLING.

JONNY:

—JONATHAN MORE

PHYSICAL VS. DIGITAL… BENJI: One of the best things that happened to me was digital music, because if it hadn’t arrived in the early ‘00s I would’ve had to move to the countryside and buy a massive warehouse or something, since the amount of music I already had at that point was probably 10-15,000 records. Now it’s flipped, right? So if someone gives you an amazing record and you’re a digital DJ, you’re thinking, “how can I get this record onto my USB?” In the ‘90s, it was the opposite. It was like, “how can I get this digital file onto a record?” JINMOO: Analog and digital have coexisted for a while, and both complement one another. I stream online, then I purchase the physical. Digital is just a tool for me to further pursue my love for physical music.

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JINMOO: The music itself never changes, whether it is in digital format or vinyl. Due to various media formats, artists are now able to communicate differently. Good music has to be listened to by more people, and how these different tools elevate the music experience is ultimately what’s most important. JON: You’re only as good as your last record. That’s the attitude from a DJ’s perspective. There’s a lot of competition but the whole industry comes in waves. The major labels have gotten a lot better at being nimble, and some independent labels have gotten sluggish acting like majors, but there’s room for everybody.

JINMOO:

JON:

BENJI B:

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GETTING YOUR HANDS ON RARE VINYL JON: When I was DJing a lot in the late ‘80s, I once flew to America and bought a bunch of records, then flew back to London that evening to play them. The flight was much cheaper in those days. I paid roughly £80 GBP to go to New York and explore a dusty basement with strange record shop owners. Why not? JONNY: I’m more focused on discovering new things for others these days. It’s been fun to open my ears to other sounds and styles outside of what I’d pick up for DJing or listen to myself. My friend Takumi runs Galapagos, a great online shop out of Japan that specializes in all things Latin American, Japanese and ambient, so I do most of my digging there. I went to Hawaii once and found a record by The Kim Sisters & The Kim Brothers, Live at the Waikiki Outrigger Hotel, by Makaha, the 1970s Hawaiian record label. The Kim Sisters were the first Korean female trio that performed in the United States in the ‘60s on The Ed Sullivan Show. AI AND ROBOTS WILL NEVER REPLACE HUMANS… When we talk about AI and the digital age, record store owners could be replaced by robots too—but their stories and relationships can’t be. You have to know how to work with record shop owners. It can be beneficial but they can also be a nightmare. They won’t sell you something for some reason. They can take offense easily because you said something they didn’t like. They’re a strange bunch. Robots, however, are quite predictable. We’re all our unique thumbprints and a point of view is essential. Ableton and the sync button have solved the beat-matching problem, but I still want to hear the human touch. Two songs can be mixed if they’re the same BPM, but that ignores all the other factors. Are they in the right key? Are they in the right mood? Sure, they’re in the right range, but are you just trying to match two things on your shopping list? You need a human decision based on mood and sound, not just matching numbers. So far in history, only humans can do that for other humans. Spotify shows us the algorithms are phenomenally good, but imperfection is also beautiful. ISSUE NO. 31

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NOT ONLY IS THAT INTENTION AN INVISIBLE FREQUENCY THAT PEOPLE CAN FEEL WHEN THEY HEAR YOU PLAY, BECAUSE THE EFFORT IS MORE, BUT IT JUST MEANS THAT THERE’S MORE CARE THAN ME SORTING OUT A USB STICK IN THE BACK OF A CAB ON THE WAY TO THE GIG.

—BENJI B

FUNCTIONAL VS. SENTIMENTAL.. JON: Vinyl is a wonderful cultural object. It’s as much functional as it is sentimental. Those three elements are encapsulated in vinyl. If you hear the first record from the cheesy disco or the song at the wedding you cried to via vinyl, it’s even more impactful. BENJI B: Vinyl is part of my life, but I’m not attached to vinyl only. Back in the day, if someone gave you a digital file it would have been on a DAT tape, a song burned onto a CD, or an acetate “dubplate.”

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BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS TO THE REVIVAL OF VINYL… JONNY: Some of the benefits I’ve noticed are more record stores opening, creating more opportunities for community hubs to flourish, and a chance for discovery with a younger audience. Drawbacks could be seen in the delays and pressures that pressing plants are feeling from the increase of demand. With that also comes a lack of quality control that can lead to pressing flaws, which are basically creating more waste for our planet. JON: The community is the focal point, but if you go into a high street supermarket these days, you can see all sorts of vinyl pressed and sometimes you do wonder “what’s the point?” Vinyl is an energy-intensive production, so I’d imagine streaming is more enviromentally friendly. BENJI B: There can be nothing negative about people finding a way to appreciate music. Due to the popularity of vinyl, major record labels have been taking up pressing plants’ resources—so independant labels can’t press records on Record Store Day, which was a day made to celebrate those independant labels. But it’s a bit of a dichotomy: there’s a market for it, just not enough pressing plants.

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GRAPHIC DESIGN BY SCOTT MASSEY

PREPPING A VINYL SET MEANS YOU TAKE YOUR TIME TO THINK ABOUT THE PURCHASE. IF SOMETHING REQUIRES MORE THOUGHT, IT HOLDS MORE MEANING.

—JINMOO CHOI

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THE EFFORT MAKES YOU BETTER… BENJI B: I once packed two crates for an all-vinyl gig at Dante’s Hi-Fi in Miami. In order for me to do this one gig, I had to plan what I was going to put in those boxes and take them halfway around the world. The fact that I’m making a big deal out of this means I had to think about the mood, who was on the lineup, who had already played the club that week. I had to put a great deal of love and care into the process. That intention the format demands makes you better at the job. Not only is that intention an invisible frequency that people can feel when they hear you play, it also means that there’s more care in the process than just sorting out a USB stick in the back of a car on the way to the gig. JINMOO: Mixing familiar vinyl with new music to create a set is not an easy task, but it makes me sharper at what I do. Prepping a vinyl set means you take your time to think about the purchase. If something requires more thought, it holds more meaning. This kind of purchasing habit correlates with the attitude of the vinyl community. The attitude is not only reflected in your record collection, but in your lifestyle, fashion sense, design sensibility, and all creative outlooks.

RESEARCH

THE SWELL DISPATCH PHOTOGRAPHY BY NOLAN HALL

WESTERN

HYDRODYNAMIC

WORDS BY BRYCEN SAUNDERS

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Taking a daily five-mile bike ride to the beach at 5:00 a.m. would be a peculiar activity for most people. But for Western Hydrodynamic Research founder Pat Towersey, it’s just a journey to his second home. Towersey, an avid surfer, caught his first wave at nine years old, and since then, everything in his life has felt right when he’s at the beach. Skating, snowboarding, and surfing are a way of life for Towersey. Only three years after catching that first wave, the Costa Mesa native garnered a sponsorship from Volcom and was thrust into the fold of global action sports culture. After surfing professionally into his early 20s, Towersey maneuvered to the brand side of the industry, first working as a brand manager for RVCA before pivoting to Hurley, where he was the Director of Influencer and Community Marketing. 118

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“WHR IS A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AROUND MY EXPERIENCES AND PASSIONS.”

But even amongst all of his experiences on the beach and at the office, Towersey knew he was just beginning to share himself with the world. In 2020, he started Western Hydrodynamic Research (WHR) as a means of merging his lifelong love of the ocean with his zeal for creating community. Three years after it was founded, the brand has amassed a loyal group of supporters who are keen on its reimagined deadstock garments, beach utility products, and appetite for the ocean. From apparel workshops to surf wax pop-ups, WHR is catching its wave. 120

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“THAT’S THE ONE GREAT THING ABOUT PLAYING IN THE MINOR LEAGUES: YOU HAVE TO KEEP GETTING ON BASE TO SURVIVE.”

WHAT’S YOUR BRAND ETHOS? WHR is a stream of consciousness around my experiences and passions, from loving the ocean and nature to building community. I’m 41 now and when I was nine I caught my first wave surfing. I’ve been pretty addicted to the ocean since then, so I’m trying to communicate that feeling and passion through the brand as I build out its purpose. YOU’VE WORKED AT HEAVY HITTERS LIKE HURLEY AND RVCA, AND CREATED WITH ARTISTS LIKE TOM SACHS AND CRAIG STECYK. WHAT HAVE THESE EXPERIENCES TAUGHT YOU ABOUT EVOLVING YOUR BRAND? I’ve learned that I don’t want to do anything stressful. With big brands, there’s a lot of internal work that goes into selling products and I’m just not that way. I just want to do something today, put it out tomorrow, and put a smile on someone’s face. YOUR BRAND HARBORS AN EDUCATIONAL APPROACH TO DESIGN, OUTREACH, AND IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES. HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT AND WHAT’S THE GOAL? For me, the educational process is about leading people to water through the products we make or from our social media presence. I want to get people to care about the environment, but do it in a way that’s not preachy. When we launched, our original plan was to have more immersive experiences, but the pandemic forced a change in how we operated. We’ve got some different organizations we’re working with now—for example, we’re doing a pop-up for Surf Bus Foundation, which takes kids surfing and exposes them to other beach experiences.

HOW DOES WHR PRIORITIZE ENVIRONMENTAL EQUITY? It’s hard. My goal is to remain small and to do anything I do with the best intention, so I have to find a balance between selling through my own channels and entering the wholesale arena. I’m trying to get onto that seasonal calendar, so I can be stocked in the retailers that I do love. WHAT ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF WORKING ON THE BRAND THUS FAR? The reaction to our hats has been super special. Tom Sachs and his team wore our hats religiously in New York, so a lot of people saw them. Our drops with deadstock and upcycled fabrics mean a lot too because the embroidery is done by my mother-in-law. Doing those projects with her has made us closer—and they’ve sold out! Our Crocs collaboration was super fun, too. The biggest highlight, though, is just that I’m still pulling this off. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF WHR LOOK LIKE? I hope to be in a place where there are a few people besides me here full-time. I also want to continue building our community and business. From a product standpoint, we’re making some really fun things. When you have a small brand, whatever you make has to be good or it doesn’t work. You don’t get do-overs if you make a bad product. That’s the one great thing about playing in the minor leagues: you have to keep getting on base to survive.

Another successful thing we’ve done is host pop-ups where people can bring their favorite vintage hats to have them bungee-backed. We also did a surf wax-making experience in front of Dover Street Market.

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HOW TO BE KIDSUPER WORDS BY DYLAN KELLY

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAYQUAN SHULER

Things are getting serious for Colm Dillane, but that doesn’t mean he is. With an endless well of ideas, a flair for the creative, and a knack for making the fashion world look, KidSuper is taking high fashion to new heights.

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Colm Dillane doesn’t have any technical training in fashion; in fact, his career as a designer was far from intentional. “Fashion was just my hobby,” he says over FaceTime upon returning to New York from Paris, where he not only staged a full-fledged comedy special for KidSuper’s Fall/Winter 2023 show, but also debuted as the first designer to co-create a menswear collection with Louis Vuitton following Virgil Abloh’s death. “It was really just this fun thing I did in my free time,” Dillane says. “Imagine that becoming your full-time job. It’s quite exciting.” Where there wasn’t artisanal expertise, there was an artistic gift. For his entire life, Dillane knew he was a talented illustrator and painter, so when it came to founding his fashion label, those skills proved imperative. “It was a huge part of KidSuper’s originality,” he explains. “What’s more original than original artwork?” Thanks to its artful roots, KidSuper is anything but understated. Among its myriad of canvas-to-textile silhouettes, the label’s “Face Knit Sweater” caught fashion’s eye for its striking, illustrative depiction of the human form on clothes. Dillane’s latest “Kissing” series takes that concept further, hosting tasteful makeout sessions on the clasps of trench coats, puffer jackets,

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and handbags. “People come to KidSuper for statement pieces,” Dillane says. “The number of people that text me to tell me they were stopped on the street when they were wearing my clothes is insane.” Being artistically inclined is one thing, but the designer’s go-getter attitude is wholly responsible for where he is today. You can see this through the over-the-top (and oftentimes tongue-in-cheek) nature of his KidSuper fashion shows. Before the punchy label appeared on the official calendar, Dillane would print his fashion week rejection letters onto the imprint’s runway designs. “That’s what the brand’s about—the journey and the unrealistic goals. It’s never been about being accepted,” Dillane says. Naturally, when he debuted on the Paris Fashion Week calendar in 2020, he opened his first official show with a design emblazoned with his acceptance letter. At that time, the pandemic forced Dillane, along with the entire fashion industry, to rethink what a fashion show could look like. While many rightfully struggled to adapt to a quarantined format, Dillane embraced the “new normal” with a slew of short films that, for a designer, were anything but normal.

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The first of these short films, Everything’s Fake Until It’s Real, was an animated claymation runway show that included starstudded “appearances” from the likes of Salvador Dalí, Naomi Campbell, Stephen Hawking, Pelé, and more. It was quite the impressive spectacle for a fashion week debut, one so thought-provoking, in fact, that it earned KidSuper a place in Dover Street Market’s stores. His subsequent shows grew bigger and bigger. In October 2020, he delivered the pilot episode for SCRAM!, a limited animated series that starred Usain Bolt, Westside Gunn, Jessie Reyez, and Lil Tecca. In it, cartoon iterations of the aforementioned figures sported the latest KidSuper designs as they discovered their superpowers while adventuring through New York City. The following year, KidSuper’s “What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?” initiative (which accompanied his SS22 collection) turned strangers’ lifelong dreams into realities. The label asked 300 random people the collection’s titular question and actually helped fulfill 20 of their goals. Among them, KidSuper assisted a man in hosting a family reunion, flew a mother and her son to Paris, and organized a skydiving trip for a stuntman. “KidSuper is so much about the world we have created,” Dillane says. “That’s why each piece is a statement and one-of-a-kind, because the person who can wear such loud pieces has a bit of daredevil in them.” For his first in-person show at Paris Fashion Week in June 2022, Dillane staged an auction, where models presented looks alongside the paintings that inspired them. Guests, including Westside Gunn and G-Eazy, were handed paddles to bid on pieces on the runway. Russ, who previously lived in Dillane’s basement for several months, shelled out $210,000 USD for the portrait of a woman that appeared on the show’s invitation. In January 2023, KidSuper produced a one-hour comedy special titled Funny Business. Located at the Casino de Paris and hosted by Tyra Banks, who changed into 10 different FW23 looks throughout the show, the spectacle featured performances from famed comedians, including Yvonne Orji, Jeff Ross, Andrew Santino, Fary, and Andrew Schultz. It was a scene so massive that the police were called to quell crowds outside the venue.

Dillane was filling the biggest shoes in fashion, and he was well aware of the pressure that came with putting them on. “I was expecting a ton of hate,” he admits. But in his instance, taking the mantle felt less scary than it did noble. Two months prior to his passing, Abloh served on the LVMH jury that crowned Dillane a winner of the €150,000 EUR prize. To fill Abloh’s shoes two years later was a full circle moment for Dillane. “What I loved about Virgil is that, in his last couple years of life, he wanted to leave an impact,” he reflects. “He wanted to collaborate. He wanted to make it so that you couldn’t even open your door in New York without seeing his influence. That, to me, was inspiring. So when I got to Louis Vuitton, I wanted to shoot for the stars.” For the stars he shot, Dillane’s work at the label was largely met with an industry-wide thumbs up. He skillfully infiltrated Louis Vuitton’s codes with his emblematic artworks—think monogram-covered workwear staples backdropped by KidSuper faces and sharp trench coats plastered with sparkly graffiti and human silhouettes. While making it his own, Dillane still upheld the French fashion house’s storied identity; and in doing so, he tastefully paid tribute to Abloh. For an artist with no technical fashion training, Dillane’s ascension to one of the industry’s top tables is a remarkable feat. It not only validates the designer’s place in high fashion (which, in the past, was oftentimes disregarded for his prioritization of art over tailoring), but it proves the sheer power of creativity in design. “This was not in my cards, but it definitely changes things,” Dillane says of his stint at Louis Vuitton. “It was the cherry on top of the KidSuper sundae.” KidSuper is still becoming, and the designer’s vision will continue to evolve under a much larger microscope (Dillane has plans to open a “10,000-square-foot, multidisciplinary Brooklyn warehouse” under the imprint later this year). Nonetheless—what Dillane dreams, KidSuper does. And what KidSuper does, the world watches.

The fashion-turned-comedy special felt innovative on the Paris Fashion Week stage. But for KidSuper, hosting a comedy show is nothing new. “I did my first KidSuper comedy show six years ago. People don’t know that because nobody was writing about me then,” says Dillane. “Nothing KidSuper has come out of nowhere.”

“THAT’S WHAT [KIDSUPER IS] ABOUT—THE JOURNEY AND THE UNREALISTIC GOALS. IT’S NEVER BEEN ABOUT BEING ACCEPTED.” The foundation that holds KidSuper’s brand story together is Dillane’s unwavering persistence. “I never quit,” he says. “I had no expectations and I didn’t feel like I deserved anything. Any bit of success felt like a luxury.” In September of last year, his tenacity earned him his biggest accolade to date: a coveted seat at Louis Vuitton’s high table. After months of on-and-off meetings with the French maison, Dillane got the official call. ”They said, ‘Hey Colm, we’ld like you to guest design the next LV collection,’” he remembers. “I was like, ‘Cool, I’ll start in January.’ And they were like, ‘No, no, you start tomorrow.’ I came with 500 pages of ideas.”

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REVOLUTIONIZING THE CREATIVE PROCESS: THE IMPACT OF WORDS BYBY KEISHA OLEAGE

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Through complex word prompts, AI tools can create visually stunning images that would otherwise be i m possible to i m agine. With the help of AI generators like Stable Diffusion, DALLE, and MidJourney, a surge of creative ideas can be generated faster than ever before. It’s no wonder that AI is infiltrating the Internet and the world around us at an increasingly rapid rate. As AI-generated designs become increasingly accessible, more and more designers, from experienced professionals to casual hobbyists, are testing out the artistic possibilities of artificially ISSUE NO. 31

generated content. This innovative new medium has opened up a world of never-before-seen possibilities that go far beyond physical limitations. The immersive experience of creating AI-generated designs is pushing boundaries, allowing creatives and brands to unleash their imaginations and craft ambitious projects. As these futuristic designs become more available and accessible, it is becoming clear that collaborations between humans and machines are here to stay and will soon be an integral part of their creative processes.

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AGATA PANNUCCI: NIKE HAUTE COUTURE

ADAPTING TO DATA-DRIVEN DESIGN From the runways of Milan to the streets of New York City, fashion and design have been shaping how people think and live for centuries. They are expressions of individual style, culture, and identity, as well as an economic force that provides jobs and income for people worldwide. Fashion and design also reflect the values and beliefs of a particular society, and can be used to make powerful statements or influence social movements. The new medium of AI design has great potential to revolutionize the way creatives approach their

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projects and could become a standard of creative production. “We realized that one of the biggest pain points for many brands was creating more content,” says Benjamin Benichou, a creative director who’s worked with Nike, Adidas, and ASICS, and recently became more involved with AI (just look at his Nike “Impossible Store,” an unconventional AI-rendered retail space at the top of Mount Everest). “A typical creative process involves long meetings with your creative team, mood boards, approvals and, finally, someone to create the design, physically or digitally. With AI, you can save time and generate dozens of ideas

and concepts in minutes.” AI has brought unique and intricate patterns, techniques, and textures that would take human designers days—if not weeks— to produce into the creative lexicon. It also enables designers to experiment with previously unheard-of visual elements, such as data-driven shapes, forms, and textures that can be adapted and tweaked to create unique and ever-evolving designs. AI-driven creations also give users the ability to quickly adapt to the ever-changing trends and demands of the industry. By utilizing AI, companies can swiftly create designs that align with current trends, allowing them to stay ISSUE NO. 31

ahead of the competition. “My main inspiration behind AI is the desire to push the creative boundaries forward,” says Marco Simonetti, the co-founder of RAL7000STUDIO and the designer behind the viral Jacquemus x Nike “ski club” concept, which was generated with AI. Such collaboration can also open new avenues for exploration and innovation, leading to revolutionary solutions and breathtaking works of art. “Incorporating AI into my design process allowed me to explore undiscovered fields,” notes Simonetti. “I strongly believe merging the human brain with AI could open new opportunities moving forward.”

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THE

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MARCO SIMONETTI: CHANEL X REEBOK CONCEPT

AI’S CHALLENGES “The real challenge is bringing AI into the real world,” says Agata Panucci, a designer known for her fairy-like AI streetwear creations. Unimaginable AI concepts and designs can be difficult (or even impossible) to make tangible due to their complexity of implementation. Although we’ve witnessed the medium create works of art and realistic 3D concepts, many of these have yet to be seen in the physical world. “The story behind each AI-generated visual will be more important than the visual itself moving forward,” notes Simonetti. “People will get tired of seeing amazing products on a screen and knowing they will never get the opportunity to physically touch them. Creating a bridge between AI and the real world will be the real challenge in the future.” Panucci notes that AI designers will likely need the physical skills to bring their creations to “life” as well: “Artificial intelligence will not replace the designer but will be

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a tool in the hands of the designer, who will therefore continue to play a fundamental role.” The unveiling of AI technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney has stoked ongoing debate about using AI in art, fashion, and other creative fields. Some argue that the use of AI threatens the creativity and individuality of human artists—and that it could lead to the homogenization of fashion. Others worry about the potential for job loss as AI becomes more prevalent. A key worry among creators is that the advancement of technology will lead to a loss of respect and appreciation for artists. Others, however, are ready to embrace the change. “I would describe myself as a forward-thinking footwear designer and strategist, driven by passion, culture, and innovation,” says Simonetti. “I’m not afraid of technology, and I will keep on exploring new ways to enhance my design process, generating new and unexpected concepts by using AI as a sort of creative booster.” ISSUE NO. 31

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BENJAMIN BENICHOU: HBX STORE ON THE MOON

THE FUTURE OF AI AND FASHION The potential of artificial intelligence in fashion and design is immense. AI can help fashion professionals work smarter, not harder, and stay ahead of the competition. With advances in AI and machine learning, fashion and design could be revolutionized. Simonetti, for one, thinks that AI guided by a human mind is the way of the future. “I strongly believe that AI will always need to be driven by human intelligence to contextualize a concept,” he says. “I think each AI-generated visual should be used as a starting point to be evolved by the creator into a final product instead of being seen as a final output.”

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Simonetti also notes that the barrier for entry into the world of AI design is low, but the bar for mastery is high. “Generating quick AI visuals is extremely easy and doesn’t require any specifc background—everyone can do it,” he says. “That being said, I think the way each designer incorporates AI into their creative process will make a real difference in the future.” Benichou sums it up succinctly: “There may be a lot of insecurities and debates around using AI in your work, especially from artists, but if they don’t pay attention and learn how to use the technology emerging now, many in the industry will get left behind.

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EXIS TENCE Chapter 3

Masterminds of Controversy Infinity Loop Nadia Lee Cohen, A Character Study Dismantling the Formula Finding Equilibrium Do Not Sit Here Attention Undivided

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MASTERMINDS OF CONTROVERSY

WORDS BY KEITH ESTILER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL KUSUMADJAJA

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Andy Warhol once said, “I don’t know where the artificial stops and the real starts.” In 2021, MSCHF took that quote and went wild with their Museum of Forgeries stunt, buying an early Warhol sketch, copying it 999 times, and blending the real copy with the fake ones so well that you couldn’t tell them apart. Buyers willing to part with $250 USD had a 0.1% chance of getting a real Warhol valued at $20,000 USD, but MSCHF also made it impossible to trace the artwork’s authenticity —so you’d never know if you had the real piece or a knockoff. Who doesn’t enjoy a little bit of deception and mystery? MSCHF is a multifarious crew of artists, designers, and tech geeks hailing from Brooklyn, New York. The collective is renowned for their daring and provocative art—creations that push the boundaries so far one wonders if 148

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they even comprehend the term “acceptable.” A multidisciplinary practice, MSCHF produces a range of art, from unique products to interactive installations and digital experiences, with their dark and twisted humor serving as a standout characteristic. They utilize shock value and irony to make social commentary and poke fun at mainstream culture with an unrivaled level of expertise. A visit to MSCHF’s website reveals a long list of disruptive and thought-provoking creations, including a defibrillator that reads “to fix your literal broken heart” and a collection of AI-generated foot photos with the comforting tagline “this foot does not exist.” MSCHF is also responsible for the “Birkinstocks,” (Birkenstock Arizona sandals that boast leather from ultra-expensive Hermès Birkin bags), Severed Spots (a $30K USD Damien 150

Hirst dot print, cut into individual “spots” that were sold for $480 USD each), the Key4All project (MSCHF sold thousands of keys to a 2008 PT Cruiser for $20 USD each, and anyone who found the car and had a key could drive it) and the ATM Leaderboard, an installation debuted at Art Basel 2022 in Miami that ranked anyone who used it by checking their account balance and posting it on a “leaderboard.” Who wouldn’t want to broadcast their financial status to complete strangers? As of December 2022, Diplo was sitting atop the leaderboard with a staggering $3,004,913.06 USD in his bank account. MSCHF’s most talked-about collaboration came in 2021, when they partnered with Lil Nas X to create the “Satan Shoes,” a modified Nike Air Max 97 that featured an inverted cross, a pentagram, and a drop of real human ISSUE NO. 31

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blood in the soles—and served as an unholy counterpart to 2020’s “Jesus Shoes,” Air Max 97s with holy water in the soles. Limited to an edition of 666 pairs, the “Satan Shoes” sold out in seconds, sparking outrage from religious groups and politicians. Nike even filed a lawsuit against the group for trademark infringement. MSCHF has caused enough controversy to make the devil blush, but their multifaceted art practice challenges societal norms and stretches the limits of humor and censorship. And now, hot off the heels of their latest viral stunt—the “Big Red Boot,” an Astro Boy-style rubberized boot that immediately became one of 2023’s biggest fashion statements—some of MSCHF’s members agreed to a rare interview, and were willing to reveal some of the influences behind their unconventional endeavors …as long as they could remain anonymous. 152

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MSCHF MAKES CONCEPTUAL WORK THAT DELIBERATELY SEEKS OUT THE LARGEST AUDIENCE POSSIBLE, AND ISN’T AFRAID TO ADOPT AND USE MASS CULTURE TO DO SO. 156

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO PUSH BOUNDARIES AND CHALLENGE SOCIAL NORMS THROUGH YOUR UNCONVENTIONAL PROJECTS AND PRODUCTS? PERSON A: Peer pressure. CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH HOW YOU DECIDE WHICH PROJECTS TO PURSUE, AND HOW YOU PRIORITIZE THEM? PERSON A: No. PERSON B: Follow your gut. PERSON C: We get three guys in a room. The business guy, the tech guy, and the art guy. Then they beat the shit out of each other. The guys are metaphorical, but the process is accurate. PERSON D: We are constantly working towards projects in spaces we haven’t been in before, and also projects of increasing complexity. For example, our gun buyback program—Guns2Swords, in which we took people’s guns, melted them down, and forged the metal into swords that we then returned to the guns’ owners—was a concept that we first came to years before we were able to execute the logistics. PERSON E: Ask Bobo. HOW DOES MSCHF'S WORK CHALLENGE OR SUBVERT THE TRADITIONAL PERCEPTION OF ELITISM AND EXCLUSIVITY IN THE ART WORLD? PERSON A: The core of MSCHF’s artistic practice began as a rejection of the art world. MSCHF makes conceptual work that deliberately seeks out the largest audience possible, and isn’t afraid to adopt and use mass culture in order to do so. While art spaces are typically the go-to channels for conceptual work, they are extremely insular and limited. Works like Severed Spots or Museum of Forgeries are not only send-ups of specific art world paradigms, but are also formal/mechanistic challenges to the ways in which art is typically distributed. Ironically, this has led us to opportunities with Galerie Perrotin and at Art Basel. The art world loves to be rejected, in other words. PERSON B: As a practice and an entity, MSCHF manifests the ambition for creative work or a creative entity to wield power in culture that’s competitive with the cultural power held by world-straddling companies, celebrities, and media entities. This philosophy is most clearly articulated in the way that MSCHF works. PERSON C: MSCHF uses all the tools available to entities that are “uncreative” (but, ultimately, more powerful than artists) that the sphere of artistic practice traditionally shies away from. The collective uses pieces of capitalist, globalist, and consumerist culture as building blocks and operates on the scale of corporations, because to operate any smaller is to admit powerlessness in the world as it exists. MSCHF seeks to maximize itself as a cultural force. PERSON D: We’re a business entity that is also an artist/author entity. SOME OF YOUR PROJECTS INVOLVE SUBVERTING EXISTING PRODUCTS OR SERVICES AS WELL. WHAT’S YOUR APPROACH TO THIS TYPE OF "CULTURE JAMMING," AND HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHICH TARGETS TO FOCUS ON? PERSON A: Always punch something. Never punch down. Sideways is kinda okay. CAN YOU EXPLAIN YOUR DROP STRATEGY AND HOW IT HAS INFLUENCED THE WORK ITSELF? PERSON A: We make anything and everything we want. Drops are a great model for that because they happen once and then are done. PERSON B: It keeps us making things. PERSON C: It keeps us making new things. PERSON D: It keeps us making different things. YOUR “SATAN SHOES” WITH LIL NAS X FACED LEGAL CHALLENGES FROM NIKE. CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE LEGAL HURDLES THAT COME WITH CREATING AND SELLING PRODUCTS THAT ARE INSPIRED BY EXISTING BRANDS OR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY? PERSON A: We deliberately look at existing pieces of culture as building blocks. Internally, we use the term “cultural readymades” for this process, as analogous to modernist (physical) readymades. It’s territory that’s relatively well trodden in the art world—from Duchamp to Warhol and beyond—applied to work that lives in commercial culture. Big brands, from Nike to the Catholic church, are potent components. In the case of Nike, they ultimately acknowledged that we did nothing wrong with the “Satan Shoes.” PERSON B: We often aim for legal gray areas, in part because that’s where things get interesting, but also because searching for that line is the only space where creative entities can reclaim ground against the ever-encroaching tentacles of corporate IP ownership. ISSUE NO. 31

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“WE PORRO DELIBERATELY EXISTING OF NEQUE QUISQUAM LOOK EST QUIATDOLOREM IPSUMPIECES QUIA DOLOR SIT AMET, CONSECTETUR, VELIT.” CULTURE AS BUILDINGADIPISCI BLOCKS.

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE IMPORTANCE OF COLLABORATION IN YOUR WORK AND HOW IT ENHANCES THE CREATIVE PROCESS? PERSON A: Collabs = this one quick trick

PERSON B: We add collaborators to our ideas when it allows us to achieve things that we can’t accomplish on our own. For example, we released a cross-cut table saw blade that was also a playable record. A record needs a song, and we’re not musicians, so we worked with The Weeknd and ended up using his single “Out Of Time” as the track. PERSON C: The “Satan Shoes” are also a great example to look at. After we made the “Jesus Shoes,” we knew that we wanted to make the Adversary’s shoe at some point. It just so happened that we were in conversation with Lil Nas X while he was planning the music video for “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”. His own personal narrative around Satan added an entire layer to the concept and really elevated the drop. THE “BIG RED BOOTS” HAVE DOMINATED ALGORITHMS IN 2023. HOW HAS SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCED YOUR WORK, AND HOW DO YOU USE IT TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE? PERSON A: We post on Instagram sometimes. For the most part, however, social media is where reactions happen, not where we do things. We have a billion-plus views on the MSCHF TikTok tag, but we don’t have an account and probably never will. PERSON B: When MSCHF started, we operated completely off-platform. Putting your content on platforms like Instagram means you’re running the risk of it blending with other content in a way that does not benefit all types of work. If you’re posting art next to pictures of hot people, hot people typically win. We’d recommend using these platforms as a tool for distribution, not as an end in and of themselves. Don’t aspire to be an influencer, kids. Dream bigger. PERSON C: The major platforms have a flattening effect on work that’s shared through them. It’s why we are constantly building our own websites and platforms. The challenge becomes competing with multinational corporations—in scale—without being contained in their ecosystems. HOW DO YOU THINK TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET HAVE IMPACTED THE WAY ARTISTS CREATE AND SHARE THEIR WORK? PERSON A: See Athletic Aesthetics (2013) by Brad Troemel. SOME OF YOUR PROJECTS HAVE INCLUDED PUBLIC STUNTS OR PRANKS. HOW DO YOU NAVIGATE THE LEGALITY AND SAFETY CONCERNS OF THESE TYPES OF PROJECTS? PERSON A: We dislike the words “prank” and “stunt.” A prank requires someone to be the butt of the joke. A stunt implies that there’s no goal beyond attention. Attention is a tool that we use in service of concepts. PERSON B: I assume this is about Key4All? If so, the thing that’s interesting to point out here is that the basic construction of Key4All is almost exactly the same as ZipCar. Something MSCHF does is use businesses and corporations as an artistic medium. That extends to things like legal checks. We are an art collective with an in-house counsel for a reason. HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO CRITICISM AND CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING SOME OF YOUR PROJECTS, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS? PERSON A: We print it out and put it on our fridge. PERSON B: We generally don’t respond at all. PERSON C: But it can offer us new material to play with: we filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court recently because the reaction to our “Wavy Baby” sneaker roped us into the cutting edge of U.S. copyright law. DO YOU HAVE ANY UPCOMING PROJECTS THAT YOU ARE EXCITED ABOUT SHARING WITH THE WORLD? PERSON A: In all seriousness, no comment.

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INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP

INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP INFINITY LOOP

For many, Zack Bia, the DJ-turned-label founder-turned-director of his own world-connecting records, is both a household name and a kind of puzzle. You may know what he looks like (rosy cheeks, upward wave of brown hair, standing next to someone from LA’s popular kids table) but maybe not what he does, or how he got there. “How” in the broad, even cosmos-questioning kind of way, or as one friend put it: “There are a million Zack Bias, so how did this Zack Bia become ZACK BIA?” Ahead of the release of his debut project, Bia spoke about what he’s been doing in the studio, how he likes to party, why LMFAO is back, and the blend of skill, blessings, and action it actually takes to get lucky. WORDS BY NAOMI ZEICHNER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESPER D. LUND

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“PEOPLE DON’T WANNA BE FORCE FED TIKTOK SONGS. THEY DON’T WANNA BE FORCE FED LINEUPS WITH 1,000 PEOPLE,

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THEY WANT TO GO SEE CONCERTS OF ARTISTS THEY CARE ABOUT. PEOPLE WANT TO DISCOVER ON THEIR OWN.”

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IN TODAY’S INDUSTRY, MANY ARTISTS ARE RESPONSIBLE NOT ONLY FOR MAKING GREAT MUSIC, BUT ALSO THE WORK TO PROMOTE IT. WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT BURNOUT AND HOW CHALLENGING IT CAN BE TO CUT THROUGH THE NOISE. IN YOUR WORK AS A LABEL OWNER OR WITH AN ARTIST LIKE YEAT, WHAT HAS ARTIST DEVELOPMENT MEANT TO YOU? WHAT’S REQUIRED TO BREAK AS AN ARTIST RIGHT NOW? A&R has changed a lot. There's a different conversion funnel from a label signing an artist to that artist breaking, and the relationship between artists and fans has changed in terms of how much access fans have to artists. If you look back 20 or 30 years, it was like: albums, concerts, and late-night TV shows. Now, there’s instant social media, music videos, viral content, and music electronically available everywhere. There’s an oversaturation of access to music, and a massive attention deficit in general.

“BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME IS A SKILL.”

All artists are different. To break an artist, you’re helping that artist realize what their visions actually are, and then translating those visions to physical product, a live show, or whatever it is. My job is to use my resources to realize whatever an artist wants to accomplish. Yeat, for example, is very unique in how he moves with a high volume of music and keeping a lot of anonymity. With him, the fun part of my job is making sure everything’s elevating in tandem with how popular the music is getting. It’s about understanding the world he has built out in his brain—what it sounds like, what it feels like, the language, the silhouette—and then saying, “Hey, let’s bring this to the world.” YOU’VE HAD A LOT OF JOBS ALREADY. WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN WORKING ON YOUR OWN MUSIC AS AN ARTIST NOW? I’ve always been involved in making music, production, A&R, and putting artists together, so I’ve been thinking about putting my own music out for as long as I can remember. I see this project as a natural evolution of what I’ve been doing on the DJ side. My whole life in music is like one big infinity loop: DJing, which feeds into working with other artists, which feeds into the label. It’s all one energy. WHAT DOES THAT ENERGY LOOK LIKE IN THE STUDIO, IN PRACTICE? WHO’S ON THE TEAM AND HOW ARE THESE RECORDS COMING TOGETHER? I start with the ideas in my head first. Like when we did “Hardcore” with Don Toliver, I had a vision for a bassline-centric record. I had all the references ready, I went to go meet Don, he played me stuff, I played him stuff. It’s about going in with an artist, being like “Here’s an opportunity for you to try something that might not fit your personal project or your sound traditionally, but is a chance for us to come together, and try this left turn.” Not that everything I wanna do is a left turn, but I like being that bridge. I also like working with other producers, where I admire their work and love their sound. Someone who has production credit on the Don record is my friend star boy, who did “Futsal Shuffle 2020” for Uzi and a lot of Playboi Carti stuff. He’s at the forefront of this new rap sound and because he’s never made dance music, he’s not coming into it with any type of box. So I’m pushing my friends to be creative, and we’re all pushing and inspiring each other. We have the studio from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. and no strict “We have to make this many songs” mandate. It’s a revolving door. One artist leaves, another comes in, and we’re a

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bunch of people being collaborative. You have to go in with confidence and a framework, and then not be scared to pivot in real time. Sometimes magic happens because of a switch or by accident.

constantly searching for music for DJing. I’m always on the run but I love it. And I try to carve out time to do my classic favorite things that keep me grounded, like meals with friends or going to play basketball.

WHO ELSE HAS COME THROUGH THE STUDIO DOOR SO FAR? WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM THIS PROJECT AS A BODY OF WORK? One of the most incredible sessions I’ve ever had was with 070 Shake, who’s just mind blowing. On the dance side, I’m excited to make stuff with Rampa. JID also did an interlude. Montell Fish and I have been sending ideas back and forth. We just did a session in New York and Daniel Caesar popped in.

YOU RELEASED A TEASER VIDEO FOR THE PROJECT, SUGGESTING THAT PEOPLE HAVE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOUR LIFE OR YOUR MONEY. WHAT WERE YOU RESPONDING TO? My work has always been about propelling others forward. Being creatively involved with them and helping make their moment special: DJing artists’ release parties or bringing artists to the light. When you’re constantly in situations like those, people will try to figure out why you’re there. And when you don’t try to claim your own narrative, people are gonna create their own for you. Over the years, I've heard that I was born into wealth or reasons why I might be in the positions that I’m in that are wrong. We’re making quality music and the world is a pretty serious place, so I figured we might as well try to have fun introducing it. To take a page out of Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss rollout, the anti-rollout comedy aspect of it, just playing into the rumors and false narratives. It’s the 8 Mile trick: I’ll be everything you said I was, and now what? Here’s the music.

This first project is about translating the worlds I exist in, consume, and collide with, and giving people all the different sides of them. The through line is that we’re experimenting with purpose with our friends. I have rappers on dance songs, I have dance artists making rap beats. Every year I wanna put out overarching tapes where we touch on all the things that are inspiring us at that moment, but our own versions. Then, in between those releases, I want to hyperfocus and be like, “Here’s a dance tape,” or “Here’s a rap tape.” Long term, I want to create a personal catalog and tour the world. OUTSIDE OF MUSIC, WHAT DOES A DAY IN YOUR LIFE LOOK LIKE? DO YOU HAVE ANY ROUTINES IN PLACE THAT HELP YOU FEEL GOOD? Inconsistency is the only consistent thing in my life. Today I woke up, had a Zoom call, met with my friends from Boiler Room, and looked over all the Yeat footage from the concert last night. I have to catch a flight to the Bahamas later. Things mostly revolve around the label in the daytime, then the studio in the afternoon and night time, and

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YOU’VE BECOME CLOSE WITH POWERFUL PEOPLE OVER TIME. HOW DID YOU BECOME THE GUY WITH THE ENERGY? WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED THROWING PARTIES? The energy was always around music. I moved from New York to LA with my mom and little brother when I was in high school, as my mom had a new job opportunity. The high school I went to was wealthier and although I wasn't a product of that, I was a kid who had cool taste and became the guy that was always throwing parties. People would come up to me like, “Yo, my parents are out of town, you should throw a party at my house.” Then I went to

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AS SOMEONE WHO’S OUT ALL THE TIME, WOULD YOU SAY THERE’S BEEN AN OVERALL “VIBE SHIFT” IN THE PAST FEW YEARS? No doubt. I predict that in a few months LA will be the hottest place on earth again. In New York, you can physically feel the energy back. The kids that were at the end of high school through the pandemic are now 19 and 20, discovering party scenes. People older than me, late 30s, are rediscovering their younger energy because they don’t wanna waste any more time. And sonically we’re seeing it: People don’t wanna be force fed TikTok songs. They don’t wanna be force fed lineups with 1,000 people, they want to go see concerts from artists they care about. People want to discover on their own, through TV shows they like, and finding a sense of ownership through word of mouth again. We’re also seeing a resurgence of catalog—old electroclash, New York music is back. A lot of music from that Sunset, LA nightclub era, like 2010s Katy Perry, Kesha, LMFAO is back. Not to put it in the same category, but music like M.I.A. is back too.

community college for a year, and it was one of the loneliest times of my life. After I got into USC and needed a job to pay for school, I started promoting at the club. Really what I was doing at the club was DJing before people got there, and I was DJing frat parties on the weekend. Every day I was just trying to meet as many people as I could. We were so consistent with it. Seven nights a week we had something going on. We went in very open minded and expanded a network, brick by brick, friend by friend. It started to multiply pretty quickly. People want to go to parties. A Hollywood club might usually be open Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We’d take over on a Wednesday like, “Cool, you’re a new artist, wanna perform? We’ll get you a table.” “Oh, you’re starting as a DJ? Why don’t you play for an hour?” LA nightlife then was like, bottle service and table centric, but we brought out the people who didn’t know they were allowed to be at nightclubs: skater kids, college kids, everyone that was just hanging out at FourTwoFour on Fairfax. I was 19. People felt like, “These parties are the place we can be with likeminded people.” Nightlife has always been a backbone to the creative community. If you look at old pictures of Andy Warhol and see all these creative people linking up in New York, it was through parties.

We’re also seeing the global impact of dance music, with artists like Bad Bunny, ROSALÍA, and Rema transcending. People are consuming music that isn’t in their first language and that’s really exciting. SoundCloud in general is back, not even just with rap. Things are never gonna look the same the second or third time around, like with the blog era stuff, but it’s alive, and whether kids know the origin of where some of this stuff comes from doesn’t even matter. I have friends who listen to Pink Pantheress and they're like, “Oh my god, the Pink Pantheress drums!” They might not have reference points for UK drum and bass or UK garage but it doesn’t matter, as long as the music’s affecting people.

WHAT KIND OF PARTY DO YOU WANT TO GO TO, OR ENJOY MOST? I can’t be at a party unless I’m DJing, to be honest. I’m not a great dancer, and I always get the itch to hop on the turntables—that’s where I have the most fun. Some parties I like for scale: how many people were there, coming together. Sometimes I like the opposite: how high the energy can be in a small room. I try to balance it. For every festival or Vegas set, I like to play for 100 people. I love a party that happens in Silverlake called Favela Worldwide that my friends D33J and Joaquin throw. The best party for me recently was maybe New Year’s in Aspen. Everyone got to take down time from busy lives, and our friends got a lot closer.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MANIFESTATION? Any good thing is a combination of preparation, good luck from God, and you claiming things. I believe that being in the right place at the right time is a skill. Bringing ideas to life is a skill. I’ve become a big believer in doing is better than making it perfect. To manifest ideas you have to come up with ideas, but the biggest aspect is doing it, because once it’s done, then the idea is a living breathing thing that can take on a life of its own. I know a lot of people who hold on to ideas for too long.

WHAT’S HELPED DRAW PEOPLE CLOSE TO YOU? WHAT MAKES YOU SOMEONE PEOPLE FEEL COMFORTABLE AND OPEN WITH? I think I’m someone creative and people can discuss their ideas with; I can understand them and offer my own references. I’m a big fan of being open source with ideas and connections. I listen and I don’t force anything. I believe the long road leads to real friendships, as opposed to trying to get a picture or something. If you’re always trying to find people to believe in, something will connect. I first met Don [Toliver] when he had just signed his deal and hadn’t broken as an artist—“Hardcore” is really five years in the making, not something we just whipped up.

DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY? Every day. I don’t think I am where I am because of luck, but I am lucky for sure.

WHAT DOES A GOOD FRIENDSHIP LOOK LIKE? You can have an amazing time with someone that you meet for one night in a foreign country. You might have the best conversation ever with someone and you don’t ever connect again. You have to realize that you can have any amount of friendships and there’s a million ways to do it. Some of my best friends I work with, and some we don’t cross business paths at all. I know a lot of people, but I'm only close to very few. I’m not a teenager anymore, I’m about to be 27. I have friends who are getting married and friends who haven’t figured anything out. People in entertainment have seen so much nonsense. We’re just looking for people who know what it feels like to be part of this industry, but also want to go eat meals where nothing revolves around business.

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NADIA LEE COHEN, A CHARACTER STUDY WHETHER LENSING HERSELF OR A CELEBRITY SUBJECT, SHE LETS THE NARRATIVE SPEAK FOR ITSELF.

WORDS BY ISABEL NORSTEN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NADIA LEE COHEN

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“WHETHER IN A GALLERY, ON A MAGAZINE COVER, OR IN A FLEETING MOMENT ON INSTAGRAM, COHEN DISSOLVES THE BOUNDARIES WE MIGHT UNCONCIOUSLY SEEK WHEN ABSORBING AND PROCESSING IMAGERY.” 174

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British photographer, filmmaker, performance artist and all-around-It-girl Nadia Lee Cohen is a starlet of our era. Her palpable, cinematic style, whether conscious or accidental, has become a defining characteristic of the visual vernacular of 2023. Most recently, you may have seen the Interview cover shoot of Lana Del Rey that took the Internet by storm; yes, that was Cohen behind the camera. Or perhaps you wandered into Cohen’s solo show at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles this past summer and fell into the multiverse of the artist’s portraits, videos, and installations. If you opened Instagram in February, you would have seen countless posts of Cohen wearing a gorgeous cherry red Ferragamo dress during Milan Fashion Week. In whatever iteration you may have encountered her and her work, Cohen certainly lives in the nuances and particularities that punctuate the cross section of art, celebrity and fashion as we consume it today. Recently, Cohen released the fourth edition of her book Women (published by IDEA), which includes 100 distinct photographs that dance between the surreal and the eerily familiar. Her crisp and vivid portraits sing across the page, except you’re not sure if the soundtrack is a melancholic ballad or Top 10 disco hit. In any case, Cohen says she’s “inspired by art and photography between the early 1970s to the late 1990s” and that “the cinema, art, architecture, and design I’m influenced by bleeds into everything I make.” Cohen’s reference to aesthetics of the past is clear in her visual vocabulary, (she cites influences such as Stanley Kubrick, Nan Goldin, and even the famed, fictitious character Tony Soprano) yet somehow, as Cohen astutely puts it, “the past isn’t necessarily the reference, the reference is sort of ‘nowhere.’” Though Cohen specifically points out that it makes her “cringe when people theorize their own work,” she is certainly onto something. One might wonder if this sense of “nowhere” is part of the unique appeal of Cohen’s work, an element that has cultivated and continues to captivate her growing audience. This draws to mind Cohen’s cover shoot for the September 2022 issue of Interview, in which Kim Kardashian is shown as we have never seen her before, with bleached hair and eyebrows, adorned in a Canadian tuxedo, and simple white tank top—the ultimate Americana outfit. With this schism between quintessentially American aesthetics, and a relatively shocking styling of one of the most famous women in the world, Cohen strikes an immaculate balance between the past and the future—one in which all roads point to nowhere. Or perhaps, better yet, the mélange of all of the contradictions that articulate our present moment. Whether in a gallery, on a magazine cover, or in a fleeting moment on Instagram, Cohen dissolves the boundaries we might unconsciously seek when absorbing and processing imagery. In her solo show, HELLO, My Name Is, at Jeffery Deitch this past summer, Cohen did just that. In one segment of the exhibition, various portraits in which Cohen had styled and captured herself as different characters lined the wall. To put together these personas, Cohen tells us that “narrative is really

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the main aspect that drives [her] and [she panics] if faced with a white wall.” She goes on to write that she “[needs] some form of story in order to understand how [she is] going to approach each project.” Once that’s worked out, Cohen “can usually visualize how the images will look before turning up to take them.” It is evident that Cohen approaches her practice and characters with deep care and commitment. HELLO, My Name Is was the “last time” she felt really excited or invigorated about something, as she “never had the opportunity to show a solo show in the U.S. before.” So she “ate, slept, and breathed it” for months prior to the opening to make sure it was something she was proud of. Although the show spanned different series by the artist, one of the central focuses was her “self” portraits, for which the show, and its accompanying book, were titled. Cohen uses herself as a tool in the creation of each character, rather than a reflection of her own identity. She utilizes her own body to embody someone else entirely, while conceptualizing and executing each character with the utmost attention to detail. With the use of typical film fare, such as prosthetics, makeup, and costumes, Cohen brings her characters to life in all of their glory. The artist struggles “to get into something that doesn’t have a story attached, even if I’m the only one who knows the plot,” yet the magical part is that we all get to envision the story that her meticulously crafted characters represent. Critically, Cohen’s cinematic rendering married with the poised rapport of each subject deems them important, no matter the narrative arc the viewer ascribes to them. So it’s no wonder that someone like Tony Soprano might be an influence to Cohen. The artist has gotten to know this character (alongside most of TV-viewing America in the early 2000s) and he has clearly resonated. Though Cohen is interested in creating scenes of “somewhere you might not know,” the “nowhere” constructed by powerful narratives becomes a “somewhere” that we revisit time and time again (like North Caldwell, New Jersey). Cohen tells us that she feels most at home “in the UK at my parents house in the countryside,” and goes on to say that “LA is a different sort of ‘home’—it’s the city I work the most in and the landscape that inspires me more than anywhere else I’ve visited.” Cohen feels a sense of independence and freedom when she’s in LA, because the city is still an “unfamiliar place” for her, where she’s mostly an “observer”, adding to the magic that she still can’t pinpoint. Maybe it’s that arcane “LA Magic” that sustains all of Cohen’s many characters who occupy “somewhere we might not know.”

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DISM ANTL ING WORDS BY SHAWN GHASSEMITARI

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Brain Dead follows many of streetwear’s core tenants. Its graphics are wacky and unpredictable, colors nostalgic yet futuristic, and the way in which its products are released follows a traditional method that has been adopted ad infinitum. It does not exist within a vacuum.

Perhaps this stems from the current state of fashion—which relies so heavily on imitation and irony—that it has become difficult to determine if a brand is authentic or just following the pack. “Mainstream culture under capitalism always eventually repackages subversion into harmless consumer products,” wrote John-Paul Trang in Real Review 8. This idea becomes even more clear in the present day when viewing the confluence of high-and-low collaborations. Supreme x Louis Vuitton. What’s next? KAWS x Dior. What’s next? Jacquemus x Nike. What’s next? YEEZY Gap. What’s next? adidas x Gucci. What’s next? adidas x Balenciaga. As our attention spans become shortened via social media and the cultural significance of any one product or occurrence equally fades, it becomes less about the product or subculture that underpins a release and more about the shock factor elicited—like a carousel or slot machine fueled by gimmicks and cheap thrills. To put it another way, when a campaign isn’t rooted in your own culture or community, “it would just be throwing ideas into the void,” according to Ed Davis, Brain Dead’s co-founder and art director. Brain Dead’s meteoric rise seems both predictable and entirely unforeseen. According to the old rules of “what’s cool,” the brand should have been destined for disaster when mixing accepted norms like skateboarding, art house cinema, and collaborations with heritage brands like North Face with long-ostracized communities, from Magic: The Gathering to rollerblading to wrestling—not just once, but repeatedly.

If Stüssy appropriated luxury goods with its Chanel logo flip, Fuct nodded to pop culture with its altered Ford logo and Supreme added a post-modern twist on it all, then Brain Dead is galvanizing the very communities that each of these images underpin as its overarching ethos. Brain Dead displays a genuine interest in the subcultures that formed it, and they don’t approach each collaboration with ROI in mind. That’s one of the secrets to its success, and founder Kyle Ng is happy to share plenty more on the brand’s DNA.

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KYLE KYLE KYLE

H O W W O ULD YO U D ES CRIBE BR A IN D E A D’S BR A N D PILLARS? Brain Dead is a collective. As we think about Brain Dead, the pillars are the collaborative nature of things—not like collaborating brand-to-brand. When we collaborate, we think about the things that we admire, what we need in our life, what we’re interested in, or the justapositions between things. To put it in human terms, you want to be around someone who is dynamic and has a lot of facets to their life. If I meet an art person who only talks about art or a fashion person who only talks about fashion, that can be boring. I want to mix rollerblading with paintball, fine art, metal, hip hop, Minions—whatever it is, because they’re all things I sincerely love. That’s the key with Brain Dead. The name is all about taking high concepts and lowbrow culture and remixing it. That’s where true inclusivity happens. It’s not about being exclusive or systemically trying to be cool. It’s breaking the boundaries of what is cool.

S K A E FR

E R ’ E W Y T A H T O THE W O KN AKS, S RUN” Y E “TH E FRE ET US TH UST L J

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BRAIN DEAD ISN’T AFRAID TO EXPLORE STIGMATIC SUBCULTURES, FROM ROLLERSKATING TO MAGIC: THE GATHERING. HOW DID YOU APPROACH DISMANTLING THE STEREOTYPES SURROUNDING THESE SUBCULTURES? I’ve been doing Brain Dead for eight years and clothing for 15, and it’s always felt like there was a “formula” for what was cool. Like, I know if we do a North Face collab it’ll do really well. I love North Face, that’s part of our culture. People might be like, “You don’t climb or do activities.” Whereas, I climb and do activities and with the North Face collab, you just want more people to join. I’ve realized the key with fashion has never really been about authenticity. It’s always been this idea of “This is a style we like, let’s emulate it.” Originally in streetwear, it was more along the lines of “You like hip-hop, skateboarding or whatever,” and that’s what made it authentic. When you ask people why Supreme was so popular, they would say collaborations, but it’s really because Supreme represents New York, skateboarding, being on the street, and the community. People forget about these things, because streetwear is just a business now.

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TRYING TO BE COOL. IT’S BREAKING THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT’S COOL.”

“THAT’S WHERE TRUE INCLUSIVITY HAPPENS. IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING EXCLUSIVE OR SYSTEMICALLY 192

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WRESTLING IS A KEY INTEREST OF YOUR BRAND, AND DESPITE THE SUCCESS OF THE INDUSTRY, IT STILL HAS A LOT OF STIGMAS—SOME WARRANTED. FOR EXAMPLE, IF YOU LOOK BACK AT THE OG WWF ERA, THERE WAS A LOT GOING ON THAT WAS NOT AT ALL APPROPRIATE WITH WOMEN, DRUGS, AND MORE. WITH YOUR BRAIN SLAM SERIES, HOWEVER, YOU’RE APPROACHING WRESTLING IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT. CAN YOU SPEAK ON THAT FURTHER AND REFLECT ON WHERE WRESTLING IS TODAY? I’ve always been obsessed with wrestling. There’s this element of it being an underappreciated art form in that it’s one of the purest forms of performance, athleticism, and theater—but people overlook that aspect. People just care if the wrestlers are going through a table. But that artistic expression is why I love it. When people do stuff simply because they’re passionate about it, that’s when I’m attracted to it. To your point, I think the Attitude Era and the era of wrestling where there were weird homophobic or sexual jokes—that’s where you need to change things. Not to get too political about it, but in 2020, when I focused a lot of my effort in a political space, I felt like one of the things I wanted to do was actually change things. That’s when the rollerblading stuff happened, because it was more than just talking about race or money, it was also talking about the inclusivity of various activities or interests. A lot of the stuff we do with Brain Slam is having a more inclusive roster, focusing a lot on queer wrestling, how this thing can be changed, and from there, being industry leaders, where others start to change their ways. If you go to a movie theater, it’s predominantly 40-year-old white guys. Same thing with Magic. Same thing with wrestling. When you go to the movie theater at Brain Dead Studios, though, there are people from all backgrounds watching films and learning how to play Magic. That’s the key. We create an authentic community that speaks to them directly. CAN YOU ELABORATE ON THE ART FORM BEHIND THE INDUSTRY AND SOME OF THE WRESTLERS—PAST AND PRESENT—THAT BEST EXEMPLIFY THIS? PERHAPS SOME OF YOUR FAVORITES. Wrestling is an interesting art form. There is a sense of competition and pride when wrestlers perform. The “heels” care about how many boos they get and the “baby faces” want the most applause. They want to push the limit and get the audience to feel emotional. A good example of this is the Montreal Screwjob—Brett Hart was leaving WWF and he thought he would win the match as a way to keep his pride in the company. Vince McMahon told Brett he would win, but secretly Vince told the referee and Brett’s opponent, Shawn Michaels, that Shawn would win. When the match ended, the ref gave it to Shawn and totally blindsided Brett. Brett was furious and spit in Vince’s face. This wasn’t fake…Brett cares so much about his art form that he was pissed he lost. Even though it’s scripted, the wrestlers transcend narration. It becomes something more than just a storyline, it becomes their life and craft. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE UPCOMING BRAIN SLAM WRESTLING CHANNEL YOU AND THE TEAM ARE WORKING TO CREATE? We believe there is a lot of potential to bring our aesthetics and outreach to the world of wrestling, and grow it for a modern consumer. Wrestling has been pretty much the same for the last 30 years and we want to add a progressive take on something that we love.

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DO YOU STILL FOLLOW THE BIGGER WRESTLING ENTITIES, SUCH AS THE WWE OR AEW? DO YOU ENVISION BRAIN SLAM EVER CHALLENGING THEM IN THE FUTURE? As of now, we believe that we can create an alternative to the wrestling product that currently exists. We believe the wrestlers themselves are very talented, but the aesthetics of the show, music, and product are outdated. We are very open to working with WWE or AEW in the same way we collaborate with other brands. We feel, together, we can add value and a distinctively unique perspective for one of these companies or just in wrestling as a whole. HERITAGE GAMES, SUCH AS POKÉMON OR MAGIC, ARE ALWAYS STRUGGLING TO KEEP DAY-ONE FANS AS THEY AGE. WOULD YOU SAY THERE IS A DIVISION BETWEEN THE MAGIC COMMUNITY PLAYING IN THE ‘90S AND EARLY ‘00S TO THE PRESENT DAY? That’s an interesting question…I believe just like wrestling or these other niche pop cultural groups, there is an opportunity to expand the demographic and community. Video games and tabletop games are now more inclusive and popular than ever, but to be honest, I don’t personally resonate with a lot of the culture or product that exists within the market. We love games, but we want to create an alternative product and aesthetic. Build a community that is more inclusive, more alternative, and shows people who might be into music, art, culture, sport, and fashion why we like what we like.

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We believe that we can resonate with both the old community and the new. I pride myself in researching and creating authentic relationships with all communities and activities I am a part of. When we do Magic: The Gathering, we strive to make it deeper and more authentic than anyone else. We don’t just want to do collaborations to make money. We do it because we have a passion for the culture. HOW WOULD YOU SAY THE GAME HAS EVOLVED SINCE YOUR YOUTH? DO YOU ENJOY IT MORE NOW THAN BEFORE? Yes, 100 percent. I’m older now and appreciate tabletop gaming in an era of insane technology. The idea of world building and game design blows me away. I am so in awe of what Magic: The Gathering does. ART IS ONE OF THE HALLMARKS OF MAGIC, ESPECIALLY THE EARLY CARDS FROM THE LEGENDS PACK, WHICH FEATURED AN AESTHETIC REMINISCENT OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS. DO YOU HAVE AN ALL-TIME FAVORITE CARD IN TERMS OF ARTWORK AND FUNCTION? CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE PROCESS OF WORKING WITH WIZARDS OF THE COAST ON YOUR VERY OWN “DIABOLIC TUTOR” CARD?

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I love any work by Dan Frazier or Phil Foglio. I am obsessed with that early ‘90s style art that wasn’t so aggressive, but more fun and playful with a sense of humor. We worked with my friend Steve Smith to create original paintings for the card. It was hard in the sense of trying to make something that felt Magic without doing something they would already do. AS FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP WITH ROLLERBLADING BRAND THEM SKATES, YOU’VE STATED IN THE PAST THAT BRAIN DEAD BELIEVES THAT “BLADING IS AMONG THE MOST EXCITING SPORTS IN TERMS OF INCLUSIVITY, ENVIRONMENTAL CREATIVITY, INDIVIDUALITY, AND COMMUNITY.” CAN YOU DESCRIBE THAT FURTHER? Rollerblading is just an amazing activity because for so long it was the bastard brother of skateboarding. As someone who loves both, I felt that blading had a different way of looking at “flow” and creativity. The new generation of rollerbladers have more emphasis on skating and less on just trying to do tricks. They have worked on developing a style that is distinctively rollerblade, instead of just trying to do big tricks like skateboarding. I love that everyone who has been blading for a while really doesn’t care if it was cool or not. They just do it out of love. Skateboarding has always been cool and now is as mainstream as football. Blading is such an authentic community.

“I LOVE THAT EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN BLADING FOR A WHILE REALLY DOESN’T CARE IF IT’S COOL OR NOT.”

NO MATTER IF SOMEONE HAS A BRAND OR NOT, WE’RE ALL OUR OWN BRANDS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA. WE’RE ALL EXHIBITING OUR INTERESTS AND ALLUDING TO PLATO’S ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE, ONLY SHOWING WHAT WE WANT TO SHOW. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO START A BRAND AND STAY AUTHENTIC? If you look at JJJJound for example, you’re not like, “Oh, he’s a designer.” You’ve seen enough of his Tumblr to be like, “I get who you are and I want that lifestyle.” It’s all about being relatable or teaching something new. I don’t think you just release a product and people buy into it. You have to tell a good story and once people can relate that’s when they’ll start supporting you. WHAT CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO FROM BRAIN DEAD IN 2023 AND BEYOND? A lot more Magic: The Gathering. We have cards coming out in 2024. A lot more wrestling and really expanding our own footwear line. We do the clogs, but there’ll be different designs. Also quality—I think the whole thing we’re really working on is building stories with experts who know fabrication of materials. Doing way more within culture, but at the same time, not sacrificing apparel.

THE WAY YOU’VE APPROACHED YOUR BLADING CAPSULE WITH THEM HAS THE LOOK AND FEEL OF A CLASSIC SKATEBOARDING BRAND. WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE CHALLENGES YOU AIMED TO DISMANTLE BETWEEN THE SKATEBOARDING-ROLLERBLADING DICHOTOMY? We just wanted to showcase Them to our audience. This resonated with a lot of people within the fashion and culture circles. Now, Them has collaborated with Clarks, sold to SSENSE, and even did a skateboard/rollerblade crossover collection with my friends at WKND Skateboards. The WKND/Them collaboration and video is the first crossover project of this kind. I am so honored to have played the smallest part in it.

GRAPHIC DESIGN BY MICHAEL BOSWELL

BIGGER COMPANIES LIKE TO PLAY IT SAFE, WHEREAS YOU GUYS PAVE YOUR OWN LANE. WHEN ONE OF THESE BIGGER ENTITIES DOES APPROACH YOU, DO YOU USUALLY GET FULL CREATIVE CONTROL—OR CAN YOU RECOUNT ANY HURDLES WHERE YOU’VE STRUGGLED TO MAINTAIN YOUR VOICE WHILE GIVING THEM THE PRODUCT THEY WANT? For the most part, everyone’s been so cool. I think they know that we’re the freaks, so they just let us run. Or we just don’t agree to something and we move on. There can also be times where one person in the company really gets it, but the rest of their company will be like, “Wait, what is this?” YOU’VE TOUCHED ON SO MANY FACETS OF CULTURE. WHAT ARE SOME REALMS THAT YOU HAVEN’T YET TAPPED INTO THAT YOU PLAN TO? There’s two things. I really want to do more within living, meaning creating a place where people can go and meet. Sounds grandiose, but like a hotel or Airbnb—I think that could be really cool and have all our home goods. I also really want to do a roller rink, because there’s a connection between music, skating, and community.

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SOUTH KOREAN DESIGNER DONGJOON LIM NAVIGATES DICHOTOMIES THROUGH HIS LABEL POST ARCHIVE FACTION.

Finding Equilibrium WORDS BY MATTHEW VELASCO

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHANHEE HONG

The inherent pursuit of balance runs through Dongjoon Lim’s burgeoning menswear label Post Archive Faction—or PAF, as it’s most commonly titled. The South Korean brand’s methodical and intelligent garments fall somewhere between utilitarian sportswear and experimental futurism. This pursuit is also found in Lim’s precise approach to the design process—an essence that stems from his background in industrial and space design. Since bursting on the scene in 2018, Lim’s brand has earned him an impressive list of growing accolades: he was a semi-finalist for the prestigious LVMH prize in 2021, presented at Paris Fashion Week, and churned out highly anticipated collaborations with the likes of FILA Korea and Virgil Abloh’s Off-White™. Now, with the brand’s streamlined 5.1 collection—marking the end of its “CHAPTER ONE” series which began in 2018—Lim has his sights set on more. ISSUE NO. 31

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“WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT A CLASSIC SHIRT, YOU ARE REMINDED OF AN ARCHETYPE. THE EXACT PERSPECTIVE DEPENDS ON THE PERSON, BUT THERE IS A COMMON THOUGHT

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OF THAT ARCHETYPE IN OUR MIND, SO I’M TRYING TO FIND THAT POINT. FROM THAT, I STRETCH THE EXPERIMENTAL LEVEL TO THE LEFT AND TRY TO FIND A BALANCE.”

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Like a small-but-growing, faction of designers nowadays—think Eli Russell Linnetz and Samuel Ross—Lim wasn’t initially drawn to fashion, opting instead to pursue a degree at Hongik University, a private Seoul institution known for its architecture and design programs. There, the blossoming creative was not immersed in tailoring or the ins and outs of pattern making but instead gained insight into product development—knowledge that, he says, later influenced the analytical-meets-experimental elements of his brand like exposed seaming and two-way zips. This industrial and product background is a driving force behind the brand. Yes, aesthetics are too, but there is also a distinct emphasis on wearability and functionality. “Most people in the industry are interested in fashion from an early age,” Lim says. “I didn’t have much interest in fashion until I was 20 years old, when I was in university. And even in my personal style [now,] I only wear a couple of outfits—[almost] like Steve Jobs.” Lim wore uniforms throughout his schooling up until university —as is standard in South Korea—but Hongik’s lack of a dress code caused him to challenge his relationship with fashion for the first time (he says he only had one or two pairs of shoes amongst a generation of sneaker-obsessed South Korean youth). “I was confused, as I thought I loved uniforms because they were very convenient,” Lim recalls. “But from that moment, I started to think ‘What should I wear’?” To this day, Lim’s query guides the core of PAF’s push for an “archive of the future,” rooted in the exploration, and, at times, the rebuttal of traditional style codes. After deciding to leave the program two years in—and having met a creative cohort of

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colleagues, some of whom now work at PAF—Lim dabbled in user experience design for IT companies and fashion brands before ultimately launching PAF alongside co-founder Sookyo Jeong. Lim approached the early stages of the label deliberately, honing in on the function of garments as products that could fulfill a consumer need rather than satisfy an aesthetic fantasy —though there’s still plenty of fantasy in PAF. Dually rooted in experimentation and perspective, PAF divides its collections into three main categories: conservative right, intermediate center, and radical left. This trio of monikers derived from political systems and is seen in varying degrees throughout the brand’s garments—from monochrome long sleeves and tailored trousers to mesh cutout abstractions and voluminous, cocoon-like outerwear. For Lim, that foundational aspect is not only derived from politics but also from his father, who, like many South Koreans in the ‘80s, protested the actions of the country’s then-militaristic government. This tension, at times radical and jarring, is felt throughout the stylistic language of Post Archive Faction—an analysis of what is moral, a push and pull between right and wrong. That classified contrast is emphasized in the brand’s garment-making process, too. “When I design, I start from the ‘right’ first; I always need to set a starting point,” Lim explains. “When you think about a classic shirt, you are reminded of an archetype. The exact perspective depends on the person, but there is a common thought of that archetype in our mind, so I’m trying to find that point. From that, I stretch the experimental level to the left and try to find a balance.”

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“PEOPLE SAY THAT LIFE IS A MARATHON. I AGREE WITH THAT. WHEN I’M LEARNING ABOUT MY COMPANY, IT FEELS LIKE A MARATHON.”

For PAF’s debut 1.0 collection (the brand uses an increasing numerical system to name it’s collections) Lim’s tiered theory began what is now a solidified language. Opening the label’s “CHAPTER ONE” series, the collection looked to the idea of a uniform featuring both the traditional and the inventive—subdued black bombers, cut-out trenches, layered PVC jackets —for a wearable and experimental exploration of traditional menswear codes. “In our design process, I start from a uniform—uniform means ‘one form,’” Lim notes. “And then we transform it into multiforms, which are right, center, and left.” Lim rebukes the notion that PAF’s garments are solely “deconstructed,” instead opting to focus on the coexistence of deconstruction and reconstruction. While Lim is taking apart elements of the modern wardrobe—oxford button downs, peacoats, tapered trousers—he is simultaneously refashioning those very pieces into something new, an archive of the now. It’s an approach that’s been done before, but what sets PAF apart is an emphasis on balance. Color also remains a point of equilibrium in the brand’s signature. Earlier collections like 2.0 and 3.1 heavily feature all-black colorways (with accents of deep reds and purple) while the brand’s most recent 5.0+ and 5.1 collections veered into new territory with transparent seafoam blues, slate grays, and vivid lime greens. Those two collections—which marked the end of “CHAPTER ONE”—also featured new womenswear explorations, like a transparent jersey skirt and a sprawling dress with an intricate overlay and a sheer underlayer. These pieces challenged binaries, a first for the brand despite most of its pieces being unisex. “I always say that we are unisex category-wise,” Lim explains. “I don’t want to categorize menswear and womenswear [within] the brand, but in the design process, I definitely had to separate the two. Menswear has an exact silhouette, more like a uniform. But with womenswear, we have more freedom.” While the pair of collections marked the end of the brand’s first chapter, they were a decided step up in technique and fabrication. Lim explored new textiles like silk, sheer, and mesh, something that the brand had initially steered away from. While

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the delicate fabrics are usually reserved for something softer, they felt at home in the collection—adding feelings of both tension and balance when layered against technical fabrics like cotton and nylon. “Nowadays we’re trying to expand our design language, and thankfully, the infrastructure for fabric sourcing in Korea is really good,” Lim says. “It’s really important that we not only make [experimental] pieces but also things that people could buy.” With an increasing profile in the industry comes a dichotomy: how to properly scale a business while remaining true to an artistic vision. The 2022 opening of the brand’s Seoul flagship store signals how Lim is approaching that polarity. As many brands shift their businesses solely online, PAF’s new space places an emphasis on craft, as it’s based in the brand’s former sewing factory, and features an interactive display system that highlights the functionality of its garments. “There are three rails [which] give us the freedom to rearrange items depending on the necessity or seasons—so it creates a different environment [and] atmosphere,” the designer explains. “And that resembles our garments as well—we usually have those adjustable styles that create different forms of [the] body. Those overall design languages also share between space and our product.” At the time of the interview, Lim was gearing up for “CHAPTER TWO,” which brought the brand’s 6.0 collection to Paris Fashion Week earlier this year. He has his sights set on a potential creative director gig at a luxury brand as well, something he reveals is his “next personal goal.” While spearheading a brand with such exponential success can overwhelm some designers, Lim is taking it in stride—and PAF’s leading tenets of balance and exploration are guiding him. “People say that life is a marathon,” the designer explains. “I agree with that. When I’m learning about my company, it feels like a marathon.” While Lim navigates uncharted terrain, the meeting point of PAF remains constant: somewhere that the uniform comes to flourish, where function meets aesthetic, and where yesterday’s conservative becomes the new avant-garde.

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WORDS BY ALICE MORBY

DO NOT SIT HERE

Over time, designers, architects, and artists alike have used the chair as a means of expression. In their minds, form and function wrestle with one another. Some aim to create the most useful and comfortable, while others hoping their creation becomes an icon in its own right. Grappling with the correct balance has brought us some of the most famous design objects in existence—from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair to the humble white plastic Monobloc found stacked up the world over. “A chair is a very difficult object, a skyscraper is almost easier,” Mies van der Rohe—a designer of both—once famously said. So why does the chair continuously come back into focus?

MUDDYCAP’S CHAIRS, RANGING FROM MID-CENTURY TO POSTMODERN, BRUTALIST, CONTEMPORARY, AND MORE, WOULD BE QUICKLY BOUGHT UP BY DESIGN FANATICS—IF THEY WEREN’T ALL VIRTUAL.

“Chairs are essential in our lives,” says Muddycap, a designer based in South Korea, who has recently risen to prominence across Instagram with an account dedicated to abstract interpretations of the home staple. “When I first started my account, I barely knew about chairs and wasn’t really interested in them— I was also making tables, lights, shoes, etc.—but the audience was more interested in chairs than anything else.” With this in mind, Muddycap—a moniker used by the designer in order to remain anonymous—began spending his time transforming chairs into works of art in their own right, and sharing them through his @muddycap handle. His creations have amassed more than 65,000 followers on Instagram since he began posting pieces inspired by anything from the Nike SB logo to the work of Virgil Abloh in early 2020. Since then, his craft has come a long way—both technically and in terms of forging a style that is instantly recognizable as his own.

Chairs are the bread and butter of contemporary design, but as a ubiquitous item we all live with, they go unnoticed—a humble victim of their own usefulness. History shows that our (mostly) four-legged friends first turned up in Ancient Egypt some 5,800 years ago. Back then, they were used as a symbol of ranking— and the higher an individual was ranked, the taller the chair would be. Since then, the chair has been reinterpreted to the nth degree. An evolution of the benches and stools that came before it, the addition of a backrest and arms to chairs in Ancient Egyptian times seemingly began the design world’s obsession, prompting the creators of past millennia to come up with their very own blank canvas. 208

As someone who’s made his name on Instagram, it’s fitting that we began our conversations over DM’s when I asked the cloaked designer if we could have a general chat about his process and creative background. Having majored in art at university, Muddy—as I’m told it’s OK to call him—became disillusioned with the curriculum on offer. “There were more things I wanted to do, and my interests were elsewhere,” he says. But those interests required both time and money, two things he was lacking. It wasn’t until he began to learn about 3D art and renderings that he found a medium for his creative pursuit. “I started making things in 3D with my friend’s old laptop and posted them on Instagram,” he says. “It was so convenient. With the laptop, I was able to make anything, anytime, anywhere.” Now, his process always begins with an abstract idea, and if you look at some of his most recent pieces, you’ll notice that these ideas can range widely, from a mousetrap to a donut stack. Having set his concept, and roughly figured out the shapes associated with what he has in mind, Muddy begins embodying and visualizing the ideas to turn it into a 3D model. “I don’t start working with a 100% finished shape in my mind,” he says, “so the longest part of the process is forming the details.” Once the modeling is done, he moves on to rendering. During this process, materials and colors are applied to the 3D model. “I don’t usually think about the colors before this stage, so they depends on my mood at the time,” Muddy says. “Most of my work is a little spontaneous.” When all is finished, and Muddy is happy with the result, he names the artwork and uploads it to Instagram, where the likes and the comments roll in thick and fast. Many followers continue to be surprised that the chairs aren’t real, praising Muddy’s ability to create realistic 3D models, while others beg him to make them a physical reality.

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The level of abstraction varies from design to design. Take, for example, the NS Chair, which combines a chrome frame with an acetate back and seat. One of Muddy’s more simple pieces, you can draw parallels between this and design greats, like Giancarlo Piretti’s folding Plia chair. The origins of others are more difficult to pin down, and rather than taking physical cues from existing objects they appear to be born straight out of Muddy’s brain. The Bone Chair sees a silver-toned skeleton trapped within a frosted material, while the Nature Chair depicts a mushroom cluster growing within its glass-clear structure.

heart arm chair og & pink, 2023 STEEL PIPE, LEATHER, AND ETC

A notable trait that comes across when chatting to Muddy is a certain degree of humility. Spend enough time in the design industry and you’ll realize this is a rare occurrence, particularly in terms of those lucky enough to dominate its fairs, galleries, and stores. Many of his answers to questions regarding his practice could be interpreted as somewhat naive, but in reality, they show a refreshing lack of pretense. Take, for example, Muddy’s sources of inspiration. “I do get influenced by my favorite designers, but I think most of the inspirations are from my daily life,” he says. “I get ideas from the songs I listen to, movies I watch, and the food I eat. I also try to hang out more with my friends and experience new cultures.” Even when alluding to his online popularity, Muddy makes clear that social media success was never the intention, and in fact, he uses the render process in preparation to make real-life creations. “Luckily, many people showed me love and support with the 3D chairs, but I still have more ideas in my mind to show,” he adds. With computational design having the design industry firmly in its chokehold, many turn to a line of questioning that has developed from its relevance and potential (back when the only way to mock something up was through physical scale models), to the nuanced ways in which it can propel the industry forward, now that it is a widely used tool. For Muddy, it goes beyond his own needs. “It seems to be getting easier and easier to digitally implement an individual’s ideas,” he says. “I see this creating more opportunities for people who were not easily approached, or gave up art due to various restrictions in the past.” As a design journalist, my social channels are filled to the brim with concepts for furniture, interiors, and architecture. But something about Muddy’s work feels different. Yes, many of his chairs rely on fantastical, eye-catching aesthetics that are wellversed in Internet trends, but it goes beyond that. “While the chairs are made in 3D, many of their points are based on reality to some extent. I try to express the elements that should be considered in the actual production process, such as proportions, materials, and mechanisms.” To many, that probably sounds dull. But it’s this distinction that gives Muddy’s work that “is it or isn’t it real” edge over its physically impossible counterparts. Because they are kind of real, it makes you want them to actually be real even more. Luckily for us, the designer hopes to pick up tools and begin IRL construction on some of his pieces this year. “I want to see my friends and family sitting on my chairs,” he concludes.

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db chair 2023 HARD PLASTIC, STEEL PIPE, AND ETC

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bone chair 2022 RESIN AND METALLIC PAINT COATED PLASTIC

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nature chair 2022 PLASTIC

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gem stone chair 2022 STEEL, RESIN, AND HARD PLASTIC

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industrial chair 2023

STEEL

nae chair 2022

STEEL, PLASTIC, AND ETC

ns chair 2022

HARD PLASTIC AND STEEL

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jimseung chair 2022 NYLON AND FIBERGLASS-REINFORCED POLYMER

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donut chair 2022 FIBERGLASS-REINFORCED POLYMER

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN VARGAS

FULL LOOK: AMIRI, SHOES: OFF WHITE™ X NIKE

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STYLING BY KEYLA MARQUEZ

FULL LOOK: THE INCORPORATED, SHOES: STÜSSY X NIKE

222 ISSUE NO. 31 FULL LOOK: THE INCORPORATED, BOOTS: CALVIN KLEIN

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SHIRT: BOY KLOVES, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN

224 ISSUE NO. 31 (LEFT) SHIRT: BOY KLOVES, PANTS: WILLY CHAVARRIA, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN, SHOES: NIKE X AMBUSH

225 (RIGHT) SHIRT: BOY KLOVES, PANTS: LUJO DEPOT X NOT URZ, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN, SHOES: NIKE X AMBUSH

(LEFT) VEST: DSQUARED2, PANTS: GYPSY SPORT, SHOES: OFF WHITE™ X NIKE, JEWELRY: VITALY (RIGHT) FULL LOOK: DSQUARED2, SHOES: OFF WHITE™ X NIKE, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN

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FULL LOOK: JACK JOHN JR, SHOES: STUSSY X NIKE

228 ISSUE NO. 31 SHIRT: HOLOGRAM CITY, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN

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VEST: DSQUARED2, PANTS: GYPSY SPORT, SHOES: OFF-WHITE™ X NIKE, JEWELRY: MODEL’S OWN

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(LEFT) FULL LOOK: THE INCORPORATED, SHOES: STÜSSY X NIKE (RIGHT) FULL LOOK: THE INCORPORATED, BOOTS: CALVIN KLEIN

232 ISSUE NO. 31 SHIRT: THE INCORPORATED

233 MODELS: MALIK & JABARI WILLIAMS, LIGHTING DIRECTOR: SAÚL BARRERA PHOTO ASSISTANTS: ERICK MENDOZA, JAEBIN CHA

INTER SEC TION

Chapter 4

Style Gone Viral Rarified Reading Step-By-Step: Natural Dyeing

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TIKTOK

STYLE GONE VIRAL

#FASHIONTOK #FASHION #FASHIONTIKTOK #STYLE #FASHION NEWS #FYP #OUTFITINSPO #STYLETIPS #THRIFTSTYLE #STREETSTYLE

TikTok has exposed new ways of interacting with style, from aspirational Outfit of the Day videos to out-of-the-box thrift flips, DIY creations, trend reports, and styling advice. But not everyone who tries can become a fashion authority—it takes an eye for aesthetics, a unique point of view, and video editing skills to stay relevant on a platform that moves through trends at lightning speed. These creators manage to do just that, so we wanted to go beyond their @ names to find out what really makes them tick. WORDS BY SOPHIE SHAW

@thepeoplegallery

@watchingnewyork

@bernardgarby

@juulian.c

@cyrilroypalmer

IMAGES COURTESY OF CREATORS

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Name: Johnny Cirillo Age: 42 Location: Brooklyn, New York

The People Gallery @thepeoplegallery 598.9K Followers

As a professional street style photographer, Johnny Cirillo’s social media is dedicated to the unique and inspiring fashion he finds while gallivanting through New York. What started as a personal Instagram project has evolved into a full-time creative pursuit. “NYC is this beautiful melting pot of all walks of life colliding together and existing in a not-so-big space,” Cirillo says. “The variety is remarkable. There is no right, there is no wrong, there’s only one of you and the people here lean into that.”

18.8M Likes

Name: Maurice Kamara Age: 36 Location: Brooklyn, New York

WHAT’S ONE PIECE OF STYLE ADVICE THAT YOU’VE LEARNED FROM INTERVIEWING PEOPLE ON TIKTOK? Style is in you, not on you, so be bold and do it for you— not for others. HOW HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR TIKTOK MAKE A DIFFERENCE? I believe it’s made people happy and confident in expressing themselves. There are stylish individuals all over the world, but people based in less open-minded cities can struggle with a lack of support or acceptance. My videos allow them to know it’s OK to wear whatever they want, that it’s appreciated, and that it deserves to be documented. WHAT OPPORTUNITIES HAVE OPENED UP THANKS TO TIKTOK? I have partnered with brands I admire and sat front row at fashion shows I never thought were possible to get into. It’s only getting better. Featuring rappers and pop stars like Lil Uzi Vert and Doja Cat, as well as fashion insiders like Naomi Campbell and Yoon Ahn, Kamara’s videos are like the red carpet of street style. His often-famous subjects could be on their way to grab burgers at Balthazar or coming from a fashion week event—either way, they give a look at how people are getting dressed for the occasion. On his way to creating content full time, Kamara has been manning his TikTok for nearly a year and a half, continuing on an upward trajectory with the star power of the people and places he features. It’s taken him backstage at Paris Fashion Week, inside industry events, and more. One of Kamara’s taglines is “uniting the world,” which you see in his no-fail formula for his interviews. Each one highlights three things fashion people love to talk about: their drip, food, and astrology—with Kamara hyping them up the whole time.

WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT MOST FOR FASHION THIS YEAR? I look forward to seeing people inspire one another.

Johnny Cirillo @watchingnewyork 889.5K Followers

23.5M Likes

Now one and a half years into being a TikTok creator, the photographer has shifted to pairing his static shots with interviews and giving a glimpse at the eclectic fashions and personalities that roam the the Big Apple. “Oftentimes it’s waiters and waitresses, bankers and shoe salesman,” Cirillo says of his subjects. “There is nothing I love more than people getting dressed to do the ordinary.” Surrounded by the creative communities that ebb and flow through the city, specifically Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Manhattan’s Soho, Cirillo captures trends as they emerge in real-time. YOUR STREET STYLE PHOTOGRAPHY FIRST BECAME POPULAR ON INSTAGRAM, AND NOW YOU HAVE NEARLY AS MANY TIKTOK FOLLOWERS—WHAT SPARKED THE IDEA TO START MAKING VIDEO CONTENT? My cousin is a smarter, less lazy, and more creative version of myself and had been encouraging me to start making videos for a while. I think she probably told me half a dozen times before I gave it a shot. I had been filming people and asking them about their outfits after I photographed them, strictly for my own memory of what it was they were wearing. It became another part of the project that I started to enjoy, so I kept going. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE WILLIAMSBURG AS YOUR MAIN PLACE TO SHOOT? WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER FAVORITE PLACES TO SHOOT STREET STYLE IN THE CITY? When I first started, I actually roamed all over NY. This was 2016-2018. We had a kid in 2018 and I was limited to my travels. We live in Greenpoint and babies sleep a lot, so I would often take the stroller as far as I could into Williamsburg to get some shots and then walk back home. I began to see familiar characters and trends emerging and it became my go-to place. So at first it was out of necessity, but it quickly became an obsession of chatting with strangers about where they got their pieces and how they styled them. There’s a lot of artists in Williamsburg and you can see the creativity in the way they dress.

HOW HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MAKE AN IMPACT ON PEOPLE? One of my favorite parts of having this platform is naturally running into a creator and letting them tell their story. Some of the most incredible designs are happening right now and we just haven’t discovered them yet. When I share one and it hits I get really thrilled for the creator and feel like I did my job of sharing such a unique individual. WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT MOST FOR FASHION THIS YEAR? The unknown! Every year I try to predict what will happen and every year I get surprised all over again when it’s something I wish I thought of. Just when you think you’ve seen it all some unicorn will come busting down Spring Street to rewire your thoughts. I love it.

Fanelli’s cafe in SoHo is my second most frequented spot. It’s a good mix of high end and creative. You get a little bit of everything.

LOTS OF THE PEOPLE FEATURED ON YOUR TIKTOK ARE FAMOUS. HOW DO YOU MANAGE SO MANY STAR-POWERED RUN-INS? Ninety percent is being in the right place and being able to communicate to them what I’m doing. I have had some people reach out too.

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MY PAGE ISN’T ABOUT ME, BUT ABOUT TRYING TO GET OTHER PEOPLE TO EITHER RESEARCH MORE ABOUT THEIR OWN CLOTHES OR TRY AND IMPROVE PARTS OF THEIR WARDROBE. —JULIAN CARTER

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Name: Bernard Garby Age: 25 Location: London, UK

Bernard Garby @bernardgarby 417.3K Followers

660.5K Likes

In mere months, Bernard Garby has become TikTok’s go-to source for fashion news. As he makes his coffee each morning, he gives daily rundowns of the biggest headlines in the fashion industry that are as entertaining as they are informative—and that’s been his main goal all along. “When people think of fashion, they think of glamour, beauty, designers. And yes—there is a lot of that in the fashion industry,” Garby says. “But my mission with my TikTok was to show how much fun the business side of fashion can be. How scandalous it is. How dynamic it is. How much it evolves. Every single day, there’s a whole new hot topic, a new juicy story for us to talk about. It’s entertaining, but my mission is to also make it educational.” In under three minutes, Garby is able to share what makes the news significant, give the who’s who on the major players, and sprinkle in his own opinion as a luxury fashion executive, too. His sharp understanding of fashion as a business and skill at explaining it in a digestible way has attracted over 400,000 followers. From industry scandals and designer comebacks to fashion week recaps, Garby invites everyone to witness the action alongside him. WHAT’S A MYTH ABOUT FASHION MEDIA YOU’D LIKE TO BUST? I came from nowhere. As an immigrant working in fashion retail—hungry for beauty, hungry for fashion, hungry for culture—I strove to share my passion with people around me. Looking back, I realize that my background is what made me fall in love with fashion media. Fashion media and music were my two ways of escapism and my tools to stay positive. A lot of people would laugh at me when I’d say “Fashion and beauty will save this world!” But I do believe it. I truly do. Because it already did. It saved me and kept me sane. It also gave me a career. So yes, I said it once and I’ll say it again: fashion and beauty will save this world!

WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT MOST FOR FASHION THIS YEAR? Definitely artificial intelligence, because of ChatGPT’s rapid growth. We already have amazing AI algorithms in music (for example, Spotify) that can predict what sort of music I want to hear so accurately. We’re already starting to see the same in fashion e-commerce, but I wonder how that’s going to grow. However, I’m generally obsessed with observing how much our understanding of luxury is changing. Do you think our grandparents would’ve believed that this world would get to the point where vintage shopping would be considered luxury?! YOUR FOLLOWERS SEE YOU MAKE COFFEE AS YOU SHARE THE NEWS, BUT WE DON’T SEE THE FINISHED PRODUCT! HOW DO YOU TAKE YOUR COFFEE? [Laughs] I like it strong and with lots of character—just like the people I surround myself with!

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT THE FASHION INDUSTRY FROM BEING ON TIKTOK? Because of the content I create, I’m learning daily. It’s a never-ending process. I go through so many news portals at 5:30 a.m. every single morning to find the juiciest fashion stories. I have to digest so much information and then filter out what I think people will care about the most—all for the sake of being able to deliver the freshest and most important fashion news for my followers on TikTok. Tomorrow, I’ll learn something again.

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4. Julian Carter @juulian.c 324K Followers

8.5M Likes

With inventive thrift flips and DIY projects, Julian Carter supplies professional-level tailoring advice, sewing knowledge, and styling videos. Carter’s creations focus on utility and custom modifications, which gives his aesthetic a techwear tilt. His TikToks are even more impressive, considering he has no formal design background and is completely self-taught (with the help of some YouTube videos). Carter first started sewing as a hobby in high school and has continued exploring it as a creative outlet alongside his full-time career as an aerospace simulation engineer. “My first goal when sewing was just to make my clothes fit better, but eventually I started making clothes because I couldn’t afford the brands that really piqued my interest,” he says.

Name: Cyril Roy Palmer Age: 30 Location: Los Angeles, California

Cyril Roy Palmer / @cyrilroypalmer 588.1K Followers

48.2M Likes

Carter really delved into the hobby in the pandemic lockdown days of 2020 and began sharing his flips and tips on TikTok. “My favorite part really is meeting and connecting with new people and being inspired to really go even harder in my craft,” he shares. “It’s crazy, but TikTok feels a lot like my early fashion forum days.”

Name: Julian Carter Age: 25 Location: Huntsville, Alabama

WHO OR WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE ON YOUR PERSONAL STYLE AND WHY? My friend put me on to UNDERCOVER during my sophmore year of high school in 2012, and the brand straight up blew my mind since I was only aware of mall brands at the time. Soon after this, I started to browse Internet fashion forums, particularly Styleforum, Sufu, Ktt, /fa/, and even the now-deleted HYPEBEAST forums, and that’s where my style really took off. Of course, I couldn’t afford any of the cool pieces from Diet Butcher, Julian_7, Ann Demeulemeester, Hender Scheme, or Needles as I was a high schooler with no job, but it got me interested in a bunch of unique styles at once. Like most kids into fashion at the time, I was inspired by A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and Pharrell, but my style really was from a bunch of Internet homies on fashion forums. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TYPE OF PIECE TO DIY AND WHY? That’s a hard question as it’s probably going to change over time, but currently I am very into upcycling military surplus clothing. The materials and hardware are super interesting yet it’s still really cheap to get a hold of. I try to use secondhand fabric and materials as much as possible in my projects. HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR TIKTOKS MAKE AN IMPACT ON PEOPLE? All the time! My page isn’t about me, but about trying to get other people to either research more about their own clothes or try and improve parts of their own wardrobe. I love when people send me pictures or videos of projects they’ve been inspired to take on. WHERE DO YOU SEE FASHION HEADED IN THE FUTURE? I honestly have no idea. But I think as long as people continue to prefer to wear secondhand items we’re headed in the right direction.

“My style has evolved from a skateboarding kid to a skateboarding adult,” says Cyril Roy Palmer, AKA C Roy. A full-time content creator, Palmer’s wardrobe consists of literal stacks of graphic t-shirts, sneaker boxes, denim, and more that he skillfully whips into fire outfits. Palmer proves that personal style can make you a fashion authority on the app. His knack for thrifting and scouring vintage sales has earned him over half a million TikTok followers who look to him for #styleinspo. An ongoing “Rating Outfits’’ series in which he reviews others’ looks also proves this. “A lot of kids have messaged me directly and told me my videos have improved their styles, which means a lot to me because that’s all I want to do,” Palmer says. WHEN DID YOUR INTEREST IN FASHION START? I’ve been into fashion for as far as I can remember. I was always trying to get the pieces that were different from what everyone else had on. In high school, I actually won “Best Dressed” my senior year, but my biggest influences in fashion are early Pharrell Williams fits and ’90s pro skaters. WHAT OPPORTUNITIES HAVE OPENED UP THANKS TO TIKTOK? So many brand collaborations that I never thought I would have been doing. adidas was a big one for me, as were Poshmark and eBay. Before TikTok, these types of companies were not reaching out. I appreciate them because it makes me realize that they trust me and what I’m doing will captivate their audience. It pushes me to keep going and to show other people out there that this social media thing is real and it can pay the bills. WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT MOST FOR FASHION THIS YEAR? I’m excited to see more Black faces in bigger fashion spaces. I just love to see my people—all people— win, but seeing these Black-owned brands become mainstream warms my heart and lets me know I can get there too with hard work and persistence. IF YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY, WHAT CELEBRITY WOULD YOU LOVE TO STYLE AND WHY? This was a tough question, but definitely Drake. I hope he actually sees this and we make that happen. I have been loving how much his style has evolved and how he is getting more creative in what he wears.

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Rarified Reading

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Discover 13 unique shops—from unlikely storefronts, to indie press purveyors, to nooks for niche titles—that are keeping bookstores on the map.

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California

Bart’s Books 302 W Matilija St, Ojai RAIN OR SHINE, THE WORLD’S LARGEST OUTDOOR BOOKSTORE IS OPEN 364 DAYS A YEAR.

New York

Dashwood Books 33 Bond St CATCH BOOK SIGNINGS AND PERUSE RARE PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS.

Sweet Pickle Books 47 Orchard St TRADE YOUR USED BOOKS FOR A JAR OF PICKLES—SERIOUSLY!

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAE-EUN CHUNG

USA

Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks 28 E 2nd St

Asia

Japan Gifu

ALONG THE KISO RIVER, THIS SECOND-HAND BOOKSTORE OPERATES OUT OF A 100-YEAR-OLD HOUSE.

A DELICIOUS OFFERING OF HARD-TO-FIND VINTAGE COOKBOOKS FILLS THE SHELVES IN THIS SHOP, HIDDEN AWAY IN A BRICK ROWHOUSE.

Dear Friend Books 343A Tompkins Ave

Tokyo

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I typically work with cellulose fibers1, which are plant-based (linen, cotton, hemp) rather than protein fibers2 (animal hairs such as wool or silk) so this process is a bit more complex and involves a lengthy preparation of cleaning and mordanting to create a foundation that will accept most botanical dyes. There are dyestuffs known as substantive dyes3 and they are able to adhere directly to the substrate, but a large number of plant dyes require a process known as mordanting to attach in a washfast form. This is the part of the dyeing process that acts as a sort of glue to affix the color to the fiber. After scouring4 (a fancy word for very deep cleaning) a layer of tannin 5 is applied to the fabric and then the fiber is submerged in a solution of mineral salts. The tannin bonds to the fiber and the mineral salts bond to the tannin creating a surface for the plant dyes to attach. Most of the secrets to my personal dyeing process are contained in these steps, learning and then breaking many of the traditional rules when it comes to layering color and mordanting. I use specific types of water and modifiers with dyestuff, tinkering with pH levels and oxidation, and utilizing middle mordanting to create multilayered color. Also allowing dyes and stains to cure onto fabrics for extended periods of time, borrowing steps from other methods of surface design, and experimenting with applying them to my dyeing process. I love to learn the deep foundations of how to do something so that I can dismantle things and experiment with putting them together again.

STEP — BY — STEP : NATURAL DYEING INSTRUCTIONS BY LOOKOUT & WONDERLAND

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1—Fibers derived from plants such as linen, cotton, and bamboo. 2—Fibers derived from animals such as wool and silk. 3—Dyestuffs that are able to adhere directly to the substrate. 4—The slow and steady business of washing away naturally occurring oils and anything that may have been applied in the mill or finishing process.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE LEE

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5—A yellowish or brownish bitter-tasting organic substance present in some galls, barks, and other plant tissues, consisting of derivatives of gallic acid, used in leather production and ink manufacture. Tannin is used to assist the mordants of cellulose fibers. Tannin is applied to plant-based fibers to help them behave more like a protein fiber during the dyeing process. Tannins can be clear or they can add color to the fiber, and this is an important consideration when selecting a tannin.

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PROCESS—PREPARING THE FABRIC • Weigh your dry fiber to determine WOF1. • Scouring: wash until water runs clear. • For cellulose fabric, next is the application of tannin, which comes in a variety of hues. The type of tannin used is dependent on the desired resultant color. Protein fibers do not require tannin. • Wet fabric completely. Measure tannin to the recommended WOF for the tannin you are using (typically between 8-12%) and dissolve in hot water then add to the pot with enough hot water for the fabric to move easily. Add wet fabric to the tannin bath, stir regularly, and soak for at least an hour. • Mordanting 2: The application of some combination of mineral salts. The type of mordant will depend on the fabric and dyestuff being used. A traditional mordanting process is 2% WOF soda ash and 15% WOF aluminum potassium sulfate dissolved in hot water and added to a pot with enough hot water—for the fabric to move easily. Fabric should be stirred regularly in the first two hours and soaked in mordant for 8-24 hours. • Curing3: Remove from mordant bath and allow to rest for a minimum of a few hours. I’ll usually repeat this process of tannin, mordant, and curing if using heavy, tightly woven fabrics or anything that will receive a lot of sunlight. • Soak and rinse any excess tannin and mordant.

DYEING WITH INDIGO The scouring is the same, but it’s substantive1 and alchemical. No mordanting is needed. My indigo vats are normally created through fermentation, so that is a whole other story. After scouring, the fabric must be completely wetted out and then very slowly submerged into the indigo vat with very little jostling. Then massage the indigo into the fabric very carefully and slowly. Gather the fabric and remove it from the vat, introducing as little oxygen as possible. Open the fabric to the air to allow the oxygen to bind once again to the indigo molecule. This is where you witness the yellow/green slowly fading into blue hues. The fabric now needs to rest to oxidize fully. Rinse well and repeat until you’ve layered the blue you desire.

DYEING • Prepare your dye baths 4. This may include extracting color from tree bark or roots, which can take days of upfront preparation. Dye extracts are easier to work with for beginners as they can be heated to dissolve and added directly to the dye bath. For best results use stainless steel pots and tools for stirring. • The fibers now go into the prepared heated dye bath. Most dyestuff requires the fabric to be held at a specific temperature for a minimum of an hour. Refer to your chosen dye recipe for specifics on time and temperature. • Allow to cool completely in the dye bath. • Rinse, wash, and hang dry out of the sun. For best results, hand wash with a pH neutral laundry soap. ** A note: certain dyes benefit from what is known as setting up to achieve the best fastness (wash5 and light6). Fabrics dyed with these plants should be gently rinsed and dried, then hung for a week or two before washing.

1—Weight of fiber. 2—Prepares a fabric with a foundation that will allow botanical dyes to bind to the fibers. 3—Curing can mean many things in the dyeing process, from applying heat to fiber to the application of a finishing agent over the dyestuff. Regarding this process, it pertains to the aging and oxidation of a dyed fiber after the dyeing process. This allows the bonds to become stronger and more established before the fiber is rinsed for the first time.

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4—Vessel containing the dye and used for coloring fibers. 5—Dye that won’t fade when washed. 6—Dye that won’t fade when exposed to sunlight.

1—Dyes that color natural fibers through a process of oxidation and reduction. ** Adjective Dye—A dye that needs a mordant to permanently dye the fiber.

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