RELAPSE: Rebirth Issue by Max Louis Miller

RELAPSE Ian Frisch Editor in Chief

Tyler Mitchell Creative Director

Max Louis Miller Art Director

Amina Srna Fashion Columnist

Kelsey Paine Staff Writer

Michael Tessier

On the Cover

Staff Photographer

Jessica Lehrman Staff Photographer

COle Barash Staff Photographer

WESTON AUBURN Contributing Writer

HANNAH HEDIN BENJAMIN KWAN WHALEN BRYCE ADAM RINDY PACKARD STEVENS ADAM HRIBAR Contributing Photographers

PHOTOGRAPH MICHAEL TESSIER STYLING MAUD BERDEN HAIR BRITTAN WHITE MAKE UP HIROKO TAKADA for TOM FORD MODEL JULIANA at MC2 Flower-print Jeans H&M White Dress JOSE DURAN Ring LARUICCI Bracelet MICHELLE MONROE Necklace STELLA PINBACK/BECKMANS Pink, Orange and Yellow Crystal Necklace BRITTBYBRITT

Contents. 8

Titanic Couture

The Shins Set Sail

Bubblegum Grunge

First Blossom

Avid Alibi

The Space Left Behind

Bright & Beyond

Summercamp

Maia

First Ray of Sun

First Blossom

Bringing Back Bespoke

A Place With No Gatekeepers

104

SXSW

EDITOR’S LETTER

AGiftfromNewYork

n Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Hours, he opened the first chapter describing New York City on the cusp of summer—an entity of reinvention and rebirth, an environment of optimism and future, a place where opportunity abounds. “New York in its racket and stern brown decrepitude, its bottomless decline, always produces a few summer mornings like this; mornings invaded everywhere by an assertion of new life so determined it is almost comic, like a cartoon character that endures endless, hideous punishments and always emerges unburnt, unscarred, ready for more.” And so, for this issue of Relapse, I wanted to embody this persistent sense of optimism, this unwavering sense of potential accomplishment that floods the streets of this city as spring takes over like maple syrup in the crevices of a warm waffle. Steaming, sweet, and ready to be bitten into. This issue tunes into the potential of rebirth, the exploration of the other option of the fork in the road, the fruit of the road less traveled. Aside from Stephen Seo’s personal rebirth as a bespoke suit designer, Pola Thomson’s emigration from Chile to New York City as a means to expand her clothing line, Michael Tessier’s flower-themed cover editorial, and the entire experience of South By Southwest, the annual music festival in Austin, Texas for emerging bands to make it big (as documented in diarystyle format by Jessica Lehrman), Relapse itself has gone through its own miniature rebirth. Starting this issue, we have brought on Max Louis Miller as Art Director, implementing his personalized style into the pages of the magazine, and truly expanding and rethinking the aesthetic of Relapse in general—giving similarity to the cartoon character Cunningham so eloquently metaphored in the first page of his novel: An entity of New York City that’s always ready for more. Proving that, amongst the cacophony and rambunctious nature of New York, there is always a morning where you can wake up and feel a sense of hope, an understanding that, aside from anything else, you and this place are actually working together to accomplish your goals and achieve your dreams. And, so, it was ironic—and perhaps serendipitous—that one warm morning in April, a day so soft and comfortable it seemed to seep through the cracks of my windows and into the creases of my sheets, I walked out of my loft to find a box on the sidewalk stuffed with free books. A gold emblem—“Winner of the Pulitzer Prize”—on the cover of one of the books grabbed the sun and threw it into my face, and, as I picked up the novel, the title and author came into view: The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I held the book in my hands, sat down on the sidewalk, and read the first page. Read the gift that New York gave to me. Ian Frisch, Editor in Chief

The Machine. Adam Rindy

A Los Angeles-based up-and-comer, Adam Rindy is a native of Reno, Nevada who dropped out of Brooks Institute of Photography in Venture, California, one of the premier photography schools in the country, to persure his career in neighboring Los Angeles. Coming highly recommended by Creative Director Tyler Mitchell, Rindy’s “Summercamp” editorial and backcover photograph, shot in the southern Californian desert, depict a longing to break away from the past, to ditch the nostalgic mindset and reinvent yourself. Rindy continues to shoot fashion editorials, and has worked for the likes of Ashbury Eyewear, Liquid Force, See You Monday, and Gabby Applegate.

Max Louis Miller

Max Louis Miller likes to put it this way: “I’m northern Californian raised by New York City blood.” His father was a starving artist who told him stories of growing up in the New York City art scene and shopping his paintings from gallery to gallery. Max frequented the City at a young age and fell in love with it, promising himself that he would station himself here one day. After living in Reno, Nevada and doing Art Direction for Sentury Snowboards and the flourishing company Moment Skis, Miller felt like he was losing himself, and longed to be back on the East Coast. He left Reno for New York City and has been her for just over four years. Aside from being Art Director for Relapse, Miller also does freelance photo retouching and assisting. And to this day, his favorite thing about New York City is simply walking down the street.

LADY DUFF GORDON, 1910

PHOTOGRAPHS RANDY BIGHAM

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mercifully, there is a limit to the human capacity for suffering. In moments of great shock and sorrow we can only feel so far, and in place of consecutive thought the mind turns over a medley of trivialities. If it were not so, we should find life utterly unendurable. On that night of horror when we rowed away where we had seen the Titanic sink, we scarcely spoke to one another.â&#x20AC;? 9

GORDON’S SIGNATURE STYLES, WORN BY THREE MODELS

s the Titanic sank off in the distance, Lady “Lucile” Duff Gordon, the “It” girl and couturier of her day, huddled on Lifeboat 1 with her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, her maid and nine others, mostly crew members. The thenforty-nine-year-old fiery redhead was en route to visit the New York branch of her salon, opened just two years earlier, when disaster struck. The lifeboat, made to hold forty by some accounts, rowed away quickly into the cold night, with England’s premier women’s designer swaddled in two bathrobes, one pink and one purple, a pair of pink Pierto Yantorny slippers, a squirrel coat and a motor hat, but the scandal that would ensue would be drawn out for years to come in the tabloids and a court case. Among the allegations that later brought Lucile and her husband before a judge were claims that the couple had bribed lifeboat crewmembers not to return to look for survivors. A rumor circled the press concerning the couturier, who amidst the chaos and death that surrounded her lifeboat, grieved the loss of her nightgown which she had left onboard, and although Lucile and her husband were acquitted of all charges, the couple never quite recovered from the

slanderous media reports. The scandal threatened to overshadow the tremendous impact Lucile made in the fashion industry. Born Lucy Sutherland in 1863, she lost her father at an early age, and moved to England from Canada when her mother remarried. There, in 1884, she met and married James Wallace and shortly after giving birth to her daughter Esme, Lucile was caught in an abusive marriage. Left penniless after the divorce, Lucile turned to dressmaking—her rebirth—and in 1894 set up a shop. Her handmade dresses became instantly popular through family connections and were known to be specifically tailored to reflect the personality of the wearer. Six years later, she married Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon who became her business partner and started Lucile Ltd shops in Paris and the United States. Randy Bigham, journalist and author of Lucile, Her Life by Design, first discovered Lady Duff Gordon’s influence in the late 1980s as an incoming Fashion Institute of Technology design student. “The more I found out, the more I became fascinated with her as a celebrity,” Bigham explained

with bubbling enthusiasm. “Her work was fiercely original.” Her most notable design contribution was the tea gown: A pared-down, flowing, empire-waist dress with a sheer overlay and a slit to reveal the legs. Lucile’s choice of fabrics was revolutionary, too, as she popularized the use of lace and chiffon overlays, a trend that is making a revival for this coming summer. More importantly, the use of boudoiresque fabrics, coupled with a severe redesign of the standard corset, lent itself to a collection that promoted a peek-a-boo sexiness, a sort of combined innocence and sophistication. “It changed the way women felt about themselves,” Bigham said. “It legitimized sex as an aspect to dress, but still let women feel respectable.” The end of the crippling S-bend corseted shape was fast approaching, giving way to a less restricting, natural waistline. Lucile restructured the corset completely, stripping it from the metal boning and replacing it with plastic for maximum comfort. The designer almost completely discouraged wearing the corset, which some of her young Edwardian customers were eager to accept. Perhaps even more influential was Lucile’s passion for theater, which she later combined with her designs to coin the term “Mannequin Parades.” They were the first of their sort, an exclusive and interactive experience for the designer’s clients in which live models were used to display garments. “It was the birth of the modern fashion show,” Bigham writes in his book, “complete with the first miniature stage across which the first models, hired and trained specifically for the post, sailed gracefully to tunes from a string band.” Following her escape from the sinking Titanic, Lucile continued revolutionizing the fashion industry with her ready-to-wear line in the United States, and, after losing the right to her name due to a faulty contractual agreement in 1917 with her then-agent Otis F. Wood, eventually retired and became an influential fashion columnist while still accepting private appointments for couture pieces. She also wrote an autobiography, Discretions and Indiscretions, in 1932, three years before losing her battle with breast cancer. One hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic, Lady Duff Gordon’s impact as the first-ever world renowned British designer, originator of “Mannequin Parades,” and innovator in couture is almost omnipresent in the industry, as evidenced by all the runway shows at Fashion Week, high slit gowns at the Academy Awards and lastly, the corsets women threw out decades ago. 11

he godfathers of indie rock have returned. Five years after releasing the wistful and winsome Wincing the Night Away, the Shins come slinking back into the mainstream—a word the band probably never dreamed would be associated with their sleepy, dream-inducing brand of indie rock. Loquacious lead singer and frontman James Mercer carved out a specific little cubby hole for emotive, despondent and intellectual music that relied heavily on its players’ musicality, something we now refer to as the ever confusing and blurry genre of indie rock. After all, perpetual fanboy crush Natalie Portman name-dropped the Shins in the 2004 film Garden State, a surprisingly zeitgeist-y drama that used the Shins to convey its theme of detached, numb, dorky romanticism—and a plethora of specs-wearing fellows and the women who love them responded accordingly. But in 2012, there’s quite a decent amount of these “depressed” men who are pretty good with a guitar (think Death Cab, Decemberists), so now that they’re back, have the Shins evolved with the times? Can Mercer keep up with these young and possibly more despondent young men?

PHOTOGRAPH ANNIE BEEDY

In a word: maybe. James, who has always been the heart, soul and voice of the Shins, and—after a foray into electronica with partner Danger Mouse in Broken Bells— did away with most of his original bandmates, has kept the cryptic lyricism, but upped the ante when it comes to expressive sentiment. On their fourth record, Port of Morrow, released on Mercer’s Aural Apothecary Label, via Columbia Records, the lush musical arrangements Mercer paints so effortlessly are still there, but there’s also something more. First single “Simple Song” combines a jaunty progrock sensibility and hopefulness that got people really, really excited for this album. 41-year-old Mercer doesn’t seem quite so sad anymore, his lyrics are no longer as abstractly bleak, and we can actually feel another human presence in this new set of songs. There’s a relatable humanity behind songs like folk-pop swinger “Fall of ‘82” and country-nodding “Taken For A Fool” that were buried deeper and darker on the Shins’ previous records. While he might be more emotionally openhanded, Mercer hasn’t lost his way with words. “Love is the ink in the well when her body writes,” he croons on the solo-helmed “September,” a guitar-only nod to classic Shins. “Bait & Switch” is the happiest Mercer has ever sounded, a Beach Boys, Bossa nova blended gem that goes down as refreshingly smooth as a summer’s day soda. But too many of the sparse ten tracks get lost among Mercer’s sonic exuberance. “It’s Only Life” is disap-

pointingly melodramatic and musically uninteresting. There’s a lot going on and by the time you’re halfway through Port of Morrow, you can’t even remember what opener “The Rifle’s Spiral” sounded like. Yeah, you liked it, but … what else? “No Way Down” is pure pop bliss, but the lyrics on the overblown verses are awkward and hard to follow. We get it Mercer, you’re really smart, and you really know how to work that Thesaurus. Album closer “Port of Morrow” is, well, weird. Mercer uncharacteristically ditches his trademark earnest vocals in favor of a falsetto Thom Yorke-esque whine. Whether or not the whole thing “works” is questionable; the eerie repetitive denouement/ending of the track/album is either your perfect weed-smoking accompaniment, or it’ll just freak you out. This title track may hint at Mercer’s new direction, away from the sunny, sulky country-tinged indie rock he has heretofore been at the helm of. If that’s the case, one might wish Mercer took Port of Morrow in a new direction entirely, instead of merely testing the waters. Morrow makes you wonder what else Mercer has up his sleeve. In the words of Monty Python, “get on with it!” So while there may be more to come, Port of Morrow is far from a disappointing return, and most listeners will be more than happy to go along for the ride, wherever Mercer is taking his ship next. 13

lad in a leopard-print cardigan, midriff-baring crop-top, and bejeweled fanny pack, 19-year-old UK pop upstart Charli XCX drifted from the on-stage smoke at Santos Party House in Chinatown back in March like a punk rock oracle. Her wild brown tendrils and full lips were those of an ethereal goddess, but her attitude and eccentric ensemble screamed flirtatiously naughty rebel. The London native, real name Charlotte Aitchison, crafts her own unique blend of dark pop music—Bjork splashed with a touch of old school Madonna—and she’s been making music in the UK dance scene since she was just 15 years old, self-releasing two EPs, Emelline/Art Bitch and !Franchesckaar! in 2008. “I’m a massive attention seeker and huge drama queen,” Charli laughed when we stole a few minutes with her via phone—right after her very first photo shoot with Rolling Stone and right before she geared up for her second show in New York City. Kicking off her very first string of shows in the U.S. ahead of her first overseas EP release, due out this summer, Charli played an extremely well-received show at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg before tackling the Party House. The New York Times was in Brooklyn, unhesitatingly referring to her spastically entertaining live persona as that of a “little starburst, bright and untamed.” Charli, who admitted she was “quite pleased” with the review, is certainly taking advantage of all the good clean fun of a rock star on the road. While she was on the bill alongside Clock Opera and Django Django for the aforementioned Brooklyn Vegan-sponsored Santos set, Charli has already opened for the likes of Robyn, the Ting Tings and Sleigh Bells.

“It was our tour manager’s birthday in Paris so we went a bit crazy,” she said of a Sleigh Bells tour stop with a hint of playfulness glinting at the edges of her heavy British accent. “We were on a really rampant tour of the city at four in the morning driven by this guy whose dad is a racing driver, speeding around like crazy. That was pretty amazing.” Not to mention the time she partied with her band—consisting of a just a keyboardist and drummer— in Amsterdam the night before they played their first gig in Philadelphia. “We were actually fucked up, like still tripping out and then the crowds were crazy, it was like a sweat box there. I just turned around while I was onstage…like what is going on? We’re all falling over in a complete daze.” While Charli may have been mentally out of sorts, it’s that uncontainable gusto that makes her live show so magnetic. Charli dances along to her glittery punk-pop with an unabashed joy, the way you dance in your bedroom, alone with a favorite song turned to ear piercing decibels. Her youthful exuberance is contagious and even the crowd full of music bloggers and beer-swilling downtown types couldn’t help but nod their heads along. Comparing New York crowds to her native showgoers, Charli is brutally honest: “[In] the UK, everyone is pushing each other and running all over the place and throwing beers at each other. New York seems a lot more slick. They get involved which really nice. No one is stuck up here.” Listing influences as diverse as the Spice Girls and Zola Jesus, Charli has a thing for the light-meets-dark, for sticky-sweet mashed up with some spiky angst. “Aqua, who did ‘Barbie Girl,’ they were a big influence for me,” she explained. “Kate Bush as well, and Bjork. And at the moment I love Grimes. She’s really beautiful.” But it’s Bajan badass Rihanna who really gets Charli’s heart going: “Rihanna, I think she’s the baddest bitch in the world,” she confided. While Charli may be fascinated with Rihanna, she’s certainly able to mix her own fashion and stage persona as adeptly as any Top 40 pop star. She professes admiration for

the 90s and calls her style “Bubblegum Grunge,” and her music reflects that. “A lot of my songs are quite dark and mysterious and have a lot of blackness running through them. I always like to think of things in color—some of my songs, like “Stay Away,” remind me of a black starry night and smoke. Other songs which are more poppy on the album remind me of the bubblegum flashing lights. It’s a mix of both.” Charli’s as-yet-untitled, full-length debut will hit stores late summer/early fall, with the EP coming much sooner from IAMSOUND records. A quick search brings up some of her most well known songs: “Nuclear Seasons,” an infectious cloudy pop confection, and “Stay Away,” an 80s homage, anti-love song for the masses. Charli ripped through a seven-song set at Santos, charming the audiences with those aforementioned dance moves, a deep and smoky vocal ability and some sexy, angry yowls—she doesn’t stunt her vocal emotion, unlike many of her alt-pop contemporaries. With Rolling Stone dubbing her a “Dark Star Rising,” and The Village Voice comparing her to Siouxie Soux and Robert Smith, Charli XCX seems posed to take the gothpop throne—a seat that has been vacant on the euro-dubstep clogged airwaves for far too long now. While the teenager is all youthful exuberance, she also possesses a maturity far beyond her years. When asked what she’d wish for if she could have anything, her responses ranged from “spending a week in the Jersey Shore house with Snooki,” to “going to space.” But most of all, she wants to meet the character of Audrey Horne; she’s having a Twin Peaks moment after all. Charli capped off her full New York experience with a trip to eccentric fashion mecca, the Patricia Fields boutique down on the Bowery, before heading to Los Angeles to put the finishing touches on her record. “I’m ready for the world to tell me what they think of it,” she says, and if the initial barometer is any indication, Charli’s “rising star” is getting ready to heat up.

photograph Jesse Jenkins

I met Pola Thomson at Moto in Williamsburg, a bar with refitted bicycle parts for beer taps, as the J train rattled overhead. Not far from her apartment, we sat down in the small corner-booth to talk fashion, New York City, Chile, and our mutual frustration with small pockets. “I’m going back to Chile this week,” Thomson, a native of the South American country, informed me. “It’s been a busy past few months so I am going to relax and hopefully get inspired for the next season.” A busy past few months might be an understatement. Thomson has been designing her line almost single handedly as well as traveling frequently, having been invited to Paris twice in the past six months partaking in the Who’s Next & Première Classe where she won the “Femme” category for her current Spring and Summer 2012 collection. Thomson has a very stern look to her (in a previous interview she once described herself as “a nun in makeup”), nothing like the stereotypical idea most gringos have of a South American woman. She dresses almost exclusively in her own clothes, “except for my shoes,” she admitted, “although I would love to do footwear sometime soon.” She wore exclusively neutral colors, the only exception while we sat in the dim bar being her bright red lipstick.

“You know, Chile is not like the rest of South America,” she said, tapping her fingers against her wineglass, looking thoughtfully at the bar. “We are very isolated. We do not have Carnival [like Brazil] or any of these things. We have the mountains to the one side and the ocean to the other. We have all four seasons. It’s not like it’s the tropics.” Pola goes on to tell me her influence for her spring and summer line is something that only happens once every five years. In the Atacama Desert, a 600-mile strip of land at the northern tip of Chile, just west of the Andes Mountains, there is a great bloom of flowers in the normally harsh dry backdrop. Lasting a few months, the typically barren desert transforms into a lush landscape filled with various bright flowers, attracting many animals and insects. Taking from the Atacama, the “Desert in Bloom,” for her newest collection, in Pola’s normally colorless pieces we now see an infusion of purple, orange, and blue. What

looks at first glance to be tie-dye on the articles of clothing is actually hand-painted directly onto the fabric. Thomson has also added headscarves to the collection, based on the uniforms of the Palomitas, the women who sell candies on the side of the roads in Chile. “Chile is basically just a bunch of uniforms: school, military, politics, and religion,” she explained. It is in response to these uniforms that she forms her sleek designs. “The people who wear my clothes don’t get lost in them. Yet the pieces have a special aura. There is level of comfort. I make luxurious clothes,” she said. “Or I like to think that I do.” As we get ready to leave the cozy comforts of the bar and back out to the rattling of Broadway Avenue, I noticed my Metro card on the hardwood floor, next to the foot of our table. I cursed my pants as I pick up the card.

“Your pockets are too small,” Thomson said. “All of my clothes have really deep pockets.” A small playful smile escaped past her bright red lips. It’s the first time she had smiled since we sat down. At first glance, like her clothes, it seems that Thomson is very serious and straightforward. But give both her and her designs time and you will see a quick infusion of color and playfulness—like the Atacama. A slow but persistent blossoming. A rebirth.

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dense shuffling of pre-noon pedestrians filled the windows of Stephen Seo’s showroom, a quiet and well-organized studio on the twelfth floor of an apartment building overlooking the New York Stock Exchange. Seo, clad in a rough-textured, two-piece custom-made suit with purple accents, tossed his right leg over his left and adjusted his thick-framed glasses. “I just got my new prescription,” he informed me, an aging Korean accent creeping in behind every vowel he spoke. “I just hit 40, and my vision gets fuzzy in the distance,” he continued. “When I wear these glasses, I look just like my him,” Seo explained, talking about his father, who passed away before he was born.“He was a governor [in Korea],” Seo explained. “He was a very powerful man, and I heard he was very handsome and charismatic and a great speaker. He wore a suit, like this,” Seo continued, thrusting his finger into the middle of his chest. “He wore a suit all the time.” Stephen Seo has been a dense believer in personalized fashion ever since moving to New York City from South Korea almost 20 years ago. He attended Pratt, graduated, dedicated himself to the advertising industry and, eventually, in 2006, left the confides of corporate professionalism to start his own bespoke menswear line. “I love fashion,” he spat, smiling about reinventing himself in the fashion industry. “I love being, you know, respecting myself,” he continued. “That’s how I started. I like differentiating from others and distinguishing myself.” The art of bespoke menswear, in terms of Seo’s application, has its roots thrusted under the pavement of Savile Row, a street in downtown London known exclusively for its shopping and, more specifically, its bespoke clothing shops. These shops have been crafting custom menswear for over 200 years, and some businesses, like Anderson and

Sheppard, have been in business since the early 20th century, boasting, “Our concern with easy movement and natural body line continues into the 21st century thanks to an unbroken transmission of skills.” This dedication not only to specific production standards but also to exclusively producing bespoke items, made to order for each client, has not kept its feet on the streets of London. Aside from Seo, a handful of local, New York City bespoke shops have adapted the style and history of Savile Row. “I have always had an appreciation for the tradition and craftsmanship of Savile Row,” explained Daniel Lewis, co-owner of Brooklyn Tailors, a bespoke menswear outlet in Williamsburg. “Our goal is trying to offer that same level of craftsmanship to the New York City audience that is forward thinking, young and ambitious.” The current, ready-to-wear shopping market led Lewis to start Brooklyn Tailors with his wife in 2007, saying, “I entered this industry as a frustrated consumer myself. I was just looking for clothes that fit me, and the idea of custom seemed like an obvious choice for me.” Seo’s main inspiration came from a calm, routine drive to his home on the outskirts of Princeton University in northern New Jersey six years ago. “I was driving with my daughter,” Seo explained, “and I saw a vacant store in prime location—a very nice mall area.” He smacked his lips and took a breath. “You know, Gracie,” he started, referencing his daughter, “that seems like a very good start with your Dad’s company.” He chuckled abruptly, wiggling the knot of his tie between the slants of his collar. “Let’s do it!” he exclaimed, imitating his eldest child. “She loved it. That’s how I started. I quit my career and started designing my own brand, label, and collection. And I started my own store near Princeton in 2007.”

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eo quickly grew to become one of the premier menswears outlets in his area, but, due to the small market, he set his eyes on Manhattan. “I felt like I reached the top of the market,” he explained. “People who needed my style and garments already came in and I wasn’t developing any new business within two years.” That’s when he made the move to Manhattan, commuting from New Jersey to his showroom for roughly nine months before making the decision to close his store in Jersey and relocate to New York City permanently. “After that, I was able to focus on branding myself rather than retailing,” Seo explained. “That’s how I got into Hollywood connections. Entourage.” Seo jumped onto the tail end of the acclaimed HBO series as the lead stylist for the cast, dressing the dudes and making custom items. “I always dreamed about being involved in Hollywood—dressing up celebrities,” he confided. After that stint wound down, he again focused his time and energy on his New York City image and showroom. “Los Angeles is a very fun city, but New York has such a high demand. So many people require sharp suits, you know?” Above anything else, Seo is most proud of his fabrics. “You have to know the fabrics you get for your suits. It is the most important element of the bespoke process,” he said. In true Savile Row fashion, Seo sources his fabrics strictly from sheep farms in Scotland or England, where the wool is freshly shaved, manufactured, and shipped to New York for each suit, where it takes roughly 50 hours to make the items by hand. “Very high-end brands like Prada and Versace require massive production,” Seo explained, “so, in order to make long yards of fabric, they have to blend in polyester. I only use 100 percent wool.” That’s the beauty of bespoke: Customers are given the privilege of having the opportunity to get these rare fabrics from some of the most

sought-after farms in Scotland. “The CEO of Lamborgini is obviously Italian,” Seo told me with a grin. “He makes his suits in Italy, but, however, he gets all his fabrics from Scotland.” With his New York City and Hollywood ambitions under his belt, Seo’s plans for the future include brand collaboration—the ultimate situational application of his clothes. “I want to customize clothes for people so they fit into their lifestyle,” he said. Some projects are in the works, such as a bespoke tuxedo for Aston Martin customers, truly bridging the gap back to London by implementing a classic James Bond theme. Other ideas include driving jackets and gloves for Lamborghini and Ferrari, which may take a while, but Seo’s unwavering assertiveness keeps his spirits high. “Fashion can’t wait. Fashion is always moving forward. We live in a fast speed of life and you can’t just wait around.” The swimming pool of pedestrians slowly drained from the streets and filled up the brick and concrete buildings surrounding Seo’s apartment, a warm ray of spring sun slicing through his windows. “My philosophy is not just making good clothes or creating a nice style, but maximizing someone’s confidence level,” Seo confided, grabbing the inner creases of his lapels. “It’s almost like reinventing them in some way.” Seo adjusted his glasses again as the opening bell of the Stock Exchange went off, filling the streets of downtown Manhattan with an intense and persistent dinging, the signal of the start of a new day in New York City.

ne stiff and brisk morning in mid-February, along the northern Californian coast, David Bazan woke up alone in the back of his tour van. His eyes were set on the Pacific before pointing south to the next stop of his 2012 Living Room Tour. “I drove a mile to the beach and flipped open the back doors of my van where I have a pantry and made toast and coffee and had some cereal and some orange juice and just sat there, my van backed to the beach,” Bazan told me. “And just sitting there, like, if my kids and my wife were here, it would make it a little better, but this is the best thing I can imagine right now.” He paused and stared off a bit, thinking of more memories of his solo-tour across the country. “If you ever happen to be driving when the sun is setting and there are these scenes when trains are going by one way, and a water way is on the other side, and it’s just epic,” Bazan said, flashing a quick smile. “I try to log those memories away and use them to help me be at peace. It’s hard because you can’t convey them because you’re alone, but it’s great to be with that mundane sort of bliss. And that’s what I love most about these house tours.” David Bazan, the enigmatic front man of cult-favorite Pedro the Lion, has been on his own for a little over six years now, splitting up his time on the road between full-

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band jaunts for records under his own name and, since 2009, peaceful solo tours, playing exclusively in fans’ living rooms, usually for a crowd of around 50. “We came up with this house show idea, where I can lay low and still make a living,” Bazan explained. “I fell in love with it. I love touring around this way. It’s simple,” he continued, his hands resting on the crests of his kneecaps. “I can be myself and kind of centered, and there’s not a lot of distractions. It’s really solitary, but in a nice way.” The birth of the living room tours, according to Bazan, was fueled more from the structure of the music industry than his personal ambition to engage in an unconventional touring regime. In the early part of 2009, Bazan was gearing up to release Curse Your Branches, his first full-length album under his own name, but with the recording and post-production processes complete and the release date for September, he found himself with almost nine months of free time before the Branches tour kicked off. “The way that I make my living is by touring,” he confided, saying he is on tour roughly 200 days out of the year, playing nearly 180 shows. “I couldn’t go nine months without touring at all, so we came up with this idea.” Living room tours in general are not unfamiliar to

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indie-rockers. Brooklyn-based singer and songwriter Kevin Devine, who has collaborated with the likes of Brand New and Manchester Orchestra, has, in the past, executed a similar initiative to Bazan. “David [Bazan] is mindful in being true to himself,” explained Devine in a phone interview, who is currently on tour. “We have a similar philosophical approach [in that we are] people that would be comfortable doing [living room shows]. It is not foreign to our kind of music. You expose yourself in a way that’s different. It’s amazing,” he added. “It’s a really amazing way to connect with fans on an intimate level,” explained Bob Andrews, Bazan’s manager and co-owner of Undertow Music Collective, touching on the same point as Devine. “It’s a way to perform the songs the way they were written in the first place,” he continued. The booking of the shows was originally promoted through Bazan’s e-mail list, which has roughly 20,000 recipients. “We only needed 80 shows,” explained Bazan’s manager Andrews, talking about the first living room tour, “but we got over 300 responses.” The booking is now also promoted through Bazan’s website and social networking platforms, and offer a pretty simple list of requirements for a fan or organization (like us here at Relapse, transforming our studio into a mini-venue) to host a performance: Must be able to accommodate at least 40 people. Must have decent parking available. Must not have anyone perform before or after Bazan, no matter how awesome. And must have neighbors who will not call the cops to come and bust up the performance. It’s really a much more simple setup than the fullband tours, which usually happen after one of Bazan’s records has released. “Having to be the boss [while on tour with a band] requires a lot more energy [because] I have to manage moral and make sure everyone is healthy and happy and it’s a skill set that I’ve only really started developing now,” Bazan confided. “So, by contrast, these tours are really easy and simple. It’s like camping in the van a lot and sleeping in the same bed everynight.” He paused and raised his chin, as if recreating the feeling of his head falling into his pillow. “It’s not something bands who tour in a van get to do.” The situational differences are obvious when playing on a stage with a full band to a packed venue versus in a living room by yourself for a group of people sitting with their legs crossed, quietly sipping a can of beer, tapping their girlfriend or buddy on the arm when a certain song starts filling the space. “It’s a situation where there is no veil between me, the performer, and the audience,” Bazan said. “Every person in the audience can feel the texture of every-

thing happening. There is no filter.” And, after greeting and sitting amongst the threedozen fans that came to see Bazan perform at the Relapse studio that night in mid-March, I understood what he meant. His songs filled the space like the smell of freshly washed clothes coming from your mother’s laundry room, soft and delicate with a distinct refreshment and comfort— an almost calming nostalgic awe of being there for such a rare and coveted opportunity (tickets for this show, for example, sold out within four minutes of being released). “If it’s going to be electric at all, like the energy being good,” Bazan explained, “that multiplies in a way that can be pretty powerful. And then, you know, if the energy is kind of wack, that can multiply in the same way. It’s kind of sink or swim. I like that about it.” The audiences of each show obviously have a history with Bazan, whether it’s his early Pedro the Lion records, soaking them in their pubescent nostalgia and uncertainty, or his more contemporary solo projects and offshoots (I’ve heard people say his one-album side project Headphones was some of their favorite stuff), the people that go to these shows are there because they love him. But that, however, can have its downfalls for Bazan, who is publicly known to be an extreme self-critique. “[I feel] so underwhelmed by what I do sometimes and it causes me to just go through and pick songs that I can stomach playing [at the living room shows],” Bazan spilled with a calm assertiveness. “Feeling my taste and what turns me on is the best way of thinking about the audience. In this situation, I really have to want to play these songs and be connected [with the songs] because otherwise it’s a limp dick—because, in this setting, you can really feel that.” He adjusted the bottom cuff of his black t-shirt. “I feel [what] people want, overall, is to see something that is not phony.” Bazan took his iPhone out of his pocket, letting the white rectangular creases in the denim fall to his skin. He pushed the home button and checked the time. It was getting close to the start of his performance and he still hadn’t eaten dinner. He explained a bit about his new record, due out in September, but switched back to talking about the audiences of his living room shows, dropping his hands back onto the tops of his thighs. “It’s exciting for me because it’s just people,” he started. “There are no gatekeepers that can weigh in on this. It’s just me. It’s just so simple and robust in that way.” He paused again and rubbed his palms into his jeans, lifting the tips of his fingers in the air slightly. “It just feels so strong to do it this way.”

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