Novum Magazine No.2 by Frida Jonsdottir

Novum Magazine

No.2

Content 4 Meet the very talented and very young fashion designer: Christian Adamsen

18 Interview with Steed Lord

28 ‘The last man out of the abandoned city’

36 Polymorph: A designer collective

48 Novum wants…

Cover From: ‘The last man out of the abandoned city’ by Flovent brothers Photography and editing: M. Flovent Stylist: Ingimar Flovent. Model: Ingimar Flovent

Meet the very talented and very young fashion designer: Christian Adamsen

Name: Christian Adamsen Age: 17 Country: Denmark You are very young to be a fashion and so on. But that is the best part of designer but you have still designing; you don’t know what the managed to enjoy success day will bring. designing your own label. Was it hard to start your own collection and to be taken seriously at such a young age? It is so hard, so much work and pain. Yes I am very young, I am the youngest in Scandinavia. It takes a lot to start your own brand, not only creativity but also skills. I have learned almost everything by trying, Where do you get your inspiration although I also to find techniques in from? books and on YouTube. I think it’s hard for every new designer to be Sooo different. I try to find places or taken seriously. Because there are so things that are interesting to me. many of us, and there are a lot of That is very important! Than I find designers in the business already. the trends for the season in forecast But maybe it’s harder for me, books. But I am always there, if you because of my young age, I don’t can say that. I don’t create anything know. if I don’t see my self in it. Have you ever studied fashion? Do you have any idols in fashion? Yes, through YouTube and books, Not really. I find a lot of designers but I’ve never studied at a design interesting. But if you have an idol, school. you mostly copy them. And what is fun about that? Fashion is you, it’s What is your normal day like? what you think fashion should be like. Every day is different. Mostly I am working on designs, new collections

“Fashion is you, it’s what you think fashion should be like.”

Do you read any fashion magazines or blogs? If so which ones are your favorite? I read a lot of magazines, Vouge UK, Vouge Italia, Vouge Japan, Elle USA, Elle Denmark, Cover Denmark etc. I also read almost every famous Danish fashion blog, and a lot of blogs that are connected to BloggersDelight.

“It’s a hard industry and you need be very strong mentally!”

If you weren’t a designer what do you think you would be doing? Maybe a hairdresser. I don’t know. I can’t see myself doing anything else than creating amazing garments!

Do you have any special plans for this summer or is it all work? I am starting my new collection Autumn/Winter 2013. And than I might be showing along side 20 other designers at Copenhagen Fashion week S/S 2013. What are your future plans for CHRISTIAN ADAMSEN the fashion label? To be a part of Copenhagen Fashion week, to sell in tons of stores and to move the studio to New York City. Lastly, what advice would you give a young aspiring fashion designer? Always to be yourself, be passionate about your work, and trust yourself. It’s a hard industry and you need be very strong mentally! -‐Frida Jons

Christian Adamsen S/S 12 -‐ Shop at: shop.christianadamsen.dk

Photographer: MIKKEL VÖLCKER PETERSEN/BLACKBASEMENT.DK Makeup/hair: MAGRETHE YASMIN KRISTIANSEN Model: EMILY ASTRUP/ELITE MODEL MANAGEMENT

Christian Adamsen A/W 12

“Limited edition” -‐ Amazon

Steed Lord is a music and art collective from Iceland based in

LA creating electronic synthesizer pop music and experimental visual art. Their shows are completely unique, something you can’t understand until you’ve seen one! They’re a DIY project so, besides writing and recording they’re songs themselves, they also film, direct and edit all of their music videos. But they don’t stop there! They also do short films and commercials for other brands. They are known for their über cool fashion sense and have worked with brands like H&M and WeSC, a Swedish lifestyle and clothing brand. We got to know Steed Lord a bit better…

Photos by: Einar Mega Egilsson www.itzmega.com

What is it like being a part of Steed Lord? What’s the best part about it? We are a family, it's me, my younger brother and my wife in the band so it's a family project. It can be very challenging at times especially when we don't agree on things. But we love working and creating music and art together and it is something we are super thankful for to be able to do that. The best part is creating music and videos together, and to travel the world and experience cities we wouldn't maybe go to on a vacation. We are adventurous kids and it's amazing where Steed Lord has taken us, we just started this for fun in our living room in 2006.

“We are adventurous kids and it's amazing where Steed Lord has taken us, we just started this for fun in our living room in 2006.”

Where do you get your inspiration from? We get inspiration from everywhere. And it depends on what we are working on at the moment. We get inspired by old movies, music, people, life, dreams, emotions, nature, our family, our friends, memories, cartoons, fashion and all kinds of visual art. It’s very unique that people with such similar vision and creative sense come together. How did you guys find each other? Well me and Svala (Kali) have been a couple since 1994 and Eddie is my younger brother. We started working together on music in

working together on music in February of 2006 just for fun. We had all been making music and doing other things before working together. Then when we started writing songs together we became Steed Lord and things started moving very quickly. A couple of months after starting the band we were being booked in the US and Europe to perform. We haven't stopped since.

“We live and breathe Steed Lord and sometimes we hardly sleep.”

How did life change when you moved to LA? It didn't really change that much. We work as hard as we have always done. The competition is fierce in the big bad world so you gotta stay on top of your game everyday. Steed Lord is a lifestyle and we are always working on something creative. We live and breathe Steed Lord and sometimes we hardly sleep. The most obvious change is that LA is a much bigger city of course and is the entertainment capitol of the world and you can get lost here if you don't have good friends and people you can trust. The move to Los Angeles was kinda natural for us cause all three of us have spent so much time in the US while we were growing up so moving to LA wasn´t such a big change for us personally. What is your normal day to day like? Wake up in the morning, stretch, talk to the sun for 5 minutes, clean the office, get coffee and start the day by answering emails. Then we get together and talk about what we are doing today. It can be working on a 20

song or a remix, editing video, planning a video shoot, getting ready for a live show and creating the set list and working on our live set and visuals and rehearsing for that. We could be creating a look for an editorial photo shoot, meeting up with someone to discuss work or collaborations... no day is the same. We also run our own record label and we have to take care of our releases, dj promos, social networking and promote all our own music. Sometimes we get very little sleep. We just try to work and work and work. So everyday is filled with lots of different fun projects for the three of us but sometimes we get that big surprise email and then our day will change to focus on that.... it depends. What we love about it is that no day is the same... and of course at night we are still working on the computers and getting ideas for the next day, week, month... we get our best ideas late at night, our in the sauna. You guys always look very cool, do you every just put on some jeans and a hoodie and go to Blockbusters? Sure. We just dress the way we want. It's not a big deal to us. We don't sit down and decide how we should look to the public. It comes naturally. We all have different personal styles and we just dress the way we are feeling I guess. We all like unique looking clothing, mostly vintage and it makes us feel good to look decent and to have our personal style. When we are performing live or shooting our music videos or doing promotional things for Steed Lord we of course put our best outfits on to create an image. But that doesn’t mean that we look that way every day of the week. Maybe Kali does!!!

“We were all injured critically and we had a near death experience.” You were all in a very severe car crash on your way to the airport in Iceland back in 2008. How has that crash changed your lives since? Has it influenced your work in any way? It changed our lives forever. It's something we will never forget. We were all injured critically and we had a near death experience. Einar (Mega) was in the hospital for 4 months and has all kinds of medical things he has to deal with for the rest of his life. Eddie and I also have back injuries that we have to deal with. Surviving an almost fatal car accident with your family members makes you so thankful for being alive. It makes you want to go after your dreams and seize the day and be in the moment. Cause it can all be gone in one second. You never know when you leave this life. So make the best of it and live life to the fullest. It sound cheesy but it's true. And please wear seatbelts! That saved our lives. You’re all involved in loads of other things besides your music, what are some of the things that you’ve been up to lately? Right now we just finished shooting our new music video and we are about to start the editing process. It took us 5 days to shoot because the three of us did everything from starring in it, directing it, styling it and shooting it like usual. It's a lot of work but so much fun and liberating. We also just had one of our songs on the national television show So You Think You Can Dance last week and it 22

does great things for independent artist like us to be able to get our music out to the masses that wouldn't normally listen to our stuff. We are also working on getting our music into films and composing specially for the big screen. And right now we are also recording our new album “The Prophecy” which will come out in two parts this year. So we are very busy in the studio writing and recording and bouncing ideas back and forth. Then there are some other exciting things in the works.

“We would love to own dogs too and a tiger and a monkey.”

What is your process like when making a song? Hard to explain, we just feed of each others energy and creativity and create something personal for ourselves with the hope of someone might like it... or not. Our writing sessions are becoming more of a journey we go through. And that journey can take 30 minutes to 30 days. Steed Lord is also a very experimental band and we love trying out new things when we write and record. Where would you like Steed Lord to be in 5-‐10 years? Still doing our thing. Creating music, art, videos and hopefully feature film projects. What do you think you’ll be doing when you’re 80 years old? Hopefully alive, happy and healthy with grandkids looking at the sea and owning over 20 furry Persian cats.

“Just keep on believing in yourself and don't ever give up no matter what.”

If you all got a pet together what would you name it and what kind of a pet would it be? We actually own 2 cats together. We have an 11-‐year-‐old tabby cat called Precious aka Old T-‐Rex and then a 1-‐ year-‐old calico Persian named Lúsí Ugla Villimey. We are cat crazy people. Animal freaks. We just love them. We would love to own dogs too and a tiger and a monkey. And the last one, what advice would you give an aspiring musician? Just keep on believing in yourself and don't ever give up no matter what. Don't listen to negativity. And have fun. Don't forget where you come from. Be connected to your roots. And put out good karma into the world. Work hard. And don't compromise your art. -‐ Frida Jons

The last man out of

The Flovent brothers, Ingimar Flovent and Marino Flovent, have been photographing all aspects of Reykjavik this summer and displaying them in seven different locations all around the capital. They’ve even set up outdoor studios in various locations where everyone that walks by can have their pictures taken which is then displayed on their Facebook page: facebook.com/brothersbl. They did a special photo spread for Novum Magazine called ‘The last

man to leave the abandoned city’.

Photography and editing: M. Flovent Stylist: Ingimar Flovent. Model: Ingimar Flovent Bag: I. Flovent design.

the abandoned city

Ingimar Flovent: Ingimar is a clothing-‐ and jewelry designer, a stylist and has now added photographer to his work skills. He’s been involved with the fashion and creative industry for a while and as an example lived in Hungary for a while. There he put on a fashion show showcasing his own design, which got quite a publicity and even appeared on television. To add to the list of things that he’s done in life, he has also acted in, directed and designed costumes for short films in Iceland. Marino Flovent: Better known as M. Flovent is finishing photography school this winter and has specialized in portrait and fashion photography. He, like his brother, does not stop at photographing and has also shot different short films in Iceland.

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Polymorph

Jagtvej 31, Nørrebro, Copenhagen Denmark polymorph.dk OPEN Mon – Tue: 12-‐18 Wed: Closed Thu – Fri: 12-‐18 Sat: 11-‐15

Polymorph, a design shop, is the collective of designers who each produce their own collections. They mostly carry women’s’ clothing but you an also find accessories and something for kids and men. The designers are: Sara Steen, Alter Ego Design, Rahbek,

Húnbjörn, C’est Chic, Fru Wøldikes Kjolesalon, Jack Of All Arts, UM and Tøjten. We at Novum love collectives like this because it can introduce you to designers you otherwise would never have known about. Plus it’s just always so much fun to walk into such a creative space. So if you’re ever in the neighborhood to check Polymorph out and see if you won’t find some keepers!

Húnbjörn

www.hunbjorn.net 41

Sara Steen

www.sarasteen.dk

Rahbek www.rahbekdesign.dk

Novum Wants… For her

This ‘Idunn’ bracelet from Thorshammer. An Icelandic design, handcrafted from high-‐quality Italian brown leather. “In Nordic mythology, Idunn is a goddess associated with youth and a granter of eternal beauty.” Shop at: thorshammer.is

These incredible stylish headphones in white and silver from WeSC a.k.a. WeAretheSuperlativeConspirace. Shop at: wesc.com

This beautiful necklace by Spunadis. You can find them in different makes and different colours. See more on her Facebook page or send an enquire to spunadis@gmail.com

Novum Wants… For him

This ‘Mjolnir’ bracelet from Thorshammer. An Icelandic design, handcrafted from high-‐quality Italian black leather. It’s engraved with Nordic runes, which stand for Mjolnir. You can also choose your own name in runes! “The story behind the wristband is the hammer of Thor. Mjolnir, in Norse mythology is one of the most fearsome weapons, capable of leveling mountains. The myth goes that Thor would be able to strike as firmly as he wanted, whatever his aim, and the hammer would never fail. Furthermore if he threw it at something, the weapon would never miss and would always find its way back.” Shop at: thorshammer.is

These Bongo White headphones from WeSC a.k.a. WeAretheSuperlativeConspirace, will keep you cool even in 36° weather. Shop at: wesc.com

These red swim shorts from Henry Vibskov (which just happen to be 65% off now!) Shop at: henrikvibskovboutique.com