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INTRO W H AT I S ‘ T H E N O W ’ ? As in pop music, the predominant tendency in appearance style today relies upon sampling & mixing diverse, eclectic, often contradictory elements into a unique, personal statement. Celebrating the confusion and diversity of our age, we surf through both history and geography to find our own reality - in the mix. The god of modernism is dead. Everything is possible. Because we’re all online, plugged into the ‘global village’. The past and the future have dissolved into ‘the Now’. This issue celebrates ’the Now’. The diversity of people and how we express ourselves and interact through fashion, art, design and music. Enjoy!
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D e s i g n
T a le n t
Etage Project Gallery, Copenhagen’s first gallery fully dedicated to new approaches in contemporary design and architecture opened February 21st with the “Locus of Control. Form Follows Concept”exhibition. Introducing concept-initiated design never seen before in the Danish capital, the new exhibition space aims to enrich and expand the definition of these creative domains. The first exhibition running till the end of April, features the work of 12 international designers working for their own “locus,” a position of self-motivated creation outside of market influence. A few of the exhibited designers spoke about their work, method, and how they view Danish design to date.
Luuk van den Broek “Time is about the moments, not necessarily the time of day, moments explain it better” For Eindhoven based designer Luuk van den Broek, it’s about capturing his happenstance impressions in the objects he creates. Taking inspiration from materials discovered through research, he is eventually able to translate these moments into physical objects. Salvaging marble denstined to be crushed into tarmac, van den Broek also finds new applications for blue print ink normally used by architects. Later on, he experiments with new techniques. The outcome tells the full story both in form and concept. A recent graduate of the renowned Design Acadenmy Eindhoven, van den Broek is a founding member of Collaboration O, one of the most celebrated collectives in the Netherlands. “It was something that grew on us,” van den Broek explained, “we wanted to build this atelier, we had this idena of sharing a workshop.” This style of working siden by siden sparked a material awareness that now characterizes his practice. During a school internship with architect Jo Nagasaka at the Tokyo based Schemata, he gained inspiration from the urban landscape and the hectic hustle. Having to escape the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, he returned to the Netherlands with the goal of finding a calm working process while still channeling what he had learned and experienced in Japan. This quest of find serenity resulted in both of his graduation projects. The Out of the Blue table was initially treated with UV sensitive blue print ink. A material he discovered while doing research at Schemata. First applied in a dark room setting, chosen objects where then organized on its surface. During the ‘magic hour’ when the sun rises, the assemblage was brought outsiden. The ink was exposed like a photograph, leaving the shadow of the objects imprinted. The entire process reflected a new found peace of mind that anyone could benefit from. “These objects tell the story about a moment in time, the subconscious denep dark blue helps to tell this story.”
“Time is about the moments, not necessarily the time of day, moments explain it better”
Stone Composition derived from a happenstance discovery that 30% of marble is crushed into tarmac pavement. Understanding the physical properties of this material, van den Broek applied a water cutting c.n.c technique to create small pieces that would later stack together, becoming a lamp. It was only after that he associated his impression of dusk hitting Tokyo’s tall buildings with the different reflective faces of the marble. “I went on making it thinner and thinner, then I found the translucent part. I started really looking at it, what it meant for me and what it could represent, all these metaphors.” A fan of Danish design classics, “a kind of simplicity, wood that is very delicately sanded,” van den Broek appreciates Patton and Wegner though he finds it harder name new Danish talent. Designer from the Netherlands and else where are becoming aware of their roles as storytellers through material. His work will spark a new more intuitive discussion in Danish design, while also presenting new techniques.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to bring the way the sun and the universe work… onto the human scale and bring it into our living rooms.”
Os Oos “Anyone can make something complex, it take true genius to make something simple.” But simplicity is more complex to achieve. For Os Oos, the Eindhoven based design duo of Oskar Peet and Sophie Mensen, design is about finding the essence of form that follows message. A collaboration that developed during their studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven, their personal creative voices and handwriting styles were fully honed. Peet is able to bring his mechanical engineering know-how to the drawing board while Mensen is able to envision a bigger picture. “When working together we notice it’s like 1+1 = 3 instead of just 2” Their collective inspirations come from outside of design, the film and art worlds. Other references come closer from to home. “Things in general that we in the everyday life miss a little bit… on a bigger scale if you get a feel of what’s going on in society.” Syzygy, their first fully collaborative project gave Peet and Mensen a 2013 Wallpaper Magazine Design Award. Originally commissioned during the 2010 Dutch Design Week with the theme of re-appreciation, the duo discovered that the sun was entering a 70-year ‘winter sleep.’ The idea sparked; re-appreciating something we don’t consider anymore, our primary source of light. “Wouldn’t it be nice to bring the way the sun and the universe work… onto the human scale and bring it into our living rooms.” ‘Syzygy’ a term used by NASA, describes three states of perfect alignment between celestial bodies, planets. Either as a transit, eclipse, or occultation, larger bodies pass in front of smaller bodies or visa versa. Each state was physically represented in one of three Syzygy lamps. “We chose the transit to be the largest one and the eclipse for instance because the weight had to be out of center.” Filters used by the film industry to mange vertical and horizontal light were lamented in glass mimicking how sunlight hits the earth at different times of day. Three filter and glass disks set in front of a constant led light box move between different intensities, from complete translucency to complete black and everything between. As an analogue device, the disks can be moved by hand, rotating on a center pin. The mechanism made of brass and nylon bushing is hidden in the cast concrete base, a material that alludes to the moon’s surface. As film enthusiasts Os Oos are entrapped by everything out of the Danish film scene, work by Susanne Bier, Anders Thomas Jensen, or Mads Mikkelsen. Although, when it comes to current design, Peet and Mensen believe that a lot more could be done. “Danish design is famous for 30/ 40 years ago.” Showing more of what has recently come out of the Netherlands in Denmark could inspire future Danish designers to stay true to themselves and not only focus on design as invention. “We’ve noticed from many films that Denmark is a very dark country, we hope to bring some light, they could definitely use a product like Sygygy.” WORDS BY ADRIAN MADLENER Visit the gallery ETAGE PROJECTS Borgergade 15E 1300 Copenhagen www.etageprojects.com
A N E C H O I C PHOTOGRAPHY ALASTAIR PHILIP WIPER
The unintentional beauty of science and research facilities: in particular, the anechoic chambers at Denmarks Technical University (DTU) in Denmark These facilities are designed to be purely functional, to push the limits of heat, radio and sound waves, and they are awe inspiring in their contribution to the advancement of mankind both on our planet and in space. However, they are also remarkable in another way: their visual impact. Without understanding the complexities of the functions of the facilities it is possible to marvel at the ingenuity of human beings and their ability to create such inadvertent masterpieces.
T H E PAC KAG I NG WORDS MORTEN VAMMEN PHOTOGRAPHY GAVIN WATSON “SKINS“
Urban uniforms and the deconstruction of male stereotypes - a bluffers guide to the history of classic male dominated sub cultural tribes.
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Remember disco kings The Village People from the late 1970s? After Bowie, Alice Cooper and Ferry´s androgyny glam rock posturing made even suburban hero boys wear fey feminine styles and makeup, The Village People inverted the transmission of style between boys: they cloned the most macho cliché styles: the soldier, the fireman, the cowboy and the sailor and reinvented them as gay fashion, causing mass confusion. Gays suddenly looked MORE male than the gay-appropriation hetero´s…subtly used uniforms them as gay fashion inspired a lot of polysexual men. They wanted to roam the streets and mingle looking for pray everywhere freely not only inside the homo subcultures. The Village people slipped under the gaydar back in the 70´s selling their “In the navy anthem” to the homophobic US navy and a Christian organisation bought the YMCA track for advertising films. Generally, you dress to look rich, sexy, clever…or dangerous… Remember the teenage rush of scaring off strangers in public wearing a hoodie or evil combat boots? Faking you are in a scary uniformed tribe and pretending to be running the corners in da hood like a mobster to get relief from a monotone reality?
DRESSING UP FOR THE BOYS FLASHBACK
The Willage people inverted that logic. Before the 2nd W.W., dropout youth drifted like a white equivalent of the rasta, fuelled by snaps and the saddu-like power of being outside the materialistic trappings and games of the ruling bourgeoisie. Decorated in army regalia, fox´s tails and with the trademark blue coffee can for begging, the vagabonds and wandervogel was fucking around on the outskirts of society in a neverending nomadic bender. Some homeless people still wear that classic look, but it still have to reach the mainstream…(Henrik Vibskov take note). After the extremely gay and uniformed 2 world war - (what happens to a mass of young guys crammed in small sweaty spaces on amphetamines waiting to die a long way from home…?) Hollywood transmitted a new male nihilistic/materialistic subculture to counter a potential communist takeover: the rock roll styles inspired by black slave culture and gay bikers. Suddenly Europeans dressed not only like Edwardian teds or imitated a smooth young Marlon Brando: the start of a new attitude where males dressed up as wannabe movie stars, beyond functionality and not only as their work-defined social status dictated. A new sense of sensual playfulness and the enjoyment of consumerism became mainstream.
A new sense of sensual playfulness Italian movies - as well as Motown and blue beat records - soon made Americana obsolete, as clerks and rent boys dressed as Italian scooter-driving film stars, lifting looks from Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut,”Blow up” and Jewish bankers sons in tailored mohair suits and parka coats - and a secret mini modernist army outside the mainstream - staged amphetamine-fueled epic battles in Brighton against the now anachronistic rockers and greasers and boredom and authority in general. Girls were reduced to mere spectators or props, as males dressed up to outsmart each other and stand out as peacocks desperate for individual versions of the same uniform template. A subliminally, non-conscious gay scene of drugged bloodthirsty eunuchs. But as hippies, pot and acid broke in 1966, the mod movement was split into a arty farty Bowie segment, all paisleys and feather haircuts, contrasted by a more - “back to the bones”, tight skinhead hardcore working class football orientated look. Like Hugo Boss´s uniform designs for the Waffen SS, the skinhead uniform gave even a small tiny man a mean and powerful look. The genius director Stanley Kubrick even mutated and envisioned a futuristic skinhead lifestyle in his comic masterpiece, “A Clockwork Orange”.
and the enjoyment of consumerism became mainstream. The skinhead uniform gave even a small tiny man a mean and powerful look. But the happy modernist faith in progress - exemplified in the space race - died as the oil crises started serious mass unemployment and the end of the modernist utopia in 1973, things got even tougher on the terraces, until proto-postmodern punk cleared the last of the ugly hippie fake dream hangover from the dirty lame Woodstock generation.
Inspired by gay glam icons and rockabilly, punk took the situationist art group´s idiom of the “society of the spectacle” to heart, married it to a deconstructive magpie collage anti style with a fondness for anarchy, SM and fake Nazi pose, and stepped up the game with anti aesthetic nihilism celebrating the artificial world - making the general public uneasy in their reflection of the brash realities of late 1970s decay and broken dreams. No future, the “I don’t care” scare tactic look, that even today is a cliché white man´s equivalent of the dropout slacker Rasta, turned everything around, masterminded by the cash-strapped couple Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren from a 100 square meter rat infested shop in the Kings Road. (Entrepreneurs take note, ideas and timing can change the world).
Soon a lot of advertising and fashion people tried to exploit the punks, and socialist youth organizations tried to politicize the anarchists but the fascists countered by organizing and funding the “Oi movement” - probably via journalist Gary Bushell - a simplified neo skinhead hooligan storm trooper tribe, that took the non racist ska loving stylish skinhead look and turned it into the steelcapped, skullhead, bomber jacket wearing mob in tight skinny bleached jeans that is hated and feared even today - and still exist in eastern Europe. Riots in south London followed, and the whole Oi movement had to go underground again, getting even more extreme with bands like Skrewdriver.
A brand or cut of shirt could show your loyalty to a firm, and could mean life or dead. See “This is England” for further details and music and style tips. On the surface a very hetro scene, but girls were extremely rare, the sexual urge repressed and turned into ultraviolent laddism. Another problem was that due to extreme violence at matches, skinhead hooligans where forced to dress as preppies, traveling business class to avoid detection and get into matches. The casual style was born, a mod-like race for the newest “clobber”, mostly expensive European sportswear brands - a clean uniform that could only be detected from those who knew the codes inside the gangs.
A brand or cut of shirt could show your loyalty to a firm, and could mean life or dead. As the top boys and “faces” gear was detected and copied, a never ending race for expensive gear from CP.Company, Stone Island and Prada and other brands - normally associated with upper-class hunting and sailing activities where often stolen on tours following your fave team around Europe. Like mods, the casuals where wolfs in sheep’s clothes. An even more evil twist came when Casuals United, as British anti-Islamic protest group formed in 2009. It is closely affiliated with the English Defence League, a far right street protest movement. The ecstasy/rave expiation of the late 80s changed everything, the old enemy football firms became “loved up” dancers soon formed new dealer networks in the second summer of love, as casual violence turned into backstage drug turf wars.
The casual style lives even today, as the preferred football supporter style, but due to cheap surveillance cameras the more anonymous, uniform, hooded, masked look developed, inspired by anarchist rioters and squatters. The latest is anti detection wear by Adam Harvey, who even claims to jam GPS phone tracking. Mixed with the originally black b-boy inspired skate/street wear look it was the dominant thug and youngster look and the chavs took it to the extremes, complete with crappy fake logo mania and Burberry mania until the Williamsburg hipster cliché came into this post-post modern internet based mix in the 2000s. These violent almost non-sexual subcultures were appropriated by London gays, who first took the skinhead look and turned it into their own in the 90s, and director Bruce la Bruce even made a movie about it, “Skin flick”, a deconstructive inversion of a sub cultural uniforms value set, later imitated in films where a homophobe Eminem-lookalike is fucking gangs of well hung black hip-hop guys. And as gays continue to rule fashion, and gay aesthetics has dripped down to even the most hairy hetero and turning him into a metro consumer, and the gayest rent boys are “straight-acting”, fucking heteros all around town, and even the crazy gay bashers of Reggae in Jamaica is wearing sleeveless euro t-shirts that would make even The Wire´s super thug Omar blush, complete with makeup and skinny jeans, maybe the all the uniforms has finally lost meaning. It’s not the packaging, it’s that you pack, it’s not where you’re from, and it’s where you’re at now. We are all just narcissist boys in one big playground.
Watch by Hublot at Klarlund Sunglasses by Tom Ford at Poul Stig Ashtray by Georg Jensen Scarf by Hermes Manchetknapp by Lanvin at Birger Christensen Umbrella by Hermes “Cognac glass” by Rosendahl Shoes by Emporio Armani at Bien Cache
O U R F A V O R I T E S
Watch by Klarlund limited edition Sunglasses by Thom Browne at Ă&#x2DC;rgreen Shirt by Bruuns Bazar Tie by Sand Shoes by Maison Martin Margiela at Bien Cache Rings by Maison Martin Margiela at Bien Cache Necklace by Shamballa Jewels Bracelet by Shamballa Jewels Facial Mist by Maya Water
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B O O ST Y O U R S K I N
DermaOXY DAY cream is for all skin types. The cream’s content of hyaluronic acid binds moisture in the skin and complements the skin’s natural levels of hyaluronic acid. The cream also contains vitamins and minerals, which further contributes to the binding of moisture in the skin and increases the skin’s oxygen intake. Green tea is added for a firmness effect. DermaOXY DAY cream is used for daily protection against moisture loss. BUBBLE: Adds moisture and has a tightening effect. This crem is also available in a night version.
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PHOTOGRAPHY JAN STUHR MODEL CHRISTEL WINTHER UNIQUE MODELS STYLIST MELANIE BUCHAVE HAIR & MAKE UP HENRIK HAUE RETOUCH WETOUCH
ETAGE
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Ben & Sebastian Exhibition
An intersection between architecture, art and design 20/6 - 16/8
Denmark Copenhagen Bogergade 15E www.etageprojects.com
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