Relapse Magazine - Fall 2014 by Relapse Magazine

RELAPSE

$14.99 FaLL/WINTER 2014

THE CURRENT STATE OF MIND

RELAPSE Founder / Editor in Chief Ian Frisch

Editorial Director Meghan Hilliard

Creative Director M O S E Stm

Fashion Editors Mitchel Brumsted Valentine Malone III

Contributing Fashion Editor Juan Acosta

Contributing Art Director Sara Jendusa

Casting Director Von Ford

Photography Editor Molly Goldrick

Fashion Assistants Mayra Hope Emi Ito

On the Cover

Staff Photographers Jessica Lehrman Michael Tessier Cole Barash

Contributing Writers Kelsey Paine Abby Kron Alexander Tirpack Natalie Rinn

Contributing Photographers Jeffery Graetsch Daymion Mardel Kenji Toma Shane McCauley Peter Ash Lee David Shama Justin Jay Sarah Kjelleren

Publisher

Ian Frisch / Relapse Magazine www.relapsemag.com

Advertising

Hudson-East www.hudson-east.com

Distribution

Disticor www.disticor.com

Printing

Hatteras www.hatterascpc.com

PHOTOGRAPH PETER ASH LEE STYLING M O S E STM HAIR YOHEY NAKATSUKA using BUMBLE AND BUMBLE MAKE UP SATSUKI SOMA using MAC COSMETICS MANICURE ARLENE HINCKSON using GEORGIO ARMANI #402 and NOTHING ELSE METALS by ESSIE PROP STYLING JUSTIN TAYLOR using HAT provided by BEHIDA DOLIC MILLINERY MODEL CHRYSTAL COPLAND at FUSION

Purple python coat, neck brace and cuff by DSquared2 Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane Gold and Diamond Oblique Ring, Gold and Diamond Tear Ring with Chain, Gold and Diamond Tera Ring by Ludevine Hat Behinda Dolic Millinery Volcanic Ash Distressed American Flag by Daniel Arsham x Chris Stamp

Relapse Magazine 97 Green Street, Unit G23 Brooklyn, New York 11222 Relapse is published biannually by Relapse Magazine LLC Copyright Relapse Magazine 2014. All rights reserved. www.relapsemag.com @relapsemag

Contents 12

The Block is Hot

Flex Zone

On the Border

Midtown's Bomber

Proportion Players

With Leather, An Entrance

Out of the Shadows

Covered in Dust

The New Me

S-to-the-Z-A

Pulling Back the Curtain

The Continuous Chisel

The Dirty 30

Working Through the Stubble

10013

Brooklyn Brothers

Murdered Out

104

Reina

116

Kids

126

Ms. Demeanor

136

Street Level

EDITOR’S LETTER

In Front of the Burning Red Sky There’s this park in Greenpoint. It’s right on the water and its dock juts into the East

River towards Manhattan. The dock dodges left after 20 feet and cuts right after 20 more, like a concrete lightning bolt with metal railings—a jagged platform that, as summer winds down, lends to long, quiet gazes at the columns of metal and glass across the river thrusting into the redness of the west. The end of every day, from this vantage point, is silhouetted by the overwhelming weight of this place. A rugged jackknife of shapes that seem to simulate, at the most poignant of times, the trajectory of one’s life and purpose in this city. A slow, rumbling start from the Williamsburg Bridge followed by the abruptly elevated plateau of Alphabet City. The uneven tumblings of the next 20 blocks and then, with that rusty ball of light falling behind it, the proceeding upward slope that eventually levels out to a peaceful and accomplished flatline, running north past Central Park and out of sight. But what happens within this lifeline? What influences its trajectory? What encompasses its myriad foundations and endless cultural influences? What, under all of that, is the symbiotic understanding of the people that inhabit it? What keeps this place alive? And why do creative, aspirational and talented people continue to make their way into this dense skull of a city? How does that soft tissue operate? What is the current state of mind? For this issue of Relapse, we have set out to make sense of these questions. With the collaboration and acquisition of newly-appointed creative director M O S E STM, we set out to investigate and celebrate what fashion and youth culture is in New York City. Right now. As it’s happening. As the arteries pulse and the blood pumps from heart to brain and back again. From New York-fueled trends narrowed in on streetwear and bomber jackets, to profiles on Manhattan-bred labels Duckie Brown and Assembly, to features on Paper Magazine and Vice’s Thomas Morton, to fashion editorials depicting the struggling single mother, new-age Chinatown street gangs, urbanized outerwear and a unique interpretation of men’s suiting, we have curated not only a current representation of New York City, but also a demonstrative interpretation of the place we have all come to navigate, nurture, universally admire and simultaneously adhere to. As you flip through the pages of this issue—our most comprehensive to date—I hope you gain an understanding of how we see the everyday nature of New York: what surrounds you when you board the subway, pause for a cigarette on a street corner, or cruise in the back of a taxi from Brooklyn into the Lower East Side. And especially that moment when, during the magical hour where the river turns to glass and everyone goes silent, you watch that blood-red circle fall behind the skyline of Manhattan, the city enduring in front of the burning red sky.

The Machine Peter Ash Lee

Taking hold of our FiDi-fueled cover editorial, Brooklyn-based Peter Ash Lee also helmed portraits of musicians Wynter Gordon and Sharon Van Etten. A native of Seoul, Korea, Lee is originally from Toronto and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His clients include The New York Times, British Vogue, Teen Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue and W. He is also the creative director of Corduroy Magazine.

Von Ford

One of the newest members of the Relapse team, Von Ford comes on as casting director, hand selecting all the models that appear in the magazine. Originally from Linden, New Jersey, he attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Now based in New York City, Ford comes from the commercial side of the industry, working for several years in national sales for UK brands Religion, Buddhist Punk and House of the Gods.

Natalie Rinn

Natalie Rinn is from Cold Spring, MN, where she grew up playing ice hockey and listening to Garrison Keillor. Penning “The Continuous Chisel” about Socrates Sculpture Park, Rinn studied the classics at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, taught English conversation in Japan and France, and received masters degrees in journalism and French studies from New York University. Today, she is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn and has written about art for T Magazine.

David Shama

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, photographer David Shama, who’s behind the lens of fashion editorial “Reina,” moved to New York City from Paris, where he lived for six years. Originally studying medicine and social sciences, Shama has since built a niche with his reportage-style photography and subject matter that focus on the concept of storytelling. His work has appeared in Wonderland, Flaunt, Nylon and VANDALS.

Satsuki Soma

Born and raised in Japan, makeup artist Satsuki Soma first honed her craft in Paris before settling down in New York City. Working alongside Kabuki for the onset of her career, she has since worked for clients ranging from British Vogue to Project Runway. For this issue, her work can be seen in various stories, including her intricate work for “10013” and special-effects-style makeup for our Thomas Morton profile.

Yohey Nakatsuka

A native of Chiba, Japan, Yohey Nakatsuka moved to Tokyo at the age of 20 to pursue a career in hairstyling. After six years in Japan’s capital, he migrated to New York city where he currently resides. Taking on numerous stories for this issue, from our cover editorial with Peter Ash Lee to musician Sharon Van Etten, Nakatsuka also works alongside influential hairstylist Eugene Souleiman during New York and Paris fashion weeks.

THE BLOCK IS HOT Streetwear takes on a new role as head of the Fall/Winter 2014 class WORDS MEGHAN HILLIARD PHOTOGRAPHS MICHAEL TESSIER STYLING M O S E STM

You were either an indoor kid or an outdoor one. If you weren’t scuff-

ing your kicks in the street, you were waist deep in books at the library. Fall/Winter 2014 runways were a confluence of the dualities—the jock and the collegiate—still battling it out as adults, letting the proverbial Lincoln Center courts decide their future fate. Over the last three decades, streetwear has evolved from west coast signature flare of skate and surf cultures, with printed exclusive tees and baggy denim a lá Shawn Stussy, to the hip hop and athletic

market, with Michael Jordan wearing his Nikes off the court, and Run DMC rocking Adidas on the stage. Today, ready-to-wear designers are taking cues from the likes of 90s powerhouses Rocawear, Sean John and Phat Farm, who were cross referencing court and street with jerseys being worn in the club and Timberlands in the office, and adding a nod to their high brow collections of season’s past, fusing street and academia wear with their signature couture. Donna Karen’s DKNY Fall/Winter 2014 25th anniversary

Left Page, Left: Leather bra by Fleur Du Mal Pants by A Détacher Jacket by A Détacher Shoes by New Balance Underwear by Calvin Klein Left Page, Right: NBA Brooklyn Jersey by Adidas Originals Pants by A Détacher Shoes by New Balance Underwear by Calvin Klein This Page, Left: Dress by Ashish Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane Rings by Alexis Bittar Socks by American Apparel Seeker Sandal by UNIF This Page, Right: Dress by Ashish Heathers Boot by UNIF Bracelet by Cast of Vices Hat Stylist’s Own

show at Lincoln Center was a bit of a retrospective, a nod to year’s past with early-90s cuts punctuated with modern design. Chic black track pants usually reserved for the starting blocks were refined and cut at the ankle, and crew neck sweatshirts were reinvigorated with sequin engulfed arms. Varsity jackets donned a letterman “D” while multiple models gazed from under the flat bill of a murdered-out Yankees hat. “For me, it’s always about when we started. The first day we shot, we were in Times Square, and the name Donna Karan wasn’t of any importance,” Karen said in a backstage Vogue interview. “It was about New York. It was a celebration of the people and their style, the city lights—those are my inspirations.” The hometown shout out didn’t stop there. Half of Karen’s looks were worn by real New Yorkers. The black ball caps could also be found over at Moschino, with Jeremy Scott’s first foray as the design house’s new Creative Director. Constructed in leather with the label’s demonstrative gold lettered logo bouncing light around the Milan runway, the hats were paired with faded and quilted denim and shiny leather separates. Model Leonie Anderson stepped out in a gold lamé quilted short-sleeved jacket, hood up, under a black puffed vest. Adorned in multiple chunky chains, and a signature Moschino gold clutch around her waist like a title belt, one couldn’t not hear LLCoolJ’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” during her pass.

Mona Kowalska’s A Détacher ready-to-wear collection was a hybrid of Moschino’s sporty with her own touch of smarts. Collegiate cardigans in classic Ivy League colors were paired with net mesh pleated skirts. Basketball shorts in the same material reminiscent of your favorite middle school Umbros were attached to warm up pants. Her inspiration was around sports injuries—a jock that could no longer get to the gym, and is carrying her style to other areas of campus. “It’s more metaphorical. I think [this collection] speaks to my interest in volume, and my admiration of baseball-type shirts,” said Kowalska from her Mott Street studio. “I do really like oversized garments, I like the way they feel, and I think they are very modern.” “Going the Distance” from Rocky played as a heather shift dress made its way down the runway, sweatshirt arms attached at the hips, and tied around the waist. The look could be en route to the Barclays Center, or the Strand. “I moved to Brooklyn not long ago, and I remember seeing a guy on the subway with big shorts over a pair of leggings, and he just looked so much better than everyone else. I just loved it.” Regardless of which side of the scholastic/sporty spectrum you were previously on as a kid, Fall/Winter 2014 proved to the grownups that both sides could play nice.

Hair: Adam Markarian using Oribe Hair Care at Bryan Bantry Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Manicure: Eri Narita Models: Chelsea Wichmann, Elena Kantaria at Women Direct This Page, Top: Pants and Jacket by Moschino Cheap & Chic Blotter bodysuit, Shoes by UNIF This Page, Bottom: Pants and Jacket by Moschino Cheap & Chic Angel gif tee by UNIF Shoes by Sacai X Vans Left Page, Beauty, Left: 6 Daisy Halter top by UNIF Rings by Cast of Vices Gold grill by Refinement Co. Left Page, Beauty, Right: No Duh bomber by UNIF Hat Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Personalized clutch by BOYY Left Page, On Stairs, Left: Top and skirt by Carrie-Ann Stein Sloppy Joe Sack by BOYY Socks by This Is The Uniform Bowie slip-on sneaker by Cole Haan Left Page, On Stairs, Right: Top and Pants by Carrie-Ann Stein Socks by This Is The Uniform Hendrix lace-up sneaker by Cole Haan

FLEX ZONE

Sparkles and glitter are making a real statement in modern ready-to-wear, throwing youthful flair into a world of grown-ups WORDS MEGHAN HILLIARD PHOTOGRAPHS MICHAEL TESSIER STYLING M O S E STM

It has been said that all that glitters isn’t gold, but Fall/Winter 2014

runways looked like present day manifest destiny advertisements, with precious metals and jewel-toned hues punctuated with exaggerated crystal embellishments causing yellow taxi cabs and black town cars to line up like a caravan, ready to reap its regalia reward. February’s shows proved glitter and sparkles have graduated from being an elementary craft element to an integral part of telling haute couture and ready-to-wear collection narratives. Mod met disco on Saint Laurent’s catwalk with a gaggle of monochromatic mini dresses enveloped with black, silver and ox blood sequins. Was the long sleeved, short hemmed gold plated frock donned with an understated primary colored geometrical design at the waist a faint nod to a chicer R2D2? Laura and Kate Mulleavy’s Rodarte runway was a little less subtle in their Star Wars references (Yoda, Luke Skywalker and the Death Star all appeared printed on floor brushing skirts) but it was their parkas from the shearling collar down that were encrusted in multi-hued luster. Turquoise, fuchsia and copper coats paired with a peeking peplum in crystallized gunmetal gave a shot in the arm to Sunday’s best. Floppy berets and silk wraps were heavily beaded and thoughtfully paired with their more neutral looks. The Mulleavy’s weren’t alone in adding iridescence to out-

Left: Sequin tank and pants by Ashish Right: Sequin crop top by Fleur du Mal Sequin shorts by Ashish Shoes by VPL Silver bodysuit by American Apparel Fitness models wear own bikinis throughout

erwear. Johnson Hartig of Libertine (who’s been an embellishment pioneer for over a decade) took tiny crystal studs to a classic taupe car coat and created intricate, large-scale spiderweb motifs that from afar look like delicate vintage lace. “We’re mockingbirds here at Libertine—drawn to anything sparkling,” Hartig said. “For 12 years we’ve been hand-applying crystals and beadwork to our one-of-a-kind production pieces. We think it creates a depth, mood and elegance that can’t be achieved any other way.” Silver crystal and glitter arrangements splashed across his black wool overcoats and day dresses are reminiscent of constellations and abstract seascapes giving way to the adult whimsy of the radiant looks. William Butler Yeat’s poem, “Sorrow of Love” is demonstratively scripted in crystals atop outerwear, while classic capes in cobalt are paired with patchwork and sparkles in heavy linear patterns, juxtapositioning Hartig’s infamous aesthetic of repurposed materials with a heavy hand of opulence. “The Libertine customer is a loyal one and follows us season to season,” Hartig said. “It’s our job to keep her entertained a moved by

the work. We’re doing more and more one-of-a-kind collage pieces that are incredibly time- and labor-intensive, but create these dizzying threedimensional effects that we love.” The subtle palette of Leana Zuniga’s Electric Feathers readyto-wear line may have differed from Hartig’s, but her use of sheen made her Fall line a contender in the abundance territory. Her blush and ivory hued boxy silhouettes do indeed shine, but the sparkle is understated by the exaggerated cuts of apparel. The fabric’s ability to look like dripping liquid adds an additional element of movement to looks that already sway freely in the cool weather breezes. The silk lamé Zuniga used throughout in faint colors receives its level of excitement from the fact the material is downright shimmery and sexy. “We’ve always been a fan of lamé,” the design house said. “Everybody needs a little disco.” The innate attraction to beautiful things that sparkle and shine date back far before the tents at Bryant Park, and Eleanor Lambert’s Press Week of the 1940s, but will its shine ever full fade away? Hartig thinks not. “You will see sparkles and folly at Libertine until the day we die.”

Hair: Adam Markarian using Oribe Hair Care at Bryan Bantry Hair Assistant: William Schaedler at Bryan Bantry Makeup: Aya Kudo Makeup Assistant: Ayaka Nihei Manicure: Eri Narita Models: Signe Rasmussen at Next, Elena Kantaria at Supreme Fitness Models: Angelica and Nathalia Santoro Left Page: Coat by Preen by Thornton Bregazzi Corselette by Fleur Du Mal Glasses by Jimmy Choo This Page, Left: Black dress with white abstract white crystal embellishments by Libertine Wrist bands by American Apparel Shoes by VPL This Page, Right: Black pants with crystal rock embellishments by Libertine Crop top by Beyond Head band by American Apparel Perforated ring cuff by Bond Hardware

ON THE BORDER

Straddling both sides of the gender aisle, Oxfords prove to be androgynously cool WORDS NATALIE RINN PHOTOGRAPHS MICHAEL TESSIER STYLING M O S E STM

Hair: Adam Markarian using Oribe Hair Care at Bryan Bantry Hair Assistant: William Schaedler at Bryan Bantry Makeup: Aya Kudo Makeup Assistant: Ayaka Nihei Manicure: Eri Narita Models: Signe Rasmussen at Next, Elena Kantaria at Supreme Shorts by Levi’s Maroon oxfords by The Office of Angela Scott Black oxfords by Adieu Calf cuff set by Bond Hardware Grey Plaid Shirt by Alexander Olch Green Plaid Shirt by Alexander Olch White t-shirt by Sunspel

he rebellious birth of the Oxford shoe—a casual solution to the restrictive ankle or knee boot of the mid-19th century—and its subsequent move to men’s formalwear, writes a sartorial history that reveals its inherent genius: versatility. When, in the twentieth century, the lowankled ties leapt into the standard arsenal of womenswear, that brilliance was codified further. On Fall/Winter runways this year, the Oxford’s dexterity was on full display, slipping effortlessly between masculine and feminine ensembles, references to disparate eras and hybrid forms. Oxfords, though, are only one take on a classic outline: Brogues include toe caps; Derbys are distinguished by a second piece of leather stitched over its base and an open lace closure; Kilties are the rarest of the bunch with, essentially, a miniature kilt that acts as a refined replacement to a big floppy bow. This season, designers paid homage to the entire fleet. At Suno, Nicholas Kirkwood gave the Derby high-impact upgrades. Glossy patent leather bases were garnished with kilties and bands of peppermint green and cobalt blue stripes around the sole. “We wanted to create a shoe that felt grounded, close to the earth, and with a sense of history and seriousness,” said the design team. “We also wanted to turn it on its head, and modernize it through color and patent leather.” Partnered, in one case, with a business formal V-Dress in Tri Petal Jacquard, the effect crossed punk rock and power lunch sensibilities, tantalizingly, in one. Band of Outsiders kept their shoe classic: medium-gloss navy, black and white Derbys were the understated anchor for oversized fur coats, chunky midnight plaids, and lanky black-and-white knits. It was a little Clueless-era 90s, except the footwear added a timeless streak that the grunge movement’s Doc Martens couldn’t have touched. Stella McCartney pushed the template farthest, adding a square toe, printed stars, and height with a second sole. Red, taupe, black and Robin egg blue were used as base colors, rimmed, at times, in gold. But pitted against slip-like cocktail attire with spaghetti string fringe, the shoe was tethered back to the 20th century, and the slinky eveningwear, in turn, was imbued with fresh athleticism. At Modern Vice, designers Jordan and Jensen Adoni turned their two-toned Spectator Oxfords into a statement piece with an especially large kiltie. “The whole men’s tailored thing has evolved and become mainstream, so we took it a step further with a kiltie that is bigger, bolder and chunkier,” said Jordan Adoni. “It’s a shape that can be brought to a wedding or worn with cutoff jeans.” Like any successful innovator, the Oxford’s ability to play with the form depends equally on its allegiance to the rules. As it walked down Fall/Winter runways, its essence—a comfortable leather tie that saved 19th century feet—was preserved, and ensured its status as a reliable staple with a rebellious soul for years to come.

MIDTOWN'S BOMBER

Fall collections celebrate an American classic WORDS IAN FRISCH PHOTOGRAPHS MICHAEL TESSIER STYLING M O S E STM

The bomber jacket, rooted in 20th century war-ridden Americana, harks

back to heroes and rebels of yesteryear—a robust, rough-and-tumble uniform for the down-and-dirty airborne patriots who helped support America in World War I. Throughout the boom of mid-century Hollywood, it also became a staple of masculinity. The garb of classic performances—Brando in the 1951 film adaptation A Streetcar Named Desire and, although with more sociopathic scruff, De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 cult-classic Taxi Driver—the bomber jacket began to nestle itself into the every-day modern male wardrobe. The jacket’s signature design—chopped at the waist, cinched at the wrist, tight in the neck and littered with pockets—has stuck with the garment into current collections. But this vintage aviator look, accompanied by a metaphorical cigarette between grease-slicked fingers, has, for this new season of fashion, landed its classicism into more of a luxury setting—and worn by women. Design houses are combining the risky, hard-edged application of its formative years with more unique and high qualities materials. The end result is a universality that has transcended into the upper echelons of womenswear in New York City. New York-based womenswear designer Sally LaPointe, with her Fall/Winter 2014 collection, has integrated arguably one of the most unique textiles into her take on a modern bomber: Amazonian fish skin. “As a designer, you don’t have to totally reinvent the wheel to create something new,” said LaPointe of her bomber. “I think the cut, proportions, and the material being an Amazon fish skin is what make it my own.” The delicacy of her collection, too—hard-edged downtown chic mixed with refined, uptown sensibilities—allowed the bomber to speak as a microsom to her overall concept. “[The collection nods] to

Left: Black Amazon Pirarucu Fish Skin bomber by Sally LaPointe Black front flap pant by Sally LaPointe Right: Ivory Amazon Pirarucu Fish Skin bomber by Sally LaPointe Black double face georgette tuxedo trouser by Sally LaPointe Black cashmere wool sleeveless turtleneck sweater by Sally LaPointe Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane Rings by Han Cholo

Bomber jacket by BALLY, Shirt and skirt by Ports 1961, Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane, Bracelet by Alexis Bittar

Hair: Adam Markarian using Oribe Hair Care at Bryan Bantry Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Manicure: Eri Narita Models: Chelsea Wichmann, Elena Kantaria at Women Direct

Jacket, t-shirt and bag by Coach; Skirt by Ports 1961; Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane; Necklace by Bjorg; Rings by Han Cholo

[my customer’s] strength and allure, but also her emotional vulnerability,” explained LaPointe, continuing that the skin is from “the largest and toughest freshwater fish in the Amazon River, and while the oversized scales make it visually tough, it actually feels like a thin, soft paper. So, naturally, it was a good fit for the collection.” Even more premier and large-scale labels are showcasing their take on the bomber for fall, as well. Plush, cozy renditions transitioned from the light-weight satin bombers of spring, nodding back to the originalities of the 20th century design. Bally’s newly-appointed Design Director Pablo Coppola ushered out a luscious olive-drab-green bomber highlighted with a large, scruffy, black fur collar and signature flap-laden breast pockets. “My first collection for Bally revolved around making an essential wardrobe for today’s modern woman,” explained Coppola. “The general vibe surrounding everything we do at the brand revolves around form and function: being timeless, yet timely. I believe there is a

beauty and sophistication in classic, familiar styles.” At the other end of the bomber spectrum, Coach unveiled its first ready-to-wear collection under the direction of British veteran Stuart Vevers. His vision, which focused on the Americanness of the brand, encompassed none other than a large-print, red-and-black houndstooth bomber made of wool with leather trim. A sense of natural humility is part of the bomber’s DNA, a simple but quintessentially American garment that, over the years, has found itself being reinterpreted, reinvigorated and reapplied across all spectrums of gender and class. As the American culture that once spawned the famed outerwear piece changes, the outlook of its sartorial foundation seems to change, too. The trend may sidestep slightly to the left or right as decades pass, but it never turns its back on a staple of American fashion that has endured—respected and relatively unchanged—for much of the past 100 years.

PROPORTION PLAYERS

Predominate menswear duo Duckie Brown try their seasoned hand with the ladies WORDS MEGHAN HILLIARD PHOTOGRAPHS DAYMION MARDEL at RAY BROWN STYLING M O S E STM

“Go, Duckie!” Daniel Silver exclaimed, leaned far back on a stool in his

West 13th Street studio where he and his husband Steven Cox run design house Duckie Brown. The term of endearment is directed at Cox, a nickname they have given one another over the years, who is celebrating his 47th birthday on a remarkably warm day in late May. “I’m half American, half English,” the London-born Cox continued. “Well, actually, I’ve lived 24 years in America, so I’m more American—but I’ll always be more English. It’s just in me.” And it’s in their clothing. The craftsmanship of the duo, who were nominated in 2007 and 2013 as CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year, is classically English—pristine lines with immaculate tailoring,

plays on volume and impeccable patterning. But don’t think for a minute Duckie Brown rests on construction alone. Known most for their intricate color stories, and their subtle exaggerations in fit proportions, the menswear predominant pair still have some tricks up their short, spring sleeves. It comes as no surprise that the two have been a duo for over 20 years. (“22, right Duckie?” Silver asked. “Since 1922!” Cox quipped back.) The verbiage between them filled their studio like an early summer breeze, swarming above racks of Fall/Winter 2014 editorial pulls, two black-clad assistants, and mood boards littered with surprisingly modest colored fabric of their Spring/Summer 2015 future. Sentences were

often finished by the other, or punctuated by their counterpart. “I think our collections start as a color story,” Cox said while tightening his hands over the bare knee of his crossed leg. “That’s the most important thing. Suddenly a light bulb has gone off after 12 years and I’ve realized that. Fuck inspiration.” Before Cox could exhale, Silver picked up and started stating the facts. “Exactly. Our references are us. Our inspiration is us. Anyone who tells you their inspiration is anything other than them aren’t being truthful with themselves.” Duckie Brown knows who they are. Their Fall/Winter 2014 line served up their infamous skewed silhouettes, and play on proportions, with blousons adorned over coats placed over trousers. Their elaborate tweeds paired with exotic colored silks (think chartreuse and cardinal with touches of cobalt) were no longer reserved just for the boys. Since the 2001 inception of the menswear design house, this season was its first sending womenswear down the runway, a much-anticipated debut by a line already so intrinsically gender nonspecific. “It wasn’t in our scope to begin with, but I think Duckie Brown on some level is womenswear for men anyway, so why shouldn’t we be doing menswear for women?” Silver said. At first glance, the line could be considered slightly androgynous, with exchangeable pieces between men’s and women’s looks. “Ultimately when the buyers come in, there is just one collection. That’s what it is. No men’s. No women’s,” Cox said directly. “But to do that is a fucking nightmare because buyers want to know, as do many people in the world, ‘is this for a man or a woman? Is this pink top for a woman?’ We’re trying not to do that because Duckie Brown’s womenswear can be feminine and it can be masculine.” Cox admits that although a few pieces of their cold weather collection for women had a light hand of flounce, their most successful pieces came from those that originated from their men’s collections. The

boxy silhouette of one look, an elongated heather hued tee over a pair of black slacks could easily pair up with another—a patterned tee with pomegranate trousers. It’s up to you to guess which had a men’s model, and which a women’s. “We’re really just shrinking down the silhouettes from men’s,” Silver said empathically. “And we’re not doing elegant lady, that’s not our customer. We’re not going after the Carolina [Herrera] or Escada woman. This is about a woman who of course wants beautiful clothing that’s well made, but it’s a little more of a boyish vibe.” The boyish vibe is inherent when it comes to their process, not because they have been predominantly menswear designers, but because their aesthetic is almost entirely based on their own everyday wear—traditional with a twist. “I think for the last 12 years, Duckie Brown has been a reaction of what I couldn’t wear as a gay teenager growing up,” Cox said. “I’m now trying to create a beautiful image. It’s a fantasy. It’s fashion. I want to create a beautiful look on a beautiful boy. It’s so unrealistic, and we are so lucky to be in this crazy little bubble. It’s an incredibly beautiful luxury that we have.” That luxury hasn’t just been reserved for the runway. Silver and Cox’s involvement in helping fulfill a high school student’s inquiry to outfit him for his prom—a swinging for the fences request—got their efforts written up in The New Yorker. The piece was passed along to Danny Livingston of the shoe powerhouse Florsheim when it detailed how the duo outfitted the one-of-a-kind suit with a pair of their own Florsheims. “I called them, and a marriage was made almost immediately,” Livingston, the general merchandise manager of Florsheim by Duckie Brown, said. “It’s hard to fall in love after a certain age. We fell in love immediately.” The 12-season collaboration has graced the windows of Barneys and Nordstrom and the feet of celebrities and socialites. Florsheim’s classic wingtips and oxfords that pioneered them as a men’s closet staple got a bit of a face lift a century after their debut by the hands of Silver and Cox. Floral prints, mint colored suede and beaded panels may offer relief in men’s mundane footwear, but classic military boots in rich chestnut leather and tassel loafers in deep chalk blue are in the running as a man’s best everyday friend. “They helped establish what Florsheim meant to our culture: Old meets young, cool meets straightforward,” Livingston said. “Florsheim was the preeminent men’s dress brand for over 100 years— every president has worn our shoes—and we had lost some of that in the decade previous. Duckie Brown helped to make us relevant again almost by taking exactly what we do and have always done, embracing it, and shifting it a bit to the left with a loving sense of humor and a little bit of swagger.” On a warm spring day, your face can’t help but flush when looking at the racks of past collections (like peacoats constructed from Hudson Bay wool blankets, a bit of an homage to Silver’s Canadian roots) that line the perimeter of their studio, leaving room at its center for upcoming works. Swatches of dusty pinks and prints of delicate hues hover over pressboard displays. These are the makings of Spring/Summer 2015, a line with no working title, other than Awkward/Normal. “We want you to look at these pieces on the runway and go, ‘that’s a little off ’ or ‘why does that stop there’ or ‘isn’t that a little too…’” Silver started explaining. “Listen, the next collection is always the reaction to the collection you’ve done before. This collection we did before I loved, but then I got bored with it and now I want to move on,” Cox quipped, adding punctuations to Silver’s sentiment. “I am now over doing layering, oversized, skirts. I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to have a shirt over a thing, under a thing, over a thing. This is out. This is finished for me.” Is their signature proportion play really finished? And what about these tame color palettes? Is this the new norm for Duckie Brown? Smirking, Silver shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll have to wait to find out.” In the meantime, they had a birthday party to get ready for.

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Models: Rain at Major, Ella at Marilyn All clothing Duckie Brown

WITH LEATHER, AN ENTRANCE En Noir designer Rob Garcia brings his street cred to the luxury market

WORDS ABBY KRON PHOTOGRAPHS DAYMION MARDEL at RAY BROWN STYLING M O S E STM

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Models: Brandon at Red, Natalie Salamunec at Muse All clothing En Noir

On a Saturday afternoon in June, Rob Garcia walked into Soho’s Cros-

by Bar in a leopard-printed black and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing tattoo-covered forearms. The sunlight spilled in from the large-paned windows at the front of the room and danced on the chain details of his distressed Saint Laurent jeans. A rare departure from his uniform of all black, Garcia’s ensemble elicited glances from diners sipping brunch cocktails and exchanging stories about last night’s outings. He entered, too, with a genuine unaffectedness—a modest stroll unaccompanied by black sunglasses. Since founding En Noir in Los Angeles in 2012, Garcia has been consistently creating some of the most sought-after leatherwear pieces currently available on the luxury market. Launched with an exclusive capsule collection of six pieces—including the now-famed leather sweatpants, leather basketball shorts and leather t-shirt—En Noir has since expanded to include men’s and women’s ready-to-wear items as well

as a seasonless line of men’s essentials. “I’m not trying to recreate the wheel with En Noir,” Garcia said. “We’re not that kind of designer. We stay true to things by recreating silhouettes that have been around, putting our spin on it, and elevating the details to give it a certain feel.” Early cosigns from industry tastemakers like Kanye West, A$AP Rocky and Amar’e Stoudemire, and a partnership with luxury retailer Barneys, earned En Noir a covetable position on the main floor alongside the likes of Saint Laurent and Rick Owens. Additionally, Garcia was one of four designers selected this year by GQ in part of their annual Best New Menswear Designers in America series, which gives respective winners the opportunity to release an exclusive capsule collection with GAP in the fall. “En Noir perfectly represents street culture with an edge,” said Jim Moore, Creative Director at GQ, who was part of the selection committee. “Rob brought his original aesthetic and talent to the GQxGAP collaboration and it’s been fun to work with him and his team

to create a collection that will appeal to men globally.” En Noir’s exceptional rise to fame is especially notable considering Garcia did not initially envision himself working as a designer. Although he has had a longtime interest in fashion—Garcia admits that as a college student he would “miss rent and eat ramen all week” in order to invest in a few choice pieces—his official entrée into the industry would not come until he joined Black Scale in June 2009, where he left a job at a talent agency to focus on design and product development at the nowfamed streetwear label. “I’ve always wanted to design and this brand, still in its early stages, gave me that opportunity,” Garcia said. “Opportunity comes here and there, and most people hesitate—I knew the more I would hesitate, that window would get smaller and smaller and smaller.” Although Garcia was initially self-taught, he began taking classes at Otis College of Art and Design to sharpen his workmanship skills and learn new techniques like patternmaking and draping. “I decided early on that if I want to be a designer, I’d do it to [the point] where no one can say I’m not a real designer and that I didn’t take the steps others had taken,” said Garcia. The experience Garcia gained working at Black Scale, coupled with his preference for rare luxury goods, placed him on the cusp of the high-end-meets-streetwear aesthetic before it grew into an industrywide trend. En Noir’s earliest pieces were simple yet novel. By adapting classic athletic silhouettes like sweatpants, varsity jackets and jerseys, and offering them in luxurious leathers and other animal skins, made the line popular among the hip-hop community that has, in recent years, spurred some of fashion’s biggest trends. “What people usually think of in terms of leather are jackets or more structured silhouettes,” said Garcia. “At first, most people I showed didn’t understand the leather sweatpants. But when you dial in the proper weight and cut, they drape like your Sunday-

best sweats. My executing the sweatpant the way it was done, I don’t think it was executed properly any time before that.” One person who immediately understood the value and utility behind Garcia’s designs was none other than Kanye West—who unforgettably claimed to have invented the leather sweatpant in his now-infamous interview with BBC from earlier this year. The rapper, who sported the En Noir black leather sweats in his August spread for GQ and is often photographed wearing them, was actually one of Garcia’s earliest supporters. “I think a lot of people interpreted [Kanye’s statement] as a dig, but he was genuinely excited to see that idea come to fruition,” said Garcia. “During one of the first conversations I had with him on the phone in 2012, he told me how dope it was that I did the leather sweatpant and that a couple years ago, he brought the idea to Fendi but they couldn’t see what was coming.” More practical than it might seem, the leather sweatpant is the style that En Noir has become most synonymous with. It has become a wardrobe staple for Drake, LeBron James and even female style icons like Rihanna and Beyoncé (she and Jay Z have the same pair) who arebold enough to sport the men’s look. Their inherent utility and elegant simplicity are representative of Garcia’s design philosophy: it does not matter how cool something looks if it is not also wearable. “I think one of the most important things is keeping [the garment] comfortable,” said Garcia. “It can look great, it can be super expensive, but if it’s not comfortable, and the consumer isn’t comfortable in it, then they won’t have that certain confidence.” Garcia recognizes that, while the brand is in still in its infancy, upholding the integrity and consistency of the collection is foremost. “It’s important to have a vision and carry it out as best you can,” Garcia said. “It’s necessary for us to focus on details mainly because the brand is

so monochromatic and minimal,” said Garcia. “We don’t have our brand plastered all over the place, so we have to speak in a different language, through the details—it’s in the zippers, in the style lines, in the stitch count.” En Noir’s Fall 2014 show at New York Fashion Week last February was evidence that Garcia’s particularity and self-admitted stubbornness had paid off. The collection, themed “Industrial Grand Minimalism,” debuted to a full house at the legendary Park Avenue Armory and also marked Garcia’s first try at womenswear. The minimal light and coldness of the venue proved a stunning complement to the slew of mostly all-black looks Garcia sent down the runway. “When we had the opportunity to show at the Armory, it was definitely a move,” said Garcia. “It meant putting in the time and effort and resources to make sure the show was done properly. We are still proving that we belong in this high-end realm, because it’s very special, very small, very focused.” One of the most highly anticipated shows at New York Fashion Week, En Noir’s fall collection is a refined and organic progression from previous seasons. Models Yuri Pleskin and Cole Mohr, who were both featured in the past season’s campaign, opened the show with two looks that embody Garcia’s unique approach to what he calls “monochromatic minimalism.” The bad-boy models wore messy hair and layered looks— on Pleskin, a leather jacket with chainmaille details in a cropped silhouette with a tall white tee and scrunched black pants; and on Mohr, a stiff suede leather cardigan over a shiny leather t-shirt and leather pants with reptile leather kneepads. Other standout looks from the collection included a voluminous varsity jacket with leather-striped panels, an asymmetric reptile leather motorcycle jacket, and a fur-lined parka with exaggerated lapels and boxy pockets.

Women who have embraced the men’s leather sweatpant will likely be pleased with En Noir’s womenswear offerings—Garcia tailored some signature men’s silhouettes including the sweatpant and the tank top to better fit the female figure. “I was a little unsure about doing womenswear,” said Garcia. “But when I saw women responding to the way they did to the men’s collection, it seemed natural.” Garcia is very aware of En Noir’s exceptional rise to fame, but humbly credits a combination of good timing and preparation for the success he has experienced thus far. “Being on the fashion calendar is like playing cards at the big table. Everyone shows their hand at the same time. You’re working on your hand and you don’t know what the other guy has, but you want to make sure that when you lay out those cards, you have something solid—that you’re not bluffing.” Obviously not bluffing, he continues to challenge himself as a designer by pursuing collaborations with other labels including luxury sneaker brand Buscemi, fellow LA brand STAMPD and, soon, via GQ, GAP. Only entering En Noir’s second anniversary, Garcia plans to cautiously expand the label’s offerings with a line of accessories, footwear and other lifestyle items in the next few years while staying true to the sinister edginess consumers have come to expect from the brand. The next few years will be pivotal in En Noir’s evolution, but Garcia is in not one for selling out or making hasty decisions, opting instead for consistency and longevity. “The greats are the greats for what they have done,” said Garcia, “but you can’t just follow down their exact trail—do as they’ve done. You kind of have to find your own while always keep in mind the right way to do things—there’s always a right way and wrong way. If you’re not in the game the right way, there’s no way you’ll last.”

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Asssembly’s Greg Armas unveils his most revealingly personal collection to date WORDS IAN FRISCH PHOTOGRAPHS DAYMION MARDEL at RAY BROWN STYLING M O S E STM

These are the rules. Although there are few, they are important. Respect

them and they will respect you. First: You did not choose this life. This life chose you. Second: With this life comes power. Third: This power is yours and yours alone. Now, let’s continue. Uniforms. These garments are an extension of your familial existence. They represent who you are and what you stand for and are the result of tradition. Of an intrinsic duty that has latched onto you since birth. They are, unlike other uniforms, viewed as a partnership. The power that comes with this uniform is yours to do as you please. Come close. Get a good look. Because you’ll come back to them time and time again. They will be with you for the rest of your life. “This season, what I was interested in in particular wasn’t necessarily the first generation of secret society members but the children of the secret society founders,” explained Greg Armas, founder of Assembly, the hyper-curated Lower East Side boutique and its corresponding

fashion line. “Uniforms, in general. Period. Every season. They are my first starting point,” he added. “It has been my highest form of inspiration since I was a kid.” Entering his fourth year as a New York-based designer, Armas’ Fall/Winter 2014 collection nods directly at his vision of these secret society members and their late-night rendezvous, full of ritual, initiation and obscurity. “It’s that ideology of the kids that run amok while they wield so much power and have decisions to make: Do I do something great with this? Or do I do something manipulative?” The collection, with its rich foundation in navy, black and grey, and coordinated plaids and stripes, boasts subtle but evocative wool, cashmere, silk and knit fabrics that carry the collection into the upper echelons of emerging designers. The collection, with its mysterious and hierarchical undertones, is based upon the balance of craftsmanship, curiosity and subtly. “If you were to walk into a room, you aren’t the most noticeably dressed person,” he explained, “but to the people whom

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Models: Florian at NYMM, Karol Santos at Next All clothing Assembly

you actually care what they think, they have noticed you.” Much like an emerging member of a secret society or bloodline with societal influence, they carry a very powerful attribute which, coincidentally enough, is ambition of Armas himself: quiet authority. Armas, who grew up in small-town, blue-collar Oregon, used his removed upbringing as a springboard into the creative realm. Captivated by the cosmopolitan infrastructures of big cities, Armas spent his youth going through magazines, building an idea of what he thought New York City was like. “It all started with where I am not—basing my ambitions not of where I was [at the time].” Not necessarily bored, but definitely disenchanted, Armas caught the first plane to Los Angeles after high school, studying fine art and curatorial studies, and eventually found a niche in installation art and gallery curation. “If you asked me years ago, my appreciation for fashion is not as high as it is now. I really kind of considered art to be the true, highest form and it trickled down from there,” he said. “I thought art would be the starting and ending point.” But his high-octane mentality, his need to both have a quick turnover into the next project and create a more applied longevity, forced his eye into fashion. He wanted to create future-vintage. “[Gallery art] is for a finite period of time and maybe lives on in people’s memories or through a photograph but someone can keep a piece of my clothing forever,” he said. “With that came a lot of validity and that [fashion design] really was a high art.” First with his LA-based store Scout back in 2003, Armas curated independent, international designers. Eventually ending his first venture, he brought his viewpoint to Manhattan in 2008 with Assembly where, a year later, he decided to start making his own clothes. “Once I started retailing I had such a high regard for the industry that I knew my contribution couldn’t be lazy,” he said. “It needed to be well-thought-out. I needed to make sure my contribution mattered. So, I waited for a long time to make what I would call a collection.” Initially cutting his teeth with menswear (which, coincidentally, dominated his boutique during its formative years), Armas dove into designing womenswear in 2012 alongside his design mentor Claire Lampert, former design director of Bodkin. “I had always been referencing his

menswear work for my own work with Bodkin. I felt like it was sort of like what I was doing for womenswear,” Lampert said, who spent three seasons with Armas and has also recently consulted for New York-based La Garçonne. “It was kind of perfect timing on both our ends and he was a good position to start a women’s line to complete his men’s line,” she said. “When we first started working together it was finding out who his woman would be, and also taking from the menswear and interpreting it into the womenswear, which was the most exciting part for me,” she continued. In addition to design consultation, Lampert also aided in production, merging her formulaic process with Armas’ vision, developing different materials and textiles, including knits from Peru. “I used her as training wheels,” said Armas, who received a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nomination alongside their first collection together. “I really wanted [the collections] to have functionality and not go off too much on my own tangent as to what I wanted to see.” Armas has been on his own for over two years now, cruising with steady independence in the womenswear industry and has since made a quiet, authoritative entrance into the upper tiers of New Yorkbased designers. “I still, every season, am honored and a bit sad because I have to ask myself, ‘Can I do this again?’” he said. “The more invested I am in designing clothes, the more emotional the process becomes and, again, the more appreciate I have for people who are able to simulate genius season after season.” The current Fall/Winter 2014 collection seems to stand as the culmination of Armas’ trajectory as a fashion designer. Following his obsession of power and its inherent qualities in a familial setting, Armas took his tenure in New York not only as a way to promote his current designs, but also as a way to connect more deeply with the inner-workings of this city. “Power dynamics. The echelons. Families. Long-standing communities. Politicians and places of power for long periods of time.” His hands moved rapidly as he spoke, churning like smoke lifting from a cauldron. “Those sort of stories and dynamics really affect what goes on in New York City and that’s not happening in these other places,” he added. “I would not have created the collection anywhere else.”

COVERED IN DUST

Singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten opens up about the methods behind her brutally honest new release, Are We There WORDS ALEXANDER TIRPACK PHOTOGRAPHS PETER ASH LEE STYLING M O S E STM

“Performing is usually pretty cathartic for me,” Sharon Van Etten ex-

plained while on the road somewhere outside of Fargo. “Even though the songs are pretty heavy, I like talking to the audience and making jokes and stuff. I feel like it balances out a little bit.” For those familiar with Van Etten’s music, this sentiment might come off as strange—her songs are deeply personal and almost overwhelmingly melancholic. With her latest release, Are We There, Van Etten takes her fans further into her ongoing romantic hardships, but with a tighter and more focused execution. It has all the trappings of a great album, including production by industry heavyweight Stewart Lerman, praise from the most revered reviewers (The New Yorker called it “astonishing,” and it’s on Rolling Stone’s “Top 45 Albums of 2014”), and measurable growth from an artist whose debut album (2009’s Because I Was In Love) was already well-received by fickle indie kids all-too-eager to roast anything perceived as inauthentic. For Van Etten these beaming accolades are, talent notwithstanding, due in large part to her fans. Without the encouragement of

friends and fans at open mic’s in New Jersey nearly a decade ago, she would not have pursued professional musicianship. It was during this budding performances that Van Etten realized other people could relate to her lyrics, and that connection bred ambition. “I was doing it for myself but I didn’t really realize the weight of it,” Van Etten said. “I went from writing for myself, to other people connecting and encouraging me to put it out there. Basically, writing is my therapy session, and it helped develop this weird path that I’m on.” That “weird path” has followed a trajectory of four fulllength releases, and has stuck to the same general narrative: Sharon Van Etten is sad. Like her previous albums, Are We There is a testament to Van Etten’s struggles with love, her lyrics delivered with gut-wrenching honesty, her emotions creeping and burning over drawn-out syllables like an early-morning shot of top-shelf whiskey. As fans, we are privy to Van Etten’s sadness because she wears it on her sleeve, but also because she knows how to pluck the listener’s emotional heartstrings. The listener grasps Van Etten, but also dredges up and draws out personal

Dress by Samuji Ring by Aesajewelry.com

"A lot of the record is trying to find a balance between being on the road and being home." depressions, and that is the connection Van Etten felt during those early stages of performing, and it’s what she still strives for today. Writing and music have been her preferred forms of release since she was a child. “I was a really sensitive kid and I had a really hard time expressing myself,” Van Etten said. “My mom gave me a journal because if I was having a hard time I would just retreat. I would shut down. I would hide for a while instead of talking about it.” The practice of keeping a journal proved fruitful. As Van Etten grew, she learned how to play a variety of instruments and soon started putting those scribbled entries to music. Today, this is still the lynchpin of her creative process. Every song starts as an emotive sketch. “The way I write, it’s usually when I’m going through hard times and I’ll pick up some kind of instrument, whatever’s [lying] around, and then I’ll just play until I have a vague idea of a melody,” she explained. “Then I hit record and I do a stream of consciousness [recording] for like ten

minutes until I feel a little bit of a release. Then I put it down for a few days, and when I have a little more perspective I listen back and try to understand what I was going through. I’ll write down lines I think are pretty or poignant. I try to make sense of the nonsense I’m singing.” Honesty is a key Van Etten characteristic, and nearly every aspect of Are We There is as real as it gets. Even the album cover, a photograph of Van Etten seated in a car, her head sticking out of the window, hair blowing in the wind, holds true to her career narrative. The photo is over a decade old and was taken during a visit to Tennessee, where she used to live before moving back to New Jersey and, soon after, Brooklyn. “I went down to Tennessee to visit my friend Rebecca, and we used to have a routine where after we got off work we would get a couple of diet cokes and a pack of cigarettes and just listen to music. We would take turns screaming out the window because we were both

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Gregg Brockington using MAC Cosmetics at Judy Casey Inc. Shirt and Pants Rodebjer

going through a pretty hard time,” Van Etten said, explaining that she had given the photograph to a boyfriend she’s been on and off with for the past ten years. “When I moved in with him last summer, he was cleaning and he pulled out a pile from under his bed. It was every postcard I ever sent, every mix CD I ever made him, a lot of early demos I had given him, and there was that photograph and it was completely covered in dust. It hit me kind of fast that it summed up where we were in our relationship. It was a beautiful thing but it was also really sad too because I didn’t realize he was so sentimental, but we also never really communicated that. That’s when I came up with the title, Are We There. A lot of the record is trying to find a balance between being on the road and being home. And when he pulled that out from under the bed, it all started to make sense.” As with any tortured artist, Van Etten walks a fine line between finding relatable messages and staying true to her life, all while

trying to avoid hurting the figures she writes about. “I’m starting to get a little bit more protective of myself because I’m realizing it’s affecting other people in a way where of course I’m going to feel responsible,” she said. “It is really personal, and not just for me but also for the people involved that the songs are about, and I don’t want to hurt anybody. But the way that I write, I think I would be lying if I wasn’t candid.” That pressure of public exposure of her personal life may very well lead to a break from her solo work. She has a strong desire to lend her talents to someone else’s band, perhaps strictly playing bass or guitar, and leaving herself out of the spotlight. “I would like to play with other people. I think it’s a good exercise in general for a writer and a person,” she said. But then, as if striving for personal progression was her second nature, she added, “It’s important to do other things. How else are you going to grow?”

THE NEW ME The long-awaited tale of Wynter Gordon, New York’s most determined songstress WORDS ABBY KRON PHOTOGRAPHS PETER ASH LEE STYLING M O S E STM

Long, dense braids of black hair. A crisp, curved brow over rich, brown

eyes. Full lips that part to release a sultry, soulful voice or, during conversation, a sincere smile. With all the makings of a modern-day diva, and none of the entitlement, Wynter Gordon has a remarkable ability to be at once both completely disarming and unequivocally confident. Since beginning her career as a singer and songwriter in 2005, Gordon has spent the last year developing her latest project, a band called The Righteous Young, which blends influences of R&B, hip hop and soul. “As an artist, Wynter has always kept people on their toes,” said Tim Anderson, an artists and repertoire manager at Harvest Records, who recently signed Gordon. “She doesn’t limit her sound stylistically or allow herself to be put in a box. When you see her perform it all becomes clear. She’s so dynamic onstage—there’s a classic vibe to it. She reminds

me of the great singers from every era of music.” Dynamic progression is a recurring theme for Gordon, who has encountered some harsh truths about the music industry. And while a younger, more naïve Gordon would have simply accepted these circumstances, the outspoken and confident woman she has become loves to challenge them. “I feel current artists—the ones that are making the money, at least—kind of just fell in line,” said Gordon. “They do what they have to do to make their money.” Gordon’s new project stands as an indictment against the current state of the music business—one that she feels recycles the same unflattering stereotypes for female recording artists. As this latest venture comes together, so too does the ever-evolving omnibus of her experiences as an artist still discovering herself.

Top by Osklen Dress by Zimmermann Hat by Eric Javits Earrings by Eddie Borgo

Years before Gordon began writing hits for R&B queens like Mary J. Blige and having her own songs play on the radio—Gordon’s smash single “Dirty Talk” has nearly 15 million YouTube views—she was a passionate student attending the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York. The education Gordon received here became a powerful means of self-expression for the otherwise shy teenager. “School was a freeing place,” she said. “I grew up very poor and was raised in a strict Christian household in South Jamaica, Queens, so all I had was my imagination and music became my escape.” After interning at MCA Records, where people started noticing her talent, and a six-month stint at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, Gordon realized she had the chops to land a record deal. In the meantime, she supported herself by waiting tables and working coat

check at Reign, a nightclub in Bedstuy. When Gordon found out one of her coworkers at the club, Don Pooh, worked closely with Mary J. Blige, she was resolute about playing her music for him. “This is so cliché, but I played him my CD in the basement of the club,” said Gordon. “He thought I was good so he gave me a track that Mary J. Blige had chosen for [her new] album. I went home and wrote to it. Mary J. picked my song. That was my foot in the door. ” From there, Gordon signed with Atlantic Records where she worked with an artists and repertoire executive named Sickamore. Shortly after inking the deal, however, Sickamore—who Gordon credited as “her biggest champion”—left the label. “Every time I worked with someone new, they had a different vision of me and I didn’t yet have a vision of myself,” said Gordon, who worked with various managers after Sicka-

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more. “Because of the way I was as a kid, I would just back down and do what I was told.” Gordon’s last A&R, Mike Harin, encouraged her to pursue dance music. Although she did not feel passionate about the genre, Gordon thought it might be a viable way to prove herself as a recording artist and eventually make the music she wanted to. Her debut as a dance artist came in the form of a chart-topping hit called “Dirty Talk”—a song Gordon had several qualms about releasing because of its sexually suggestive lyrics. “In this day and age, music goes everywhere and I knew there would be kids listening to the song,” said Gordon. “My niece was 10-years-old and I heard her singing it. I felt a social responsibility. I know that as an artist I am free to do what I want, but that was not the message I wanted to express.” Despite Gordon’s uncertainty about the song, fans loved it. Soon she was touring and collaborating with the likes of Skrillex, Deadmau5 and Steve Aoki, and although she felt personally unfulfilled and creatively stifled as an artist, Gordon found continued success creating dance music for other musicians including Flo Rida, David Guetta and Jennifer Lopez. But by the end of 2012, Gordon had to make a tough decision. She had the option to continue her career as a dance artist or to drop her label and, with it, all the money she was making from tours and radio play. “I think it was Christmas morning and I called up Julie Greenwald, who was a VP at Atlantic at the time,” she said. “I was in tears and I just said, ‘Julie, I can’t fucking do this anymore. I’m not singing what I want to sing, I’m not touching the people I want to touch, and I just can’t push this agenda anymore.’” The following year, Gordon used her earnings to buy studio time and record music on her own terms. She used this period of reflection and experimentation to discover herself, not only as an artist, but also as a woman. “I felt like I was living my twenties for the first time,” she said. “I finally felt like I was my own person.” She released her debut album as an independent artist, The Human Condition. Feelings of betrayal and anger had long been churning within the impassioned singer and finally she had found her voice as a means for releasing this pain. “I wrote this song called ‘Stimela,’” she said. “It was my own version of a song that Hugh Masekela did.” The song, which featured afrobeat and jazz undertones, marked Gordon’s first departure from dance music. Pleased to see fans resonating with her more experimental sound, she thought, “I think I found something here.” With 2014 comes The Righteous Young, a five-piece band for which she is the frontwoman and has been in development for the last year. Since beginning the project, Gordon has been experimenting with her sound and testing her chemistry with other artists. Collaborations with famed producers D’Mile and Mike Elizondo, best known for their work with Dr. Dre and Eminem, have encouraged Gordon to hone a style that is all her own on the still-nameless album slated to debut at the end of the year. A song off the upcoming release that Gordon is particularly invested in, “Get Back,” features vocals by rapper A$AP Ferg and a compilation of old African songs. “It’s about how long I have struggled to get to this point—the people I have had to deal with, the times I had to play a part that wasn’t me all the while knowing what I wanted.”

Freed of the insecurities and restrictions that plagued her earlier years, Gordon has embarked in a new direction with honesty and conviction. “People need to start saying something with their music. Tell a story, move someone, strengthen, inspire—those are my goals,” she said. Through the process of writing and recording the debut album with her new band, Gordon has recalled struggles from her past with a new, more purposeful perspective, and is now writing songs about the strength she has found, both as a women and as an artist, that she lacked in her earlier years. “My music sounds like revolution,” she said. “The songs I write now, they are about freedom and self-discovery.”

S-TO-THE-Z-A

Emerging songstress SZA hits her stride as queen of the boys club WORDS KELSEY PAINE PHOTOGRAPHS JESSICA LEHRMAN STYLING M O S E STM

As the only female member of Top Dawg Entertainment, New Jerseybred artist SZA may have a formidable creative group of boys behind her, but the 23-year-old neo-soul singer-songwriter isn’t focused on the hype. And like any beautiful young woman with a voice like melted honey and an utterly undeniable cool-kid factor, there is certainly a lot of it to live up to. After releasing her critically acclaimed Z EP last spring, SZA (real name Solana Rowe) has followed up with mesmerizing live performances featuring TDE labelmate Kendrick Lamar, a more recent collaboration with legendary Jill Scott, and an international tour on the way.

While all that sounds like the moves of an R&B diva, SZA’s artistry leans more towards Bjork than Beyoncé. Working with artists like Mac Miller, Toro y Moi and Chance the Rapper, with influences ranging from John Coltrane to Cash Money, SZA is crafting music she wants to hear— complete with a refreshing lack of pretense. “I have to say I never chose a sound, per se, that I wanted to go after,” she said. While she classifies her past work as more aggressive, the ambient trip-hop found on Z stems from her laidback summer in Los Angeles. “I think I make my music to heal me,” she continued. “There was nothing that particularly soothed me, so I just kind of sang to myself.”

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While she grew up a generally creative kid, SZA didn’t start singing until more recently, hooking up with members of TDE during a CMJ event in 2011. Her smooth sensuality balances out the bravado of labelmates and collaborators K.Dot and Ab-Soul, while her music is crafted like a carefully balanced Monet. There seems to be a lot going on at first listen, but the lyrics, music, and mood all paint a larger picture—much like religion, a central theme that runs throughout SZA’s work. Raised Muslim by her father, the religious overtures in SZA’s music are off-set by the myriad nuances of a young woman—a sensibility that relates as much to spirituality as it does to romantic comedies from the 80s and, in particular, her obsession with Julia Roberts. Z’s “Julia” is a bright pop gem dedicated to the Pretty Woman actress, while EP closer “Omega” was inspired by politics, Islam and, in particular, a documentary

her political-minded father exposed her to, featuring a Middle Eastern woman who lost her home and family due to U.S. air strikes. “That was the first time I realized that nothing is real, like my dad was just showing me this is what’s happening to people who believe what we believe all over the world and no one is talking about it,” she said. “It was just a tale of all that—religion and politics and struggle and lies and all those things that were in my brain.” SZA’s oscillating nature between serious subject matter and offkilter girlishness peeks through her work at every turn. “Your skin tastes like Brussels sprouts I swear,” SZA croons on the love ballad “UR,” produced by Mac Miller. “Jesus called me collect last night, it took all of me not to answer,” she opines on “Sweet November.” The emotive yet non-simplistic lyrics balance out the complexly layered instrumentals,

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which makes sense considering her stage name was inspired by Wu-Tang Clan’s enigmatic lyricist himself, RZA, as well as the Supreme Alphabet: “A stands for Allah, the S stands for Savior Sovereign, and the zigzag A stands for embodiment of self,” she said. And while SZA has a strong sense of sovereignty, as the oftrepeated “First Lady of TDE,” she’s also quite comfortable being one of the boys. “Here’s the thing, in hip-hop, it’s more glorified, but there’s crew mentality in music, period. I think it’s just more obvious in hip-hop. But I feel like it’s an indicator that I would be separate from the guys and I don’t feel that way,” she said. And as one of the guys, SZA gleefully opines about her past juvenile delinquent activities: smoking weed, go-karting and spray-painting. In fact, the Z artwork is fittingly an actual beer label, epitomizing SZA’s upbringing as a “suburbanite.” “It spoke to

all my camping trips I’ve ever taken and it spoke to my days playing in the creek with my friends…running from the cops and having golf course parties and just all kinds of stupid nonsense.” Her fashion sense follows the same outline. Calling herself “deliberately casual,” she jokes about buying Hawaiian shirts at Kmart: “I think fashion speaks to who you are so much and I think if there’s something that’s off, it’s like you’re talking to people that don’t know you.” As she gears up to release her first full-length album later this year, SZA is working on communicating her charmingly weird persona to the world: “I just want people to hear me clearly and I think now that I’m on a bigger platform, sometimes you have to talk louder in every way.” Luckily for us, we hear her loud and clear.

PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN A look at New York City’s most current—and crucial—arts and culture entitites WORDS IAN FRISCH PHOTOGRAPHS COLE BARASH

GENE KOGAN

Director, Men, DNA Models The fashion industry is known not only for clothes, but also the models that wear them. And behind any successful model is a thoughtful and talented agent—the facilitator of opportunity, the choreographer of career. And for Gene Kogan, Director of Men at DNA Models, that can be a creative process. “Every decision is based on creating an image—the kind of books you put out, the kind of models you take on, the overall vision of the agency,” explained Kogan, who oversees roughly 130 male models. “From minute details to change of direction requires a creative element.”

KATHY GRAYSON Founder, The Hole Gallery

If you’ve ever been, then you’ve probably met the dog. His name is Bert. An energetic one-year-old, he doesn’t have a favorite room of The Hole, Kathy Grayson’s budding Bowery art gallery, in which to play fetch. He merely follows around his master, waiting for her to toss the ball. “Art should be as important a part of people’s lives as music or theater or fashion. It doesn’t need to be this rarified, sanctified little moselem of things that have been deemed important,” said Grayson, who left Deitch Projects in 2010 to start The Hole and whose ambition, above all, is to showcase art she feels will make a difference in New York. “Maybe galleries just need to go with artists that they love,” she said. “If they really love it, that passion will communicate to the collectors. Or the art itself will win over the collectors and then it can shape a trend instead of just following one.”

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MINA SOLIMAN Doorwoman, Up & Down

In New York, nightlife is a big deal. “I love being out and about. I was really drawn to the newness of everything that happens every single night—meeting new people and everything,” said Mina Soliman, doorwoman at Up & Down in Manhattan, who helped open the popular 2014 hotspot. “For me, it was being able to work at the door and stay in tune with what’s going on,” she said, reflecting both on her previous post at Boom Boom Room as well as Up & Down. “Sure, you have the upstairs doing one thing and downstairs doing another, but on the perfect night those two things merry and you kind of forget who you’re with because you’re just meeting new people,” she said. “And that’s what nightlife is about.”

CASEY NICHOLAW Theater Director and Choreographer

Casey Nicholaw recently lined the entire southside wall of his new Hell’s Kitchen studio in mirrors. It’s where he writes his dance numbers and holds rehearsal sessions for his clusters of plays. “It’s the storytelling of it— keeping the momentum of the show going through dance and just entertaining people,” Nicholaw said, who, in 2011, won a Tony Award alongside Trey Parker for co-directing Book of Mormon. “To see [a character] dance is such an expression that we don’t do in real life,” he added, beaming with enthusiasm. “We don’t sing and dance in real life, so to be able to carry that out in a character that the audience is rooting for is incredible.”

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TODD PATRICK Founder, Market Hotel

A pioneer in the underground music scene of New York City, Todd Patrick is almost done with renovations to Market Hotel, which will reopen this fall after four years of repairs and code-related upgrades. “The possibility of super underground, illegal venues is not what it is used to be,” said Patrick, who has been throwing concerts and opening venues in New York City since 2001, including legendary 285 Kent, which shut down in 2011. “I have a sense of obligation. I would probably regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t open these types of spaces and do what I do,” he said. “Putting on shows is not hard. If you put your mind to it and have heart it in and have a taste level...you will find others that appreciate that. I do this because it is something that I believe in.”

JOYANN KING

Digital Director, Harper’s Bazaar A formative figure in the solidification of Harper’s Bazaar online, Joyann King came to the 147-year-old fashion publication four years ago with big plans for its digital presence. “My outlook when I first came to Bazaar was to be experimental, but also respectful [to its heritage],” said King, who grew up in Texas and has been reading the magazine since she was young girl. “We definitely wanted to be a part of the conversation.” And their voice is being heard loud and clear. Their audience has risen from 1.5 million visitors per month to 5 million visitors per month in just the past year alone.

NICK CATCHDUBS Co-founder, Fool’s Gold Records

Spearheading the confluence of hip-hop and electronic music, Brooklyn’s Fool’s Gold Records stands as the leading tastemaker of genre-bending artists, founded by DJs and close friends A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs. “Fool’s Gold has been doing the same thing for seven years,” explained Catchdubs, who acts as A&R for the label, “which is basically releasing the music that our friends make and reflecting the artistic community that A-Trak and I are a part of.” And the overall purpose, too, stands unchanged: “We always wanted to be successful and we wanted to be smart and savvy about our business, but the goal is less about purely making a profit and more about capturing this art that is around us, for posterity—making products that we are proud of.”

TOM MYLAN Grooming: Mari Susuda using MAC Cosmetics

Founder, The Meat Hook

Tom Mylan has been covered in blood for the better part of seven years. The young king of Brooklyn butcherdom got his start in 2005 as a meat sourcer at Marlow & Sons and soon became, in 2007, their in-house butcher. “I either wanted to quit and do food writing or become a butcher,” he said. He took a six-week training course upstate to jump-start his new position, saying, “that [the course] was just enough information to make me dangerous.” He helped launch Marlow & Daughters in 2008 but left soon thereafter to open The Meat Hook in Williamsburg, which shares its space with Brooklyn Kitchen. His dream of writing about food, however, never died. “A book on butchering was always part of the plan,” he said. His new book, “The Meat Hook Meat Book” released in May under Artisan to glowing reviews. “I have a half-ass English degree, but writing has always come naturally for me, especially about food.”

“SCARECROW” BY LITHUIANIAN ARTIST ZILVINAS KEMPINAS

Queens’ Socrates Sculpture Park carves out an East River residency for emerging artists WORDS NATALIE RINN PHOTOGRAPHS SARAH KJELLEREN STYLING M O S E STM ARTIST LILIAN KREUTZBERGER

On a late spring afternoon, a kelly-green ball cap magnified the slight

frame and jaunty gait of Lars Fisk, bobbing and weaving between oversized sculptures and shade-giving trees. Fisk continued to survey the grounds of Socrates Sculpture Park, in Long Island City, where he has worked as the Studio and Facilities Manager for the last six years. A sculptor himself, Fisk flushed with some singular memories from his time spent as art director for the divisive jam band Phish. “It was very similar to what happens here, actually,” said Fisk of his work with the group, who filled major amphitheaters with die-hard fans for decades. “We had a lot of resources to build a lot of crazy stuff.” Fisk emerged from a cluster of trees and faced north: In front of him, 200 steel poles extended skyward. The masts lined in two rows that curved gently as they ran toward the East River. Reflective strips of Mylar tape stretched taut across parallel peaks of the thirteen-foot masts, forming an ethereal canopy that shimmered beneath the shifting sun. Wind gusts skimmed off the river and collided with the Mylar bands.

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THE CONTINUOUS CHISEL

Collectively, they emanated a deep, alien hum. “Scarecrow” is the single largest work ever installed at Socrates. The renowned American sculptor Mark di Suvero founded the park in 1986 on 4.5 triangular acres that rested quietly along the East River, a 15-minute walk from the nearest train—an inconvenient distance by New Yorkers’ standards, and likely responsible for its omission in standard art conversation. Yet its relative remoteness belies its status: There is no bigger outdoor space in New York City for the construction and exhibition of large-scale art. Fisk oversees the installation and upkeep of two annual exhibitions at the park. In the spring, works like “Scarecrow” appeared from established artists—in this case, the Lithuanian sculptor Zilvinas Kempinas (despite having shown at MoMA and the Venice Biennale, no other work has approached this scope). At the beginning of September, the second exhibition transformed the park dramatically. More than a dozen not-yetestablished New York City-based artists began to show large scale works,

devised and often built throughout the summer within Socrates’ open-air studio. Now in its 14th year, the Emerging Artist Fellowship program awards $5,000 stipends to 15 applicants to pursue the most ambitious projects of their career, backed by a wealth of tools, experienced staff, incomparable outdoor space within New York City limits, and the substantial industrial machinery required to put it all into place. In an open field next to the park, a crane maneuvered colossal steel beams near a soaring sculpture. “That’s [di Suvero’s] team, they’re working away,” said Fisk. The now-81-year-old founder walks with two canes but still cycles across the park, between his own studios, assiduously managing his projects. “Mark’s a whimsical guy. Day-to-day he can change something they’ve been working on for two months and drop it for two years and start something new.” But, he continued, “They do help us out quite a bit, too.” Until 1986, post-industrial decay had made the abandoned lot at the corner of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard a magnet for garbage and crime. Dead cars and wild dogs attracted muggings and dangerous activity. Two of the nation’s largest public housing complexes were located nearby: the Queensbridge Houses to the south (legendary rapper Nas’ stomping grounds) and the Astoria houses to the north. Constructed on the idealistic notion that healthy communities could form separately from traditional urban development, the hulking structures left thousands of residents simply separate, hardened to the city around them. Meanwhile, Mark di Suvero had established art studios on two plots abutting the illegal dumpsite. In the 1960s, di Suvero had been a founding member of one of the first experimental art spaces in SoHo, which was a burgeoning Mecca for artists at the time. Park Place Gallery exhibited boundary-pushing work in all mediums, including the minimal-

ist drawings of Sol LeWitt and the stripped-down undulations of Steve Reich. The environment was cooperative and open, in direct defiance of the prohibitive gallery system farther uptown. The spirit of community and collaboration at Park Place Gallery struck a chord with di Suvero, who saw its potential outside the art-making world. “Art is a process for self-expression but it’s also a bridge,” di Suvero explained. “To see art made with your own eyes is a form of sharing and generosity—one of possibility, not limits.” di Suvero imagined that if art could take over a dumping ground in Queens, the seemingly impossible, through creative endeavor, would be proven possible. The transformative power of art could affect an entire community, every day, in “a park where the form of sculpture would work upon the human spirit” and produce wonder—what Socrates called the beginning of wisdom. di Suvero knew that if the project were to be a success, his neighbors would have to do some of the work. “I wanted to employ young people from the community who had nothing to do. In the midst of this dangerous environment, I wanted Socrates Sculpture Park to magnetically attract people to the idea of a productive, positive and peaceful place.” In September, 1985, di Suvero, a coalition of fellow artists, and local youth began the work of transforming the abandoned site into Socrates Sculpture Park, funded completely by artists. In the early 90s, Socrates signed a lease with New York City Parks that allowed the nonprofit to maintain and program the space as it saw fit. Today, a board of directors, including many artists, oversees Socrates fiduciary responsibility—di Suvero is its Chairman. di Suvero’s vision for the future of the park is the same as it was at its birth: to act as an agent for community building and peace, “a

symbiosis of co-existence and dependence,” as di Suvero called it. “Art can do that. Socrates Sculpture Park represents this for me.” Throughout the summer of 2012, the silhouette of a 34-yearold, six-foot-three sculptor could be seen lighting fire to hundreds of shingle-shaped woodcuts in the middle of the night. He had devised a system of efficient and controlled burn, scorching his way through forty units before 2 a.m. In the morning, he returned to clad a low, flat framework—suspended like a mantel above the river—with the previous night’s work. Jarrod Beck was an Emerging Artist at Socrates that year, and “Quarry” evolved into a broad charcoal horizon that, to visitors entering the park, separated a stretch of skyscrapers and the riverbank below. Beck’s process—the repetition, the smoke, the blistered wood, the odd hours—were part and parcel of the park that summer. “There is this group of people who walk their dog or run their lap here every day,” Beck explained, “and you start to have a relationship with people. Many of them were like, ‘You’re crazy.’” But this also meant that many knew exactly how “Quarry” came to be, and took ownership of it when Beck was gone. There were no instructions to stay off of its surface (though incredibly scalable), but daily visitors that witnessed its creation respected it as art. “I was a guest in their space. They’re the ones who continue the story of the piece. And that was a really important thing to learn on that scale.” Beck stood near an undefined edge of the park and, farther afield, spotted a severed band on “Scarecrow.” Its two ends danced across the grass and looked like a sparking wire in muted light. “If all those things fall apart by the end, I still think that it’s about taking that kind of chance and not polishing things up,” he said. “This park was about fixing something that was broken, and it was about working together with a group to make a space that people actually wanted to be in, and taking that kind of risk.” di Suvero, who was 78 that summer, would ride his bike across the park, between his studios, keeping a watchful eye over Beck’s work. “To see Mark bicycling down this pathway, cheering, I mean, that’s what this is all about. That was like an exclamation of the power of making. It was just like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing this!’” John Hatfield—appointed executive director at Socrates in 2011 after a 17-year run at the New Museum—stood near a table that held boxes of hot coffee, trays of pastries and press literature. His posture invited conversation. “The New Museum is fabulous and I loved it, but it was definitely time for me to make a significant change,” he reflected, squinting in the sun, which had begun to attack the late-morning dew. The New Museum’s operating budget is $11 million. By comparison, Socrates’ is a tenth of that. “This is hard scrabble—I mean, there are no bucolic hills, you got a Costco next door, you got an industrial landscape.” In other words, Socrates is not your stereotypical sculpture park, like Storm King and its 500 undulating acres north of the city. Still, Hatfield continued, “There is no place like this. It’s…a little Wild West-y.” That afternoon, the intense shimmer of “Scarecrow” would be offset by a colony of multicolored kites, anchored inside the grips of local kids to kick off the spring and summer programming at the park. But in that moment, in the morning, all was calm. A grove of trees provided shade nearby. Toddlers romped through soft piles of freshly fallen cherry blossoms. Closer to the river, a 50-foot conceptual sculpture of Dr. Delois Blakely, a community advocate for displaced homeless in Harlem, reclined on her side and invited guests to walk inside and rest in her womb. Beside her, a yoga class struck Warrior Pose One—each figure mirrored a skyscraper in the distance. Programming at Socrates is extensive and, as new developments have sprung up around it, aimed at an increasingly broad public. Through the warm months, the park hosts green markets; compost collecting; Yoga; Tai Chi; kayaking; design, build, and sculpture workshops; a bike parade; and a Summer Solstice celebration. An annual film series began in July. More than 4,000 kids from around the city participate in artist-led workshops over a six-week period. On weekends, the Long Is-

land City Art Bus (launched by Socrates this spring) shuttles between The Noguchi Museum, Sculpture Center, MoMA PS1, and the park, all of them neighboring yet otherwise remote destinations. Hatfield describes it as a holistic ecosystem centered entirely around creativity, and every part of it is free. It’s also public waterfront green space—little of which exists nearby—and used by neighbors for daily lap-running and dog walking, and by teenagers for hanging out after school. It’s a lot to keep tabs on. Shaun Leonardo is the director of public programs and community relations and works to connect the art and the park to communities near and far. “John [Hatfield] is continually warning about the water down effect,” said Leonardo. “At the end of the day, it’s about art making. We really want the art programming to consistently draw inspiration from the artwork, so that the content for all the programming has a reason for being at Socrates.” “The goal isn’t necessarily to reach as many people as possible,” said Hatfield. “The goal is to present art to as many people as possible. We’re not pursuing a common denominator art experience. We don’t fear whether someone gets it or doesn’t get it—in fact, I think that’s critically our role.” The freedom at Socrates to pursue art, rather than art-of-acertain-appeal, hinges on the fact that, at its foundation, the park incorporates a markedly broad public. Daily, it runs on the diversity that museums and galleries doggedly seek. Hatfield estimates that only in the last five years have more traditional institutions begun to understand the value of engaging a similarly wide spectrum, and working to erode the barrier between people and art. “Socrates has always done that,” said Hatfield. “That is inherently how the place operates.” Its audience secure, the park can focus on the real meat—even the mystery—that underlies it all: the creative process. Sculpture parks, typically, have an element of stasis. You see large art, you walk manicured fields, and you expect to return to the same landmarks for years to come. Socrates—with its hands-on workshops, Emerging Artists Fellowship, continuously-operating open-air studio, and 365-day-year schedule—is more like a live art laboratory, where the act of creating, just as much as the finished product, is on constant display. “There’s nothing behind the curtain. You see it from the beginning, to the middle, to the end,” said Hatfield. “That sort of ongoing activity, of it changing and evolving and morphing, is a really exciting thing for everyone to witness.” On an overcast afternoon in June, eight of the 2014 emerging artists came to Socrates to get to know their studio. It was striking just how emerging they were, in their 20s and early 30s, hesitant to make conversation, waiting quietly for Fisk to tour them around, give them keys to the park, and to receive their checks. Christopher Mahonski was clean cut, wore a lavender button down, gray jeans and sneakers, and oozed an especially youthful air. He planned to place 300 Timex wristwatches in trees throughout the park and synchronize them to beep and flash at intervals that coincided with condensed cicada lifecycles. “It’s all about timing,” he joked—halfway at least. He hadn’t created anything like it before. “I don’t even know where it came from, so it’s really weird to be doing it now.” Mahonski stood in a loose circle with another grantee, 29-yearold Dutch artist Lilian Kreutzberger. She had been to the park only once before, in January, when applications were due. She chatted idly to pass the time and recalled a controversial sculpture from her visit that winter. “I can’t remember if the man or the bear had a big penis,” she said, as she transitioned to laughter. By then a big, slack circle had formed. The artists and two college interns introduced themselves by first name in rapid succession. Fisk started a slow walking tour of the studio—which, he pointed out, was really more of an “area” defined by a series of forest-green shipping containers, a lack of grass, and rudimentary covered structure for refuge during intense heat and bad weather. One shipping container held metalworking tools, like a stick welder and a plasma torch; another was a break room, equipped with air conditioning, WiFi, and a water cooler. “Out here you gotta drink water. You can really lose it real quick if you don’t

Socrates is more like a live art laboratory, where the act of creating, just as much as the finished prodcut, is on constant display.

ARTIST JARROD BECK

Overalls by Levi’s, Shirt Jarrod’s Own Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics

prepare yourself for working outdoors,” said Fisk, speaking matter-offactly and with the authority of experience. Another container held extension cords, chargers and hand tools. Piles of salvaged sculpture material were strewn throughout the studio and available to the artists. A coherent system of organization was not immediately apparent but, Fisk assured, it was there, and the resources and technical support within it ran deep. “If a tool was put back in its proper spot, I’ll know exactly where it is and you’ll have it,” he snapped his fingers, “bam, like that.” He would teach anyone how to use a tool, or a completely new skill—welding, for example—if they’d never done it before. And then there was the support of the man whose towering machinery, for the moment, was still in the distance. “Our great granddaddy, Mark di Suvero, he keeps in the back a private studio for his own equipment, which he loans out to us from time to time,” Fisk explained. At the end of the summer, his boom truck would install the finished sculptures. But, like everything, it was available at all times. “We can bring it out and utilize it as well if your projects become more than manually handle-able,” Fisk said, “so don’t be afraid of building beyond your

means.” The tour ended. Artists asked questions cautiously and talked about their proposals. Kreutzberger, who has a studio in Bushwick, planned to create a concrete building façade, installed flat on its side. She hoped to evoke a physical awareness of structure that, paradoxically, we lose when engulfed inside skyscrapers. Her previous work was twodimensional. This was new territory. “I think, as an artist, the best position is when you’re a bit uncertain about what you’re going to do next,” she reflected. “At the same time, you have very little to hold on to—even though that’s terrifying, it’s a very good place to be.” Kreutzberger hoped to install the façade, piecemeal, in segments that she could haul and then position on her own. It seemed straightforward, though what about the unexpected? Her back could give out. The wall might look better up right. She might have to re-conceive the entire thing. But it would all be fine. Community surrounded her— there were extra hands, decades of experience, encouragement, and all that equipment. Worst-case scenario, di Suvero’s crane could finish the job.

PAPER CO-FOUNDER KIM HASTREITER

THE DIRTY 30

Paper Magazine, the heart of downtown culture, celebrates its 30th anniversary

WORDS IAN FRISCH PHOTOGRAPHS SHANE MCCAULEY

Traditionally, a 30

th birthday is often honored with sarcastic, backhanded zeal—the annual celebration, fueled by tradition, coupled with the agonizing fact that an invisible line has been crossed. And while many people dread the inevitable commencement of their 30s, for Paper, the Manhattan-based alt-glossy—who celebrates their 30th anniversary this year with a newly-designed September issue—they cross into a new type of future. It’s a road, to them, lined with progress and opportunity, not regret and frustration. “[From here], the magazine is going to be super idea-focused,” said Kim Hastreiter, co-founder of Paper, adding that their website and social media channels will be adjusted to push news. “We used to give the alternative news [in print], but now [the magazine] is going to be more of an object. And I’m super excited.” When Hastreiter and her business partner David Hershkovits started Paper in 1984, Manhattan was a strange and often tumultuous place. It oozed an anything-goes mentality that, despite its dangerous landscape, bred new waves of creativity, artistic expression and community building. “Back then, SoHo was really just starting,” said Hastreiter. “I thought, ‘Wow. Downtown is kind of happening!’” And with that realization came opportunity. “We have always been very much interested in what’s coming up,” added David Hershkovits. “That’s how we grew the magazine.” To Hastreiter and Hershkovits, Paper was, perhaps, not necessarily the end goal, but more so a vessel to release ideas—a tangible creative outlet for what they were seeing and experiencing in downtown Manhattan during an era of change. It was the age of Basquiat, Vivienne Westwood and the Mudd Club—the age of expression in this urban habitat. “When I started Paper, all of my friends were starting to get famous,” Hastreiter said. “We could just feel it. We were always in the beginning of these cultural movements and we’ve always had street cred because we were there from the beginning.” Hastreiter, an affable woman with beaming red glasses—her signature accessory—has always been an artist at heart. Originally from New Jersey, she bounced around to various universities but finished up at

CalArts and, upon graduating in 1976, drove cross-country with a friend in her pickup truck, a dragon painted on its side. Landing in downtown Manhattan, in an apartment on Houston Street, Hastreiter worked mainly in retail while her aspirations for the art industry became disillusioned. “The art world was narrow-minded,” she said. “And I was just meeting all these people that were collaborating and I was really fascinated by the things that happened when everything crisscrosses and clashes with each other, as opposed to the art world [where] everything is singular.” After befriending famed street style photographer Bill Cunningham, Hastreiter landed a job as style editor at SoHo Weekly News, where she threw all her art-world friends into a melting pot—Robert Mapplethorpe took photographs, Keith Haring modeled and Kenny Scharf collaborated, to name a few. “I would bring them into the style pages and do these quirky things that no one had really done before but I did it because I was an artist,” she said. It was there, too, where she met David Hershkovits, an East Village cat with a keen sense of culture and a good eye for quality writing (he has a Masters in Literature from Penn State). They worked alongside each other for the next few years until the SoHo News folded and they were out of a job. “I am really good at people-finding; David and I can just smell what’s happening,” said Hastreiter, going on to explain that, after failing to find proper funding, the duo started Paper each with $1,000, pulling advertisements from their friends and using typesetting equipment and other materials afterhours at the New York Times, their first issue being a fold-out black and white poster. “We were able to be on the wave and get caught with the culture and how it was moving,” explained Hershkovits. “It was always about finding things that excited us and really just spreading the word. It [was about] community.” As Paper continued to grow throughout the 80s and into the 90s, a distinct line had been drawn between their outlook and that of other fashion and culture publications. While many magazines were covering the on-goings of New York, Hastreiter and Hershkovits were cultivating a viewpoint of becoming these cultures, in order to transition

PAPER CO-FOUNDER DAVID HERSHKOVITS, LEFT, AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MICKEY BOARDMAN

their purpose more fluidly and to be able to truly stand behind what they were representing. “We were never journalists,” Hastreiter admitted. “We would never write about something just because a press person called. Instead, I would much rather get someone who was obsessed about a certain genre to write about what was going on. Being an editor is also about matching up people in that way.” And, in 1992, Hastreiter’s outlook of matching up people blasted through her front door, prompting, surprisingly, a match for the magazine itself: Mickey Boardman. A bombastically enthusiastic fashionista fresh out of Parsons with an eye for the shiny and a brain for the new and enticing, Boardman was an avid reader before he was an employee. “Paper was my favorite magazine. I was like an obsessive fan,” said Boardman, who started off interning and is currently the publication’s editorial director. “I never had any intention of working in a magazine. I didn’t even know what working in a magazine was about,” he continued, clad in a blue Lacoste polo; vintage, brown Fendi sweater with brown sequins (“My favorite color is shiny”); glistening blue Burberry glasses and J Brand corduroys that “they dug out of the archive,” a casual, lay-around look, as he put it. “But I just sort of fell in love. When you finally arrive home, you can just feel it.” Hastreiter’s affinity for magnetizing downtown tastemakers, throughout the 90s, continued to lean towards the emerging and effervescent. During this time, she often set up a Winnebago in Union Square, which she named the Fashionmobile, for emerging designers to present their collection alongside an elevator pitch. One year, shortly after graduating from Pratt, designer Jeremy Scott presented to Hastreiter who facilitated a recognition from Amy Spindler, a Times fashion editor. “[Kim] has always been championing the underdogs and the eccentrics and the special needs of all the artistic domains,” Scott explained in a 2007 profile

of Hastreiter in The New Yorker. And it was Hastreiter and Hershkovits’ dedication to this independent, artistic mentality, and their ability to connect people with the same outlook, that enabled the magzine’s growth. From 1993 to 1999, the magazine’s circulation doubled to 63,000 (it’s now at 125,000). “[The person] who read Paper was the type of person that all their friends would call to find out what’s going on. That’s the person we cultivated,” explained Hastreiter. “We were that person and our readers were that person. They got their juice and information from Paper.” Transitioning this naturally occurring phenomenon of community-building into a money-making asset came after brands started approaching Paper and asking for help in experiential marketing and event planning. And, at about the time when Target approached them in 2002 to tap cultural influencers for the opening of their first store in Manhattan, ExtraExtra was born. Hastreiter and Hershkovits’ brand strategy and creative marketing offshoot transitioned Paper into more of a full-scale communications company than just a magazine, and has netted them clients ranging from Lanvin to MAC Cosmetics. “ExtraExtra is bigger than the magazine, practically,” said Hastreiter (in 2011, the Times reported that ExtraExtra accounted for 40 percent of their entire revenue stream). “It’s all about amplification and building a strong community and we have that strong community,” she continued, saying that magazine staffers work with ExtraExtra and vice versa. “That is our strength. We are curators. And we go whole-hog into that.” Hershkovits amplified her point: “It connects to the roots of the magazine. When we started, we threw parties and that’s how we promoted.” As the new millenium rolled along, and the Internet became more of an everyday necessity rather than an after-school commodity, the cultural beehive that is Paper began buzzing. Always on the lookout, too,

for what’s new in technology (they were beta-testers for Quark and Apple in their early years), Hershkovits was an early advocate for social media, especially for his staff. “Give me two tweets and I could tell you the history of humanity,” said Mickey Boardman, who is the most active on social media at the magazine with nearly 90,000 tweets and over 51,000 followers. “I am at my very best when it’s spontaneous and nonsensical— I’m not too serious overall, and Paper is that way, too.” Earlier this year, as their website and digital strategy called for a bit of revamping, Paper has re-introduced a veteran of the brand, Drew Elliott, who came from theAudience and formerly ran ExtraExtra. He is now a partner in the company and their the chief creative officer. “Drew is a genius at amplification,” said Hastreiter. “He is leading this new charge of integration of all content.” In just the past four months, Paper has grown its Instagram following by 70,000 users, and increased its unique web viewers from just under 500,000 to around 750,000 per month. “The thing about Paper that is interesting is discovering the new and introducing people to these types of things,” said Elliott. “There are Paper people out there all over the world and they want to understand what’s happen at the edge of culture. People are much more interested in discovery. And that’s our big advantage,” he added. With Elliott behind the wheel, the publication is continuing with Hastreiter and Hershkovits’ bottom-line of connectivity and discovery while using large-scale,

modern-day tools, allowing them to redefine the emotional relationship with their reader and continuing to achieve that symbiotic connection. The tight-knit atmosphere at Paper—the sense of community that fueled their steady growth for the past 30 years—has turned out to be its biggest asset. Boardman first followed Paper because he had built a niché, heart-to-heart relationship with the brand. “The heart of Paper overall is that we have the enthusiasm of the zine with a slicker production value,” he explained. That crunchy zine mentality is the same still, and the duality of authentic transparency and community cultivation is still at the heart of the operation. The September issue cover with Courtney Love, too, speaks to the aesthetic of what Paper was at its onset: large, block letters dominating an otherwise very simple image. It’s a change, a hark back at their formative years, that Hastreiter embraced with a nonchalant shrug and raise of brow: “We love change. We embrace change. We are old radicals. And we have nothing to lose.” It is as if, amongst all the progress since the magazine first issue 30 years ago, the mentality of representing New York hasn’t faded away and given rise to more shallow publishing ideals. “Certainly coming from our history, starting with [just a] poster, it was very minimal in some ways of what we were trying to do,” Hershkovits started, “but we were connecting with those people. [And] we never really left there. That’s still who we are.”

WORKING THROUGH THE STUBBLE How Vice’s Thomas Morton went from quick-witted intern to Emmy-winning journalistic centerpiece WORDS IAN FRISCH PHOTOGRAPHS COLE BARASH STYLING MOSESTM

Sometime in 2007, a few years after he started working at Vice, Thomas

Morton thought it would be a good idea to grow out his facial hair. “The beard,” he puffed, making air quotes with his fingers. His crossed his legs, anchored his elbow into the back cushion of the couch, and nonchalantly perched his chin on his palm. His narrow frame, all pale skin and thin limbs, pinched in on itself as his shifted his weight, shaking his head, reaching to adjust his glasses with his free hand. He was eating Haribo candy and continued to chew. “I think a girlfriend at the time wanted it. It was probably some father-issue thing,” he added in his flat-lined cadence, full of snark and uncompromising honesty. “It looked horrible.” The patchy scruff followed Morton to the Pacific Ocean where he was sent to host a video segment on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre. The video, produced for the newly-formed Vice online offshoot VBS.tv, stands as one of the most viewed and most shared documentaries Thomas has appeared in, with over one million views. It was almost more popular than the first episode of the first season of VICE on HBO, which launched last year to critical acclaim, including a

2014 Emmy and, in May of this year, a renewal through a fourth season. In the seven years since the inception of video content on Vice’s website, Morton has grown from the quick-witted, somewhat awkward and often foul-mouthed amateur host into VICE’s most-aired correspondent, netting 11 segments in the first two seasons of the television show (the second of which aired this summer) and traveling to nearly two dozen countries for the now-famed news outlet known for its offbeat topics, immersive perspective and nonchalant delivery. It’s a branding foundation that Morton, barely out of college, helped cultivate. And it is now viewed as the chief characteristic of the media powerhouse. “Initially, because Thomas was the most socially awkward person we have ever seen, we said, ‘We should make Thomas the star of these documentaries because it seems so absurd,’” said Vice Founder Shane Smith. “We sort of realized that a host doesn’t have to be Superman. It can be the quintessential, 98-pound weakling, know-it-all nerd,” he continued. “People resonate with him.” A formative face in the evolution of what has become the cor-

Suit by Brooklyn Tailors Shirt by GANT Pocket sqaure by Brunello Cucinelli VICE ring and glasses Thomas’ Own, all worn throughout

nerstone of the Vice brand, Morton grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta. As a teenager, he opted for Archers of Loaf over Kenny Chesney, classic novels and Wayfarers over bass fishing and oversized belt buckles. Interests, to him, that signified the larger ambition of leaving Georgia for New York City. “I wasn’t the son of some sharecropper,” Morton said, “and I was lucky enough to take what I had been given and turn it into a ticket out of town.” A real ace on the trivia team (officially dubbed “academic bowl”), Morton enrolled in the English Literature program at NYU with a scholarship, making the reputable university affordable enough for his means. He moved into his dorm two days before 9/11 as a fresh-faced lit-rat with dreams of fast-paced city life. “I was like, ‘This city rules! This is fun!’” he mimicked of his first 48 hours in Manhattan, adding that, despite the forthcoming tragedy, his love for New York endured and he continued his education. Keeping his nose in books and only dabbling in a few journalism classes, Morton was turned off by most of the news kids. To him, they were just a bunch of drab losers who took themselves too seriously.

“I fucking hated those kids in the journalism school,” he said. “It wasn’t like nobody was super fun to hang out with, but nobody had a sense of humor at all.” He huffed and continued: “And the broadcast kids were worse than anything. They had that [Anderson Cooper] mentality but were really dumb.” Now, ten years later, it seems to have been an asset for Morton to come into the world of journalism with disdain and an alternative perspective. And, as it turned out, this same sort of outsider mentality is exactly what Vice was founded upon when Shane Smith and company started it in the mid-1990s. Morton’s first day interning at Vice, in 2004, was the day the “Party Issue” came out. Morton, who arrived at 9:30 a.m. to find boxes of the issue dumped off on the sidewalk by the shipping company, reveled in the outlandishness and skewed humor that underscored its view on contemporary youth culture. “There was a picture of a tranny jerking off a guy while someone else was doing coke off his balls or something,” he remembered. “It was a really good article.” He felt at home. At the onset, Morton stepped onto the traditional path of working at an independently owned publication: various administrative duties, help with distribution, light online updating (at this time, the website was updated monthly with content from the print magazine) and some published writing for a column called “The Gross Jar.” His first few pieces were done under various pseudonyms (Leroy Gumption, among others), but his first print article under his real name was for the pivotal “Immersionism Issue,” where he went to live with a Hispanic family in Washington Heights for a week. A turning point for Morton (who got a heavy-handed, metaphorical pat on the back from his superiors for the quality of the piece), the issue, too, seemed to flick a switch in the brand as a whole, sparking the dedication to the immersionist style of reporting that we know Vice for today. Although the writing in the magazine before that issue was certainly sardonic, outlandish and unique, its commentary-driven bent didn’t allow for much tried-and-true reporting to sit center stage. “The ‘Immersionism Issue’ really solidified that whole angle and approach that would go on to become the video style, or anti-style, and was sort of our guiding principle,” Morton explained. And from there, that modern gonzoism became its own walking, talking entity. It became the foundation that Vice, now, with its multitude of digital channels and prime-time documentary show, stands proudly on—shoulders square, staring eye to eye with the mainstream, a smirk on its proverbial face. But even before the solidification of that viewpoint, the meticulous care that journalists take to do their job right was still evident, even if the stories written were more random and unorthodox. “Even when it was writing about breakfast cereal mascots or eating pussy, there was always a level of rigor that we tried to apply to it,” Morton explained. “We took it seriously. We didn’t want to half-ass anything we were doing.” At this point, Morton found his groove. He was now a paid editor at a publication in New York that spoke in parallel to his own ambitions as a writer, was well-respected by his colleagues, and had the freedom, more or less, to write about whatever he wanted to. But as Vice started doing video content, first for their Vice Guide to Travel DVD in 2006, which transitioned into VBS.tv, eyes started peering around the office, looking for people to develop and host documentaries. And when Morton pitched a story about chasing moonshiners in South Carolina with The Black Lips, it all started. His first crack at being in front of the camera. “There was a thinly metaphorical gun [to my head]: ‘Great. You go do it. Take a cameraman. You have a weekend,’” Morton explained, which was produced with amateur know-how and a shoe-string budget. “I had no plan to ever be in front of the camera and if you look at me back then, I don’t carry myself like someone who expects to be seen,” Morton said of his era with “the beard.” “I was very dandruffy and unkempt.” With 2007 underway, and VBS.tv officially launched, much of Morton’s energy was funneled into video work (on top of writing and editing content for the magazine and growing blog) alongside other staffers, such as fellow veteran Ryan Duffy. “Video was as much of a cash cow as we could have hoped for,” Morton said. “And it was the saving grace of the magazine because the landscape at the time was pretty fucked for print of any stripe.” And although you can create a print magazine with a handful of people, video is a much more intensive operation.

Hair: Brittan White Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics

As the adherence to video grew, so did the company itself. “The growth trajectory has been insane,” said Shane Smith, estimating that, starting in 2009, Vice went from 50 to 150 employees in just over six months, and has doubled its staff every year since. It’s a safe assumption that the relationship between adherence to video and company growth is parallel. As video expanded, they needed a larger team to support it. And the success of video allowed them to continually hire more staff. They currently have 500 employees at their Brooklyn office, roughly 1,600 internationally, and nearly 5,000 correspondents in total. As the proceeding years gave way to massive growth of the brand in the digital capacity, the transition into more worldly and international content seemed inevitable. Shane Smith’s ambitions, too, elevated with the thought that Vice could become much more than just an off-beat culture publication. He saw bigger things on the horizon. “We stayed away from American television markets because it’s more difficult to sell shows and have any sort of creative control,” Smith said. But then came HBO. “HBO is sort of an anomaly,” Smith said. “They give you good budgets and creative control and they let us sort of find our way.” “VICE’s smart, honest, in-depth approach to news coverage is a perfect complement to HBO’s programming,” said Michael Lombardo, president of programming at HBO, who oversees the show. With Bill Maher on board as executive producer and support from Fareed Zakaria of CNN, Vice was now able to showcase their view on the world in prime time and on one of the most prolific television stations in the world, a partnership that has proven a success to HBO. “The success of VICE on HBO proves that people are hungry to be engaged in world events when the storytelling is not packaged into sound bites,” added Lombardo. “People had a preconception of what Vice was in their head and then when they watched the show, it sort of transformed the brand,” said Smith. “And Thomas transformed, too, from writing for the site to being on a network television show.” As the first season hit the screen, it was Morton who sat center stage. The host of seven segments, the once-lowly intern had, by happenstance, found himself at the epicenter of an soon-to-be-Emmywinning television show, with segments from exploring gun problems in Chicago to documenting the journey of North Korean defectors. An unlikely host, with his unassuming nonchalance and lack of the clean-cut masculinity, Morton had morphed into the most-aired face of the entire corporation (even more so than Smith). “I turned out to be pretty decent at hosting possibly because I had no sense of doing it beforehand,” Morton said with a shrug. People seem to enjoy holding Morton’s hand through these stories because he is genuinely himself. Swift and gravely in speech with metaphors, similes and deadpan comments stuffed into his monologues, he gave a refreshing take on the horrendous lilting cadence of a local news anchor. “You see me and get to know exactly where I’m coming from and I try to be pretty fucking upfront about it,” he said. In addition, Morton usually finds himself in humorous, self-deprecating situations—the butt of the immersionist joke. Like losing a wrestling match to a child at the Senegalese laamb wrestling training grounds, his small white frame dominated by the dark, muscular builds of the locals. “I do have a habit of unwittingly embarrassing myself on camera,” he said. “Somehow, in some cosmic sense, it comes naturally.” His deep-seeded irreverence for traditional news, too, carried into his involvement on the HBO show. With his take on broadcast journalism being thrown into the spotlight of prime-time television, Morton’s resentments of present-day media was something he brought on site for

his segments. “You see people ask questions so they can be seen as someone who asked that question...as the hard reporter,” he said. “For us, we have just been doing the same shit we have been doing and very slowly have been learning how to tighten it. And what we had been doing got us the show and proved to be what works,” he added. “There’s a real virtue to speaking as plainly as possible and to say things exactly how they occur in your brain.” A much-overlooked aspect of journalists, broadcast or otherwise, is the duality in which they play along with the necessity of interaction and relationship-building. Not only do they have to form a bond with their audience, but also, and most importantly, with their subjects. And with Vice, and Morton in particular, the style of reporting that they present, with its borderline lackadaisical, “hey buddy” type of lexicon, has actually presented the subjects with a very comfortable atmosphere to reveal information about their lives and their current condition. “We can be pretty disarming with people, I have to say,” Morton said. “A lot of them are a lot more comfortable with us than a dude with anchor hair and a microphone and a tie. It’s much easier for them to relate. We aren’t threatening. The access we have been given comes from us going out there and being nice to people and asking questions the right way and being honest with folks and just doing really basic human shit. And it’s worked out,” he continued. Being a normal dude, which was taboo in traditional broadcast journalism for a long time, has actually given Morton the opportunity to gain access to experiences that allow him to present a well-rounded representation of what’s going on in certain parts of the world. With season two of the show, Morton’s most memorable segments were in the warzones of Syria, examining the Kurdish communities and their fight for independence against extremist regimes, as well as investigating the aftermath of Russian nuclear testing in Kazakhstan, where children are encountering extreme birth defects. They were stories that truly allowed him to peel back the layers of the current condition, revealing the raw pink flesh of the realities of everyday life around the world. “It affects you deeply. You get to see the highs and lows of our fucking planet. It’s amazing,” he said. They were experiences that translated, in some strange way, into the pinnacle of his eccentric rise in the world of journalism, from amateur spitfire to thorough reporter—a rugged path as off-beat as the outlet he has worked for, a journey as honest as his opinion of what makes for worthwhile news. “At each given moment it’s awful, exhilaratingly, terrifying or saddening or whatever,” he said of his experiences around the world. “[But] that was the case before I went and saw that, that was the case when I saw that, and that’s the case now,” he added, reaching for the last few bits of his candy at the bottom of the plastic bag, pausing to slowly chew. But, thinking back, Morton seemed to understand that the world is, all-in-all, an absurd and horrendous place and his job, although true to his viewpoint of what journalism should be, is still miniscule at best in the presentation of a truly complete understanding of the shortcomings of our planet. “People are the same fucking people everywhere on earth. But the situations are drastically different and so beholden to huge transnational forces. They have zero control,” he said. “It’s weird because you never really get to see the point where the individual hits those global-level forces. The macro and the micro are very well-covered territories, but it’s that sort of intermediary, cloud-of-milk-in-tea area that no one has a fucking clue about. And I have no way of capturing that, but I would love to try and capture that.” He stopped talking, took another bite of candy and rubbed his smooth, freshly shaven chin.

"You see me and get to know exactly where I'm coming from and I try to be pretty fucking upfront about it."

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Brooklyn Brothers

Street-influenced mens suiting, with lengthy layers and alternative applications, is emerging in New York City PHOTOGRAPHS JEFFREY GRAETSCH at SEE MANAGEMENT STYLING M O S E STM

This Page: Red Jacket, Pants and Knit top by Duckie Brown White shirt STAMPD Black t-shirt over shoulder by LPD New York Ring by Nick Potash Left Page, Left: Suit by Brooklyn Tailors White Shirt by Oak Shoes by Dr. Martens ‘BUENOS-AIRES’ bag Handmade by ALDO ROSSI Left Pgae, Right: Suit by Brooklyn Tailors White Shirt by Oak Shoes by Dr. Martens Hat by Mr. Kim by Eugenia Kim Bag by Ad Hoc Brooklyn

Shirt and jacket by Christophe Lemaire Bandana Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Skull earring by Love Adorned Hat by Borsalino courtesy of JJ Hat Center

Double- Breasted Suit by Ermenegildo Zegna Black t-shirt by Oak Skull and cross chain by STAMPD worn throughout Ring Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

Jacket and pants by J. Lindeberg Black shirt by Oak White shirt STAMPD

Shirt and Pants by E. Tautz Shoes by Christian Louboutin for E. Tautz Black leather grey speckle hat by STAMPD Ring Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

Left: Jacket and pants Sacai Black shirt by STAMPD Skull and cross chain by STAMPD worn throughout Ring Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Right: Jacket Sacai

Pants by Osklen Sweater, worn around waist by Andrea Pompilio Hat by Albertus Swanepoel for Narciso Rodriquez Watch chain necklace by Love Adorned Vintage

Left: Pants by Kenzo Shoes and bomber by Julien David Mesh tank by Diesel Coat by Ports 1961 Ring Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Right: Pants by Antonio Marras Shoes by Nike

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma and Mari Susuda using MAC Cosmetics Models: Dorian at DNA, Max Von Isser at Fusion Left: Blazer by J. Lindeberg Turtle neck sweater by Andrea Pompilio Hat by Albertus Swanepoel Right: Blazer by John Varvatos White shirt STAMPD Ring by Nick Potash

MURDERED OUT In New York, it’s always about black. Always.

PHOTOGRAPHS KENJI TOMA at CARTEL & CO. STYLING M O S E STM

Bucket Bag by Mansur Gavriel

Le Corset clutch by PERRIN Paris

Mini Paris Crossbody by Rebecca Minkoff

Pandora Unzipped clutch by Charlotte Olympia

Leather clutch by YAZBUKEY

Flirty Mini Crossbody Haircalf/Suede by Diane Von Furstenberg

Philipp Plein, $2,100.00

Reina A day-in-the-life of a single mother and her daughter

PHOTOGRAPHS DAVID SHAMA at KRAMER + KRAMER STYLING M O S E Stm

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Blanket by Raquel Allegra Hanged Man Pendant in Brass by Unearthen + The Wild Unknown Baroque pearl necklace by Marla Aaron A Posse Ad Esse Ring in Sterling Silver by Unearthen Mini Sphere Ring with Garnet and Sterling Silver by Unearthen Nala Ring with Sterling Silver and Moonstone by Unearthen Equilibrium Ring with Raw Quartz and Sterling Silver by Unearthen 2 of Swords Ring in brass by Unearthen + The Wild Unknown, all worn throughout Silver Necklace Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own, worn throughout

Bra and underwear set by Fleur Du Mal Cotton stripe shirting Liam top in cream by Rebecca Minkoff Brain Candy cardigan by Tocca Serva Ring with Garnet and Sterling Silver by Unearthen worn throughout Baby bloomers by kallionyc.com

Gusset cape coat and wide trouser by M. Patmos Cable stitch jumper by A.P.C. Tie die shirt by Raquel Allegra Slip-on shoes by FEIT Fur bag by Christopher Raeburn Buffed Hematite and Chalcedony Strand with a large brass lock worn as bracelet by Marla Aaron Jewelry Sunglasses Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Child hooded cape by kallionyc.com Kids Classic Fringe Boot by Minnetonka

Tartan shirtdress by MILLY Tassel fringe pant by MILLY Silk Bomber by Katie Gallagher

Ruffle neck t-shirt dress and houndstooth parka by Coach High-heel moccasins by A.P.C. Mini Paris cross body by Rebecca Minkoff Child shirt dress by kallionyc.com Sweater by GAP Kids Double Fringe Side Zip Boot by Minnetonka

This Page: Dress by Chalayan Right Page: Shirt and Dress by Zero + Maria Cornejo Crux Earrings with 18k gold vermeil and clear quartz by Unearthen Head Wrap Stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Child shirt dress by kallionyc.com

This Page: Top and pants by Anna Sui Cuenca red slippers by Stubbs and Wootton Left Page: Patch pocket coat by Marchesa Voyage

Hair: Tyler Laswell using TRESemme at Judy Casey Inc. Makeup: Gregg Brockington using MAC Cosmetics at Judy Casey Inc. Model: Rose Cordero at NYMM This Page: Top by Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC Novelty stripe pant by Cut25 by Yigal AzrouĂŤl Black Calf Leather Espadrille by Nicholas Kirkwood Right Page: Custom blue bird tattoo print trapeze bustier gown by Sally LaPointe White Calf Leather Espadrille by Nicholas Kirkwood

KIDS

Brooklyn street rats head to Far Rockaway for a weekend away from the city

PHOTOGRAPHS JUSTIN JAY STYLING M O S E STM

From Left: On Maria: Sweater by UNIF Vintage Levi’s Stylist’s Own Sandals by Rainbow On Orion: Sweater by Raquel Allegra Silk t-shirt by Each x Other Classic slip-on shoes by Vans Socks Model’s Own On Lydia: Faux fur coat by Zadig & Voltaire Sweater by M Missoni Socks by American Apparel Sunglasses Model’s Own

Top, on Maria: Coat by Samuji Skirt by American Apparel Heels by Diane Von Furstenberg Top, on Spencer: Zip-up hoodie by A.P.C. T-shirt by Luke Vicious Jeans by Thvm Necklaces by 424 Jewelry Earrings and rings Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Bottom, on Matthew: Sweater by Libertine Bottom, on Spencer: Coat by A.P.C.

Top, Left, on John: Cashmere hoodie, worn unzipped by Zadig & Voltaire Pants by Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC Shoes by Vans Gold necklace and grills by Refinement Co. Top, Left, on Colin: Pants and shirt by Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC Shoes by Vans Gold necklace and grills by Refinement Co. Top, Right, on Alex: Sweatshirt and t-shirt by Luke Vicious Bottom, on Matthew: Sweater by Shaun Samson, Jeans by THVM, Shoes by Vans Pants by Sacai Luck Bottom, on Miguel: Sweatshirt by SSUR, Pants by Private Stock, Shoes by Vans, Necklaces by 424 Jewelry, Shoes by Adidas Originals Shoes by n.d.c. made by hand Bottom, on Maria: Leather jacket and shirt by Rika, Skirt by Issa, Shoes by T.U.K. Top, Right, on Alaia: Dress by Rodebjer Bottom, on Zach: Bucket hat by Akomplice, Hoodie and t-shirt by Luke Vicious, Pants by From Britten, Shoes by Vans Rings Model’s Own Bottom, on Alex: Jacket by Levi’s Vintage Clothing, T-shirt by Agnes B., Pants by Sacai Luck, Shoes by n.d.c. made by hand, Necklace Model’s Own

On Lydia: Coat by Ming Pin Tien, Shirt and pants by Paul Smith, Sandals by T.U.K. On Colin: Coat by Kenzo, T-shirt by Luke Vicious, Pants by Visvim, Shoes by Vans On John: Shirt by HUF, Pants by Private Stock

Top, on Matthew: Coat by Todd Snyder, T-shirt by MAXSTA, Jeans by THVM, Ring Model’s Own Top, on Lydia: Coat by A Détacher, T-shirt by LPD New York, Shorts by UNIF, Bag by Comes with Baggage, Sunglasses Model’s Own Bottom, on Alaia: Bomber jacket and skirt by Zadig & Voltaire, Sweater by Wanda Nylon, Heels by A Détacher, Rings Model’s Own Bottom, on Stephanie: Skirt worn as top by Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC, Skirt by Hache, Necklace and ring by Venessa Arizaga, Socks by American Apparel, Shoes by T.U.K.

Top, on Lydia: Necklace by Miansai, Nose ring Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own Top, on Stephanie: Shirt by A.P.C., Ring on right hand by Venessa Arizaga, Stacked rings on left hand by Jewel Heritage Bottom, Left: Coat, shirt and pants by Emilio De La Morena, Sandals by UNIF, Necklace by Venessa Arizaga Bottom, Right, on Maria: Sweater by UNIF Bottom, Right, on Zach: Necklace by 424 Jewelry

Top, on Orion: Sweater by Paul Smith, Shirt by Shaun Samson, Jeans by THVM, Shoes by Vans Top, on Spencer: Sweater by Paul Smith, Jeans by SPENCER LEE, T-shirt by Uniqlo, Shoes by Vans, Necklaces by 424 Jewelry Bottom, on Stephanie: Coat and dress by Libertine, Necklace by Venessa Arizaga, Shoe by T.U.K. Bottom, on Maria: Coat by Libertine,Tank and skirt by Mark Fast, Shoes by T.U.K. Bottom, on Lydia: Coat and shirt by Libertine, Shorts by Leviâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Heels by Melissa

On Alex: Shirt by Martine Rose, Shorts by Libertine, Sunglasses by Mykita + Maison Martin Magiela, Socks by Uniqlo, Shoes by Converse, Necklace by STAMPD On Miguel: Jacket by Libertine, Sweater by American Apparel, Jeans by GAP, Shoes by Adidas Originals, Necklaces by 424 Jewelry On Spencer: Coat by A.P.C., T-shirt by T by Alexander Wang, Trunks by Saturdays NYC, Sandals by Adidas Originals, Necklaces by 424 Jewelry, Socks Model’s Own On Zach: Sweatpants by Libertine, Necklace by 424 Jewelry, Socks by American Apparel, Shoes Adidas by Rick Owens On Orion: Jacket by Levi’s, Shirt and shorts by Libertine, Socks by Uniqlo, Shoes by Vans On Matthew: Sweater and shorts by Libertine, Shoes by Adidas Originals

Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Hair Assistant: Ryuta Sayama Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics, with special thanks to Takahiro Okada Models: Alaia Baldwin, Maria Ines Huguenin at Major Stefanie Brietzig at Marilyn Lydia Hunt at Wilhelmina John Brite, Colin Brite at Click Matthew Davidson at Fusion Orion Klein, Spencer Lee at Red Miguel Rafael, Zac Goodman at Adam

Ms. Demeanor

An urban twist on puffy winter jackets is thrown back to late-90s rap and the hard-edged outlandishness of hip hop idols

PHOTOGRAPHS DAYMION MARDEL at RAY BROWN STYLING M O S E STM

Puffer coat and vinyl trench coat by Moschino Cheap & Chic Bra by Pinghe Bracelets by Cast of Vices Rings by Han Cholo, 424 Jewelry and Bijules Knee high boots by MM6 Necklace Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

Dress and leggings by Fyodor Golan Fur bra by Pinghe Earrings by Tamara Akcay Bracelets by Cast of Vices Rings by Han Cholo, 424 Jewelry and Bijules Boots by Timberland

Coat by Cheap Monday Fur bra by Pinghe Pants by Tess Giberson Earrings and ring by Han Cholo

Sweater by Sacai Luck Jacket by Moschino Cheap & Chic Skirt by Cheap Monday Earrings by Uncommon Matters Necklaces by Mordekai by Ken Borochov Cuffs by Alexis Bittar Fingernail ring by Bjorg Rings by Han Cholo Socks by American Apparel Boots by Timberland

Coat and duffle bag by Pennant Puffer coat by Uniqlo Sweatpants by Anne Sofie Back Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane Rings by Han Cholo, 424 Jewelry and Bijules Underwear by Calvin Klein Socks by Henrik Vibskov Sneaker wedges by Ruthie Davis Necklace Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

Sweater and dress by Anne Sofie Back Earrings by Han Cholo Rings by Han Cholo, 424 Jewelry and Bijules Socks by Happy Socks Shoes by PONY

Coat by Moschino Cheap & Chic Earrings by Tamara Akcay Necklaces by Mordekai by Ken Borochov Shoes by Cheap Monday

Hair: Paul Warren using Rene Furterer at Art Department Makeup: Cedric Jolivet using MAC Cosmetics at See Management Manicure: Arlene Hinckson using Black Midnight by Gel ll Fashion Assistant: Ethan Yeagy Model: Stephanie Glenn Puffer coat by Moschino Cheap & Chic Plush jacket by Adidas Originals Blue T-shirt by Adidas Originals Pants by threeASFOUR Bracelets by Cast of Vices Rings by Han Cholo, 424 Jewelry and Bijules Necklace Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

Cashmere turtleneck by Bally Necklaces by 424 Jewelry Rings by 424 Jewelry and Bijules

STREET LEVEL A look into the current landscape of luxury, power and femininity in Manhattanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most notorious neighborhood PHOTOGRAPHS PETER ASH LEE STYLING M O S E STM

Dress by Akris Classic mini hoop earrings by Campbell Mesh gloves by Leg Avenue Iggy rings, Saxo double bracelet by Maria Black

Left: One of a kind coat with hand printed and crystal embellished sleeves by Libertine Classic mini hoop earrings by Campbell Pearl raylne gold ring by Rue Gembon Iggy rings by Maria Black Saxo double bracelet by Maria Black Right: Heritage Suiting stripe blazer and skirt by Vivienne Westwood Red Label AW14-15 Sunglasses by Sportmax by Cutler and Gross - Collaboration Pearl raylene gold ring by Rue Gembon Iman necklace by Rue Gembon Decade Earrings by Lulu Frost Purse Modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Own

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This Page: Full look by Christian Siriano Black calf high heel pumps with metal tip toe by Tania Spinelli Decade Earrings by Lulu Frost Iman necklace by Rue Gembon Right Page: Coat, leggings and bag by Helmut Lang Winter necklace by Rue Gembon Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane Iggy rings by Maria Black Holy Smoke ring by Bjorg

Isabelle embellished coat and shaded moons printed velvet tunic dress by Diane von Furstenberg Sunglasses by Cutler and Gross Deco Earrings by Lulu Frost Harper rings by Maria Black Mystique Bracelet by Lulu Frost â&#x20AC;&#x153;Newâ&#x20AC;? Mystique Necklace by Lulu Frost

This Page: Jacket and pants by The Row Shoes by Lucy Choi Midoree Pearl Ear Cuff by Rue Gembon Necklace by Kenneth Jay Lane Harper rings by Maria Black Right Page: Full look by Emanuel Ungaro Shoes by Emanuel Ungaro Earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane

This Page: Wool and saga fox fur trench coat in black by Cushnie et Ochs Decade earrings by Lulu Frost “New” Decade Statement necklace by Lulu Frost Harper rings by Maria Black Right Page: Full look by Christian Siriano Sunglasses by Alexander McQueen Shoes by Lucy Choi Necklace by Kenneth Jay Lane Pearl raylene gold ring by Rue Gembon Iggy Rings by Maria Black

This Page: Full look by Dion Lee Lexa black pearl ear cuff by Rue Gembon Lexa black pearl ear cuff in white by Rue Gembon Sunglasses by Cutler and Gross Right Page: Shirt and pants by Kenzo Black calf high heel pumps with metal tip toe by Tania Spinelli Necklace by Kenneth Jay Lane Sunglasses by Sportmax by Cutler and Gross - Collaboration Scarf by Ovadia and Sons

Right Page: Collard shirt by Alexandre Vauthier Top and skirt by Derek Lam 10 Crosby Earring by A Peace Treaty Mens glasses by Saint Laurent This Page: Full look and shoes by Zero + Maria Cornejo Elleanora earrings by Rue Gembon

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Hair: Yohey Nataksuka using Bumble and Bumble Makeup: Satsuki Soma using MAC Cosmetics Manicure: Arlene Hinckson using Georgio Armani #402 and Nothing Else Metals by Essie Models: Chrystal Copland at Fusion Sergei at Hello David Martins at Request Edward Harrington at Micah Blaise at Fusion Dylan Gelfman at Red Left Page: Bomber jacket, sweater, leggings and skirt by Marc Jacobs Bag by BALLY Tatjana necklace by Rue Gembon Shantel ear cuff by Rue Gembon This Page: Dress and belt by Alessandra Rich Black calf high heel pumps with metal tip toe by Tania Spinelli Sunglasses by Cutler and Gross Rings by Campbell All mens suiting by Black by Vera Wang worn throughout All mens shoes by Florsheim worn throughout

STOCKIST 424 Jewelry fourtwofouronfairfax.com A Détacher adetacher.com A Peace Treaty apeacetreaty.com A.P.C. usonline.apc.fr Ad Hoc adhocnyc.com Adidas Originals adidas.com Adieu adieu-paris.com AEA Jewelry aeajewelry.com Akomplice akomplice-clothing.com Akris akris.ch Albertus Swanpoel albertusswanepoel.com Aldo Rossi arhandmade.com Alessandra Rich alessandrarich.com Alexander McQueen alexandermcqueen.com Alexander Olch olch.com Alexandre Vauthier alexandrevauthier.com Alexis Bittar alexisbittar.com Ambush Design ambushdesign.com American Apparel americanapparel.net Andrea Pompilio andreapompilio.it Ann Dexter Jones anndexterjones.com Ann Sofie-Back annsofieback.com Anna Sui annasui.com Antonio Marras antoniomarras.it Ashish ashish.co.uk Bally bally.com Betsey Johnson betseyjohnson.com Beyond beyondxi.com Bjorg bjorgjewellery.com Black by Vera Wang menswearhouse.com Bond Hardware bond-hardware.com Boyy boyybag.com Brandon Sun brandonsuncollection.com Brooklyn Tailors brooklyn-tailors.com Brunello Cucinelli brunellocucinelli.com Calvin Klein calvinklein.com Campbell campbellcollections.com Carrie-Ann Stein carrieannstein.co.uk Chalayan chalayan.com Charlotte Olympia charlotteolympia.com Cheap Monday cheapmonday.com Christian Siriano christiansiriano.com Christopher Raeburn christopherraeburn.co.uk Christophe Lemaire christophelemaire.com Coach coach.com Cole Haan colehaan.com Comes With Baggage comeswithbaggage.com Common Projects commonprojects.com Converse converse.com Cosabella cosabella.com Costume National costumenational.com Cast of Vices castofvices.com Cushnie Et Ochs cushnieetochs.com Cut 25 Yigal Azrouël yigal-azrouel.com/cut25 Cutler and Gross cutlerandgross.com Derek Lam 10 Crosby dereklam.com/10crosby Diane Vone Furstenberg dvf.com Diesel diesel.com Dion Lee dionlee.com Dr. Martens drmartens.com DSquared2 dsquared2.com Duckie Brown duckiebrown.com E. Tautz etautz.com Each x Other Paris each-other.com

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Eddie Borgo eddieborgo.com Emanuel Ungaro ungaro.com Emilio De La Morena emiliodelamorena.com Eric Javits ericjavits.com Ermenegildo Zegna zegna.com Eugenia Kim eugeniakim.com Feit feitdirect.com Fleur Du Mal fleurdumal.com Florsheim florsheim.com Fyodor Golan fyodorgolan.co.uk GANT gant.com Gap gap.com Groundscore NYC groundscorenyc.com Hache hache.it Han Cholo hancholo.com Happy Socks happysocks.com Helmut Lang helmutlang.com Henrik Vibskov henrikvibskov.com HUF hufworldwide.com Issa issalondon.com J. Lindeberg jlindebergusa.com Jewel Heritage jewelheritage.com John Varvatos johnvarvatos.com Jonathan Simkhai jonathansimkhai.com Julien David juliendavid.com Kallio NYC kallionyc.com Katie Gallagher katiegallagher.com Kenneth Jay Lane kennethjaylane.net Kenzo kenzo.com Knowluxe knowluxe.com Leg Avenue legavenue.com Lem Lem lemlem.com Leroy’s Place leroysplace.com Levi’s us.levi.com Levi’s Vintage Clothing levisvintageclothing.com Libertine ilovelibertine.com Love Adorned loveadorned.com LPD New York lpd-newyork.com Lucy Choi lucychoilondon.com Ludevine ludevine.com Luke Vicious lukevicious.com Lulu Frost lulufrost.com M Missoni m-missoni.com M. Patmos mpatmos.com Mansur Gavriel mansurgavrel.com Marc Jacobs marcjacobs.com Marchesa Voyage shopbop.com Maria Black maria-black.com Marissa Webb marissa-webb.com Mark Fast markfast.net Marla Aaron Jewelry marlaaaron.com Married to the Mob mttmnyc.com Martine Rose martine-rose.com Melody Ehsani melodyehsani.com Miansai miansai.com Mikuti mikuti.com Milly millyny.com Ming Pin Tien mingpintien.com Minnetonka minnetonkamoccasin.com MM6 maisonmartinmargiela.com Moschino Cheap & Chic moschino.com Mykita + Maison Martin Margiela mykita.com n.d.c. made by hand ndcmadebyhand.com New Balance newbalance.com

Nicholas Kirkwood nicholaskirkwood.com Nike nike.com Nixon nixon.com Oak oaknyc.com Office of Angela Scott theofficeofangelascott.com Osklen osklen.com Ovadia and Sons ovadiaandsons.com Pennant bluechipny.com Perrin Paris 1893 perrinparis.com Philipp Plein philipp-plein.com Pinghe bypinghe.com PONY pony.com Bijules bijulesnyc.com Ports 1961 ports1961.com Preen by Thornton Bregazzi preen.eu Private Stock privatestockbrand.com Rainbow rainbowsandals.com Raquel Allegra raquelallegra.com Rebecca Minkoff rebeccaminkoff.com Refinement Co. refinementco.com Richard Chai richardchailove.com Rika rikaint.com Rodebjer rodebjer.com Rue Gembon ruegembon.com Ruthie Davis ruthiedavis.com Sacai sacai.jp Sacai Luck sacai.jp Sally LaPointe sallylapointe.com Samuji samuji.com Saturdays NYC saturdaysnyc.com Shaun Samson shaunsamson.co.uk Snash Jewelry snashjewelry.com SSUR shop.ssur.com StampdLA stampdla.com Stubbs and Wootton stubbsandwootton.com Sunspel sunspot.com Tamara Akcay tamaraakcay.com Tania Spinelli taniaspinelli.com Tess Giberson tessgiberson.com The Rhod therhod.com The Row therow.com This is the Uniform thisistheuniform.com ThreeASFOUR threeasfour.com Thvm shop.thvm.com Timberland shop.timberland.com Tocca tocca.com Todd Snyder toddsnyder.com Transmission junkfoodclothing.com Tripp trashandvaudeville.com TUK tukshoes.com Unearthen seeunearthen.com Uniqlo uniqlo.com UNIF unifclothing.com Vans vans.com Venessa Arizaga venessaarizaga.com Visvim vidvim.tv Vivienne Westwood viviennewestwood.com VPL vplnyc.com Wanda Nylon wandanylon.fr Yazbukey yazbukey.com Zadig & Voltaire zadig-et-voltaire.com Zero + Maria Cornejo zeromariacornejo.com Zimmermann zimmermannwear.com

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