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Wisp EDITOR - IN- CHIEF Stefani Koleva EDITOR Stefani Koleva CREATIVE DIRECTOR Stefani Koleva DESIGN DIRECTOR Stefani Koleva CASTING DIRECTOR Stefani Koleva MANAGING DIRECTOR Stefani Koleva ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Stefani Koleva

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Stefani Koleva Emma Stefansky Molly Mendell Jonathan Jones Charles Shafaieh Emily Nathan Tristan Rutherford Asher Ross Pip Usher John Clifford Burns

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ARTFUL CONSTRUCTION. ELEVATED DETAILS. LEVIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BY DESIGN

PART ONE

Starters

PART TWO

Features

22 Vulture City

27 A Cinematic Universe

33 Primary Focus

24 Bridget Riley

28 Hold the Phony

35 Personology

25 Emotional Baggage

31 Ibeyi

36 Feast for the Eyes

25 See Attatched

32 21 Days

37 Prague

42 Quinton Arigi

52 Ramdane

73 Frida Escobedo

48 Theresa Dahlberg

61 Modern Movement

83 Oksana Munro

Tina Frey Designs tinafreydesigns.com

PART THREE

Amsterdam

89 Amsterdam

97 Melly’s Cookie Bar

111 Pop Punk Food

92 Craft Beer Bars

101 Ed van der Elsken

118 The Bulldog

94 Body World

109 The Red Light

PART FOUR

Directory

124 Robert Beatty’s Psychedelic Visions, a Series.

132 Red Hair? Don’t Care!

144 Ressurection of Cold Architecture

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Erik Jorgensen Mobelfabrik was founded in 1954 in Svendborg, Denmark, by saddlemaker and upholsterer Erik Jorgensen. Erik Jorgensenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection consits of well- known classics from Hans J. Wegner and Poul M. Volther as well as new furniture produced in collaboration with upcoming designers.

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We aim to produce furniture that lasts. Not only for use but also to beautify our surroundings, and open our eyes to new ways of seeing and making furniture. A passion for design and good craftsmanship is what characterises Erik Jorgensen Mobelfabrik.

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Issue 1

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solo magnis que omnimus nihitiisquis consect orporia ssinti quatur aliquidem quas eossus. Ris ulluptin exces vendantur si conse laut adit rem res di id que restio ipit et laborem ilician daecest et acium et ad quiscim oluptaturite nis aut re non nihit ut esercius, et fugitaquiam aliqui sum volupta ectio. Ut etum quodis et quassunt quia conem vende volecturis del moluptaturia ium dessim quibus molut quam que pa vitem quat ut militibus aboria sim re occus am quo is mint hit antibus dandunt. Vit, corestium santur? Aborum voloris ulparunt que experio. Et quo elenis quae reptati derunt exceatur? Ficiet qui nonsed quod min et mi, que event, si ilitat que a consequ aeptae lam quia non porepta secus magnistorrum reste perecti oribus rerepedit, sum ditiosandem aute vidit pellaut aute inciissimet quunda peris explia quam quassequi remquas prestion remos maio exerore estia nita velenist omnis am, comnit, consequidis volupietus sinust volest lam, omnis derum ipiende stibus, sinvelenim quatemp orest, te dolorei ciliquo tectem quae pedi ommo eum rem. Udio conet ad eniandit iuntisimus repra aut eiusantium sin es aut laborro blaborestint dolupta tquist facerov idescip ieniscid mintis adit apero vendustios nonse qui beat. Henti con estrum eatas debit unt aliquatusdam ut et aliqui dolorupti quam eatem reprorrum esectas pelecte omnisciate si

www.stoff.dk 20

Starters

22 Vulture City

25 See Attatched

33 21 Days

37 Feast fot the Eyes

25 Emotional Baggage

28 Hold the Phony

36 Personology

38 Prague

JIM CHAMBERLIN

Vulture City

Legend has it that when German immigrant, Henry Wickenburg, walked across the Arizona desert in 1863 towards a pile of black feathers to pick up a dead vulture, something shiny caught his eye. He quickly left the dead bird and picked up the shiny stone. It was Gold! He had discovered what would become one of the richest gold mines in Arizona, The Vulture Mine. Over 200 million in Gold and Silver would be brought out of the earth before the mine was closed in 1942. The town that grew around the mine was called Vulture City and at its peak had 5,000 residents. It is called one of the best “Ghost Towns” in the western United States by ghost town authority and author Phillip Varney in his book Arizona Ghost Towns and Mining Camps, 1980. I gazed at the 200 year old iron wood tree standing like a sentinel in front of the restored stone and adobe cabin of Henry Wickenburg, originally built in 1884. Henry sold most of his interest in the mine and his cabin became the town jail. He shot himself when he was 85 and died penniless around 1905. I wondered if the sign on the tree was true that 18 men were hanged from the tree for “high grading”, basically stealing gold. A recently added rope noose dangles from one branch. One legend says that man named Juan Ramos was hanged on the tree for murdering 15 year old Sabrina Lucero who had spurned his advances. Sabrina was buried in a the nearby cemetery. Over 90 souls were buried in the town cemetery and many more in unmarked graves in the area. In 1923, several miners working in one of the large underground chambers were killed. The Vulture was a “hard rock” mine and had no need of support timbers. The mining company left much of the ore in place as supporting columns. One large chamber had ore columns that were very rich in gold. The miners were chipping away at these columns when the roof caved

“Vulture City gives you a much different perspective on the old west than the more tourist orientated mining towns”

in. One hundred feet of rock collapsed on top of them. The cave-in killed seven miners and twelve burros. They are still buried there legend has it, creating more possible spirits to inhabit the City of Vultures. Vulture City haunted confines have been featured in books, magazines and even on the television show “Ghost Adventures”. But fact and fiction seem to blur together in the dust of this historic place. Exploring the nearby restored two story Assay Building, built in 1884, made me feel that I was going back in time. A Singer sewing machine with its empty chair is poised by an open window, a wooden cabinet with a phonograph stands ready for the next record, a kitchen with canned food still on the shelves seems to waiting for a cook, an old metal bed frame and creaking floor boards enhance that feeling that the people that lived and worked here could be back. I could almost hear music playing and bed springs creaking as I walked through the rooms. A nearby cook house, saloon and brothel with adobe walls are being restored to support the sagging and sometimes missing roofs. Several more buildings with collapsed walls and rotting roofs stand nearby. One building called Vulture’s Roost is covered in artefacts from horseshoes to old bottles and a sign warning of a rattlesnake crossing. The sheet metal covered fuel shack still has the famed red Mobil Pegasus sign above its doorway with a giant Saguaro cacti standing like an attendant by the old fuel pumps. The wooden head frame and engine that lowered mining cars down into the earth and brought them back full of ore still stands above the main shaft of the old mine. A mining cart is perched half way up the steeply inclined frame with cables ready for someone to throw the switch. The town site has much to offer in its current state. You check in at an old shack now called the tour office. The half mile self guided tour allows you to wander among motors,

pumps, rusting car bodies, and old elevator cages as well as the several buildings. The guided weekend tour will give you all the history and legends of the sites you will experience. The gold mine itself was recently purchased and has reopened to mine the remaining gold due to the recent high gold prices. However, the ghost town was kept by former mine owner Ron Prat, who is investing a lot of money to restore Vulture City. Once the multi-million dollar restoration is complete the town should resemble its appearance during its heyday in the late 1880 to 1920s and could become a major tourist site. Vulture City gives you a much different perspective on the old west than the more tourist orientated mining towns of Tombstone, Bisbee, and Jerome. Mining was at the centre of the growth of Arizona from mostly uninhabited desert to booming territory to our 48th state. Vulture City is a great place to experience the mining history of Arizona. TIP: Don’t wait, see the town as it is now and you won’t regret your visit to a real western treasure. The site is located about 50 miles from the city of Phoenix, Arizona and 12 miles from the town of Wickenburg. The town is named for Henry, who provided most of the land for it. The city of Phoenix was born to provide the agricultural products to feed the boom town that sprung up around the mine. Vulture City is rising up again just like that mythical bird. It has recently re-opened (October 2017) to the public for both self guided and guided tours. These operate only on the weekends and are a If Vulture City doesn’t satisfy your need for old west history make sure to stop in Wickenburg and take the walking tour of the historic town centre where you stop at statues of town folk that play an audio about the location. You can see a Jail Tree, historic buildings and a Railroad Depot. The well-regarded Desert Caballeros Western Museum is also worth a stop.

Abbandoned Yellow Bus, Desert Arizona Pheonix.

The great shapeshifter rediscovers the hallucinogenic power of her youth, with dizzying works that turn perspective inside out.

JONATHAN JONES

Bridget Riley

To walk into Bridget Riley’s exhibition of new works – everything here, with a couple of exceptions, has been created in the last four years – is to see a mighty brain fizzing away with ideas that blow away all the sentimental cobwebs from art. Riley is a philosopher who is interested in perception – and nothing else. For her, a work of art is not a picture nor a political comment nor a splurge of self-expression. It is a way to explore seeing. If it does not leave you with your sense of the visible world shaken and reborn, what’s the point of it?

what seems at first like a calm geometrical elegance. Shapes tessellate like the patterns of medieval Islamic tiles in the Alhambra. But then, as your eyes adjust ... they can’t quite adjust. There is somehow too much to take in. The rhythm this jazzy mural creates is so complex and strange it befuddles your brain. Perhaps the framed paintings would be easier on the eye. But no. Looking at Cascando and Rustle 6 – both painted in 2015 – I find myself seeing depths where there are no depths, a sublime architecture of black boxes appearing and vanishing. It is dizzying and disorientating.

In the early 1960s, she took on the epic sweep of American art and gave it a sharp scientific twist. Jackson Pollock’s paintings absorb the beholder in poetic tangles and forests of colour. Riley liked the scope and sweep, yet she put it all in a more solid psychological basis. The curves and eddies, twists and vortices of her early black and white paintings such as Hesitate (1964) are mathematically calculated.

The rest of the exhibition is more like what I expected of later Riley - but scintillating all the same. In a sequence of paintings called Measure for Measure, she plays with patterns of circles in just three colours – purple, orange and green. All three colours are warm, slightly muted, richly suggestive. I was so struck that I asked for an exact definition of them. The answer that came back from Riley’s studio: “They are purple, orange and green.”

Their discombobulating effects are precisely planned. They turn perception inside out as you find spaces move and melt, shapes materialise in front of the canvas, reality itself burst open to reveal new dimensions. In the decade of psychedelia, Riley invented a legal hallucinogenic.

The way these dots interact is a 21st-century echo of the pointillist paintings of Georges Seurat, whose art Riley studied and copied when she was developing her concept of perceptual art. On the other hand, perhaps she did the Measure for Measure series to show Damien Hirst who’s boss.

Her new exhibition harnesses that drug again. I confess that I was expecting to respect this exhibition rather than enjoy it. Riley has continued to explore abstract art all her life, in inventive and thoughtful ways, but often with quieter, calmer results than her early, revolutionary art. What a thrill that in her new show she unleashes once again the monochrome psychedelic energy of her youth. A gigantic wall painting interlaces black and white curves and triangles with

We don’t have many artists in British history who rethink the very nature of perception as it was rethought by Cézanne, Picasso or Seurat. You could set the paintings in this exhibition beside a cubist masterpiece from 1910, a Cézanne view of Mont Sainte-Victoire or Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and the dialogue would be fascinating. Or if that sounds too hifalutin, let’s just say Riley’s recent work blew my mind. This is defintely a n exhibition you should visit.

CHARLES SHAFAIEH

See Attached Momentos and security blankets: Why some nanimate object take on spiritual significance. Intense connections to physical objects may seem antiquated during a digital era in which tangibility is increasingly devalued.Many of us, however, pepper our lives with inanimate things, be they items placed around the home or worn on the body. As dependent on the incorporeal cloud as someone may be, the thought of losing a family heirloom, Hand of Fatima pendant, wedding ring, or an otherwise unassuming object has the power to elicit worry and tears. The security objects of early childhood are often the first step on a lifelong journey of building attachments to particular items. Many believe that these generally soft possessions, such as blankets and stuffed animals, serve as substitutes for the mother. Much like a parent, they too are considered singular and irreplaceable. In 2007, Bruce Hood of the University of Bristol designed an experiment in which 22 children between the ages of three and six were told that a complex-looking device they were shown could duplicate their “attachment” object. Only five took home “the copy.” EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE by Molly Mandell You may end up with more than just a backache if you overload your purse or packback, according to a 2011 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Those toting a heavy load are prone to perceiving unrelated events as stressful. But , if not too heavy, a bag can be an intimate companion; it keeps our possessions safe while sticking by our side (quite literally) through the day-to-day. That notion hasn’t slipped by Building Block, the Los Angeles-based accessories company founded by sisters Kimberly and Nancy Wu. The duo creates minimalist design including the Book Wallet (top), Cylinder Duffel ( middle) and Rucksack (bottom).

This attitude is not just a facet of youth. Works of art created by specific people at specific points in time are popularly considered special in an unquantifiable way due to their aura, a quasi-spiritual essence that Walter Benjamin discusses in his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Similar logic holds for tokens associated with a loved one, regardless of how replaceable or generic they may appear. These emotion-filled objects often assume a metonymic character, embodying a relationship or singular experience while resting silently on a mantle or tucked away in a drawer. Souvenirs serve in part as mementos of entire events and places, just as other items represent various people, particularly those who have died. They’re tied integrally to memories and relationships and, therefore, to our identities. Through them, we unshackle ourselves from the confines of body and mind, homes expand beyond their walls, and the past folds into the present. And as with a teddy bear, there is comfort in keeping alive what otherwise could be irretrievably lost.

EMMA STEFANSKY

A Cinematic Universe

Their budgets would barely even cover the catering costs of your average Marvel adventure, but filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are well on their way toward creating their own cinematic universe. The new film The Endless, out in limited release April 6, is a complex, metaphysical journey through cults, aliens, time travel, and Lovecraftian horror . . . and that’s before it hooks up with the characters from their previous film, 2012’s Resolution. “That was very, very strange for us,” Moorhead says about bringing back the actors, Peter Cilella and Vinny Curran, from their third feature. “We just got to sit back and watch them try their best to remember how they did it.” In The Endless, two brothers venture back to the U.F.O. death cult they used to call home and end up stuck in a maze of time loops they must escape in order to return to the outside world. In one hilariously strange scene they stumble upon the two friends from Resolution, who are re-enacting their first meeting on the steps of a cabin. Clearly, Benson and Moorhead have a taste for meta-fiction. Films-within-films abound in The Endless as characters play roles that have been rehearsed and perfected over time, resigned to recreating forever the same ten days, or two hours, or, in one horrifying sequence, three seconds. The two met in 2009 as interns at Ridley Scott’s commercial-production studio, RSA Films. It was Moorhead’s first day and Benson’s last, but they still discovered that they were into the same stuff, like Stephen King books and speculative fiction. Since then, they’ve made three feature films and two shorts together, and made the decision not only to write and direct, but also to star in their newest film (as two characters named, fittingly, Justin and Aaron). “We just wanted to make a completely self-reliant movie,” Moorhead ex-

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead loop back on their own careers with their new film The Endless.

plains. “We’ll direct it, I’ll shoot it, we’ll edit it. We just thought the same thing would apply to acting. We’ll be in it.” They shot The Endless on location at the very same Christian children’s camp where they bunked while making Resolution— sleeping on tiny beds, making campfires at night with the rest of the crew. “At the risk of sounding trite,” Benson says, “because we were all together in this pressure-cooker situation of an indie film, it became a very benevolent version of the cult.’” The pair’s fascination with old forms of physical media shows up again and again in their movies. The brothers in The Endless are called back to their former cult-commune home by a videotape mailed to their house; the friends in Resolution are terrorized by VHS videos of themselves that could only have been recorded by some invisible presence standing in the room with them. “The closest you can get to real life is probably film, so you kind of enter into the uncanny valley when you start putting it on old media,” Moorhead explains. “It’s like a copy of a copy of a copy of a moment. And so, in some ways, they’re ghosts.” So there’s irony that the filmmakers must rely on digital inventions like on-demand to attract an audience—but an irony they’re happy to embrace. “Our movies are always meant to be these really small releases that are discovereWy wouldn’t want to make a larger-budget project in the future, Benson adds, laughing. “We’re totally out of cheap, spooky ideas.” Luckily for them, cults also happen to be having a moment, thanks to projects like Waco and Netflix’s Wild Wild Country. “I think it probably has something to do with politics. It’s hard to say exactly what the connection is, I don’t know,” says Moorhead, before going on: “I’m kidding. We all know.”

How to use scientific skepticism as an antidote to large-scale deception.

CHARLES BETHEA

Hold the Phony

Carl Sagan was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated scientists and is often associated with the 1980s television series Cosmos. By the mid-’90s, his reputation had helped the show to amass some 500 million viewers in 60 countries.

A year before his death in 1996, the beloved American cosmologist and author Carl Sagan wrote The Fine Art of Baloney Detection—the best 20th-century essay on the subject of bullshit. “In the final tolling,” he wrote, “it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.” Citing aspirin commercials, Whole Life Expos, the use of dousing rods to find mineral deposits and “psychic surgeons” to cure all manner of disease, Sagan addresses the “steady rainfall of deception” that moistens modern life. “These,” he writes, “are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion—wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money. . . But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic.” Rising sea levels, for instance. Nuclear fallout. Tweeters-in-chief.

Hume, Huxley and Paine—Sagan outlines a straightforward guide for separating the scientifically sound wheat from the enticing but ultimately illusory chaff. Though we may not be able to control whether Donald Trump believes in the science proving climate change, it’s possible for the rest of us to batten down our mental hatches. The dos and don’ts of Sagan’s tool kit for the aspiring skeptic: Do gather facts, engage in debate, seek multiple perspectives, detach emotion, quantify data, control experiments, separate variables. Don’t attack the person behind an opposing idea, believe in so-called authority, create false dichotomies, speak of slippery slopes, suppress evidence, muddle language, cherry-pick the numbers or deliberately misunderstand them. Seek reason, in essence, and recognize fraud. (It’s almost like politicians have confused the dos with the don’ts.)

As it turns out, you need not be a master of transfinite arithmetic to know what your gut has generally confirmed. But hold that gut feeling up to the cold light of reason anyway, for, as Sagan reminds Leaning on his like-minded pre- us using the example of the cigadecessors—including Clement, rette industry, “Gullibility kills.”

Naomi and Lisa hope that Ibeyi’s music is timeless. “Sometimes, we have three generations in our audience. We love that.” Naomi (left) and Lisa (right) wearing tops by urban outfitters. 30

HARRIET FITCH LITTLE

Ibeyi

Despite sharing the same background and working together for several years, Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz—the twin sisters behind the band Ibeyi—couldn’t be more different. They grew up in Paris, spent time living in London and are of Cuban and Venezuelan descent. They speak French and Spanish when they’re together, but sing in English and Yoruba—a Nigerian dialect brought to Cuba through the slave trade. “We were never going to be similar. Why should we be?” says Naomi. From the get-go, Ibeyi has been a band with global reach. Since releasing a debut album in 2015, they’ve been touring almost constantly, playing everything from festivals to fashion shows. “I think we’ve grown up, but I don’t think we’ve changed,” says Naomi, reflecting on the whirlwind of their late teens and early 20s. Naomi’s goal is to get crowds dancing. Sitting on top of her cajón—a boxlike percussive instrument—she slaps out the rhythm that drives Ibeyi. Her loyalty is to hip-hop, dancehall and electronica, elements of which she incorporates into production for the band. Lisa, who leads on vocals, is soulful and serene. Her edges feel softer, her presence more grounded. Yin and yang is the metaphor one might naturally reach for, but the sisters prefer its Yoruba equivalent: Lisa is the daughter of Yemaya, the mothering water goddess, while Naomi is the daughter of Shango, a disruptive spirit of thunder. One reviewer described the musical output of this collaboration as “doom soul.” It’s an accurate description of

A Yoruba word meaning “twins”: Meet sisters Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz.

Ibeyi’s first album. Weighted by prayers, chants and aching melodic arcs, these early songs were written as the sisters were mourning two deaths: of their father, legendary Buena Vista Social Club percussionist Angá Diaz, and of their older sister, Yanira. “I guess the first album was about us in the past—our father and our sister, us from the ages of 14 to 19,” says Lisa. “I don’t think we could get much more personal than that.” But doom soul doesn’t begin to capture the intention of the band’s second release. Driven by Naomi’s insistence that the songs should have an “animal energy,” the tempo has been turned up and the focus has been flipped inside out: In the place of ghosts, the sisters are singing about the future. “We are obsessed with artists who create something beautiful with their pain, sorrow and scars,” explains Lisa. She cites the song “Deathless” as an example of this new outward-looking focus. “At first it was a song about a racist encounter with a policeman that I had when I was 16. But really quickly I realized we wanted to write a song for everybody, for when you feel small and little and people are not treating you well and for three minutes you need to feel large and powerful,” she explains. “And I think we needed to hear it, Naomi and I. It’s a little resistance anthem.” Perhaps Ibeyi also felt compelled to start making music with a public message because they suddenly realized everyone was watching. In April last year, the sisters were swept up in a rush of celebrity when Beyoncé selected them to star alongside her in the

video for Lemonade, her visual album, which drew heavily on Yoruba culture in its imagery. It prompted a flush of mainstream interest in the Diaz sisters and their roots. “It’s definitely something amazing, that Beyoncé would have been touched by Yoruba culture and would have wanted to work with it,” Lisa says of the collaboration. Shortly after, they opened Chanel’s cruise collection show in Havana. Despite having been born in Paris, the sisters lived in the Cuban capital as children and still visit frequently. Did they feel at all uneasy about the arrival of such a huge, high-end brand in the previously isolated country? Lisa says not. “When we learned we were going to open the show we were quite surprised. We thought if they’re asking us, French Cubans, to open a Chanel show singing Yoruba then they must really want to respect Cuba,” she says. “And seeing how our friends reacted knowing that such an old and amazing fashion house would come to Cuba and share that moment with them was incredible.” It was a striking moment. In the dusky light of early evening, the sisters appeared at the top of the crowd-lined Paseo del Prado in downtown Havana. Chanel had dressed them according to their individual styles—Lisa in a crushed pink dress, Naomi in a silver bomber jacket and flares. Somehow, as in their music, this odd combination worked perfectly. The twins looked toward each other, then out into the crowds, and set off down the runway singing.

STEFANI KOLEVA

21 Days

A few months back I read on Facebook that it only takes 21 days for your brain to forget love, and I thought about how bizarre that was; and yes, I know that Facebook isn’t the most reliable source but after finding myself at the end of a break up recently, I found those words echoing through my head. So, one night after a glass, or two, of wine I decided to see if there was in fact any truth to the statement. After all, I had lots of questions. Does it really only take 21 days to get over love? Are there certain stages you must go through? Or was it just simply a waiting game, by day 22 you just suddenly feel better? Professor Brian Roemmele, a human behaviour and emotion researcher from Pennsylvania State University says; “Every single human action is tied to neuropeptides that are released by the brain and sent through the bloodstream to receptors on every cell in your body to re-enforce an emotional state such as for example, love. “Therefore, the human behaviour or idea of love is actually the re-enforcement of positive behaviour and emotion. You begin to associate certain posi-

tive aspects in a relationship to love. “Thus, if you take the theory of being able to create or break a habit in 21 days and apply it to the concept of love, in theory you should also be able to break the habit of “love”. “However, the exact number of dates to break the habit could vary from person to person. It may take far longer if certain conditions aren’t met.” Even though, Professor Roemmele said that the time it takes to forget about love could vary between people - the thought of all the pain and heartache possibly lasting only 21 days was quite comforting. For the first week of my break up, I went through the first stages of grief – denial and anger. I must admit that, I was not the easiest person to the around. During the first week, I was constantly having mood swings and lashing out at my friends and family. This was a dark time and it isn’t easy to get out of this funk. What I found helped me most , was focusing my anger into something more productive- I joined an afternoon kickboxing class which allowed me to work out my frustration and anger and according to Dr Georgia Starks from Fit33

ness Republic it also makes you happier; “Being active, whether you are playing sports, enjoying the great outdoors or simply pumping some iron at the gym, it releases endorphins, or happy hormones which have scientifically been proven to combat stress and negative emotions.” For the next 10 day or so, I went through the third stage – Bargaining, where I made the mistake of convincing myself that the ex and I could build a friendship, and spoiler alert, you can’t. Then the fourth stage- depression. Obviously it is normal to be sad, at this point in my grieving I had come to terms with the fact that the situation is not going to change. I used this time to reflect and make a plan to better myself. Then finally in the last few days of my 21 day journey I started to go through the last stage of grief – acceptance. Even though I wasn’t back to my full bubbly self. I was starting to truly feel better and release some of the painful emotions associated with the break up. Even now I can’t be certain whether I believe that you truly can forget love in 21 days, but … I do know that by day 22 I was feeling much more like myself.

EMILY NATHAN

A colourful art history of red,blue and yellow.

Primary Focus

Primary colors can be combined in different ways to produce every other color. Embedded in their absolute simplicity, then, is a latent complexity—a potential for extrapolation and manipulation. Take, for example, the art of Alexander Rodchenko. In 1921, the pioneering Russian artist joined four of his constructivist movement compatriots in an exhibition in Moscow. Rodchenko was bold, as always, and his contribution to the show was a triptych: Pure Red Color, Pure Yellow Color and Pure Blue Color. The three canvases—each covered in a primary pigment—were modern art’s first non-figurative monochromes. He didn’t describe his work as an homage to painting, or frame it as the concentrated essence of all color and thus a celebration of the art form’s material genesis. Instead, Rodchenko used the very nature of his chosen colors to explain his intention as the complete opposite: “I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue and yellow,” he said. “I affirmed: it’s all over.” It wasn’t over, of course. Painting continued and the primaries have persisted—even taking on symbolic resonance and political significance. Around the time that Rodchenko was declaring them to be harbingers of The End, Dutch painters Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian saw in those three hues a utopian vision of universal human harmony. They perceived the primary colors as fundamental to their new cultural movement— De Stijl, or “the style” in Dutch— which was dedicated both to countering the decorative excesses of art deco, the period’s dominant aesthetic, and to rebuilding society through art in the devastating aftermath of World War I. Its practitioners emphasized the idea of absolute essentials, favoring reductive abstractions and simple visual elements like geometric forms, often represented in red, yellow and blue.

It was in the most basic things, they suggested through their work, that the world’s people could find common ground and come together. The primaries found their place in the Bauhaus, too. The school’s founder, Walter Gropius, widely considered one of the fathers of modernist architecture, believed that the movement should generate designs that were simple, rational and, above all, accessible—again tapping into the clear, communicative power of red, yellow and blue. Today, they have been seized upon by Bordeaux’s Museum of Decorative Arts and Design for its current exhibition, Oh Couleurs! Design Through the Lens of Color. Curated by museum director Constance Rubini, the show tackles the historic relationship between objects and color, a dynamic that has been both complex and liberating. “Primary colors are straightforward and direct—that is why they are sometimes chosen to transmit their identification to objects,” says Rubini. “The hue then loses its own nature and is instead conflated with its function: the yellow mailboxes in France, or the red telephone booths in England. Sometimes the primary color is pure presence; it then seeks to escape from any predefined symbolic value. It is the color that gives life and energy to objects.” There is perhaps no one who more actively acknowledged the subjective expressionism of color than the German-born American artist, poet and printmaker Josef Albers. From 1963 until his death in 1976, Albers devoted himself to the subject with an all-consuming, methodical attention, exploring the art, physics and psychology of color as a scientific field rather than a theoretical one. “In visual perception, a color is almost never seen as it really is— as it physically is,” he wrote in his seminal 1971 text, The Interaction of Color. “This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Photography by Michel Bonvin 34

French designer Pierre Charpin was selected as Maison&Objetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2017 Designer of the Year. Between 1998 and 2001, Charpin collaborated with CIRVA (International Glass and Visual Arts Research Center) on experimental projects, including this collection of vases.

TRISTAN RUTHERFORD

Personology Want a new partner who likes ironing and poetry? Science might help you find one.

It takes a brave character to ask a new partner to take a personality test. But thanks to a study from the Oregon Research Institute, science can accurately predict whether your boyfriend will eat his vegetables or if your girlfriend is into online trolling. First, you need to corral your crush (or your colleague) to “answer a few fun questions.” After 100 queries—you might need to break out the prosecco midway—most run-of-the-mill online personality type tests will tell you which Big Five persona your partner possesses: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness or Neuroticism. The general traits for each are obvious. Conscientious characters are methodical and reliable. Neurotics are unstable and tense. But a new in-depth investigation discovered how each personality type performed in 400 mundane activities over several years. The results are eye-opening for employers and new lovers alike. Conscientious souls, for example, spurned inoffensive activities such as reading and chewing pencils, no doubt seeing them as frivolous pastimes. They would rather, according to the study, be combing their hair or polishing their shoes instead. Extroverts are

far more likely to tell dirty jokes, have tattoos, relax in hot tubs and engage in home decoration. Agreeable types are the pick of the partners: They generally sing in the shower, eat more cookies and are a whiz at housework. Open-minded souls also scored highly, if you’re looking for a lover who’s more likely to write poems and smoke dope (with one possibly influencing the other). “A pro dating tip is to avoid neurotics,” says British Psychological Society editor Dr. Christian Jarrett, who also studied the Oregon findings. This personality type loses their temper more often and are more likely to poke fun at others. “I hope I’m never in the dating game again, but I can see advantages to thinking about a potential partner’s traits (and therefore the activities they will adore or eschew) and how they complement your own.” So what makes someone open-minded or agreeable in the first place? “That’s a big question,” says Jarrett. “But, in short, about 50 per-cent is down to genes, and the rest to do with life experiences.” The most interesting question might not be the traits we’re born with, but what we choose to do with them.

CHIN CHIN by Charmaine Li Whether it’s raising a glass before a meal or to celebrate a special occasion, toasting as a symbolic act to honor a moment has persevered throughout the ages and passed down through generations for many different reasons,” says Panzer. Although no one knows the exact origins of toasting, what we do know is that celebrations involving alcohol date back to the Neolithic period. “The term ‘toast’—the act of raising a glass during a festive celebration—gained popularity in the medieval times,” explains Carolyn Panzer, director of corporate social responsibility for international alcoholic beverage company Diageo. “The name comes from the act of dropping a literal piece of spiced or charred bread into a cup or bowl of wine, either as a kind of hors d’oeuvre or to make the wine taste better.” “Toasting in previous centuries was governed by a complex hierarchical etiquette. At social gatherings, glasses of wine were raised to the king, to each and every guest, and to lists of absent friends.” Although toasting is a bit more flexible these days, the convivial ritual seems to be more important than ever as a symbolic act of goodwill and solidarity when sharing a drink.

There’s ample food for thought in Feast for the Eyes, a study of the evolution of food photography. From the familiar simplicity of a boiled egg perched in a porcelain eggcup, to the elegant (if outmoded) spreads featured in women’s lifestyle magazines from the ’40s, more than 300 photos have been curated to reveal food photography’s changing presence in our lives. For author Susan Bright, the food captured in the photos does more than simply look appealing, although it often does that, too. Rather, it serves to document a society through its rituals, many of which center around eating. “Photographs of food are rarely just about food,” she

PIP USHER

Feast for the Eyes The history of food photography from Betty Crocker to Cindy Sherman.

writes. “They hold our lives and time up to the light.” As the book reveals, humans’ relationship to food can range from the joy of a celebratory meal together to the disordered self-harm outlined in Cindy Sherman’s work from the ’80s. The way we eat—and our compulsion to document it—bears witness to food’s profound significance, both on a personal level and within a wider societal framework. As Susan explains, “It carries our desires and fantasies; it can stand in for sex, be a signal of status, or engage in our politics, betraying our attitudes about immigration, domestic issues, the environment, animal rights, and travel.”

Architecture, pound a pint, freezing rivers, a boys trip like no other.

STEFANI KOLEVA

Prague

A weekend full of “boys, booze and banter,” thirteen university males set loose on the city of Prague. What could go wrong? 23 year-old Jake Roberts, reminisces about his wild times at the University of Bedfordshire with a recollection of his trip to Prague, a gem of a city to stand beside starlet such as Rome, Amsterdam and London.

your time there? I mean, there were 13, boozed up lads loose on the city of beer it wasn’t all smooth sailing [he laughed]. One night, coming home from a boozy pub-crawl – one of the lads thought it would be funny to go for a swim, and off we went stripping down to our underwear and one by one we threw ourselves off Charles Bridge in the plunging dark cold water of Vltava. When my body hit the water I instantly thought “HYPOTHERMIA”, it was horrible the cold definitely sobered us up and we rushed out shivering to get dressed. It was super stupid and irresponsible but definitely memorable and I’m sure I’m going to be telling this story for years to come.

How would you describe your time in Prague? I honestly had such a wicked time out in Prague, its just such a beautiful city with stunning architecture and great beer! I always wanted to visit and I am so glad that I got to go there with my friends – I think that’s what made it such a good experience – it was a Another thing which was quite fun and good, fun experience with the lads, weird I guess, was the fact that everyvery insightful into other cultures. time we went somewhere that was too far to walk we ended up booking a hammer limo to drive us. It turned out Who did you go with and how long it was cheaper to book one limo for all for? There were loads of us who went to of us [which was fully stocked with Prague. Thirteen of us in fact! All of booze as well] than use any of the pubus met at university and we thought lic transport or booking a taxi. We had a it could be a fun trip to go to. And it right laugh everytime coming out of the definitely was! We ended up staying limo. People thought we were famous. for three nights and four days. We left for Prague on a Friday morning and Can you recommend any place or came back on Monday evening, since activities that others should try the flight was quite short we thought it while being in Prague? would be best if we booked an evening One thing that everyone should go flight as it allowed us to have an extra and do is explore the beautiful archiday in the beautiful city, what we didn’t tecture of Prague, you should start expect was how cold it was [he laughed] with the Changing of the Guard at the we knew it would be cold since it was courtyard of Prague Castle, it happens January but it was almost unbearably mid day daily – it very interesting. cold. I would definitely recommend Other things that are quite fun to do is going at a warmer time of a year. participating in some organised pubcrawls or tour the several microbreweries that are open all over the city. Where did you stay? We decided to go unconventionally and instead of booking a hotel for all of us, How does Prague compare to other which could have ended up being really places you’ve visited? expensive, we decided to book through It doesn’t compare. It was really great, airbnb so we could get a large apart- I mean it’s a city that has so much to ment, which would host all of us. It was offer. We went down to the redlight great! We had a private area where could district of Prague and it was nothing mess about, drink and just have fun. As like I’d seen before, unlike British the property is so central it was really strip clubs and bars, in Prague you easy to walk to different pubs and bars. can do anything as long as you pay the price. Just like one of the boys experienced while we were out there. Do you have any wild stories from 38

Were there any challenges during your trip and how did you overcome them? One of the challenges we experienced when in Prague was finding our way around the city, all of us being boys weren’t very prepared with planning out routes and ways of getting to places so a lot of time tends to get wasted trying to figure out where and how to get there. Getting around was also quite difficult for us as we were such a large group. Some pubs and clubs wouldn’t let us in together so we would have to split up to be let into some establishments. What is your top three highlights, from your trip to Prague? I mean other than the beautiful architecture; you can’t beat the fact that pints are a pound and the food is really cheap! Another thing that stuck out was how friendly everyone was and the sheer ammount you could do here. Also for me , the highlight of the trip was that we got to go around the city in a limo. Why should people visit Prague? It’s so cheap to get to I don’t know why you wouldn’t visit in the first place! It’s also fairly cheap to stay out there too as food and drink low-priced. It’s a great

Features

42 Quinton Arigi

53 Ramdane

75 Frida Escobedo

49 Theresa Dahlberg

62 Modern Movement

84 Oksana Munro

STEFANI KOLEVA

Quinton Arigi Quinton Arigi opens up to Stefani Koleva about the beginning of his love of acting, auditions, current projects and what’s next.

“These burgers are amazing,” exclaimed Quinton Arigi while scoffing down what he described as the “most heavenly of burgers.” Sat inside of Five Guys in Soho, on a surprisingly sunny day, I found myself inches away from the very talented, 20 year old actor Quinton Arigi. Quinton’s first taste for the glamorous world of acting occurred when he was only 11 years old – when he starred in his School’s end of year six production “Olivia” a modern retelling of the classical tale of Oliver Twist. He played Fagin, the leader of the group of orphans who teaches them to pick pocket and other criminal activities in exchange for shelter. “Playing one of the main character’s such as Fagin in the production of Olivia was a real rush. “I loved the energy I received from the crowd and I enjoyed the fact that I was getting a reaction from being on stage and just being myself,” he fondly exclaimed while reminiscing about his first time on stage. “From then my passion for acting sky rocketed, I joined a drama group in High School and then later on a part time theatre school-where I did an hour of singing an hour of dancing and an hour of acting each Saturday for about 2 years until I moved on to performing arts academy called My Planet Academy which was based in Luton at the time, but sadly isn’t around anymore – there I carried on building onto my performance skills as well as working more closely with vocal coaches and music producers,” he said smiling, as he pulls out his mobile phone and shows me a music video remake of Usher’s “Climax” performed by a young and fresh faced Quinton Arigi. “After putting in the effort into making this music video, I actually realised that acting was my real passion, that was my strength and I didn’t want to force it and try to be a singer when it was acting that I wanted to pursue and was truly passionate about,” he said leaning back into the red booth and looking out of the window into the flow of people outside. After leaving MPA [My Planet Academy], to pursue more of acting, Quinton Arigi joined college to study perform-

ing arts. Even though he completed two years out of the three year course he decided to drop out of the course. “I didn’t like the structure or practice of the course, I felt that I was being taught how to act without actually acting – it was all written tests and theories – and I didn’t like that, so I left college and joined Identity School of Acting which is a twice a week part time acting school where they host an agent lab termly.” Laughing to himself and taking a swig from his drink he continued, “In my first term at Identity – I performed in the agent lab, which is where the school invites agents to watch and then critic your performance, but it didn’t go too well for me - I was told by the agent that I was forcing the emotions of the character rather than allowing it to be myself and more natural, so I took that on board and did a showcase that same year- and the agent who critiqued my performance during the agent lab then actually ended up signing me after the showcase performance- I was extremely thrilled and excited.” “I still remember thinking to myself I can’t believe I actually managed to pull this off,” he said grinning with pride. “After being signed I was invited to do a table read of a script for Blue Stockings which was a stage production, it went well and the following summer I performed 5 weeks in London- it was truly amazing and from there on I started being more frequently invited to auditions for tv, film, short-films and the career goes on.” Currently Quinton is prepping for his role in the up and coming stage production of “Fox Hunting” the brain child of 21 year old David Alade which is a thought provoking piece of verbatim theatre about knife crime and violence, coming to the Courtyard Theatre for three weeks in May. “I was approached by my good friend David Alade who I met in one of my classes at Identity,” he took another swing of his drink and continued. “The production itself was based on the traumatic and rough upbringing of David, who growing up saw knife crime first hand. He himself as a young man was in a gang and the only way he escaped from the clasps of the gang was when he left for university,” 43

“I loved the energy I received from the crowd and I enjoyed the fact that I was getting a reaction from being on stage and just being myself.”

Photography by Brooklyn Davis & Styling by Kelly Burns throughout article.

“After removing himself from the situation he began to see the experience through a different outlook and it inspired him to speak out against knife crime and violence with the hopes that he might make others think twice before picking up a knife in the future.” “The production has been concocted from real life transcripts by victims and offenders of knife crime in order to show the audience a full perspective of the incident,” he smiled and nodded thoughtfully, looking out once more into the busy London streets. “I’m actually playing David in the production, so you’ll get a bit more of a background of how and why he got into a gang.” “I’m always characterised into roles of the stereotypical persona of the black guy – I don’t mind playing those roles but I definitely want to experience a role which is more rich with a deeper story than hoodlum, but I have time and I’m hoping that one day the audition will come for such a role.” “Dealing with rejection is always difficult, no matter if you’re starting off as an actor or you’re an experienced actor, the way I deal with it is by surrounding myself with motivational and inspirational quotes and images – I even have a vision board in my room which keeps me grounded and motivated and it’s something I think every aspiring actor should have.” “You need to believe in yourself first if you really want to achieve.”

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You need to belive in yourself first if you really want to achiveâ&#x20AC;?

John Clifford Burns

Theresa Traore Dahlberg When Theresa Traore Dahlberg realized that she couldn’t relate to narratives about women in West African films, she decided to make her own.

Theresa Traore Dahlberg is currently editing her first feature-length documentary, Du Courage, a bildungsroman shot in Burkina Faso. Her whole life, Theresa has split her time between the Sahelian nation and Sweden. It’s an arrangement she says has broadened her perspective and instilled a versatility at her core—a valuable set of attributes for a documentary filmmaker. Knee-deep in more than 170 hours of footage, Theresa discusses her drive to persist, challenge stereotypes and deliver the West Africa she loves to a bigger screen and audience. What are your working days currently like? I’m finishing my first feature documentary that was filmed in an all-girls school for car mechanics in Burkina Faso. It’s a film about making choices, friendship, lost mothers and pretty much the everyday life of a teenage girl—a coming-of-age story in Ouagadougou. I’m also in my last year of studying fine arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm where I’m working on painting, sculpture and installation projects. How do you decide what to document in your films? It completely depends on the project I’m working on. I decided that I wanted to do my last film, Taxi Sister, after being in film school and having not seen even one inspiring film from the continent of Africa. Every time I saw an African film at school, I walked out feeling half as tall. The subjects were always war, poverty and disease. Of course, these stories should be told but if that’s the only thing that you see then there’s no balance. I felt like inspiring stories of women in West Africa were lacking. I also wanted to see more everyday stories that I could relate to. In general, what makes me want to document something is when I’m moved by a person or a place or if I’m passionate about a particular subject. It always starts with an initial gut feeling.

It definitely gave me a wider perspective and also flexibility—the ability to adapt and pretty much feel at home in a new place. It was very important for my parents that we played with kids from different backgrounds from a young age. For me, the understanding that people are the same wherever you go has always been in my core. Where else have you had to adapt? After high school, I lived in Barcelona for a little bit and came back to Sweden to study economics. It turned out to be completely wrong for me, so I took my savings and went to New York and started assisting different directors and photography among other jobs. When did you realize that economics wasn’t the right path? When I moved to New York, I lived in a small apartment with other girls my age that had aspirations and ambitions within the arts and music. I realized that it was okay to try and work for your dream, even if it’s outside of a normal everyday job. We encouraged each other a lot and are still good friends today. I started assisting directors, and after a few years I studied experimental film and 16mm film at The New School before applying to Swedish film school. Why film? For me, filmmaking is a way of communicating, understanding and seeing. I feel very present when I’m filming, like I’m 100 percent there. I also like the whole process of filming and then, afterward, sitting and editing. There are so many layers with film—the sound, the music, picture, editing, characters and locations. The possibilities are endless. Do you prefer to work alone or collaborate? I used to do everything on my own. I still do on smaller projects, but in this current one with more than 170 hours of material, it’s been great to have a small crew to work with. It’s been good to work with a photographer and editor that I really, really trust.

You spent a lot of time in West Africa yourself as a girl. I grew up in between Ouagadougou and Do you work better at night or in the the island of Öland in the south eastern part morning? of Sweden. It’s actually called the “Swed- I get more done at the beggining of the day. ish savannah.” I grew up there and I also grew up in Burkina Faso—back and forth. How do you think that’s shaped you? First of all, it gave me language. I’ve always spoken French, Swedish and English. 49

“Creativity is central to my family,” says Theresa who was born in Sweeden, to an Art teaching mother and musicisn father .

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fame itself is not something I strive for, but I would like my films to be seen.â&#x20AC;?

n.”

Do you remember the moment, person or film that inspired you to become a filmmaker? My mother was a teacher and would borrow a VHS camera from her school over the weekend. That was the first time I saw a camera. When I look at those tapes now, I can hear myself in the background pleading to hold it. I’ve always had an urge to document, to film and take pictures. I guess I feel like I can freeze a moment and take it with me forever—it’s like collecting moments. But making a film is so different from just documenting everyday life. I remember watching Fassbinder, Maya Deren or Wiseman films and old documentaries like Grey Gardens for the first time. There are so many stories to tell and so many ways to touch magic with film. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? I’ve been working since I was 13 years old, doing all kinds of extra jobs—at a candy shop, restaurant, real estate agency, as a janitor, gardener, guide, kindergarten teacher, TV host. The list is long. The worst job was working at an amusement park and not being allowed to talk to the other workers. Whether I like a job or not comes down to the people I work with and the work environment. Are there any small, boring tasks that you secretly enjoy doing? I enjoy setting the table and peeling potatoes. What do you admit to being bad at? Remembering names. Your last documentary, ‘Taxi Sister’, also featured women working with cars. Is there a theme in your work? With Taxi Sister, the protagonist made a really major choice to become a taxi driver and go against the grain of what was expected of her as a woman. At the mechanic school in the movie I’m currently working on, they didn’t get to make that choice. I found it really interesting just to follow the girls in those different worlds. There are so many questions—about becoming a woman, boyfriends and relationships. There are so many things happening and then, on top, there is a layer of doing something that a lot of people have issues with. They go through layers of truths and expectations of how a woman really should be at school, at home and in public. What do you think about the representation of women in film more generally? I want to see more of it. Would you ever like to be famous? Fame in itself is not something that I strive for, but I would like for my films to be shown and my exhibitions to be seen. What are some of the things you miss about Burkina Faso when you’re in Sweden, and vice versa? When I’m in Sweden, I miss the red dust, mangoes, the way everyone talks to each other wherever they go, the sounds at night and, of course, my family. When I’m in Burkina Faso, I miss coffee, the four seasons—or all seasons but winter—and, of course, my family and friends. Hair and makeup Ignacio Alonso Photography Assistant Dominick Hedgecock

An interview with Ramdane Touhami

Ramdane

words by David Plaisant 53

Once homeless on the streets of Paris, entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami now presides over some of the city’s finest addresses with his beauty empire, Officine Universelle Buly. Ramdane Touhami doesn’t dominate the room the way some entrepreneurs do. He is casually dressed in comfortable trousers, sneakers and a warm-looking wooly sweater and hat. It is a contrast from the smart smock-like navy jackets worn by the staff at his Parisian beauty emporium, Officine Universelle Buly. Touhami, 42, seems a sprightly, nimble man who, one suspects, could quickly take you down in a boxing match. Certainly, through the refined spaces he is creating, he is hitting it big in the rarified world of premium cosmetics. On the horizon is a new store in London (a 400-square-foot boutique in Selfridges), with locations in Milan and Los Angeles to follow. Touhami has launched an almost meteoric brand expansion; these new projects will join the 14 other outposts that have opened within just three years of operations. Can he divulge any details? “Erm, non,” he replies, a little tersely. “I prefer to speak about things when they are done.” Each store has its own unique identity; from New York to Hong Kong, interior intricacies impart a mood or theme. At the store here in the Marais, for example, there’s a rectangular cast-iron framed pit, cut into

the floorboards. Touhami gestures, “See that? That’s where Rodin cast his Thinker.” Indeed, we are in the workshop where the Parisian sculptor created his celebrated seated figure. For Touhami, who designs each space himself, paying attention to historical detail is almost an obsession. The more time that is spent with him, the more it becomes apparent that he too is something of a thinker. Far from the brooding, deeply pensive type immortalized by Rodin, however, this fashion designer, brand creator, businessman and occasional DJ is a man of action. “I’m selling a fantasy image of Paris to the world,” he replies when asked to describe the Buly concept. It is a meticulously curated universe grounded in what he considers the heyday of retail: the 19th century, when, under the rule of Napoleon, the production and trading of crafted commodities became a Parisian specialty. In fact, the 700 products in Buly’s cosmetics range were inspired by 19th-century French apothecaries. Touhami revels in talking about the history of retail and likes to go into great detail when describing the Paris that once was—how Rue Saint-Honoré was perhaps the world’s first “luxury street,” and how Le Bon Marché invented the department store. “It was a golden era,” he says, his face animated. Touhami’s own vision of luxury is based on

“I’m selling a fantasy image of Paris to the world,” career with more business-focused ventures including L’Épicerie, a concept store he founded with designers Marc Jacobs and Jeremy Scott in 1998. He also hosted a television show called Strip-Tease, owned a donkey polo club in Tangier and spent time in Tokyo rebuilding fashion retail brand And A. He was menswear director at Liberty London and, in 2007, was in charge of revamping opulent Parisian candlemaker Maison de Cire Trudon. Though the path from Liberty and Cire Trudon to Buly seems to show his progression toward historic brands, Touhami protests that his early career is not incongruous with what he is creating at present. “It’s the same,” he insists. “There’s a big connection between my skate brand and what I do now… My slogan was ‘French Savoir Faire.’ We created our own French style with a twist.” And that certainly seems to describe what Touhami is still doing today—albeit with the florid veneer of the belle epoque in his toolbox. Although scornful of big luxury stores, he praises fresher, more urban retail brands such as Aesop. Touhami may flit from one subject to the next with sometimes confusing rapidity, but he is always refreshingly lucid about his modus operandi: “Those big brands make all their stores look exactly the same,” he says. 54

Photography by Marsy Hild Porsdottir

a deep respect for quality. It embodies what used to be called recherché, in which all is researched and carefully realized. But the atmosphere at Buly is light years away from the stuffy, spotless luxury that often dominates the market. Luxury, in fact, is a word that Touhami loathes; the mere mention provokes spitting profanities. “This is not luxury!” he argues, using plenty of expletives to describe what he sees elsewhere as an uninspired and inflated industry. (He is no less scathing about the “boring people” who run some of Paris’ most famous houses by focusing on spreadsheets and margins.) Indeed, Touhami is ardently unorthodox and happy to cultivate an outsider persona. He was raised in a Moroccan-French family in the countryside before dropping out of school at 17 to create Teuchiland, a T-shirt brand which parodied Timberland with a reference to cannabis. At the age of 18, he found himself on the wrong side of a Toulouse gang and escaped to Paris where, penniless, he lived on the streets for a year, seeking shelter in metro stations, under bridges and in public bathrooms. He was stabbed and bears the scar to this day. Gradually, Touhami left the streets and created various streetwear and skateboarding brands. He began to build up his

Photography by Marsy Hild Porsdottir

The second outpost of Officine Universelle Buly is located in the Marais foundry where Auguste Rodinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Thinker was cast.

Ramdane: “Then, there are brands like Aesop that ask local designers to come up with a new concept for each location. And then there’s me—I design everything myself. It’s a bit extreme. This is not a democratic company, eh!” As well as a vision of Paris, Touhami is either knowingly or unknowingly exporting himself. His hyper-personal approach is clear when walking through the different spaces, rooms and back offices of the labyrinthine shop and workshop in the Marais. In one room, a row of five people are working at spotlit desks. Here, Buly’s chief calligrapher, Paul, teaches his craft to all of the retail assistants. Everyone is expected to do four hours of calligraphy a week to reach the exacting standards required to write personalized gift labels and book dedications, as well as notices and price tags. Asked why he invests so much time in such a seemingly minor task, Touhami responds: “I think in only one generation people will not know how to write by hand.” What if the staff doesn’t manage to execute such beau-tiful cursive? “They are fired!” Touhami says, perhaps only half-joking. Another essential component of the Buly experience is gift wrapping. Buly’s head wrapper was trained personally by the only surviving family that practices Japanese origata—an exponentially more complex craft than origami that was traditionally reserved to service the paper-folding needs of the imperial court. There are some 3,600 different folds in origata; so far Touhami’s colleague has managed “only” 600 different pleats. Again, Touhami shows his love for specialized craft—the smaller and more niche, the better. “Origata is like a language— an aristocratic, Japanese language,” he says. Touhami may seem to be one of a kind, but he doesn’t do it all alone. He collaborates with his wife, Victoire De Taillac, on developing and sustaining the brand. Their latest project is An Atlas of Natural Beauty: Botanical Ingredients for Retaining and Enhancing Beauty, a beautifully bound book featuring illustrations of plants and extracts, informative texts, historical anecdotes and related proverbs. From the almost miraculous properties of the lotus flower to the astringent, purifying powers of geranium, it’s a fascinating read even for those with little interest in skincare. Constantly (but politely) fielding phone calls, including one from his boxing instructor, Touhami operates at a frenetic pace. Is boxing a way to relax, one wonders? “It’s a way to avoid killing someone!” he jokes, explaining some of the frustrations that come with success. “It’s more about speed. When you have so many things to do, you wish that other people were moving at your speed too.” With his Buly empire staffed by almost 100 people and shops sprouting the world over, it is becoming an increasingly difficult operation to micromanage. But it is obvious that Touhami would not (and probably could not) have it any other way. When he ponders how it might be to work with him, he’s self-aware: “My God, I am the worst!”

designer explains how the success of the business depends on the happiness of everyone involved, from his employees to the makers of the products—even to himself. Finally, he says, “The best is when the customer is happy and they think nobody screwed them

Like fine handwriting, the art of wrapping packages is a celebrated art at Officine Universelle Buly. Its “head wrapper” has mastered over 600 varieties of folds. 60

over. When they agree the price is reasonable and the product is good.” He makes it sound simple, but Touhami’s constant quest for the highest quality is clearly hard work. His efforts, however, are putting the Buly name firmly in the history of Parisian shopping.

Above: An image of Touhami relaxing in his luxury Paris appartment.

Touhami embodies all the bravado and banter of somebody who is both supremely confident and ambitious. When asked how it feels to be unrivaled in his influence on the Parisian retail scene, he scoffs: “Paris is just a village! It’s nothing.” The energetic creator and

Above: An image of Touhami relaxing in his luxury Paris appartment.

Modern Movement Photography by Pelle Crepin & Styling by Carolyne Rapp

With its clean lines, high ceilings and ample use of natural materials, Emmanuel de Bayserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apartment in Berlin is the epitome of modernist living. His eclectic mix of furniture, including pieces by Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret, inspires a sartorial silhouette thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s equal parts muted and bright. 62

Previous Page: Monique wears a dress by Lanvin. Left: She wears trousers by COS and shoes by Robert Clergerie. Bowl by Alexandre Noll and ceramics by George Jouve. 65

She wears a top by J.W Anderson, skirt by Mafalda von Hessen and shoes by Gucci.

Bag by Saint Laurent, notebook by Moleskine, pen by HAY, bowl by Suzanne Ramié and table and chair by Jean Prouvé 67

69 Red chair by Pierre Jeanneret, brown chair and table by Jean ProuvĂŠ, lamp by Serge Mouille, ceramics by Georges Jouve, bowl by Alexandre Noll and artwork by Jean Arp

Left: Top by Rick Owens, trousers by COS and couch by Jean RoyĂ¨re. Current Page: Ceramics by Pol Chambost and Georges Jouve. 71

Dress by Peter Jensen, couch by Jean RoyĂ¨re, table, stools and shelf by Charlotte Perriand and ceramics by Georges Jouve.

Frida Escobedo

Words by Taylor Weik & Photography by Zoltann Tombor

With her own firm and scores of global projects in her inventive portfolio, this architect is transforming Mexico City, one artful building at a time.

“In order to remain spontaneous, you have to stay curious and not get too comfortable”

Previous page; Coat by Topshop and turtleneck by J.Crew. Current Page; Tank top by WHIT, shirt by Theory, trousers by Topshop and her own watch throughout

Mexican architect Frida Escobedo is no stranger to stimulating environments. Fresh from earning a degree in architecture and urbanism from the Universidad Iberoamericana in 2003, she co-founded her first studio, Perro Rojo, at age 24. Upon going solo in 2006, Frida quickly began stacking up awards and recognition for her work, and it wasn’t long before she found herself flying back and forth and designing in both the US and Mexico.

stories and explaining how architecture is really a social construct. Around the time I graduated, I applied for Beca Jóvenes Creadores, which is a grant that allows you to work for one year on a project with the guidance of a well-established architect. I was lucky enough to have Mauricio Rocha as my tutor: He taught me the importance of staying true to your values, being patient and remaining resilient. He also challenged me to prove my capacities and abilities. Mauricio became a mentor to me, and we While attending the Harvard Graduate continue to be very good friends to this day. School of Design, she received her first public commission to build La Tallera Siquei- Seven years after I graduated, I began to ros cultural center in Cuernavaca, Mexico, feel a bit weary of having to deal with which has become one of her best-known the “practical” side of architecture: budgcreations. Whether it’s a hotel, gallery or ets, deadlines… all of it felt too cold a public space, Frida’s work carries ener- and calculated. So I started looking for gy—a bold blend between modernism and a master’s degree that could somehow Mexican tradition—without adhering to bring me closer to the idea of architecone specific style. She discusses the chang- ture not only as a way to understand ing scenery of Mexico City and how its our social context but also to react to it. vibrant streets have influenced her career. So when the Art, Design and the Public Domain program first came out at Harvard, What have been the challenges and high- it felt like I’d found what I’d been looklights of going solo? ing for: a program that was open to other Architecture isn’t an easy discipline. It disciplines. There were actually only two takes a lot from you and it’s not the most architects in the program—the rest of our lucrative career. It’s challenging to try classmates were visual artists, industrial to keep a practice with projects you be- designers and film and theater producers. lieve in that also covers the payroll every But it was Krzysztof Wodiczko and Erika month. When things don’t go well, it’s Naginski, my thesis advisors at the end of also my role to keep the spirits high and the program, who marked me the most. maintain a positive energy at the studio; Krzysztof is an extraordinary person who there’s no room for self-indulgence or really raised our social awareness and complaining. You need to move on and questioned our work constantly, and Erimake room for something else. But then ka’s class, The Ruin Aesthetic, completely there are so many highlights! You learn to changed my life—she has a very unique be resilient, to enjoy things as they come approach to early modern aesthetic phiand to stay flexible and open. If you enjoy losophy, theories of public space and the the things you do, you stop seeing it as critical traditions of architectural history. work and start seeing it as a way of life. How does Mexico City foster a creative Whom in your life do you admire and working environment? why? We have a very rich past and a lot of I admire the women in my family: diversity. Mexico is a country that’s been They have overcome very difficult obsta- in continuous crisis for years—even cles and tremendous adversities in their centuries—so there are also very sharp paths, and they still remain generous and contrasts and inequalities. Leaving the graceful. Their strength is admirable. obvious downsides aside, I think those conditions have fostered a very creative What are some valuble lessons you environment for everyone: We’ve learned learned while studying? to do more with less, and we and we’ve A class I took toward the end of my learned to bend the rules instead of adaptuniversity program really sparked my cu- ing to them, probably because the rules riosity in a different way, even if I didn’t haven’t worked so well in the past. It’s a know it in that moment: It was Philoso- place where the most unimaginable things phy of Architecture, which was a seminar can happen—this is the reality we face taught by Alejandro Hernández Gálvez. every day, so we have to learn how to deal He had an extraordinary way of telling with it in the most positive way possible. 77

Please tell us about your own home. I live with my partner in the Anzures neighborhood on an unusually quiet street for Mexico City. The neighborhood is almost like an island surrounded by busier neighborhoods, such as Cuauhtémoc, Juárez and Polanco. Our home is a quiet, dimly lit space—some people say it’s too cavelike! We share a love of plants, food and music. My studio is only a few blocks away, so I’m lucky enough to walk to work. My partner’s office is also halfway between the house and my studio, so we often have lunch together, but if we don’t, I usually eat with the guys from the office. It’s a small team, so I feel like they’re part of my family.

covered in tall grasses and volcanic rock. My mom used to travel for work quite a bit when I was little, and she would bring back small but fantastic presents, such as fabric, china or a poster from an exhibition she’d seen. Once, when she went to Russia, she brought home a music box for me that I very fondly remember. I always wanted to hear her stories, visit new places and receive her postcards—which usually arrived after she did. My dad was more of a homebody. He gave me a dollhouse and we’d spend hours together making little pieces of furniture for it. He lived close to a park so we’d go there a lot, especially after piano lessons, and sometimes we’d end up playing there together until really late in the night.

What life lessons did your family teach you that you try to live by? How would you describe your style? Generosity and being aware of others. I wouldn’t say it’s a style: I’d say you have a set of preoccupations that What kind of home were you raised in? shape your drive. You need to be conMy parents split up when I was 5, so sistent with them and, if you are, I grew up in two houses, which shaped a certain language will be present. the person I am now. I was an only child for much of my childhood, so I became What’s the key to a successful collabvery close to my cousins on both sides. oration? The cousins on my dad’s side lived in the To enjoy the process and to know Pedregal area, which has a very particu- and believe you’ll learn from the lar landscape because of its proximity to people you’re collaborating with. the Xitle volcano. We’d go to their place on weekends, and some of my best child- How do you remain spontaneous in your hood memories are of playing with them everyday life? on the neighboring vacant lots that were I guess that’s one of the reasons I chose

to have an independent practice. It’s hard to keep reasonably healthy finances, and there’s a lot of stress to deal with, but it allows me to create my own path. I also think that in order to remain spontaneous, you have to stay curious and not get too comfortable. [Belgian architect] Kersten Geers once told me you need to “stay slippery,” otherwise you stop learning and growing. How do you channel your nerves into something positive? I cook or do gardening. I used to be very bad at channeling my negative emotions, but I think I’m managing it better. Are you an impulsive person? I usually take my time and evaluate every aspect of a situation, which could make me appear indecisive. But there are definitely certain moments when I don’t think before I jump. What gives you a rush in your design field? There’s a period in the creative process when you get a “Eureka!” moment that’s filled with adrenaline, then you start doubting if it’s really a good idea at all, and then you believe in it again! But I don’t think it’s adrenaline as much as it’s passion. I associate adrenaline with risk or competition, whereas passion is about endurance and resilience.

STEFANI KOLEVA

Oksana Kirelova Munro

From rags to riches, the remarkable story of a young woman who built an empire from nothing.

“I’ve always had a difficult life, but that has never stopped me,” says 42-yearold businesswoman, wife and mother of 2, Oksana Munro. In a chic office in Tunbridge Wells, sipping tea from a china cup, and looking out of the floor to ceiling windows sat the glamorous Oksana Munro on a plush red sofa. At the age of 8, Oksana was left in the care of her 15 year old teenage sister Zuri, in the corrupt and economically crumbling town of Sevlievo, Bulgaria. Her mother Olga, a windswept romantic always following love – moves to Greece on a whim to pursue a man she had barely known for 14 days, only to return to the sleepy town of Sevlievo 10 years later, on Oksana’s 18th Birthday. “My mother was absent from my life even before she left for Greece, she was barely in my life and I struggle to recall memories of her during my childhood. “My older sister Zuri was the one who raised and took care of me, she worked two jobs to put food on the table and clothes on my back. I’m forever grateful to her.” She bent her head as if in thought, remembering a much different life than she lives now. “Our mother would send money from Greece of course, but it almost never covered the full rent, at the age of 9 or maybe 10 I got a job as a milk delivery girl, “Sevlievo being a rural town did not have supermarkets or shops to get your food - everything was fresh and was picked up

from local dealers or farmers, “The area that I lived in was mostly populated by the elderly who some were too fragile to leave their homes- so I saw that as an opportunity to provide a service and possibly make money in the process,” she grinned showing off her pearly white straight teeth. “I started off as a milk delivery girl, I would pick up the empty milk bottles from my neighbours and take them to the milk farmer who would pay me for the bottles then I’d take the full milk bottles and deliver them to the elderly, who then would also pay me,” she awkwardly laughed a slight blush appearing on her face as if she was embarrassed about her past. “Slowly word got around, and soon I was picking up and dropping off other goods that people couldn’t get themselves, I made reasonably good money but it always went on the essentials.” By the age of 16, Oksana had a running delivery business, as well as a part time job in a restaurant and a pub. “By the time I was 16, my sister had moved out of our apartment to start a family of her own, so I had to taken on the full responsibility of the apartment our mother had left us,” “It was difficult, and exhausting at times but I had only myself to rely on, I put myself through High School and dreamed of the day things would get easier,” she smiled and took a sip of her tea that had been forgotten up until now. 84

“My mother was absent from my life even before she left for Greece.”

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was difficult and exhausting at times, but I had only myself to rely onâ&#x20AC;?

“When I turned 18, I had the greatest shock of my life – my mother returned from Greece on my birthday with a little girl that couldn’t have been older than 9 or 10,” she shook her head as if reeling from the memory. “Suddenly I had another sister and was told by my mother that I had a week to move out of the apartment I had been living in my whole life, no hello how are you? Thank you for taking care of the apartment, nothing but get out,” she laughed cynically. “I couldn’t believe my ears, but within the week I had moved out of the apartment and moved in with one of my friends from school, “I was obviously distraught, and I had hardly anything in my savings but I had always wanted to travel and see the world outside of Sevlievo,” she smiled fondly at the memory and looked out the window once more. “A week after I was kicked out of my childhood home, I had bought myself a single ticket to Switzerland and with a pocket full of my saving I got on the coach and took the 20 hour trip there, “I had nowhere to stay, I didn’t know the language nor did I know anyone, but somehow I managed it all and ended up living in Switzerland for 3 years before I returned to Bulgaria again.” On Oksana’s return to Sevlievo her

mother shunned her for abandoning her and Marina, Oksana’s half sister. “My mother was angry at me for abandoning her,” she laughed. “It was as if the 10 years that she was missing for had never happened, I instantly regretted coming back but I had started to feel quite lonely in Switzerland and thought that would solve my loneliness, how wrong I was, “The same night I returned I met a Ivan, my now ex husband, he talked about traveling, seeing the world and was unlike the other men in Sevlievo – I was in love with him instantly and within a year we were married and had a daughter.” Oksana smiled ear to ear and pointed to the picture frame on her desk. “The Bulgarian economy was even worse when I came back, the country was just corrupt and what once was just a dream between me and Ivan – became a reality when we decided to relocate to England with the hopes that it would give our daughter a brighter future.” Fast-forward 10 years, a messy divorce and a now a grown daughter, Oksana found herself unemployed and beginning a new life with a new man. “I met David while I was still with Ivan, you have to understand that even though we fell in love quickly and had a whirlwind of a romance the spark between myself and Ivan

died and I found myself in the arms of another.” She raised her eyebrow as if to swat away any judgement I may have had about her affair. “David and I worked together in a nanotechnology company but when the owners sold it – we were all released from work and I had no skill sets to fall back on, “We decided to open a business of our own and brainstormed ideas and possibilities of what we could possibly do,” she rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’m still not sure how we ended up in this business, [she waved her arms in the air] but we’ve done well for ourselves.” She smiled a proud look on her face. “The powder coating business wasn’t always this successful, in the beginning there was a lot of blood, sweat and mostly my, tears put into it with little success, “However we pushed through that, I got a business degree and we managed to turn the business into the empire it is today.” Oksana leaned back into the sofa a look of content on her face, the age lines barely visible on her still youthful face. Oksana now runs a multimillion business called ES Coatings, has two beautiful daugthers, one from her previous marrige and the other from her current, a gorgeous house, a loving husband and finally a better life.

www.fjallravenkanken.co.uk

Amsterdam

90 Amsterdam

95 Body World

102 Ed van der Elsken

112 Pop Punk Food

93 Craft Beer Bars

98 Mellyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cookie Bar

110 The Red Light

119 The Bulldog

STEFANI KOLEVA

Amsterdam To quote John Green; “Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom”, with its bohemian lifestyle evident everywhere, marijuana in the air, art, music and sex at every corner, there’s no surprise that British tourists choose to stay for good. In fact, according to the Office for National Statistics; “since the announcement of Brexit in 2016 […] the British immigration to Amsterdam has risen by a staggering 9.6 percent, […] within the last 2 years, compared to the steady 3 per cent annual British migration seen previously.” With the rise in British migration, a burst of new businesses have opened enticing young Brits to stay. “It was a spur of the moment kind of decision,” says Lauren Class, 23 from Canterbury, who decided to move to Amsterdam two years ago; “I had had enough, British people are just so miserable, and there is a real struggle for employment. “Two years ago, I visited Amsterdam for the first time in April for a week and I fell in love with the city, the architecture, the people and the culture. “By the end of May that year I had packed up my little studio and decided that I would move my whole life to Amsterdam. “After all, Brexit, was a dark cloud of uncertainty and worry hanging over all of us, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to start a fresh new life away from all the scary Brexit talk. “Last year I opened up my own fish and chip shop, […] and I don’t see myself going back any time soon. “Amsterdam is my new home now.” Whether it is to escape the gloom of Brexit permanently, or to just escape for a while; the city of sin has a pool of possibilities to offer. Why not start the day off with an authentic Dutch treat from a local bakery? Amsterdam central, offers over 300 bakeries to choose from; each one specialising in a different assortment of tasty, sweet and gooey goodness. Look out, especially, for some of the handmade traditional stroopwafels, which are two thin layers

“Some Tourists think that Amsterdam is the city of sin, but in truth it is the city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.”

of dough with a sweet caramel filling in the middle, pressed together to create a perfectly balanced soft, yet crunchy treat. For the best ones visit the highly recommended Banketbakkerij Lanskroom bakery just off central Amsterdam, here you can enjoy a variety of delicious authentic delicacies while enjoying freshly brewed coffee, in one of Amsterdam’s trendiest and picturesque neighborhoods - Jordaan. Wander along the canals and head to Oud West, a vibrant neighbourhood where most of the buildings were constructed in the first half of the twentieth century with intricate detail and design. Oud West is also the home to “Foodhallen”, where you can indulge in amazing street food from across the world. “Foodhallen should be renamed to Foodheaven because each stall brings a little taste of heaven to you,” gushed Arthur Hartwell, 27 from Bristol. “You will discover the very best culinary Amsterdam has to offer all under the same roof,” says Hans Adawolf, 31, from Berlin. “Your first stop here should always be De Ballen Bar, it serves these little balls of perfection – I recommend the chorizo ones, they’re slightly spicy, breaded chorizo balls that are honestly to die for!” Alice Cooper, 24, from Pennsylvania said. Or why not jump on the tram (Line 7 towards Flevopark) and head over to the Bohemian District of De Pijp, in the Latin Quarter of Amsterdam – home to Albert Cuyp Markt, which is the city’s largest street market. The “Cuyp” has been there since 1905 and is still immensely popular, even a century later. “From food to clothes, to plants and technology – there’s something for everyone at the Albert Cuyp market,” said Bethany Price, 18 from Glasgow. Navigating Amsterdam can be thirsty work, but luckily Amsterdam is the capital of beer and with an ever-growing cache of cool craft beer bars offering something more unique you can quench your thirst quite easily. One thing that you must do before returning home is explore

Amsterdam by Canal Boat. Besides providing a stunning backdrop to the city’s historical center, floating down Amsterdam seems a bit more magical when looking out from a boat. Check out The Cheese Company, Old Amsterdam Cheese Store or Cheese and More, for your fix of Gouda goodness. Why not head to the Museum Quarter for some art and culture and see the stunning Rijksmuseum; famous for Rambrandt’s piece, “The Nightwatch”, the Van Gogh Museum, the world’s largest collection of Van Gogh’s artwork and the Stedelijk, a modern art museum. Or take the free ferry over the vibrant NSDM, the former ship wharf has been converted into a cultural hotspot. Restaurants, bars, cafes and clubs with stunning views over the Amsterdam Ij-lake, make the former ship yard of NSDM the perfect area to hang out, eat out, explore and dance the night away. And what perfect way to end your day than at The A’Dam Lookout, an observation deck with an unrivalled panoramic, stunning views of Amsterdam. Also, for the daredevils and thrill seekers “Over the Edge” is Europe’s highest swing on top of the sky deck – swing 100 meters above the ground, back and forth over the edge of the tower with Amsterdam below your feet. Enjoy the unrivalled view of the city, in a unique, thrilling and adrenaline filled way, while below a professional team of photographers capture this precious moments for you to keep forever. “The swing was so exhilarating, a serious rush when you’re up there,” said Kareem Sheragiham, 18, from New York. “I felt like I was flying up there, the view was spectacular, I just wish it lasted longer,” says Mila Brown, 18 from New York. Amsterdam may be the city of sin, but sinning has never felt better – The city can offer so much, no matter the kind of person you are. “there’s somthing for everyone to enjoy,it’s truly an amazing city.” stated Susan Green, 28, from Reykjavik. 90

Amsterdam Canal, Jordaan.

Kauffmann, Amsterdam.

Craft Beer Bars

words by Claire Bissell & Photography by Courtney Bluue 93

Bierfabtiek, Amsterdam.

Navigating Amsterdam’s artwork, bridges and canals can be thirsty work, and whilst the city’s traditional lagers are served with a hefty head of foam, an ever-growing cache of cool craft beer bars offer something more unique. From hip microbreweries to canal-side hangouts that ooze Dutch charm, these are the best spots for ale enthusiasts in Amsterdam. Bierfabriek If you don’t go for the knock out beers brewed on site, go for the sheer thrill of being able to toss your peanut shells on the floor. Feeling the crunch under your feet on the way to the bar is all part of the Bierfabriek experience. If dinner is on the cards be sure to sample their famous grilled chicken, before washing it down with a pilsner, porter or ruby ale, all of which are prepared a peanut’s throw away. Butcher’s Tears Tucked away at the end of an industrial street in the Zuid neighbourhood, the secluded location of Butcher’s Tears only adds to its unpolished charm. This brewery-cumtasting-room attracts an eclectic crowd from hipsters to pensioners, with a minimalist white-tiled interior that reinforces the fact that it’s all about the beer. The offerings on tap alternate regularly, and peckish patrons will often find a fresh loaf of bread to dig into. Oedipus Brewery and Taproom Take the free ferry to Amsterdam Noord for a tipple at the warehouse-style taproom of Oedipus Brewery. Started by four friends with a shared taste for international beers and experimental brewing methods, Oedipus has forged a legion of thirsty fans through creations like their delicate and citrusy Mama pale ale. Oedipus beers are instantly recognisable by their colourfully illustrated labels and the taproom pays homage to their iconic branding with elaborately painted walls.

Matisse-like mural and hanging plants bathing in natural sunlight, Kauffmann is not your average watering hole. The drinks menu pays tribute to some of the lesser-known craft beers from around the Netherlands, so expect pots and potions from Utrecht, Nijmegen and Tilburg, alongside prized portions of delicious falafels. Craft and Draft With an ever-rotating selection of 40 beers on tap, the encyclopedia of change almost daily. The bar itself is small and humble with exposed brickwork, wooden furnishings and friendly staff. If you’re finding the beer board somewhat overwhelming, opt for a tasting set of three beers. Brouwerij ‘t IJ Popular with tourists and locals alike, the novelty of enjoying a beer next to Amsterdam’s largest windmill never seems to wear off. However, this is more than just a photo opportunity. Brouwerij ‘t IJ brews some of the city’s bestloved beers (try the chocolatey Columbus ale at an eye-watering 9%) and boasts an attractive bar to boot. Located in an old municipal bath house, many of the original features remain, including separate entrances for men and women.

Brouwerij Troost Embark on a divine journey of an altogether different kind at this monastery turned brewery, located in the vibrant De Pijp neighbourhood. At Troost (brouwerijtroost.nl), the beers are brewed on the premises, so you can keep an eye on the vats as you sip your SesKauffmann sion Indian pale ale. The cosy, candlelit bar Falafels and craft beer might not be a con- is a relaxed place to while away an evening ventional pairing, but with a fabulously bright, with 10 tasty beers on tap to work through. 94

Oedipus, Amsterdam.

STEFANI KOLEVA

BODY WORLD

Brouwerij’t JJ,Amsterdam. Brouwerij Troost ,Amsterdam.

The quest for love and happiness dominates our lives; with countless books, films and studies dedicated to finding out what defines whether we are happy or not? Luckily, the anatomy museum Body Worlds: The Happiness Project in the heart of Amsterdam tries to answer that by taking visitors on an exciting journey of discovery through the human mind and body, in search for what truly makes us happy and the impact of happiness on our everyday health. The Body Worlds, exhibit – also known locally as Körperwelten- is the only exhibition in the world to be based on a donor programme, meaning that everything you see in the exhibition is specimens of real human bodies. “When I got here I couldn’t believe that everything on display was once real people who were living and breathing as I am doing now, it’s the maddest thing ever,” says Peter Andrews 19, from Copenhagen. In fact, more than 200 anatomical specimens were donated and preserved in order to show the complexity, resilience and vulnerability of the human body. The exhibition is spread over six floors, starting from the top and working your way down each floor highlights several medical issues of the human body, and lightly touches on themes such as food, movement, stress and sex. From a provocative lady on a swing to a dissected penis, and even a copulating couple on the basement floor. The Body Worlds exhibit gives visitors insight into every question you may ever have had about the human body. Mary Browning, Cardiff said; “It’s was so amazing to see the human body’s inner workings. The 95

way the bodies are posed show a fascinating insight into how and which muscles are used and it was very interesting to see the main organs in their natural places.” On the third floor of the exhibit there is a section purely dedicated to conception and growth of a foetus which will widen your eyes into the immaculate world of creating life; “Being in the process of becoming a mother, and seeing the heart wrenching sight of these tiny babies in containers was horrible however getting the insight into the growth of my baby from conception to birth was eye opening and wonderful. “Our bodies are truly magical,” said soon to be a first-time mother Audrey Dunne, 26 from Newcastle. Do not miss out on this unique and insightful opportunity to learn more about the human body. Head to The Body Worlds: Happiness Project today! It is easily accessible on foot from Amsterdam Central Station, a mare 5 minute walk over the city’s main thoroughfare leading from the station, to Damrak. The Body Worlds: The Happiness Project is accessible to visitors who use a wheelchair, a walker, or a mobility scooter – you can also request an audio or visual guide from the front desk. Damrak 66, Amsterdam. E: Amsterdam@bodyworlds.nl T: +31(0)202160601 Price per visit: Between €12 - €18 on individual tickets. However, you also have an online booking option which allows you to “bid” for your entry tickets which makes it a lot cheaper when buying 2+ tickets.

Body World, Amsterdam. Left Page: Lady on a Swing. Current Page: Copulating Couple

STEFANI KOLEVA

Melly’s Cookie Bar

Pastries - Alfajores - Cakes - Cookies - Pies - Gourment Goffee. There’s a slice of Heaven for everyone at Melly’s Cookie Bar in Central Amsterdam. Blink and you’ll miss it! But located in the heart of Amsterdam - right next to the Royal Palace, diagonally opposite Magna Plaza, is the cutest most cosy place in the city; Melly’s Cookie Bar. With its pastel blue walls, miss matched wooden furniture, big glass cookie jars and open kitchen; Melly’s Cookie Bar is THE place for coffee and cake lovers to come together to enjoy delicious fresh Italian coffee and sweet Argentinian treats in a comfortable and intimate environment. You can watch croissants, chocolate, carrot or banana cakes, cheesecakes and cookies freshly baked in front of you. The intoxication smell of the baked goods will spoil you for flavour before you’ve even had the first taste. “I just followed the smell and it lead me here. You can really taste the love and care in these cookies,” said 25-year-old Chris Lipton, from Sussex. “Nothing compares to Granny’s Lemon Cookies, they are unreal. Soft and full of flavour – just how I like them,” said Tony Fry, 24, from Northampton. Melly’s Cookie Bar has been a family business from the very beginning creating edible treats through a secret family recipe, which has been passed down through generations. “Melly’s Cookie Bar has existed since 1995 and I took over the business two years ago. We bake everything ourselves using old traditional family recipes,” said Daniel Mellicovsky the current owner of the cookie bar. “We have become famous in

the city for our delicious Dulce de Leche, Argentinian delicacies and cookies,” he bragged while fetching a fresh batch of chocolate and cream filled biscuits from the oven. Melly’s specialises in Alfajores, which are traditional South American sandwich cookie filled with Dulce de leche. “Hundreds of people come in daily seeking out one of our delicious goods, we have something for everyone!” he stated. You’ll find it hard to go through the menu and not find anything you like. “My personal favourite is the kiwi lime swirls, they are deliciously light and refreshing- they’re gluten free as well” They cater to all kinds of diary requirements, including gluten free, dairy free and vegan; all you need to do is enquire with one of the friendly baristas on what’s what. Feel free to relax and read a borrowed book from one of the bookshelves lining the walls of the bar. Or grab a board game and entice your friends into fun game of monopoly. “I come in Melly’s most days of the week, I love being able to sit quietly in the corner with my alfajore and reading a book from their library. This is the friendliest café in the neighbourhood ,” said Jasmijn De Vries, 22, from Amsterdam. So if you’re looking for a snack near Dam Square, there’s no reason you should be visiting anywhere other than Melly’s Cookie Bar. 98

“Nothing compares to Granny’s Lemon Cookies, they are unreal.”

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Van Der

Elsken

The Man who brought bohimia to Amsterdam. Words by Stefani Koleva & Photography by Ed van der Elsken. 102

You might be visiting Amsterdam for the first time or you might be a returner, but there is one sure thing you can’t miss doing before you head back home; The Ed van der Elsken’s autobiographic perspective photography exhibition on the European zeitgeist, spanning the period of the Second World War into the nineteen-seventies in the realms of love, sex, art, music and alternative culture is displayed at the Stadelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His documentation of Amsterdam in the peak of rebellion and free love was the starting point of the bohemian lifestyle that many of the current locals still adopt. Elsken was born March 10th, 1925 in one of the biggest economic growing cities; Amsterdam, Netherlands. Even though the economic value of Amsterdam was high and people were prospering, Elsken’s father still struggled to support a family of five it was even more difficult to support the family once World War Two broke out. In 1942, 17- yearold Ed, whose older brother had already enrolled into the army and lost his life, decides to tamper with his urine sample to convince doctors he is diabetic in order to avoid conscription. He then begins training as a sculptor, but is forced to go into hiding. After Liberation of the German Occupation, Ed joins the landmine clearance unit as a volunteer, which is where he first gets introduced to Picture Post, a photojournalistic magazine by a British soldier, and this is where his interest in photography peaked. In 1945 Ed is introduced to the members of the collective De Ondergedokeb Camera (The Underground Camera), photographers Emmy Andriesse, Cas Oorthys, Carel Blazer and Ad Windig document the aftermath of the German Occupation, this is where he first gets a taste for behind the camera lens – the publication of Naked City by American photographer Weegee (1899-1968) which chronicles the shadow side of New York have a huge impact on Ed and inspires him to do his own observations based on Weegee’s work. At the suggestion of Dutch photographer Emmy Andriesse, Ed moves to Paris in the 1950s. In the tumultuous post-war years, here in Paris he meets a group of self-destructive young people, who frequent the streets and bars of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, their bleak worldview and anger – which, at times, verge on depression – reflected Ed’s own state of mind. Through this state of mind he creates a series of photographers, which depict the pain, anguish, need, lust, and desperation of the bohemians of Paris and brings that energy to Amsterdam. Where he was among the first to bring acceptance to the bohemian lifestyle that we know today. After returning to Amsterdam Ed spent all his time working on Love on the Left Bank, a book full of a series of photographs from his time in Paris. These images depicted people exploring their sexuality and lusts freely – many of the images were artistically erotic. The book however, caused a commotion in the Dutch press. Many branding as “inappropriate’, but esteemed painter-poet Lucebert described the series as “how beautifully the flowers of evil and despair flourish on the edges of decay”. Now 18 years after his death, Ed van der Elsken gets the recognition he truly deserves with his full photography timeline being displayed Stadelijk Museum in Amsterdam. An honour that sadly he outlived but was well deserved.

Ed Van Der Elsken, Vali Meyers, Saint Germain des Pres Parijis (1951) Nederlands Fotomuseum / Ed van der Elsken Collectie Stadelijk Museum Amsterdam 105

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ELYSIA BRENNER

The Red Light

As you know by now, Amsterdam’s Red Light District is actually a strangely unseedy place. But never fear! There are still plenty of spots where people will do the things that Urban Dictionary authors write about. So get your hand sanitizer ready -- here are the ‘hood’s five spots to see some action... Casa Rosso Cost: €40; €50 with two drinks; free for bachelor(ette)s in costume. Sleaze factor: A mere 5 out of 10; it’ll tickle your funny bone more than any other bone, and the stage/audience divide gives you plenty of distance. 8 if you volunteer. What to expect: This is the original Amsterdam sex-theater experience. The show runs in a loop of acts, and you’re welcome to stay until close... but chances are you’ll have had your fill by the time your second drink is down. Expect impressive feats of dexterity by ladies’ lady parts and some heavy-handed comedy, but the audience is really here for the live sex. Generally performed by real-life couples, who are not exactly “porn-star types”, it’ll have you more fascinated than titillated. Going on stage is not recommended unless you’re really open-minded... Moulin Rouge Cost: €25; €35 with four drinks; deals available for groups Sleaze factor: 6. The stage feels mighty close here, but there’s still a nicely varied crowd. What to expect: The discount is thanks to the smaller theater, but the show is quite similar to Casa Rosso. Acts tend to center

around props, from ribbons to candles to pens and bananas, and there are male strip teases thrown in for the ladies. Be warned: the barrier between the audience and the stage is pretty thin here... Bananenbar Cost: €60 entrance, with one hour open bar (recommended); or €25 entrance to the less fun Bananen (strip) Club upstairs, with two drinks (expect pressure for lap dances here, €35+ extra) Sleaze factor: 7. You can pay to get frisky with food, but the dildo fly-bys are free. What to expect: The “Banana Bar” is named for its most famous show: where a performer holds onto said fruit with her, um, lower body... and then buyers may take turns chomping out bites to, er, completion. The show is €75 extra here... so it’ll be a game of chicken to see which group shells out for it before the hour is up. (Hint: try to follow a bachelor party in.) The same lower body parts are also used to sign branded postcards and produce sex toys and other kinky wonders. Not up close and personal enough? You can pay for your buddy to lick whipped cream off one of the performers, which have a reputation for being the best-looking of this sex-show bunch. 110

La Vie en Proost Cost: €5 cover; €1020 lap dances; €6.50 beers Sleaze Factor: 8. The waitresses are topless and the dancers encourage you to get handsy above the waist, and if you get a lap dance, expect to be the show... while bumping knees with the dude sitting next to you. What to expect: The highlight of this bar is its location: down a narrow alleyway across from the super-narrow Trompettersteeg, hidden behind a slightly scary bank of rooms (indoor prostitution “windows”) called La Vie en Rose. Combined with its “classier” (if they say so) little sis bar La Vie Deux in Rembrandtplein, this is Amsterdam’s only “classic” strip joint. After an awkward hour here, you’ll understand why.

An Insider’s Food & Design Tour

GISELE WILLIAMS

Pop Punk Food

When Amsterdam shut down its two most important museums in 2003 and 2004 for major renovations, it left a huge void in the city’s cultural life for almost a decade. But then something unexpected and weird happened: A lot of interesting things started to flourish in that vacant space. “Everyone in Holland was so annoyed by the simultaneous closing of the museums,” said the cookbook author and restaurateur Yvette van Boven, rolling her eyes. “But somehow, the cultural poverty it created stimulated an underground scene that was really approachable and fresh.” This year, an expected two million people will visit the Stedelijk, a world-renowned contemporary art and design venue, and the extraordinary collection of Vermeers and Rembrandts at the newly reopened Rijksmuseum. They’ll also get to experience the funky, forward-thinking restaurants and shops that launched while the museums were shut down. Run by young chefs and designers and located in unorthodox spaces like former churches or banks, these places have a renegade, popup-like energy. Van Boven calls them “the punk food movement.” She explains, “They’re about making things by hand, keeping prices accessible and breaking the rules.” The 44-year-old brunette, rarely seen without a bright slash of red lipstick, is something of a poster girl for this kind of creativity. In the last two years, she has published three cookbooks—Home Made, Home Made Winter and Home Made Summer—that exemplify the indie spirit: They’re filled with her illustrations and do-it-yourself recipes, like hand-cranked ice cream, from-scratch mustards and Dutchstyle beef sausages and croquettes. On a recent gusty Saturday, van

Boven led me on a bike tour through Amsterdam’s newly exuberant restaurant scene. With her Dutch farm-fox terrier, Marie, comfortably tucked into the handlebar basket, we boarded a small ferry crossing the IJ river toward North Amsterdam, a Blade Runner-like landscape of industrial buildings that is fast turning into the city’s dynamic new creative center. Hovering above the waterfront was another recently refurbished museum: the white, sleek, angular Eye Institute, one of Europe’s most impressive film archives. Originally headquartered in the leafy Vondelpark, it has drawn more than half a million visitors to this former no-man’sland since it reopened last spring. We disembarked and cycled a few minutes to Café Modern, a justopened restaurant and boutique hotel from restaurateur Niels Wouters. In 2006, Wouters saw the neighborhood’s potential and launched Hotel de Goudfazant, which is not a hotel at all, but rather an edgy bistro in an old factory that he decorated with a massive chandelier of glass bottles and several vintage cars, including a Ferrari Testarossa. His new place, Café Modern, is a hotel, with three floors of apartment-like bedrooms built in a former bank—one bathroom is in an old safe. The hotel restaurant, which van Boven describes as “chic without being too chic,” serves comforting, rustic dinners meant to make guests feel at home—pistachio polenta with scallops; hanger steak with sauerkraut. During the weekdays, Wouters rents out the restaurant’s dining room at a good price to two friends, one of whom happens to work for van Boven. They in turn reinvent it to become Jacques Jour, a cozy Francophile breakfast-and-lunch spot.

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Parstisab is a place you can meet for drinks, dinner, and pretty much everything else in between. Located ub tge west part of Amsterdam, on the corner of the Admiraal de Ruijterweg,Van Speijkstraat.

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“The idea is to make the most of what you’ve got, from ingredients to space,” van Boven said, describing one of the loose tenets of the punk movement, where there’s a crafty thriftiness to every enterprise. For 19 euros (about $25) each, van Boven and I had a tasty three-course lunch that included a paper-thin flammkuchen (Alsatian-style pizza), loaded with turnips and melted Vacherin Mont d’Or, and a moist orange cake served with a tangy-sweet cranberry sauce. Café Modern and Hotel de Goudfazant have proved that, in Amsterdam, culinary destinations can help transform formerly derelict neighborhoods. De Pasteibakkerij, a charcuterie atelier in an old butcher shop, is slowly doing the same for Rivierenbuurt, a gritty district south of De Pijp. Co-owners Floris Brester, a childhood friend of van Boven’s, and Diny Schouten, a 60-something former journalist, preside over a bright storefront lined with shelves of cookbooks and butchery manuals. When we were there, a table near the window held shaved lemons, an open wine bottle and a platter of local cheeses; a shelf served as a stage for a collection of plastic animals. Since Brester and Schouten opened De Pasteibakkerij about two years ago, their artisanal meats have become mainstays on menus around town. On Fridays and Saturdays, visitors can buy terrines and sausages, along with sandwich supplies like rye bread and raw butter. When we arrived, Brester was wrapping up blood sausages, his specialty, while Schouten was packaging goose rillettes. Schouten explained that they often work with wild goose because the overpopulation of the fowl in the Netherlands means there’s always plenty of meat; indeed, the government requires the geese to be culled. We found goose on the menu at several restaurants. Using every part of the animal and sourcing meat that is ethically hunted or raised is a big part of the local punk food manifesto. So is occasionally sticking it to food safety laws. Until recently, when the city’s health department intervened, a restaurant called As within a former ’60s modernist concrete chapel let pigs wan-

der across its grassy outdoor seating area. Here, chefs Sander Overeinder and Luuk Langendijk cook only with fire—on a grill, in a wood oven or on an antique gas stove from the original chapel—and then prepare dishes on a giant slab of stone. Anchoring the candlelit circular dining room at As is an altar-like bar displaying baskets of fresh bread and giant glass jars of pickled vegetables (grown on-site) resembling religious offerings. Communal wooden tables radiate out from the center like the spokes of a wheel. This is rustic food raised to the highest level—veal liver with grilled polenta, kale elevated by a puree of Cevenne onions and anchovies. Van Boven took a bite of sliced celeriac, which was nearly as creamy as the Tête de Moine cheese served alongside. She asked how the kitchen prepared the root vegetable and learned that the chef had wrapped it in a salted-dough crust and slow-cooked it for hours in the wood oven. When I met van Boven at her own restaurant, Aan de Amstel, I found her cousin Joris Vermeer illegally slow-cooking a suckling pig in a small portable charcoal grill outside on the sidewalk. The two of them opened Aan de Amstel seven years ago as a breakfast-and-lunch place, only to turn it into a dinner spot in 2011. Inside the long, narrow space—a former snack bar—a crowd of mostly locals was squeezed around the dozen small tables that line both walls. Van Boven and Vermeer renovated the white-tiled interior entirely on their own, painting the small bar an indigo blue and attaching adjustable, accordion-style desk lamps to the walls. The playful design details—like the cigarette-smoking deer head that hangs over the kitchen entrance—continued on the plate. Snails are tucked inside the beef marrow of a bone sawed in half, and lemony beans lie alongside a smoked pig’s head from De Pasteibakkerij. The suckling pig was ready around midnight, the meat crackling with fat and totally delicious. Talk inevitably turned to the city’s big news. “It’s so good to finally have our museums back,” van Boven said. “We just don’t want the city to turn into a museum.”

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The Livingroom of Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s first “coffeeshop”. Words by Stefani Koleva & Photography by Kelly Burns 119

A city of canals and coffee houses, Amsterdam is a European classic a city of freedom and sin. Though considered by some a lowbrow form of entertainment, coffee shops play a vital role in Dutch tourism: and no coffee house is as popular and as memorable than The Bulldog. The story of The Bulldog starts in 1974, in the middle of the red light district of Amsterdam. When 24 year old – Henk de Vries inherited the family business, a sex shop, from his father. Henk though determined to give the sex shop a go, helped people with their freaky requests and desires but soon realised that this was not for him. He’d had enough and ended up throwing the inventory of the sex shop in the canal. Armed with a top-notch location, progressive ideas and exceptional intuition, he decided to create a place where everyone would be welcome; “I want to create a living room atmosphere. A good vibe, relaxed. A place where people can smoke, talk and feel good. It simply doesn’t get any better than that.” When Henk opened The Bulldog coffeeshop a year later in 1975, it was just a basement with a couple of tables and chairs. Simply by looks it was just a living room: people sat at tables talking, drinking, playing board and card games. What is interesting about The Bulldog is that it was actually the first coffeeshop there was. Meaning that Henk invented the term “coffeeshops”. But why coffeeshop? “Coffee” is not what most visitors come for? Henk de Vries ansers this question for us: “I wanted to make the connection with a coffeehouse, in my opinion that was like a living room for neighbourhood residents. Somethings which were done in other places weren’t allowed, like selling beer under the counter and hiding a slot machine behind the curtain I wanted to capture the coffeehouse feeling, keep the atmosphere of a living room. At the same time I wanted to have an international character to the place, that’s how the term ‘coffeeshop’ was born.” Today, The Bulldog has grown from the dingy basement of an old sex shop to being a successful empire with several coffeeshops open in Amsterdam including two cafes, three souvenir shops and a hotel in Amsterdam, a hotel and vacation homes in Canada, a very luxurious resort in Bali and several product lines.

The Bulldog coffeeshop, was inspired by his dog (Joris), even the company logo was in inspired by Joris. 120

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