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01 Spring/Summer

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2007

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Ewald’s 154 Orchard Street, Store B New York, NY

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inside this issue

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18 It’s a Doll’s Life 10 Q&A: Industry Insider

34 Rapunzel Remixed 7 Behind

the Seam

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13 Andro Punk 9 Contributors nM 46 Swoo

asquerad

50 Style File:

e Party

Featuring Najwa Moses.

Local Styleaholic Takes it to the Streets

6 Letter from the Editor 39 Fete

Phanta

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16 Fashion from the Trenches The Girl Gaze: Channeling Our Inner Models

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24 Profiles fro

32 Opinion

Modernism & Its Discontents

m the Edge

Three people wh o remind us wh y we love New Yor k

51 Index

24 Pop Vista 48 Opinion

Marilyn Monroe vs. Anna Nicole Smith

The Anti Anti-Hipster

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letter from the editor

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“Cut off as I am, it is inevitable that I should sometimes feel like a shadow walking in a shadowy world. When this happens I ask to be taken to New York City. Always I return home weary but I have the comforting certainty that mankind is real flesh and I myself am not a dream.” –Helen Keller Welcome to Issue #3 of Swoon Magazine, reporting (a)live from the backyard of the fashion capital of the world. In this issue we feature a sort of precursor to what we like to think we’re all about: a sampling of NYC’s singular style through its people, places, and all around neuroses. It is an homage to our living cultural heritage and not just a sighing breath lamenting the fading glory of “Old New York.”

In the United States alone the cultural symbolism attached to this city is dizzying–no matter how “Disney-ified” it becomes it will always stand for something deeply embedded within the collective American psyche–it is the watermark whereby we test ourselves. It is different from almost any other city because there is a place for everyone here–NYC is the symbol for every dream, for anybody, because this is a place where the reality of most any dream could very possibly come true. Often that’s the very thing that kills you most about New York...not everyone has “made it” so to speak, but almost everyone is just on the verge of making it. In no case is this more true than for the artist–in many ways New York represents a kind of mythical artist’s mecca, a pilgrimage everyone feels inclined to make no matter what their nationality. It’s like a personal equivalent of the bullring for the aspiring creative who considers themselves an individual in their respective medium. The thing is, New York respects the individual, especially the one who can live among the masses. And so do we.

Turn the pages and find out.

Photographs by Enrico Gaoni

Swoon Magazine’s mission is twofold: to showcase and promote local creatives in NYC and to reclaim fashion as an artistic expression outside of the push to create commercial trends. We believe photography and fashion, like any other art form, require a space for creative play and experimentation outside of the confines of their respective commercial industries. Swoon is a political organism as much as it is a party machine, and it’s politics are this–that glamour can, and must, exist in our daily lives–and you can do it, if not by yourself then with a little bit of help from your friends. We’ve come to reclaim the master’s tulles.

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On the cover: Photography: Jonathan Hokklo Make Up: Robert Sesnek and Jannicke Vorren Hair: Jannicke Vorren Model: Ty Hans, Ford Models On the back cover: Illustration by Claudio Parentela

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BEHIND THE SEAMS

Behind Behind the the Seams Seams For more

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MASTHEAD

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KELLY MCKAY & ANYA FERRING Founders ANYA FERRING Editor-in-chief SHAUNA CUMMINS Managing Editor MELISA OSORIO BONIFAZ Design Director LEO JENSEN Advertising DANIEL MURPHY Web Master AILEEN DEMARE Copy Editor OLIVIA HURLEY Intern Contributing authors: Elizabeth Bachner, Jen Charles, Brennan Fitzgerald, Shaun FrentĂŠ, Alex Joseph, Franklin Schneider

Swoon Magazine is an NYC-based fashion and photograhy media project.

All content appearing in Swoon Magazine is subject to copyright.

None of it may be reproduced in whole or in part without written authorization from the editors, artists and author, including electronic retrieval systems. The opinions expressed within are those of its authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Swoon Magazine, its editors, or its contributors. Swoon Magazine is $6.00. To order copies of Swoon vial mail, please send $8.00 for shipping and handling to Swoon Magazine, 135 Plymouth Street #311, Brooklyn, NY 11201, or purchase online via credit card at www.swoonmagazine.com. We are not responsible for lost or stolen payments sent via mail. If you are interested in advertising with us, please contact advertising@swoonmagazine.com.

Swoon Magazine International Headquarters 135 Plymouth Street #311 Brooklyn, NY 11201 editors@swoonmagazine.com Distributed in conjunction with MU Inc. Printed in Canada. Š 2007 Swoon Magazine.

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BFA in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. His photography has been exhibited in several NYC galleries including Mine Gallery, where he has a permanent residency exhibiting his work. He has been featured in Blind Spot and is a regular contributing photographer for The Sentimentalist. Other clients include book covers for HarperCollins Publishers and CD packages for John Zorn’s CD label, Tzadik.

www.gaocreations.com

www.scottirvine.net Leslie van Stelten (Andropunk, pg. 13) Much of Leslie’s

van was born in Russia and came to NYC to pursue her dream of working in fashion photography, graduating from FIT in 2005. Anna has shot for multiple publications such as ImageChicago, Floss, MINI, The African, and Antenna. She has also shot campaigns for Clear Essence beauty products and X-Ray Jeans. www.annadonovan.com

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body of work reflects a fascination with individuals from divergent segments of society and her desire to visually exaggerate their reality. She has befriended many of these subjects and considers a large segment of her portfolio to be almost autobigraphical.

She finds her inspiration from religious art, science fiction movies, the golden age of Hollywood, her suburbanAmerican roots, fashion photography and rock-n-roll. www.leslievanstelten.com

contributors

Enrico Gaoni is an Italian-born photojournalist. He holds degrees in Communication and Graphic Design from Universita Per Stantieri and Mid Sweden University, respectively. His work has been featured at exhibitions and in periodicals in Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, and the United States. His most recent collection, “Ellos y Ellas”, shot in Cuba, inaugurates his current project on contemporary Latin American society. He lives in New York City.

Anna Donovan (Rapunzel Remixed pg. 34) Anna Dono-

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Scott Irvine (Profiles from the Edge pg. 24) Scott received a

Enrico Gaoni (selected pages)

Ben Rosenzweig (Swoon Party Page pg. 46) Ben grew up in

a little town in Western Massachusetts called Williamsburg. There are no hipsters in this Williamsburg, but that’s okay, he likes it that way. Today he resides in Brooklyn where he spends most of his time riding the B54 bus and getting very drunk on Friday nights. If you catch him out, buy him a drink, and maybe he will talk to you or even take your portrait. www.benjaminr.com

Jonathan Hokklo (Fete Phantasgm pg. 39)

Nicole Polec (Style File pg. 50) Nicole grew up

in the town of Romeo, Michigan and received her degree from the New England School of Photography. It is rumored that one New Year’s Eve she landed in New York after purchasing a one-way ticket from Detroit. From that night on, going home and milking goats on the family farm was no longer an option. She currently works as a photo editor at Nerve.com. www.nicoleshow.com

When Jonny Hokklo isn’t busy shooting hotels in Beirut or valleys on Iceland he likes to focus on beautiful people in New York. In the past he’s mostly worked for European magazines and clients and he’s now making his editorial debut in Brooklyn. “I love shooting for Swoon. So much free creativity floating around that magazine. I was superinspired.” www.hokklo.se

Nicolas Mele (It’s a Doll’s Life pg. 18) Nicolas Mele received a

double major in Sociology and Photography at George Washington University before moving to NYC to complete his studies at the International Center of Photography. His work focuses on portraiture, documentary, and fashion photography with an emphasis on the innate character of his subjects. www. nicholasmele.com

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Q&A INDUSTRUY INSIDER

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Q&A with Lily Umyn

Patternmaker for Marc Jacobs

By Brennan Fitzgerald

I

caught up with Lily Umyn, a 31 year old patternmaker for Marc Jacobs.

I found it interesting that she lists artists Richard Diebenkorn and photographer Irving Penn as major influences—the deft emotional landscapes and serene explorations of color in Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series remind me of Marc Jacob’s soft use of color. We explored what really goes on inside a design house.

How did you get interested in Patternmaking? I’ve always enjoyed making

things—costumes and the construction of clothing. I was a student at the San Francisco Academy of Arts and worked in a creative office environment that was encouraging. I started taking patternmaking classes and became interested in textiles and fell in love with it. I then got my Associate’s degree at FIT and interned at Marc Jacobs.

What is your working style like at Marc Jacobs? There are different priorities each time of year. For example, right now we are gearing up for resort— we pick through fabrics and present to buyers. The designers let us look at their sketches and we cut the first designs out of muslin fabric. Using muslin is an easier way to start the process. Production is more about construction.

It’s a much more technical process that is fixed on the detail.

My title is Assistant Patternmaker and I work on my own sketches as well as assist other patternmakers if there’s time. Each patternmaker is given sketches by Marc or by the creative director, Joseph Carter. Joseph works

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closely with us and helps to describe the garment in the sketch and also answers any questions we might have. When I’m not working on sketches, there is a lot of organizational work necessary to keep the sample room running smoothly.

Do you have any favorite pieces that you’ve worked on? There are a few

pieces that I’ve loved to death. The last collection I had a couple of dresses and shirts, things that I’ve started and finished. Fall 2006 was one of my favorite collections—it was about layering and bringing back grunge. There were some aspects in Marc’s collection that were homemade that I loved working on. What’s great is that Marc always styles from head to toe.

As a pattern maker, every day there’s something new to learn. I love learning from the more experienced patternmakers. Their work amazes me.

What do you think is the most difficult aspect of design? It’s definitely hard to make a story without it becoming too boring. Everything needs to work well together in a collection. Each component reflects an organic idea—lots of mixed patterns and colors—it’s actually very difficult to do things that look mixed together without repeating a single idea. Each piece needs to complement one another. That’s a very subjective question—I think that it also depends simply on what your eye likes to see.

In what ways do you see the fashion industry changing? Are there any

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images that you find zeitgeist or “of the moment?” The fashion industry has been changing for some time now. There are fewer and fewer independent designers or boutique owners who create original garments. It’s becoming harder for someone to break into the industry without being financed and having a lot of money to begin with. I think it’s nearly impossible to predict an “of the moment” idea in fashion. The trend pendulum swings in opposite directions every season.

This is what I find frustrating about fashion—this idea that styles run far and away from each other each season. However, this freedom can also be incredibly liberating for designers. Do you have any imparting words of wisdom for those trying to get a start in such a fluctuating industry? If you can afford to do it get an art education. Luckily, FIT is well

priced. FIT is extremely intensive, and it was a huge grind to work through the degree. It makes you realize that if you enjoy it, then you will find that you can work in the industry. You need to be willing to work extremely hard. Fashion can be tedious, and if you’re willing to jump right in, you will know whether you want to pursue fashion as a career. It’s not always glamorous, but it can be a lot of fun.___ Brennan Fitzgerald is a poet, fiction writer and freelance journalist. She has studied at the New School and at Lesley University, and has been an artistin-residence at Vermont Studio Center. She is currently writing a novel.

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Page 1

contributors

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05.31– 07.01.07 09.06– 10.07.07 10.11–11.11.07 11.15.07– 01.13.08 01.17– 02.17.08

David Alan Harvey: Living Proof The Brooklynites: A powerHouse Retrospective Jamel Shabazz: Seconds of My Life MINIMAXI John Lurie: A Fine Example of Art

At the BoConcept Skylounge

05.31– 07.15.07 07.19 – 08.26.07 08.30– 09.30.07 11.05.07– 01.06.08

37 Main Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

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tel 718.666.3049

e-mail arena@powerhousebooks.com

Charlie Ahearn: Wild Style The Sampler Arlene Gottfried: Sometimes Overwhelming Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan The Will to Want the Things You Need to Love

Photograph from Touch Me I’m Sick by Charles Peterson

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andro A-rousing the rebels never looked so good

Photography by Leslie Van Stelten Text by Jen Charles 13

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Photographer Leslie Van Stelten rounded up a group of individuals not afraid to bend the rules where sexual preferences are concerned.

Theirs could be considered a louder, faster form of sexuality where the idea of “gay” or “straight” is a concept of the past. The clubs, music venues, cafes, and bars of Brooklyn slowly brought them together--specifically DJ Dario Speedwagon’s parties on Friday nights at The Metropolitan in Williamsburg.

So just who is this notorius crew? There’s Jackie “The Hat,” who presides over a hair at Tease Salon in the L.E.S.; the very glam “Chase Manhattan,” super-fabulous professional party boy; there’s “Randee Riot,” fashion industry slave by day and the party go-go girl by night.

And what photoshoot could call itself “andropunk’ without the presence of rap-star “Filfy,” a Leather Tuscadero and Fonzie all wrapped

into one hot package? Michael, the cosmic dancer who has the energy and the charm of the boy next door paired with “Dario Speedwagon,” (a name that happens to be synonymous with DJ and FABULOUS), make for a dangerous duo–dangerously smokin’ that is!

The shoot featured the looks of local designers Tom Tom and Parisa Parnian. Tom Tom’s clothing designs often include a sarcastic riff off of generic rock-n-roll styles. Any modern mainstream musician or style gets a dig from Tom Tom (Check out the duds sported by Dario and Michael for further evidence). Parisa Parnian, the performance artist turned fashion designer, recently launched her clothing line for queer women, and has been featured in this season’s The L Word. Her line Rigged Outfitters was featured in Velvet Park Magazine and has been seen on the gals from the super-fierce all girl punk band Triple Creme.

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First page: Chase & Jackie.

Jacket and shirt by Tom Tom Fashions.

Styling: Tom Tom. Previous page: Michael & Dario.

Jacket and shirt by Tom Tom Fashions. Styling: Tom Tom. This page: Filfy & Randee. On Filfy: Vintage shirt. Sleaveless hoody and skull feather necklace by Rigged Outfitters. On Randee: vintage velvet jacket. White feather neckpeice, gold emblem by Rigged Outfitters.

Styling: Parisa Parnian.

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Makeup: Taylor Perry Photography Assistant: Tina Zimmer Concept: Leslie Van Stelten and Taylor Perry Production: Leslie Van Stelten Shot on location at Third Ward Studios 15

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fashion from the trenches

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The

Girl Gaze

Channeling our inner models.

By Elizabeth Bachner

Photo by Enrico Gaoni

T

here are true fashion lovers in the world, girls (and boys) who get hungry for style the way I get hungry for candy…they crave the delicious fit of perfect skinny jeans, the menace of a pair of $400 kitten heels, the most obscure vintage tee shirt, the ideal leather bag. I’m friends with some of these people, I kind of understand them, but clothing has never been part of my fashion addiction. I’ve always been obsessed with the models. It’s a weird obsession for a girl like me, a writer who sleeps beside piles of books, an anti-corporate feminist who’s happiest drinking Scotch and eating pizza with people who don’t care what I look like, at all.

When I was a preteen, I would use the models in Vogue or Mademoiselle as divination devices…I’d close my eyes, turn the page and say to myself, “This is what I look like to Sean,” or Jeremy, or Ben, or whoever my crush of the moment was. At the best times it would be Claudia Schiffer looking all blonde and defiant in her Guess jeans, and I’d think, “He really, really likes me.” As a sociologist, when I started interviewing women about beauty images, almost all of them brought up the freakishness of fashion models–how the images made them feel short, fat, ugly, or old–how they looked white and rich and starved.

They talked about the ludicrousness of ten-foot-tall,

ninety-pound fifteen-year-olds as a beauty ideal, and how the images were so altered and airbrushed that they weren’t even pictures of real people anymore anyways. After I went on to get a doctorate, I did research on the modeling industry and learned some things that shocked me, like how young some of the girls were, twelve or thirteen even, and how sleazy the industry could really be. I interviewed creative directors for major designers, who explained that people naturally liked and responded to sex and beauty…but what a weird spin on sex and beauty.

images, or did the images create the desire? During fashion week, I look at the models instead of the clothes…at the bones jutting against ill-fitted scraps of fabric, at the tiny breasts slipping out of strange wraps or glittering bikini tops. There’s something fascinating about these girls and their bodies. And there’s some secret revealed in thinking about model images, something that cuts to the core of what society’s model obsession is all about. Whether the images respond to an attraction to sex and youth and the key symbols of wealth and privilege, or manufacture a love for those things that ooze into our fantasies and dreams, making us fetishists, the fact is that there’s something titillating and commanding about them that we can’t ignore.

I never confessed the truth: that those images of models didn’t make me feel short or fat or ugly or old. Instead they made me feel more beautiful, more glamorous, like I could somehow become an impossibly alluring, silky haired nymphet with coke-hollowed In the fashion world where ideals change faster than eyes who looked like I’d just had some tragic sex their respective seasons, there are slow, enduring against a concrete wall in a changes afoot. As women “I never confessed the truth: back-alley, like I myself could designers and designers of that those images of models color gradually find a voice be the object of someone’s didn’t make me feel short or erotomania with my nipples and a presence in Bryant fat or ugly or old.” showing through a ribbed Park, and as true fashion man’s undershirt, looking lovers move away from the so haunted I couldn’t cry. Why did this appeal to mainstream to seek alternative, emerging designers me? Why did I want to be looked at like that? Did and venues, the modeling world also slowly changes. my desire—the desire of people like me—create the New designers who understand the power of models

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and their strange allure are experimenting with new images, pushing the boundaries of the expected.

Cassie Kogler, the 24-year-old designer behind New York Couture, featured drag queens and other “alternative” models at her off-tent indie show during Spring Fashion Week 2007. “I prefer alternative models because they’re just more fun,” she says, “and that’s what my line is all about—fun! Anyone can use agency models, but not everyone can get away with using punk rock models, transsexuals, drag queens and andro-boys. I use all types of models.”

At alternative venues like Brooklyn Fashion Week{end} and Williamsburg Fashion Week{end}, model casting reflects the diversity of the designers and their lines.

At Brooklyn Fashion Week{end}, which showcases Brooklyn-based emerging designers, the organizers hold open castings for Brooklyn-based models, including those that aren’t signed to an agency. “At the Fall ‘07 Collections Borough Hall, we went with 90% unsigned girls,” says organizer Cybele Sandy, “The girls were really new but they had a wonderful look and attitude and reflected the diverse nature of Brooklyn life.”

Some designers, particularly in the art and club scenes, truly are choosing a more wildly diverse range of models. Artist and Williamsburg Fashion Week{end}organizer Artur Arbit says he has handpicked musicians from his favorite bands to model his line this season. “I’m interested in having models that are “real people,” not Barbie and Ken mannequins, who are a part of the “scene,” be it music, theatre or

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art, and having them do their thing in their respective fields.” Other Williamsburg Fashion Week{end} shows featured virgins, belly dancers, and non-human robots as models. Many of the models were over thirty, under five foot nine, and of various sizes and body types.

dress), a “tougher” standard of sixteen-year-old, sizefour models isn’t exactly radical. Will new designers truly push the boundaries of the modeling establishment? Or will most replace blonde, white, emaciated fifteen-year-olds with a racially diverse group of underweight sixteen-year-olds?

Yet even among emerging designers, women designers, and designers of color working in alternative What was it that made me so hungry to look at modvenues, many continue to cast models according to els? The dream that unattainable glamour could be a largely mainstream standard. At Brooklyn Fashion mine, that I could live in the glossy center of someone Week{end}, models tend to be a size 4 to 6 rather else’s fantasy? Perhaps it was about my own fantasy than the size 0 to 2 that’s all along. Maybe we can have “What was it that made me so become increasingly comour cake and eat it too –there hungry to look at models? The mon in the Bryant Park tents, is an allure to many different dream that unattainable glambut models still range in age kinds of model images, peoour could be mine, that I could from 16 to 25. Swedish-born ple of all shapes and sizes live in the glossy center of Brooklyn designer Helena and ages and hues, all of someone else’s fantasy?”

Fredriksson says she casts them menacing and exciting models in her shows who and magnetic and irresistible. have “strength, individuality, intelligence and person- Maybe up-and-coming designers can explore what’s ality… I like to see strength in women rather than a most exciting about models: the idea of transformafragility, which plays into my casting decisions.” She tion, that we can each make our own body and face favors European standards when it comes to age and into a performance piece. The idea that fashion can weight: “I think that Europe has set a great example be a palette, that instead of trapping ourselves in our on rules that I think should be followed by the US. images we can get creative, we can make something Many of the girls are too young and skinny to work, or be something glamorous and new. And the world and I think the industry should take more responsibil- will look back at us.___ ity in changing the levels of what is accepted. I also think it would be great to see more ethnic diversity Elizabeth Bachner has a PhD in sociology and writes in the industry.” The models she uses range in age poetry and fiction. She has performed at various local from 15 to 24. While there has been some objec- venues including the Happy Ending Reading Series tion to twelve- and thirteen-year-old models showing and American Fine Arts Co. Her work will be pubadult clothing lines in the Bryant Park tents (in 2003, lished in the forthcoming book “Wreckage of Reason: twelve-year-old Garren Taylor modeled a wedding XXperimental Women Writers in the 21st Century.”

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It’s a

Doll’s Life Photography by Nicholas Mele A Bandwagon Production 19

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Bandwagon is a New York City based fashion choreography and dance partnership created by Celia Rowlson-Hall and Lindsey Hornyak.

Bandwagon’s Fashion Choreography uses contemporary movement to further express the concept of a designer’s line, runway show theme, event or editorial.

The two art forms bring cultural enrichment to the runway and narrative context to the clothes.

Stylist: Jennifer Rosemary Case Clothes are stylist’s own & provided by Chelsea Girl Makeup: Chasidy McDowell Hair: Brandon Whited Models: Claire Kallimanis & Celia Rowlson-Hall Art direction: Lindsey Hornyak & Celia Rowlson-Hall

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pop vista

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AnnaNicole Smith vs.

Marilyn Monroe When Reality T.V. Kills the Movie Star

By Shaun Frenté

W

hen the first cloudy reports of the pilledout demise of Anna Nicole Smith trickled in with the morning coffee earlier this year, I could hardly have been alone in thinking the whole thing was a joke. Leaking a crapulous buzz-death would have been an even lesser trespass upon personal dignity than I had seen the poor woman undergo during any three minutes of The Anna Nicole Show, so why not? Okay, if not a brazen publicity stunt, then at the very least something that somehow couldn’t be taken seriously, mean anything. Right down to the lonely overdose, Anna’s whole life was, by her own sad design, a badly pixilated straight-to-video pirating of Marilyn Monroe, the very axiom of stardom, of style.

As trite as it might sound to reduce a life to the level of style, it’s only as an image that we will ever know Marilyn or Anna Nicole, and in the shift from one to the other, we see the passage from tragedy to comedy in this latter figure, whose mediated existence was a playing out of the death of style itself.

Reacting to the suicide of the real fake blonde in 1962, Thomas Pynchon wrote something along the lines of: “Southern California’s special horror notwithstanding, if the world offered nothing, nowhere to support or make bearable whatever her private grief was, then it is that world, and not she, that is at fault.” Forty odd years later, the reclusive polymath stands firm: “I don’t think I’d take those words back. The world is at fault,

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not because it is inherently good or bad, but because glossy-rifling in the dentist’s lobby to see that this is no it doesn’t prepare us in anything but body to get along isolated case, that celebrity is only afforded to those with.” This collision alone—of perhaps the most pho- who we can see failing. Britney or Lindsay or Jennifer tographically reproduced flesh and blood woman with may have been popular in their beginnings, but I sugan author whose carefully manicured image rests on gest they only became celebrities when we could see refuting all evidence of having a body—is worthy of them spiraling or collapsing, bloating or emaciating, its own consideration. More immediate, I would sug- or lapped up with that most pernicious symptom of gest, is the natural urgency such a lament carries hypocritical Schadenfreude, being cheated on. And beyond any validity to such surprisingly, sometimes we “While the death of the icon a claim. Why do we—and do actually see this happen, Marilyn was registered as loss, feel free to count yourself out as a furtively Ray-Banned, today’s burning-out stars like of this pronoun—even care cargo-panted starlet slides Anna are only painful remindabout Marilyn’s death, as cainto second base with Vince ers that there is nothing to lose sually and sincerely as I call Vaughn on a zoom-blurred in the first place.” her Marilyn, and just as easbeachside, just as we see ily take responsibility? Decades pass and we are still the victim’s retaliation through a rite I hope I’m not crying a lot for denying, some of us even clamoring coining here, the “revenge makeover.” at a bereavement that was not ours in the first place.

I wonder whether it is not the loss of mourning itself The standard-issue feminist/humanist response to that we are somehow mourning.

Anna Nicole’s disintegration, to the tabloid meltdowns, is that these women are buckling under ever more So while the death of the icon Marilyn was registered exacting cultural standards of beauty and the presas loss, today’s burning-out stars like Anna are only sure to be perfect. And surely along these lines there painful reminders that there is nothing to lose in the is a societal culpability with the late Smith, as attested first place. I will take Tom one step further and say that by early-career photos in the artfully tasteless Playboy the world today is even more at fault—and it is still too “memorial” showcase: even early in the game she early to tell—precisely because only in Anna Nicole’s was almost buried for being “overweight,” when she downfall will she be accorded fame, robbing her even is clearly and pleasantly zaftig. Whether or not she of true tragedy. And it only takes a few minutes of in fact became overweight in some kind of psychic

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protest, it’s hard not to be disgusted with such a procrustean corset of body image. But at the risk of sounding too polemical, might I venture that worse than the booze and the painkillers was her famous hunger “to be the next Marilyn Monroe.”

To say the “next” Marilyn is to miss her sublimity altogether, her perfection.

As nice a body to get around in as Marilyn Monroe might have been hazarded, it is not her figure, those sloe-gin eyelids, or anything on the level of enigmatic smile by which I’m moved to use the word perfection. But what I see in every photograph and postcard of her is an image of perfection nevertheless, something seen yet invisible. Unfashionable as this might be to say, even in the most staged and retouched studio fabrications, I see a corroboration between Marilyn and not the camera, not even the “male gaze,” but the place from which she’s seen. Or maybe with light itself, as Life rhapsodized in 1962: “Her face and body seem gilded by the sun… She gave warm life even to the cold coils of celluloid.” It is the image of splendor coming into being, knowingly and yet spontaneously–we might even say, originally–(and I think the proper feminist critique would question whether and why this site of revelation is reserved for women only). What we have lost since, I think, is the space for this splendor to emerge, not because we have become ugly or bad or fallen irrevocably, but because we cannot believe in the possibility of seeing something original, which Marilyn surely was. Even if everything had already been done half a century ago, perhaps we could look, act, as if it had not. Precisely this was what we, as a culture, denied to poor Anna Nicole, this space in which both grace and tragedy are made possible, the space in which the wind can blow out the candle.___ Shaun is a freelance pop-culturologist whose rantings can be found in encyclopedias, zines, anthologies and scribbled on the back of rave flyers. Currently he enjoys exile as a film publicist in the special horror of Hollywood, though he feels the tug of home equally from New York City, Detroit Rock City and Black Rock City.

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Photography by Scott Irvine Text by Anya Ferring

Amidst the clutter of creativity and hustle and bustle that is New York, Swoon takes a moment among the airy, almost bucolic pastures of Issue Project Room to shine a light on three visionary artists who have been leading lights in their own right for years past and many more to come. They are the vanguard of an authentic subculture of resistance, whose radical vision paved the way for the LES and Brooklyn to become the cultural destination it is today.

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Issue Project Room

vision + space + individuals

There is a two-tiered silo-shaped building along the banks of the Gowanus Canal in Redhook, Brooklyn. It is just barely discernable among the gently swaying trees and old warehouses surrounding it from the Carroll Street bridge. Conjectures about why such an odd vision must exist are not met with disappointment for the space is home to Issue Project Room, one of the most respected art and performance spaces in New York City today. Go there on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night and depending on the theme of the month you might find anything ranging from an avantgarde film to experimental music utilizing the performance area’s sixteen channel hemispherical sound system. The surrounding foilage-laden yard and outdoor patio combined with the performances within contribute to a full sensorial treat for the weary urban reveler.

Suzanne Fiol, artistic director of the space, founded the nonprofit four years ago to serve as both a cultural activist and artistic curatorial space dedicated to focus on experimental artists working within the fields of literary arts, music, and visual arts. “You really have to fight to keep your space alive in this political climate where there’s no room for art,” she says, noting that Issue exists solely through grant funding and member donations. “Society without art is a sick society,” she concludes.

They pride themselves on promoting and featuring artists who really push the envelope. Explains Fiol, “it’s always the experimentalists that pave the way for future concepts in society.”

Check out their schedule of of events at issueprojectroom.org

Assistant Photographer: Heung Heung Chin Make-up and Hair: Mariko Tokuno Concept: Anya Ferring Casting assisted by Suzanne Fiol Shot on location at Issue Project Room

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Garbageland

squats + trash + art

Rolando Politi moved to NYC in the early 80’s and has been a squatstartin’, trash-art makin’ renegade ever since. For the past several years he has been working on a community project known as “trash worship,” whereby he makes art out of trash at underground happenings and events.

He has been on the vangaurd of the NYC squatter’s movement since living in his first squat in the LES, while helping to establish ten other squats as well. His current home is a beautiful, spacious squat in the East Village, and is a testament to the hardwork and persistent vision of the individuals who built it.

In the summer of 1984 he was on the frontline of what was then known as the “main offensive” of the squat movement, when over 30 buildings around the East Village were being agressively inhabited by squatters. Of those only eleven have survived until today. “There was a very distinct difference between the movement we were in compared to other squat communities,” the Italian-born anarchist says. “We were in it for the long haul from A to Z, and wanted to completely rebuild our spaces so that we could have lifetime homes, versus just inhabiting a space for a couple of months or until whenever the authorities came to kick us out.” The squats in Berlin and Amsterdam, he explains, were more idealistic, whereas in Italy they were more political. “We were really in it for ourselves--we just wanted a living space.

This was really the ‘New York Spirit’; a more pragmatic style,” he adds. At his current home in the squat known as Bulletspace (a name which originates from a brand of heroine sold on the block during the squat’s inception in 1985), they are still in the process of gaining ownership and making it into an affordable co-op.

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Rolando is very interested in people’s relationship to discarded objects and “wasted matter.” As a child growing up in Italy, he remembers his mother and grandmother making clothes at home. “People of the past’s relationship to clothing was much more personal than it is today,” he says.

“They were either sewing it themselves or getting it sewn by someone they knew in the family, or a personal tailor.” Today the thrill of instant gratification and cheap production has subplanted the personal experience once associated with worn garments. Neither the clothing, he notes, nor the memories associated with it, last that long. This does not mean, however, that he is beyond appreciating a hint of glamour here and there, remarking with appreciation how his jacket for the shoot was a vintage Yves Saint Laurent. He pokes fun at himself, chuckling, “that is perhaps because i am Italian, so I must have an innate sense of style...”

As a self-taught artist, he surely has an innate sense of skill, which he has utilized in both art-making and squat-building. His apartment in the Bulletspace is clean and sparsely furnished, with everything made from scratch out of sustainable materials. He has always integrated materials from his surroundings into his work, and his work has subsequently reintegrated itself back into his lifestyle. “Yes, living in squats did inspire me to make trash art,” he says, “but I’ve always been a conceptual artist in my writing and sculpture. It has always been influenced by politics and conveying a social message--that’s what got me involved in occupying buildings in the first place.”

Currently he is working on a gigantic American flag made out of trash.

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“you have to be something of a trickster to live in this town�

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Photo by Deirdre N cGaw

Bluviolin

performance + music + the good fight

On April 14th Take It To The Bridge staged a peaceful protest at Tonic, a day after the avant music club was forced to close due insurmountable rent increases. What was supposed to be a 24 hour protest ended after just four hours when police arrived and informed everyone that they were now trespassing and had to leave or else. Local musicians Rebecca Moore and Marc Ribot refused to leave, playing until the police arrested and charged them both with a misdemeanor.

Rebecca was born and raised in NYC, and as the child of parents heavily devoted to the downtown avant-garde art scenes of New York in the 1970s, she was instilled from a young age with an appreciation of New York’s history and a drive to preserve it. Her father, the photographer Peter Moore, documented a variety of artistic performances including events staged by artists associated with the Fluxus movement, establishing a formidable archive of over half a million pictures in the process. Her parents were both a part of this community as well as its observers and documentarians. “Between my father’s photos of an art scene and community now basically completely gone that was so incredibly thriving, and my mom’s art-historian work, the seeds were planted for me to care about these issues,” explains Rebecca. “That, and being basically low-income myself and seeing as an artist how the neighborhoods artists went to were pounced upon soon after by developers. When I was a kid, Soho and Tribeca were deserted! Just some renegade artists living there.” Rebecca grew up on a block between Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen on a neglected street that was an exit from the Lincoln Tunnel, and now lives in the LES. “It is really crazy, but I have that rare perspective of being fairly young and

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yet getting to witness those transformations that not many New Yorkers have seen either because they didn’t grow up here, or they weren’t living in or going to those neighborhoods growing up.”

As a child she took to music and practiced piano and violin with daily devotion, while also performing in the works of many experimental artists at venues around NYC. Her music is ethereal and awakening, almost demanding a contemplative, active listening because it draws you in so immediately. Her albums so far include Admiral Charcoal’s Song (1996 Knitting Factory Records) and Home Wreckordings (2000 Knitting Factory Recornds). She is currently at work on her third CD which will be released in the Oracles series on John Zorn’s Tzadik record label.

Rebecca continues to lend her voice to several social groups as well as her music. “I am glad to work on these issues because I believe New York should not become a town only for the rich–that is not its history nor what makes it special,” she says. “This is truly a historic time where the door is being shut completely on the poor, and it is becoming a gated community.” As for her arrest at Tonic, both her and Ribot have been ordered to return for another court date in July. “Marc and I are not out of the woods so easily as we thought,” she says. “It seems they want to send a message to artists, to discourage them from standing up to save our small spaces that can’t pay these rents. Yet we remain hopeful that we will see a fair and just resolution and will continue to work on the issues art spaces and all New Yorkers face in these crazy times.”

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“it’s not about relying on happy endings, but what we do in the meantime”

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“it wasn’t about success or failure but the idea that my life would be a journey and that i would raise questions rather than answers”

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031 MM Serra wanted to be an artist from the time she was 4 years old. “I al-

ways knew I would be a woman outside of traditional society; an observer of that society,” she says. MM stands for Mary Magdalene, the name of her Italian grandmother, after whom she was named. As a child Serra was often ashamed of the name, yet as she grew up she realized it embodied a lot of the issues she found herself preoccupied with. “I was very interested in asking why women are represented in a certain way, and exploring the dichotomy between the virgin and the whore. My name happens to be a very good example of this dichotomy. I decided early on that I was queer, radical...”

She moved to NYC’s Ludlow street in 1987 and has subsequently enjoyed a long career of experimental filmmaking, being director of the legendary Filmmaker’s Co-op, and teaching such classes as Sexual Personae in Media Studies and The History of Avant Garde Cinema at the New School, among others. Serra is interested in exploring the intersections of women and desire in her films. “Anything connected with women and desire is often equated with shame,” she explains. Many of her films focus on reclaiming this territory, featuring her own fascinations and fantasies portrayed in layered beautiful images by way of example. The film Double Your Pleasure (2002), a four minute short that was part of a series of films making fun of commercials and is an homage to Andy Warhol’s “The Kiss,” features two girls making out on a bed of donuts, intermittenly pausing to stuff each other’s faces with the decadent food. Darling International (1999) is a gorgeous film shot on 16mm (featuring Taylor Meade and herself, among others), which explores sexual fantasy in a dreamscape land of old New York.

Its grainy black and white visual texture and layered soundtrack create a sense of familiar deja vu to the NYC-based viewer.

in fashion is creating a dramatic presence...you are living that life and celebrating that moment and that is extremely precious.” She believes that those who decry purveyors of style and fashion as flakey or one-dimensional aren’t quite seeing the whole picture. “There’s often this dichotomy between mind and body within certain sectors of society that believes if you’re an intellectual you can’t care about fashion. But the mind expands beyond the body, and fashion is what wraps you.” She continues, “I loved Coco Chanel. She was very poor as a child, and had to wear cufflinks on her sleeves and neckline signifying she was an orphan. Later on she took the idea of those cufflinks and incorporated them into her own womenswear line. She took something that was negative and reappropriated it herself into something positive and lovely. She transformed herself through fashion, and therefore for other women as well.” MM is a self-proclaimed optismist, “negativity is a part of life, maybe it can make you grow rather than destroy you,” she says. “Life is difficult, it’s a struggle for everyone.”

Perhaps it is such a positive attitude that carries her through the swift changes happening in NYC today. Serra believes that New York is still an epicenter for fashion and film, despite the brisk pace of changes afoot in its economic climate, often reflected in the state of the city’s real estate market. “It looks like NYC is being botoxed, with what’s happening “to all the buildings here,” she says, referencing the vast swaths of new condos and “renovated” old tenements cum luxury lofts that seem to be growing here day by day. “It seems like the country in general is in a transitional frustration and I believe New York reflects that,” she further muses. “However there are lots of great things going on to counteract this fear. Creativity is a great affirmation, and all the creativity that exists in New York today equalizes the fear.”

Her short film Divine Possibilities (2003) explores fashion as costume and boutique culture in the Lower East Side. She believes that “to take an article of clothing and tie it into your imagination is something positive, it shows an ability to dream and enjoy your fantasies.” She concludes, “indulging

Divine Possibility

film + radical + beauty

Art Parade (2007) DVD

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opinion

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Modernism & its

Discontents Evolution Beyond the Origins of Menswear

By Alex Joseph

Tim Hamilton

L

ast spring, while visiting Paris, I tried on a jacket

by Dior Homme. I have no idea whether Hedi Slimane designed it–I assume he approved the look, since he was then Dior’s creative director for menswear–but the thing has lingered in my mind. It was one of those fancy track jackets that everyone made last year. A drum major on an acid trip dreaming of Sergeant Pepper might have worn it. This loony garment looked silly on my ordinary torso, and the price (north of $2000) would have made a sizable dent in my budget. And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The lesson of The House of Mirth and Madame Bovary is: Once you’re seduced by material things, you’re doomed. For men, the fashion issue is compounded: it’s for girls. In Death in Venice, Gustav succumbs to cholera–but not before dyeing his hair and rouging his cheeks. In a word, he is emasculated.

Death, for most men, is far preferable.

Fashion loves tragedy, too: Hedi Slimane no longer reigns at Dior. (Gone also are the track jackets, supplanted this season by drab military-inspired numbers).

Either the firm gave him the axe or he walked away, depending on your source. In any case, why? One clue appeared last March in a New Yorker profile of Slimane. Though the writer confessed to being un-

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trained in fashion, he nonetheless observed about Dior Homme’s winter show: “a great deal of it seemed more appropriate for a woman than for a man.”

the essential modern outfit, that it has a certain fundamental aesthetic superiority, a more advanced seriousness of visual form than womenswear.

Bring on the cholera.

Many men still do fit comfortably inside this capacious envelope, but to me, the suit is dead. Where is the Christian Dior for menswear, a designer willing to stretch beyond the means of modernism?

From the extreme modernist point of view, Abstract Expressionism is the highest pinnacle of art. In creating his “New Look” for women in 1947, Christian Dior turned away from modWhoever he is, he’ll need “Recently, I’ve been getting a ernism. Reacting to Adrito adjust something deeply strange itch, a stuck feeling, from ingrained and mysterious an’s shoulder pads and menswear. And I wonder whether in mens style. Since about Chanel’s tailored outfits other men are, too.” (which both he and, inci1820, the suit has provided dentally, Proust, abhorred) an unassailable aesthetic he turned an entire generation of women into his little truth. Though it alters, it stays essentially the same. flowers. “New Look” was a misnomer: Dior’s corseted Even the most spirited renegade with the most outré waists, sloped shoulders and crinolined skirts were his- sensibility falters when confronted with one in a crosstoricized, Second Empire flashbacks. In other words, walk or on a subway train. Yet it hasn’t always been this his ideas were romantic. way, as anyone who saw the show A Rakish History of Menswear at the New York Library last winter knows.

For most men, however, the prevailing sartorial mode At various times in history, men have worn hose, wigs, is anxiety. Beau Brummel’s axiom that a man should corsets, skirted garments, and yes, even makeup. dress not to be noticed still holds true, but the means and terms of this camouflage have shifted. Recently, We’re a long way from man-mascara, I think. But reI’ve been thinking a lot about Anne Hollander’s 1994 cently, I’ve been getting a strange itch, a stuck feeling, book, Sex and Suits. She writes that the tailored suit is from menswear. And I wonder whether other men are,

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What should great menswear look like? too. When a man has absorbed the identity-morphing photographs of Cindy Sherman, the architecture of Zaha Hadid, AnOther Man magazine, skater and hip-hop culture, Brokeback Mountain, the war in Iraq, and the blizzard of style advice, what does he buy, if not a suit? A $250 bedazzled tee shirt that reads “Kill the Rich?” Please.

Perhaps he buys the designs of Tim Hamilton, who was recently featured in Esquire. Sold in Bergdorf’s and the uberleet boutique Odin in SoHo, his line is like Ralph Lauren for guys who are sick of Ralph. His fall collection, he told me, was inspired in part by the elegantly slouchy style of the painter Willem de Kooning.

A beautiful black cashmere sweater gave me a sense of relief–a suit it was not, but even a man in a suit would have to respect its quiet luxury.

There may be other ways to resolve the paradox.

Guys don’t want to look “lovely,” but a certain type of intellectual loveliness can be butch.

Top: Yoko Devereaux Bottom: This Old Thing?

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Last year, Roy Caires and Tommy Cole, creators of the line This Old Thing?, pulled this off with a series of shirts called White Collar Crime. Mixing tuxedo, guayabera, and straight oxford styles, these one-of-a-kind creations featured innovative structure and witty details. Composed out of repurposed vintage, This Old Thing? combines a sustainable/recyclable aesthetic with a Japanese-inflected emphasis on structure, and the White Collar series translated this concept into a men’s wardrobe staple. In their shop, Alter, on Franklin Street and Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn, Caires showed me a shirt with an ingenious dart that ran up the sleeve, eliminating excess volume; a yoke that improves drape, made from shirt cuffs; and the

ghostly remnant of a pocket. “It’s like a piece of art for guys,” he said. Caires learned from Yohji Yamamoto, for whom he once worked: men like fashion that appeals to their intellect.

In the end, I wonder whether the vein for progressive designers to mine is subversive humor. Can it be manifested without camp aesthetics or infantilizing?

At Behaviour on 19th Street, store owner Chad Vo –a buyer who can truly be said to curate–pointed out the label Yoko Devereaux. The line’s designer, Andy Salzer, told me he studied art history, not design, and his clothes have a refreshingly non-industry feel. A gray sports jacket in sweatshirt material, with black piping and great darts, looked masculine but relaxed. It went over a startling green button-down shirt that fit without clinging. The outfit resolved paradoxes: it was formal without being snooty, smart but not flashy. I could wear it to work or wear it out. Best of all, it had wit in the details. It still wasn’t gold bouillion and lace, but it was worth the $350. I bought it.

In retrospect, Coco Chanel’s revolution was simple: she made a suit out of jersey, took a stroll on the boardwalk, and got noticed. The de-modernization of menswear might be as simply effected, though if not by Hedi, whom? It’s interesting to note that Slimane dumped Dior right around the time that freaky Thom Browne got hired at Brooks Brothers, of all places. Would someone please put Jake Gyllenhaal in a Browne ensemble, and launch a viral video on YouTube?___ Alex Joseph writes about fashion, art, and the movies for a variety of publications. He writes full time at FIT and is also the creator of The Dick Cheney Project.

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l e z n u Rap d e x i m e R Hair: Janice Brown Hair Assistants: Afia Glover and Michele Worrel Make-up: Chanel Dorsett Jewelry: Brigid B.Designs Models: Jeneva with Maza Talent Agency, Yoko Kawase, Jaleelah Rahim, and Erin with MMG

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Shoot Location: “Jane’s Carousel,” as it is commonly referred as in the neighborhood, was built in 1922 and purchased in 1984 by Jane Wellentas, artist and patron of the arts. The careful restoration of the carousel has been in place for over 22 very dedicated years.The carousel is temporarily stored in DUMBO with hopes of a permanent home in the Brooklyn Bridge Park nearby.

first page: Dress by Alisha Vintage boots from Marmalade Jewelry by In God We Trust second page: Dress by Alisha Vintage hat from Marmalade Jewelry by In God We Trust third page: Dress by Alisha Vintage rain coat from Marmalade Jewelry by In God We Trust fourth page: Dress by In God We Trust Vintage hat from Marmalade Jewelry by In God We Trust this page: Dress by In God We Trust Vintage hat from Marmalade

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Styling and concept: Ewa Josefsson Make Up: Robert Sesnek and Jannicke Vorren Hair: Jannicke Vorren Model: Ty Hans, Ford Models Production: Shauna Cummins Stylist assistant: Tonantzin Warmoth Photographer assistant: Michael Rizzo Digital tech: Joanna Foster Illustrations: Anya Ferring

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Alisha Trimble is a new genre artist who uses fashion as her medium.

Her design carefully articulates a message that illuminates the whimsy and creativity of childhood dress-up with the careful taste of a true style maven. A graduate of the San Francisco Institute of the Arts, she pays careful attention to the technical aspects of craft and wearabelity without compromising her artistic aesthetic. Through a delicate weave of proportion, color and texture her clothes create characters that live beyond the seam. Her last collection drew inspiration from the would-be wardrobes of fairy tale heroines, including violet hand-painted dresses and sequined unicorn halter tops. Her style attempts to viscerally amplify the freedom of expression that exists in that moment before we become aware of our skin; the result is a contagious and colorful expression of fashion. Aside from an upstate yoga Ashram retreat, or a downtown art opening you can also catch Alisha on Brooklyn Public Access as the host of New York Fashion with Alisha Trimble where her witty and quirky commentary give both Joan Rivers and Elsa Klench a run for their money.

This page: Dress by Alisha Jewelry by In God We Trust

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S W O O N2 PART Y #

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Check out www.swoonmagazine.com for details on the next party!

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Photography: Ben Rosenzweig Illustration: Marco Amitrano

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opinion

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The

Anti Anti-Hipster Yeah, That’s Right

A rant by Franklin Schneider

“Fucking hipster!”

Who hasn’t heard that left right and center these days, even from so-called hipsters themselves? From such websites as www.theantihipster.com to a recent June issue of TONY entitled “The Hipster Must DIE!” to Gawker’s constant crusade against hipsters, such anti-hipster sentiment seems to be running rampant throughout disposable media sources these days, seeming eerily reminiscent of the 1950s mainstream media’s campaign to associate beat culture with psychosis. Here, one hipster bites back:

W

hat I want to know is, when did people who take their style cues from network television get the nerve to criticize hipsters? It’s like they’ve forgotten that everything they read, wear, listen to, and otherwise consume is a watered-down, heteroed-up version of shit I thought was cool like four years ago. If you’re against hipsters, what are you actually protesting? Coolness? It makes no sense on the face of it, but then I remembered a lesson imparted years ago at some dead-end writing job I was crashing and burning out of, where my style had been deemed “insufficiently accessible.” An obese crone in upper management sat me down and told me that “not everyone can achieve excellence, and so it’s an alienating quality. It engenders resentment, and it divides people. To get ahead in this world, you must strive not for excellence, but for mediocrity...”

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Nowadays it seems these mores of corporate culture who just take the costume of the subculture with no have trickled down to not only popular culture but sub- thoughts to authenticity–which is the one thing that culture as well, particularly in the media. can’t be bought, forced, manufactured, or faked. The

fact is, hipster culture–true hipster culture, of the vaThing is, I’m bothered by most hipsters too nowadays. riety found only in small pockets of America anymore The hate from the mainstream is understandable, but –is a non-culture. It’s a rejection of the established some distinctions need to be made. The “hipster” mainstream, and in its most authentic form it’s a niscene (I don’t even like hilistic vacuum, a realm “What’s commonly referred to as ‘hip- of indifference and disthat term; for a long time sters’ in today’s New York are really I insisted on referring to gust towards the culture ‘poseurs,’or someone who just takes myself as a “bohemian,” it rejects. A true hipster the costume of the subculture with no doesn’t give a fuck about but since everyone’s thoughts to authenticity.” an idiot they thought it the next big party, the meant I was German) next big trend, the next used to be (and should be) a refuge for the cultural big whatever. What’s so hip about being a grinning, avant-garde; intellectuals, artists, true eccentrics, etc. overeager consumer troll?

Somehow along the way it just became a refuge for people who shop at Urban Outfitters. This is especially And don’t get me started on irony. Irony is, at base, hora New York-centric phenomenon, because of the fact ror; an existential disgust so profound that it forces one that it costs a shitload to live here, and so the only peo- to take a pose of perpetual inversion. The world being ple who can afford to stick around are either trust-fund such a toilet that the only way to slog on is to invert the dilettantes or business types who shuck the wingtips very fundamental values of reality, bad becoming good, at night for pre-vintaged Chucks. Soft, hapless, weak, sad becoming happy, ugly becoming beautiful. There coddled bourgeois (remember that word?). In most is no real irony in hipster culture anymore, and the term cases, if you have enough money to live in New York, itself is only used now as a pass to indulge in trash culyou are almost surely removed from any sphere of ture under vaguely intellectual auspices. (Exhibit A becredibility, coolness, or (cringe) hipness. ing the packs of bitches who devour Us Weekly every single week – but they’re not vapid bimbos, because What’s commonly referred to as “hipsters” in today’s they’re doing it “ironically.”) Trucker hats and slouchy New York are really “poseurs,” or off-the-rack hipsters boots have nothing to do with existential despair.

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Illustration by Claudio Parentela

But enough about hipster in-fighting. We all agree, not all hipsters are cool. Many a time I’ve found myself in a room full of scallywag supertramps with Rollie Fingers mustaches and be-bangled American Apparel-type girls with side ponytails, all trying to out-pose each other, and been overwhelmed by loathing. But you know, they’re trying at least, you do get points for trying.

Look, everyone can’t be cutting edge. Some people are, some aren’t. But come on, if you’re not cool, you can at least comport yourself with some dignity. Don’t be all sour grapes about it. What I’m saying is, don’t mess everything up with your petty whining. We’ve got a good thing going here, us hipsters and you squares: you all work nine-to-five, pay taxes, form pair bonds and breed more drones, maintain the roads, take out the garbage, and basically hold shit together while we have uninhibited sex, wear cool clothes, intermittently hold down cush jobs, and get fucked up a lot. In return, we’ll continue to let you have our music, fashion, art, drugs, etc, once we get tired of it. In the meantime, I guess we can concede you a certain amount of jealous muttering, but please restrict it to when you’re among your own kind, such as during commercial breaks while drinking “good beer” and using appropriated ethnic slang.

Thank you.

Franklin Schneider has two cats and rarely cleans his house. His wardrobe consists of handmade smocks customized with designs he commissions from deathrow inmates.

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STYLE FILE

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find it here...

Marmalade Boutique (pg. 39-47)

63 Thompson Street (212) 343-1658

172 Ludlow St. NY, NY 212-473-8070

Chelsea Girl Couture (pg. 18-21)

186 Spring St. (212) 343-7090 Lost Shoe (pg. 24-31)

168 Ludlow St. NY, NY 212-529-2537 Alter (pg. 32)

109 Franklin St. (at Greenpoint Ave.) Brooklyn, NY 11222 www.thisoldthing.net 718-784-8818 Odin (pg. 32)

Odinnewyork.com 328 East 11th St. 10003 212-475-0066 Behaviour (pg. 32)

231 W. 19th St. NY, NY 212-352-8380 Tar Baby Salon (pg. 34-38)

In God We Trust (pg. 39-47)

135 Wythe Ave. Brooklyn, NY 718-388-2012 and 265 Lafayette St. NY, NY Clothing by Alisha (pg. 39-47)

You can find Alisha at; www.alishatrimble.com

Photo by Enrico Gaoni Styling by Ewa Josefsson

About Glamour

103 N. 3rd St. Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-599-3044 Subdivision

41-18 Vernon Blvd Long Island City, NY 718-482-1899 Maiden Hong Kong

502 Lorimer St. Brooklyn, NY 11206 718-388-8885

375 Utica Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11213 718-735-2121

Harriet’s Alter Ego (pg. 50)

BrigidB.Designs (pg. 34-39)

Te Casan (pg. 50)

www.shopbluegenes.com

382 W. Broadway NY, NY 212-584-8000

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Chelsea Girl (pg. 18-21)

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293 Flatbush Ave. Brooklyn, NY 718-388-8885

6/4/07 3:02:04 AM

www.swoonmagazine.com

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