The Idle Class: Summer 2021 - The Fashion Issue by The Idle Class

caN’t WaIt To taKE a bITe

faLl 2021....

caChE StuDIos BEnTonVIlLe, Ar coVId ProTOcoLs WilL be FOlLowED • idLEcLasSmAG.coM/bLacKApPle2021

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Featuring the work of Featuring fine art by

YELENA BRADPETROUKHINA CUSHMAN Little Rock, Arkansas 1501 South Main Street, Suite H Little Rock, Arkansas 501.664.0030 // 501.454.6969 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd. 501.664.0030

Miami, Florida 305.528.4971 Miami, Florida 305.528.4971

www.boswellmourot.com www.boswellmourot.com

“Self Portrait,” 3D sculpture “Rivercrest I (Looking Northwest)”

presents

Home: Wherever the Soul Connects

traditional media works by Louise Mandumbwa and Crawford Mandumbwa August 25 -October 5, 2021

Louise Mandumbwa, Jacob, charcoal on paper, 18 x 24”

(501) 372-6822 hearnefineart@gmail.com hearnefineart.com 1001 Wright Ave Little Rock, Arkansas, 72206

Crawford Mandumbwa, Smile, acrylic on canvas, 33 x 23”

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THE FASHION ISSUE 2021 PUBLISHER + FOUNDER Kody Ford EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Julia M. Trupp

THE CATWALK: DESIGNER PICTORIALS PAGES 22–29 Looking for some fashion inspiration? Slide down the runway and check out stunning work by favorite designers across the state, including some looks by the winner of the 2019 Black Apple Award for Favorite Designer, Sindhu Varagani of ETHWES.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jenny Vos DESIGNER Dana Holroyd CONTRIBUTORS Sean Fitzgibbon Phillip Huddleston Yani Ko Correne Spero COVER Beau Jones ARTWORK Lupita Albarran Chad Maupin PHOTOGRAPHY Mike Morris Lyndsey Suzanne Emily Smith Brandon Watts PROMISE TO KEEP PAGE 9 Sweeping Promises’s Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug’s successful 2020 album Hunger For A Way Out debuted in the thick of quarantine, but that hasn’t stopped them from making more music in their bathroom-turned-studio.

onemanband.gallery

A NEW PERSPECTIVE PAGE 10 From running his newly opened gallery in Jonesboro to creating art pieces for homes in Palm Springs, it’s clear to see that Beau Jones is here to stay—and slay. PROCESS PIECE PAGE 14 Discover how Little Rock–based artist Michael Shaeffer created a mural at the Momentary in Bentonville. MEET YOUR NEW, COOL BIG SISTER PAGE 18 Brandy Lee is this year’s Designer in Residence for Emerge II at Interform, and she is working on a five-piece capsule collection set to debut this fall. The Idle Class talked with Lee about her work as Big Sister and what’s next (including a dream to eventually create her own Halloween costume collection).

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Lyndsey Suzanne Photography IG @LYNDSEYSUZANNEPHOTOS

IDLE CLASS CONTACT //IDLECLASSMAG.COM IG // @THEIDLECLASS FB // THEIDLECLASS EMAIL// ADVERTISING@IDLECLASSMAG.COM EDITORIAL@IDLECLASSMAG.COM

While I love a good printed shirt or skinny jean (no, you can’t take them away from us, Gen Z!), I’ve never considered myself a fashionista. I’ve been known to wear clashing patterns or mismatch my socks—and that was before quarantine. I mean, can you blame me? Growing up, my guiding light for personal expression was the aughts’ greatest fashion icon Lizzie McGuire. The queen of chokers and crimped hair reigned before us millennials as we begged our parents for a wardrobe from Limited Too—and yes, I may still rock some of those same naughty-aughty trends today. As one of our featured designers Brandy Lee puts it on page 18, we need a better relationship with our clothing, no matter what time period it’s from: “Forget all the trends and fads and move into wearing whatever we like because it makes us feel good regardless of what’s in style.” Art is about expression, and what better way to express ourselves than through the art of fashion? I’m elated to bring you another Fashion Issue—my second since becoming editor back in the Before Times of 2019. Of course, many things look much different this time around, but one thing remains true—we’ve got an amazing, ever-evolving fashion industry here in Arkansas, and it gets better every year. In this issue, we hear from five members of the art and fashion nonprofit Interform’s spring and summer designer cohort, Emerge II, and we learn about supremely talented designers and stylists from around the state through beautiful pictorials, including a spotlight on our 2019 Black Apple Favorite Designer Sindhu Varagani of ETHWES. By the time you get to the back cover, you might be inspired to create a fashion show of your own. And now I must get back to w-e-r-k! Here’s to another fierce issue together—hey now, this is what dreams are made of. Your friendly neighborhood editor, Julia M. Trupp

Mark Twain once quipped, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” Fashion is all about navigating between seriousness and whimsy. It’s about finding your comfort zone and then pushing the limit a bit. If you know me, you know I like clothes. I have made some questionable choices over the years. Just ask anyone who knew me back during undergrad and they might say, “Kody Ford—that guy who wore polyester disco shirts all the time?” I got real weird with it for a few years. Since then, I’ve stepped it up and tried to keep it classy—ties, scarves, driver’s caps. Maybe sometimes I look like an extra from Peaky Blinders, but I’m okay with that. Call me crazy, but I think the world would be a better place if we wore more three-piece tweed suits. Fashion is about self-expression. It’s about who you are on the outside giving the world a peek at who you are on the inside. In Arkansas, many men rarely venture out from a Realtree motif unless it’s a plaid button down shirt with a North Face vest. Once I drive south of Little Rock, people look at me like I’m still wearing those Saturday Night Fever shirts, even if I’m just in a khakis and a sweater. To those guys, I say have a little fun with it. Think about who you are deep down. Maybe you’re Don Draper in a pinstripe suit. Maybe you're Harry Styles rocking his grandma’s pearls. Maybe you’re Andre 3000 just being Andre 3000. Don’t be afraid to get weird with it sometimes. Because fashion isn’t just chasing the latest trend or pricey brands. It’s having fun, standing out in the crowd and, ultimately, being your authentic self inside and out. We’ve done several fashion issues over the years and they’re always fun. Thank you to everyone who helped make this one great and to our advertisers. Please support them because they support us. I still haven’t hit it big in cryptocurrency, so we need all the financial support we can get. Maybe one day The Idle Class will be bankrolled by Etherum or Bitcoin, but I gotta get diamond hands first. I

just sold some Dogecoin though if you wanna grab some coffee. I can pay for that, at least. Stay tuned for the Black Apple Awards this Fall. We’d hoped to do them in the summer but decided having them in a parking lot in June was a bad idea. We tried that a few years ago and some people got heatstroke. So live and learn. Anyway, get vaccinated and go enjoy being around people again. Kody Ford

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“I loved living among the Ozarks and going hiking, seeing the mountains and the foliage. It wasn’t until I left Arkansas that I realized as much as I want to go everywhere and do everything, it’s really special that I had that.” Mondal’s musical background includes piano lessons as a child and a foray into the guitar as a teenager. “I had a practice guitar I begged my dad to get me when I was 15 or 16, and I tried to teach myself. I didn’t play in bands as a teenager. I didn’t think I was cool enough. I felt sort of like I was on the outside looking in.” At Hendrix College she majored in music, but it was a chance meeting with Schnug, originally from Texas, that set them on their current musical path. “I was a sophomore and he was a freshman and we met in the practice space of the music building. I saw his head pop up in the window of the door and he was like ‘Are y’all in a band? Can I play with you?’”

Sweeping Promises’s Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug’s successful 2020 album Hunger For A Way Out debuted in the thick of quarantine, but that hasn’t stopped them from making more music from their bathroom-turned-studio WORDS / CORRENE SPERO PHOTO / JACKIE LEE YOUNG It’s not every day a band with Arkansas roots gets played by Iggy Pop on his BBC radio show, but after one spin through Sweeping Promises’s Hunger For A Way Out, it makes perfect sense. The 2020 release, which NME hails as a collection of “raw and urgent basement bangers” has earned the band praise from various corners of the blogosphere and landed them on several “best of” year-end lists. Lira Mondal—bassist, synth-player, and vocalist of Sweeping Promises—settles in to talk about the band’s adventures as her other half in music and life Caufield Schnug busies himself setting up what they jokingly refer to as “the studio” in the bathroom of their house near Austin, Texas. “DIY or die!” Mondal says with a smile. Mondal was born in Arkadelphia and grew up in Fayetteville until moving to Russellville with her family at 14. She began exploring music as a student in Arkansas’s public schools. “I went to Russellville High and did all-county choir. Of course, when I lived in Arkansas, I felt its flyover state status. I used to think, ‘The Backstreet Boys will never come to Arkansas!’ But, I so treasured living and growing up in Arkansas. There’s no place like it.” Of her childhood in Northwest Arkansas, Mondal recalls,

Schnug, who co-wrote Hunger For a Way Out with Mondal and plays bass and drums on the album, began playing in punk bands at 13 and has a similar memory of their first meeting. “I was not a music major and I was trying to break into the music building to play the drum set. I saw Lira playing and singing and she was really good. She had raw talent.” When asked about the possible complications of being a couple and a band, Mondal jokes, “Well, we were in a band before we started dating, so it’s music first!” It was at Hendrix that Schnug encouraged Mondal’s bass-playing. “Lira has perfect pitch, so I couId be like ‘Play a D,’ and she could play it.” Schnug says. Mondal adds, “I always loved the bass, and I learned about both Kims [Gordon and Deal] and admired this legacy of female bassists. I was a music major, so I had theory on my side, but when it came to the bass I didn’t practice any specific technique. I just did it all from feel and from ear.” Mondal and Schnug’s postgraduate journey led them to Boston where Schnug attended Harvard (now finishing his doctorate degree remotely) and Mondal worked as a high-end pastry chef. Hunger For A Way Out was recorded at Harvard with one mic in what Mondal describes as “this underground concrete science lab re-purposed into an artist space with 40-foot ceilings and amazing natural reverb.” The changes to both academic life and the restaurant world brought about by COVID-19 prompted the band to relocate to Austin where they started

a new Sweeping Promises album, recording vocals in the bathroom while tracking bass and drums at a studio about five minutes away. With characteristic humility, Mondal credits much of the success of Hunger For A Way Out to Schnug’s production, and her face lights up when talking about her partner: “Caufield does the engineering, production, and the mixing. He has such a unique sensibility.” “I come from a tradition of home recording,” Schnug says. “I believe that capturing sounds in a personal and direct way is important.” In line with this philosophy, the band’s sound is minimalist in all the best ways, with Mondal and Schnug both recording through one guitar amp. “With Sweeping Promises, there’s this idea of ‘one’; we record into one mic, the record is in mono, and a lot of things happen from one position,” Schnug says. “The amps are always in one place, and we stand in the same place. It’s kind of like with camera angles in a film—you can get different shots with different cameras, but Sweeping Promises is one-dimensional. It’s all from one position.” Sweeping Promises has plans to tour through as much of 2022 as possible and are contemplating a move to Los Angeles, but no matter how far they may roam, they feel it’s important to stay connected to the Arkansas art and music scene. “We feel like we learned how to be a band in Arkansas,” Schnug says. Mondal and Schnug recently donated proceeds from a successful Sweeping Promises Bandcamp Friday vinyl sale to Central Arkansas’s music and arts nonprofit Trust Tree; organizations with a focus on music education, especially those encouraging girls in music, hold a special place in their hearts.

“I owe a lot of where I am to having educators in my life in Arkansas whose mission was supporting young people in the arts,” Mondal says. “There were some students who came from rough backgrounds and these music teachers were like their social workers. And it’s really important to have girls believe ‘I can do this! I have every right to make some noise!’ I love that!” // SWEEPINGPROMISES.BANDCAMP.COM IG // @SWEEPING.PROMISES

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ART FOR ALL Octavio Logo's Song of Seas mural at Holcomb House adds pops of color to downtown Springdale.

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life in bloom Little Rock-based Argentinian artist Maximiliano Dominguez uses his platform La Rosa Collective to raise awareness about fast fashion, community outreach and human enlightenment.

WORDS / YANI KO PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST Born in Salta, Argentina, and currently residing in Little Rock, Maximiliano Dominguez, 27, did not let the pandemic halt his creative efforts in the fashion world. Under the umbrella of La Rosa Collective, Dominguez operates a screen printing business, the global fashion label, RAIZ, as well as a second-hand curated clothing brand, La Rosa Antigua, which launched in October of 2020. Dominguez's La Rosa Antigua project features collectible, hand-selected, vintage clothing and was born from his mission to spread awareness of the negative impact of fast fashion and modern consumerism. The collection can be found on his Instagram or website. "La Rosa Collective has become a community and creative platform of

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compassion and purpose. Our mission is to bridge communities and support artists, makers, and dreamers through various resources, services, programming and projects," Dominguez said. Dominguez worked on community outreach through his collective in association with the Black Lives Matter movement and said this was a highlight of his career. "I reached out to various artists across the state of Arkansas to team up and establish some fundraising to donate to grassroots organizations across the state," he said. The label RAIZ, which translates from Spanish to "root or origin" and launched in 2013, specializes in graphic T-shirts and hoodies influenced by Dominguez's Latinx culture, skateboarding, underground music, and photography. Dominguez taught himself various skills through the brand such as sewing, screen printing, graphic design, marketing, and branding.

"And most of all, community compassion," he said. The label's most iconic collections heavily feature the "el ojo" ("the eye") design as well as rose details. Dominguez says the eye design symbolizes RAIZ's "open your mind" mantra and represents universal enlightenment and truth. The rose design is a representation of humanism, Dominguez described, with the rose being “one of the most beautiful, delicate and painful flowers on this earth." "Our human journey is an effort to bloom into our most genuine self," he said. As for the future of La Rosa Collective, Dominguez hopes to recreate, in new locations, his first art installation, "Rose Garden," which included 500 live roses, barbed wire, chain link fence, and other native Arkansas greenery and took place at 360 Studio in 2018.

"Our goal was to emulate the "The Beauty of Life to Death" by using real roses that would decay and drop leaves across the gallery throughout the weekend," Dominguez said. The three-day installation coincided with the release of his 2018 spring/summer collection for RAIZ. Dominguez said he is developing frameworks that will allow him to collaborate and co-work with various communities through initiatives and calls-to-action in an effort to advocate for change and social development. "Whether its entrepreneurial, creative, educational, personal or social, our true compassion is rooted in the belief of a prospering collective existence," Dominguez said. // SOLO.TO/MXDZ IG // @LAROSA.MAXIMILIANO

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