7 Best Collections of Milan Fashion Week

March 3, 2016

The fashion industry, much of it anyway, wants to tell the story that Mr. Alessandro Michele has not only cemented a cultural revolution at Gucci, but that his revolution has reverberated throughout the entire city of Milan. This is simply not true: Milan is still Milan, and Milan is at its best when its storied luxury houses do what they do best. Luckily, many of those houses were in fine form for FW 2016: Prada, Bottega Veneta, Marni, and Jil Sander all introduced stunning collections. Nevertheless, Milan is still marked by gaudy and opulent brands never too easy on the eyes, unless that’s your thing: Phillip Plein, Dolce & Gabbana, Etro, and the like feel increasingly out of step with the current tastes of style. If Dolce really has found influence in Gucci, it is only a step towards finding relevance. That relevance savored during the brand’s Sex and the City glory days will probably never come back.

The best Milan-based brands right now have an indefinable quality that makes them seem like they might be weird fits for the perceived traditionalism defining Milan but nevertheless find themselves better suited to the city than they would elsewhere. Damir Doma, for instance, has flourished in Milan after seeming to be buried under the heft of the Paris schedule in the first few years of his brand’s existence.

This was a good season for Milan, with lots of the brands using a sense of giddy romance and poetry that emphasizes the state of mind of the Italian state. I was just in Florence and Milan, and the feeling that I felt there was pure bliss and contentment. It’s hard to separate the best of the Italian fashion from that feeling. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

1. Marni

Fashion design at its simplest is the identifying of interesting shapes and color palettes. When you have those two aspects in your collections, embellishment and decoration become far away after-thoughts: icing on the aesthetic cake. That is most likely why Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni is continuously revered, as her brand always remains an exploration or architecture and light. Her FW 2016 collection was perhaps one of her least minimal, but the shapes were still the first thing striking about the clothes. The sleeves on the knits were widened to epic proportions, while the garments lay cropped to the hips. Though the clothes drew attention, they didn’t at all draw attention away from the female form. They accentuated it, and even sexualized it. For a brand so revered as a “clothes as art” label, I don’t think Marni gets credit for how sexual it can be. These are seductive garments, or maybe captivating is the right word. As stated before, Castiglioni got a little taken with embellishment in this collection, as in the kaleidoscopic blue and white prints that featured on both a dress as well as a knit and trousers pairing. But they weren’t opulent. They were sort of dreamy. There’s still nothing like Marni.

2. Prada

With Prada being the global juggernaut it is, it’s safe to say that many of the women that wear the label aren’t aware of the fact that Miuccia Prada is a communist with a taste for radical art and the spirit of rock n’ roll. As if to remind the world of this fact she presented her FW 2016 collection. Set to a roaring soundtrack of songs by radical female musicians PJ Harvey and Nico, FW 2016 was Prada’s most freewheeling collection in seasons. Ms. Prada said that this collection was about a woman starting over with what she has, as in throwing all one’s clothes on the ground as assembling something new from it. As such, the collection used a variety of garments seemingly out of place with one another coming together and creating something fascinating to look at. Pseudo technical outerwear sat atop cocktail dresses, while other coats brought to fruition a post-WWII referencing ensemble. The colors in this collection were mesmerizing, the way the hues of brown and green and orange and blue all clashed but complimented one another. Prada, as wild as it gets in its stories and ideas, still focuses on product. There wasn’t one item here that women won’t want to buy. Ms. Prada says she is interested in teaching after the show. Teaching women to dress? She certainly could, but still Prada can really work for every woman once broken down.

3. Jil Sander

I haven’t thought much about Jil Sander in a while (other than the brand’s Uniqlo collaborations because I needed a suit at a nice price) but it feels like the house creative director Rodolfo Paglialunga has finally gotten a grasp of what the Jil Sander customer wants. That was evident in the menswear collection that was characterized by minimal lines and an overall harsh militaristic aesthetic and color palette. In a similarly toned down but different palette of black, white, grey, and silver, the FW 2016 womenswear collection also felt quintessentially Jil Sander: minimal but strong. Sander herself was always able to create a striking and imposing look with the least bit of gesture, and that is evident here with the masculine-leaning dresses and coats. Nothing much going on, and yet I imagine if I saw a woman walking down the street like this there’d be no way my eye wouldn’t be following her around. Bravo Rodolfo (plus replacing Raf Simons is a thankless job from the get-go).

4. Missoni

It’s being written by many that Angela Missoni’s best collection in years is in someway due to the success of Alessandro Michele at Gucci. But really it just seemed like Missoni doing what Missoni does best: knits, knits, and more knits. The first 14 knits featured Missoni’s hippie-luxe chunk knits cut into sweaters, dresses, robes, beanies, and scarves. It all seemed older Missoni than new Gucci, looking back on the 1970s Laurel Canyon women that made Missoni the brand it is.

5. Bottega Veneta

Tomas Maier revolutionized the idea of luxe sportswear, but now that every brand has more or less started ripping him off he’s abandoned casualwear for something more adult and powerful. Really, nothing looks as sharp as Bottega Veneta when Maier is at his best, as in the FW 2016 collection. From the first look, an oversized pantsuit, you can see Maier’s ability to infuse a touch of brutality into elegance, that is only furthered by the increasingly technical looks that came thereafter. Maier is of course one of fashion’s master technicians, evidenced here by a multitude of plaid looks in knit and leather. A leather plaid trench coat was one of the most striking looking pieces of the entire season. The collection didn’t seem to have any single theme or inspiration; Maier is a product man and uses the best technologies to bring those products to fruition. He utilized new Italian machinery for the knitting in the collection, best evidenced by the paper-thin dresses that defined the middle part of the show. And as usual, the shoes and boots were quite nice.

6. Damir Doma

Damir Doma has flourished since leaving Paris for Milan last year. It’s not just he no longers finds himself overshadowed in the glut of revolutionary designers that show in Paris, it’s that his brand feels a little more Italian. Though it is conceptual, it is vague in its conceptions. It’s very much about structure, and the poetry is in the architecture of the garments. In some ways, he has just as much in common with Jil Sander as he does with Rick Owens. For FW 2016, Doma consulted his actual models to see how they would like to wear the clothes, capturing the inner being of each woman in the show (yikes that sounded pretentious didn’t it?). The patterned dresses flowed loose off the bodies, while a white hoodie clung tailored to the waist while its sleeves flared out. Everything looks free but considered. Some of the looks were a bit safe, as in the clunky knit sweaters that you see time again. But the best pieces were all essentially Damir Doma: architecturally vibrant but poetically minimal.

7. Gucci

Of course. Celebrating his one-year anniversary as head of the house, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele has radically altered perceptions of the brand and has seen his aesthetic reverberate throughout the entire fashion world. Though the gender ambiguous aesthetic has been a part of fashion for some time, seeing it at Gucci and more importantly seeing it successful at a house like Gucci proves that people are ready for irreverence in fashion. FW 2016 had a very vintage aesthetic, but also a more palatable one. Now that Michele has solidified his vision, he seems intent on turning it into a legacy and not a flash in the pan. There were so many things here, from a cat print sweater to magnificent tye-dye dresses to elegant but retro-leaning pantsuits. You also see Michele’s talent in how every look seems to carry so many products, from jewelry to bags. It could be just idea diarrhea, but they way he presents everything really is rather artful. Somewhere, Frida Giannini is cursing the name Alessandro.

Text by Autre Fashion Editor Adam Lehrer. Follow @AUTREMAGAZINE for the latest in fashion, art, culture and more.

At War With Popular Culture: Kate Durbin Is Kicking Ass On the Front Lines

March 3, 2016

text by Luke Goebel

I won’t pretend to know visual art, as that is my sister’s side of our art cult/community URANUS which is being formed in Landers, Ca, but I am versed in the wheelhouse of parlance—I mean I drive the language barge to sea and back, communing with the whales. Kate Durbin is someone who I first encountered through her art work, visual art and conceptual art shows, although she is perhaps as prolific and successful in her written work as she is in the conceptual art communities. This interests me immensely as I know so few artists who occupy both territories and bring a conceptual and critical theoretically informed and cultural critique to conceptual art and poetry.

Durbin’s work first came across my radar through social media, seeing works from recent shoes of her such as “HELLO, SELFIE! NYC” which featured Durbin looking very serious in a clear Hello Kitty adorned smock with identically dressed, for lack of my better words, fembots, covered in Hello Kitty stickers on their exposed skin and each rocking a red bow in the hair, except Durbin, each with a diversely different build and body shape, with a kitten print on the crotch of their white underwear. They are wearing only a pair of white kitten print panties and a white sports bra like top. The show was performed in a public space, before the locked gate of a storefront, and the models are all holding a very serious expression regardless, or rather intentionally, with their turquoise and hot pink lipsticks. The models took real time selfies and posted them for one hour on social media, and the show was purportedly focused on creating a “New form of passive aggressive performance art, reveling in teen narcissism and the girl gaze. Inspired by surveillance culture, Hello Kitty, Apple products, the teen girl Tumblr aesthetic [we will return to this], Miley Cyrus…”

I feel like I have been seeing these iconic images from Durbin for years, although perhaps I have not. Her name especially sticks out to me because of the strain Durban Poison, which is spelled differently of course. Yet, her art does have a sort of intoxicating, heavy sativa, altering effect on my mindstate. While I would usually find myself turning away from anything with the word Miley Cyrus in the artist’s statement, Durbin’s work seems hyper-intentional, socially critical, radicalized, and affronting. I also see and sense with Durbin a constant effort, work, and drive to make and to present. It is only after investigating and engaging more with her that I find this to be absolutely correct. I do not know how she manages to be as prolific, as funded, and as consistently engaged as she is.

"...she is driven, accomplished, and kicking ass on the badass front lines of war with pop culture, gender, and drivel—making it new, pointed, and barbed and in formations of attack as well as celebration...."

Somehow our ropes have crossed through various friends, interests, and even housing needs. She has a great, large space and office/studio for sublet which is where a great deal of my current novel in progress is set. To be completely transparent, or rather more transparent, I was to interview her but I fell through twice on my end of the bargain. The interview was to focus on her new iPhone app, called ABRA, which we will be getting to in a bit. I haven’t forgotten to talk more about TEEN GIRL TUMBLR AESTHETIC either. Having failed her twice without warning on the interview front, she texted, “This is too many reschedules for me. Sorry.” Now that might seem like a bit of nothing, a scraplet of word matter, but the truth is that is quite the perfect response to the constant presence of flakes, or better yet, people, who are too thinly spread to come through on their promises to you. If you work in the art world, or the literary world, or the industry of film, et al, by now you know what it feels like to be promised things that don’t materialize—interviews, edits, features, representation by agents, meetings, and to have the person fall though, repeatedly reschedule, etc., and one of the great tasks we all face is how to respond to these folks and their soul-crushing failure to let you know you matter at fuck all! When they flake, how do you strike the perfect tone of 'I’m so annoyed at you but I’m going to be the big person' and smile through it while still setting my limits so my soul isn’t crushed by forced passivity, which I effectuate only to try and get what I need now and or later. Well, that’s exactly the way to do it—steal her response.

“This is too many reschedules for me. Sorry.” It makes them want you. In the written word, Kate Durbin has two collections of poetry, has founded and runs Gage Stigmata: Critical Writings and Art about Lady Gaga, which has been featured in NPR, Yale’s American Scholar Magazine, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, and by tweets from Gaga’s stylists as well as visual artists, et al. Her Tumblr Project, Women As Object, created an online archive of Teen Girl Tumblr Aesthetic (see), and led to a live performance by Durbin as Bellyflop in LA and two video performances and several artist talks. Her book, The Ravenous Audience, was selected for publication by Black Goat, and imprint of the incredible press Akashic Books. The book was blurbed by a friend, poet laureate of the United States POTUS Juan Felipe Herrera. It was glowingly reviewed in Rain Taxi and elsewhere and is a work dealing with coming of age and myths and various media dealing with female archetypes. Her next collection E! Entertainment consists of “meticulously reworded transcriptions of reality television shows… Keeping up with the Kardashians, Real Housewives of Soup Kitchens, the Real Lives of Housewives of Gypsy Tweekers." They are revisions of transcripts of reality television as well as courtroom trials of Lindsay Blowhand, Amanda Knox, and Anna Nicole Smith. For this book Durbin has been hailed as “pop culture’s stenographer.”

Needless to say she is driven, accomplished, and kicking ass on the badass front lines of war with pop culture, gender, and drivel—making it new, pointed, and barbed and in formations of attack as well as celebration.

Her app, ABRA, is something really interesting and new from Durbin and her collaborators, Amaranth Borsuk and Ian Hatcher, which took six years and countless collaborators to create. It’s a bit difficult to explain how it works and what it does in an article. I also have already used up a fuck load of your attention span if not all of it. But the app basically presents to you texts, poems, living poems that are randomized, and you interact with these words, replacing words with your own creations, moving words around, selecting bits of texts to morph the poems. It would be a hell of a thing to explore in the sunshine stoned for a little while, or to use while writing your work, crafting poetry, a novel, a text message. The sorts of words that come up and the quality of the poems that are offered up and that morph from your engagement with the app are really actually quite intriguing, lovely, well made. It’s the first generator that I have explored that begins with quite marvelous arrays of meaningful poetry and morph into user-directed and meaningful, i.e. not slop, new poems. The interface within the app is seamless, if not delightful to engage with. It really is a very well made and sexy app and it’s worthy of downloading, playing with, stealing from while writing, and now I will take a few words from the app for you readers, “Ball is sticks ass butt her given a girdle of stretch to cheek eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! bare hind water mark falt boat fur below odd a fussy hussy was he under where…” And there are buttons to change, to MUTATE, GRAFT, PRUNE, ERASE, and CADABRA as well as a wheel at the bottom of the words to run and watch the words change and be replaced and deckle and it’s actually quite a lot like tripping.

You can download Kate Durbin's app, ABRA, which is described as "a magical poetry instrument/spellbook for iOS," here. Text by Luke Goebel. Photograph by Jessie Askinazi

[FASHION REVIEW] London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2016

February 29, 2016

by Adam Lehrer

London Collections. The young creative one. The cool one. All that. God it can be boring how the entire fashion industry jumps on the same narrative train. But it’s true at its core: London is the best city for emerging fashion talent. Of course much of the designers that helped put London on the map as a hotbed of radical fashion thought, like JW Anderson and Gareth Pugh, are in their ‘30s now and are entering into mature phases of their brands. Or if not more mature, at least older. Then you have someone like Molly Goddard who three seasons in already seems to be tapping into something that actually does seem to be missing from fashion, and not just in a stock quote, “I became a designer because I felt it was missing something,” kind of statement (usually that means there’s a rip in a shirt or something). Claire Barrow seems to use fashion more as a means to show her art, which is very cool and different and radical and I love her for it. And then Marques ‘ Almeida, fresh of its LVMH prize, is still nothing approaching commercial but still cranking out clothes that a specific customer can’t get enough of. So, as much as I hate these pre-written narratives, I’m in agreement with the fashion consensus: London rocks.

Marques Almeida

Designers Marta Marques and Pablo Almeida prefer a frayed and lived-in quality to their clothes. Less we forget the heavily treated and distressed denim pieces that the label made its bones with. And while their line of products has grown exponentially, the label remains intimately aware of its customer. That lived-in quality was all over the FW 2016 show. Watching it, I envisioned a strong and self-assured woman who had just finished a near-degenerate night of partying but finds herself not on a walk of shame, but a walk of triumph. The clothes, while gorgeous, make the wearer look incredibly self-assured. Not quite a “don’t give a fuck” vibe, but a confidence it one’s own beauty. With a perfect party soundtrack of contemporary hits by Beyoncé and Rihanna (two stars arguably at the zenith of their powers and making the best music of their lives), the pieces came in metallic leather and featured over-the-knee boots, corseted bustiers, distressed and fucked up looking bags, and so much denim. Blue denim dresses, blue denim hoodies, pink denim, and more all tied the collection together into the Marques ‘ Almeida world. This is the best the label has ever been.

Anya Hindmarch

Designer Anya Hindmarch locked her models inside a retro arcade game and it worked wonders. The garments while ostensibly minimal appeared retroactively maximal. A trench coat and a bag were emblazoned with visions of Tetris and creepy digital animated graphics were used as continuing motifs throughout the collection. Hindmarch’s customers are going to love this stuff regardless, but she really gives to the fashion press with awesome presentation. As someone who is more an appreciator of aesthetics than anything else, I must give Kudos to how thoroughly Hindmarch brings her ideas to life. The set, the lighting, the color-blocked garments, all of it made for something a little more special.

Gareth Pugh

I pretty much always include Gareth Pugh on my favorites list, but it’s clear to me now that he has softened his aesthetic approach and that is in no way a bad thing. He was once a disciple of Rick Owens and Michelle Lamy, and his clothes were fittingly brutal and architectural. He’s still conceptual, but his SS 2016 collection and his similar FW 2016 collection seem to have a sense of humor about themselves. For FW 2016, Pugh was playing with the idea of female authority; he examined the ways in which a woman commands the respect of everyone around them. The collection featured Pugh’s magnificently sculpted take on the female power suit alongside power suit glitzed up with star prints. I loved the masks clearly rendered from Hannibal Lecter’s infamous mouth guard, there was something very Margiela about them in a collection that was by most standards one of the most conventional that Pugh has ever designed. Pugh has struggled with money, even having had to squat for a period of time to make ends meet. He seems ready to make clothes that sell, but not ready to give up on his ideas. That’s a good thing.

Claire Barrow

Does showing 12 looks qualify as a “fashion show?” I don’t know and I don’t care. Unlike almost every other designer in the world, I can truly say that there is no one on Earth doing what Claire Barrow does. Into punk rock, the occult, and historical gangs, Barrow applies her illustrations to near every garment she produces. A pink tye-dye dress came blazoned with vague and slightly demonic faces, there were wide leg trousers with a dragon motif, and outerwear accessories like gloves and scarves were etched with patchwork graphics. Barrow truly uses her brand as a way to express herself and her interests, and her taste is so succinct that she is still able to find her customer. People want her outlook.

Molly Goddard

Molly Goddard gets talked about for designing party clothes. That is true, but she also seems to be designing party clothes for specific woman, maybe we could use Broad City’s Ilana Glazer as that ideal woman. The woman emanates a specific cuteness derived out of an immense comfort inside her body. She’s free. That party DNA is carried through the shows, which as planned by Molly’s friends and casted with women off the street that all seem to have that Molly Goddard vibe. On a set inspired by Tokyo Drifter, Goddard indulged her very pronounced for making dresses. Those dresses came in magnificent proportions, all ruffled at the hem of the skirt emanating playfulness ad seduction. Also of note were the sliced to almost nothing leggings that literally revealed half the model’s leg. Goddard at three seasons in has already carved out her fantasy woman: this woman might hate dressing up, but if she has to she is going to have some fun with it.

Simone Rocha

Simone Rocha just had a baby. With that, numerous fashion medias have tried to find a matronly theme in Rocha’s FW 2016 collection. But Rocha’s clothes, to me, are far too austere to draw upon any single narrative. Her presentations evoke a feeling, maybe a message, much more than they do a clear storyline. Like poetry. This collection shifted between romantic hues of white and sharp dashes of black, ending with a pink robe coat and a blood red dress. Romance was optimal here, with the knits and the dresses both winking seduction.

Alexander McQueen

Sometimes it feels like Alexander McQueen is still alive, and that is largely due to his protégé Sarah Burton’s unbridled dedication to keeping the conceptual approach of her mentor alive. Case in point, Burton’s FW 2016 Alexander McQueen collection. As the label should be, the clothes were opulent but simultaneously macabre. Describing the collection as a world between reality and dreams, the clothes honed in on something mystical. Evening gowns came with the metallic butterfly motifts, a dress exposed half the female form, and my favorite piece was a lace dress that had a unicorn graphic cover half the body. The clothes were so utterly beautiful it was hard to imagine them as corporeal, and that was probably the point.

Text by Adam Lehrer. Follow @AUTREMAGAZINE to stay up-to-date on the latest fashion.

Ennio Morricone's Ten Most Notable Film Scores

February 29, 2016

For the score of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone won his first official Academy Award at the age of 86, after scoring more the 500 films. Here are ten of Morricone's most notable film scores.

1. The Ecstasy of Gold (from the film: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966)

2. Amore Come Dolore (from the film: The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, 1970)

3. L'Arena (from the film: Il Mercenario, 1970)

4. Piume Di Cristallo (from the film: The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, 1970)

5. Duck You Suckers (from the film: Fistful of Dynamite, 1971)

6. Theme from Salo (from the film: Salo or 120 Days of Sodom, 1975)

7. Harvest (from the film: Days of Heaven, 1978)

8. Chi-Mai (from the film Le Professionnel, 1981)

9. Cinema Paradiso Theme (from the film: Cinema Paradiso, 1988)

10. L'Ultima Diligenza di Red Rock (from the film: The Hateful Eight, 2015)

[FRIDAY PLAYLIST] Remembering Fort Thunder, Providence's '90s Radical Art and Music Space

February 26, 2016

For some reason, people fail to acknowledge the importance of the city of Providence, Rhode Island on music, art, design, and culture at large. Less we forget that Rhode Island School of Design has the most impressive creative alumni in the country: Artists Jenny Holzer, Kara Walker, and Ryan Trecartin, designers Mary Katranzou and Eckhaus Latta, director Gus Van Zandt, animator Seth McFarland, and so many more all studied their vocations here. But nevertheless, much of the city’s creatives leave for other cities once they get their degrees: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, wherever. But there was a time that Providence was the most important city in the country for avant-garde music and radical art. That time was Fort Thunder.

Fort Thunder was a radical art and music space established in the late 1997 by artists and musicians Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt, Black Pus, Mindflayer, etc.) and Mat Brinkman (Mindflayer, Forcefield, etc.) in a former textile factory in the Olneyville district of the city. Though the venue closed in 2001, it was legendary in its short life span for shining light on a diverse array of fiercely individualistic and radical artists and musicians.

The music could largely be classified as noise rock, but all the bands were still measurably different. They were noisy, to be certain, and tended to work in a rock format, but all had unique approaches to the aural assault. Lightning Bolt, perhaps the most known of all the bands to emerge from the scene, used the fury of Chippendale’s drums and a heavily effected and distorted bass from Brian Gibson to punish the listener. Perhaps most impressive about the duo is that as brutal as they could be, there is a defined pattern to their sound, almost having as much to do with the spasms of early Boredoms as the mathematical approach of early King Crimson. Playing in the middle of a crowd, there are still few things on earth as thrilling as a Lightning Bolt concert. Perhaps that is why the band is still playing and enjoying an immense cult following today (their last record Fantasy Empire came out last year from Thrill Jockey Records).

The other band to get pseudo-famous was Black Dice. Originally formed by Hisham Bharoocha, Sebastian Blanck, Eric Copeland, and Bjorn Copeland in 1997, Black Dice was actually something of a screamo-reminding noise punk unit, vastly different from the band that they eventually come. The band was eventually signed by DFA and they released Beaches and Canyons. The record is made up of swirling and kaleidoscopic psychedelic electro-pop, and quite beautiful really. Blanck and Bharoocha eventually left and were replaced by Aaron Warren. The band still records today, and Eric enjoys quite a successful solo career as well.

Forcefield, led by Brinkman, were arguably the Fort Thunder house band cum art collective cum spiritual guides. Brinkman, along with Jim Drain, Ara Peterson, and Leif Goldberg, applied a conceptual approach to psychedelic stereotypes. They self-designed their own multi-colored seizure-inducing outfits, while using various light structures and set props to create a total experience. Sometimes the band used pure drawn out noise. Other times they used a degraded acid house beat and just looped it forever. The point was total agitation, making the viewer as uncomfortable as possible. This approach garnered the band an appearance at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, believe it or not.

And there was of course lots more music and much of it was released by Ben McOsker’s excellent Providence label Load Records. John Dwyer, who is now Pitchfork famous for his band The Oh Sees, originally played in a noise rock duo called Pink and Brown as well as noise garage band The Coachwhips at his Providence hometown venue (yes, Fort Thunder). Dissonant post-punk bands Six Finger Satellite and Arab on Radar made the warehouse their home. And less we forget, Fort Thunder became a base for American noise, hosting early shows by Prurient, Wolf Eyes, and so many more.

The musicians who played Fort Thunder were almost unanimously artists that played music and not musicians who painted, but don’t quote me on that. Despite his being preposterously good at drums, for instance, Chippendale has had an illustrious career in illustration, and his graphic novel Ninja has become a cult favorite. His partner in ear-splitting, Brian Gibson, works on video games in his time away from the band. Brinkman works in illustration and fine art. Hisham Bharoocha, who played in Black Dice and Lightning Bolt and has a solo music project called Soft Circle, is massively successful as a photographer and a painter. He has exhibited at Deitch Projects and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and his maximalist style is nothing less than delight for the eyeballs.

When is someone going to do a documentary on this space? Should I start a Kickstarter? Do it myself? That’s what the Fort Thunder crew would have done.

[ART REVIEW] The Bathhouse Show in Tokyo Japan

February 25, 2016

text by Yuki Kikuchi

I met Dorothy at the first ever Hunx and His Punx show here in Tokyo. After the gig we found our way to a local bar where we bonded over beers, and Dorothy spilt her heart out about losing touch with good friends and her anxieties about what the future held. Her earnestness in that moment made me aware of the difficulties of leaving home and living alone in a foreign country - especially while trying to follow one’s dreams.

That was already two years ago now.

After a time she became friends with gallerist Ella Krivanek, who came from Australia to work in Japan. During her time in Tokyo, Ella established a non-profit, contemporary art gallery, Space Space, while Dorothy worked as an artist and writer for Wooly Magazine. Combining their efforts, they spent nearly half a year planning The Bathhouse show: a one-night event combining music and art, held in an abandoned bathhouse scheduled for demolition. They transformed the huge building for the event. The first floor, which was previously the public bathhouse, became a space for bands to play and the dilapidated apartments above became an art gallery.

Their event captured that indefinable something that makes Japan “cool”, which we as Japanese tend overlook because it has become part of our everyday. Everyone at the show existed within the same chaotic moment, sharing a sense of excitement created by the tense juxtaposition of the casual atmosphere characteristic to Americans and Australians, and a brittle anxiety brought on by Japan’s deep sense of social order.

The bands that performed on that night, and the art in the apartments above were of course spectacular. Playing their foreignness to their advantage, Ella and Dorothy were able to bring out a huge variety of people.

The bathhouse was torn down the next day. There is nothing left of it now. Ella returned to Australia the following month, and Dorothy to America soon after. I have no idea when they will have their next event here in Japan.

The only thing that I can be sure of is that the event was poignantly moving. It had the ephemeral beauty of a firework, which sparks with acute exhilaration, then drifts into darkness, leaving behind a bittersweet feeling. Ella and Dorothy worked hard to create something new, something that isn’t definable yet…

Thanks to their efforts, I feel that on that day I glimpsed what true art really is. What does it take to bring in a new era? Is it technology, talent, or could it be money?

I have always believed that it is passion.

[FASHION REVIEW] The Best and Worst of New York Fashion Week Autumn Winter 2016

February 22, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

As the fashion industry makes its trek across the Atlantic for womenswear shows in Europe, I think it’s time we start acknowledging the fact that there is something striking going on within New York fashion. While the common notion that New York is eternally more commercial than London or Paris is still true, it is starting to appear like that won’t always be the case. While there are still your Diane Von Fursternberg’s and Vera Wang’s and Ralph Lauren’s doing their wildly accessible products (and doing them well, of course), there is a real undercurrent of subversion going on at New York Fashion Week that is hard to deny. People often forget that someone like Marc Jacobs was at one point strikingly against the grain, and it feels like there are new designers in town picking up that mantle. This season, brands such as Rodarte, Eckhaus Latta, Moses Gauntlett Cheng, Creatures of Comfort, and more offered radical interpretations and presentations of the ways in which they believe that women should dress today. Less we forget the success of a brand like Hood By Air, which finds itself in a transitional phase after the health goth (whatever the fuck that was) craze dies down. Even big designers like Jeremy Scott present beauty and humor in equal dosage. All this tension (not to mention champagne and illegal drugs) between high concept fashion and big dollar fashion makes New York Fashion Week all the more fun.

What really separates New York’s younger conceptual brands from those in Paris is a sense of humor. Eckhaus Latta, which was just named to the Forbes 30 under 30, for instance very much comes off as a brand figuring it out as they go along and creating a never-ending party for their friends. Sure, something like Vetements can seem fun too, but it’s hard to imagine Rei Kawakubo cracking a smile to a joke she let slip in to a couture dress. Fashion is kind of silly at the end of the day. I mean, it is just clothes. Yes, it can be fun and interesting to critique these collections and identify the various cultural references within them, but they are still just very expensive things you put on your body, or don’t. New York designers seem to get that.

MARC JACOBS

When Marc Jacobs is at his best, Marc Jacobs is the best, period. FW 2016 felt like a return-to-form for Marc. It was all goth glamour and a macabre taste of the whimsical. Beautiful but not self-serious. Decadent but not opulent. Marc doesn’t seem to care about pushing fashion towards any future, as if we could actually define what that might be. He just wants to make excellent Marc Jacobs collections. This was one with the crazy huge platform shoes, concert sweatshirts paired with dollies, coats with useless but wonderful belt straps, and dresses oversized to bejesus and undersized to hell. Those dresses came glitzed up with spooky cat graphics, and pants suits came in black and white polka dots while shaped in the most subversive of cuts. Maybe some will say that Marc caught the Vetements but with the massive silhouettes, but subversive shapes have been Marc’s specialty since he turned Perry Eliis into a cool grunge brand. The soundtrack, silence sparsely interrupted by chimes recorded by Japanese free improv icon Keiji Haino, made for an utterly haunting collection. The Lady Gaga stunt casting didn’t even matter after the first look. Too cool.

THOM BROWNE

I really dig how Thom Browne’s man and woman dress pretty much the same. He might be the one designer who does weirder looks for his girls than guys, basically because his slightly strange power suits look more suitably odd on a woman. Odd, but awesome, I should add. Recreating Washington Square Park in the 1920s, or something, the collection found the women walking through a wooded lane wearing tweed, wool, and jacquard suits sliced up, sewn together, and re-appropriated for the uber confident alpha female. There was a tornado effect running through the clothes, and some things made absolute no sense. The usual Thom Browne customer is utterly well put together, so I don’t know id a dress or suit made of a dozen different patterns is going to have much market power. But does Thom Browne seem like a label that is financially strapped? Hardly. The shoes with the stripe logo will keep his fantasies alive for seasons to come.

RODARTE

Rodarte is always quite amazing, but Laura and Kate Mulleavy really tapped into the ethos of the brand with the FW 2016 collection. The sense of subversive is in the ideas, celebrating femininity while incorporating leftist political ideals and never shying away from intellectual thought processes. With a non-flame retardant set designed by French furniture designer Alexandre de Betak, the Mulleavy’s tapped into the heyday of cultural importance of their Alma Mater: Berkeley in the 1960s. Was that so easy to pick up on? Aside from the Judy Collins covers of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, maybe not so much. But the clothes were magic. The multi-colored furs, the leather pieces, the white coat/dress hybrid, and all those jet-black pieces found the models looking independent and hot. If I could pick my girlfriend’s clothes, they’d probably all look like this.

CREATURES OF THE WIND

Creatures of the Wind: first of all, great name! It sounds like a latter day new wave band that could have opened up for Flock of Seagulls or something. Second, the clothes are nice and subdued, but not at all lacking quirk. It actually reminds me of prime ‘90s Jil Sander with its tapping into the garb of New York gallery women (Tavi Gevinson is a fan, after all). Designers Shane Gabier and Chris Peters aren’t re-inventing the wheel, but instead seem keen on tapping into historical notions of modernity: the clothes first mentality of Yves Saint Laurent, the retro color blocking of Miuccia Prada, maybe even some of the philosophies of Franco Moschino. Some of the looks are utterly simplistic, like a trench over a dress. But then you see a gorgeous Asian model with a brown printed halter-top, extravagant trousers, and pencil thin sweater wrapped around her neck. In a brutally crowded and commercial schedule, this new brand doesn’t seem intimidated to be anything other than what they want to be: a high fashion brand.

ECKHAUS LATTA

The little art-centric brand that absolutely fucking could and clearly does. The RISD alumni designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 this year. Considering where this brand comes from (the art world, etc.), I almost assumed that that kind of exposure might unravel what it stands for. Not so much, as evidenced by FW 2016. If anything, more eyes have only sharpened the brand’s identity. Still tapping into their inner artistes, they staged the show at MoMA PS1, with an eerie ambient soundscape provided by Richard Fellyd setting the vibe. The immediately obvious thing was a massive sharpening of tailoring and textile skills by the designers. While the deconstruction that they no doubt helped back to bring in vogue was there, they also were undoubtedly luxurious products. Performance artist Julianna Huxtable wore a golden chiffon dress, and gold appeared throughout the collection. A pink pantsuit came with shorts and all sorts of architectural embellishments. The men’s looks (the actual menswear looks not the men in dresses) were nice as well, especially a patch worked turtle neck sweater. Eckhaus Latta is defining the fashion of New York’s burgeoning under 30-art world, and that sense of taste making reverberates throughout the culture.

HOOD BY AIR

It’s pretty clear that HBA is in a transitional period. Health Goth, that born to die sub-culture, came and went and seemingly did the HBA logo from street style photos. But HBA has always been about so much more than rappers wearing their hoodies. They did after all popularize the gender bending that every designer has taken on in one-way or another. For FW 2016, Shayne Oliver went back to his queer club roots and delivered the best HBA collection in seasons. Whether it was Beyoncé’s Formation, the most talked about track of the moment, shaking the ground as the show soundtrack or the appearance of Russian LGBT artist Slava Mogutin wearing a leather puffer jacket, it appeared Oliver was utterly comfortable in his brand identity as well as his own. Gender politics, queer issues, racial tension, and the sociology of now were all heard loud and clear through the presentation. Though Oliver moved the brand to Milan, HBA is still firmly representative of modern day New York. The bucket hats (made with Kangol, awesome), rubber waders, Emperor Palpatine hooded robes, and exaggerated straight jackets were made for NYC radicals and attention seekers. HBA is made for HBA, and no one else.

PROENZA SCHOULER

Set within the almost mystical walls of the Whitney Museum, Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez towed the lines of control and release with a collection of exaggerated silhouettes and tight lines and tailoring. Maybe due to the artist’s recent late-career retrospective at the museum, the designers cited Frank Stella as the primary influence on the collection. “We were looking at ways in which process informs the outcome,” said the duo to Vogue. That process was all about reconstruction, slashing the garments to bits and then putting them back together. Sweaters cut in half were tied back together with seams. A dress was slashed at the hip and at the shoulder, winking seduction. Proenza probably doesn’t get enough credit for their casual wear either: a leather trench coat with shearling collar, a red denim jacket recalls motocross, and a blazer looks re-imagined as a kimono. Everything luxurious.

PUBLIC SCHOOL

I have not always been mum in my criticism for the hype that surrounds Public School. To me, it always felt like the brand was just doing Yohji for a more commercial (New York) buyer. How many “high fashion for sneaker heads” brands do we need? But FW 2016 womenswear felt right. Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow staged their show at the Hauser and Wirth gallery, formerly the Roxy nightclub. Appropriate, considering the designers were tapping into the pre-gentrification 1980s glory days of this eternally transitioning city. A lot of the clothes would look as good on dudes as women, particularly the massive mock-necked faux fur hoodie in hunter green and the suede bomber jackets. The post-apocalyptic thing in fashion isn’t exactly new (Rick and Raf were doing these things 15 years ago), but Osborne and Chow have a way of taking experimental shapes and making them effortless and extremely easy to wear. I’ve never been particularly drawn to Public School as a menswear brand, but their ideas on women seem to more clearly spell out a particularly customer: a disaffected, jaded, but deeply intelligent anti-fashionista. Or something like that.

ADAM SELMAN

YEEZY SEASON 3

Maybe I’m a bit biased. Ok, I’m totally biased. Kanye West has been my favorite pop star for as long as I can remember, and being able to see 500 of his look on stage along with hearing his triumphant new record pretty much solidified that I was going to love this. But also, whether you love or hate his clothes it’s hard to argue that within a year he has already massively altered the fashion industry. He has brought distressing and militaria back to the forefront of fashion, with major fashion houses and H&M all ripping off the aesthetic and delivering garments of similar or (much) lower price points. I don’t go to H&M for a cheap blazer anymore, I go there for a massively oversized washed sweatshirt. As much as I’m sure fashion editors hate admitting this, Yeezy is as responsible as Vetements for fashion’s movement towards tastefully grunged out silhouettes. And Season 3 was just too massive to deny. Much of the aesthetic from the first two seasons carried over, but Kanye also tapped into the urban normcore aesthetic of his protégé Ian Connor as well as a little Balmain opulence with a lineup of mink coats. He also staged the biggest fashion show in history. People can hate him all he wants, but Kanye’s insistence on saying whatever he wants and being an asshole and yet still being judged by his artistic output, well that’s progress. That is freedom. This is America, and the man can say what he wants. I also love that, like his music, Kanye’s collections are the result of a massive think tank of ideas, with designers like Vetements’ Demna Gvasalia, Robert Gellar, John Elliot, and more all rumored to have helped along the way. Who else could get Pusha T to help him MC his show, or Cali DeWitt to do his merchandise, or Vanessa Beecroft to stage the biggest presentation of her life? So much to love, or loathe. So Kanye West.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Perhaps I’m just still trying to wrap my head around the Olsen twins being serious fashion designers, but their FW 2016 collection for The Row was the most luxurious display of minimalism New York has seen in seasons. Speaking of minimalism, Francisco Costa’s FW 2016 CK Collection line was crisp and clean as they come, if a little underwhelming on the ideas. More Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, who seem to be on a real roll, their second collection for DKNY tapped into the spirit of the brand: downtown NYC in the ‘80s. Now that they understand the brand DNA, they can start building their own. Eschewing a traditional fashion show for a beautiful presentation, Moses Gauntlett Cheng imbued a sense of isolation and vulnerability into a fleshy set of clothes. The casting, made of friends of the designers Esther Gauntlett, Jenny Chang, and David Moses, provided an immediate sense of the customers who are going to love these clothes. It’s no surprise that they sold out at Opening Ceremony in a second. Gypsy Sport, showing many of the menswear looks we saw at NYFWM on models, solidified the brand’s vision with FW 2016: high fashion for those with no connection to high fashion but much connection to a sense of freedom. Jeremy Scott FW 2016 was fun, loud, and gross as he ought to be.

DISAPPOINTMENTS...

Alexander Wang, fresh off his freedom from Balenciaga, couldn’t narrow the focus of his FW 2016 collection. There was just too much going on, from political slogans to elevated prep. As much as I love Alice Glass, Travis Scott, and The Weeknd, I highly doubt anyone wants to buy coruduroy carrying the label “Alexander Wang.” Sarah Burton’s new McQ collection, showing in New York this time around, couldn’t seem to help but imbue the casual McQueen line with Vetements rip-offery. VFiles, which is traditionally extremely reliable with giving you a sense of interesting new designers, failed to deliver on that grand tradition with some rather underwhelming collections for FW 2016.

[Friday Playlist] A Celebration of Tri Angle Records

February 19, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

The best new record I heard this week, aside from The Life of Pablo obviously, is the newest release by London-based producer Brood Ma, Daze. A volatile collision of funk, noise, house, and techno, the album sounds viciously contemporary, indicative of the evolution of London and New York-based label Tri Angle.

Never in my life have I seen a label that has almost as much influence on the underground as it does on the mainstream. Label boss Robin Carolan has proven himself a gifted curator and arguably, an artist in his own right. Though the label has broadened its scope in its six years of existence, Carolan has a keen eye for fitting the acts he signs into his own world. A world where goth is funky and noise is fashion and anti-fashion is art. I sound pretentious here, maybe as per usual, but it is undeniable that the label has been profound in unleashing what are quite possibly the most excitingly contemporary forms of music: "alternative" R&B and abstract dance music.

It all started with 808z and Heartbreak, but before Frank Ocean, Drake, Kelela, and others all started breaking new ground in an R&B form, a Chicago philosophy student with a taste for the avant-garde and an angelic voice named Tom Krell found himself floored by Yeezy's baroque musings of self-loathe. Krell, re-named How to Dress Well, took the goth pop stylings of Kanye and Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope and incorporated it with his love of Aphex Twin and avant-garde 20th century composition to define the possibilities that can be explored within the context of rhythm, beat, and voice. Krell never gets as much recognition as other geniuses like Ocean or the Weeknd, but his first album released on Tri Angle, Love Remains, was an era-defining record. Not only did it set up Tri Angle as a label that would be beautifully balanced the realms of pop and avant-garde, but it also made people think, "Holy shit, why haven't people realized how fucking cool R&B can be with crackling electronics, tape hiss, and gut wrenching philosophical lyrics?" Hello 2010s.

On the flip side, Carolan's taste for noise and weirdo techno paved the path for artists like Arca, who is in his own way blurring boundaries between popular and niche taste. The Haxan Cloak's record Excavation, released in 2011, approached dance music as sound design. Within it, beats weave through landscapes of thick pulsating drones. You can dance to it, but you can also just get really high and get lost in it. The best electronic music of today, from Surgeon to Jlin, all try and find a beat to dance to within a warped sonic scape of weirdo sounds.

It isn't surprising that artists like Bjork and Kanye, the more willfully experimentally of our most famous musicians, have something of a reciprocal relationship with the artists that record for Tri Angle records. Bjork especially, rumored to be dating Carolan, has been particularly vocal in her fondness for the label. On Vulnicura, The Haxan Cloak was co-producer and Carolan provided creative support. Tri Angle is good for the music industry, period. The success of the label helps scared executives see the value in stars that skew more experimental, like FKA Twigz or even Sky Ferreira. Not to diminish the success of those two gifted artists, but Tri Angle is opening eyes while in no way dumbing down their roster: Brood Ma is as atonal and all out strange as anything the label has released.

[FASHION REVIEW] Kanye West's Yeezy Season Three Collection

February 11, 2016

text by Adam Lehrer

I, admittedly, am a Kanye West apologist. I find myself profusely defending the man anytime a friend of mine has something even slightly negative to say about him. I, truly, am a massive fan. And then he has to go and drop a bomb like the “COSBY IS INNOCENT!!!” tweet and I’m left thinking, “Kanye why you doing this to me bro? You’re putting me in a tight spot.” So heading to Madison Square Garden in sub-freezing weather for an upclose viewing of Yeezy Season 3, (thank you Adidas) I had an unexpectedly sour taste in my mouth. It didn’t matter though..

Anyone who tells you something as blasé as “it sucked” clearly has a very personal hatred for the man in question. This was fashion as pop art and pop art as high-octane “Holy Fuck!” entertainment. Big is the operative word here. A filled Madison Square Garden gazing upon what seemed to be at least 500 models. For those naysayers of which I’m sure there are many of (though perhaps not as many as the 20 million fans that tuned into the presentation’s live stream however), try putting this into perspective: it was the biggest conceptual art project of all time and certainly the biggest presentation Vanessa Beecroft has ever assembled, the biggest listening party of all time, and quite easily the biggest fashion show of all time. It was so much more than fashion though.

As expected, celebrities came in spades for this show. The whole Kardashian clan: Kim, Kris, Kendall, Kylie, Kourntey, Khloe, and Caitlyn all came out to support. Pusha T swayed his head behind his brother Kanye throughout the entirety of the listening session. Vic Mensa showed up to play a new track of his own. I could have sworn I saw actress Shailene Woodley walk by as I found myself entrenched in the scene. Even our friend and artist extraordinaire Ryan Mcginley was sitting a few rows ahead of me wearing an excellent self-patched denim vest and dancing along with all the new Kanye tracks. The models, of which there were so many it was near impossible to identify them all individually, had a few celebs amongst them as well. In addition to Yeezy regulars like Ian Connor and others from the previous two seasons, Atlanta weirdo art rapper Young Thug and super super super model Naomi Campbell both found themselves center stage adorned in new Yeezy looks.

At this point, you have probably decided whether or not you like Kanye’s clothes. Personally, I love them (I’m wearing a Season 1 short sleeve sweatshirt that I got 80 percent off at Antonia in Milan as I write this, it makes me look like some sculpture artist or something), and it’s hard to doubt that Kanye has identified a look. I mean, every brand is ripping him off after just two seasons, from his friends like Jerry Lorenzo of the Fear of God label and Ronnie Feig of Kith to fast fashion conglomerates like H&M.

It appears that every season Kanye maintains his interesting palette of beige to black military garb but also implements new styles into the mix as the brand goes on. This season, he seems particularly taken with his young co-hort Ian Connor’s urban normcore look, as there were amazing overalls, college logo sweatshirts, and workwear pants in seemingly magnificent materials. At the same time, Kanye’s claim at the show that he sought to one day be creative director of Hermés wasn’t as ludicrous as it should have been with the introduction of some of his most capital “F” fashion pieces. Campbell led a group of stunning female models wearing honest-to-gooness mink coats. One couldn’t help but be shocked at the sheer volume of clothes. Yesterday I thought Saint Laurent’s 90 looks was pretty astounding, but this show numbered in the hundreds. There is such a cool posse mentality to the Yeezy brand. Like, you’ll look pretty cool on your own in this stuff but if your entire group of friends starts donning these looks, you guys will be a goddamn wrecking crew.

I don’t want to say much about the album, but I will say that TSOP (The Story of Pablo) is in no way a let down. It has that propulsive energy that I so loved about Yeezus but Kanye is once again opting to amp up soul and funk melodies to house tearing effects as opposed to experimenting in atonality. Most songs are bangers, but the record ends beautifully with the haunting Sia collaboration Wolves that was premiered at Yeezy Season 1. Kanye tweaked the sound a bit and it sounded crystal clear and almost psychedelic in its atmospherics.

The sheer spectacle of Yeezy Season 3 was unprecedented. Beecroft’s choreography was fantastic, applying the minimal approach of the first two seasons to an army sized diverse casting of youths. You’d find yourself gazing amongst the models and then catching an interesting detail: a female model puts her fist up like a civil rights sign (pun intended) or Ian Connor lights up a cigarette and puffs away. How this thing worked is beyond me, but Kanye’s DONDA creative team is really doing tremendous things. I’ve never really seen something so massive and mainstream present itself at what can’t be described as anything other than a magnificent temporal art work.

And it didn’t stop there. After Kanye’s record played, he expressed excitement about a video game he developed chronicling his mother Donda’s travels to Heaven. Yes you read that correctly. After a clip from the game was shown on the jumbotron, the crowd responded lukewarm. Kanye, looking stunned, scolded us, “You act like making a game about your mom traveling to Heaven is regular,” he said with a smile. And then he played the clip again. The crowd cheered loud the second time around.

Click here to see more photo coverage of the collection.

[FASHION REVIEW] Siki Im Fall Winter 2016 Collection

February 11, 2016

text by Adam Lehrer

Why are we always so thoroughly and eternally transfixed by the myth of the Vampire? Siki Im, in his FW 2016 collection playbook, tries to answer that question: “The represent a mythology of libido and destrudo. They seduce and prey, and kiss and kill. Some yearn for affection and compassion, but all question what it means to be human and liberated.”

I am thoroughly convinced that German-born and New York-based designer Siki Im would be ranked among the Raf Simons’s, Dries Van Noten’s and Gosha’s of the world if he decided to show his collection in Paris. His collections are beaming in interesting (and cool) cultural references at the same time as offering products that this critic wants all of. As stated above, Siki Im and Den Im FW 2016 explores humanity’s interest in vampire fiction. The notion of the hip, poetic, and artistic vampire is not new to fashion, arguably having been covered by designers ranging from Ann Demeulemeester to Rick Owens, but never has it presented itself as such a succinct idea.

Siki’s collection was oozing in references to goth and post-punk culture, with a soundtrack that started with goth Vampire post-punk band Bauhaus, finale’d with a track from the first Swans album Filth, and had people walked out to Joy Division. The music was welcome. It’s extremely nice to hear bands that you actually enjoy after hearing endless jungle techno tracks that usually fuel fashion shows.

Vampires were all over this collection, though. The amazing prints on the Den Im t-shirts depicted scenes from Siki’s favorite vampire films, the makeup was grotesque and monstrous, and the models (though racially diverse) all looked startlingly pale. And the clothes? Sublime. A stunning mohair overcoat in burgundy and grey blend looked akin to the striped robe worn by Tom Hiddleston in Jim Jarmusch’s vampire arthouse film Only Lovers Left Alive. The more streetwear-akin looks, such as a bomber over one of Siki’s excellent hoodies and jeans, came in blood red. Never have I thought I’d so desire a pair of bright red jeans. Siki, an architecture major and nerd, also paid homage to the German architecture and art schoold Bauhaus (happily sharing a name with the band) as evidenced by his magnificent leather work. A red asymmetrical leather jacket had sleeves coming down below the wrists but rolled up exposing only the fingers, while the seams moved triangularly away from the down zipper. There was really some excellent stuff here.

SIki Im is truly Autre’s kind of menswear designer, constantly engaging his creative impulses at the expense of commerciality. He shows no signs of being worried about whether or not Nordstrom will buy his collections. Perhaps chalk it up to his time under Karl Lagerfeld and Helmut Lang, or maybe just his commitment to the fine arts, but he does seem much more in line with Parisian and London-based designers than he does New York. And because of that, New York needs him, and his commitment to building the design identity of the city is admirable.

And if you’re wondering, Siki’s (excellent) list of favorite vampire films is as follows: Les Vampires (Louis Feulilade, 1915), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1929), Dracula (1931), Vampyros Lesbos (Jesus Franco, 1979), Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979), The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983), Der Kleine Vampir (René Bonniére, 1985), The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher, 1987), Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987), Nadja (Michael Almereyda 1994), From Dusk till Dawn (Robert Rodgriguez, 1996), Let the Right One in (Tomas Alfredson, 2008), Thirst (Park Chan-wook, 2009), Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013), GirlsWalks Alone Home at Night (Ana Lily Amirpor, 2014)

The only one I would add, personally, is Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, Lili Taylor knocked that one out of the park.

Click here to see the full runway presentation during New York Fashion Week Men's.

[FRIDAY PLAYLIST] Protest Songs

February 5, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

The widest margin of income inequality in the history of the United States. Rampant police brutality. The most overcrowded prisons in the western hemisphere. No guarantees of education or health care. Corporate greed. The mainstream media wants to tell me that I'm a sexist for not voting for Hilary Clinton. They say Bernie Sanders is too radical to be president, that people can't accept all that change at once? Fuck that. That is the military industrial complex keeping us complacent, telling us to make the sensible choice so that they can maintain the "natural order of things." If the sensible economic policies of Sen. Sanders are radical, then let's revolt away. President Obama was great for liberals and this country, but now is the time to take those epic policy changes and institute a full blown system overhaul. Protest away, my fellow Americans. It is our motherfucking right!

Music has always been a powerful tool of protest, bringing together disparate groups of people behind one message and one sound. The statement of protest can be clear, whether it be Rage Against the Machine encouraging us to bring down the system, or Ice Cube detailing the horrors of police brutality, or Killer Mike telling us that he's "Glad Reagan dead," or Beyoncé using her immortality to ally herself with feminism. Or it can be subtle, as in Miles Davis soundtracking the cold life of 1970s New York, Peaches celebrating her body and sexuality, or the very existence of Anarchist musical collectives like Test Dept, Can, or Crass (not available on Spotify, sadly).

Music brings us together, and together they will fall. The conservative right still seems to believe they hold all the power, but 86 percent of this country is made up of young people, minorities, and women. The rich white man is a dead monkey in the United States. It's time they realize it, and either stand with us or move out of the way. We all have the right to flourish in this beautiful country of ours. We all have the right to be healthy and to improve our minds. We all have the right to feel protected by law enforcement, and not vilified by it. We all have the right to see the corruption, and to declare it so. We have the right. And if that right is continuously denied to us, we will fight for it.

[FASHION REVIEW] Greg Lauren's Fall Winter 2016 Collection

February 5, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

Fashion Week gets old fast. When you start doing this whole thing, you get this false sense of importance centered around the fact that you are getting invited to shows by designers you admire (or don’t admire, but nice gesture either way). But then you realize that you have to run around, often in the rain, from show to show, stand in lines way to long while the show gets pushed back, find terrible vantage points to shoot mediocre photos, and spend way too much money on Starbucks to charge up and upload and email your work. After a couple days, it sucks. Not even the partying makes it better (it’s fucking New York, we don’t need fashion week to party).

But then, you just have one of those magical fashion moments, when a presentation reminds you of why you became interested in the concept of fashion beyond the shit you wear. For New York Fashion Week: Men’s, that presentation was Greg Lauren.

No one knew what was coming when they walked into the Chelsea warehouse to find the 1920s-themed magical playhouse that was the Greg Lauren FW 2016 presentation. There was a boxing ring where models shadowboxed wearing beautifully distressed hoodies and sweats. There were the urban dandies, wearing thrashed suits. There were Baja East references. The whole thing was soundtracked to Jimi Hendrix’s Who Knows blasting through the speakers. It was exhilarating.

Greg Lauren (yes nephew of Ralph), a Princeton trained fine artist, began working in fashion after presenting an exhibition with garments. He approaches fashion much in the same way he approached art: concept first. “All my work starts with ideas and questions that I want to ask, I think about it no differently than I did when I was a painter,” said Lauren while being swarmed by media, friends, and family. “I’m then trying to answer those ideas with clothing.”

Lauren was looking towards the various archetypes of the male outsider, and placing the outsider in an antiquated setting: boxers, artists, Baja East, dandies and more. But the clothes were utterly fantastic. While exorbitantly expensive, Lauren’s garments look and feel like they are warranting the price tags. Everything, from suit to hoodie, from tweed to terrybone, is magnificently thrashed, blown out, and treated beyond recognition. The footwear, from destroyed work boots to adidas snowboarding boots, looked perfect in the setting. The shapes were fascinating, with tweed suits dropping crotches and letting shoulders hang. Silhouette was on Lauren’s mind above all else with this collection: “I really wanted to incorporate the shapes with the Californian lifestyle that I’ve been living, a laidback artsy lifestyle, and reinterpret that in silhouettes.”

One could certainly argue that, as an heir to the largest clothing corporation in New York, Lauren has the freedom to experiment with concept and garments more than most designers trying to start brands here. But so what? New York needs art in its fashion, and never in my life have I experienced what was ostensibly a clothing presentation a visceral experience so alive.

Click here to see more from this collection.

[FASHION REVIEW] Carlos Campos’s FW 2016 Collection And Other Highlights From New York Fashion Week Mens

February 3, 2016

text by Adam Lehrer

I was just starting to get that, “I hate fashion feeling,” while standing in line for the presentation of Honduran-born New York-based menswear designer Carlos Campos’s FW 2016 collection, I was starting to have a “I really fucking hate fashion,” moment. I mean, it’s nice to be included in this clusterfuck in one form or another, but there certainly aren’t a slew of my favorite menswear designers showing here. And some of the ones I do, like Robert Geller, Simon Miller, and to a lesser extent the somewhat overhyped Public School, must have forgot to send Autre an invitation (or not). Meanwhile, I’m sitting in line for 35 minutes for Carlos Campos. Not like this was a Comme des Garcons show or anything.

But nevertheless, the show went on. Campos’s ideal male customer, “a clean rock star,” sounds utterly boring. We already have John Varvatos, and really who can actually say that John Varvatos is their favorite designer? Maybe some frat guy with a little doh to spend at Nordstrom rack. But Campos’s FW 2016 collection was nice, with earthy palette of camel, white, and navy suiting, coats, and trousers. I quite liked the white overcoats that were a little boxy. The soundtrack, that started with traditional salsa music and moved into a David Bowie-propelled finale that brought some life to the collection overall.

So, some other highlights that I haven’t been able to see in-person but who needs to see anything in person to formulate an opinion, really? Patrik Ervell released images of his FW 2016 collection and I really think he’s still the best menswear designer in New York. He takes conceptual ideas and forms them into a palatable brand identity: excellent shirting, elegant bombers made of beautiful materials, and the best and most wearable jeans this side of Acne or Levi’s. It’s sort of a retro-futurist (ergh, that term) take on the Brooklyn artiste or poet or something, as evidenced here by a peacoat in green mohair, bombers with mohair collars, and a white alpaca jacket. There wasn’t one thing I wouldn’t wear. According to Vogue there are whispers of Patrik Ervell taking over menswear for an established house, and that would be pretty righteous if he found the right place. Daiki Suzuki’s Engineered Garments FW 2016 collection was what you would expect: mindblowing use of rich materials, sometimes in the same look. Excellent clothes for a Brooklyn bartender who makes more money than all other Brooklyn bartenders. Robert Geller’s predictably sick collection for FW offered an incredibly rich selection of dark Yohji-referencing poetic work and leisure wear in sheer, night black, while moving into earth greens and tans. The standout look to me was a green leather workwear suit under a mackintosh coat in black with tan trim, When the hell is Geller going to be considered the monumental designer that he is? The work he does now is far more desirable than anything he did with Alexandre Plokhov at his side with Cloak.

Click here to see the full runway presentation.

[Fashion Review] The Best From Day One Of New York Fashion Week Mens

February 2, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

So, New York Fashion Week: Men’s has begun for the FW 2016 season. The story with New York will always be that the designers that show in New York are far too market-driven in comparison with the brands that come out of London and Paris. It does often seem that brands here are far too worried about ending up on the racks of Nordstrom to really make anything close to being considered art, but then again you’d also not really be looking hard enough. The menswear scene in New York is huge: we love clothes here! Dudes here are as focused on style and willing to take risks on new styles perhaps more than any city in the world. From Supreme to high fashion to the best vintage stores in the world, guys in New York use all manner of garments to express that thing that they are trying to express.

The designer schedule for FW 2016, while slim in comparison with those in Milan, London, and Paris, is looking fairly strong. Italo Zuchelli, perhaps the greatest minimalist menswear designer in the world, will host a Calvin Klein presentation here. Few menswear designs on Earth are as conceptually strange, artisinally gifted, and rarified as those by Greg Lauren (whose show we will be attending). Plus, there are a range of new designers defining a new high fashion scene in Los Angeles, including Rochambeau and Second/Layer, that are calling New York their home.

The concepts are there, it’s just you have to sift through a lot of overly commercial monotonous mediocrities to find the good stuff. NYFW:M started today with New York Men’s Day, platform presentations of eight new brands. So much of what makes fashion amazing is seeing the clothes move with human bodies (Craig Green exemplifies this), and it can be difficult to hold a cohesive concept without the splash of a catwalk. But the designers at NYMD did their damndest to try. Some of the clothes were dull. Some were actually quite amazing. Here were some of the best.

Best:

Edmund Ooi FW 2016

In our review of his SS 2016 runway show, we discussed Malaysian designer Ooi’s refreshing emphasis on concept but lamented his inability to render them into wearable clothing. He heard our cries with FW2016; a striking balance between futuristic high fashion and utilitarian workwear. The coats, which ranged from belted trench coats to quilted bomber jackets, came layered with high treated t-shirts, neck jewelry, and awesome blue leather gloves. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the presentation were the spectacular cropped skinny denim; Ooi using denim is sort of like Ralph Lauren using latex. The collection felt very Raf, perhaps too much so. It’s probably on the fault of the viewer to relate anything youthful and confrontational to Raf, but the influence felt very evident here. And I’d still rather wear Raf. But nevertheless, very nice clothes.

Plac FW 2016

While certainly not approaching anything resembling high fashion, New York-based PLAC has found some footing under Korean creative director Sang-Hyun Lee. The knits and scarves were massive and draped over the models, creating an easy evocative look.

David Hart FW 2016

I actually was thinking the other night, why is it that when designers reference music is it always punk (Raf), rave culture (Liam Hodges), or hip-hop (Astrid Anderson). Why not one one of the most stylish of all musical genres, Jazz? While New York designer David Hart, who has worked for Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph, might not be the most conceptually brilliant designer out there, his FW 2016 presentation at NYMD answered my call. His presentation room, set to a soundtrack of A Tribe Called Quest, recreated the atmosphere of Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem, if in a slightly too obvious manner. Nevertheless, the all black cast and understated high luxury made for a groovy atmosphere and some very desirably tailored clothing.

Robert James FW 2016

“As a New York designer, I’m very conscious of not making anything related to Americana or workwear. I want to make real, luxury designer clothing,” said designer Robert James to me at his FW 2016 collection. The aim is admirable. James isn’t overly concerned with concepts, he pretty much always works in the sphere of refernces to rock n’ roll (this time the opulent dressing of 1970s rock bands), but he is an exquisitely skilled tailor and the clothes here were perfectly fitted and befitting of high price tags.

CWST FW 2016

I’ve never been one to think of dope smoking (and growing) tree huggers as the most stylish people around, but Californian brand CWST had me re-thinking that sentiment with their campfire celebrating FW 2016 presentation. For the presentation, the brand created a field of marijuana and had a campfire acoustic guitar player wheeling through the soundtrack. On top of that, the clothes were pretty amazing, turning hippie staples like drugrugs and knitted pants look like the most desirable products on Earth. There is something refreshingly unique about this brand, taking inspiration from their home state and then letting that inspiration ripple through the snooty fashion world. Never change, CWST.

Chapter FW 2016

I actually quite like Chapter and own some of their knits and pants (they actually make some really cool looking trousers), but they do seem to offer a more accessibly price but still well-made versions of the types of designers that sell their clothes at Totokaelo. But their FW 2016 presentation was fantastic, seeming to imagine the bad boy vampires of The Lost Boys at a John Coltrane concert (there was a live jazz band for the soundtrack). The designers of Chapter have a real knack for shape, taking things like minimal bomber jackets and trench coats and then just flaring it at the arm or the seems and making it look really cool. Chapter also offered the brand’s first pairs of denim, which we cropped, slashed, and drop-crotched, giving that girlfriend jean vibe to dudes, which didn’t look bad even if won’t get me to ditch my Levi’s anytime soon. Chapter really is a great brand though, especially if you are a guy who wants to wear things like Margiela and Lanvin but can’t come close to affording it.

See more fashion coverage here.

Your Must See Art Guide During Zona Maco México Arte Contemporaneo 2016

February 1, 2016

This week, Mexico City will be awash with patrons of the art, artists, galleryists, gawkers, wannabes and creative adventure seekers. Opening on Wednesday, February 3rd, Zona Maco México Arte Contemporaneo will be ground zero for one of the world’s most important art fairs and by far the biggest in South America. Founded by Zélika García 2002, Zona Maco as built a bridge between Mexico’s capital and the world’s leading artistic institutions. Surrounding the fair, though, will be a number of exhibitions, events and satellite fairs, including the Material Art Fair and the Idex Book Fair at Museo Jumex. You can also catch highlight exhibitions by the likes of Yoko Ono, Adam Green, and Los Angeles based artist on the rise Ariana Papademetropoulos. Here is your #mustsee art guide during Zona Maco 2016.

1. A Brilliant Activation of Allen Ginsburg's Poem Howl At Museo Jumex

Within the exhibition space Ruppersberg Allen: What is A Picture, Allen Ginsburg's poem Howl will be activated by voice, thus emphasizing the presence of the language in the exhibition and specifically in the work The Singing Poster, which illuminates the poem into prismatic colors and block text. The reading will occur on February 6th, 2016 at Museo Jumex between 5 and 8pm.

2. Gary Baseman Teams Up With 1800 Tequila For A Second Time To Create A Customized Decanter

Artist Gary Baseman is currently in Mexico City for a private event that will be held for the unveiling of the collaboration on February 4th. You can stay up to date with his travels in Mexico City by following his Instagram.

3. Check Out Gagosian's Booth At the Index Art Book Fair

Gagosian's bookish side of their art empire is always sure to delight and the Index Art Book Fair is a must stop on your art tour of Mexico City this week. The Index Art Book Fair opens on February 4th and closes on February 7th at Museo Jumex.

4. Check Out The Smoke Room Booth At The Index Art Book Fair

Launched in 2013 and based in Toronto Smoke Room aims at publishing the work of young photographers and artists. This week during the Index Art Book Fair, you can check out not so young, but young at heart Brad Elterman's new zine/book No Dog's On The Beach.

5. Ai Weiwei Takes On Surveillance and the Police State

As part of London based gallery Lisson's booth, Chinese artist and "dissident" will be have his piece Surveillance Camera with Stand Marble - a testament to freedom of expression. Lisson's booth will be on display for the duration of Zona Maco from February 3 to February 7, Centro Banamex, Hall D, Mexico City, Stand #e200

6. Yoko Ono "Earth Hopes" At the Museum of Memory and Tolerance Museum

The conceptual artist Yoko Ono will come to Mexico City on February 2, to inaugurate the exhibition on Earth Hope at the Memory and Tolerance Museum. The exhibition will explore her work and her dedication to giving women a more empowered voice. The Memory and Tolerance Museum is located at Plaza Juarez, Centro Historico | Frente al Hemiciclo a Juárez de la Alameda central, Mexico City

7. Artist and Filmmaker Adam Green Is Part of A Group Exhibition At One Reed

On view starting February 6, 2016 One Reed Gallery will present Mutatis Mutandis: ICON Symbol with artists Adam Green, Aurora Pellizzi, and Cisco Jimenez. The exhibition will explore symbols, mythologies and other tripped out modes of thought and thinking. One Reed is located at Building Humboldt - Article 123, No.116 Centro, Cuauhtemoc, Mexico.

8. The Material Art Fair Is Going To Be Off The Chain

The Material Art Fair is a little bit like Zona Maco's badass little brother or sister, featuring up and coming galleries that are down to get weird and dangerous. Indeed, MAF exists a little bit outside the status quo and its a great balance to the sometimes stodginess of mainstream art fairs. The Material Art Fair will open with a private vernissage on February 4 and will run until February 7, 2016, Melchor Ocampo 154-A Col. San Rafael, Del. Cuauhtemoc México

9. Sade Gallery Will Present Los Angeles Based Artist Ariana Papademetropoulos

Sade gallery will be presenting Los Angeles based up-and-coming artist Ariana Papademetropoulos' work at a booth at the Material Art Fair. Look out for this amazing showing of work by this incredibly exciting painter.

10. Rirkrit Tirivanija: Universal Fantastic Occupation at the Jumex Foundation

Thai artist Rirkrit Tirivanija has installed ping pong tables in the courtyard of the Museo Jumex and invites you to play. See this exhibition while you are in Mexico City at Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 303, Ampliacion Granada, Miguel Hidalgo, 11529

A Young Feminist’s Perspective on Twenty Years of American Apparel Ads

January 29, 2016

Text by KEELY SHINNERS

American Apparel advertisements have been branded with that ambiguous scarlet letter “controversial” since the early 2000s. Are they edgy or exploitative? Are they misogynist or empowering? How have the ads evolved since Dov Charney got fired in 2014? Is “evolved” even the right word?

Former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney has a history of power abuse—one (actually, 5) too many sexual harassment lawsuits, degrading comments to employees, rumors of Charney holding an employee against her will as a “sex slave.” In the feminist circle, Dov Charney is spoken of as our “resident skeezy uncle.” Namely, calling hypersexualized images of young (often white) girls “edgy” to further Charney’s capitalist agenda is a feminist’s worst nightmare. Since Charney was fired from the company in 2014, the ads are supposedly “tamer.” Meaning, instead of skinny young girls in tiny underwear, we get skinny young girls in denim jackets and knit sweaters.

Charney’s mid-2000s ads—many of them shot by Charney himself—were unapologetically exploitative. Early photographs of mostly-naked models in bed are amateur porn-esque. They are perhaps intentionally slimy, like a nude circulated around a clique of teenage boys. The male gaze does not hide itself here: you get fragmented, dehumanized close-ups of tits, ass, and pussy. You get grainy, intimate shots, presenting the model in compromised, hypersexualized spaces. You get Dov Charney posing proudly in bed with an anonymous, barely-clothed young girl. All in the name of “clothing you love to wear.”

Have the post-Charney ads evolved to being less exploitative? Perhaps “evolved” isn’t the right word. AA’s got a brand new CEO, but the male gaze is still all over their images. Though more clothed, we still see very young, thin, predominantly white women posed to highlight cleavage and curves. Has AA’s exploitative practices withdrawn since Charney, or have they merely changed façades? Are the ads evolving with the feminist movement, or is the face of capitalist patriarchy simply putting on a new, more subdued mask? Has the cat caller on the sidewalk retreated to the bushes, so to speak? American Apparel ads since 2014 seem to be less of an evolution of political consciousness and more of a metamorphosis of the patriarchy’s sexual eye. Does one type of perversity rank over another?

Perhaps a more interesting question: if American Apparel feels the need to transform their image, are they sensing the fragility of sexually exploitative images in our current cultural climate? If (and perhaps when) Dov Charney returns to AA, will his choice aesthetic come too late, now that the 21st century is sweet sixteen and won’t take daddy’s shit anymore?

What exactly is a young radical feminist supposed to do with American Apparel ads? We’re not going to put women in cardboard boxes and tell them to hide their tits. There is a slippery line between desexualization and censorship, and to act conservatively in the exposure of the female form isn’t going to aid anyone’s liberation. On that same vein, casting American Apparel off to the side - labeling it chauvinistic and irredeemable - doesn’t seem like a productive conversation either. Perhaps American Apparel ads can be a generative tool to look at how we imagine women, sexuality, capital, and mass marketing in the 21st century. The ads offer room for questions—does it matter who is behind the camera, and why? Is the unapologetic display of a woman’s body empowering, or does it become something else when selling product gets involved? Perhaps the ads – with all their flaws attached – will allow us to refine our positions and perceptions, making us better, more nuanced feminists. So, without further adieu, for better or for worse, here are 20 American Apparel ads from the past twenty years:

1995: 'Fresh Funk For Girls' - The Blossoming

1996: 'Who Is American Apparel' – A More Innocent Time

1997: 'January Classic' - The Girl Next Door Fantasy

1999: 'Dov's Panties' - The Creep Creeps

2000: 'T-shirt Cool" - Dov Makes An Appearance

2001: "Classic Girl" The First Black Model

2002: "Fuck The Brands That Are Fucking The People" Oh, The Irony

2003: "Carefree, Comfortable, Cotton" Take It All Off or Jerk Me Off Over The Phone

2004: "Aprés ski." Sex After An Afternoon on the Slopes

2005: 'Meet Lauren Phoenix' 160 pounds of magic. Actress. Director. Look Her Up On Google

2006: 'Hiking!' Down To Fuck On The Trail

2007: "Léa, a young comedienne...." Blue Is The Warmest Color

2008: Retail Locations "Licking Dov's Crotch"

2009: "Flex Fleece" Advert Banned In The UK For Suggesting Underage Sexuality

2010: "Human Pyramid" Literally, Women Stacked on Top of Women

2011: "Happy Winter" American Apparel Enters A New Age

2012: 'Made In the USA' American Apparel Introduces A Model In Her 60s

2013: "Happy Holidays" Meet Samantha, American Apparel Saves Face

2014: "Operated By Dov Charney" In June of This Year, Dov is Sacked For Sexual Harassment and Fiscal Irregularities

2015: "Classic Girl" The School Girl's Tumescent Nipples, The Coquettish Smile, The Fantasy Continues

Recent news is that a judge has blocked Dov Charney's most recent attempts to gain control of the company he built with his own two hands a little over twenty years ago. Paula Schneider, a woman no less, has held on to the reins of the company and is planning an overhaul. Charney is currently brainstorming a way to start a new clothing company, which should be interesting to watch unfold.

[Fashion] Paris Fashion Week Men's 2016

January 27, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

It feels like every season I find myself almost wanting the Paris round of menswear shows to suck, just to change it up. I can make claims like, “London is ground zero for cutting edge young menswear designers,” or “Italian luxury is forever,” or “New York is on the up and up,” but when it comes down to it, everything still pales in comparison to the lineup of designers that show their new duds in Paris. And until Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Kim Jones, Dries Van Noten, Yohji Yammamoto, Junya Watanabe, and so forth decide to show elsewhere, that appears to be how it will stay.

The FW 2016 Paris menswear shows seemed to emphasize time, nostalgia, and at times a rejection of nostalgia. Raf Simons, free of the punishing time constraints placed upon him as creative director of Dior, unleashed his most furiously cultural referent collection since his work with Sterling Ruby. Yohji Yammamoto looked nowhere but the future for his new Y-3 collection, preparing fashions for the final frontier. Kris Van Assche at Dior Homme elevated two fondly remembered sub-cultures, early New Wave and ‘90s skate culture, to Dior-ian qualities (with mixed results). Fashion is all about looking towards the future or remembering the past in efforts to co-opt those thoughts for the here and now. That sentiment was evident all throughout Paris this past week.

Raf Simons

Raf Simons has always managed to be a designer that sparks interest in people that may not be overwhelmingly interested in fashion, but who adore music and visual art. Joy Division and Factory Records fans delighted in his FW 2003 “Closer” collection that referenced Peter Saville graphics. His FW 2014 collection with Sterling Ruby may have been the most intriguing artist/designer collab of all time. Raf’s FW 2016 collection found Raf delighting in all the various works of art that inspire him now. Free of Dior, he has time to smartly cultivate a network of ideas and tie them together in a manner that feels effortless even if painstaking. The most talked about reference here was David Lynch (it also happened to be David’s birthday). The show was soundtracked to a recording of composer Angelo Badalmenti discussing his work scoring Twin Peaks, and the clothes had that macabre sense of banal Americana, or dare I say “Lynchian” qualities; the oversized letterman sweaters brought to mind the sultry princess of The Great Northern Audrey Horne, and the slashing of them the threat of imminent danger. And though grotesque Americana was the main theme here, with Raf also mentioning the Boy Scouts, The Breakfast Club, and slasher films as primary influences, he also took time to reference two more of his favorite artists. Raf cited Cindy Sherman as an influence on the collection, and the reference makes sense: Sherman’s portraiture of classically “American” figures (whatever that means) always hinted at something sinister beneath the surface. These clothes, while objectively normal or “American” (high school puffer jackets, oxfort shirts) were presented in such a manner to subvert their own expectations. Raf also claimed to be thinking more of aruguably his greatest influence, Martin Margiela, during the designing of this collection. The way the coats were so big to hang off the frames of the models, the smart tattering of sleeves, and the emphasis on the garments as objects all blatantly but brilliantly paid ode to Margiela and his legacy. This was a magnificent collection, perhaps the best Raf has presented since his work with Ruby. It was conceptually brilliant and aesthetically beautiful, and most importantly I want all of this stuff. Even better? Raf finally started diversifying his models, perhaps realizing that his justification of his use of white models is due to the street casting he does in Antwerp, probably won’t work anymore.

Dries Van Noten

Dries van Noten had been trying to secure the location of his FW 2016 show for 15 years. The Palais Garnier, an opulent shrine to French glory, was a fitting testament to the impact of this show. FW ’16 felt like the most quintessentially “Dries” show that Van Noten has shown in quite some time, finding the traditional and statuesque beauty in the imagery of the subversive and radical. The first coat, a black trench with a mock-neck collar and a waist flap, came emblazoned with a coiling snake graphic perfectly placed. While jackets fit rather slim, pants and shorts came oversized, emphasizing Dries’s tendency to go off-trend and come up with silhouettes you didn’t even realize that you wanted right now. All things told, the Dries collection had my favorite coats of the season, and there were so many options. Floral patterns, plaids, and psychedelic graphics designed by Wes Wilson, he of the era of psychedelic record covers and concert posters (Grateful Dead, Cream, etc..). The Belgians are coming out hard this season.

Louis Vuitton

Kim Jones, a man who undoubtedly clocks over 50 hours a week designing menswear for the world’s biggest fashion house, still finds seemingly tons of time to see the world, and his travels often influence his collections. But this time around for FW 2016 Louis Vuitton menswear collection, Jones looked around him at home. What does Paris mean to the world now? How does its heritage affect the world and how is that heritage viewed by those outside it? And most importantly, how do we push Paris and all its inherent ideas into the future? Jones answered swiftly, taking the most iconic of Parisian references, from Jean Cocteau to Art Deco, and employing them into garments imagined for an optimistically bright future. After the attacks in November, the show takes on a defiantly political tone: Paris thrives. The clothes here were utterly sleek, perfectly cut, and shimmering with promise. The belted trench coat at the beginning made its wearer look like an assassin after just completing a highly lucrative and expertly executed kill. A blue velvet double breasted coat was one of the best pieces Jones has ever designed. The clothes here were almost too spectacular to name one by one, so let’s just say that Louis Vuitton is still the historical fashion house making wealthy old men shell out credit and also making young urban guys want to grow up and get their shit together, trade in their Schott Perfectos and 501s for an immaculately coiffed double breasted suit.

Gosha Rubchinskiy

When Rei Kawakubo shows up, you know something is going on. As was the case with Gosha Rubchinskiy’s FW 2016 collection. Though it is smart business for Rei to support her suportees (Gosha’s brand is manufactured by Comme facilities, but is not a “Comme brand” as in Junya or Sacai), you hardly ever see her in-person anymore. But Rei, as with many of the more forward thinking in this industry, sees something in Gosha. When he debuted his first collection, he didn’t have much more to offer other than sweats and hoodies with eye-grabbing prints on them. But there was something in the perspective; here was someone that had to work hard to learn culture, and is working just as hard to show the world his culture. He’s one of the true original voices in the industry. Now to progress his brand, the Gosha FW 2016 collection took on a harder edge, employing more types of fashions as well as more capital “F” fashion. The high-waisted jeans and suspenders brought to mind the sinister underbellies of the hardened skinhead while also celebrating a goofiness in self-presentation. Near see-through jet-black turtlenecks with Russian prints will fly off the racks of Dover Street Market. The cargo trousers had the perfect silhouette for such a pant, loose but not baggy and cropped but never tight. The outerwear, which Gosha is proving he has a knack for, was excellent. The oversized shearling coats were the type of coat you just want to live in all winter.

Haider Ackermann

Haider Ackermann’s brand has always had this interesting aesthetic that seems like it’s designed for the wild child son or daughter of some aristocratic one percenter. The child who shuns the family business, goes to art school, takes tons of drugs and spends daddy’s money on records and expensive clothes, and still inherits his/her parents’ worth and stumbles into a board meeting one day ready to take total control. While wearing Haider of course. That is always what has made the brand cool to me, and perhaps why the brand is favored by so many of our most inherently punk rock pop culture icons. Tilda Swinton loves the brand, and Kanye has employed various Haider products (oversized velvet sweatshirts, velvet bombers, gigantic hoodies) and made them the new look of the fashion conscious hip-hop industry (Jerry Lorenzo’s Fear of God line is basically Haider silhouettes of skateboarding garb). Perhaps with that newfound relevance, Haider embraced his most abrasive inner wild child with the FW 2016 collection. While nothing new for Haider, it’s still totally unique in the culture of brands. The male models in the show, wearing Bauhaus Mohawks, wore mis-matched jacquard suits and magnificently garish velvet coats. The women, with shaved heads, snugged themselves into lovely leathers. The blue velvet pieces were out of this world, and immediately brought to mind the fetishizing of the material in its namesake David Lynch film. I want to wear some of Haider’s stuff badly, perhaps he could do the next H&M collection?

Kolor

Fresh off a very successful collection with adidas (his Ultra Boost colorway was fire, I got a paid, woohoo) Junichi Abe has never appeared so confident in his design chops. The Kolor FW 2016 collection, though lacking in the color that you might expect, employed all the aesthetic choices that make Abe so compelling. Everything is slightly mismatched, a little off, and yet so right all the same. A multi-layered look with trousers, bomber jacket, and shirt, was actually one solitary piece. I’m not sure anyone wants to buy a pre-made outfit, but that is the level of skill you are dealing with when it comes to Abe. The most conventional looks, such as a droopy double-breasted khaki blazer, and the oddest looks, such as a blue plastic labcoat, all felt part of a cohesive narrative world. That is I suppose what is so interesting about Abe. Perception of him as a whole is of an artistic rebel in the world of fashion, but his clothes are quite normal and easy on the eyes. In person however, you find design flourishes that are more difficult, and even more compelling.

Rick Owens

Few designers do post-apocalyptic fashion better than Rick Owens, afterall, he was the designer who kept Mad Max in vogue long before Fury Road collectively blew our fucking minds last year. But with 2015 the world’s hottest year ever recorded, Owens is legitimately worried that the world is ending. But he’s a tough guy. It’s easy to see Rick Owens as the Rick Grimes of his own goth fashion tribe, and he’s not going down without a fight. His apocalypse army will survive looking sick, of course. The looks oscillated between Owens touchstones, like his perfect minimalist bomber jackets and his brutalist man dresses, between works of great architectural care that nevertheless presented themselves as part of some eternal unknown. Perhaps the biggest shockers were the standard black blazers. But nevertheless, Rick is ready to take on the end, and he will have his acolytes going out looking tough and stylish as fuck.

Lemaire

While people swooned over the garish H&M X Balmain collaborative collection, I was happily picking up every piece by from the understated, comfortable, and elegant collection from Christopher Lemaire’s collaboration with Uniqlo. Lemaire, a former designer of Hermes, understands that luxury is not always (or for everyone) about standing out. It’s about feeling good and comfortable so you can stand out on you own, and let your personality do the talking for you. He is a true minimalist designer, finding perfection in blank slates and unique structures. His FW 2016 collection was full of chalky and dark colored structured jackets and blazers, oversized trousers, tunics, and more. These are the types of clothes that I would most often like to wear, and their easiness is their inherent appeal.

Yohji Yammamoto

Admittedly, I’m a bit of a Yojhi nut, but I don’t feel biased in declaring this one of Yammamoto’s best seasons in recent memories (though the last one was pretty good). The Japanese revolution of designers has been insanely long-lasting in the ever-evolving fashion sphere. Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garcons is the largest avant fashion label in the world and she is the champion of so many of the leftfield designers of the future. Issey Miyake, though less involved in the design of his garments, continues diversifying in his brand. And Yohji, at age 72, continues to push the envelop. His Y-3 show was as interesting as ever, especially considering that Y-3 has been tapped by NASA to design the first ever fashion for space. But Yammamoto’s namesake brand has always been his ideal man, a cigarette smoking frolicking dark dandy with a permanent sourpuss. The FW 2016 collection featured Yammamoto at his most precious, with tiny t-shirts covering heavy outerwear displaying a squeezed effect inspired by when kids go out in the snow and their parents make them put on all their clothes. Everything was nicely draped. The scarves were sick. And as always, Yohji’s underrated footwear designs were some of the nicest on any catwalk.

Honorable Mentions

Sacai’s FW 2016 collection, apparently about peace and love or something, displayed a stunning color palettes of greys and burgundies as well as black stripe pattern. Takahiro Miyashita the Soloist’s new collection, always inspired by rock n’ roll, offered some sly but wearable design flourishes, like a pullover MA-1. Ann Demeulemeester, now designed by ever-intense Sebastian Meunier, offered a romantic and gothic take on contemporary male beauty. And Thom Browne threw luxury in your face and then tattered it to pieces before turning it into luxury again.

[Friday Playlist] Fat White Family Special Edition

January 22, 2016

Today, we look at the music that influenced the militaristic combative psych-punk of Fat White Family. Starting off with lead single Whitest Boy on the Beach from Fat White Family's new album Songs for Our Mothers, we then included the earliest influences on the band: the anarcho-punk of Crass, the street poetry and urban rambling of Mark E. Smith and the Fall, the nihilist psych of Butthole Surfers, the hate country of Country Teasers, and the garage spew of the Gun Club. But Fat White Family has diversified on Songs for Our Mothers, with a heavier emphasis on melody and songcraft. There is the psychedelic shimmies of the 13th Floor Elevators. Lias admitted to me a fondness for Donna Summer. Much of the album explores the volatility that created the beautiful songs of Ike and Tina Turner. A motorik rhythm propels the record, much like krautrock of bands like Neu. And I also detected a heavy Devo influence on this band, in the oft-kilter anthemic passages. Like their mates in Sleaford Mods, Fat White Family is a thoroughly independent act that has the potential for massive success.

Playlist by Adam Lehrer

[FASHION] Best of Milan Menswear Fall/Winter 2016

January 22, 2016

Text by Adam Lehrer

I’m firmly backing Milan again. Of course, we are all familiar with Alessandro Michele’s came changing work at Gucci, but it feels like Italian luxury heritage is more important than it ever has been. With the mega-packed fashion schedule demanding designers create at paces that consumers simply can’t keep up with, there’s more in-demand for luxury products that you can count on to last a lifetime. It seems exceedingly silly to fork over $2,500 for some cutting edge coat by some hot shot designer when it could be looking stupid on me in six months, especially when I can buy a perfect coat from an Italian house like Brioni for the same amount of doh. And Brioni ain’t ever going out of style.

FW 2016 was a strong season in Milan. With staples like Prada and Bottega Veneta both offering sharp new creative directions, luxury kings Zegna and Canali offering just odd enough takes on mega-sharp style, and injections of youth from Damir Doma and a re-invigorated Iceberg.

No. 21

Designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua, who was an Italian fashion staple in the ‘90s, came back on the scene with new line No. 21 in 2010. Though perhaps best known for his womenswear and footwear, the No. 21 FW 2016 menswear collection was the best assortment of male products the designer has ever put out. From the very first and highly desirable piece seen, an oversized silhouette military hoodie jacket, Dell’Acqua presents a highly wearable form of conceptual luxury. Dell’Acqua seems to be seeking a decidedly Italian take on Haider Ackermann’s punk rocker gone bourgeoisie. There are leopard print coats, billowing tight cargo trousers, and a whole range of muted but eye-grabbing colors. I had never before even though much of Dell’Acqua as a menswear designer, but there were more pieces in this show that I wanted than any other show of the season.

Brioni

Lead by creative director Brendan Mullane, a former menswear designer at Givenchy, Brioni has become one of the most intriguing high luxury menswear brands in the game. The clothes, for lack of a better term, look perfect. Mullane has done some really awesome things with the house, noting it as a label of interest for aristocratic creative men. Last year Autre favorite artists John Armleder and Seth Price were part of a Brioni campaign. Mullane’s FW 2016 collection, set to a rousing Bjork soundtrack, captured the DNA of the brand, few surprises but nothing less than utterly desirable. The sandblasted plaid suits and coats made me want to grow up. The wool mockneck sweatshirts were pieces that I wanted to wear everyday; with jeans or with trousers. Brioni is about the clothes, and doesn’t impose its brand ethos on the customer. Anyone would look amazing in these pieces.

Bottega Veneta

Now that Tomas Maier has helped usher in sportswear into luxury, it’s time to abandon sportswear in luxury. Maier is a futurist at heart, and what is the future if not a luxury? Instead, jet black and austerely architectural suiting took over the runway for Maier’s FW ’16 collection. The coats were some of the best Maier has ever put out. Black trench coats with flowing locks of fabrics and attached sweater like structures were only bested by the baggy elongated shearling jackets. Leather in fantastical colors of reds and blues solidified Maier’s reputation as a master designer of leather silhouettes. If I ever struck it rich, I’d wear this everyday.

Thom Browne

Even at his most accessible, Thom Browne remains willfully and exuberantly conceptual. Projects like his Brooks Brothers label saw him honing in on a specific point; a story that he wanted to tell. He doesn’t mince ideas or his labor. His work with outdoor wear behemoth Moncler Gamma Bleu has been mutually beneficial for the designer and the brand. The brand, knowing it’ll sell well regardless, allows Browne to really throw a wild show and bring some experimental flair to it. Browne, interested in brands like Valentino’s attempts at using camo to stand out instead of blend in, took that idea to its umpteenth conclusion. The Moncler FW ’16 collection featured models in riot helmets covered in garish camo prints like some sort of out and proud death squad. Vogue admonished the show, calling it “garish stage dressing.” But I think that’s more or less the point. With his own label, Browne has redefined how professional men dress. With Moncler, he’s able to bring his name to the brand and inject some vitality into it. For his efforts, Moncler allows Browne to poke some fun at the idea of a fashion show (and pay him fuckloads of money to be sure).

Calvin Klein

When you think about the designers that have had the most influence over contemporary menswear, there are a few no-brainers: Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Thom Browne, Junya Watanabe. Then there are those who you might not think of right away, but agree with as soon as they come up: Acne Studios’ Johnny Johannsen, A.P.C.’s Jean Touitou, and the like. Whatever the case, at some point Calvin Klein’s Italo Zuchelli will take his rightful place on this list. Most style conscious guys, those that live in the real world and not in street style blogs, dress fairly minimal but nevertheless care about the quality of their clothes. No one does minimal or quality quite as uniquely as Zuchelli. His FW ’16 collection played with all sorts of menswear and Calvin Klein house codes. Perfectly tailored suits were clung to the taut bodies of some of the world’s most beautiful female models: Iselin Steiro, Jessica Miller, and Gemma Ward among them. His experimentations with denim this time around were especially striking, turning the fabled Canadian tuxedo into a white jacquard jump suit. Not since Helmut Lang has denim seemed so much like high fashion as high fashion, and not high fashion aping streetwear.

Damir Doma

Though he might still be viewed as something of a cult designer, Damir Doma’s brand is growing strongly (I bought some pants of his at a Century 21). The sculptural designer wants to tell more stories, staging his FW ’16 collection next to a high-speed train. His vision has really matured since taking it from Paris to Italy last year, moving away from Rick Owens-lite into a structured and high luxury Italian version of austere and gothic garment manufacturing. There was something of the setting for this show too. Developed under the rule of Mussolini, it has since become one of the most efficient train stations in the world. Perhaps a metaphor for Doma’s breaking free of the shackles of Paris’s high competition schedule, he’s allowed to really tap into something that he does uniquely: shape. Doma is able to take garments such as bomber jackets and kimonos and cut them into shapes that make the perfect amount of sense. They look familiar, somehow. The palette was decidedly Kubric, off-white and black and khaki. Great show for Mr. Doma.

Gucci

Though Alessandro Michele’s FW ’16 collection didn’t update anything he had done the first two seasons, he further cemented the new Gucci world. Though I highly doubt this new Gucci is targeting its new “Gucci man,” the business is climbing because people are thoroughly fascinated at this world that sales are climbing. People want to buy into this: a jacket here or trousers there. Whether or not you could ever see yourself wearing this stuff (I wouldn’t, to be sure) it’s amazing to see how Michele has not only brought Gucci back to life, but also brought attention back to Milan altogether.

Honorable Mentions

Though it wasn’t technically part of the Milan schedule, Korean label Juun J’s FW ’16 collection was the best the label has ever offered. Prada’s FW ’16 collection offered all sorts of textures, layers, and the ever-noticeable Prada look. So good on that. And Stefano Pilati, one of the most underrated designers in menswear, flexed his suiting muscles hard with the Zegna FW ’16 collection, making the most black of black suits look like pieces or architectural wonder.

[FASHION REVIEW] Our Favorites From London Collections: Men

January 18, 2016

text by Adam Lehrer

It's been a full week since LCM, which is an eternity in the world of fashion, but we like to take our time to really analyze the collections for their sartorial craftiness, relevance in culture and wearableness. Anyway, another season another killer London Collections: Men.. Bless Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion, because as we’ve said before, London is far and away smoking the menswear game in terms of new and subversive talent. So, yes, cool creative guys are wearing lots of clothes by British designers, but what is most amazing about the London talent is that these guys have really been stunning at creating their own customer bases and as a result have created substantial businesses without having to sacrifice creativity for commercial appeal. Nasir Mazhar has identified his adventurous grime rapper looking for something with heavier design than the standard Adidas or Nike tracksuit (nothing wrong with said tracksuit, however I’m wearing an adidas track jacket while writing this, cozy as fuck). Craig Geeen has found a gender-neutral customer looking to make poetic statements with flowing fabrics. Casely-Hayford has tapped into an older wearer, a man that used to play in a punk band and now spends his time painting and taking trips to the country for camping and hiking. It’s astounding the amount of brands in London that have so seamlessly (well, actually, with gruesome work ethic) developed a definable but ever-growing story surrounding the brands.

The Fall-Winter 2016 shows saw these stories mutating and developing, with designers like Liam Hodges and Cottweiler establishing firmer directions for their well-defined aesthetic ideas. Nevertheless, London titans Alexander McQueen and conventional brethren Burberry set forth their strongest shows in seasons. So, hard to narrow down these collections to favorites, to say the least. But there can only be seven.

Craig Green

Still abstract and poetic in its assembly, Craig Green’s FW 2016 collection nevertheless presented a vision that might more immediately appeal to men (and as much so to women, as women have eaten up Craig Green possibly more then dudes). What I find most impressive about Craig is that in show, his collections look as abstract and architectural and plain fucking weird as anything Rei Kawakubo has ever done. But unlike Rei, when I see the clothes in retail I see a great utilitarian jacket. The design is in the possibilities for styling within that jacket, which seem limitless. This aesthetic works even better in FW 2016 with its earthy muted colors. The collection had some of Green’s most far out pieces, with the sort of bondage pieces barely concealing models’ bodies, but also some of his more accessible pieces. The oversized tan crewneck in silk looks like something I could wear all winter. With Craig, there doesn’t seem to be immediate touchstones, like say, “Hedi Slimane tapped into surfer punks.” It’s vague and poetic, defined by an abstract architecture. The story is defined purely by image, and not by a defined context.

Cottweiler

Fetishization is near always interesting, and the fetishization of athletic wear by men is a singular trademark of the urban millennial. Cottweiler has developed a rabid cult following conceptualizing this trend, and with every season the design duo, Brits Ben Cottrell and Matthew Dainty, has sharpened this aesthetic. The duo seems highly aware of contemporary art, architecture, and performance, eschewing a conventional runway show for grandiose displays of design. For FW ’16, Cottweiler explored the relationship between modern technology and how nature reacts to it. That idea came through strong in this collection, with a lineup of models dressed in Cottweiler staple track jackets but also knitwear made of new-to-the-brand materials like Sheepskin, elevated by platform and surrounded by bamboo and vegetation. Is tech enhancing our relationship to nature, hindering it, or a little bit of both? Option C, Cottweiler suggests.

Katie Eary

Remember how the album by nu-metal band System of a Down came out the week of 9/11 and, due to its politically charged themes, it was heralded as a work of great artistic achievements? Well, probably not, but they were decent enough either way. The point is, sometimes a work of creativity comes out at precisely the right time, warranting it more attention and discussion than perhaps it deserves. Case in point, Katie Eary’s FW 2016 collection. While the clothes alook good enough, it’s the fact that they celebrate David Bowie’s great contributions to menswear that make them stand out, especially during this week when we sadly lost the man to cancer. Inspired by documentary Sacred Triangle that documented the creativity camaraderie of Bowie, Iggy, and Lou Reed, the collection featured lots of menswear staples presented in a gender fluid manner; such as, a traditional western jacket over a silver leather workwear suit. Would Bowie have worn this stuff two weeks ago? Nope. 30 years ago? Everyday.

Nasir Mazhar

With his SS 2016 collection, Nasir Mazhar opted for dark monochrome over his better known colorful palette, re-evaluating his stance after losing his father. From my viewpoint, it was his best collection yet, fully targeting the grime community that worships him as deity. His FW 2016 collection continued in this tradition, employing his perfect tracksuits with more abstract looks. The garment draped riot helmets were some of the most striking looks Nasir has ever sent down a runway, and the bondage leathered female models looked absolutely smoking. Unlike other conceptual designers, Nasir designs for an active body, making it easier for me to imagine myself wearing even the more difficult pieces. I’ll be honest, I want a lot of this stuff. I’m sick of denim jackets for one thing, and Nasir’s rumpled track jackets look like the just interesting enough antidote to finding a new layer to throw under a trench coat. Cool shoes, too.

Casely-Hayford

Father and son design duo Charlie and Joe Casely-Hayford define the contemporary state of London menswear as well as any brand on the circuit: few designers are able to translate the luxury craft of Savile Row with the street friendly cultural references paramount to London culture so easily. In a recent article in The New Order magazine, father Joe described his interest in fashion being piqued through early shopping experiences at Vivian Westwood’s shop Let it Rock, where none other than one time Sex Pistols member Glen Matlock would help him try on looks. And of course, Joe would also get seriously luxury trained as creative director at Savile Row behemoth Gieves and Hawkes. Joe has amazing cultural taste and crazy tailoring skills, while son Charlie brings the Casely-Hayford label a Central Saint Martins-educated design skill and a youthful exuberance. Charlie has stated that all their collections begin with a discussion about music and youth culture. The duo really goes wild with a concept. For FW 2016, Casely-Hayford taps into imperial military outfits as re-imagined by Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club band. The psychedelic patterns on the dinner jackets and trousers were tastefully decadent. Bomber nylon was added to down jackets. Speaking of bombers, nearly ever designer does one seemingly ever season, and why not? They are always top sellers because they look, well, sick. But Casely-Haford constantly finds new ways to reinvent the staple, seen here as an elongated silhouette with fringe touching the floor and scraps of denim patchworked into the Nylon. I can see myself blowing some credit to get my hands on one of those.

Alexander McQueen

As successful as Sarah Burton has been at continuing Alexander McQueen’s legacy with womenswear is as wishy-washy she has been at solidifying that success with menswear. Seldom do I ever see a piece that I would blow the obscene amounts of money indicated by the price tags to get my hands on anything logo’d with Alexander McQueen. FW 2016 was a vast improvement though, capturing the gothic romanticism of McQueen’s fascinations as well as the razor sharp tailoring that he made his bones with. Superior suiting glued to near-starving looking dudes was revved up by employments of moth graphics, adding a macabre flair to traditional menswear garb. A few dudes walked around with faux-facial jewelry matching brutal silver accessories hanging over tuxedo jackets. This would be a smart direction for the brand to go in: cocktail attire for wealthy male artists and musicians, etc.. I would love to see post-punk bands employing this look.

Astrid Anderson

A more subdued Astrid Anderson is not at all a boring Astrid Anderson, as evidenced by the wool-heavy FW 2016 collection. With co-signs from A$AP Rocky and Ferg, Astrid has arguably become contemporary hip-hop’s new favorite designer. Despite that, Astrid never designs her clothes to the tastes of her rapper friends; instead those rappers redefine their tastes to wear Astrid Anderson. Starting the show with a sleek wool tracksuit, the ostentatious flair was dialed down in favor of clean and desirable design. The gold floral patterned gym shorts was more in-line with what we’ve seen with Astrid in the past, though a bit more dare I say classic? Of the things I’d most like to wear, must point out the knitwear. The loose silhouettes looked absolutely perfect, calling to mind a more club-minded Haider Ackermann with interesting shades of lime and solitary stripes. This sweater looked even cleaner when cut in half by the stripe, lime on the top and baby blue on the bottom. The plaid hoodie and sweats under a sweet black trench will be all over the street style blogs. With the show soundtracked by legendary Parisian DJ Brodinski, Astrid seems aware enough of the underground to both take cues from and influence it.

Honorable mentions

The Man Show was particularly strong this year, with Grace Wales Bonner re-imaginings of the contemporary black man as a man of taste and luxury looking particularly poised to make serious cultural and financial impact. One of my personal favorites, Liam Hodges, offered his most realized collection yet. With his well-defined tribe behind him, it doesn’t seem to be reaching to think that Liam Hodges could achieve Rick Owens-esque success. Matthew Miller, who has a tendency to over explain his ideas, is best understood as a man who deigns sick fucking coats, with FW ’16 no exception. Agi & Sam, displaying men’s and women’s looks, offered a minimalist collection with useless but stunning details, such as sleeves hanging below inches below hands. E. Tauz appears to be taking cues from Christopher Lemaire: simple simple simple, with amazingly structured and flowing silhouette.

CATEGORIES: ART / CULTURE / MUSIC / FILM PROSE / DESIGN / FASHION

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American Artist: “Earthseed” from Hyundai Artlab (@hyundai.artlab) takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of American Artist’s (@a_____rtist) project “The Monophobic Response.” Offering an in-depth view into the artist’s practice, this film explores the creative process that went into reimagining a pivotal 1936 rocket engine test through the lens of Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction novel “Parable of the Sower.” Discover how their multi-year collaboration with the LACMA Art + Technology Lab enabled them to explore the societal implications of technological advancements. Watch Now - Link in bio! – Artlab Editorial presents is a film series celebrating 10 years of Hyundai Motor’s partnership with LACMA (@LACMA) by highlighting the journey and impact of three visionary artists through the LACMA Art + Technology Lab. American is a recipient of the 2021 LACMA Art + Technology Lab grant #lacma #americanartist #artandtechnology #lacma

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QUORI THEODOR. Last Thursday night, @autremagazine took over the @stoneisland flagship in Manhattan to celebrate our FW24 “CITIZEN” Issue and a 166-page supplement by @sicknethi generously supported by the cult luxury outerwear brand. Sethi signed copies and two large lightboxes of the covers greeted guests at the door. Autre 19 FW24 The “Citizen” Issue is out now #stoneisland #nicksethi #manhattan

MYKKI BLANCO. Last night, @autremagazine took over the @stoneisland flagship in Manhattan to celebrate our FW24 “CITIZEN” Issue and a 166-page supplement by @sicknethi generously supported by the cult luxury outerwear brand. Sethi signed copies and two large lightboxes of the covers greeted guests at the door. Autre 19 FW24 The “Citizen” Issue is out now #stoneisland #mykkiblanco #manhattan #nyc

JACK PIERSON + NICK SETHI. Last night, @autremagazine took over the @stoneisland flagship in Manhattan to celebrate our FW24 “CITIZEN” Issue and a 166-page supplement by @sicknethi generously supported by the cult luxury outerwear brand. Sethi signed copies and two large lightboxes of the covers greeted guests at the door. Autre 19 FW24 The “Citizen” Issue is out now #stoneisland #nicksethi #jackpierson #manhattan #nyc

AUTRE CITIZEN. November 5th, 2024, will be remembered as a turning point in global history. One way or the other, we fight on. In our FW24 Citizen Issue @janellezara explores the prescient work of @joshklinejoshkline whose practice is focused on the “21st century as an era of massive transformation.” Photographs by @damienmaloney Order Autre 19 FW24 The Citizen Issue (🔗 in bio), an over 500 page compendium of democratic ideas and dreams. #joshkline #vote #november5 #democracy

AUTRE CITIZEN. November 5th, 2024, will be remembered as a turning point in global history. One way or the other, we fight on. In our FW24 Citizen Issue @janellezara explores the prescient work of @joshklinejoshkline whose practice is focused on the “21st century as an era of massive transformation.” Order Autre 19 FW24 The Citizen Issue (🔗 in bio), an over 500 page compendium of democratic ideas and dreams. Credit: Josh Kline, Freedom, 2015. Installed at Modern Art, Oxford, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist, 47 Canal, New York, and Modern Art, Oxford. Photo: Ben Westoby. #joshkline #vote #november5 #democracy

AUTRE CITIZEN. November 5th, 2024, will be remembered as a turning point in global history. Vote for history, but also vote for the future and your conscience. In our FW24 Citizen Issue @janellezara explores the prescient work of @joshklinejoshkline whose practice is focused on the “21st century as an era of massive transformation.” Order Autre 19 FW24 The Citizen Issue (🔗 in bio), an over 500 page compendium of democratic ideas and dreams. Credit: Productivity Gains (Brandon / Accountant), 2016 3D-printed plaster, ink-jet ink, and cyanoacrylate; foam; polyethylene bag 21 1⁄2 × 27 × 55 in (54.61 × 68.58 × 139.70 cm) Image courtesy of the artist and 47 Canal, New York. Photo: Joerg Lohse. #joshkline #vote #november5 #democracy