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56—7 EDITO by Romeu Silveira 8—9 MASTHEAD 12—17 JESSE DRAXLER interviewed by Hernan Quintanilla 20—25 PABLO HENRARD interviewed by Talicia Ramsey 18—21 XIMON LEE interviewed by Talicia Ramsey 28—43 WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Wilkosz & Way 64—75 LAST NIGHT IN PIGALLE by Julien Bernard 44—63 UNFINISHED SYMPATHY by Miguel Villalobos 76—83 JWAN YOSEF interviewed by Mateus Lages 84—95 HOT BOYS by Fernando Tomaz 96—109 HAIR by Aldona Karczmarczyk 110—117 GRIFFIN by Carina Toledo, with photography by Wanda Martin 118—123 MARTINE ROSE by Talicia Ramsey, with photography by Wanda Martin 124—137 NOTHING BEHIND ME, EVERYTHING AHEAD OF ME by Romain Sellier 140—159 CIVIL WAR by Orsolya Luca 160—177 LOCALS ONLY by Cecilia Duarte 178—191 NEW ROMANTIC by Josefina Bietti 194—201 A conversation with The National’s frontman MATT BERNINGER by João Lourenço
202—207 GLAM by Adriano Damas 210—217 DYSTOPIAN YOUTH by Dinosaraus
218—219 WHATS NEXT by Carina Toledo 223—233 GRAVITY
by Gustavo Ipolito 234—247 SECOND LIFE by Kristiina Wilson 248—249 GUIDE
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November 2014. U + MAG is celebrating ten years of activity.
And our relationships to-day are completely dif-ferent than they were in 2004. It is time to redo, rethink, rebuild, rear-range, and remix every-thing we learned and ab-sorbed in that first decade. And we are proud to be part of something irrevers-ible: the domination of dig-ital and the social media, which occurred in the last ten years. We were born in the boom of Fotolog; we grew up in the early years of Flickr; we were part of the first boom of fashion blogs; we developed our-selves as a magazine on Tumblr (which is still rele-vant); we embarked on the iPad, iPhone, and tablet revolution; and, finally, we created our own platform, including our own website,
radio, digital issues and all forms of social media. Yes, you can also have U+MAG in print using the print-on-demand system, which has been available for our read-ers since 2012. But believe me, this is just an option.
U+MAG is fluid, dynamic, and changing. U + MAG has its roots in the digital world. The day we lose that es-sence, we know we’ll be headed in the wrong di-rection. We work hard to portray a generation of creative people. We work hard to con-nect creative people from around the world and from different fields. More than ever, we are interested in connections, in remaking everything we’ve done before, just in a different way. This is
Edito
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the essence of ‘REWIND/FORWARD’, our maga-zine’s mission.
We prefer to think about the next ten years as some-thing unexpected.We are open and ready for all the changes that the world will pass through. We are open to trying all the possi-bilities for communication, sharing, and development that will inevitably appear.
The best thing about cre-ating a magazine like U + MAG is that you never know what’s coming. You are ready to be surprised every day.
These first ten years have been wonderful because of all of the people who went through this mag-azine and for all those who are about to be part of this project. It’s hard to mention all of their names, but I just have to thank these professionals. I also
thank our brave team of directors and editors.
With this edition, we get into a mode of celebration that will run until Novem-ber 2015, when we will complete eleven years. All future editions will be commemorative in some way, starting with the first, which will come out in March. They’ll all include surprises along the way.
We will keep doing what we believe.
This is the fuel that keeps
this project alive.
Happy new year!
Happy 10+!
Romeu Silveira
Edito Edito
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Creative Director & FounderRomeu Silveira
Fashion DirectorIgi Ayedun
Fashion Editor-At-Large LondonTomas C. Toth
Fashion Editor-At-Large New YorkDwight Reeves
Fashion Features EditorCarina Toledo
Digital Features EditorHernan Quintanilla
Arts & Culture EditorMateus Lages
Editorial ContributorsTalicia Ramsey João Lourenço
Copy EditorYasmin Tayag
Contributors Fernando TomazHeleno ManoelDiogo MartinsOtavio RosselliJulien Bernard
Benjamin Brouillet Diamanta Kayenga
Yann Bousand LarcherCyril Laforet
Wilkosz & WaySam Moukhaiber
Sasha O’NeillSue ThompsonCecilia DuarteRomain SellierGustavo IpolitoAdelmo Firmino
Giovana GiacominShiori Takahashi
Ester PadilhaBruno Cardoso
Miguel VillalobosLu Phillippe Guilmette
Cedric JoliverKristiina Wilson
Beau BarelaJessi Butterfield
Aldona KarczmarczykAska CiesielskaMichael BieleckiLogan Jackson
Beata MilczarekOrsolya Luca
Andrew CeciliatoPernille NadineSven Bayerbach
Lin ZhuTamas Csordas
DinosarausThomasz MalkaAdriano Damas
David DinizMonica VenturaJosefina Bietti
George KrakowiakAndré PuertasFlavio Lacerda Carlos SalesTeo Miranda
Roberto PasandinWanda Martin
Zhana Medvesh
2004-2014 © U+MAG, the artists and contributors. All Rights Reserved.
Special Thanks Arthur Ribeiro
Van Dorsen TalentsTom Jacq
Nico Helbig
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PERSONALLY of course I REGRET everything. Not a WORD, not a DEED, NOT A THOUGHT, NOT a NEED, not a GRIEF, not a JOY, NOT a GIRL, not a BOY, NOT a DOUBT, not a TRUST, not a SCORN, not a LUST, not a HOPE, not a FEAR, not a SMILE, not a TEAR, NOT a name, not a face, no time, no place... An ORDURE, from beginning to END.
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PERSONALLY of course I REGRET everything. Not a WORD, not a DEED, NOT A THOUGHT, NOT a NEED, not a GRIEF, not a JOY, NOT a GIRL, not a BOY, NOT a DOUBT, not a TRUST, not a SCORN, not a LUST, not a HOPE, not a FEAR, not a SMILE, not a TEAR, NOT a name, not a face, no time, no place... An ORDURE, from beginning to END.
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Jesse Draxler is a collage artist. More than likely, you have seen his work. In only a few years, Jesse has become one of the Internet’s ‘it’ artists; his work is being considered as decorative art and is featured in almost every art blog and magazine and even in The New York Times while also being reblogged on just about everyone’s Tumblr.
InterviewHernan Quintanilla
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15With just enough abstract weirdness, his collag-es combine all mixed media forms and celebrate the work of other creatives by twisting their work into something daring, uncomfortable, and more questionable than reliable. Using images found throughout the web, mainly on art and fashion sites, his work serves as a scrapbook that reflects the current aesthetically driven trends that can be, thanks to the Internet, followed in almost real time. With his pulse on forward-pushing imag-ery, Jesse remains ahead of others, raising our expectations of what we have come to expect of the Internet and of artists.
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It’s hard to put a name on what you do, can you attempt to sum it up?
I work with pre-existing images to transform them into something else using a number of techniques and ma-terials. Among other things.
Where do you get your images from? Do you hunt for specific images or are you just an avid collector?
Both. A good majority of my visual material these days is given to me di-rectly from photographers. I also make regular trips to my favorite used book stores, various news stands, etc. It turns into a lifestyle, always on the lookout for things to use no matter where you are.
What are the upsides and downsides of be-ing dependent on the Internet to not only find material but to also publish your own work in?
I do not find the imagery I use in my work online, but yes, I feel a deep sense of gratitude towards the InternetI feel like the Internet is my relative, family-it has brought people into my life who have become family. I don’t see any downsideit’s all good as long as you’re using it right.
With so many artists on the Internet – why do you think you have been able to stand out?
This seems more like a question you, as someone who picked me as a stand out, should be answering. (Feel free to answer here:______ )
How much of what you create is ex-perimental and how much is already thought out?
Everything is an experiment. I usually know what medium I want to use or what style I want to approach the project in, but as far as the physical aspect of creating the workthere is always an experi-mental tone to the work flow.
When do you let go of your work and say it’s done?
Whenever I want. Would you say you have found your own style that’s recognizable?
I’m settling into myself, for sure. Which artists have been your biggest influences?
It’s hard to say anymoreI’ve stolen from so many.
You received a BFA, was it worth it both financially and educationally?
I had a long diatribe about how the art school I got my BFA from has since declared bankruptcy and the absurdity of paying back loans that were used for an education from a school that no longer ex-istsbut I’m just going to say no. (I actually have an ongoing proj-ect in which I paint all the student loan bills I get in the mail black, I call it “Black Mail”.
In another interview you said music carries a lot of influential weight on your work and that you were reacting to the mood it creates for you. How much of your work is a reaction to something and how much is a reflec-tion of your own self-exploration?
100% to both questions.
18Interview & Words
Talicia Ramsey
PortraitsMateus Lages
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Ximon Lee
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What was it about the street children of Leningradsky that inspired you to create the collection?
The documentary “Children of Leningradsky” re-minds me so much of my childhood and my birth town. The grey Soviet architectures, abandoned playgrounds, and colorless long winters in the doc-umentary represent a deep nostalgia of vivid child-hood memories. I found something really romantic and fascinating about these years when I was free and ignorant in this autistic northern town. Scenes in the documentary where the homeless children near Leningradsky station run on the winter streets in oversized, layered and randomly styled clothes are unforgettable; I was obsessed with the way the homeless children dressed and styled themselves in clothes collected from trash. I started collecting images and videos about these homeless children and decided to fly to Russia to get my mood board together for my graduate collection. “Children of Leningradsky” is very personal, and every layer re-veals something about my childhood.
Has travel always been a key inspiration in your work?
I’m a nomadic person, and travel is already a part of my life. Every journey stimulates new ideas for my design. But inspiration can come from every-day lives here in New York. Tacky bling-bling dress in a techno night club, stained aprons in a street corner diner, vintage jeans in a second-hand store, and even a dialogue in a café drive me to sketch. The best part of living in this city is that you will never lack of inspiration.
How important is experimenting with outfits that ar-en’t particularly wearable to you?
Experimenting with new materials and silhouettes is important because you are pushing the bound-aries by realizing what you are good at and what skills you are lacking in. Experimental or concep-tual outfits are usually not wearable, but these out-fits will have enough details and highlights, which you can easily translate on simple outfits.
Do you think that creativity is sometimes lost with commerciality and the ability for clothes to be wearable?
Fashion is art, but it has to be wearable at the end of the day. To make an artistic, wearable, and mar-ketable outfit is challenging. Especially in these days, fashion designers are compromising to make profit. However I don’t think creativity is lost with commerciality since you have to be more creative when it comes to translating conceptual ideas to simple touches for costumers to appreciate. It’s like summarizing a book to a page of writing. To me, it takes a tremendous amount of creativity to com-pete this task
What materials did you use to create your collection?
I used sandwiched denims, knits, and trash bags in this collection. Most of the hardware are indus-trial parts or found metal objects. Natural indigo denims are bleached into different shades of blue. This collection is a juxtaposition of soft and hard, organic and synthetic materials.
How important is sustainability in the fashion industry to you?
Sustainability is important, and as a fashion de-signer I feel ashamed of how much waste this industry generates every day. The paper, printing, sample fabrics, and testing materials during design are all very wasteful yet essential. Thus, we should aim for better designs, not more designs.
Who is the Ximon Lee customer?
Boys who are hungry for new things and adven-tures.
Where do you see yourself and your label in the fu-ture?
I want to do small collections for now and see how they go first. Everything takes time and money in this industry, so it’s hard for me to predict the growth of my brand. I just like to focus and do my best on the collection I’m currently developing. Eventually, I’d like to have my own lifestyle brand, it doesn’t need to be just about clothing, but food and events.
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The Belgian designer has gained significant recognition for his sleek yet innovative take on menswear, landing a place between the ten finalists of the International Festival of Fashion and Photography of Hyères. He has interned for Theory, in New York, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Currently based in Paris, Henrard earned his degree at La Cambre, in Brussels, in 2013.
Pablo Henrard
Interview & WordsTalicia Ramsey
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Pablo Henrard
His black engulfed graduate collection is titled “Maelstrom,” inspired by the literature of Jules Verne. Merging shapes, textures, and materials to construct an intriguing combination of unique silhouettes, contemporary cuts, and experimental styling, the collection is both classic and fashion forward. Sheer black turtlenecks are worn as part of all-black ensembles, creatively shaped oversize leather jackets are coordinated with skin-tight leather pants, and traditional sweaters are inventively deconstructed. This is classic modernism inventively reimagined.
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What inspires you to start designing? Generally I get inspired by a wish, something I really care about. Something I want to tell. And one day, I find the way to tell with a pic-ture of any kind while I’m watching a movie, visiting an exhibition, walking in the street. For “Maelstrom,” the inspiration came from Captain Nemo, from the Jules Verne novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea”.
What does your creative process consist of? The mood board is really important for me, from that I make most of my decisions. I cre-ate the board with pictures that I confront with each other telling new stories, and I mix them with most of the fabrics I’m going to use for the collection and the way I’m going to use it. I like to manipulate the fabrics, to make atypical associations. From the board, I start to sketch most of the collection in a very vague way because there is a lot of changing when I create the cloth by drape! I always find a way more subtle way to express my idea by drape.
What influenced the mainly black color palette? It comes from the inspiration of the collection. “Maelstrom” is about the abyss. I really wanted to translate the darkness of the depth. I was fascinated by these parts of the oceans that were mainly obscure; meanwhile, the creatures living in have such amazing and bright colors. It was also a way to express the darkness of my character.
Some of your designs apply a slightly feminine aesthetic. What attracted you into using this style?
The idea of the collection was to recreate a masculine wardrobe giving the men the op-portunity to express themselves, their sensi-tivity, and their sensuality with something else other than the traditional suit. The idea is to reappropriate clothes from the wardrobe that are not used anymore in menswear, such as basques or tuniques... I proposed a new way to be elegant by using codes from feminine cou-ture, fitted waist, draped volumes and struc-tured lines. The shapes and the way they sub-limate the body bring out a very sophisticated approach of the man.
Do you believe that masculine dress codes are still prevalent in the menswear industry?
I love codes, and references from the mens-wear, and it’s very often used in womenswear, but it is too classical in menswear. I think there is another way to use all the amazing archives from the masculine dress codes in menswear. Also, why can womenswear be inspired by menswear and not the opposite? There are a lot of codes.
A key aesthetic of your collection is deconstruction. What compels you to deconstruct traditional cloth-ing?
It gave me the opportunity to completely re-appropriate codes from both wardrobes, mas-culine and feminine, and create new vocabu-laries. Some of the contemporary dress codes need to be broken and reused differently to push mentalities further.
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What does the process of deconstructing gar-ments consist of?
It was more about creating organic shapes. Starting from a classical and official sailor wardrobe, I created the idea of clothes and garments in movement around the body, creating a circulation between the different layers of the silhouette. All the garments are asymmetrical; the notion of movement around the body creates an organic ap-proach of the cut.
Do you enjoy being experimental with your de-signs?
I don’t know if we can still pretend I am be-ing experimental these days, but I learned at La Cambre how to completely break the classical idea and notion of a garment. And I’m having a lot of fun trying always new things, even if it seems to be far away from a cloth you could wear to go to work. The idea is to propose a vision a bit less mainstream than a pair of jeans and a jer-sey t-shirt. I really would like to change opinions about how to dress, especially in menswear.
Do you believe that the experimental nature of your designs compromises the commerciality?
No, I’m giving a strong image, sending a message, but I also have a lot of more clas-sical garments in the collection. I work a lot with fittings so I really create the garment on the body to fit him the most and to sub-limate it.
What type of customer do you believe is attract-ed to the Pablo Henrard label?
I think that the label attracts the men who like the idea of being different. I don’t ex-pect to talk to everybody, but at least I give the opportunity to men who really want to wear something different and acquire an-other way to be sophisticated and dressed up, as couture or very unique pieces from women’s ready-to-wear could be for girls.
Where do you see the label going in the future? I would like to develop both menswear and womenswear in the same idea. I’m tired of seeing women with badly cut jackets and men with boring outfits.
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Wuthering Heights
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styling by Sam Moukhaiber hair by Sue Thompson at Aveda featuring model Nicholas K. at Mode Models
photography by Wilkosz & Way
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Stylingby Lu Phillippe Guilmette
Unfinished Sympathy
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Grooming by Cedric Jolivet at See Management using Clinique products
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Unfinished Sympathy
Grooming by Cedric Jolivet at See Management using Clinique products
top GyPSy SPortvest and trousers
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Last Night in Pigalle photography by Julien Bernard styling by Benjamin Brouillet styling assistance by Diamanta Kayenga make-up by Yann Bousand Larcher hair by Cyril Laforet featuring model Adrien at Elite
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InterviewMateus Lages
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A conversation with artistJwan Yosef
“I come from a pretty mixed background from northern Syria. A mother from a family of one religion and a father from a family of a different belief. Good enough reason for my parents to move on to more neutral ground” Interview
Mateus Lages
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Hello Jwan, how are you feeling today?
I’m feeling good! I’m having an early start in the studio prepar-ing a couple of new projects for the fall.
Lets start off with an easy one, where are you from and where do you currently re-side?
I was born in Syria, grew up in Sweden and have been living in London since 2010. Totally stretching over the continent.
Why did your family move from Syria to Sweden?
I come from a pretty mixed background from northern Syr-ia. A mother from a family of one religion and a father from a family of a different belief. Good enough reason for my parents to move on to more neutral grounds.
Are both your par-ents from Syria? What were there different religions? What were some of the implica-tions of them getting married?
Yes both of them are from Syria, but it s a pretty random mix. I come from a Kurdish Muslim father who married an Arme-nian Greek Orthodox Mother, both from well known families in their town in northern Syria. Not an ideal mix in those days. Or ever in that case.
Do you have any reli-gious beliefs?
No I don’t. I’m very spiritual and understand that there are some truths to religious writings; I just don’t necessarily see how people can read them literally.
Do you feel any dif-ferent being Middle Eastern and growing up in Northern Eu-rope? People seem to be very open there but newspapers and political cartoons have been known to stir things up.
It’s a good question really, grow-ing up with two very distinct and different backgrounds, the blond Swedish archetype and the slightly warmer Middle
Eastern one. I never really relat-ed to a certain country or cul-ture but more so of a continental one. Sweden back in the 80s was different from what it is today. The country greeted us with open arms and today it’s one of two places I like to call home.
A friend once told me that Swedish people are always happy be-cause you meet them outside of Sweden… Is there any truth to this?
Ha ha, that’s super true, there’s a good reason for Swedes being one of the most well travelled people. The country’s pretty dark and cold most of the year, and has equally created a culture that’s very similar to its envi-ronment. So for a Swede once they’re outside of their ‘territo-ry’ they’re happy to open up in ways they don’t feel they can do at home.I loved growing up in Sweden but I was equally as happy to leave it. It’s a confusing culture really, Swedes are extremely proud of coming from Sweden but not many I know have much joy in living in the country.
Jewish art mafia or Gay art mafia?
Both ! I love the combination, two distinct and in their charac-teristics, very different ‘cultures’ coinciding and sharing the art world. This is more humour than it is facts.
Is there an Arab or Muslim art Mafia?
Oh there definitely is; Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, a mouth full I know. She’s The Power Patron of the Middle East and proba-bly the world. I think the Mid-dle East is growing a genuine interest in western art and cre-ating its own understanding for contemporary art. Art and power plays a big role for any developed country and the Middle East is catching up on it by the looks of it.
Artists are not poli-tics, but what are your views on Israel, Amer-ican occupation and the Arab spring? In America the general public sees the military as liberators of op-pressed people.
I think all artists are more or less political, however our approach to our subjects is different. Any idea of any country looking to ‘liberate’ another is in it self super wrong. It’s ancient colo-nisation mentality and is com-pletely unfitting for any modern or democratic country.
For an artist of Mid-dle-Eastern descent your work seems to avoid a lot of political and social conflict. Is this something you plan to tackle in the future?
It all depends on what point of view you’re looking from. I con-sider myself a foreigner wherev-er I go; In Sweden I’m an Arab, In Syria I’m a Swede and in London I’m neither Syrian or Swede. Politics and social con-flicts are in my opinion distrac-tions. There are bigger pictures to everything and focusing too much on such matters will only get you blind. Awareness is cru-cial but full on dedication will only mislead you I think. There’s a bigger picture to work on!
Artists are usually un-healthy looking. You look like well built Rugby or American Football player. I al-ways feel uncomfort-able seeing photos of Bjarne Melgaard. How does it feel to be ripped and Artistic?
Its funny you say, these things don’t go unnoticed. Suffering and sacrifice is a big part of ar-tistic development and in most cases the body is the first to go. In my head in order to keep my mind going I need to keep my body going. It is vanity as much as it is health. One sticks out no doubt in having this build and not always in the best way.The art world is very much tied to rules and manners and sur-prisingly looks play a big role, I don’t necessarily fit the model.
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You’re move towards 3D art seemed very natural, how would you word that transition? Was it a natural pro-gression?
It was a very natural transition. I’ve always been aware of my paintings materiality and its perfor-mative qualities. I think only now am I making that reactive almost sculptural process a focal point.
Are they still paintings or were your paintings always meant to be objects?
Yeah I guess they are paintings. I still consider myself a painter, even though it leans to sculp-ture at the moment the subject is still painting; It’s painting that’s very self-aware.
Have you taken a lot of inspirations from bodybuilding, fitness and the military? How have they influenced you beyond being references for your work?
Totally, My subject mater early on had been all about masculine extremes; steroids, the military and so on. All references to my own work would be from own experiences of gender ideals.
What is a regular day at the gym for you?
I’m super lazy at the gym, I nip in and out. Do a quick work out, clear my head and head back.
Your works are usually not very large, in modern standards at least. I once read that larger pieces became com-mon after artists in America utilized larger industrial spaces to produce works. They mentioned that working conditions in Europe restrained the artists to smaller practice. I find that now a day’s when an artist impresses you on a smaller canvas he almost re-quires more applause. What are your reasons for sticking to smaller scaled painting in an art market that wants everything BIG?
I’ve always enjoyed making smaller work. From a working perspective it gives me a lot more con-trol of the object. Its easy to be impressed by bigger works simply because they physically dominate you as a viewer. However smaller pieces require more attention and in return, if well executed, the experience is much more intimate and rewarding. The differ-ence is like talking one on one, rather than to a big crowd.
Its easy to be im-pressed by bigger works simply be-cause they phys-ically dominate you as a viewer. However small-er pieces require more attention and in return, if well executed, the experience is much more inti-mate and reward-ing. Se
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Subtlety is king, how would you sell subtlety and simplic-ity to our readers?
Present all things in simple terms, there’s no point in saying anything if the person in front of you can’t under-stand you in a clutter of terms. This goes for language, art or fashion.
Your work always seems to hint or nod, what is the pur-pose of teasing the viewer?
You don’t want to make lazy work by feeding the viewer with all kinds of information. Hints tend to challenge the viewer and also give him/her space for their own interpretation. Let them think!
Do you mean lazy for the viewer or lazy for the artist?
Well both; you want to challenge your-self as an artist as much as challenging your viewer. Somehow you choose who sees your work by presenting a certain kind of imagery, but its not always what it seems.
You said that once you tried to “work as an artist” rath-er than being an artist, what made that difficult for you? What are some of the diffi-culties of separating the art-ist from his work?
I think coming to terms with the fact that an artist and his work are as one is crucial in order to create something genuine. The most difficult part is that I never really zone out of my work. I’m always working in my head.
Is your choice of subject somehow reflective of a me-dia obsessed culture?
No I don’t really reflect around media obsessions.
What makes art not ‘pop art’?
Pretty much anything that represents something that stands above everyday objects and people, I think.
What is your favorite Ger-hard Richter piece?
Betty, 1988.
With the presence of the In-ternet do artists now have more time for themselves? Now a days you can get your-self out there but have a somewhat reclusive self. How do you think the Internet is changing the way we see art-ists and how we feel towards their works?
Well I think ones real life behaviors reflect ones Internet presence. If you’re a reclusive artist probably you will be reluctant to exposing yourself online as well. Internet is totally changing the whole scene, for the better. Its stripping off the heavy culture that sometimes weighs down on art and giving it to people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to see it. There’s a total restructure of the whole art scene going on at the moment. As an artist I feel I have more control over my own exposure than I would without the Internet.
What about when third per-son parties get involved?
Oh that’s great, they get to do what I normally hate doing!
Do you have any last words to our reader’s?
See Art, Make Art or Buy Art.
See
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uy A
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photography by Fernando Tomaz styling by Heleno Manoel
photography assistance by Diogo Martins
fashion assistance by Otávio Rosselli
special thanks to Arthur Ribeiro
Hot Boys
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photography by Fernando Tomaz styling by Heleno Manoel
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featuring models Agustin Aleborn at Elo, Anderson Weisheimer at Ford, Josué Wiese at Way Eric Carvalho at Lequipe
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Hot Boysphotography
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robe and underwearundersocksAmericAn APPArel sandalsAdidAS oriGinAlS
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shirt, jaqueta and bracelets worn as collar all elluSunderwearcAlVin Klein
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skirt, legging, shoes and sunglassesAlexAndre herchcoVitchsweatshirtA VerSÃo
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photography by Aldona Karczmarczyk
graphic design byThomasz Malka
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Griffin
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Griffin is a British brand with twenty years of history and accom-plishments that seem to be on the wish list of any young design-er of this generation. Jeff Griffin started his label in 1994, after a few years in Milan working under Valentino and Gianfranco Ferré. Committed to the high quality of Italian craftsmanship but also drawn by the edge of London streetwear, the Saint Martins graduate infused his own project with the best of both worlds: contemporary and urban outerwear for men, made in Italy or locally in the UK. After opening his first shop on Portobello Road, Griffin marked the early 2000s with collaborations with artists such as Banksy and Pe-ter Kennard. Over many years, the brand premièred collections with shows at Paris Fashion Week and in Tokyo. But what do you do after you’ve done it all? Where do you go to keep living the dream?
To Jeff Griffin, the answered seemed to be in the op-posite direction. In 2010, the designer moved his stu-dio to the rural village of Hartland, close to the cliffs of the North Devon coastline. Now he truly lives the outdoor feel his brand represents. The new home is a source of inspiration for his clothes but also part of a bigger lifestyle that Griffin has become. The eco-retreat Loveland Farm is being developed with the latest green technologies while maintaining de-sign as a key element¾try not to fall in love with the décor of their geodesic dome pod. Speaking exclusively to U+MAG, Jeff Griffin told us all about his journey to glamour and back, now fly-ing comfortably under the radar.
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Can you tell us how you first started in fashion and what motivated you to this career, early on?
I was 16 back in 1983 and wanted to join the Royal Navy but was told they were not looking for New Romantic Punk Rockers. l replied, “Who cares.” I was given a multiple choice test and l scored, nine of out of ten, to choice my career path as a fashion designer. I was only given a place due to being a boy, and they were desperate for boys to break up the bitchiness. The first day of art college, l knew l had arrived, and l loved it, l really loved it, girls, clothing, fabrics, glamour, and it wasn’t like work. Living in London and at Saint Martins in the late eighties was a fantastic place to be, we had the start of fashion as we know it today. The Face magazine, i-D, Blitz mag, the first cool British designers like Christopher Nemeth at The House of Beauty and Culture, Galliano, BodyMap, etc.
Your aesthetic is all about the outdoors lifestyle, which is usually a focus for textiles but not for fashion designers. Your brand seems to unite both. What made you choose this segment?
I started Griffin back in 1994 after returning from working in Italy for Valentino and Ferré. l felt strongly for the mix of Italian quality and what was happening in London, so l started a brand which was a contemporary bridge between high-end fashion and sportswear with a strong streetwear edge. Today we are still doing this, but I’m older and wiser, our customer is still urban, but l live in an extreme location. Before we were in Portobello Road, which was also an extreme location, rich and poor, music, arts, and I’m still inspired by both… l think as a designer you are inspired by your surroundings, and of course this rubs off, but I’ve always loved mixing opposites, from military to peace, urban to outdoors, heritage to modern, but this is our lifestyle.
You started your brand exactly twenty years ago, and for a long time took the very traditional route, with catwalk
shows in Paris and several big brand collaborations. Now, the brand seems to have taken a more low-profile route. Could you tell us more about this transition and this new moment? Was it a conscious choice to take a position more under the radar?
This journey was never planned, l never had anything mapped out, l have done everything from the heart and at a moment’s notice, it wasn’t about traditional routes. We have played with the system but mainly outside of the system. We were the first fashion company on the web outside of America, we were one of the first companies to do pop-up stores, work with artists, Stanley Donwood, Banksy, and Peter Kennard. Catwalk shows in Paris, London, and Tokyo, we were running like crazy, but that’s what you do when you are young, you are running from sponsor to sponsor, and it’s only when you try and take control of your finances that you realize it’s not sustainable to be doing these big shows on a promise of what the future will be. So after 2008, l came to the conclusion l wanted to run a sustainable business, and this meant cutting promotions and living on the dream of tomorrow and live for today, it’s not so glamorous or darling, but you can sleep at night. So being sustainable makes you a lot more focused on what you are trying to do, and what you want. What does everyone want? To be happy. Do the ups and downs of show to show make you happy?
When we think about British menswear, what comes to mind is high-end, well-tailored suits. However, your clothes do have a very British feel about them, even though an outdoors lifestyle is not a local characteristic. How do you feel that your heritage shapes your designs?
When l think about British Menswear, I’m thinking Barbour, Burberry, Mackintosh, all strong menswear brands which are almost bulletproof, elegant, practical, quality, has attitude, and will last. I think of Griffin in the same way. I was born here, educated here, worked a lot in Japan and Italy, but in the end you are who you are, and
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it will come though in your work, this is why we get employed a lot across the world as a lot of people like the British style. It’s true a lot of people also dislike it and go more for the Italian soft and lightweight glitz.
“Britishness” and the British lifestyle have been major topics in recent news in the UK, and many criticize the London-centric politics of the UK. That can also be said about fashion, as most designers are based in London. You went on the opposite direction and moved your studio to the north of Devon. How has this move influenced your creative process?
I love London and lived there a long time, and there are a few reasons why l think being out on the Atlantic coast is better for us. Fashion is a small community, and we all see the same things. We are bombarded on a daily basis with ideas and media. I think of it as a visual pollution. Out here, my brain is free. Imagine a musician or a writer getting away to be able to write with a clear head, this is what I’m doing. I love designing in chaos, and l can get a lot of ideas from cities, but when you have been in one place for a long time, you become blind. For me, it is better when I am traveling as I am more focused and open to the world and visuals around me.
What has been your biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge as a creative person is always the business side, talking to business people who are not passionate about ideas, quality, and just want the easiest, cheapest route, l always say you can do better with strong ideas and quality, as other companies can always be cheaper.
And what has been your biggest accomplishment so far? What makes you the happiest?
My biggest accomplishment is every day I’m living the dream, l still have the same feeling when l went to art
college in 1983, it’s not like working, it’s doing what you love and mixing every day up. l design fourteen collections a year, and l love it, l have a great team around me, I’m healthy, and if everything gets too much, l go and visit my two Asian Water buffaloes in the back field. We have a lot of cool people and friends come and stay with us, as we also have an eco retreat, geodesic domes, and a campsite, and a lot of them don’t give a shit about the world of fashion, which is refreshing as we also know a lot of mad fashionistas.
You put a big focus on manufacturing, producing everything either locally or in Italy. What’s the most challenging about keeping this level of control? What other measures towards ethical production and sustainability would you like to take?
Keeping everything local or in Italy has many reasons, control, and quality, but the one thing l love more than anything else is creating ideas and working with craftsmen, the pattern cutters, fabric designers, and machinists. It’s less about ethics, it’s more about working with people who love what they do and have a passion, it’s a skill, it’s about an idea. Because if you take this away, what is it all about, just making stuff? What’s the point of that?
What are the future steps for Griffin?
To continue living the dream and build on what we have created, we grow our own food, we create our own energy. We sell to some of the best stores in the world, and we have managed to keep it small and beautiful, but it’s true, l would love to spread the dream and sell more to more like-minded people and create a movement of people who care.
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Martine Rose
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Emerging into the fashion sphere as a mens shirt designer, London-based
Martine Rose has since established her brand in the ever-evolving scope of
British menswear and run with it. Supported by Fashion East and the NEWGEN award, Rose gained no-
table attention with her uniquely characteristic yet sophisticated de-signs and distinct creativity. After
showcasing her Spring Summer 2013 collection at London Collec-
tions: Mens, she catapulted herself to the forefront of avant-garde
menswear and has since gone on to be stocked worldwide as well as obtaining a collaboration with the
boutique department store Browns. Her latest collection for Winter
2014 fuses intriguing silhouettes with vintage motifs in an eclec-
tic moc – croc, faux fur and Lurex mix. Rose continues to experiment with feminine styles and unexpect-
ed combinations to produce something significantly original and continuously
exploratory.
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123 What do you think of the mens-wear industry in the UK?
It’s a very supportive place to be if you are interested in menswear. It’s really forcing people to take notice, which is great.
What attracted you to menswear?
It’s my natural aesthetic, I can’t remember it ever being a conscious thought; I wear men’s clothes myself, so I just lean that way in my design aesthetic.
Do you feel that menswear allows you to be more experimental as it’s not as established as womenswear and there is more to be explored?
There is definitely an element of freedom within the conventional rules of menswear. I have always enjoyed exploring how those traditional boundaries can be pushed, in terms of colour, fabrication, and cut. I don’t really compare it to womenswear in regards to whether it’s more experimental, but it certainly has its own traditions that I feel lend themselves to being explored. Rules are meant to be broken.
Do you enjoy applying traditionally feminine components to your collec-tions?
I enjoy playing with cut, fabrication, co-lour, and adding an element of femininity is part of that play. Menswear has always had a touch of the dandy about it, wheth-er its rude boys preening at the barbers on a Friday night, getting measured for a suit on Saville row, or matching your silk cravat to your socks¾femininity within menswear has always existed to an extent.
It’s acceptable for masculine tones to be adopted in womenswear, such as the androgynous look; do you believe that menswear is reach-ing an era where it can acceptably overlap with womenswear?
I don’t think we are in a particularly unique time in terms of men adopting a more an-drogynous look. There are various exam-ples of this idea: punks, the new romantic scene, and club kids became really quite mainstream. Perhaps we are less surprised by it, so in that way it’s more accepted, but it’s still fairly niche if you think about the whole male population.
Why do you believe that the rela-tionship between music and fashion is important when designing?
Of course both music and fashion reflect the mood of the times, and as a designer, that’s my job!
How do you believe that the two mediums enhance each other?
They are one of the same thing, they are in-separable.
What is it about the fusion of styles, materials, prints, and patterns that excites you?
I find it exciting to use a cheap fabric and treat it like the most expensive¾that is lux-ury to me, to labour time and attention on a cheap fabric and to use it in a way so that it becomes special, it takes on a different meaning. I also really find it exciting when things sit slightly uncomfortably together; there is an awkward beauty in that.
Do you think that this fusion relates to your various musical and cultural influences?
Perhaps; I haven’t really thought about it in that way.
Do you believe this is a signature to your aesthetic?
I think so; I think that’s what people rec-ognize in my work the most, that and the more extreme silhouette.
What do you envision for the future of your label?
Sunshine and happiness!
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photographyby Romain Sellier styling by Viola Galassi
styling assistance by Giovanna Giacomin
Nothing behind me, Everything ahead of me
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hair byShiori Takahashi
using Bumble and Bumble
make-up by Sasha O’Neill
using Bobbi Brown and Pot Rouge
styling assistance by Giovanna Giacomin
featuring model Greg at
Tomorrowis Another
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Nothing behind me, Everything ahead of me
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special thanks to Tom Jacq and Nico Helbig
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REVOLUTION is not ‘SHOWING’ life to PEOPLE, but making them LIVE. A REVOLUTIONARY organiza-tion MUST ALWAYS remember that ITS OBJECTIVE is NOT GETTING Its adherents to listen to CONVINC-ING TALKS by EXPERT LEADERS, but getting them to speak FOR THEMSELVES, in order to achieve, OR at least strive toward, an equal degree OF PARTICIPATION.
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REVOLUTION is not ‘SHOWING’ life to PEOPLE, but making them LIVE. A REVOLUTIONARY organiza-tion MUST ALWAYS remember that ITS OBJECTIVE is NOT GETTING Its adherents to listen to CONVINC-ING TALKS by EXPERT LEADERS, but getting them to speak FOR THEMSELVES, in order to achieve, OR at least strive toward, an equal degree OF PARTICIPATION.
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styling assistance by Lin Zhuretouching
by Tamas Csordasfeaturing
Callum at Premier, Bradley at Amck
Steven — Broken Leg GuyJames — Broken Hand Guy
Kristof — Hoodie BoyJessie — The Pitbull
THERE IS NO PATH TO PEACEPEACE IS THE PATH
1 _ Bradley WORLD PEACE, hoodie CHRISTOPHER SHANNON, kidda GAFFER TAPE, jacket LIAM, hodges JAMES STEVEN, bence STYLIST’S OWN, masks HELMET and bandana WOLF ARMOURIES
2_ Callum cap COTTWEILER, pony BUBBLE, jacket JAMES LONG and mask WOLF ARMOURIES 3_ Callum jacket and trousers DIOR HOMME, bandana HELMET, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES and trainers NIKE
4_ Bradley, jumper and bomber LIAM, hodges, jumper and shorts KTZ, leggings SNCL, gloves WOLF ARMORIES 5_ Callum vest DIOR HOMME, crop top DANIEL POLLITT, scarf RORY PARNELL MOONEY, joggers JAMES LONG, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES, cap and jacket
COTTWEILER, bradley MEMBRANE 6_ Callum parka SNCL, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES
7_ Bradley, jumper and bomber LIAM HODGES, hand warmers COTTWEILER, jumper and shorts KTZ, leggings SNCL, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES 8_ Callum bubble jacket, joggers and jumper JAMES LONG, hoodie CHRISTOPHER SHANNON, kidda and jumper MAARTEN VAN DER HORST, cap
COTTWEILER, mask WOLF ARMOURIES 9_Callum vest DIOR HOMME, crop top DANIEL POLLITT, scarf RORY PARNELL MOONEY, joggers JAMES LONG, cap COTTWEILER
10_ Callum jacket and trousers DIOR HOMME, bandana HELMET, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES, trainers NIKE 11_ Bradley WORLD PEACE, hoodie CHRISTOPHER SHANNON, kidda GAFFER TAPE, jacket LIAM, hodges HELMET, gloves WOLF ARMOURIES
12_ Callum jacket JAMES LONG, cap COTTWEILER 13_ hoodie SALVATION ARMY CHARITY SHOP, jacket LIAM HODGES, bradley STYLITS OWN, jogger JAMES LONG
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photographyby Josefina Bietti styling by George Krakowiakfashion assistanceby André Puertas beauty by Flavio Lacerdafeaturing model Jocilio Piantino at Ford Models
New Romantic
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photographyby Josefina Bietti styling by George Krakowiakfashion assistanceby André Puertas beauty by Flavio Lacerdafeaturing model Jocilio Piantino at Ford Models
New Romantic
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THE more he IDENTIFIES with the dominant IMAGES of need, the less HE understands his own LIFE and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement FROM the ACTING subject is EXPRESSED BY THE FACT that THE individual’s gestures are NO longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who REPRESENTS them to him.
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THE more he IDENTIFIES with the dominant IMAGES of need, the less HE understands his own LIFE and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement FROM the ACTING subject is EXPRESSED BY THE FACT that THE individual’s gestures are NO longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who REPRESENTS them to him.
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Many bands give up before even getting there. Others change their tone and attitude after a huge hit. Few continue to innovate, leaving old ideas and gimmicks in the past, album after album. Perhaps this is the recipe for The National’s success, a band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the late nineties. It took almost a decade for the dark melancholic songs of the band of brothers and friends to conquer the general public. In recent years, they sang on President Barack Obama’s campaign trail and signed tunes for TV series like Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. Last year, before the release of their anticipated sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, they were invited by the Icelandic artist, Ragnar Kjartansson, to attend his newest performance, “A Lot of Sorrow,” at MoMa PS1. For six hours straight, the band played their song “Sorrow” (meaning: 108 times!), from 2010’s “High Violet”, in front of a swirling dry ice display. The final result is on view at Luhring Augustine Bushwick in Brooklyn, New York, through December 21, 2014.
Interview & WordsJoão Lourenço
Matt Berninger
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Matt Berninger
Unafraid to sound too emotional, The
National’s lyrics present a very
particular depressive and self-deprecating
tone. It is as if they are not ashamed to
expose their flesh and bones. They
dissect the wounds we pretend not to see, and this characteristic
makes their music resonate to a wide
range of audiences, from teenagers to old Morrissey fans. “Most of what’s in our music
is just the general anxieties of trying to
be a decent person in the world,” says Matt Berninger, the
National’s frontman, between sips of
Guinness before one of the three night concerts
at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, last June.
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I feel that there’s a real fear of being emotional in songs. I would add that today we don’t pay enough attention to our emotions¾that old conversation about how technology is bad and is destroying real connections. We’re connected to millions of people and yet we’re alone together. The connection is not real. I admire that you don’t follow rivers; it’s like you’re not worried about being cool. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing such an emotional record?
In terms of what’s cool, I had a lot of confidence about writing stuff that was emotional, complicated from a relationship perspective. I’ve always liked writers like Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen¾those were always people that were not afraid to be emotionally honest. There a lot of artists that write emotional songs; sometimes I feel like they’re canned emotions or the idea of an emotion and not really a true emotion. The writers I mentioned were able to somehow portray or capture or just write in a more honest way about emotional things; it wasn’t so romantic, it was sometimes full of the ugly stuff, and it wasn’t overly melodramatic in terms of the details of what they were writing about. It was more honest about the other stuff. People have been writing emotional music forever; sometimes it just feels thick. Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen are in my head. To me, they are the coolest. To say I don’t worry about being cool isn’t right¾I think about that. Morrissey is unbelievably cool, he writes about emotional things and funny weird ways that also seem honest. There’s music with people seemingly crying out in fake emotion, like Hollywood emotion. That’s always been a turnoff to me; it’s cheesy melodrama without any of the reality. Without any of the complicated ugliness or self-deprecating ugliness. Too many people write songs about loving someone that’s all full of that “I love you” with all capital letters and “blah, blah, blah.” Love is not like that. Love is not that simple. Love is something you do, not something that descends upon you. Like in the details of a conversation with someone that you’re angry with, but you know that they’re important to you so you stick with them. That’s love! Getting through the complicated ugly moments. It’s not all about big gushing emotion, it’s the small details. Insecurity and anger can be a big soupy mix of little details, and I like writing about that stuff.
I get a feeling of nostalgia with your music. Are you trying to make amends with the past?
No. I am telling stories about characters. Sometimes in romantic or just other kinds of relationships that sound like probably that there’s somebody… but almost always, it’s about myself or my relationship with my wife. But there are a lot of different names; I use the name Jenny a lot, for example. And so there’s no real other person. In the songs that I mention women, it’s often about my wife or just about myself or just about characters. So they’re not autobiographical, really. I think maybe people want to believe that they are. The emotions are true, are autobiographical emotionally, but not the specifics¾the details of the story and the events in the songs. I am a writer; these aren’t diary entries.
So I could say you feel comfortable in writing about people that you know?
Yep. But they’re not about people I know but things I think about, real things that I obsess over. Whether they’re actual real details or not, usually not, the details usually aren’t real ... sometimes they are ... I don’t know. But they are all trite and personal to me on a more abstract level. I’m not just making up stuff because I think it would make a good song.
Do you not write of things past and the way you wanted things to be?
Yeah. You try to say things in songs that are a way of saying things that you wish you’d said in real life. Like, you wish you’d said it that way. I think in every kind of art, whether you’re making movies or writing books, you’re trying to create a reality, what you want that reality to be true. What you wish life was like. Or… you’re exorcising real demons in a fake way, like if you’re writing horror movies, you’re writing that because you want to scratch an itch that’s somewhere in you. Not that you want to kill anyone, you write a horror movie about an awful murder or something like that to scratch a different kind of itch.
Speaking of demons, in this last album you seem to have accepted yours. When and how did you realize that’s there’s no way to fight, that you need to accept pain and that loneliness and sorrow will remain with you?
That one song that’s on demons is about parts of your brain you get dark with in ... the melodrama in your own life.
It’s not my demons so much as being okay with the way your brain works. Acknowledging that you’re just in a mood, it doesn’t define you, these dark moments... or these light moments, vice versa. The truth is that the real demon in my life, like smoking, was one of the biggest, hardest things I ever had to fight against. In a funny way, the demons I’ve had in life I don’t battle. I mean, I’ve had some depression, but I don’t have manic depression, I don’t have hardcore depression. I know people that have had much more significant clinical depression, and that’s the demon that I’m lucky that I don’t have. I’ve had a little of it, but not much. Some people figure out how to handle it. My demons are more like, anxiety, fear, short temper. You try to not have a short temper. I guess my demons in the past have been more like “Am I gonna be a good husband, am I gonna be good dad?” And the anxieties and fears over that. I feel like I am, so I’m winning that. I quit smoking a few years ago, and that was the hardest thing... one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to battle. I’m lucky that I’m relatively healthy, and I haven’t had other kinds of issues or challenges yet... but I will… anyway, so.
What about other anxieties? You mean like, with the world? It’s not like I have debilitating anxiety over the direction of the world. I did have it worse when George Bush was president and then it was alleviated to a certain degree when Obama was elected. I mean, I’m lucky enough. I’m a middle class white American, and I have it pretty easy compared to, like, kids in Russia right now, and I see their country going backwards. Or like a young family in the Middle East just trying to have their family safe. So I’ve got it pretty good, pretty cushy. Most of what’s in our music is just the general anxieties of trying to be a decent person in the world.
I’ve heard you feel a little more relaxed about the lyrics now…
It used to take me a long time to write about anything. I used to stare at a blank page and try to write great lines, and then I realized the process is better when you just write a lot of stuff and not edit yourself. Then later go back and start to pick and choose. I learned to relax my process a little bit and open up the process to writing lots of bad stuff¾stuff that I’ll just throw away. So now I just write lots and lots of stuff, and then later I go back and try to collage things together and weave them together into ideas and
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themes. I feel that I’m having more fun with the process of writing the words. I don’t work any less hard than I used to, but I just stopped overthinking it the whole way through. I have more fun with it and don’t worry about whether it’s good until later. I used to write things down and then scratch them out and mill over ideas until they were just right, and then I’d write it down. I’ve learned the process can be much more easy and more fun and organic. You’ll have plenty of time to tweak and massage. I write more and edit later.
Do you write everyday…when you’re on the road?
I don’t write everyday. I write when I feel like it but then again you have to make it a choice to sit and say, “I’m going to put some time into it now.” But I find it fun and easy to do, I’m patient with it, and I don’t worry if I sit there and an hour goes by and I don’t have any good ideas. I don’t worry about that anymore. I’ve learned to relax a little bit and just enjoy the slow process.
Your wife, Carin Berninger, was a fiction editor of the New Yorker. Is she a big influence in your writing?
I met her before “Alligator.” That was the first record I was letting her see and hear some of the songs. She had opinions right away. She was telling me what she liked and what she didn’t like, and she would say she had ideas. She raised my game in a lot of ways, meaning she made me a better, much better writer. One, she
could tell when she saw something she’d say, “You know, I don’t believe that, that feels fake.” She has a chord view for that kind of tone, but the truth is, I wanted to impress her. I’m not an academic; I mean, I read, but I’m not a bookworm. I know I’m really a smart person, but I would never consider myself a sort of higher intellectual, and my wife is part of the reason I work really hard. It’s because I want to impress her, and if I can’t figure it out and I can’t impress her, I’ll just steal her ideas. So it’s turned out to be a very good creative relationship. I’m really lucky that the person I spend my life with is also the person I do the art with, too. She very much was a major influence on editing the movie my brother made. Whether this is what she wanted to do¾and it’s not¾she’s been pulled into it, and she’s made me a better writer. The movie is good because of her. She’s been a major, major part of it for a long, long time.
Does literature inspire you? Yes, sometimes. More so in the way that somebody writes and less in what they wrote about. There is this novel, “Play as It Lays” by Joan Didion, that has sort of a surprising way in the way that she puts together thoughts and sentences. It was fragmented and didn’t connect on the dots but left a lot of room for mystery. There’s something about that book that I think has been a big influence on me. “Lolita” is also a big influence. The book was able to tell about something pretty sinister, pretty diabolical, meaning a pedophile. He [Vladimir Nabokov] was able to
write about a pretty dark thing but get past that part of it and dig into a human mind that’s struggling. It’s really a funny novel, sort of a black comedy, but it’s not that simple, it’s even more complicated than that. I love that book for that reason: you can write about ugly things in beautiful ways, you know. Recently, I haven’t read anything that has been a big influence. It’s funny to hear Didion’s name. I thought of her when I listened to “Trouble Will Find Me” for the first time. You know, she says that we forget too soon the things we thought we could never forget. There’s definitely a motivation in writing something down or creating something and recording it, whether it’s just a thought, because you’re trying to stop time a little bit and you want to make something. We take photos of our lives. Why do we do that? Why do we need to? I mean, we can look in the
“I am telling stories about characters.
Sometimes in romantic or just other kinds of relationships
that sound like probably that there’s
somebody… but almost always, it’s
about myself or my relationship with
my wife. But there are a lot of different
names; I use the name Jenny a lot,
for example. And so there’s no real other
person.“
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mirror if we want to see ourselves, but we take pictures of our kids and our families and ourselves at moments because we always want to go back and remember. Remember that our life is good and things are good and remember that things are good because it’s easy to forget. Sometimes we get lost in fear and darkness and sadness. And sometimes you have to remind yourself. Sometimes it’s easy to forget all the little bits and pieces that make it. Life is really hard to live; it’s hard to stay alive in the world, it is. Not that you’re going to get hit with a tree, but people everywhere, no matter how healthy of mind and spirit you are, sometimes you look at the darkness, and all you can see is the darkness. So you have to capture the little bits of light and replay them for yourself. That’s what songs are, that’s what movies are¾people are trying to remember. You write this stuff because you want to rethink it, and you want to capture it again, and you also express something and other people listen to it because they want to feel less alone in the world. You write about something that’s dark and sad. I want to talk about this thing because you know you’re not alone, you make something out of it, people respond to it, and that’s why I loved certain music that was about depressing things but made you feel good because you think, “I have felt that, I know that feeling, and I’m not alone.”¾its common and normal, it’s a human thing to feel these bad feelings. That’s why music has a special ability to connect to emotional darkness. People love it, you know; we’re a dark band, people come, and they have so much fun, they drink and they sing
along to these dark things. Because it’s so cathartic, and it feels very healthy, and that makes you happy about your life because there are all these other people that have the same kinds of anxieties. That’s the music I connected to, and I think that’s why people connected to our band.
Does going live give you some kind of catharsis? Is there a ritual you do before going on stage?
I drink a bunch of wine, and I drink a bunch of wine while I’m on stage. That’s definitely one of my crutches, to be able to do that because I have to get a little bit inside the song. I can’t just be up there and look at thousands of people and then do the song that was written in my bedroom, lyrics in that very extroverted way. I have to go into the introverted thing in order to feel it so I close my eyes and drink a lot of wine. That allows me to not be too hyperaware of the crowd and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a strange thing to perform these songs. I’ve started to learn how to enjoy more than I used to, yeah, I don’t know… my ritual is simple. I drink some wine, and I close my eyes. When I don’t drink I can still do it, it’s just not as much fun.
It is not a secret that ‘all the wine’ is all for you. I remember the concert in Rio, April 2011, where you fell during a song. I saw you several times and you’re always all over the place. The energy is fantastic, but I have to admit that sometimes I fear for you. Do you still feel uncomfortable being on stage?
I climb on stuff, and I smash stuff. I’m always looking for ways to escape a little bit. Part of the channeling… it’s like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of thing. It’s easier to be Mr. Hyde up there, and then I’ll jump into the crowd. I don’t know why I do it. I do things that are mine. I have ticks that are just like things that I do, I don’t try to over think it. I do get hurt a lot. I get cut, I hit my head on shit all the time. Bang my shins on stuff all the time. I’m often bloody and bruised after shows. But never that bad, I never jump off a ten-foot thing. I never do crazy shit. I also never jump onto people, sometimes people try to lift me up and pass me around. I don’t want to do that. I never crowd surf, I go into the crowd and I walk around in the crowd, it’s different.
In Berkeley you were walking in the crowd and people were pulling your hair and stuff…
Yeah, It’s gotten weirder. Its fine right up to the edge, but couple of times it has crossed that edge. People are pulling in, yanking and rushing too much. People are falling down. It’s not just that I’m in danger, but other people are in danger so I try to stay out of the parts of the crowd where it’s too big of a mass of people. I try to stick along edges or whatever. I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I might have to stop doing it soon a little bit just because the crowds are too big and it’s a little bit too crazy.
Recently you wrote songs for some TV series, like “Turn” and “Game of Thrones”. yYou were even featured on the soundtrack of “The
the nAtionAl. from left to right:
Bryce dessner (guitar), Aaron dessner (guitar),
matt Berninger (vocals), Scott devendorf (bass
guitar), Bryan devendorf (drums)
199
Hunger Games.” What’s the biggest difference between writing for yourself and writing on demand?
It’s fun in a very different way. To write for someone else is art. Somebody else has a vision and a thing that your song is just supposed to be a supporting element. In some ways it takes the pressure off in certain ways. The “Game of Thrones” thing, for example, we didn’t write that it was George R. Martin who wrote those lyrics, and we just channeled it in a way and did a performance of it. That was really fun. It’s easier to write for other things like that than it is to write for one of our own records. I take it really seriously, and I love to do it, but it’s a different mindset. You’re writing something to support someone else’s art. That’s fun.
Have you considered releasing a solo album?
No, because I don’t know how to play the guitar or the piano. Over the years I’ve worked with friends on songs and with musicians other than The National. There are some things that are out there, but they’re definitely not solo projects, they’re collaborations. I will probably release some things that aren’t “The National,” but they’re definitely not solo projects. For me to do a solo project¾I wouldn’t even want to listen to that. It would just be me talking, it would be terrible. For one, I need music, and then I need somebody else to bounce stuff off of. If I go walking too much in my own footsteps, it gets boring even for me.
What about writing something that’s not music…?
I don’t think so. It’s just not what I like to do. If I would ever write short stories or a novel or something like that, I would have already written something. I would have been motivated to do that a long time ago, and I really haven’t. I haven’t, and I don’t have a burning itch or desire to write a short story or a book or a novel. Working with my brother on this film that he made was obviously a whole different kind of thing. My brother and my wife, the three of us, collaborated strange fun things. We might do something together again, I don’t know what that is. But no…I don’t think I’ll write prose, and definitely won’t write poetry.
Many bands tend to fall apart or grow stale after a
huge success. “Boxer” was hugely popular in 2008, and after that, “High Violet” was considered one of the best albums of the decade. How the band has survived during this long process¾of playing in small venues to being asked to sing by President Obama?
I really don’t know how we manage to survive. How we managed to stick together. I think it has something to do with the fact that there’s family/brothers, that’s part of it. The band started after we were all adults. We have some perspective about it knowing how lucky we are to be in a rock band and to have people coming to see our shows. We are well aware of it being a very rare, very, very temporary thing. We work really hard because we know how easily and how fast it could just disappear. It makes us work harder. It’s a tricky thing, and we’ve also been lucky. I don’t know why people come to see our shows or buy tickets or buy our records more than other bands. I mean, I know we make good stuff, and I like it, and we won’t put something out there unless we love it. The five of us love it. So maybe that’s all that matters. If we like it, then we let it out into the world. I don’t know how different we are from other bands. We know how lucky we are that we still exist and people still care about us. When we toured with R.E.M, Michael Stipe said something like, never forget the fact that people are coming to see you play rock songs that you guys wrote in your bedroom and they want to hear them. You’re lucky that people pay attention or care about your rock band. To get anybody to care about your rock band is so rare, never phone it in if you’re playing in front of these big places. You have to deliver because a lot of people pay fifty bucks and travel three hours and it’s the only show they’ll see all year and they’re way in the back. You’ve got to make sure you give them their money’s worth because you’re lucky that they came. That’s always been in our heads the whole time. We are very grateful and very conscious that it could go away tomorrow. I think our fear of being brushed aside or forgotten about has been a very motivating creative catalyst. Fear of disappearing, yeah.
Some writers that I know suffer of a painful hangover after a long creative process; it’s
“We work really hard because we
know how easily and how fast it could just disappear. It makes us work harder. It’s a tricky thing, and
we’ve also been lucky. I don’t know
why people come to see our shows or buy
tickets or buy our records more than
other bands. I mean, I know we make
good stuff, and I like it, and we won’t put something out there
unless we love it. The five of us love it.
So maybe that’s all that matters. If we
like it, then we let it out into the world. I don’t know how
different we are from other bands. We
know how lucky we are that we still exist and people still care
about us.“
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like they can’t abandon their previous work. What do you do to focus on the next project and leave the old stuff behind? Do you still feel the pressure to always delivering a better album than the previous one?
We usually will go away and not think about it for a little while. We will attempt to recharge and put it aside and not over think about the thing until we get excited about new ideas. Every time we’ve said, like, “Let’s make a record about this next time,” it’s never helped us. The songs that we’ve written with that kind of pressure behind us, like, “Oh, we need a new song,” have never been any good. For us, it’s always about waiting until we naturally feel like writing a song and see how it comes. Let it organically sort of be born. Right now we have no plans or ideas of what kind of record to make next time, and I’m glad we don’t. I’m glad we’re not thinking about it yet because when we do start thinking about it, it will be organic. We’ve never tried to pressure it or force it, but then when we do get into the studio and we’re starting to work, we know that we try to make the best record we’ve ever made every time. I assume that most bands are always doing that, trying to make the best thing that they’ve made every time, because there’s no reason not to think of it that way.
The movie Mistaken for Strangers made the world know that you also have a brother. Beyond than that, it showed us a very human aspect of you and the other integrants of the band. After the documentary, you wrote a song about him (“I Should Live in Salt”). There’s a lot of pain and regret in that song. Do you feel some kind of guilty for leaving him behind in Ohio?
I went off to college when he was still a little kid, and maybe the time when he needed an older brother the most was when I was gone. The song is about a few different things. Some of that song is a little bit about that, but then it’s also about realizing that you’re two different people, and there’s just some things that you can’t shape a person or hold someone’s hand through life through everything, and they have to do things their own way. I think my relationship with my brother is actually really, really good and when he came on tour, it’s gotten even better. There’s a lot of fighting in the movie, a lot of conflict and a lot of tensions, but we worked through a lot of stuff and it was, I think, with your family you have the most tense type of relationships with because you care the most¾they’re the ones that are the most important.
That’s why a husband and wife will fight more and have more vicious fights than you have between anyone else because it matters and the stakes are higher. It matters that much more, you care that much more with somebody like your family. I think my relationship with my brother is really, really healthy and really good, and the process of this film made it even better. I’m nine years older, and I had to do my thing, it’s not like I have that much guilt. When I went off to college he said that he didn’t actually miss me that much. It was funny because I think I missed him more, I felt more anxiety and guilt about it than I even needed to. But he also thought it was cool that I was living in New York, and he would come to visit me. So the song is kind of about feeling anxiety and guilt about having gone off in one way and left your family. “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is like that…its about leaving Cincinnati. Half the song’s about older relationships and things where things are going badly and you wish you had handled them better. If you went back in time you would probably do things differently, but by and large I think I did make mostly good choices, and I don’t think I would go back and change anything. Because its led to this thing now, to where my brother and I are closer than ever, he still lives with us and he’s made this movie, but now he’s got all these opportunities. If I had done something differently or he had done something differently, it wouldn’t have led us to where we are right now. It’s a good place.
Do you know about Tom’s future plans?
Like I mentioned earlier, the three of us are trying to do something again and we don’t know what that is. It’s not going to be a documentary. My brother is who he is in the movie, and he’s fun to watch. He’s brilliant, but in a weird and unique way. I think we’ve learned to laugh about life and the world in funny ways through him, and the movie, it’s really funny, we know the movie is funny, and we made it that way. And then the movie is sad and poignant and meaningful because we made it that way on purpose. We actually enjoyed telling that story, and we learned how to tell that story together. We kind of want to tell more stories. Tom’s thinking the best place for that is television, like an episodic thing. It’s not going to be another documentary. The shows that we love are like, “The Larry Sanders Show.” “Louie” is brilliant. Obviously my brother is different so we’re not doing something like that, but, yeah, we’re trying to cook something together.
Have you and the band had doubts about the documentary?
When it started out, there was no movie. It was just going to be stuff for our website,
“Like I mentioned earlier, the three of us are trying to do something again and we don’t know what that is. It’s not going to be a documentary. My brother is who he is in the movie, and he’s fun to watch. He’s brilliant, but in a weird and unique way. I think we’ve learned to laugh about life and the world in funny ways through him, and the movie, it’s really funny, we know the movie is funny, and we made it that way. And then the movie is sad and poignant and meaningful because we made it that way on purpose. We actually enjoyed telling that story, and we learned how to tell that story together.“
201
but then all of that stuff wasn’t that interesting. The only thing that was interesting was my brother. No one in the band even wanted a movie about the band, so there never was one. My brother spent so much time on it, he wanted to make something. My wife said, “It’s got to be about Tom.” “You know, if you want to make something,” she said to Tom, “if you want to make a movie, you should be more a part of it than the band.” He didn’t have that much interesting stuff with the band, the interesting stuff was him struggling with his own things. That allowed the movie to be about something even more interesting. There were many points along the way where we thought there is no movie. This is terrible, this is a pile. It wasn’t until toward the last few months where it started to fall together, the pieces of it started to fit together into this.
Is your brother happy with the success of the movie?
He is really happy, but he is also now really worried because he says he is more confused now about what to do with his life than before the movie. Before the movie I think he thought he would probably work at a TV station in Cincinnati. The local news station, which is what he was doing for a while. Maybe he would be a wedding videographer. I don’t know what he was going to do. He was going to try to make little movies with his friends and little horror movies but he had kind of almost given up on being a director. He had definitely kind of given up on that and then this thing came along. Now he’s directed a documentary, but he knows he’s not a documentary filmmaker. So he’s got no interest in making another documentary. He’s been offered low-budget horror movies from people that have seen this movie, and they know that he’s made these other horror movies, but he’s not sure that he wants to do that. The three of us have talked about trying to make something that’s different. A different kind of a show with him in it. That’s as far as we know right now.
Musically speaking, is there something you would like to try in the upcoming album?
I would like to try to write a pop record. Something that’s more lighthearted, catchier, and more fun. The National has a certain sort of chemistry, which is good. I love
the chemistry of our band, I love the chemistry of the songs and the records, but I would like to write something that’s sillier and a little less melodramatic, a little lighter in tone and stuff. I don’t even know if I’m capable of that. I start writing something and it automatically starts to get important. I can’t stay with something unless I actually feel connected to it…that it’s significant. It may just be a stupid thing to even try. Some of the stuff I’ve done with a few friends may see the light of day because it has a different personality to it, and it’s a different collaboration with a different collaborator so it doesn’t feel like The National. I think everyone in the band want to try other things. Aaron has been doing a lot of producing of other people’s records, and that has been really healthy for our band. Some of the stuff I’m talking about I have been working on for years and it’s actually helped The National because I’m able to scratch some itches in one way that’s very satisfying, and then when I come in The National record I’m fully invested in that because I’ve released certain other pressures in other ways. It’s made our collaborative thing less pressurized. Everybody in our band has been able to go relieve that pressure on other things. I’ve never put anything into the world yet other than the movie. Bryce has his classical stuff, and Aaron is doing a lot of producing. I have some other things too, but none of them are finished.
“I would like to try to write a pop record.
Something that’s more lighthearted, catchier, and more fun. The National has a certain sort
of chemistry, which is good. I love
the chemistry of our band, I love the chemistry of
the songs and the records, but I
would like to write something that’s
sillier and a little less melodramatic, a little
lighter in tone and stuff. I don’t even
know if I’m capable of that. I start writing
something and it automatically starts
to get important. I can’t stay with
something unless I actually feel
connected to it…that it’s significant.“
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It’s been a long 15 years since Hussein Chalayan premiered technology on the runway, with his iconic mechanically animated dress from the Echoform collection. Since then, the fashion industry has never truly embraced the possibility of technological garments, as if to say, “Chalayan’s done it already, no point bothering with this now.”
shirt and sweatpants cottWeillerknuckle dusters roxAnne fArAhmAndshoes SWeAr
What’s next? Fashion, forever the technological late adopter
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The fashion industry cannot proudly say it’s been an early adopter of technological innovation. We were one of the last industries to invest in e-commerce (“Who would want to buy clothes online?” was the question at the time) and in social media (and now here we all are, in deep relationships with our Instagram feed). Lately, in discussing wearable technol-ogy, fashion journalists have pinpointed the fact that “wearable technology was not very wearable” as a problem, without considering the idea that these complex garments are pro-totypes not fit to the day to dayat least not yet. This not-so-groundbreaking statement is only a symptom of the bad influence that the copying of trends by fast-fashion retailers has imprinted in our minds. If I can’t have it now, then why even initiate this discussion?
The first two examples relate only to sales and the way we communicate fashion, whereas wearable technology will affect the very product of fashion. How will an indus-try that has craft and artisanship at the core of its value system cope with the swift moves of technology?
The Spring-Summer 2015 season marked a new age for technology and fashion, but not through the initiative of designers, it seems. No, it’s the Silicone Valley engineers who are approaching fashion leaders to beau-tify their productsthe “Made for Glass” Diane Von Furstenberg collection and the Intel and Opening Ceremony partnership are great ex-amples. In London, Richard Nicoll presented a beautiful LED fiber-optic dress sponsored by Disney. During Paris Fashion Week, the Apple Watch had a big fashion moment, with a display in the window of Colette and the biggest names in fashion paying visits to the boutique to try it on. Later, the Apple Watch made it to the cover of Vogue China on the wrist of Liu Wen, modeled as casually as any other luxury item.
Tech executives are now pulling les-sons from fashion to make their products more appealing to consumers, but the logic of these devices still follow a very Silicon Valley agenda (a wristband to count our steps? Isn’t the pain of a pair of stilettos enough?).
How long will we have to wait for fashion to set its own agenda? How long will it take for fashion designers to seek out engi-neers with big ideas waiting to become reality through their clothes?
Big innovation is in the air. Now we just have to wait and see in whose hands it will unfold.
His visionary show for Autumn-Winter 2000 never left the runway for the streets, and this mentality only reveals how shortsighted the fashion industry can be. What we have been calling ‘trends’ seem
to actually be fadswe get sick of them
before they even hit stores.
WordsCarina Toledo
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art directionby Estela Padilha
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Adriano Ruchinski at Rock, Jocilio
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hooded vestfinGerS croSSed
242
hooded vestfinGerS croSSed
turtle neck and coat umit BenAnsunglasses hAze collection
243
pants and white shirt
Bei Kougray shirt
odd
244
pants and white shirt Bei Kougray shirt odd
metallic jacket and shorts
Bei Kou shirt
rochAmBeAu
245metallic topBei Kou sunglasseshAze collection
246
247
Alex coat and hood by finGerS croSSedsunglassescarrera-
nicKcoat and turtle neckumit BenAnsunglasseshAze collection
248
Alexcoat and hoodfinGerS croSSedsunglassescArrerA
nicKcoat and turtle neck umit BenAnsunglasseshAze collection
Guide
1-100 one-onehundred.com
Alexandre Herchcovitchherchcovitch.com.br
Alan Tayloralantaylordesign.co.uk
Acne Studiosacnestudios.com
Aramisaramis.com.br
Alexander Wangalexanderwang.com
Asskasskclothing.com
Andrea Crewsandreacrews.com
A La GarÁonne alagarconne.com.br
Baartman and Siegel baartmansandsiegel.com
Bottega Venetabottegaveneta.com
B.Luxobrecobluxo.blogspot.com
Balenciaga balenciaga.com
Christophe Lemairechristopherlemaire.com
Comme Des Garcons comme-des-garcons.com
Christian Louboutinchristianlouboutin.com
Carreracarreraworld.com
Colccicolcci.com.br
Christopher Shannonchristophershannon.co.uk
Cartel 011cartel011.com.br
Cotton Projectcottonproject.com.br
Cavaleracavalera.com.br
Chilli Beanschillibeans.com.br
Camargocamargoalfaiataria.com.br
Christian Diordior.com
Calvin Kleincalvinklein.com
Cottweiler cottweiler.com
Dries Van Notendriesvannoten.be
Danilo Costadanilocosta.com.br
Dior Hommediorhomme.com
Engineered Garmentsengineeredgarments.com
Eri Wakiyamainstagram.com/mermaidhair
Ermenegildo Zegnazegna.comn
Fred Perry fredperry.com
Fingers Crossedthefingerscrossed.com
Gosha Rubchinskygosharubchinskiy.com
Guccigucci.com
Gianni Versaceversace.com
Gapgap.com
Giorgio Armani armani.com
Griffingriffin-studio.com
Gypsy Sportgypsysportny.com
Hood by Airhoodbyair.com
Helmut Langhelmutlang.com
Hancockhancockfabrics.com
Haze Collectionhazecollection.com
Hugo Boss hugoboss.com
Igor Dadona facebook.com/igor.dadona
IROiroparis.com
Jil Sanderjilsander.com
Jonathan Saundersjonathan-saunders.com
John Lawrence Sullivanjohn-lawrence-sullivan.com
Jarrod Glazejarrodglaze.com
Jonathan Scarparijonathanscarpari.com
James Longjameslonguk.com
João Pimenta joaopimenta.com.br
Kolorkolor.com
Kris Van Asschekrisvanassche.com
Kenzo kenzo.com
Liam Hodgesliam-hodges.co.uk
Lou Daltonloudalton.com
Laurence Airlinelaurenceairline.com
Lupolupo.com.br
Lacostelacoste.com
Levis levi.com
Matthew Millermatthewmillermenswear.com
Maarten Van Der Horstfacebook.com/studiomaartenvanderhorst
Maison Martin Margielamaisonmartinmargiela.com
Melinda Glossmelindagloss.com
Michael Mrzyglodfacebook.com/mrzgld
Minha AvÛ Tinhaminhavotinha.com
Maria Bonita mariabonita.com.br
Neil Barrettneilbarret.com
Nike nike.com
Paul Smith paulsmith.co.uk
Prada prada.com
Raf Simonsrafsimons.com
R.Groovergroove.com.br
Reebokreebok.com
Riachueloriachuelo.com.br
Rochambeaurochambeau.us.com
Rory Parnellmooneyroryparnellmooney.tumblr.com
Roxanne Farahmandroxannefarahmand.com
Sankuanzsankuanz.com
Sacai sacai.jp
Saint Laurentysl.com
Stephan Schneider stephanschneider.be
Salvation Army Charity Shopsalvationarmy.org.uk
Shaun Samsonshaunsamson.co.uk
Semplosemplo.eu
Slow and Steamy Wins The Raceslowandsteadywinstherace.com
Tigran Avetisyantigran.co.uk
Triton triton.com.br
Top Mantopman.com
TNGtng.com.br
Umit Benamumitbenan.com
Xander Zhouxanderzhou.com
Ximon Leeximonlee.com
Zarazara.com
Wrangler wrangler.com.br
Wolf Armourieswolfarmouries.co.uk
249
250