HYPEBEAST Magazine Issue 26: The Rhythms Issue

RHYTHMS

PUBLISHER KEVIN MA EDITOR IN CHIEF KEVIN WONG EDITOR VANESSA LEE DESIGN ED O’BRIEN DESIGN CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JASON DIKE KEITH ESTILER AKIHARU ICHIKAWA TORSTEN INGVALDSEN EMILY JENSEN PETAR KUJUNDZIC ARBY LI EMMANUEL MADUAKOLAM ROBERT MARSHALL JAKE SILBERT JACK STANLEY GUEST EDITORS JOSH DAVIS KATJA HORVAT COORDINATOR TANKI TANG ADVERTISING JAMIE CHAN CRYSTAL CHOI ZOE GAUNTLETT PAUL LE FEVRE VICTORIA MORRIS HUAN NGUYEN LILY RICHARDSON JACQUELINE RUGGIERO ALYSIA SARGENT TIFF SHUM DIGITAL PRODUCTION SERENA CHENG JADE CHUNG KAREEM COOPER HEISON HO JULIUS IGNACIO ALEX LAU EDDIE LEE KYLE REYES JON SEVIK RYAN STALEY

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CHARLES DUMINIL MORENO GOTTARDO KATIE GROENKE AGOSTINO GUERRA KARL HAB KAZUKI HAMAMOTO CHIHARU HAYASHI KAYLA INCORVAIA PEER LINDGREEN DELPHINE LOAKIRA BLAKE METZGER ARNAUD MOTIGNY RASHIDA RICKETTS GUILLAUME ROUSSEL SANDRINE SANDRINETTE MATTIE SANDYS-RENTON HISASHI TERAO TREVOR TIAN MAX TOUHEY WE ARE CONTENT(S) CAT WONG CONTACT MAGAZINE@HYPEBEAST.COM 10TH FLOOR 100 KWAI CHEONG ROAD KWAI CHUNG HONG KONG +852 3563 9035 PRINTING ASIA ONE PRINTING LIMITED IN HONG KONG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ISSN 977-230412500-0 13TH FLOOR, ASIA ONE TOWER 8 FUNG YIP STREET CHAI WAN, HONG KONG +852 2889 2320 ENQUIRY@ASIAONE.COM.HK

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TRADEMARK OF HYPEBEAST HONG KONG LIMITED

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EDITOR’S LETTER

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HIGHLIGHTS

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FUCKING AWESOME

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MATT MCCORMICK

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BUDDY

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KOSUKE KAWAMURA

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EVERYDAY MATTER

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EASY OTABOR

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NTS RADIO

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PRADA + OMA

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EYEFUNNY

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WAFFLESNCREAM

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FELIPE PANTONE

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THE RIVER RUNS ON FUEL

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CHILDREN OF THE DISCORDANCE

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CASTRO SMITH

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DAVID ZILBER

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GUIDE

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Rhythms

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HYPEBEAST 26 Sex. Sports. Speech. Dance. Poetry. Rhythm is defined by the dictionary as a movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions.

The highs, lows and resulting momentum of these moving parts drive us forward. Each of us is propelled by a distinct beat; some thrive at a whirlwind, never-ending 100 bpm; others prefer a mellow tempo with ample time and space. Yet an unavoidable sense of urgency underpins each one: the need to go faster, to best our last time, to break the last record, to squeeze every last drop and living breath out of the days and nights given to us.

With so many signs around us pointing to a different way of living in the near future—modular living, 24/7 office spaces, an increasing amount of people working from home—borders are becoming obsolete, and we are raising a new generation of workaholics who have their work life, along with everything else, mere seconds away at any given moment. Now we live in a society where “burn out” is a medical diagnosis. We get sick with new diseases, physical and mental, due to stress and overwork.

Anxiety, depression and panic attacks are now a part of our everyday vocabularies. The Japanese even have a term for “death by overwork”—karoshi.

It’s not only work. We’re speeding up our love lives, our news, the way we communicate and handle relationships and information. Our obsession with optimizing our work and social lives, to be able to cram as much information as we can in the shortest time and space possible, has our brains addicted to increased stimulation while also failing to derive any real meaning from most of the news bits we read or the interactions we forge. Yet still we labor under the misconception that this is the most efficient way to enrich ourselves, a “more is more” mentality derived from fear: a fear of what we’re missing, a fear of how much further we have to go, a fear of not reaching the next summit. All this just seems to result in a population whose sensibilities have become domesticated by their own all-tooambitious agendas. Where can we find relief, and what— if anything—will constitute it?

We’re often able to become our best selves going at our own pace. Meandering down the wrong path or meeting the wrong people, in order to come to the right ones; allowing things to unfold and happen in due time. Doing nothing when confronted by silence, repressing the urge to whip out our phones when waiting for a friend at a crowded bar, simply looking out the window during a long car ride—these inadvertent exercises in mindfulness, while commonplace a few years ago, have now become skills needing deliberate practice. The following pages tell stories of things going rough, or wrong; of serendipity; of compassion; of things eventually going right, so far. Enjoy them slowly, or enjoy them however you will.

Kevin Wong Editor in Chief

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Prada Leather Wingtip Brogues

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Since beginning in 1913, luxury fashion house Prada has retained itself as on the forefront of contemporary styles that prioritize timeless design. With its latest pair of brogues, the Italian brand effectively takes the classic salary-man shoe to new heights, utilizing a subtle-yet-eye-popping patent leather upper construction atop a translucent air-filled midsole. More details that help in further elevating the design include a rubber lip where the upper meets the sole, as well as a fast-lacing system.

Prada leather wingtip brogues with translucent midsole, Prada, currently available at select Prada boutiques for $880 USD.

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Flickerings of a Fiery Youth.

The clashing patterns in the room blasted time out of sequence. Lulled by bad television programs, minutes stretched into hours. He rejected the call and decided to dream. But dreams don’t come when you call them. They do as they please. When this one finally drifted toward him, the present blended into a high-frequency version of some turbulent past. There were random anecdotes, a montage of messed-up, discordant rhythms; underscored with shreds of conversation he didn’t recognize or

remember. Pictures, the kind you want to look at forever, or into which you might subtly slip – a guest at the party, a face in the crowd. His inner eye was blinded by the flashing of strobe lights, riotous colors. On the other side, nothing new was waiting; but here he felt alive, though this life wasn’t his. The space between, trying to hold onto a moment just out of reach; words meant to last, but the order broken. He awoke at dawn to an avalanche of messages, millions of neon bright moons turning back into screens.

Louis Vuitton Chain Link Patches Necklace & Bracelet

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Virgil Abloh’s appointment as creative director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear division might be one of the most riveting fashion moves of the past century. From Pyrex Vision to Off-White, Abloh’s career has been filled with unorthodox design cues that have effectively changed the landscape of both streetwear and luxury fashion. As part of Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Abloh seeks to reinvent once again by offering up his own twist on the classic Cuban Link in necklace and bracelet jewelry staples.

Referencing the collection’s rainbow-filled The Wizard of Oz theme, the new jewelry accessories have been doused with various colors from baby blue, royal blue, and bright orange. The vibrant hues are met by gold and silver-toned monogrammed brass, as well as links embedded with crystals. Rounding off the pieces are cylindrical sliding clasps that have been engraved with the brand’s typographic logo. The pieces will be available at Louis Vuitton flagship stores in the coming months.

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Raf Simons X Templa Ski Gear

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Arguably one of the most influential fashion provocateurs of the past decade, Raf Simons has always had a knack for transforming seemingly normal clothing into elevated fashion staples. Recently the Belgian designer joined alongside Australian performance brand Templa to create a series of ski gear that transcends the streets as much as it does the mountains. Retaining his design methodology within a line of t-shirts, outerwear, trousers, and balaclava mask accessories, Simons emblazoned the vibrantly colored pieces with various phrases including “Burning Down the House,” “Heroes,” “Losers,” and “Antwerp Since 1995,” aptly supplying his signature youth culture touch atop the various garments.

While no release date or pricing information has been confirmed for the collaboration, the goods are expected to release sometime before the upcoming Fall/Winter season.

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sacai X Dr. Woo BE@RBRICK

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Ever-disruptive designer-meets-creative director Chitose Abe and her riotously off-kilter imprint sacai linked alongside tattoo artist Dr. Woo for an uncanny Medicom Toy BE@RBRICK. Offered in the normative 1000%, 100%/400% set, the rare collectible has been spiced up by the two parties to incorporate a plush base with color-blocked souvenir jackets, jeans, and vibrant yellow sneakers. The jacket places heavy emphasis on embroidered details, including a hummingbird motif as well as sacai’s signature typographic logo, paired with distressed jeans and yellow footwear.

Exclusive to sacai’s Hong Kong and Beijing flagships, the sacai x Dr. Woo BE@RBRICKs retail for approximately $598 USD and $198 USD, for the 1000% and 100%/400% sets, respectively.

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Rei Kawakubo is one of those names that sticks within the realm of fashion. Developing her renowned imprint COMME des GARÇONS in 1973, Kawakubo sought to jettison her design ethos against the rigid gender norms on display in Japan -- she refrained from using normative silhouettes, opting for bold feminist statements that were as powerful as they were transgressive -- in many ways what she creates barely represents traditional clothing, relishing in the most epitomic form of wearable art.

As expected with the release of the upcoming Fall/Winter 2019 range, Kawakubo and her imprint have once again linked alongside Nike for an equally artistic take on the coveted Air Jordan 1 silhouette. Laced with off-kilter design cues from silver-toned hardware to buckles and an elongated tongue, the sneaker maintains minimalistic qualities through its monochromatic color scheme, adding in Kawakubo’s signature flair via head-turning details.

COMME des GARÇONS X Air Jordan 1

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A SATO I I TA K E V I N WO N G

Fucking Awesome All Roads Lead to Home

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A lump swelled in my throat. We’d been talking for 20 minutes, and although I’d covered only three of my questions, everything was going great. Until I questioned his soccer abilities. We’d been meandering: about how I grew up in the Manhattan neighborhood he used to frequent, a fight that happened in front of Fucking Awesome’s new Hollywood store, being freshly minted on adidas’ skateboarding roster. When I asked whether he had collaborated on the adidas Samba for its significance in punk culture, he jokingly quipped that there’s nothing punk in the world—except cutting your penis off.

Revealing a bit of his dark humor was a friendly gesture, right? I shouldn’t have cared, but shamelessly did. Dill liked me, and my inner 14 year old was validated. “Is punk alive? I didn’t even know what it was in the first place,” he continued. He told me he just liked the Samba’s silhouette and soccer in general. Then we segued into the shoe’s commercial, and Dill revealed that he had kicked a beautifully bent chipper into the far corner of a goalpost.

“Oh, that’s you!” I said, surprised. Which was a mistake.

“Wait...

What’d you say?”

Just like that, my conversation with Jason Dill—one of my favorite professional skateboarders—painfully, awkwardly, stopped.

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After some backtracking on my part, I learned that Jason Dill really does play soccer. And loves ballet. And Phillip Glass. It’s naive to judge him from appearances in GRIND editorials and Supreme lookbooks, wearing that unamused gaze as if blowing smoke in your face through the page.

Or from one of his many classic video parts for companies like Alien Workshop, where even the most impossibly gracious maneuver rarely merits a smile. Don’t let any of that fool you. After a conversation with Dill, it seems more likely that his on-screen demeanor is simply part of the show. “At the end of the day, I’m an entertainer,” he tells me. “So, as an entertainer, I can be seen in the way that I want to be seen.” Basically, somewhere in his 28 years in front of the camera, he’s reconciled with the idea of having an audience. And like any good entertainer, he’s a rather charming conversationalist—genuine, disarmingly open, willingly empathetic. And yet, you always get the sense that he’s keeping some magic to himself. After all, without the magic there is no show.

Dill has a lot of rabbits in his hat, like the successful skate brand Fucking Awesome (FA), which opened its first flagship store about a month before our conversation.

After flirting with the idea of a shop in Tokyo first, the company (chiefly Dill) decided to set up on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. The strip is a thoroughfare of garish Hollywood nostalgia for sale: there’s the Hollywood Wax Museum, where Elvis stands immortalized in statue, practically dripping Vaseline on hotter days; there’s Musso & Frank Grill, a Roaring Twenties-era bistro swathed in brown leather and brass, slinging the best martinis in town—as stars and mobsters would attest.

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Yet the Fucking Awesome outpost, ostensibly a stamp of nouveau millennial culture, fits right in. A neat, white, gallery-style layout belies the curated chaos lurking within its walls. Dill designs pretty much everything: the board graphics, apparel, knick-knacks like pins or stickers— and collages are something of a preferred medium, which makes sense because the guy’s got a lot going on upstairs. Boards depict the Virgin Mary holding a stillborn (I think?) baby, while a giant wall juxtaposes Jaws, elements of gothic folklore and Diana Ross. Paintings, also Dill’s medium, are romantically horrific and everywhere in the store. “Not to be clichéd,” he says, “but life can be really beautiful, or it can be really”—tense pause—“disgusting.”

His worldview is laid bare within the store; perhaps it’s one giant collage in itself. “You have to keep yourself occupied with the interesting, think-y parts. The smart parts.”

And so when you enter the store, you’re walking into just that: the result of Dill channeling his creative energy into whatever canvas can absorb it. And the best—perhaps most satisfying—thing about it is, it totally works.

He was introduced to skateboarding when he was eight years old. Neighborhood friends in Huntington Beach, where he grew up, gifted him a board composed of spare parts. He got his first sponsor around the age of 12 in 1991: A1 Meats, a wheel company. By 15, he was sponsored by skate legend Natas Kaupas through a company called 101—which also backed a young Gino Iannucci and Eric Koston. Which means that by 15, Dill was already traveling independently, with little more authority than a semi-retired twenty-something barely old enough to drink. “[Natas] was very good to me and he taught me a lot,” he recounts, respectfully. “I learned so much from riding for companies and paying attention over adults’ shoulders.” Which is like getting a Montessori education, but in street culture—totally free.

It’s the kind of free thinking that goes really well, completely wrong, or Dill’s way. Skateboarders at that age tend to create extended, self-governing fraternities, like Lord of the Flies, with cheap beer and porn. So in the absence of a defined role model, surrounding friends have a more profound effect because they shape your values.

Travelling up to San Francisco during the 101 days, Dill quickly made friends with Peter Bici and Chris Keefe, who introduced him to Keith Hufnagel—the founder of HUF— as well as a then-burgeoning New York brand named Supreme. “I walked into the Lafayette Street store when I was 17,” he remembers. “What was nice about New York

Go to school. Pick a career. Stick to it. Retire. Die. If your parents hassle you enough, growing up can be coldly, systematically calculated. But if you grow up outside of the nuclear family structure, which Dill did, concepts like “school,” “family,” and “routine” become arbitrary.

“My dad went to jail when I was young,” he tells me.

“I was raised by my mother and my brother Chris.”

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“LIFE CAN BE REALLY BEAUTIFUL, OR IT CAN BE REALLY DISGUSTING. YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOURSELF OCCUPIED WITH THE INTERESTING, THINK-Y PARTS. THE SMART PARTS.”

is that no matter who the person was, or what age, skater or not—people were like ‘Oh, you don’t know about this?

Let me show you.’” He traveled between California and New York for the next two years, sampling life in the city: a raucous, unhinged bubble of culture just begging to be popped.

In 1998, when he was around 19, Dill joined the Alien Workshop, meeting founders Chris Carter and Mike Hill. “It definitely felt like they brought us on—[Fucking Awesome partner] Anthony Van Engelen and myself— to be the [new blood] on an already well-established team.”

He may have been young, but Dill was already a big deal.

He’d travelled the world and was an in-demand, industryrevered talent. So, shortly after, he moved to New York City full time. While he admits he was “a very Californian boy,” Dill enthusiastically tells me that he did half of his growing up in early-aughts NYC. And man, what a time.

By 2000, the city was three years deep into Rudy Giuliani’s second term, the hard-nosed mayor hellbent on cleaning up the streets by militarizing police. A then-new band called The Strokes was writing a song, “New York City Cops,” trolling that very thing. Bars like Niagara were packed with post-BFA kids sweating warm Pabst and angst, snapping each precious moment to dump on a blog the next day. The Knicks wore glass slippers to the NBA Finals and the Yankees couldn’t lose. Dill was coming into his own. “I think we were so into blacking out and going as

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promotional asset is its team: a roster of representatives who fit the creative ethos. Fans that identify with a rider will, instinctively, support the company. Like, how do you think Under Armour sold so many basketball shoes?

Except, Dill’s not really thinking about “marketing”— skating is too precious, too familial and it attracts too many outsized personalities to be diluted by, well, someone non-skaters think is cool. And touring the world with someone with a flat personality just isn’t fun. “One of my gripes—or complaints, I should say—with being on Alien Workshop was when they would just throw someone on the team. It didn’t matter if it was an amateur—like, you don’t do that.” As such, Fucking Awesome’s skate team operates on a simpler concept: chemistry. I was surprised to discover that the team, comprised of young riders like Sean Pablo, Sage Elsesser, and Tyshawn Jones, is selfgoverning. “The kids decide [who gets on]. It’s up to them. They have to feel good about where everything is and how we exist.” Pablo, Elsesser, Jones, and the rest of the team are, on paper, different personalities. But when I ask about the connective thread between the kids—as in, what makes them all fit under Fucking Awesome—Dill’s answer is endearing: “A general sense of goodness. To rise above. No matter what they’re doing.”

far as we could get,” he recounts of his time in New York.

“We were mimicking what people told us about the ’80s and ’90s.” He hung with the infamous IRAK graffiti crew, whose ranks included the late artist Dash Snow. “Do you have a favorite memory from being in New York?” I asked him, expecting to hear about a legendary rave, or maybe a slapstick moment with an art-scene somebody.

“Surviving,” he said plainly.

Professional skateboarders need to skate to keep their jobs.

So in 2000, some of Dill’s greatest work appeared in Alien Workshop’s third full-length video Photosynthesis—aptly titled, particularly considering this period of his life. The skating speaks for itself, but the introduction features a notable exchange between Carter and Dill. It has the defensive, frenetic tension of a stepdad catching you coming home high. In this case, Carter was urging Dill to regiment his life in New York. “Carter was a bit of a father figure for me for about 15 years,” he remembers. While his path wasn’t always pretty, Alien Workshop supported Dill, because that’s what family does. It allowed him to absorb a tradition of “great skateboarding, skateboarding ads, art direction, personality, everything.” So in those whirlwind years, in between smoking PCP and tagging walls, Dill also learned how to operate a brand. “Having something that successful for 20 years is hard to do.

They did a great job. I’m really grateful for what we did with them.” In his own way, Dill learned to respect a previously elusive concept: consistency. Just what Carter was talking about all those years ago.

Jason Dill has applied his learnings from Alien Workshop to Fucking Awesome, and that includes things not to do— like forcing pieces that don’t fit. A brand’s most valuable

It’s important to remember that “the kids,” baby-faced in what seem like yesterday’s Supreme ads, are now suddenly capable, decision-making young adults. They can choose skating or pursue something else entirely. Having known some riders since they were nine years old, Dill has watched their evolution firsthand. But that also lends itself nicely to Fucking Awesome’s art direction, especially in terms of the decks themselves. The graphics are often deeply personal: sometimes they are the visual extensions of personalities, and sometimes they’re the collaged interpretation of an inside joke. Put together, they could create a timeline of each rider’s personal growth. But it’s this specificity that only a big-brother figure like Dill could create, because the group, including himself, grew up together. “They’re so busy now, it’s epic. They’re always on the move, being seen. I think that’s the best—I can’t keep up with them.” That is, until the team hits the streets, where Dill, now in his early 40s, is right there with them.

“I tell you what, I’m very glad to still be out there skating [with them], just throwing the couple punches I still can these days.”

Despite frequently being cited as one of the most influential, stylish skateboarders ever to grace the stuntwood, Dill says he’s “always in fear of not looking good on a skateboard. I’m not afraid to admit it. That’s one of my insecurities. Don’t want to look stiff, you know?” That’s a fair concern at his age. “Man, I’m younger still, and I get insecure,” I countered, anxiously wondering whether, at 28, I’m skating enough.

“Well,” he said, “I was that too.” Which was nice to hear.

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MATT c M CORMICK AMERICAN IDOLS 026

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Picture a lone figure with just his horse and his pistols for company.

He is not a man of words, preferring instead the solitude of a life lived in tandem with wideopen plains and dirt-road dust. An outsider, for life and by choice. This is the picture of one of the first American heroes: strong, stoic, a survivor against all odds, a man of honor. He saves the day and then he rides, alone, into the sunset.

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The cowboy, immortalized by screen legends like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, lives on, spurred forth by a new kind of fantasy in our digital age. We are witnessing a burgeoning need to be alone with nature, with our private selves, amid the constant chatter of an interconnected world. Some of us wear flannel shirts and scroll through flat lays of “everyday carry”—gear we don’t at all need in urban life such as army knives or compasses. Some of us grow beards. Some of us take our dogs and go camping. Some of us play Red Dead Redemption 2. Though there may be very few career cowboys left in 2019, cowboys are far from a dying breed. Because everybody wants to be a cowboy.

No one feels this more than LA-based artist Matt McCormick, who imbues his work with Western American symbolism and often depicts cowboys at the center of his pieces. “I smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds a day, for years, because deep down I wanted to be a tough, rugged cowboy when I smoked them,” he confesses, a bit sheepishly. Nowadays, his fascination with the cowboy manifests itself in his oil paintings of sweeping American plains inhabited by meandering Old West characters. McCormick was formerly living another version of the quintessential American wanderer—as a tour manager for Tyler, the Creator and Trash Talk— alongside being a tattoo artist. A frenetic lifestyle and subsequent substance abuse led to his decision to leave it all behind to fully concentrate on art. Now, sitting with us in his well-lit studio in downtown LA, he seems relaxed, at ease, when he tells us about the bliss of being left to his own devices and able to work—to use his words—at his own “creative speed.”

Like the cowboys in the paintings propped carefully against the walls, McCormick prefers to work in solitude, his only company two huskies named Emmy Lou and Tony. His studio is not easy to find, tucked behind a warehouse on the outskirts of Downtown Los Angeles. You’ll often hear the strums of Neil Young

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and the Grateful Dead as he works, logging long hours from 9am until midnight. He often paints portraits of other infamous outsiders, like Dennis Rodman or Pete Rose, whose public fights with private demons cause us to reflect on our own personal battles. “All of them have gone through some form of severe trauma, and whether they made it out alive varies from work to work,” McCormick says of the former American idols-turned-outcasts. Their struggle for a chance at redemption is arguably one of the loneliest journeys the contemporary person can face—a story of the American anti-hero. The San Francisco-born artist has had his own share of tribulations as a successfully recovered alcoholic, and it’s not hard to imagine these figures of American pop culture, pictured alongside the steadfast Old West heroes, as reflective of his own struggle and survival.

We visit Matt in his LA studio to speak to him about his personal and artistic journey, and why our draw to the good, the bad and the banal of classic American icons still runs deep in our veins.

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Q&A

Brick Stowell, was tour managing Odd Future and we connected in New York while they were in town. He basically invited me to stay with him and help him with the tour managing. At the time, I had essentially run my New York life into the ground, so it seemed like a great pivot. After a year of jumping from couch to couch in LA, I started touring with Tyler.

While both within art, the life of a tattoo artist and that of a painter is very different. Describe the pace of your life now in comparison to when you were tattooing.

The creative speed. With the tattoos, I would almost always conceptualize, design and execute within a twohour period, while simultaneously aiming to please one specific person—versus now, when a painting can take anywhere from days to months, and outside of select commissions it’ll just be pleasing myself, which arguably can be more difficult. Outside of that, though, life is much calmer because I’m professionally and personally allowed more time.

My first task was stage design, which Brick and I took a crack at with absolutely no knowledge of set or stage design. Needless to say, there were some easily avoidable mistakes, but that led to a year or so of touring with Tyler.

On all the tours with him, I’d always bring art supplies to give me something to do on the long drives. Tyler was always really supportive and encouraging of me pursuing art as a career. So when I finally made the decision to tattoo and make art full time, Tyler, Lee, Taco and the rest of the gang were the first to get tattooed.

You have also been a tour manager for Tyler, the Creator and Trash Talk. How was that experience? What was the lifestyle like?

Tyler and Trash Talk have been great friends of mine for years now, and both were instrumental in me making art my career. One of my long-time close friends,

Tell us about your background in art. What’s your earliest memory of appreciating art and also making art?

I was raised with two working artists for parents. Making

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“I WAS CURIOUS TO PAINT MORE OF THESE PEOPLE WHO HAD ACHIEVED A LEVEL OF FAME WHERE THEY'RE SCRUTINIZED ALMOST TO A MYTHICAL STATUS.”

art was highly encouraged; viewing and appreciating art was standard. My earliest memories are hanging in my parents’ shared studio and having all kinds of different materials to create with. Two creative moments that stand out were typing a poem on an old typewriter and making collages from these roll-on vinyl letters you would kinda etch onto paper with a special tool. There was also weekend art lessons with my dad, linoleum woodcut, lessons on drawing the human face, etc.… one of those things you take for granted, until you’re old enough to actually appreciate it.

You’ve included subjects like Chris Farley to Dale Earnhardt to Dennis Rodman in your works.

How do you select these characters, and what do they have in common?

When I started painting the portraits on their own, it was for a show that was focused on my pre-teen years. I was really interested in how everyday, mundane objects could transcend that space and become significant pieces of making [us] who we become as adults. Toward the end of making the work for that show, I added four portraits

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land and their bare hands. I’ve continued to enjoy that side of it, but as I’ve continued to explore them further, I’ve discovered a deep-rooted symbolism in our culture that the character embodies. I smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds a day for years because deep down I wanted to be a tough, rugged cowboy when I smoked them. Not because the cigarette itself was any more cowboy specific, but because, funnily enough a friend of mine’s grandfather and his advertising firm had chosen to rebrand Marlboro from the “Cigarette that didn’t smudge your lipstick” for women to the cigarette for the rugged cowboy. With that pivot in advertising, a mentality and public perception was attached to this item that is still with us to this day.

I’ve always had a fascination with the character, but as I get older it’s caveats like this that continue to build this narrative that I enjoy exploring in the work.

You mentioned leaving behind a life of substance abuse.

Can you talk about that and what role it has played in your art and life?

I decided to get sober when my life reached a point where it just couldn’t possibly advance without making a substantial change. My art had dwindled to a pretty pathetic output level and I was just puttering along.

The details aren’t necessarily that important, but between my work, living situation and friendships starting to erode, I knew the end was inevitable. A very close friend of mine had overdosed and passed away and the reality of the situation finally became obvious enough to make a change.

of film characters from movies that had a profound effect on me. Those four works got the most visceral reaction from the viewers but, separate from that, I really enjoyed the process of painting them, and when I returned to the studio I had this urge to paint more. There was one that I hadn’t done yet, a Macaulay Culkin portrait from the cover of Home Alone.

As I was painting, I really connected with this infamous, almost tortured, soul that Macaulay had become in the prying eyes of the public. From his friendship with Michael Jackson to his relatively documented drug abuse, we had all watched his rollercoaster of a life and formed our own opinions on this person. This was intriguing to me, so I was curious to paint more of these people who had achieved a level of fame where they’re scrutinized almost to a mythical status. All of them have gone through some form of severe trauma and whether they made it out alive varies from work to work. The paintings almost act as a mirror for the viewer to reflect upon their own insecurities or championed moments.

As far as my career and life, everything benefited substantially. Not to jump on a soapbox, but nothing that I had happening would be happening if I hadn’t made that decision. That being said, this is just my personal experience and just one example.

What are the themes that continue on through your work?

A lot of it comes from a very subconscious place. One of my favorite quotes is from the artist Carmen Herrera.

When asked why she makes her work, her response was, “If I had the words, I wouldn’t have to paint it.”

I would hope that the work provides a space for the viewer to have their own interpretations and experiences.

In your own words, what is significant about the cowboy persona and what about him intrigues you?

Cowboys are really interesting for a variety of reasons.

They started for me when I was a child as the ultimate example of what “a man” should be, hardened by the elements, able to defend and support themselves from the

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Buddy is having the time of his life.

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E M M A N U E L M A D UA KO L A M PHOTOGRAPHY

A L E XA N D E R B O R T Z STYLING

C H LO E & C H E N N E L L E D E LG A D I L LO

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Pushing the boundaries of West Coast hip-hop, Harlan & Alondra is the product of the accumulated years of hard work and tutelage from some of the best in the music industry. Nine years of groundwork from some of the best talents in music such as The Neptunes comes together in full glory on Harlan & Alondra.

A rising rapper from Compton, California, Buddy had already inked a major label deal by the time he was a teenager—discovered by Scott Vener and signed by Pharrell's I Am Other label in 2009—and collaborated with future stars such Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa and Nipsey Hussle. “I didn’t really have a goal for what I wanted,” said Buddy, outside of the Brooklyn Navy Yard last summer. “I kind’ve just went in and started making music. We had Brody Brown, Mike & Keys, Roofeeo, 1500 or Nothin’…

We tried a bunch of ideas and then the album kind of just made itself.”

This last year has been a celebratory one for Buddy. A preacher’s son from Compton, the 25-year-old MC’s anticipated full-length debut Harlan & Alondra was one of the stellar projects of 2018, showcasing his penchant for soul-infused hip-hop, blending his skills as a singer and rapper.

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Harlan & Alondra is a 12-track LP that featured guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, Guapdad 4000 and Ty Dolla $ign, A$AP Ferg, and Khalid. Earlier this February, a deluxe version of his debut album was released. The project added four new songs: two solo joints (“It’s Love” and “Bad Attitude”), one track featuring California rapper 03 Greedo (“Cubicle”), and one record with Dreamville’s J.I.D. and Bas (“Link Up”) to go with the original 12 songs.

Since the release of his original and deluxe albums, Buddy has been everywhere, touring across the globe, performing at festivals such as Coachella, performing on late-night television such as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show with James Corden, all the while still managing to c-walk on national monuments and landmarks. However, the year did not go without heartbreak as his mentor and friend, Nipsey Hussle, was fatally shot in Crenshaw this past March.

While he records his sophomore album, we got Buddy on the phone to discuss life after his debut, working with Pharrell Williams again, losing Nipsey and how he thought Brandy tried to steal his weed.

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I love on a day-to-day basis. Getting paid, too. I got money; I moved out of my parents' house. It's just super tight. Life is great.

When did you begin recording for your second album?

Probably two, three months ago. I'm so in it, I don't even know. Time is a crazy concept. I'm just trying to finish, you know? Last week it was me, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo making music. I ain't kick it with him since, you know—it's been a minute. I hung out with him and Snoop Dogg, Kid Cudi. But we were working together.

I was working with The Neptunes. That shit's everybody's dream. That's probably the most exciting thing that happened to me.

It was fire because the next day, Pharrell had to bounce because he's busy. Then I told Chad to pull up. He pulled up and he was kicking it with me. I was trying to write some of the raps because I had mumbled it and he was trying to figure it out. He would be like "Nah, that's tight,” or, “You sure you trying to do it like this?” I had help, you know. It was fire.

Q&A

How do you feel now that your debut album is so widely celebrated?

It's so great because I had an opportunity to make the album in the first place, see it all the way through and then make amazing music that I enjoy. Me and my friends and my producers all agree that we thought it was tight and then put it out, and then everyone else thought it was tight as well. That's reassuring. And then having the opportunity to travel the world once the music was out and just go to all these crazy places and perform. And just have opportunities to take my friends, you know— my DJ, my team, just around me, just growing together.

It's beautiful because moving into the next album, we kind of know what people already like.

Do you think you’ll release new music this year?

Yes. I think I'm gonna drop this year.

A signature moment was your NPR Tiny Desk performance. I remember reading it was “one of the most dramatic Tiny Desks in recent memory.”

I didn't know NPR was that crackin'. I've seen a couple NPR Tiny Desks. My management was like, "We got to practice, we got the band together." We watched a bunch before we went. So I'm watching all these other Tiny Desks, and I'm like "Ooh, I got this. I'm gonna roll a blunt and I'm gonna smoke in there."

It looks like you toured for almost a year nonstop since your album came out.

It was amazing, a bunch of places I've never been. A bunch of new experiences that I gained just doing what

They told me not to smoke as soon as I walked in. I took the blunt, kept it close and then I sparked it. I lit that shit on fire and when I stepped out, I blew a cloud of smoke.

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SUIT: SECOND LAYER YELLOW SHIRT: VINTAGE BAG: LOUIS VUITTON

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“Who was it, who was it?” “It was some lady and another nigga behind her.” And I couldn't really recognize her, so I'm like, ”What is your name?” Genuinely concerned.

[Laughs] “Brandy.” I'm like “Oh shit, Brandy? You wanna smoke?

We can get high. Like, I got weed.” I shake the nigga’s hand that was behind her. I forgot his name because it's Brandy, you know. She didn't even want a smoke, she was just joking. [But] I'm the wrong one, don't try to grab my weed off my tray.

How are you coping with the loss of Nipsey Hussle?

Man, knowing Nipsey and hanging out with him every day, seeing how he lives. He led by example. His example to me was super blatant. He said it over and over: hustle, motivate and just own some shit. Learn some shit and just grow.

“Oh, I can't smoke here? Oh my god, my bad.” They made us re-cut that scene because I was smoking. I should have said no. They would have just had to use the footage.

I'm still trying to email them to get the footage of me sparking the blunt because it's legendary.

I listen to Nipsey every day. I have my Nipsey cries when I'm down, and I just kind of keep moving forward. I'm trying to make another album, make it way better than the first one and do all the coolest stuff that I already did on a higher scale. Bring my family and my friends. Do something for my city and do something for the world.

Change some shit, learn some shit, grow as a human.

That's all he would ever want.

Can you tell us what happened with the Brandy situation on Twitter?

I met Brandy. We was at G-Eazy's birthday party. I was talking to Ty Dolla $ign, and then I was hanging out with ALLBLACK, Nef The Pharaoh… and you know they love flavors. Nef The Pharaoh gave me some Runtz and that's some fire ass weed. They was giving out free weed at the party too. I brought my own weed tray because I had weed that I brought. Then I took my tray, filled it up with the free party weed, then I had the Nef The Pharaoh blunt, and I just had hella weed.

What does the phrase “The marathon continues” mean to you?

It just means it don't stop. It's another day. We have an opportunity to just grow ourselves. Teach somebody something, learn from someone, do something that can change somebody's life. We have the opportunity to change lives and it's a marathon, this life. It just keeps on going. Even after he’s dead, he got kids, he got homies and people that are all spreading his message. People who never heard his music that's out to hear it and he's going to change their life, just like he did to us when we first heard it. And it just keeps on. It's a never-ending cycle of this thing—life.

There were random cups of liquor [on a table] that’s halfdrunk. I put my cell phone light on them because it's dark.

I'm getting situated so I could roll me a blunt. I finally got comfortable, settled into my little section of where I'm rolling up. All of a sudden, I see a hand creeping, grabbing a nug off of my tray.

So I slapped it out like an auntie at church like, “Don't touch that.” Then I turned around pointing fingers like,

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HAT: OK BALLET TOP, BOTTOM: MARNI SHOES: VINTAGE

“I HAVE MY NIPSEY CRIES WHEN I'M DOWN, AND I JUST KIND OF KEEP MOVING FORWARD. CHANGE SOME SHIT, LEARN SOME SHIT, GROW AS A HUMAN. THAT'S ALL HE WOULD EVER WANT.” 051

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Collage artist Kosuke Kawamura first developed his unique aesthetic by shredding his own artwork.

Mainly working with vintage clippings and other found imagery, Kawamura combines different elements to create an entirely new aesthetic. He has worked in partnership with AKIRA-creator Katsuhiro Otomo and he often collaborates with fellow artist YOSHIROTTEN as part of an art collective dubbed UTOPIE.

Kosuke Kawamura Q&A What got you into the world of art and graphic design?

Ever since I was a small child, I have enjoyed drawing.

It was when I was in middle school that I encountered what led to my current style. I’m from Fukuyama, Hiroshima. Back then, the Internet wasn’t as developed, so it was extremely exciting to see different subcultures that started in Tokyo pass through Osaka and Okayama and then reach Hiroshima. There were punk influences

PHOTOGRAPHY & INTERVIEW AKIHARU ICHIKAWA

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like Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. There was hip-hop and the West Coast skate scene. I feel that what ended up defining “my” creativity is the inspiration I received from the product of all those subcultures reaching Hiroshima, which ended up being this fusion of everything, made even more unique by how it’s all been filtered through Japanese culture.

would see as having little artistic value and turn it into art.

I even used travel brochures when I didn’t have any money.

What was your turning point as an artist and graphic designer?

I was in charge of the main visuals for an exhibition by Katsuhiro Otomo-sensei, the author of AKIRA. This was back in 2011, and I had the chance to show him my work.

He asked me to make a collage using his stuff. Of course I said yes. Before I knew it, I was in his studio collecting material. It all happened very quickly.

When I was young, I didn’t know graphic design could pay bills. It was when I saw the discussion between HIKARUsan from BOUNTY HUNTER and SK8THING that I realized graphic design is a profession. After that, I moved to Tokyo.

I got my parents to buy me a PC and taught myself. Then I happened to meet Hironori Ichinose-san from VANDALIZE. This is when my community started to expand.

The finished product got a no from everyone except Otomo-sensei. He said, “I’ve never seen this before.

Let’s use all of it.”

How do you collect materials for your collage?

For my own work, I take materials from old magazines.

I tend to not use materials from magazines like LIFE, which already has really cool raw material to begin with.

I try to go the other way, like using porn magazines from the ’60s or ’70s. I create collages from material that many

He also told me at that time, “Anything new will not be accepted right away, so don’t worry about it. It’s just because they’ve never seen it before.” I remember this well. And when the exhibition launched, my work didn’t receive any criticism from his fans. This is when I started to gain more confidence as an artist.

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You’ve done some work together with Otomo-sensei such as the art wall at SHIBUYA PARCO, and HYPEFEST. What have you learned from Otomo-sensei?

To keep a more open perspective. He’s constantly moving forward, looking for new things. The work at HYPEFEST was a good example: he was reluctant at first, but once he saw what all of these young people were doing—things that were entirely new to him—he chose to fully embrace that experience.

I’ve known YOSHIROTTEN from a while back, and recently he brought up doing something together. But a collaboration between two artists can get tricky, so he said, “Why don’t we do it like a band?” Back in ’77 to ’81, I was chasing this underground art unit from Paris which limited their work to span four years. Luckily, I had an opportunity with YOSHIROTTEN to speak with them, but during the interview, there was this one word I just couldn’t catch. The word was utopie, which means utopia. This is where our unit name came from. Our work is improv. At Fukuoka, I did collage work while YOSHIROTTEN DJ’ed, and the whole thing was aired

by VJ. The music, the art and the ever-changing visual stimulus fused together in that moment, and that was the moment something new was born. As UTOPIE, we put a cap on our number of works and we have plans to quit at 99. Right now, we’re one-tenth of the way through.

If we decide to do an exhibition, we’d need to make more art, so we could potentially be disbanded before our twoyear mark. But I hope people enjoy it.

One time he said to me, “I will always be a manga artist,” though he has worked in many capacities outside of manga. Recently he wrote a manga called Kibun Wa Mou Sensou [Feels Like War]. He wanted to remind manga artists of that feeling when you first fall in love with your craft. When you do something you love for work, it can begin to feel like only work. But his words remind me not to lose my drive.

Could you tell me about UTOPIE, an art unit with YOSHIROTTEN?

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P H OTO G R A P H Y NINA RAASCH

STYLING LUCIA SILVA

MODEL SHEA WILD

HAIR HIROKAZU ENDO

MAKE-UP YOKO NAKATA

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Lessons in Recall

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Yet when the dreaded thing does happen—when we finally witness someone who dares to have our idols blatantly spread across their hapless chests without knowing a single thing about them—no one is to blame. Not really.

The digital age makes it easy for iconography to first become homogenized, then ubiquitous, oftentimes becoming detached from its past to stand on its own.

“I think [young people] want to know and need to know, but it’s up to us to inform them, show them what came before, and how to apply it to what they’re doing,” says Easy Otabor, founder of fashion label Infinite Archives. Wear and learn.

How often have we seen a Slayer T-shirt in passing, noticed its wearer and automatically thought, Name one song?

The—our —zeitgeist: every generation lays claim to a specific part, which we guard with hawk-eyed ferocity, weeding out those who don’t really get it.

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Easy’s Infinite Archives is more akin to a heavily curated museum shop than to a fashion brand. Every year since 2015, IA has produced a range of products and experiences, from apparel and prints to home goods and furniture, all commemorating key culture-shifting moments and artifacts from a single year, emphasizing the importance of history in relation to the present.

Intent on being a “bridge to connect past and present,” Easy chose fashion and its surrounding disciplines as his classroom and textbooks, because he understands— perhaps more so than most—just how important these forms of self-expression are to today’s youth.

Easy, a native of cultural melting pot Chicago, has long been a student of history, especially as it pertains to fashion, sport, music and art. It started with his older brother, Ade, who introduced him to it all; then, in high school, he realized the career opportunities his interests afforded while working at a local sneaker shop. From there, he tried his hand at fashion design and entrepreneurship, but still hungry to learn, he eventually landed at Chicago’s premier streetwear store, RSVP Gallery.

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Founded in 2009 by Don C and Virgil Abloh, RSVP has been the go-to for all things street and youth culture.

Under the tutelage of these two visionaries for the better part of a decade, Easy’s childhood affinities blossomed.

Having worn just about every hat over the years, he soaked up every bit of knowledge he could, from anyone and everyone who walked through the shop’s doors.

He became a walking encyclopedia of sorts, or the selfproclaimed Dean of RSVP, educating and mentoring the staff and their patrons, just as Don and Virgil had guided him. RSVP is where his two loves, history and culture, finally collided. IA is where they’re maturing as one.

Now aged 32, residing in Los Angeles, and two years removed from RSVP, Easy devotes his time to traveling the world, immersing himself in art museums and collaborating with friends and long-time inspirations on an array of projects. He is, to put it simply, never not learning—for that is the mark of a true teacher.

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experience with Nike besides just retail, and it showed me what was possible, that my opinions and thoughts actually mattered.

Where did your interest in fashion begin?

My older brother, Ade, was a big inspiration. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know where I would be. He’s a very talented artist and was always drawing during our childhood, and of course I wanted to be like big bro, so I started to draw; he collected shoes, so I wanted to collect shoes; he was on Niketalk, so I wanted to be on Niketalk; he listened to NAS and Wu-Tang, so I listened to NAS and Wu-Tang. He was like my Tumblr or today’s well-curated IG page, and, luckily for me, my brother was into all the right stuff and very diverse.

Tell us about your first brand, the one you had stocked at Saint Alfred in your early 20s.

It was called Fallen Stars. My good friend Cornell Green and I started it, and the whole premise was based on the past: forgotten stars, legends and celebrities. Krabby, Saint Alfred’s operator at the time, saw one of the shirts and took a chance on it. He ordered every color and they completely sold out. Having a store like Saint Alfred carry your brand, let alone sell out, did a lot for my confidence and drive. Just seeing a dream come true led to me believing more of my dreams could come true; nothing sounded too crazy or too far-fetched anymore. And for things to come full circle, with me being co-creative director and part owner of Saint Alfred now, means the world to me. Still proving anything is possible years later.

And then your first professional experience in fashion and footwear was at a local sneaker store, correct?

What was that like?

Yeah, Athlete’s Foot in Orland Park was my first real job, for the Darwish family, when I was 15. I had to get a worker’s permit; I couldn’t wait until I turned 16 [laughs].

They made me manager real fast, while I was still in high school. I had the manager discount, so I used to buy two of anything I liked.

You recently left RSVP Gallery, where you wore many hats, including the self-proclaimed Dean. What was it like working for Don C and Virgil Abloh?

[Laughs] Unfortunately, no, I am not the Dean of RSVP Gallery anymore, though I’d like to believe there is a picture of me hanging in the halls of RSVP Academy somewhere, with all the other greats: Don C, Virgil,

They used to take me to Nike HQ in Chicago and let me help out with sneaker buys. That was my first real

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Mike Carson, Mike Waxx, Alicia G, Zach, Mehdi, Austin, David, Jessica, Chelsea, Anthony. I don’t work with them anymore, but they will always be family and all love always.

She’s the strongest and smartest person I know, although growing up I didn’t realize all that I was learning from her. My mom was an accountant. She did people’s taxes, she had a non-profit organization, she once had multiple daycare centers and she is a registered nurse. She taught me it’s never too late to do what you want and how to multitask [laughs]. I have no reason to settle or get comfortable.

Honestly, it was a dream come true, and I’ll never be able to pay them back for all the support and inspiration they have given me over the years. I look up to them; they’re mentors to me. I’ve learned so much from them outside of all this industry stuff—fashion/design, however you want to label it. Those two are amazing human beings that just treat people right, like how they would want to be treated or approached, because today’s sales associate can be tomorrow’s creative director for some top brand.

That’s the biggest thing I’ve witnessed from them. I’ve yet to hear anyone say anything bad about Don or Virgil as people or attack their character.

What made you step away from retail and launch your own brand, Infinite Archives?

I got to the point where I found myself not understanding a lot of the brands that were out at the time and the purpose behind them, what they stood for, or what message they were putting out there. So instead of sitting there hating or dissing, I decided to try and make something with a meaning, something I wanted to wear. More importantly, I needed an outlet to work more frequently and better with all my talented friends and people I come across on the daily. I needed to build a platform/outlet to get these ideas out, instead of waiting for someone else’s approval.

You mentioned in a past interview that you’re constantly pushing yourself to do/be better at whatever task is at hand. Where does this mentality come from?

I think it came from my parents. My late dad was a car salesman. He would come home almost every week with a different car from the auction. He’d fix them up and sell them for a little more than what he paid for them.

What is Infinite Archives exactly? How would you define IA and its goals?

It’s an infinite amount of archives [laughs]. I want it to live on forever, go on forever, to be there to help bridge any

My mom, though—I think I learned the most from her.

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“WE ALL JUST NEED TO BE THE PEOPLE WE NEEDED WHEN WE WERE GROWING UP. WE NEED TO GIVE KIDS AND PEOPLE OPPORTUNITIES TO SUCCEED.”

Exactly, a lot of things from the past repeat themselves.

I never want to be a brand that is not conscious of what’s going on today and how it relates to the past. I want IA to be the bridge to connect past and present.

I think they—our youth—want to know and need to know, but it’s up to us to inform them, show them what came before them, and how to apply it to what they’re doing—all while paying respect to those that came before them, so the next generation doesn’t forget about them, and so on.

Why did you choose to educate through fashion, rather than another medium?

One, I don’t want to be known as just a fashion brand.

Second, I think there are all types of ways to teach history, as long as you can find common ground with anyone you’re trying to reach it will make whoever the receiver is that much more open to hearing you out. That’s why IA will continue to produce different, unpredictable collabs to reach a broader audience.

and all gaps among all ages and fields. I don’t want much of anything to be off limits: art, food, fashion, furniture, electronics, etc.

I’m a very big fan of the past, always have been. History was always my favorite subject… Shout out to my freshman year history teacher, Mr. Maurice Young, the best teacher I ever had. He changed my life.

We all just need to be the people that we needed when we were growing up. We need to give kids and people opportunities to succeed, and try our best to give back not only when we can, but [also to come] up with more infrastructures that sustain this throughout the year and generations to come.

I knew I couldn’t just do a brand on the past. I think everyone references the past in their work, but with me, I knew I had to focus on one year at a time and tell that story all the way through versus bouncing all over the place. I feel if I’m focused on one year at a time, it allows me to tell a broader story without many restrictions.

I’m on year 1991 in 2019. Matt McCormick did this amazing piece where there is a still image from the Rodney King incident that took place in 1991, and today we are still dealing with similar situations almost 30 years later.

For example, I love what Social Studies is doing, where brands like AWAKE, Ghetto Gastro, Election Reform!, Some Ware, No Vacancy, Off-White and Shaniqwa are coming together every year to help give back. It’s all very inspiring and motivating.

The ultimate goal is to keep expanding, collaborating with more artists and getting more people into the idea of buying and collecting art. I love that I sell out prints before T-shirts.

What’s next for you and Infinite Archives?

IA will begin producing art shows around the world. I’m launching an art tour later this year and working with some amazing people from all around the world and from various disciplines. That’s what I’m looking forward to the most.

As a history buff, I imagine you subscribe to the notion that "we need to know where we've been to know where we're heading." Would you say that’s IA's defining characteristic? Why is this idea so important for our youth?

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Happy and in a better position to put other people in successful situations.

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This project is now one of the most prominent online radio stations internationally. NTS offers a wide listening range from known classics and club cuts to national anthems, along with ambient, Caribbean magic, post-punk and countless more. With just a click, NTS cuts through genre-defined borders in a singular, personalized experience, allowing listeners to create their own narratives and discover something for any mood, occasion or taste.

With stations based in London, Manchester, Los Angeles and Shanghai, NTS Radio produces more than 200 shows, broadcasting live content from over 30 cities every month. While NTS counts itself among the more ambitious independent online stations available, they are also heavily shaped by a sense of community— one comprising diverse voices, hosts, DJs and subject matter – that sharply and accurately reflects the world in which we live.

April 2011 is when it all started for NTS Radio and its founder, Femi Adeyemi.

Formerly a DJ on the London circuit— he even participated in the first Boiler Room stream in 2010 —his musical efforts eventually culminated in a low-key project in Hackney, UK, with a starting budget of just US$4,200.

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NTS has taken part in quite a few monumental musical events, one of which was a Warp Records 30th anniversary takeover, which offered exclusive sets from the likes of Aphex Twin, Danny Brown, Kelela, Yves Tumor, Brian Eno and Death Grips. Autechre’s fourweek residency, which comprised four shows, stretched into an eight-hour playlist of as yet unreleased material, then became their thirteenth studio album, titled NTS Sessions 1–4.

Besides delivering music from a wide range of artists and livestreaming from museums such as ICA London (Institute of Contemporary Arts) and Tate Modern, NTS also expands their musical palette through apparel.

They produced their own merch and also teamed up with adidas for a capsule collection with the radio’s official tagline, “Don’t Assume,” (borrowed from a free-jazz LP by singer Maggie Nichols and pianist Peter Nu, released on Leo Records in the late ’80s). The result of the collaboration, unveiled earlier this year, was eight pieces inspired by football culture and the local scene.

The collection was brought to life by diverse musicians who also hosted special radio shows for the occasion.

Adeyemi’s draw towards music dates back to early childhood. His twin aunt and uncle had musical tastes ranging from Fela Kuti to Boy George and Madonna.

His aunt bought him his first cassette, a tape by Arrested Development, when he was ten years old. “I’ve been obsessed with music ever since,” he admits. We sat down with Femi to discuss his love of any and all music and how he navigates this ever-growing world with apparent ease.

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Is this the first time you fronted your project to such extent?

No, I’ve tried a bunch of things in the past, including an ethical cleaning company called Suite Boy. My partner Sean has also had various previous projects. But NTS was the first one we gave full dedication to. I must say, though, radio was the trickiest to start, but somehow it just made more sense than everything else I’d ever done before.

It’s tough out there, especially for an independent station. What kept you going all these years?

We just love what we do. We have so many incredible DJs and hosts who play so much equally amazing music.

Also, what makes it all worthwhile is the fact that people around the world are getting to discover all this music because of what we do.

How do you make NTS a sustainable venture, given that it is an independent, online, free and contemporary radio station?

Occasionally we do music consultancy work for major brands in the form of events, playlisting, radio and video content, etc. We also do a lot of merch that has become popular over the last few years.

The station was well received from the start. Did that affect your work to some extent? Did you ever feel pressured that you have to do/give more?

To be honest, not really. We’ve always been pretty confident in the quality and consistency of what we do, whether it’s via the radio, events, or merch. We’re continually trying to challenge ourselves to put out the best possible stuff and do the best we can.

NTS takes its name from the saying “Soup to nuts,” meaning “from beginning to end.” I see it was flipped to make NTS “Nuts to Soup” making it “From the end to the beginning.” Why? I could really get into a deep philosophical reason why we chose the name, and there is one, trust me. But to not go overboard, and to keep things simple: it’s a quote I took from Homer Simpson (I’m a huge Simpsons fan; at least, I used to be).

The whole perception of online radio has completely shifted over the past few years. First it was just a playlist, and now it’s a full-on studio recording with live guests, etc. Where do we go from here?

Good question. I really wish I knew myself! I look forward to finding out, though.

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“IT’S SIMPLE. WE ONLY REALLY WANT TO WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE A SIMILAR ETHOS AND APPROACH TO WHAT THEY DO, JUST AS WE DO.” NTS (and similar stations that broadcast such rich and diverse programming) really made all music accessible, at all times. But before starting the radio, where did you go to find the music you liked?

All over! Record shops, music magazines, The Box, MTV when they actually just played music videos, etc. But I learned the most from just being around similar people with a similarly wide-ranging taste in music and going to the clubs or venues that offered that. It’s obviously easier now with the Internet, and I learn a lot via NTS, but I still love moments when I’m out and hear a DJ that I’ve never heard of, playing tunes I’ve also never heard before.

You also used to DJ, and there was a point you played under the name Mr. Wonderful, right?

Yes, that was a name I used as a joke for my first ever DJ set at a bar in Camden. I couldn’t think of a DJ name, and I told the promoter it was a joke, and he put it on the promo anyway because he thought it was funny. It kind of stuck for a bit, but I dropped that a very long time ago.

How did that come about?

That is definitely a personal highlight for me as well.

Autechre have been breaking the mold for decades, so it was a no-brainer to collaborate with them on that project and have them play. This kind of reinforces my last answer; it really is all about working with people who have a similar ethos.

What have you found recently that stood out?

There’s a young vocalist from London called Poison Anna, who works with a producer called Mobbs. They’re both really special, and I’m excited to hear more from them.

Also, lately I’ve been into a band from the ’90s called Suishou no Fune. I heard someone play them on NTS, and I ended up buying all their albums that same evening.

Can you tell us about the best decision you’ve ever made?

I wouldn’t even say it was a decision. It really should just be a thing that everyone does, but doing what makes me happy has been an absolute highlight.

How do you pick people you collaborate with?

It’s simple. Really, we only want to work with people who have a similar ethos and approach to what they do.

If you could pick a song that would serve as a soundtrack to your life, which would it be?

Damn! I don’t know. So many songs could fit. It’s like asking what my favorite song is; I wouldn’t be able to answer that either.

Personally, I think Autechre’s eight-hour playlist (divided in four sessions) is one of the most memorable collaborations/moments that ever happened at NTS.

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Now, in 2019, the two have become natural allies; in fact, as fashion’s established systems break down, the industry needs to work closely with other design disciplines to find a new path forward. Online shopping and social media have upended the traditional retail model, but that doesn’t mean physical spaces are irrelevant to fashion consumers. Brands need to communicate their story not just through clothing, but the very building and spaces in which they’re presented.

Architecture is not a place to pursue trends.

It is, perhaps, the slowest of all design disciplines, meaning projects that chase the look of the moment will look painfully dated by the time they’re completed.

By comparison, fashion is practically ephemeral, with new trends created at breakneck speeds before the current ones even catch on.

In short, fashion brands can no longer simply sell clothes in order to maintain relevance. They have to sell a lifestyle, which requires working with other disciplines such as architecture and interior design to create a fully immersive experience for their customers. And few have harnessed the potential that interdisciplinarity offers better than Prada, as exemplified in its long-time partnership with international architecture firm OMA. “They’ve been founded by people who call themselves neither fashion designers nor architects,” OMA partner Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli says of their respective leaders, Miuccia Prada and Rem Koolhaas. “One is an anti-designer, the other is an anti-architect. They expand their interests way beyond the disciplines they belong to—or people think they belong to.”

OMA’s relationship with Prada began when the label decided to revamp major stores, starting with the Prada Epicenter San Francisco in 2000. Those projects led to OMA creating Prada’s set design for its runway shows, an ongoing collaboration which has forced the firm to match fashion’s pace without sacrificing creativity.

“They run along the crazy speed of fashion. And they became for us a window into their mechanics, into their processes. A way to understand from the inside how organized, almost military-like, fashion is,” says Laparelli, who has worked on Prada’s scenography for over 10 years. “So we had to learn to work at different speeds, and we had to learn to work differently.”

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OMA’s work with Prada has gone beyond simply set and building design, and often results in a strengthened relationship between fashion and art. In 2004 OMA created “Prada Waist Down,” an exhibition elevating Prada’s skirt design to the level of an artwork—albeit in Prada stores, not a museum. “At that time, in 2004, fashion exhibitions were not that common. And Miuccia was also not really happy to do this in the museum, so we thought actually the store was the perfect environment,” OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu explains.

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The idea of a gallery show within a store was novel for the era, even as it seems commonplace today. At the time the concept store hadn’t reached global ubiquity, though the revolution was already underway with 10 Corso Como opening in Milan in 1990, colette in Paris in 1997 and Dover Street Market in London in 2004, all of which blur the boundaries between art galleries and retail space.

“Fashion exhibitions give us opportunities as architects to push the boundary between how visitors experience the exhibition, but also to confront the art pieces,” Shigematsu says, noting it’s only recently that fashion exhibitions have become the museum “blockbusters” they are now, even while the question of whether fashion is art or not remains heavily debated. Shigematsu has certainly had a hand in shaping the conversation, having designed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring 2016 exhibition, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, and the Dior: From Paris to the World installations in Denver and Dallas. “I think that instability of whether couture is defined as art or not actually gives everyone the opportunity to experiment more,” he says.

A cynical eye could look at these efforts as just another way to monetize consumers, but it’s also part of an effort to bring an element of storytelling to the retail experience, which is crucial to streetwear and luxury consumers. “The common denominator is that we are quite niche in our tonality. All of us. We’re targeting a specific consumer,” says Sneakersnstuff co-founder Erik Fagerlind. “So for us and luxury, the context around it becomes as important as the actual product that is in there. That’s what sets the product apart.”

Prada doesn’t merely employ the use of gallery-style exhibitions to showcase their wares—the brand’s presence has reached into the art world itself.

Fondazione Prada has been in operation since 1993 and, at the end of 2006, approached OMA to establish a permanent home for the arts foundation. According to Laparelli, that represented a turning point for the Fondazione in expanding its reach. “Instead of just showing collections, they were really turning into a cultural engine, meaning that they were starting to produce new works, new artists, performing art festivals, cinema, so they were becoming much more multi-disciplinary,” he says. OMA transformed a former distillery in southeast Milan into a sprawling arts complex that opened to the public in 2015, with the final piece of the puzzle, the 60-meter high Torre, completed in 2018.

Architecture and design firms like OMA, or Bofink in the case of Sneakersnstuff, provide more avenues to engage with fashion labels beyond product. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that one of today’s most influential designers is Virgil Abloh, who earned degrees in civil engineering and architecture before pursuing fashion. His impact has already garnered him a 2019 retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which showcases his genre-bending work and includes, of course, a pop-up store of exclusive OffWhite™ merchandise. Art has a place in retail, and so it only follows that retail has a place in art.

Even while few brands have the cultural gravitas to command an actual art museum, it is by now all but mandatory that they communicate a lifestyle that goes beyond apparel, and multi-functional retail spaces are a key part of the equation. In 2018 Gucci opened the Gucci Garden, which includes a restaurant and museum of its own history in Florence, followed by the arrival of a bookstore at its New York City store that same year. In 2019, Aimé Leon Dore launched its New York City flagship with a “Café Leon Dore” on site. And a year after opening its own New York City flagship, Sneakersnstuff added a bar to the retail space in 2019.

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“ONE IS AN ANTIDESIGNER, THE OTHER IS AN ANTIARCHITECT. THEY EXPAND THEIR INTERESTS WAY BEYOND THE DISCIPLINES THEY BELONG TO—OR PEOPLE THINK THEY BELONG TO.” IPPOLITO PESTELLINI LAPARELLI, PARTNER, OMA

But Abloh isn’t so much inventing a new path for fashion as he is updating an old model for the 21st century. As Laparelli notes, many Italian fashion designers such as Gianfranco Ferré have a background in architecture, while Bauhaus revolutionized design as an interdisciplinary studio in the early 20th century.

“There was a moment in which, between the ’70s and maybe the early 21st century, in which we sort of forgot about interdisciplinarity, but it was really always there,” Laparelli says. “Maybe that’s resurfacing again, and that’s really exciting.”

Prada is reviving that model not by only allowing architects to shape the brand’s runway shows, but also by inviting them to try their hand at Prada’s core material: nylon. The Prada Invites initiative began in 2018 and has commissioned renowned architects such as Elizabeth Diller, Kazuyo Sejima and OMA’s Rem Koolhaas to create nylon apparel and accessories.

It’s a chance for those creators to expand their own design ethos into apparel.

“We wanted each piece to have a dual purpose—an ambition consistent with our work. But it’s not just a push for functionality. It’s about reaching the pun, the double meaning—a slight shock to the system,” Diller says of her Prada Invites creations, a rectangular, harness-like piece dubbed “The Yoke,” and a garment bag-turned-raincoat christened “The Envelope.” She explains, “We began to think about bringing together the world of functionality into a more artistic experience and transforming it into something unexpected. I think that is an alignment with Miuccia and the way she thinks.”

The bigger question behind interdisciplinary collaborations is not just about creating one new cool product or store, but rather how to connect with audiences in a time when everything they need is a few taps away. Brands no longer need fashion shows to reach buyers, editors or consumers—so, what’s the point of having them? That’s what makes innovation and experimentation in set design and space crucial at this moment. Shigematsu notes many brands are turning to cruise shows, which are generally free from the fashion calendar, to push the envelope with unusual locations.

He points to Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 2020 show at John F. Kennedy Airport’s TWA Flight Center—which first opened in 1962 and has been closed for the past 18 years—as an example. The runway show marks the reopening of the modernist building, placing the French fashion house at the forefront of its reinvention as a high-end retail and dining space. “I find it a very interesting time, because the notion of fashion, architecture, retail... it’s all changing and no one really knows,” Shigematsu says. “The whole system is changing and it’s always quite interesting for an architect —for anyone—to be part of the rethinking process.”

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Jury Kawamura began his label, EYEFUNNY, by customizing jewelry for his friends and family. Fast-forward 16 years, and he now counts the likes of Daniel Arsham, Kim Jones, J. Balvin and Dr. Woo as loyal customers. His signature motif, an irreverent smiley face covered in pavé diamonds, came about because “it makes people happy.”

EYEFUNNY Q&A You are known to create custom pieces, but even your in-line jewelry has a very unique look. How would you describe Eyefunny’s style?

EYEFUNNY is EYEFUNNY. It’s hard to describe. I guess you can say the goal is to make something unique, and I want to make people happy with my designs—which is why one of our signature pieces is a smiley face rendered in pavé diamonds. When I started EYEFUNNY in 2003, nobody thought to put an expensive material like diamonds on a smiley face. I think the smiley makes people happy.

INTERVIEW KEVIN WONG PHOTOGRAPHY AKIHARU ICHIKAWA

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Why the name “EYEFUNNY”?

I wanted to make a new word for the label. So I kept putting different words together until I landed on EYE and FUNNY. EYEFUNNY sounded natural to me.

How did you get into jewelry?

I started making jewelry just for my friends and myself.

Then I got lucky, because it turned out some Japanese celebrities wanted to collaborate with me, and my pieces began to be stocked at places like United Arrows and Estnation. In the beginning, I designed clothes as well, because the fashion market is bigger than the jewelry market, and I figured that’s one more avenue for me to create. I opened our first EYEFUNNY store at Omotesando Hills in 2008. I always think about evolving in my own way.

Who are some people you have made custom jewelry pieces for?

J. Balvin, Daniel Arsham, Don C. and Kristen, Aleali, Kim Jones, Poggy, Dr. Woo and more. I’m currently working on a few pieces for some others too.

Who was the first person you made a custom piece for, ever?

The first person was myself, for sure. And then it was family and friends.

What are some of the most unique or different pieces you’ve created?

Actually, we’re not a custom jeweler. Our custom pieces are usually different combinations of my original designs.

So you can say all my designs are unique.

We see diamonds and jewels in your products.

What is your favorite type of material to use?

Normally, we just use diamonds, because I think diamonds are the most beautiful material in the world.

We use 18K gold and 950 platinum as well. They make great-looking jewelry.

How do you compare the reception of your brand in Japan vs. US or Europe?

There isn’t any difference. There are many people who have good taste all around the world. They respect innovators and the act of creating something new. I’m always humbled by the positive reception from anyone and anywhere.

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What’s the most difficult thing about being in the jewelry business?

I don’t think there’s anything particularly difficult about being in the jewelry industry. Making your own history and building a brand is not easy, but that doesn’t apply only to the jewelry business.

You had a longstanding relationship with Paris retailer colette. They were one of the first to stock your brand outside Japan. How did that come about?

Yes, colette was the first store. Colette was the one and only store that I really wanted to work with. I showed my new collection to Sarah at every fashion week in Paris, and she decided to work with us in 2011.

What is one thing you are most excited about upcoming for the brand? Any new products or projects?

We’re talking about possibly collaborating with my favorite artist. There are also projects in the works with some other friends and brands. My hope for anything we make is to create something that people want to keep forever.

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“I felt funny about it, to be honest,” says Jomi, on being approached to do this interview. “I used to reach out to HYPEBEAST—I had emails upon emails—saying what we're doing is important. Africa is always getting neglected. If any musician drops an album, he'll say he's doing a world tour but never touch Africa. Like we're not worth anything.”

For him, there were parallels between this approach and our initial response to WAFFLESNCREAM. “It's the same kind of feedback I got from HYPEBEAST because no one was responding.” But that response, or lack of, isn’t something we’re looking to replicate anytime soon, as the reader can see from this interview.

It becomes clear from speaking to Marcus-Bello that WAFFLESNCREAM is more than just a brand for him; it’s his community—one that’s in the early stages of building the first skatepark in Lagos. Calling things a lifestyle may be clichéd, but it’s a term that truly encapsulates WAFFLESNCREAM.

“I knew what I was doing was risky, crazy,” says Jomi Marcus-Bello, of his Nigerian skate label WAFFLESNCREAM. Since its launch back in 2010, the brand has had a rollercoaster of a journey, growing from a fledgling brand that struggled with getting press from many places, including HYPEBEAST.

For Jomi, the brand’s journey began back in 2008, in the unlikeliest of places—north England’s Leeds.

It was here that he discovered skateboarding as a subculture after his mother bought him a board. During visits to a local park near his school, Marcus-Bello saw a new world.

“I discovered this board is not just for cruising. There were ramps and I saw people doing amazing shit.”

He quickly became obsessed with the sport, spending day and night at the park, eventually failing school as a result. But the bonds he had built in Leeds created a desire to find like-minded people, just when his mother sent him to Lusaka, Zambia, as a result of his scholastic failures.

It wasn’t an easy transition. “I was scared. I was like, where the fuck is Zambia?” he says. “I'm from the west [of Africa] and I'm now in the middle of nowhere, in a boarding school.” But he soon adapted. “I found 114

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skateboarders in Zambia, a guy called Elijah Campbell, who just moved from Russia back to Zambia. He was a black guy who was a sick skateboarder. He had the same vision I did, trying to set up skateboarding in Zambia.”

Campbell eventually created a skate park in Zambia, and Bello, spurred on by Campbell’s success, wanted to see if he could create his own community. “I met incredible people that became my best friends. I thought to myself ‘I've got to bring this feeling back to Lagos.’”

This joint vision led to Bello skating less frequently than in Leeds, but the obsessions never left him. He soon had a new crew of fellow skaters and worked towards creating a skate video, which proved difficult.

“Nobody had cameras,” he said. The library of online videos we now take for granted did not yet exist, and the group watched video tapes instead. Bello’s transatlantic connection—he was sent back to England for university—meant that he became the plug for his Zambian crew. “I was the one shipping boards back and forth. No one would bring you supplies, because Zambia is a landlocked country.”

But the journey of WAFFLESNCREAM in Nigeria doesn’t quite follow a straight line. After finishing university in 2014, Bello came back with plans to start the skate brand. “I announced that I was back in Lagos, but I didn't have anything,” he said. “No shop, no crew, no boards—nothing. So what I said was, ‘I need to bring people together and just celebrate this idea of skateboarding and this alternative culture.’” This took the form of parties and events, run so spontaneously that those who RSVP’ed would receive the address only a day before the event.

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“I LOVE THE WORLD, I LOVE THE WEST, BUT MY FOCUS IS MORE ON AFRICA. I WANT TO SEE MORE WAFFLESNCREAM STORES IN AFRICA THAN ANYWHERE ELSE.”

Bello eventually ran into some people who would be key to the development of WAFFLESNCREAM. “Slawn hit me up and said, ‘Oh, he's been skateboarding and no one here does,’” Bello said. “So he came to me one night with his portfolio and I was like, ‘Oh my God, dude, you're sick in the streets. Let's do some stuff, let’s do some graphics, let's put them on some t-shirts.”

It wasn’t long before he met someone else who’d be a key member of the growing crew, Leonard. Meanwhile, Bello was still the plug. “I had some boards with me, I kept going back, kept traveling. So the same thing I did in Zambia, I was doing in Lagos.”

During his travels, Jomi managed to secure a connection in a way that could happen only in the world of skateboarding. “I just walked into Supreme and asked to see the manager,” he recalls. “I told him, ‘Look, my 119

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Despite this reaction, WAFFLESNCREAM opened its first store with a pleasingly straight-forward aim. "[I thought] let me open a skate shop so we'll all be in there, and then we can go skate," Jomi says. He eventually landed on a space but hadn’t planned further than that.

“It was just a shop with no products,” he said. In order to create something more than an empty shop, WAFFLESNCREAM held an exhibition called “Friends and Family” to raise funds via selling supplies, limitededition t-shirts and goods. It’s an event that still runs twice a year, despite its last-minute beginnings. The exhibition was also the push WAFFLESNCREAM needed to keep creating. They began to release capsule collections, and then full collections, with the pieces wholly designed by the skate crew. All the goods are produced in-store. They even got a tailor.

For Bello and the crew as a whole, the desire to create was born from a need to tell their own tales.

“We wanted to put our stories, our fabrics and our life into it, rather than just doing what the West was doing.” The growth of the brand continued to the point where Slawn and Leonard eventually splintered to create Motherlan, another Nigerian skate label that’s still friendly with the brand they worked for.

name is Jomi, and I'm trying to start skateboarding in Africa. I want to start from my own city.’ I showed him some clips of the guys in Zambia that I skated with, and he was like, ‘When you're traveling back, come and meet me.’”

The next step for WAFFLESNCREAM is to keep things steady. Bello says, “Investment is nice. You can package it in the nicest words, but we want partnerships. We've been offered investment, but we've declined because we want to still be skater-owned, skater-brand 100% and Naija,” he says. “We would rather do a partnership.

Someone help us build a skate park. Someone help us set up a factory to build boards. Someone help us set up production.”

The next time Bello went back, he received a supply of boards from Supreme. “I was really shocked because he was the first person to ever support us, with real support, not some fake shit. Every time I came back, they would just go to the back and give me more stuff.

They just generally tried to help.”

World domination is commonly sold as the goal for all new brands, but that’s not the aim for WAFFLESNCREAM. “I am more concerned about Africa. I love the world, I love the West, but my focus is more on Africa. I want to see more WAFFLESNCREAM stores in Africa than anywhere else.” Yet more than the growth of his brand, he wants the growth of the sport in Nigeria and beyond.

“I want more people to skate. The clothes are cool, but the core of it is skating. We're more excited about a good clip than a good design.”

Yet not everyone was so supportive. “Everybody was discouraging me in Nigeria, saying skateboarding would never work.” The push for a more established job is something that’s hung over Bello. “The reason why people want to be doctors and learn to engineer is not because our parents love the job; it's because it's the most secure thing.” And the opposite of job security is the risk involved with Bello’s goals. “In young countries, nobody wants to take risks, and being in the creative scene is very risky.”

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Although Pantone was born in Argentina, his family relocated to the Spanish municipality when he was ten.

Two years later, an ambitious, pre-teen Pantone picked up his first spray can and started bombing local walls.

Since then he has spent over a decade developing his style, experimenting with various letterforms including calligraphy, wild style, 3D, characters and even dabbling in photorealism with spray paint. “I think you find your style by elimination because you don't know what you want, but you know what you're not. I guess I was trying everything and eventually I found my style at the very end,” he says.

The city of Valencia is rife with street art,

spanning from graffiti tags by local writers to commissioned murals by international artists.

The virtuoso of the region—and perhaps of Spain itself—is none other than graffiti vandal turned fine contemporary artist Felipe Pantone.

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Pantone garnered an international reputation in the graffiti world under the name of PANT1. Alternating conventional graffiti, typography and abstraction, his progressive practice merges elements of graphic design with geometric shapes to create a futuristic aesthetic.

Onlookers of his works are immediately pulled into his complex compositions that feature gradient color blocks, concentric lines and computer glitches. His prolific creations are observed not only on the walls of Valencia, but also at major institutes across the globe, including Mesa Contemporary Arts Center in Arizona, the Long Beach Museum of Art in California and Palais de Tokyo in Paris. One of his more ambitious undertakings was his mural for the 2016 edition of the Maus Festival in Malaga, where the artist's unmistakable palette of iridescent colors stretched across the entire length of a bridge overlooking the river Guadalmedina.

Pantone’s practice isn’t confined just to walls or the traditional canvas; he has marked his crisp abstractions on motorcycles, race cars and planes—which aptly complements his aesthetic that evokes movement and speed. To heighten the feeling of motion in his compositions, he often paints black and white colors beside each other, creating intense contrast and retinal fatigue while also tricking the eye. Collectively, Pantone’s style pays homage to the works of expert colorists Victor Vasarely and Carlos Cruz-Diez. While adding his own artistic twists, he mimics their unique abstraction and stroboscopic motifs packed with blackand-white geometric shapes that are then highlighted with metallic colors.

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“I THINK GRAFFITI IS TO ART, WHAT TWITTER IS TO NEWSPAPERS. IT'S IMMEDIATE, IT'S FREE, IT'S EPHEMERAL— AND EVERYONE CAN DO IT.”

Pantone’s multi-faceted work explores our relationship with new technologies. He himself is an avid supporter of the Internet, calling it a significant tool that enables humans to seamlessly communicate with each other in opposite parts of the world and grant tech-savvy individuals instant access to the history of humanity.

Adhering to the fundamentals of today’s technological age, Pantone has shifted his approach from hands-on to virtual. Lately, he’s been creating designs on a computer and bringing them into the analog world with massive 3D-printing machines that emit paint in vivid hues.

We recently sat down with the artist in one of his Valencia studios to discuss his ever-evolving artworks and creative processes, and how he keeps up with the latest technologies that will surely be incorporated into his ultra-dynamic practice.

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Before contemporary fine art, you were heavily involved with graffiti. Can you tell us about your background in graffiti?

When I was ten years old, my parents and I moved from Argentina to this little town here in Valencia, Spain.

At the time, there was graffiti everywhere. Around 12 years old, I picked up my first spray can, went to town and started painting.

You mentioned that, as soon as you could afford the materials, you moved on from graffiti to the fine art style that you're developing now. So did you have a love for graffiti in the beginning, or was that the only way you could get your art out there previously?

No, I love graffiti. I think graffiti is beautiful. It's like a kid; it's so stupid but so beautiful and innocent. When people do graffiti they don't care who’s watching. All they care about is other graffiti writers.

It's also the same idea behind doing it because it's cheap. On the flip side, people don't necessarily need to pay a museum to see it, because it's for everybody.

Yes, but that's something I realized way after. It's an art form that belongs only to this century. I think graffiti is to art, what Twitter is to newspapers. It's immediate, it's free, it's ephemeral—and everyone can do it.

What do you say to those critics who claim, 'If it's not illegal, it's not graffiti.' Do you agree or disagree?

Graffiti is about writing your name as many times as possible, as big as possible, with as much style as possible, in as many places as possible. Whether it's legal or illegal—graffiti writers really don’t give a shit. They'll see a piece on a wall, and they'll want to create something bigger. They just want to do it and win the game.

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What are your thoughts on the state of graffiti today?

Is it still as prominent as it was in the ’70s?

Graffiti is still as crazy as it was back then. Whether it’s in America or in Europe, there are a lot of kids who are still doing it. I still do it. I go and paint trains where my artwork won't even be noticed by the public. I go on a mission for like 12 hours. My recent one was in Belgium: it was snowing like crazy and my clothes were stained with mud.

Futura, Shepard Fairey, Os Gemeos and Vhils last year.

So generally, if I know it's a partnership that will help my career or a brand I love beforehand, it's going to make sense for my work.

What was the inspiration for your new collaborative Hennessy bottle?

I went to Cognac, and Hennessy explained their process.

I met their master blender and learned more about their tradition. They're a really old brand, but they do things in a way where the youth still fucks with it. We sat down to plan the design, seeing what sort of visual connections there were between my work and the brand. I guess I also care about art history and what's been done before.

However, at the same time, I want to do things that haven't been done before.

You talked a lot about “subtractive variability.” Is that just an aesthetic principle? Tell us more.

That’s the name of a series that I’m working on. It’s inspired by the CYMK spectrum, the colors that are normally used in printing presses. With these paintings, I move the material that I want to use under a humongous printer and start with only one color. It's a fun series for me to explore. Recently, I collaborated on an Instagram filter that utilizes these exact colors for people to virtually interact with this visual phenomenon.

In a lot of ways, your work is interactive. You have Instagram filters, configurable art, the world's largest QR code mural in Belgium. What does that link to?

Scan it right now. When you do, it takes you to an online page where it says "You're the 500,000th person who scanned this." Even if this piece is in Belgium, it's been scanned by people all across the globe and there's a map that shows where people scanned it from. It's basically a statement about ubiquity. You can be anywhere and everywhere. Your art doesn't belong to a physical space

How do you approach brand collaborations?

First and foremost, it has to be a brand that I respect.

In this case, when Hennessy approached me, I knew right away what their brand is all about and the partnerships they've done previously. I was really humbled and stoked that I was going to join this club of collaborations with artists who are also my biggest heroes, like KAWS,

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anymore. Everything is global. I'm always working on pieces that people can interact with. It's not as easy as making a painting.

Do you have a preference for where your work is shown?

When I'm working in a white cube, it's beautiful. You can be free and do whatever you want. On the other side, when you're painting outside, there are a lot more risks, like cops chasing you, or it's getting dark, or the lift doesn't reach the left part of the wall. All of those things add more challenges to your creative process. You have to adapt, but limitations always enhance creativity. I don't have a preference.

In this social media age where basically anything, or anyone, can be a brand, how did you turn these motifs into your personal artist brand?

I think it's because I use them a lot. But I'm not just using them to claim them. I paint computer glitches and whatnot because I genuinely like them. The compositions are also not random, even if it may look random or spontaneous for some. I select every pattern and place them where it makes sense for me. Even if it's abstract or doesn't make sense, I guess my goal for creating them is to guide viewers into some sort of thought. By believing what I believe, I guess I own it, but I'll never say that I own these visuals.

“I’M ALWAYS WORKING ON PIECES THAT PEOPLE CAN INTERACT WITH. IT’S NOT AS EASY AS MAKING A PAINTING.”

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THE RIVER

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BAG AND T-SHIRT: SALOMON GILET: CAFÉ DU CYCLISTE SHORTS: NEW BALANCE

BAG, TROUSERS & TRAINERS: SALOMON T-SHIRT: FALKE GLOVES: NIKE

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SUNGLASSES : OAKLEY JACKET: ALYX x MONCLER TROUSERS: NIKE TRAINERS: ASICS

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SUNGLASSES : OAKLEY JACKET: ALYX x MONCLER TROUSERS: NIKE TRAINERS: ASICS

SUNGLASSES : OAKLEY

JACKET: ASICS BAG: BOTTEGA VENETA SHORTS: KALENJI TIGHTS: ASICS

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JACKET: ADIDAS TERREX HAT: KALENJI BELT BAG: NIKE SHORTS: NEW BALANCE TRAINERS: ADIDAS 151 SOCKS: FALKE

BAG AND T-SHIRT: SALOMON GILET: CAFÉ DU CYCLISTE SHORTS: NEW BALANCE

LO OKS

P H OTO G R A P H Y ELLIOT JAMES KENNEDY

C R E AT I V E D I R E C T I O N & STYLING JAKE HUNTE & LOUIS HARTLEY

MODEL LOUIS HARTLEY

HAIR AND MAKE UP CHESS THORNTON

P H OTO G R A P H Y 1 S T A S S I S TA N T OLLIE RADFORD

P H OTO G R A P H Y 2 N D A S S I S TA N T MIKE HANI

S T Y L I N G A S S I S TA N T STORMY HAUGHTON

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children of the discordance

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stitched in heritage WORDS

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Channeling wanton DIY deconstruction, laid-back sportswear and Shikama’s Japanese heritage, Children of the discordance fiercely resists easy categorization, thanks to offerings that are simultaneously wide-ranging and cohesive. The sheer variety of influences which shape Shikama’s work draws from cultures that span the globe—as such, the designer appropriately recruits artisans from different countries to construct the label’s post-punk garments.

Not only are Children of the discordance’s collections borderless, but the brand works with a variety of skilled workers as disparate as Mexican weavers and Palestinian refugees to create the brand’s wares. Shikama’s emphasis on contemplative craft emphasizes CotD’s relevance in our inconceivably connected world. Each season is a truly global effort, utilizing skilled, well-paid labor from across the globe to create fleshed-out looks.

Hideaki Shikama’s Children of the discordance has quietly produced ever-more sophisticated designs since its debut Spring/ Summer 2011 collection, never losing touch with the core tenets that make the brand so distinctive.

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This phenomenon underscores CotD’s relevance to modern consumers; we want clothing that matches our fast-paced, Instagram-fueled tastes, but more and more of us refuse to accept the timely churn of fastfashion as the only option. This feeling intensifies when considering the pressure placed upon workers by the endless cycle of disposable clothing. How can workers be paid a living wage when the end result is priced to be tossed out after a couple wears? That’s where designers like Shikama come in.

Militaristic parkas, Frankenstein shirts, shaggy sweaters and knee-length skater shorts crop up throughout CotD’s seasonal lines, with few themes carrying over across seasons. Shikama freely explores every winding path in his imagination, meaning a single season may juxtapose double rider’s jackets and gentlemanly slacks, shredded jeans and prim trench coats. In particular, patchwork detailing is a consistent motif, often yielding slim jeans and classic trench coats reworked with aggressive raw-hem panels or elegant geometric shapes of contrasting fabrics—whichever suits Shikama’s mood best.

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However, Children of the discordance’s releases are nothing if not varied. For example, Shikama’s Fall/ Winter 2018 collection delivered billowing ponchos, slouchy jeans, checkerboard coats, shearling vests and a Rage Against The Machine T-shirt. Just a season later, Shikama delved into generous bomber jackets, rebuilt Levi’s denim, hand-scrawled graffiti print and Joy Division references, anchored by a collaboration with sneaker upcycler, RECOUTURE. The Japanese footwear imprint has been crafting leather-wrapped takes on classic sneakers for years, imbuing familiar silhouettes with a wonky individualism not too far removed from CotD’s own oeuvre.

Never has the future looked brighter for Children of the Discordance; Spring/Summer 2020 was just shown in Pitti Uomo and Paris to a swathe of international buyers, capped by a surprise collaboration with Yamaha motors. Western stockists ranging from LN-CC to Maxfield LA have been swayed by CotD’s covetable bandana shirts and lived-in militaria, while a hearty base of Japanese storefronts that include BEAMS, NUBIAN, Studious and B2'nd continue to pledge their support.

We sat down with Shikama to explore the roots of the brand, discuss his approach to design and consider the trajectory of Children of the discordance.

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Q&A

What does "Children of the discordance" mean to you?

Since I was a little kid, I have always been a black sheep.

I never wanted to wear what other people wore or listen to what other people listened to. The word “discordance” represents my gratitude toward those cultures that I grew up with, like fashion, music and skating.

Tell us about the beginning of Children of the discordance.

It all began with designer friends of mine and me making printed T-shirts and reconstructing other pieces on our days off. I was working as an in-house designer for SHIPS JET BLUE during the week back then, running a brand in a corporate environment with this conundrum of balancing creativity with business. Because of the logistical support I received from the company, I was required to follow certain compliances and achieve a set number of sales, which made it hard for me to say that the brand was 100 percent of what I wanted to create.

Can you describe your design process?

The core of each design is always in my head. I keep updating and marinating those designs in my brain for a long time. When I draw them out on paper with pen, everything down to the smallest detail is fully explored.

We then proceed to patternmaking with almost no alterations. I go through a similar process for graphics and textile design. I spend more time thinking about designs with this process, but I think that it helps improve the quality of the end products.

Having said that, I’m extremely grateful and fortunate to have had these experiences. They made me who I am and put me where I am today. After I left that job, I decided to commit to what I really desired to create in 2011 and began Children of the discordance.

Inspiration-wise, I’d say films, old music videos and skate videos. I blend that with my personal archives (I’m a bit of a collect-o-holic—I still have clothes I have worn

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“THE WORD ‘DISCORDANCE’ REPRESENTS MY GRATITUDE TOWARD THOSE CULTURES THAT I GREW UP WITH, LIKE FASHION, MUSIC AND SKATING.”

since I was little) and how I feel—my current mood, so to speak—when thinking about new designs. It’s like using sampling to create hip-hop songs.

Tell us about your connection to vintage clothing.

I’ve worn many diverse styles of clothing since my obsession with clothes began in the early ’90s. Back then, the word “vintage” meant something that existed way before I was even born. “Vintage” today includes what I was wearing when I was young and some garments from my personal collection, as those items have been around for about 30 years or so now.

I particularly like the styles that branch from skating and hip-hop, hardcore and punk cultures. I have also been influenced by Comme des Garçons, Martin Margiela and Raf Simons, though Harajuku street culture in the ’90s has always been my backbone. The fact that I spent my youth in a variety of crossover cultures makes Children of the discordance a sort of “genre-free” brand.

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Receiving the TOKYO FASHION AWARD in 2017 accelerated this throughout 2018. Despite all our success with BEAMS, our biggest breakthrough was definitely our recent patchwork bandana collection.

How exactly do you work with fair trade products?

What countries do you work with and why is ethicality important to you?

It’s not necessarily that I prioritize fair trade practice, but that I always aim to create a working environment where everyone involved in our production process is happy to work with us. Out of utter respect for the craftspeople we work with, we do not negotiate any discounts on their fee. I believe that this manifests through the quality of the products we create together.

I received the opportunities to work with Palestine’s Hirbawi Textile Factory and with a Mexican fabric provider called AZLN, both of which actually came to fruition due to my love of hip-hop and hardcore culture. I was doing some digging on musicians’ backgrounds, like what they wore and why. That clued me in to the [aforementioned] fabrics and textiles providers. We began to work with them shortly after, and our relationship naturally developed into the “fair trade” practice we have today.

Can you break down your biggest influences?

I spent two summers in NYC in ’94 and ’95. These experiences impacted my personal growth beyond description. NYC street and East Coast hip-hop culture back then still forms a major part of who I am today.

What was the first time you felt like the label started to gain recognition?

My motivation for designing and how I run the brand have drastically changed since 2016. Since then, I’ve become more observant of the environment in which my designs dwell.

The importance of ethical craft aside, I like to work with people who have good vibes. If they’re unhappy or if they’re in some kind of trouble, I want to do everything I can to help them.

Skilled embroiderers, shoemakers, weavers, traditional craftspeople, vintage clothing dealers, company representatives—these people are CotD family members who help me continue creating clothing. My biggest joy is seeing all these people get excited over the finished collection. It’s this genuine connection with people which lets me create these goods, rather than just the term “fair trade.”

I began working with International Gallery BEAMS in Tokyo around then, and they sold some of our reconstructed pieces that I created with my atelier partner, Naoto Yoshida. As we launched each collection, a growing number of customers contacted the store to inquire about our pieces because everything sold out the day it was put out on the floor. We started to receive more overseas inquiries from Instagram posts around that time, too. I think our denim pants and trench coats made from vintage pieces made our brand more accessible for a global audience.

What's gone well for the brand this year?

In 2019, we’ve secured a stable supply of vintage materials.

Also, communication with embroidery craftspeople and atelier staff has been going very well.

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Castro Smith implements both English and Japanese techniques in his work, depicting symbols and icons from old fables to create one-of-a-kind illustrations on rings and other ornaments crafted from precious metals. A customized piece can take anywhere from five days to a year to complete, marking him as one of the most talented and in-demand designers in the jewelry business.

Castro Smith Q&A How did you get started in jewelry design?

I got started in a traditional apprenticeship with the old guilds of London. There are like 50 old guilds. Goldsmiths are one of the top ones—it's a traditional apprenticeship.

You have to study for five years in a workshop, learn under different teachers. It’s kind of a dying trade. My boss did Wimbledon—we still do Wimbledon every year, we hand carve the names in it. We do replica work. He does the World Cup, all the big sports trophies.

INTERVIEW VANESSA LEE PHOTOGRAPHY

´ GRZEGORZ STEFANSKI ´ KAROLINA WISNIEWSKA

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What are some valuable things you’ve learned?

It’s this idea of passing down knowledge that's not necessarily available. There are lots of art schools and things, but there's not many places that will teach you how to hand engrave properly, the old way. A lot of these guys in the workshop passed away while I was there, just because they've been working there 50, 60 years. There’s a big upside-down pyramid of older people in the industry and people who want to learn. Hardly anyone’s really learning these kinds of crafts. You can also find places like that in Japan. I studied in Japan for a year under lots of different craftsmen, some being the emperor's craftsmen.

Just before I left for Japan, Dover Street Market contacted me. They'd been asking me to come in for a while and make them a collection of rings. I didn't know who they were at the time, I kept putting it off because I thought they were a street market. I didn't have a clue about the fashion world then. They just asked me to come in, and I went in on my lunch break, in a vest and covered in dirt because I have to use these big machines and you get really dirty. I rushed in, sweating, to this meeting and they all came in really well-dressed. They were really shocked.

They asked me to make a little collection for them in the two weeks before I left [for Japan] and I managed to get it out. It sold out and that relationship developed from there.

I couldn't really take it on because of my commitment in Japan to the training process, which is very traditional.

You have to dedicate time and show the teachers [your sincerity]. It's very hard as a foreigner to be taught the traditional crafts there.

What would you say is unique about your experience in Japan versus your time in the UK? My time in the UK, it was really like working at an oldschool workshop. It's like they'd say you clock in, you clock out, you do your time and you work hard. Whereas in Japan it was more self-driven. I have to find the way, I have to find the people.

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Can you talk to me a little bit about the techniques that you use?

I mix European and Japanese styles of metalwork. [In Japan] you're using smaller tools and taking more time to make things. It’s important the way you sit, your posture, the way you move. In Europe, the kind of skill that I learned was seal engraving. Because I specialize in intaglio, there's a lot more chisel work and things like that.

Can you tell me a little bit about the design process?

How do you come up with all the iconography and the illustrations?

There's a mix. I'm using those Aesop stories, things like that. It's very symbolic. Traditional English symbols like the rabbit, fox, lion. I think everyone needs some of those symbols, you know, to believe in. [Like how] the Phoenix symbolizes rebirth. They all have words and things associated with them that people can act on.

A lot of the time I sit down with people and get their stories, their histories. People want to remember that. It can become quite an emotional process, especially with loved ones who have passed away. For me, it's more about the importance of symbology and its meaning for people.

My business is that [I do] around 80 or fewer custom pieces a year. That's 80 people living today and their stories. In 10 years I'll have a thousand people and their stories. It's telling people’s stories right now, in this time.

One of my favorite shrines in Japan is in Osaka. People have been throwing water over this Buddha for hundreds of years and there's moss all over the statues, the sites, and they've kept it that way. That's what they appreciate— the changing of nature, the changing of time. Whereas if you go to Europe, it's more about something that's unchangeable. So in Europe, they really appreciate silverware. In Japan they're much more interested in copper. They appreciate the effects that the environment has in changing its color, numerous blues, greens, browns, oranges, reds. I pull in the iconography of Europe and I pull in this changing appreciation of nature.

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Zilber then proceeded to work in NOMA’s kitchen for around 18 months before Redzepi moved him to a different department. “During the staff meal, I would always bring a book with me. It was scientific, non-fiction,” remembers Zilber. “I was the one guy in a room of 50 chefs who had a book open. All the other guys were either on Instagram or smoking outside.”

This earned Zilber a reputation among the chefs as a knowledgeable resource, and Redzepi eventually asked him if he’d like to join the restaurant’s research lab, which is responsible for developing new flavors and culinary processes at NOMA. Zilber’s time in the lab—which he now heads as director of fermentation—has coincided with a general rise in interest in fermented foodstuffs, as seen in the number of devotees of kombucha, miso, even the pungent Japanese natto bean. Home pickling and preserving have steadily become more popular—partly due to restaurants like NOMA—while the nutritional benefits of centuries-old, even millennia-old, traditional dishes such as kimchi and sauerkraut are gaining recognition outside their countries of origin.

David Zilber isn’t like most chefs. More precisely, he isn’t much like a chef at all. After getting his start in Vancouver, Canada, Zilber wrote a letter to René Redzepi, co-owner and head chef of NOMA, asking for a job.

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“I don’t think fermentation is undergoing a trend; I think it’s undergoing an understanding,” says Zilber over the phone from Copenhagen. “You realize there’s an industry built around harvesting good microbes and preserving food and it has this deep history. All the people who’ve typically been handed these products by big corporations are like, ‘Oh, this is really easy to do; everyone used to do it at home and I should too.’

They unearth this whole other side of cuisine that’s infinitely variable. You won’t see it slow down. It’ll become a new facet of life. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. It never has.” Only now are we gathering empirical evidence that gut bacteria affects major health issues such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and even mental health. Many studies claim eating probiotics such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, whether sourced from dietary supplements or from fermented foods, is a proven method to improve gut health. Our ancient food cultures already knew this: fermentation has long been an non-negotiable part of traditional cuisines around the world.

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In the midst of the renewed interest in fermentation, Zilber and Redzepi worked together on the NOMA Guide to Fermentation. The book itself mixes tips— many of which apply to other recipes—with a string of creations that come in the lineage of NOMA’s boundary-pushing cuisine. While many of the ingredients are easily accessible, the book also features less familiar foods, such as bee pollen for garum (traditionally a type of fermented fish sauce used in ancient Roman, Greek and Byzantine cooking) and grasshoppers, which are then combined with moth larvae to create a grasshopper garum.

The recipes contained in the NOMA Guide to Fermentation reflect Zilber’s unconventional approach to food. This approach—which in many ways led him to NOMA—was exemplified by a recipe and essay submitted as a Saturday Night Project at the restaurant.

Every Saturday, before chefs finished for the weekend, a chef from each section would prepare a dish they had been working on for the week. The creation would then be judged by Redzepi and the other members of the team. After talking about one of his entries on the phone—which he described as “a long article about philosophy and the subjectivity of food”—Zilber showed us the accompanying essay.

Titled “Ruminations on Solipsism Along a Mediterranean Coastline,” the 1400-word essay goes on to define solipsism, a philosophical idea dating back to ancient Greece: “the only thing you can ever be a hundred percent sure of in the world is your own existence, your own mind. That things outside of one’s own mind can never be truly verified, and thus are always unsure.” Zilber’s essay goes on to explain how this theory relates to a dish: “By serving the exact same ingredients in four different preparations to a table of four, and explaining tableside only what the dish is comprised of so as to start everybody off on an even footing, you hint at the nature of subjectivity and individual experience.” It isn’t usual to use food to investigate philosophical concepts. Through his work first as a chef and now heading up the fermentation lab, Zilber has been pushing the boundaries of what food can be and how it relates to the world around us.

As we said, David Zilber isn’t like most chefs.

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What’s it like working in the fermentation lab?

It’s such a special, rare place. If you take what you do for granted, it’s so unfair. We work in an open-source manner; the stuff we test out and produce, whether it’s a success or a failure, we try to share on as many channels as possible. That’s really the anchor to the public side of the lab. We try to legitimately do different things, whether that’s borrowing equipment from the pharmaceutical industry to try to work with flavor in a different way, or visiting a laboratory that’s doing real microbiology to actually deal with that side of the industry and see what insights we can garner together.

Q&A

How did you get into being a chef, and how did you go on to work at NOMA? I got really terrible grades in school, and I didn’t think I was going to succeed at doing anything else. A counselor at school suggested an apprentice program instead of university and it worked out really well. I just stuck with it.

I had a really good placement at a super fancy restaurant in Toronto, and then I just kept trying to find better restaurants until I found NOMA. I was working at a really great restaurant in Vancouver, Canada, called Hawksworth.

Then I wrote NOMA a really long letter and they were like, ‘Who is this guy?’ I went for a trial and they hired me.

What’s the setup like in the lab? What is a normal day at work?

No two days are the same. You sometimes find that huge jobs come across your desk in an afternoon and you have to focus on them and deal with them—for instance, we found this patch of silvertip pine cones, we have to deal with them today—so your day can swerve in that direction. Other days, I have a lot of time to just flick through scientific journals and read about real progresses and if they can apply in a meaningful way to the restaurant.

It’s pretty wide swings in the day-to-day life at NOMA.

You expect NOMA to be this wonderous voyage of mystery and discovery and tasting things you’ve never tasted before. And it is a hundred percent that. It really is. It’s up there with El Bulli for what it's contributed to the industry. It's rare to say that you get to work for a visionary, but I don’t think many people would disagree.

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Is there a process that you have with each ferment?

Or is it just trial and error?

There’s a lot of trial and error and synthesis through reduction. You take a process or an ingredient that’s foreign to you, you look at it and you break it down.

What’s the process? What are the microbes? What’s the substrate? Why does it turn out the way it does, and why is it such a culturally significant item that I now know about? Then you try and build it back up; you try to create something new. We could do that with everything in the fermentable world, but we have to spend our time producing stuff that is actually useful to the restaurant, so there is a kind of directionality to it that can change with style, who’s working in the test kitchen, what season we’re on. It can be adaptable as well.

“SOMETIMES IT'S JUST SEEING IF THINGS WORK; OTHER TIMES WE WILL DO 80 TO 100 ITERATIONS OF A TEST TO SEE WHERE WE HIT THAT PERFECT TEXTURE OR THAT PERFECT FLAVOR.”

What is your relationship with the kitchen team?

Do they come to you saying “we need this, we need that,” or do you go to them with what you have?

Both, it’s an organic process. The motives can change all the time, they can need something or we can have something special and both can turn into dishes. It’s like jazz, very organized, structured, departmental jazz.

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How does the experimentation work? Are you just seeing if things work?

Sometimes it's just seeing if things work; other times we will do 80 to 100 iterations of a test to see where we hit that perfect texture or that perfect flavor. Sometimes it can be very rigorous, and other times it can be completely accidental. There are no hard-and-fast rules.

With fermentation there’s such a long wait. Things can take months and years. What do you do when it doesn’t work out?

You try again. Sometimes things take years to make their way onto a menu. Let’s say you make a black quince [an attempt to extend the process behind black garlic, in which it is slowly caramelized and blackened over months, to other fruit and vegetables] for the first time.

You go in and smell it, and then when it’s finished, you’ll be like “oh, this actually is interesting.” No one was demanding it, so there was no reason to put it up right away. You hold on to it and one day there might be a tasting and you’re like, “I have something that might work with that,” and it’s amazing, so you want to do it again.

Quince season has already passed because it’s three months later, so next year you put it on but it didn’t fit for this menu and it may make its way onto the menu after that. So you have this two-year timeframe for completely legitimate reasons. It’s just the way that they operate, from where you have the initial idea to actually being on the menu. That doesn’t mean it’s a failure; it means it’s a success. It’s just a long wait.

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F E AT U R E D :

SAWA DA C O F F E E M A R ’C O OT H E R WO R L D T WA H OT E L ONE65 MAMO

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GUIDE

Settling into the rhythm of a new place may be one of the best feelings in the world. Whether it’s a crowd of new faces, new cities or a novel experience, we’re guaranteed to depart a bit richer than when we first arrived. The following pages feature the latest places from around the world to catch our eye—a rooftop art space in Marseille, France; a virtual reality bar in East London; a café that’s one of the best-kept secrets in New York City—all just slightly off the beaten path, all just slightly out of the ordinary, each one worth slowing down for.

LO N D O N , U K PA R I S, F R A N C E MARSEILLE, FRANCE

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33 C O R T L A N DT A L L E Y

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The second US outpost for world-renowned latte art master Hiroshi Sawada, Sawada Coffee boasts a plethora of espresso-based beverages fit for any occasion— whether guests are dropping by for a Sawada Style Cold Brew (iced coffee with shochu) or one of Sawada’s famed Military Lattes, which uniquely combine cocoa, matcha and espresso. The diminuitive café seats only 12 and is simply decorated, featuring cast-iron columns and dark-paneled wood. A mural of Sawada adorns an entire wall above the bar, while skate decks hang in a row above the seating area. The café can be found inside Au Cheval, a diner-style establishment

serving comfort fare such as burgers, sandwiches and hash browns. Since opening his first café in Shibuya in 2010, Sawada has been credited with bringing barista culture to Asia-Pacific in places such as Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has turned Japan’s coffee shops from a conglomeration of Starbucks and Italian cafés to numerous independent cafés serving top-notch specialty brews. Today, he dedicates his time to teaching Sawada staff how to craft the perfect latte, along with developing new ways for New Yorkers to appreciate their caffeine intake.

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Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Around that time, a lot of smaller coffee shops opened in Tokyo.

Q&A HIROSHI SAWADA, FOUNDER

How did you get your start in coffee?

I was a student in Seattle and I would study in all the small coffee shops. I was very shocked by the lattes in Seattle, by all the quality latte and latte art I saw, so I ended up working at one of the coffee shops.

Can you tell us a bit about your beginnings?

I won the 2008 latte art championship in Seattle and kept developing my work. Five years ago, I developed my own latte art, such as my Camo Latte, which is mixing matcha and espresso together.

Can you tell us what is unique about Sawada and its brand of coffee?

Since winning the championship, coffee culture has really flourished in Asia. Before that, it was mostly Starbucks with the green aprons or Italian shops with black aprons.

Since winning the championship in the US and becoming recognized, I’ve noticed a more casual, American style— where the baristas are wearing denim and T-shirts, tattoos and beanies—starting to show up in coffee culture in Asia.

My focus is to do something no one else has done before, something I can create out of coffee.

Why open in the US? How did that happen?

My first store was in Chicago, the city known for coffee.

That’s also the place where the first American barista champion of coffee was from, which is why I wanted to challenge myself, by bringing my coffee to Chicago.

I wanted to add roasted matcha and hojicha into my art, which is very Japanese. I was the first Asian champion in the US competition. It helped expand the coffee culture in

In Tokyo, there weren’t a lot of independent cafés like that.

But since the championship, a lot of the fashion crowd

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started coming to my shop and we also got many tourists from overseas. As this store gained more recognition, many other shops opened up in the same style—that’s what made me develop new coffee art as a new challenge.

something like shaved ice, similar to a bottle of beer in a margarita, but replacing that beer with espresso.

The weather in Chicago is still cold, so I can’t start yet, but soon.

Why do you think Sawada has been able to become so successful even outside of Japan?

I have more friends in fields other than in coffee. I think that might have helped me not to be the same as others or worry about others instead. I always try to do something different than other people, it’s best when you’re starting a brand or store. I think it helps to not have friends in the field. There aren’t other baristas who are close to fashion people like Hiroshi Fujiwara or even Kevin Ma.

What other projects have you worked on, within coffee or otherwise?

Before this shop, I published recipes of unique lattes or how to make lattes. My first book explains coffee and coffee culture. I’ve published five books to date. My first “how to make latte” book was translated into Chinese and Korean and published in other countries. When I published the first book, there were no YouTube tutorials on making lattes, so the younger baristas would buy the book in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and that’s how they started to learn how to make lattes.

I was the first person within the coffee world in Japan to collaborate with a fashion house like BEAMS.

What are your plans for Sawada Coffee in the future?

Ideally I want to open a store on the West Coast and then bring that culture back to Tokyo or Hong Kong. Since Starbucks is in Seattle, I would also want to do Seattle.

Are you developing new drinks and menu?

Since the weather is getting warmer, I have a new item I’m going to bring in very soon. My next drink will be

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4 RUE DE LA SOURDIÈRE

Mar’co

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Mar’co is one of those places everybody hears about before it even opens. Owner Marc Giami, who formerly ran the Water Bar at the now-closed (but never forgotten) Parisian staple colette, channels his 20 years of experience with the famed retailer into a place of his own. Officially opened for business in April this year, the 50-seat restaurant has proven that it does, in fact, live up to the hype. Step through a classic Parisian façade lacquered in all-white and into a space bedecked in white marble accented by hunter green and gray banquettes, reminiscent of colette’s modish minimalism but rendered in a pared-back palette. In addition to design input from Sarah Andelman and Colette, Marc

Giami continues to keep the spirit of collaboration alive at Mar’co, inviting celebrated chefs and pâtissiers to contribute their own creations to his menu. Classically French dishes such as croque monsieur and egg mayonnaise take up main residence alongside specialty fare, including his latest joint menu items created in conjunction with chef Takuya Watanabe from Michelinstarred restaurant Jin, located just a few steps away.

Friendly neighborhood café vibes accompanied by flawless dining—which sees an impressive roster of highprofile patrons like Pharrell and various star footballers dropping in—places Mar’co on the list as one of Paris’ hallowed institutions for many, many years to come.

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Q&A MARC GIAMI, OWNER ARNAUD MONTIGNY, GUILLAUME ROUSSE, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

metalwork is lacquered in a single color so as to emphasize the uniqueness of the place.

How would you describe the food and drinks served at Mar’co?

MG: It’s simple, fresh and good! Just like home! You will find the iconic colette Water Bar classics as the “assiette colette,” which became the “assiette Mar'co”—composed mainly of vegetables—the pasta gratin or the Mazaltov from Jean-Paul Hévin. We are a family, at home; if I have to change the menu, cut the zucchini as the Water Bar, it is done on the spot or the next day, we adapt.

Can you tell us about how the concept for Mar’co came about?

MG: The café Mar’co is the logical continuation of the colette Water Bar. While there was a year and a half of waiting, for most guests it's as if the Water Bar had never closed. And it is, in fact, Colette who found the place while walking in the neighborhood.

AM + GR: The cuisine is simple, composed of fresh ingredients and an exclusive selection of pastries from the most celebrated places in Paris. A diversified menu that changes often.

AM + GR: We had in mind a contemporary space, pareddown, bright and vitalizing, a modern interpretation of a Parisian bistro or café, not a nostalgic replica thereof.

The neon lights, the patterned cement floor tiles, the layout of benches and chairs, the mirrors and the bar are all part of these codes. We retained the very Parisian carpentry façade, lacquered white. The metalwork is an essential feature of the project, it was used to design all the furniture, benches, shelves, side tables, partitions. All the

Can you tell us why you chose this neighbourhood?

MG: I live in the neighborhood and my loyal clientele have followed me for 20 years. On Saturdays, the street turns into a playground, the restaurant into a dance floor or an improvised karaoke, most of the customers know each

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What's your favorite dish or beverage here at Mar’co?

MG: L’assiette Mar’co and the Croque Madame by Laura la Petite Gourmande.

other and hop from table to table, dogs are welcome— we are at Mar’co!

AM + GR: Marc's clientele consists essentially of the regular customers of the former colette store, people from the neighborhood and also people from the fashion world. A location close to colette was a natural choice.

Furthermore, this area is central, historic, international and very attractive.

AM + GR: Our favorite dish is the Croque Monsieur (toasted ham and cheese sandwich) or Croque Madame (same with a fried egg on top) and a carrot and orange juice with ginger.

Can you walk us through the decor process?

MG: I left carte blanche to Arnaud Montigny and Guillaume Roussel. We have known each other for many years, they know my way of working, it was obvious and organic and of course I listened to Colette. I am delighted with the result.

Did you try to bring any elements from your Water Bar at colette to Mar’co now?

MG: Indeed the cutlery, but also the tables, the oven, the chairs, the glasses, the high chairs for the children, the cups, the teapots. Customers even recognize flowerpots.

Colette told me to take everything I wanted, then Arnaud and Guillaume brought the Mar’co touch.

AM + GR: When the store closed, Marc asked us to assist him in this new adventure. We liked the wide frontage and the see-through effect from the street, which makes for great visibility of the space. The creation process happened naturally, since we have known each other for many years.

AM + GR Yes, the design of the benches and bar, which is still very popular, a convivial place, simple and custom-made. The cutlery comes from colette! Sarah Andelman also added her personal touch with the graphics, logo, menu and paper tablecloths.

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336 AC T I O N M E W S

ISSUE 26

H AG G E R S TO N , LO N D O N

Otherworld

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Tucked under a railway arch in East London is Otherworld, aptly named for the virtual reality experiences it offers on the menu in addition to bespoke cocktails and craft beers on tap. For food, guests can partake in fare that includes poké bowls, edamame, teriyaki beef sliders and mochi ice cream. The lounge area seats 12, but the highlight of the space belongs to two neat rows of VR pods. Each pod seats one player and is outfitted with the latest VIVE headset and multisensory equipment, such as heaters and wind fans that allow guests to experience different climates within the virtual worlds. Players have their choice of 16 VR experiences ranging from phone gaming classics such as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja to first-person shooters like zombie game Arizona Sunshine and Superhot.

For those in a more exploratory mood, a version of Google Earth allows guests to stroll through bird’s-eye views of the world’s most stunning locales. In another simulation, visitors can also climb Mount Everest, while Job Simulator, where players complete various tasks with the ultimate goal of organizing their workspace, is available for workaholics longing to escape the perils of happy hour.

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JA M A I CA , N Y

JFK AIRPORT

TWA Hotel

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It makes sense that airport hotels would fittingly favor function over form when catering to clientele who need only to sleep, wake up and go. Yet merely a short distance from the bustle of JFK Airport lies evidence that traveling was not always so utilitarian. The TWA Flight Center, designed by Eero Saarinen, opened to worldwide fanfare and acclaim in 1962 during the Pan Am glory years, a time when passengers boarded planes in formal wear, and nary a pair of sweatpants nor travel pillow cradling the head of a bleary-eyed globetrotter was to be found. The TWA Hotel aims to bring the history of aviation together with a celebration of Saarinen’s building, restored and refurbished to accommodate

512 rooms along with six restaurants, eight bars, upscale retail outlets and a 50,000 square foot event space. From the hotel’s rooftop pool, guests can watch airplanes take off and land; considering its proximity to the runway, other viewpoints around the city would be hard-pressed to beat this. Touted as a cultural, design-forward space, the first major event hosted on hotel grounds—Louis Vuitton’s 2020 Cruise show— sets the bar high for future engagements. The TWA Hotel stands as a loving ode to Jet Age glamour, yet it is also one of the first airport facilities to usher in a future where it may be worthwhile, even in transit, to travel with your eyes wide open.

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1 65 O’ FA R R E L L S T R E E T

One65

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A six-floor dining concept building devoted to French gastronomy opened its doors in May this year. The multilevel space houses four restaurants, ranging from casual dining to fancier fare. It begins with One65 Patisserie and Boutique on the ground floor, serving baked goods and takeaway. Ascending visitors are greeted with a chocolate room on the second floor, where they can witness in-house chocolatiers at work.

The floors above house One65 Bistro and Grill offering French comfort food, followed by a bar and lounge area dubbed Elements and, lastly, O’ by Claude Le Tohic, a fine dining space inspired by fire, water and earth. Seats at O’ are rendered in shades of blue and red, while walls are adorned with artwork from Christian Andrade depicting images of flames and tree roots. The top floor features private dining rooms and the building’s main kitchen, which delivers food and drinks to the dining areas below using state-of-theart dumbwaiters throughout all the floors. One65 is headed by James Beard Award-winning, Michelinstarred Le Tohic, who formerly ran Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. With One65, Le Tohic aims to present French cuisine in a light that’s been severely underrepresented outside its home country: unpretentious and meant to be enjoyed as an everyday phenomenon, as the French do.

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C E N T R E D’A R T D E L A C I T É R A D I E U S E

MAMO

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Atop a building affectionately dubbed La Maison du Fada (The Madman’s House) lies a rooftop art space boasting unobstructed views of the city of Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea. Officially known as Cité radieuse (Radiant city), the building is currently a UNESCO heritage site and widely considered to be one of the most famous works of Le Corbusier—one of the early pioneers of modern architecture— as well as being one of the most significant examples in Brutalist architecture. The iconic building’s rooftop terrace, in a state of disrepair from several decades of neglect,

was put up for sale in 2010. Famed designer Ora Ito, barely believing his luck, bought and restored the space, reopening it to the public in 2013 as MAMO (Marseille Modulor), a contemporary art space that each summer houses different exhibiting artists from around the world. The space took three years to renovate with the help of Fondation Le Corbusier, which gave Ito access to Le Corbusier’s original building plans to restore it to its former glory. Now, it's a place where modern art meets an icon of modernism.

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ARTWORK: JEAN PIERRE RAYNAUD, 2017

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Q&A ORA ITO, OWNER

What kind of special connection do you have to this building?

It was the first perspective [drawing] I learned how to draw. And I’ve always loved Le Corbusier since I was a kid.

He’s one of my favorite architects, artists and designers.

It was really advanced, the way his art was at the moment of what’s happening. [Today] many artists work with different mediums like he was doing 60 years ago.

Can you tell me the story of how MAMO began?

First I heard the rooftop was for sale, and I couldn't believe it because it’s a very iconic building. I bought it straightaway. But I didn’t really know what to do with it when I bought it, to be honest. It’s like buying a piece of art. It was in really bad shape and I needed to restore it completely, which took three years. I worked very closely with the Fondation Le Corbusier, and they gave me all the original plans and the best constructors to restore it. And then what happened was, I couldn’t just keep it for myself, it was just too incredible. I needed to find a project to share this building with the people. In the archives I discovered that Le Corbusier used to hold a contemporary art festival there, with [Yves] Klein, with [Pierre] Soulages, so then I decided to transform the space into an art center.

Can you tell me about the role of art in your life?

I grew up in a very artistic environment. Most of the people in my family worked in art. My grandfather had an art gallery, so I grew up with art, I grew up surrounded by artists. But as a designer, I wanted to experiment with working more with artists. So I work a lot with artists in my projects, in architecture.

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ARTWORK: ALEX ISRAEL, 2019

Can you tell me a bit about your curation process?

I don't consider myself as a curator. It’s a real job [that] I really respect. I do it more like a feeling and an

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obsession. I don’t think of an artist individually, I think of the artist with Le Corbusier. So when I choose [an artist] it’s more about creating a dialogue with the building, with the architecture, between the artist and the architecture.

I’m very lucky because most of the time the artists accept—the space is so amazing that I think it’s difficult to say no. But it’s also kind of dangerous since the space is already an art piece, you know? To be able to win in this space is not easy. That’s why I’ve been working with more established artists who know how to leverage power in a space like that.

The idea of Batman came up by accident. Alex called me to say he couldn’t do the show because it was too short notice. So I was a bit pissed off with him and sort of challenged him to put the bat signal in the sky. I wasn’t serious. So it was funny, I became involved in this show because I put him in this position. And after, to be able to project the bat signal in the sky—which has never been done before, because in the movies it’s just special effects, or it’ll just be on a wall—was really crazy. It came out the same as the movie. When it went up for the first time we were laughing, dancing like kids.

How does the Alex Israel exhibit work together with Le Corbusier for you?

Alex is working a lot with props and all the elements Hollywood and LA can provide. From stars to beach to sunset, to surf, to movies. And when we were talking with Alex, this year I wanted the show to reflect our time, you know?

Do you have a favorite memory of this place?

I have so many memories of this place. But I could say the best moment was when I destroyed the adjunction that was not by Le Corbusier. Because it was covering the old façade. We couldn’t see the most important façade of this building, it was hidden by this new building. Because in the past, this building was not respected at all. People wanted to destroy it, they almost wanted to put Le Corbusier in jail. It was terrible to build something like this in the ’50s, because it was so modern for that time. So when I destroyed [the adjunction], I was so happy, because I was thinking that Le Corbusier might have been happy that I put back his work. It’s really the foundation’s job to do that kind of thing—to restore, to protect, to keep the work as it was originally. That was exactly, word for word, what I’ve done—simple, but it makes me really happy.

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