Most of us are familiar with wearing uniforms to some degree. As for the few who aren’t? I’m not sure we can automatically assume they’re the lucky ones. Despite the negative connotations often associated with the word (conformity, lack of originality, suppression of individuality, and being just plain boring), for us, uniforms also signify something essential: identity, whether personal or one that connects you to a larger community.
Uniforms, whether ascribed or chosen, are an expression of who we are to the rest of the world. In the age of Internet culture, where we see trends play out the same way everywhere—a globalized homogenization of culture, if you will—it becomes harder to express our true selves. And for younger generations, it can be hard to discover that true self while surrounded by so much noise.
I fear that this pattern of homogenized aesthetics will continue to reign at the expense of our individuality, the distinctiveness of regional styles, and, at its most extreme, visible cultural identity. Watching the Olympics this year gave me a renewed sense of wonder at the sheer amount of different cultures that were present in the same city; the magic of seeing this global mosaic unfold in real time stuck with me.
What if we end up losing it?
While this homogenization isn’t something we can stop, nor even slow down, the now-novel idea of asserting who we are and where we come from will be eternally fascinating to me.
We can say that style is the uniform of the masses. It should be a process and an evolutionary journey rolled into one. This description transcends clothing, similarly applying to art, self-development, or personal appearance. It’s about keeping up the process long enough to figure “it” out, whatever “it” may be.
Many high-functioning people sing of the uniform’s merits: the ritual, the routine, the utility. Sterling Ruby, with his dependable workwear protecting him from paint splatter and equipping him to spend hours on end at his Los Angeles studio; Peggy Gou’s unique blend of eye-catching yet comfortable outfits taking her from red-eye flights to festival stages in front of thousands of people. Shaboozey’s cowboy-inspired style and flair paired with the enough jewelry to make his identity as both a country singer and hip-hop artist unmistakable. Their uniforms serve as a tool, signature, and a mode of freedom, all at the same time.
A good uniform, especially when it’s one we’ve adopted ourselves, is an unyielding source of confidence. It’s armor. Whether your uniform is marked by change, or marked by having ten identical t-shirts, it’s a statement of who we are. And this statement becomes more important as we become mired deeper within the latest trends, buzzwords, and aesthetics that continue to materialize at a faster and faster pace. Maybe a uniform is just what we need to dig ourselves out: a reminder of who we are and what we believe in.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kevin E. Wong
DEPUTY EDITOR
Zach Sokol
ART DIRECTOR
Vasun Pachisia
FEATURES EDITORS
Ross Dwyer, Shawn Ghassemitari
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Phuong Le
EDITORIAL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
Marc Wong
CREATIVE PRODUCER
Gabriella Koppelman
EDITORIAL COORDINATORS
Samantha Su, Crystal Yu
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Elaina Bernstein, Jamier Boatman-Harrell, Reilly Davidson, Sarah Kearns, Dylan Kelly, Courtney Kenefick, Angelee Kholia, Ali Mohammed-Ali, Nathan Taylor Pemberton, Nicolaia Rips, Noah Rubin
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Seb Barros, Jdz Chung, Ryan Doubiago, Clare Gillen, Hong Jang Hyun, Asato Iida, Nick Karp, Michael Kusumadjaja, Bradley Ogbonna, Maya Margolina, Michele Perna, Nori Rasmussen-Martinez, Nayquan Shuler, William Spooner, Scotty Tsunami, Darren Vargas
CONTRIBUTING CREATIVES
Joe Brooks, Cameron Broomfield, Sarah Brown, Luke Brown, Kevin Chen, Nat Bury, Shaojun Chen, DEPARTAMENTO, Melissa DeZarate, Dimanek Glass, Rosie Grace, An Sung Hee, Jake Hunte, Kim Na Hyun, Lee Jong Hyun, Reece Koetter, Eduardo Méndez, Ryuto Miyake, Sean Nagao, Phillip Nuveen, Romain Regnier, Nausheen Shah, Zaheer Sukhnandan, Lee Hyun Woo
SPECIAL THANKS
Adam Abdalla, Brandon Abreu, Mirko Antich, John Baldwin, Ryann Carter, Moon Choi, Pyan Chan, Cecily Chen, Peggy Chou, Sebastian Christos, Maude Churchill, Lede Company, Gia Kuan Consulting, BL Creative House, Matthew Duffy, Anthony Ferrieres, Anita Giancarli, Joseph Gilbey, Johnny Gines, Doug Guillot, Coy Gutierrez, Paul Heavener, Angela Heredia, Heison Ho, Henrietta Hutchon, Julius Ignacio, Scott Jawson, Seunghoon Jeong, Jang Se Jin, Rosie Kidd, Usi Khushi, Lee Kyung Kim, Lee Jin Kyung, Janet Lau, Eddie Lee, Junghee Lee, Nina Lee, Warren Lee, Jacky Liu, Nick Llanton, Violaine Lemasson, Public-Library, Andy Madeleine, Chapter Management, Melissa Marengo, Nathan McCarthy, Matt McDermott, Shorefire Media, Marc Merchant, IMG Models, Mia Lim Montesdeoca, Brian T. Nguyen, The Oriel, Orienteer, Jack Proston, Sophie Schieli, Ben Quinton, XL Recordings, Benji Reeves, Servicio Represents, Kyle Reyes, Amrik Sahota, George Sampson, Nina Schims, Zach Serrano, Khem Sharu, Elana Staroselsky, Blundell Studios, Mariah Summers, Irene Tang, Noh Young Woo, Suh Sol Yi, Jisoo Yoon, Evan Yu, Choi Seo Yun, Emily Yun, Ray Z
SERPENTI TUBOGAS NECKLACE IN YELLOW GOLD WITH PAVÉ INSERTS & ONYX EYES
SERPENTI TUBOGAS RING IN YELLOW GOLD WITH PAVÉ INSERTS & ONYX EYES (RIGHT)
BVLGARI TUBOGAS BRACELET IN YELLOW GOLD
BVLGARI TUBOGAS NECKLACE IN YELLOW GOLD
BVLGARI TUBOGAS NECKLACE IN YELLOW GOLD WITH PAVÉ STUDS
BVLGARI TUBOGAS BRACELET IN TRIGOLD
An embodiment of its signature High Jewelry craftsmanship, Bvlgari delves into its archives to turn its hallmark artistry into the new Bvlgari Tubogas visionary collection.
Inspired by the pipes historically used to transport pressurized gas, the Tubogas was first introduced as part of the Roman jeweler’s creativity in the 1940s. A defining moment in its history, it was soon widely incorporated throughout its jewelry offering and became emblematic in establishing the Maison’s stand-out design language and elevated aesthetic.
Constructed by winding two strips of gold around a central core, the meticulous craftsmanship behind creating the pieces allows them to interlock seamlessly without any soldering required. From bracelets and watches to rings and necklaces, the result of this innovative, artisanal approach makes the gold flexible but also durable, and built to last a lifetime.
The latest 18-carat yellow gold collection also introduces 16 new references and arrives embellished with vibrant color gems, precious
pavé-diamonds, and essential designs. Together, they blend flawless elegance and functionality, paying homage to Bvlgari’s Italian genius and visionary spirit.
“The new Bvlgari Tubogas collection represents both a push into the future and a dive into our roots,” the Maison’s Jewelry Creative & Gems Buying Director Lucia Silvestri tells Hypebeast how the line blends tradition with innovation. “The decision to turn a signature technique into a new collection is emblematic of our commitment to always embrace new challenges.”
Since its conception, the brand has combined Tubogas on a series of jewelry pieces, proving to be a versatile canvas capable of weaving into existing products. Returning to its roots, the Maison presents the new line in a full yellow gold offering that “recalls the brand’s origins and pioneering vision, paying tribute to Bvlgari’s DNA.”
(LEFT)
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS BRACELET IN YELLOW GOLD WITH LAPIS LAZULI, TANZANITES AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS BRACELET IN YELLOW GOLD WITH CHALCEDONY, GREEN TOURMALINES, FANCY SHAPE PINK TOURMALINES AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS BRACELET IN YELLOW GOLD WITH CABOCHON GREEN TOURMALINE, BUFF-TOP RUBIES AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS NECKLACE IN YELLOW GOLD WITH CABOCHON GREEN TOURMALINE, BUFF-TOP RUBIES AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS NECKLACE IN PINK GOLD WITH CABOCHON GREEN TOURMALINE AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
HIGH JEWELRY TUBOGAS BRACELET IN PINK GOLD WITH CABOCHON GREEN TOURMALINE AND PAVÉ-SET DIAMONDS
(RIGHT) BVLGARI TUBOGAS PARENTESI BRACELET WITH PAVÉ INSERTS BVLGARI TUBOGAS PARENTESI CHOKER WITH PAVÉ INSERTS
Medieval Beat Maker by teenage engineering
What would medieval composer Léonin use as a beatmaker? asks teenage engineering, the Swedish electronics company known for its synthesizers. The latest iteration of its EP-1320 model might be the answer. Coalescing minimalism and whimsy, teenage engineering’s newest sampler epitomizes retrofuturism—The brand touts it as the “world’s first medieval electronic instrument.”
This isn’t just a medieval-themed version of teenage engineering’s flagship synthesizer, though. Rather, users can create tunes right out of the box with 16 pressure-sensitive pads, alongside a bevy of
pre-installed medieval sounds and samples. And with the system’s brand-new arpeggiator, it’s never been so easy to lay down melodic lines and beats that will lift the humours and rid ye of any and all bubonic ailments.
Bored composing in Dorian with instruments like the hurdy-gurdy? Sample new sounds via the hardware’s line input and internal microphone, and then mix and master using built-in FXs. The device produces endless sonic possibilities that will elevate your YouTube “type beats” to true troubadour bangers fit for the King’s court.
Vibram FiveFingers by OTTO 958 x SUICOKE
OTTO 958—the self-described “amorphous project” of designer Kiko Kostadinov and gallerist Al Morán—refuses easy categorization. Drawing from Kostadinov’s fine art practice and Morán’s longtime championing of nontraditional art concepts (he was one of the key players behind the infamous pirate radio station-turned apparel line KNOW WAVE), OTTO 958 continues to experiment with the concept of what a brand can be.
And that melange of touchpoints is immediately apparent in the label’s first collaborative project with SUICOKE, a backless mule reinterpretation of Vibram’s anthromorphic FiveFingers shoe. Inspired by the colors and paneling of nitrile-dipped workwear gloves and garments, the OTTO958 x SUICOKE x Vibram FiveFingers features a nylon construction, striking two-tone color schemes that accent its rubber-reinforced toe sleeves, and OTTO 958’s signature embroidered “O” logo.
Changeover Collection by Children of the Discordance x Umbro
Since 2011, Japanese designer Hideaki Shikama has created sophisticated upcycled garments sourced from vintage and luxury fabrics, drawing from his personal archive and referencing the cultural forces that defined the ‘90s.
Released under his label Children of the Discordance (CotD), each of Shikama’s DIY silhouettes are handmade in small batches and purposefully crafted to be uncategorizable from season-to-season. The designs utilize everything from tartan and paisley patterns to repurposed military surplus and Nirvana band graphics-all-woven together to form wearable homages.
Leading into FW24, CotD worked with Umbro to create a football-inspired capsule, notably referencing the apparel worn by the Eric Cantona-led Manchester United teams that dominated the Premier League in the ‘90s. CotD’s spin on “blokecore” features sublimated graphic denim and patchwork wool jumpers, along with split-design jackets, shorts, and jerseys made with various technical fabrics—all topped off with a flipped CotD club crest in place of the classic Red Devils logo.
Lovesac x KidSuper Collection
In its Spring/Summer 2021 collection, KidSuper—the Brooklynbased brand of Colm Dillane—released the Kissing Puffer: a striking, lip-locked take on a functional winter staple. Playful yet provocative, the outerwear design is a testament to Dillane’s knack for transforming everyday garments into platforms for artistic experimentation.
Since then, the kissing motif has become a hallmark of the label. In its latest variant for 2024, Dillane took the design out of the fashion sphere and recontextualized it as a pillowy, pastel accent chair for the home goods category.
Arriving as the debut piece in a line of home furnishings created in collaboration with Lovesac, the bean bag-like chair reaffirms the brand’s commitment to marrying style, contemporary art, and sheer practicality. And beyond providing an avant-garde conversation starter for your living room, the emotive concept of two faces intertwined is also a celebration of human connection.
RE GION ALITY Chapter 1
RE GION ALITY
AWOL ERIZKU’S
AFROESOTERIC
The Ethiopian-American artist has built his own visual language, which aims to invoke a “universal Blackness” while also filling voids of representation within the Western art history canon.
UNIVERSE
WORDS BY SHAWN GHASSEMITARI PHOTOGRAPHY BY ASATO IIDA
“I was intrigued by the flowers in my grandmother’s garden growing up,” Awol Erizku says as John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme plays in the background of his LA studio. It’s a fitting record to complement the work of the Ethiopian-American artist, whose practice centers around spirituality, devotion, catharsis, and redemption. “I understood beauty from that perspective early on,” he adds. “Everything that I do now applies to my understanding of what something organic is. And that’s more on a philosophical level—not just beauty on a surface level.”
Most know Erizku for his 2017 photograph of a pregnant and veiled Beyoncé sitting amidst a bed of flowers, which was, at the time, the most-liked picture in the history of Instagram. The Ethiopian-born, Bronx-raised, and Los Angeles-based artist started his practice in earnest through painting before quickly turning to film, photography, installation, and DJing to scratch his various creative itches.
Over the past decade, he’s shot music videos for A$AP Ferg (the rapper’s first, in fact), photographed Kevin Durant, Donald Glover, and Nipsey Hussle against chromatic backdrops with subtle nods to art history, and created large-scale sculptures and mixed-media works that have exhibited globally. Most recently, The Momentary in Arkansas hosted an Erizku solo show titled Mystic Parallax that coincided with the release of an artist monograph, co-published between the cultural institution and Aperture.
Like the Beyoncé photo, which references biblical depictions of Madonna and child, Erizku’s practice sparks dialogue with the past and present. He aims to rectify Western art history by creating artworks that invoke a “universal Blackness,” filling voids of representation within the canon, as well as reclaiming depictions of marginalized identities. A notable example is his photo recreation of Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring featuring a woman of color, which he renamed Girl with the Bamboo Earring. Perhaps this urge stems from the gaps he saw in his school curriculum—from grade school all the way through his Master’s program at the Yale School of Art. “Nas taught me more about things I find intriguing, like Egyptian culture and Egyptology, than my professors did.”
Nefertiti is a recurring muse for Erizku, as he frequently interprets the ancient Egyptian queen through the form of a shimmering disco ball. More than just a symbol of a bygone era, however, Erizku recontextualizes the ruler to extrapolate on who holds the keys to recorded history. “It’s about a deeper lineage of what we’re told and taught in school,” adding that it blew his mind upon visiting Egypt only to learn that a famous bust of Nefertiti is housed in a Berlin museum. “What the fuck is she doing in Berlin?!”
The artist gets up to flip the record and light a stick of incense before expounding on the moodboard of images behind him, including photos he took of Kevin Durant and a giant dice totem in the colors of the pan-African flag. Ready to dig in, Erizku starts discussing his own visual language, which he calls “Afro-esotericism.”
“IMAGES AND SCULPTURES, THEY SPEAK.”
“I DO MORE THINKING BEFORE I MAKE AN IMAGE. THE IMAGE IS THE EASY PART. THEY’RE INTELLECTUAL SNAPSHOTS.”
WHO WERE SOME OF YOUR EARLY INSPIRATIONS AND HOW DID THEY IMPACT YOUR WORK?
I was usually that one kid in class like, “Hold up, why aren’t we learning about this?” Nas had a lot to do with it. David Hammons, obviously, has a way of bridging visual language from Africa, the continent, and the African-American diaspora. It’s not just borrowing an African mask from West Africa and using it in an African-American context, rather deep-diving into what the cultural significance of those things are and then trying to find new meaning. That’s where I find myself today.
YOUR WORK SPANS ALL SORTS OF CREATIVE DISCIPLINES. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PRACTICE?
I continue to build off the shoulders of David Hammons. He had Marcel Duchamp as his idol and I have him. He’s a Black man and understands the cultures that I care about, and he’s made significant contributions by introducing new symbols, languages, experiences, and ways of seeing the world.
This isn’t the only aspect, but for me, he’s clearly built a universal language for what it means to be Black. And then looking at it from a global perspective— seeing how Brazilians view things or Afro-Latinas see things. I’m a New Yorker, I’m from a melting pot. The world could be a lot more like New York.
THE ICONOGRAPHY YOU EMPLOY IS VAST, FROM KEVIN DURANT TO THE FLORAL MOTIFS. WHAT ARE THE KEY ELEMENTS OF YOUR OWN VISUAL VERNACULAR?
It’s about gathering material from cultures that have nostalgic memories and finding new ways of translating them for present times. Some things do date themselves after a while, but it’s about building a language. I do more thinking before I make an image. The image is the easy part. They’re intellectual snapshots.
CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH YOUR CONCEPT OF AFRO-ESOTERICISM?
If you’ve looked at anything that I’ve done in the last decade and you find yourself connecting to it, those are the nuanced things that you grew up with if you have African roots and heritage. And I don’t necessarily think it’s exclusive to African people. It’s a vernacular; you either speak it or you don’t. It’s like style. So if I had to give Afro-esotericism any sort of definition, it would start there. It’s the reaction you have when you see that Egyptian monument in a white
institution. I was just in Berlin and the fact that Nefertiti is culturally captive there blows my mind.
My mission has become: Get her out of there and let’s make her more accessible, because she belongs to us. She belongs to the people. Every time I visit a European city, I ask, “How many African monuments do you have that should go back home?” When I first went to Egypt, I wanted to go see Nefertiti and they told me, “Nah that’s in Berlin.” What the fuck is she doing in Berlin?! Don’t get me started with West Africa and the Benin sculptures.
They stole it from us and now I’m going to steal it back and put it into my work to make the imagery more accessible, or at least introduce it to a younger generation. It’s not to just look at it through the lens of antiquity. Maybe there is something to what Virgil Abloh said about taking something and just adding your three percent to it.
DO YOU FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO PRESERVE TRUTH IN YOUR WORK?
Absolutely. I think I’m a truth teller when I have an opportunity to be. And that can manifest in different ways. It could be an editorial, like the one I did with Nipsey Hussle, where I felt it would be more organic to photograph him in his neighborhood versus somewhere like Malibu where you’re just going for the optics. To me, that’s truth telling. I’m also a fan of surrealism and the avant-garde. I like to dabble in the “what ifs” and exist in a place where anything is possible.
GIVEN THE SOCIO-POLITICAL CLIMATE OF THE WORLD TODAY, ARE YOU HOPEFUL FOR THE FUTURE? HOW DO YOU THINK THIS PERIOD WILL BE REMEMBERED?
I’m always hopeful. I’m an optimist. We already have enough pessimists. I really do think that if we have the power to destroy society, we have just as much power, if not more, to rebuild and make it better.
To be honest, man, I witnessed 9/11, lived through fucking COVID, we’ve seen some shit. The one thing we can count on for certain is that the world is always changing and is always going to be unexpected. That’s kind of what I try to expound on in the work.
IF YOU WERE TO DEPART EARTH TOMORROW, WHAT WOULD YOU LEAVE IN A TIME CAPSULE?
Probably my monograph book Mystic Parallax and my studio. There are lot of unearthed gems in here. Yes, the book is Afro-esoteric, but it does a good job of describing what a universal version of Blackness looks like. It sounds crazy to say that now, because we live in a globalized society where you have access to all types of information on your phone. But it’s not to say this idea can’t exist on a deeper cultural level.
For example, in 2018, I worked on an exhibition that used several Black Panther motifs and I wanted to apply Hong Kong’s culture and history of neon signage to what I do. So I thought, “What if Black people came to Hong Kong and needed a safe haven? What would those locations look like and signage bear?” That was the initial idea and I borrowed Chinese characters for that artwork—being respectful to their culture, but also infusing it with mine.
I remember certain people responding to the work like, “Oh, it’s that cat!” It’s crazy because Black Panther imagery means so much to us in different aspects of the world, but to you it’s just a cat? That’s what I tried to distill and put into my book. If someone’s trying to get an idea of what that world is, it’s in those pages. My work is always a proposition, not an answer. It’s a question, but I’m never trying to provide a solution.
THE
CULT
SATISFY FUSES CLOTHES, SKIN, AND SELF TO HELP UNLOCK THE EVER-ELUSIVE “RUNNER’S HIGH.”
Brice Partouche never thought he’d be a runner. “If you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d be talking to you a few days after running a 55K race, I never would have believed it,” he laughs. The SATISFY founder has a background in skateboarding, snowboarding, and punk rock, but, like so many others who’ve heard running’s siren song, his life changed the first time he felt “the high.”
Scientifically, the definition of “the high,” also known as runner’s high, is murky. Some medical reviews indicate that endogenous euphoriants are responsible for the feeling—a short, yet highly intense blast of euphoria—while other recent studies indicate it comes from the body’s endocannabinoid system.
PhD language aside, the high is a tantalizing out-of-body experience during which one transcends their physical surroundings to become pure movement. When the sensation hits, it tends to make someone a runner for life, forever on a quest to reach that blissful plane. SATISFY is all about helping runners chase that sensation, aiding them on the mystical journey by providing garments that, in Partouche’s own words, serve as “romantic performance wear.”
If “romantic performance wear” sounds hyperbolic, well, it is. But it’s also an ethos rooted in Partouche’s professional background, textile expertise, and life-changing experience with running. Prior to founding SATISFY, he had a skate brand named Biscuit (inspired by the Gorilla Biscuits, one of his favorite bands), and later founded and ran April77, a premium denim brand, for almost two decades.
As a skater, designer, and musician, Partouche approached running and running apparel from a different angle. When he became a runner in the mid-2010s, he found most running gear that was available to be cold and clinical: high-end performance wear with no heart and no backstory, produced by monolithic brands that didn’t reflect his influences or who he was. (He notes that at the time he’d usually just run in band tees). Combining his own running experience, love of skateboarding and punk rock, and his background in the textile industry, Partouche launched SATISFY in 2015. Appropriately, he calls it a “skateboard brand for runners.”
Performance comes first for SATISFY, but never at the expense of aesthetics. In Partouche’s opinion, you need both to reach “the high.” This performance-first mindset is encapsulated across the entire SATISFY product range, but perhaps most specifically by two proprietary technologies: MothTech and Justice.
MothTech is laser-cut holes, the kind you might see on well-worn band tees. But instead of an intentionally grungy ethos, these holes are body-mapped for maximum ventilation and style. Justice is a proprietary fabric that combines the feel of silk and the weight of a nylon stocking for an elastic, durable finish.
Other technologies include AuraLite, an ultra-light recycled knit fabric from Japan, and CloudMerino, a proprietary Merino Optimo wool blend. “The wearer needs to have a relationship with a product’s hand feel and the type of fabric used to create it,” Partouche says. “When it’s done right, there’s this fusion between clothes, skin, and self.”
And what gives these technical fabrics their heart is the brand’s unparalleled design sensibilities. SATISFY garments are essentially the most elevated punk rock, metal, and skatewear-influenced pieces you can imagine: hole-filled MothTech muscle shirts and crop tops with bold graphic treatments, tie-dyed Merino wool T-shirts, psychedelic bandanas, and logo wear that nods to the obsessive nature of runners. “Running Cult Member” and “POSSESSED” are two telling mantras that adorn the clothing, accessories, and footwear collaborations—such as HOKA, norda, and even Crocs. Any item that bears the SATISFY name reimagines how runners represent themselves and their various passions outside of physical activity. As Partouche says, SATISFY isn’t about how fast you can go—it’s “about how high you can get.”
IS IT TRUE THAT THE IDEA OF AND CONCEPT FOR SATISFY CAME TO YOU WHILE YOU WERE RUNNING?
Yes. My background isn’t in running or any sort of sport. I grew up snowboarding, skateboarding, and playing music. But when I became a runner, I quickly grew obsessed with the act of running, even though I didn’t understand its culture. All the brands associated with it at the time were mass-market, and I came from a different background.
When you’re running, you get into this meditative state, and I’d think about what running culture was and what it could be. I eventually combined my own running experience and my background in the textile industry, and that’s how SATISFY was born. I like to summarize SATISFY by saying it’s a skateboard brand for runners.
WHY DO YOU THINK THOSE IDEAS COME TO YOU WHEN YOU’RE IN THAT MEDITATIVE STATE? AND HOW DO YOU TRANSLATE THEM INTO PHYSICAL CONCEPTS?
My first ideas were about simply fulfilling needs. Where do I put my phone? Where do I stash my keys? How can I create a product that’s lightweight and breathable? That was all easy enough to figure out, but where my thoughts were the most accurate was when I realized it was essential to add a layer of cultural references. There wasn’t anything like that in the running market at that time.
IT SEEMS LIKE YOUR BACKGROUND WASN’T REPRESENTED IN THE RUNNING WORLD, SO YOU STROVE TO REPRESENT THOSE INFLUENCES WHILE YOU WERE RUNNING, TOO. Exactly. To me, style has always been as important as function. 12 years ago, when I started running, I’d usually just run in band tees. They were an “if you know, you know” kind of thing, and I had other references like that from my skateboarding days. Running garments were all about function back then. They had no style, no silhouette. What I brought with SATISFY was the idea that you can have that style, that silhouette, while still wearing performance products. We have a romantic approach to performance wear, one that’s more about how high you can get than how fast you can go.
SATISFY SEEMS TO BE MORE ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF RUNNING THAN THE “GOAL,” SO TO SPEAK. DOES THAT IDEA STEM FROM YOUR SKATE BACKGROUND?
I think so. Skateboarding, to me, was all about personal experiences, not trying to “win.” That’s the same reason I love trail running. It’s less performance-oriented because the distances are so long that what’s important is just that you finish the run, not the amount of time it took you to do so. My approach to running is not about “performance” in a traditional sense.
THAT HIGH IS AN INDESCRIBABLE FEELING. HOW DO YOU ENCAPSULATE IT IN A PRODUCT?
I want to create products to help you reach or enhance the high. Technicality and performance are essential in that case. You don’t want any distractions on your run. To do so, we make products that are very light, fabrics created either of silk or in mills that have significant expertise in making silk. Here in France, we used to have a lot of silk makers, but since most silk production is done in Asia now, those mills pivoted to producing technical fibers, so we work with them to create bespoke fabrics that are super silky and super light.
WHAT I BROUGHT WITH SATISFY WAS THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN HAVE THAT STYLE, THAT SILHOUETTE, WHILE STILL WEARING PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS.
WE HAVE A ROMANTIC APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE WEAR, ONE THAT’S MORE ABOUT HOW HIGH YOU CAN GET THAN HOW FAST YOU CAN GO.
It’s crucial for SATISFY to have those types of fabrics. Not in a “second skin” type of sense, but because the wearer needs to have a relationship with a product’s hand feel and the type of fabric used to create it. When it’s done right, there’s this fusion between clothes, skin, and self. That’s important for the high. Another key pillar is our firm belief that if you feel good because you look good, you will also perform better. The notion of style is very powerful.
SATISFY SEEMS TO RESIST EASY CATEGORIZATION: IT’S A RUNNING BRAND, BUT NOT A SPORTSWEAR BRAND. IT USES HIGH-END TEXTILES, BUT IT’S NOT A DESIGNER BRAND. THE TERM YOU USE IS “ROMANTIC PERFORMANCE WEAR,” SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU, AND HOW IS IT REPRESENTED?
What makes it work is that it’s all made for running. We don’t do “lifestyle products” because they’re just taking an item from a specific category and appropriating it for something else. We might be inspired by everything from spaghetti Westerns to RC cars and Americana—and we love to romanticize those things—but we’ll never, ever compromise on our product’s technicality, design, and purpose.
WHEN YOU’RE CREATING A NEW COLLECTION, YOU FIND AN IMAGE OR STORY THAT INSPIRES YOU AND BUILD A RANGE OF GARMENTS AROUND IT. HOW DO YOU PINPOINT THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THAT INSPIRATION AND THEN BRING THEM TO LIFE?
We like to start with storytelling and then develop the products around that. So, for example, to look towards music, past collections have been based on a photograph of Joe
Strummer running the London Marathon, or Willie Nelson running a charity race in the ‘70s. We’ll pull from Strummer’s style, like his ripped marathon tee, or some overarching country-and-Western elements for Willie. For me, it’s nothing exceptional. It may sound exceptional for a running brand, but it’s just what I like.
HOW HAS THE BRAND’S GROWTH INFLUENCED YOUR ORIGINAL GOALS AND APPROACH TO CREATION?
I think SATISFY is a pioneer in the running space, and I like to compare it to the music I love. Metallica is the metal band everyone knows, but what not as many people know is that they were influenced by a lesser-known band called Diamond Head. We don’t want to be mainstream like Metallica, but we do want to be more well-known than Diamond Head. And we shouldn’t have to dilute our message or change our brand to get that accessibility.
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED FROM RUNNING?
That we can reinvent ourselves. It’s a magical, amazing lesson. If you’d told me 20 years ago that I’d be talking to you a few days after running a 55K race in Iceland, I never would have believed it.
IT DEFINITELY TEACHES YOU THAT YOU’RE CAPABLE OF FAR MORE THAN YOU THINK.
Yes. And that you don’t have to be the same person your entire life. You can become whatever you want, so I decided to become a runner. That’s pretty amazing [laughs].
PDF Breaks the LimitSpeed
DOMENICO FORMICHETTI’S DESIGN DIALECT IS POWERED BY EXTREME SPORTS, VINTAGE VIDEO GAMES, AND HIGH SPEEDS. STRAP IN FOR A STYLISH JOYRIDE.
This June, 1,500 people in Milan corralled outside Ex Macello—a former slaughterhouse turned event space—to witness the brand PDF’s Spring/Summer 2025 runway presentation, a multi-faceted fashion “declaration” conceived by designer Domenico Formichetti. The spectacle, titled “Holy Motor,” featured a festival lineup’s worth of music performances that served as a high-octane score for models accelerating down the catwalk in PDF’s kaleidoscopic, motocross-inspired designs. These creations included denim, mesh, and triacetato forms accompanied by “fat Timberland”inspired boots that proffered an air of Herculean confidence.
Formichetti hails from Chieti, a small town in central Italy, but his love of underground music, extreme sports, and fashion inspired a move to Milan at the age of 19. Then the pandemic happened, forcing him to return to his childhood bedroom.
While stuck at home, Formichetti revisited his old snowboarding outfits and vintage video games. Something clicked. His deep-rooted passions for these subcultures formed a kernel of inspiration from which PDF would bloom. The brand would become his canvas to experiment with clothing design favoring an oversized, extra-padded, and maximalist sensibility familiar to anyone who grew up with their feet bound to a Burton snowboard. “I have pictures of sports fashion imprinted in my mind,” Formichetti says. Since launching in 2021, PDF now drops two seasonal collections a year. The audacious imprint has become known for its citrus-toned leather statements, graffiti-tagged outerwear, and bubbled-up shoes—designs that have been worn by the likes of Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Drake, and Lewis Hamilton. Today, Formichetti’s working on biker jackets smeared with scuff marks akin to those on his own worn out racing coats, as well as custompadded “armor” for Travis Scott. Despite having undeniable momentum, Formichetti says he and the brand are only now preparing to switch into high gear.
“PEOPLE
REALLY CARE ABOUT SPORTS UNIFORMS, AND I THINK THEY SOMETIMES DO A BETTER JOB OF CONNECTING PEOPLE THAN NORMAL CLOTHES MIGHT.”
DID YOU HAVE AN EYE FOR STYLE WHILE GROWING UP IN CENTRAL ITALY?
I never thought about it too seriously at the time, but looking back now, I definitely had a huge interest in clothes. I was always buying things, creating my own graphics, and printing t-shirts. I’d regularly doodle on my Vans. I was always really good at drawing and did a lot of graffiti— those were my first avenues into design.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOUR YOUNG LOVE FOR ART WAS THE CATALYST FOR EVENTUALLY RUNNING A FASHION BRAND?
Definitely. Snowboarding also played a big part. I started snowboarding in 2005, and at the time, everyone on the slopes was wearing baggy clothing. It was very inspired by West Coast and East Coast hip-hop styles. I was also really into other extreme sports like skating, motocross, and go-karting.
EACH OF THOSE SPORTS COMES WITH ITS OWN RULES OF DRESSING. HOW MUCH OF AN IMPACT HAVE THOSE ATHLETIC STYLE CODES—UNIFORMS, IF YOU WILL—HAD ON YOUR OWN DESIGN LANGUAGE?
Lowkey, a lot. I’ve been participating in and watching these sports for a very long time, so it’s not even something that I have to go back and look at again to reference. I have pictures of sports fashion imprinted in my mind. People really care about sports uniforms, and I think they sometimes do a better job of connecting people than normal clothes might.
WHEN YOU MOVED TO MILAN, HOW DID YOUR TASTE CHANGE?
It was all about music. I was working with a lot of rappers in the city, and I was always in the studio connecting with them. I went to Brera Academy, but I honestly wasn’t the best student. Luckily, I’m pretty outgoing, so I was able to meet people and form connections all over the city that helped me hone my craft.
WHAT DID YOUR EARLIEST PDF MOODBOARDS LOOK LIKE?
Everything came to my mind during COVID. I was stuck in my childhood bedroom, staring at my wardrobe. I asked myself, “What am I missing now?” It was all the stuff from when I was 16 and 17, things from my snowboarding years. So I wanted to remake a lot of those things for today’s culture.
HOW DO YOU GET YOURSELF INTO THE PROPER HEADSPACE WHEN YOU SIT DOWN TO BEGIN WORK ON YOUR DESIGNS?
The thing is, I never stop thinking about it. I usually start with a broad concept, and then I try to find things across different mediums that add to the world I’m conceiving. I save references on Instagram 24/7 and I also watch a lot of movies.
WHAT MOVIES ARE YOU WATCHING NOW?
This sounds crazy, but I love West Coast gang stuff. I’m trying to draw a connection between that and the Italian versions of them. Our gangs are connected to football team fandom in places like Milan, Juventus, and Napoli. I’m trying to learn everything I can about football hooliganism.
“I FEEL CAGED IN BY THE IDEA OF ONE UNIFORM. I ALWAYS WANT TO BE MOVING FORWARD.”
YOU HAVE SEVERAL COLLECTIONS UNDER YOUR BELT NOW, AND YOU’VE ALSO CREATED CUSTOM PIECES FOR STARS LIKE DRAKE, LIL YACHTY, AND TYGA. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PDF UNIFORM?
I’m still far from a uniform. I really like to improve and change things, and I think a uniform is something that remains constant. I feel caged in by the idea of one uniform. I always want to be moving forward.
YOUR RECENT MILAN RUNWAY SHOW WAS HUGE, WITH MORE THAN 1,500 GUESTS AND SEVERAL MUSICAL PERFORMANCES. HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR FASHION PRESENTATIONS PLAY INTO THE LARGER PDF UNIVERSE?
It was more of a concert than a runway show. I really love that because I always want to have all my friends involved. I grew up with the singers who performed, and we came up at the same time. It was a celebration of all those years working toward our shared dreams.
THE COLLECTION ITSELF DREW INSPIRATION FROM AUTOMOTIVE CULTURE. ARE YOU A CAR GUY?
Yes. I actually bought my favorite model this year, the BMW 830. I’m more of a vintage car guy because I worked as a mechanic during the summers as a teenager. Back then, I was blasting down the road on a Piaggo SP scooter at 100 miles per hour. The crew that I would drive with always wore orange, yellow, and red, so that’s why those tones are all over the collection.
THE PADDED RACING JACKETS STAND OUT AS THE LINE’S HERO PIECES. DID THOSE COME FROM YOUR RIDING EXPERIENCES, TOO?
Yes. I took an old one that I crashed in, and I tried to recreate it with the same scuffs. I sprayed it and scratched it. My process is very freestyle. I get the fabrics, put them together, and make it work.
WHAT DO YOU THINK COMES TO MIND WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF YOUR BRAND?
Big. I love huge stuff.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
I’m making some customs forfor a Travis Scott performance in Milan. We’re working on this armor with [Italian motorsports brand] Dainese because Travis is really into protective armwear right now. I want people to feel amazed by the designs.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE TO SEE PDF GO IN THE FUTURE?
I hope PDF changes as I change. I’m very connected to the brand’s DNA. But to be honest, I don’t know how exactly we will expand together. I don’t know what I’ll be like in nine years, you know?
JUNTAE KIM’S NEW ROMANTICS
HOW THE LABEL IS REIMAGINING TRADITIONAL, GENDERED SARTORIAL CODES THROUGH A CONFLUENCE OF BRITISH TAILORING AND KOREAN PATTERN-CUTTING.
“WE WANT TO PROVIDE OPTIONS THAT ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO EMBRACE A SOFTER, MORE FLUID AESTHETIC, REGARDLESS OF GENDER, AND TO EXPLORE BOLD, ASSERTIVE STYLES THAT REFLECT THEIR IDENTITY.”
“Dividing clothing into menswear and womenswear is no longer meaningful,” says Juntae Kim of the mindset behind his eponymous label. Kim was born in South Korea and came of age as a designer both there and in London: he earned a clothing design BA for womenswear in Seoul, then secured a matching menswear BA from the London College of Fashion, and, finally, an MA from Central Saint Martins. His brand’s clothing is known for classical, romantic designs with a contemporary twist. The garments are neither masculine nor feminine, but sit in an enthralling gray area, enabling the wearer to determine how to incorporate them into their wardrobe without any binary constraints. The Juntae Kim Instagram bio simplifies this methodology in all caps: “UNRAVELING
BINARY CONSTRUCTIONS.”
Kim’s superpower as a designer is the melting pot of influences he can reference, such as Alexander McQueen and Dead Poets Society, both of which inspired past collections. This freewheeling, open school of thought—further informed by his passion for 17th and 18th-century women’s couture, as well as modern menswear trends—has led to instantly recognizable creations that stand out among the crowded fashion sphere: think bomber jackets modified with peacoat-style buttons and giant padded pockets that seem to reference medieval armor, or a fitted, corset-like denim jacket with super-sized sleeves.
Since the brand launched in 2022, Kim’s unabashedly equivocal designs have already been sported by A-listers including Travis Scott, Dua Lipa, and Ty Dolla $ign. Kim himself became an LVMH Prize semifinalist in 2023. And the label even secured collaborations with the likes of Salomon and Levi’s. Following his recent SS25 showroom in Milan, Kim discusses his namesake line’s history and his desire to “celebrate the spectrum of self-expression.”
HOW DID YOUR SARTORIAL EXPERIENCES, FIRST IN KOREA AND THEN IN THE UK, INFORM THE BRAND?
Korean fashion tends to be more technical and commercially driven, while British fashion embodies a sense of romance and creativity. My experiences in both places allowed me to absorb the nuanced emotions and aesthetic standards of each, and I was able to integrate both into my brand.
YOU DRAW INSPIRATION FROM MANY AREAS OF THE FASHION LEXICON—CORSETS, LEDERHOSEN, COWBOY BOOTS. WHAT’S THE SECRET TO MIXING ALL THESE DISPARATE INFLUENCES AND STYLES INTO A COHESIVE AESTHETIC?
While in Korea, I developed a deep interest in traditional elements and the study of Eastern dress. While studying in the UK, I delved into Western clothing through the lens of European art and history, mainly focusing on gender-specific garments—corsets for women and armor for men. This new area of interest allowed me to blend these insights with the technical skills I honed in Korea, such as pattern cutting. By integrating these processes with my fascination for traditional garments, I was able to reimagine them into modern apparel forms like puffer jackets and denim jackets, thereby crafting my unique aesthetic.
IS THERE AN ELEMENT OF SUBVERSION TO THE BRAND’S DESIGNS?
If I had to describe the brand in a few words, I’d say “New Romantics.” I love preppy, punk, hippie, freedom, and romantic themes. I enjoy taking these motifs— along with historical references—and applying these concepts to traditional clothing to carefully craft a new aesthetic. For example, if I’m designing a denim jacket, I can juxtapose Vivienne Westwood’s legendary denim pieces with the preppy color palettes and styling of the protagonists in Dead Poets Society. I can then imbue these themes with our historical pattern-cutting techniques to create something truly fun and unique.
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR LATEST COLLECTION? WHAT ITEMS ARE YOU MOST EXCITED ABOUT?
The inspiration for SS25 came directly from my previous six collections. Along the way, there were designs I wanted to refine and others that became instant favorites. That’s what SS25 is all about—a vibrant evolution of what I’ve loved and learned.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CORE TEAM? HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE FULLTIME? WHAT DOES EACH PERSON BRING TO THE TABLE?
Our team consists of five people, not including our interns. We have a general manager, merchandising manager, sales and communication manager, junior designer, and myself—the founder and creative director.
JUNTAE KIM DESIGNS ARE VERY FREE-FLOWING AND EXPRESSIVE, WITH AN EMPHASIS PLACED ON WORLD-BUILDING. WHEN YOU COLLABORATE WITH A BRAND LIKE SALOMON AND HAVE TO WORK IN THEIR WORLD AS WELL AS YOUR OWN, HOW DO YOU ENSURE A HARMONIOUS PROCESS AND SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME?
I stay true to my vision, even when collaborating with global brands and industry experts, where creative boundaries—usually tied to business needs—can come into play. My approach is to first spotlight the brand’s creativity and aesthetic in my designs. Then, I craft a detailed strategy for business (sales) and PR (viral marketing) and present it to my team and partners. I ensure that interest and excitement are piqued by overseeing every aspect of the process and ensuring our creative work stands out. Thanks to the persuasiveness of this approach, I have yet to face any design restrictions from collaborative partners.
“KOREA OFFERS UNMATCHED EFFICIENCY IN EVERY ASPECT OF THE PROCESS—MATERIAL SOURCING, DEVELOPMENT, MANUFACTURING, AND MORE.”
A LOT OF AMAZING NEW BRANDS ARE COMING OUT OF KOREA. HOW DOES A BRAND LIKE YOURS TYPICALLY EXPAND OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY AND GAIN GLOBAL RECOGNITION?
I initially launched my brand in the UK, but I now operate it from Korea, which I’ve found to be an incredibly strategic location for production. Korea offers unmatched efficiency in every aspect of the process—material sourcing, development, manufacturing, and more. This agility allows brands to scale quickly and attract international interest. Moreover, Korea is home to many talented designers and artists with a keen eye for visual aesthetics, creating a vibrant ecosystem perfect for brands looking to make a strong impact on a broader scale.
THE BRAND’S WEBSTORE SAYS “TRUE BEAUTY IS NOT ABOUT CONSTRAINING THE BODY BUT LOOSENING IT.” HOW DO YOU AIM TO ACHIEVE THAT GOAL IN BOTH A LITERAL AND A METAPHORICAL SENSE?
Our brand is all about gender fluidity. While we primarily showcase menswear collections, our base is split 50/50 between male and female customers. Using the concepts of femininity and masculinity as nuanced expressions of style, we aim for our clothing to offer a range of expressions. We’ve moved from focusing solely on the beauty of fitted garments to blending that elegance with practicality
and comfort, all while preserving the silhouette. This approach strikes the perfect balance and defines the essence of our brand. Further, we want to provide options that allow individuals to embrace a softer, more fluid aesthetic, regardless of gender, and to explore bold, assertive styles that reflect their identity. We aim to ensure that our designs cater to diverse styles and preferences, celebrating the spectrum of self-expression in a way that resonates with everyone.
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST LESSON THE BRAND HAS LEARNED SINCE ITS FOUNDING?
Fashion is an art form, but at its core, art is also about business. Our art must be commercially successful for the brand to keep creating and growing. Another crucial element is the team. As our team expands, my vision and plans become even more precise. Even though it’s my name on the brand, I can’t do it all alone.
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR JUNTAE KIM?
We aim to hold a physical show in Paris within the next two years. We’re excited to expand our brand’s reach, showcasing it to a diverse audience across all nationalities, races, genders, and identities. We want to make a memorable impact with our aesthetic and leave a lasting impression on a global stage.
CONSIS TENCY Chapter 2
CONSIS TENCY
The Authentic Artifice of GomezSayre
WORDS BY SHAWN GHASSEMITARI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTTY TSUNAMI
The Los Angeles-based artist discusses “doctoring” his hyper-realistic
paintings to remind people to take a look around. What you see won’t always be here.
“I feel like most people aren’t really looking.”
Sayre Gomez, the Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based artist, often wonders what the Earth will be like when it’s devoid of people. These musings are evident in his photo-realistic X-scapes paintings, which appear as eerie LA landscapes sans human habitation. In Gomez’s world, the bomb has gone off and all that’s left behind is the detritus of society.
Gomez’s compositions interrogate late capitalism and the fallout of global industrial politics through the lens of Southern California. To achieve this end, the artist uses acrylic, spray paint, and trompe l’oeil techniques to juxtapose the beauty of an LA sunset or the rolling San Gabriel Mountains with heaps of scrap metal, burning trash cans, unassuming strip malls, and homeless encampments. Since receiving his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2008, Gomez has become a marquee figure within the LA contemporary art scene, staging exhibitions across Europe and Asia, being enlisted to the rosters of Xavier Hufkens in Brussels and Pinto Gallery in the US, and having his work housed in the permanent collections of both the Whitney Museum and The Broad.
While rooted in reality—he often captures source material using his phone’s camera—Gomez’s artwork gives way to fiction with his “doctoring” techniques. He’ll employ color enhancements or add buildings, sunsets, and signage to create visual harmony in his canvases—perhaps a commentary on how the social media age demands picture-perfect imagery. An example includes Tuesday Evening (2021), which depicts a neoclassical archway atop LA’s First Street Bridge. In Gomez’s rendering of the structure, it’s covered in graffiti and borders the remanants of a homeless encampment. Like an influencer capturing the “perfect angle,” the artist further altered the source material by adding a majestic sunset that beams directly through the arch.
This tension between authenticity and artifice is a reminder that any and every image can be manipulated to create an alternate reality—an idea that also reflects the rise of AI. Gomez understands that there’s no stopping AI’s integration across the arts, but the form of automation will exacerbate job insecurity, consolidate power among a few corporate hands, and lead to a devaluation of the creative process. “I think AI will put the nail in the coffin for creativity,” Gomez says. “Have you seen Terminator ? Like, what the fuck?”
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I think AI will put the nail in the coffin for creativity.”
Why does your work conflate reality with fiction?
People have just begun to realize how malleable photography is, and how easy it is to trick the viewer. I grew up in an era where a photograph was unquestionably considered the truth. Artists knew, but not the public. Now, the public has caught up to the conversation. Everyone knows about AI, everyone knows about Photoshop. Painting is the first version of that.
Painting is an illusion of reality.
Picasso has that famous quote: “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.” It’s a little corny, but I kind of love that. So I doctor my works up and use different artificial components aesthetically. They’re all believable, in a way. I want to keep things right on the cusp, where someone thinks: “Is this doctored or could this actually be real?” It makes my practice so much about looking or fetishization, as well as turning things into a fantasy.
Like dream goggles, a blurry state of nostalgia. Do you have any routines? What’s your process like from idea to execution?
It’s very rigid. Everything starts with a photo. I guess the idea comes first, which almost exclusively happens while I’m driving. I’ve always liked driving. People complain about it, but that’s one of my favorite things about living in LA. I’m always looking at and responding to things on a commute. Sometimes I’ll write down phrases and appropriate slogans. Not necessarily journaling, just random phrases tossed in the Notes app. Photos serve as my journal entries.
It’s almost like how people use AI in Photoshop to generate something in the background.
It’s so funny, my friend does all sorts of AI and he was trying to get me to pay him to train an AI to auto-generate all my paintings. And I was like, “But that’s the fun part. Why would I want AI to do that?”
What are your thoughts on AI?
It seems scary, but it’s not going to stop. I really don’t see how it’s going to help anybody. In general, I think automation and making things easier for people is oftentimes a great step… but AI is going to change everything.
Your work speaks about late capitalism. A lot of the worries surrounding AI revolve around job insecurity and exacerbation of the wealth disparity.
Say, for example, there will be films 100% generated by AI in the future, and when that product comes to market, it will start generating capital that goes entirely to two people. Unless there’s some kind of mandate about how to distribute that wealth, it’s insane. What’s the point? A movie is for more than just entertainment. A movie is for the consumer, but also for the manufacturers—people need that labor.
AI puts a premium on the idea over the process. The technology needs something to reference, so it references the entirety of film history, which is fairly limited. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think AI will put the nail in the coffin for creativity. It’s just going to generate things that are already desired and nothing else—nothing new or surprising. Have you seen Terminator ? Like, what the fuck? [laughs]
There was that Google engineer who said AI was the most dangerous invention since the atomic bomb. It’s probably worse than the atomic bomb.
I want to discuss the mirror sculpture you produced with JRP Editions. Art is always an equal parts the artist’s creation and a reflection of the viewer themselves. Can you discuss that theme within your work?
There’s an old adage of art being a mirror. A lot of people see art in that way, reflecting something about society. I liked that mirror because I’d always see these fences with branches growing through them. I wanted to depict a cage—you see yourself in the mirror but through this fence. It’s also about context. In broad strokes, so much of my work is about context. Seeing something in dusk and seeing it in the day has a completely different meaning.
You’ve said that you wanted to be a paleontologist as a child. Many of the ruins from past empires, from Persia to Rome, are buried beneath layers of the Earth— just like the dinosaurs. Inevitably the same will happen to today’s cities, especially considering climate change. Do you view painting as a form of preservation, and are you actively thinking about preserving the world around you in your art?
I don’t want to be too fetishistic with it. It’s not so much preserving this slice of East LA for future generations, as it is about saying, “Take a look around.” I feel like most people aren’t really looking. Your brain is constantly filtering out 90 percent of what’s happening around you. It’s less about preserving it for posterity and more preserving it for now. I do think about what’s going to happen when people aren’t around anymore. It’s difficult to imagine that when there are currently eight billion people on Earth. As a species, humans are not that old. Something’s going to change and it’s not looking good.
SHABOOZEY
SHABOOZEY
SHOWS HIS CARDS
Going against the grain has always been in Shaboozey’s DNA. Now, with a chat-topping single and landmark year under his belt, the genre-blurring musician is going “all or bust” on redefining country music.
WORDS BY ELAINA BERNSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAYQUAN SHULER
For Shaboozey, risk-taking is routine. When given the chance, he’s always going to up the ante—from choosing to pair NIGO accessories with a Nudie suit, to morphing the nation’s conception of “country music” by sampling a hip-hop classic on a drinking ballad.
“I’ve always wanted to create my own style that either fills a gap in what’s already out there or contributes something completely new,” says Shaboozey, who, despite hailing from Woodbridge, Virginia, feels his creative approach aligns more closely with the infamous, neon-flushed City of Sin, Las Vegas.
After co-conspiring with Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter ’s “SPAGHETII” and “SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’” this past spring, Boozey doubled down on his distinct sonic style with the full-length Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, featuring instant classics “Vegas” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” While the latter proved monumental—marking the first song by a Black male artist to simultaneously top the Hot Country Songs Chart and Hot 100 Chart—it’s “Vegas” that offers the most authentic vantage into the core of Shaboozey’s artistry. As he puts it on the chorus: “Old vibrations, familiar faces / It’s Hollywood of all the goddamn places / Been so long, I need a long vacation / Lived my life like it was one big Vegas.”
As his star continues to rise globally, Shaboozey is feeling particularly confident in the hand he’s been dealt. “I had this internal battle of trying to categorize my music and getting it to sound a certain way,” he recounts of his professional salad days. But after three LPs and a landmark hit, alongside a widespread zeitgeist shift of what “country music” can be, he’s not pressed anymore and is ready and willing to show his cards: “I’ve created something totally new—I’ll let everybody else define what it is.”
JACKET: PARIS LAUNDRY
SHIRT: LEVI’S
SHORTS: PARIS LAUNDRY
SOCKS: SIERRA FERRELL
SHOES: JIMMY CHOO
NECKLACE: QUANCI ARCHIVE
BRACELET: ARTIST’S OWN
“I’VE
ALWAYS BEEN A BIG RISK TAKER— SOMEONE WHO ROLLS THE DICE WITH AN ALL-OR-BUST MENTALITY.”
HOW DID YOU SELECT THE STYLING LOOKS FOR THIS SHOOT?
I wanted to do something that was out there, but still somewhat familiar to me. I’m very intentional with my fashion choices. My music has always been very fashion-informed, so I try to select pieces that help me tell my story and further express myself.
WHEN DID FASHION BECOME A SERIOUS MEDIUM OF SELF-EXPRESSION FOR YOU?
It was always a big thing for me, as early as elementary school. Once I got older, what was most important to me in fashion was finding a style that only I could identify with. In high school, I started going to local thrift stores and that’s how I was able to explore my style interests.
WHAT DID YOUR STYLE LOOK LIKE IN THOSE EARLY DAYS?
A lot of NASCAR jackets, vintage rock and country t-shirts, Wrangler jeans, and cowboy boots. Looking back at old photos, I realized my dad dressed the same way I do today. He quit his job to start a farm when I was young, so he was really into that agriculture aesthetic.
WHAT WAS THE FASHION SCENE LIKE WHERE YOU GREW UP?
Virginia has a very underrated fashion scene. There’s a big streetwear community. When I was growing up, there was a distinct aesthetic. People were wearing Allen Iverson jerseys, headbands, and Sean John pieces. A lot of Nike SBs and a lot of Stüssy.
WHAT ABOUT THE LOCAL MUSIC SCENE? WHAT DID THAT LOOK LIKE?
The music scene was very, very, very, very small, which is cool. Because it was such an isolated environment, it helped craft artists who are really capable of world-building.
WHAT DID YOU GROW UP LISTENING TO?
Everything. It was a real combination of influences that, in hindsight, worked to inform my own cross-genre music. I grew up listening to a lot of hip-hop and R&B like Ja Rule, J-Kwon, Jennifer Lopez, Ashanti, and Usher. But at the same time, I was also listening to a lot of Nickleback and Creed. My parents are Nigerian, so Nigerian music played a role, as well as gospel music, which was the only thing I could listen to when I attended boarding school in Nigeria.
WHEN DID MUSIC BECOME SOMETHING YOU VIEWED AS A CAREER PATH?
At first, it was just a hobby and I didn’t take it too seriously. I made my first mixtape my senior year of high school with beats I’d downloaded from YouTube, as well as Adult Swim bumps like Flying Lotus. I feel like that’s a rite of passage. From day one, I was always very conscious of creating a cohesive project.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO BE A COUNTRY ARTIST IN 2024?
There are so many different pockets of country music and there are probably a lot of country artists who wouldn’t consider themselves “country” artists. Personally, my genre of country is mostly inspired by old Western music, and I don’t even know if that’s considered “country.” I’m also heavily inspired by spaghetti Westerns, baby Martin guitars, and murder ballads. If you dig, you’ll realize that country music is way deeper than it might appear. What I love the most about the genre is the storytelling aspect. You start every song at the beginning of a narrative. You create a character so compelling that people believe it’s a real person.
WHERE WOULD YOU PLACE YOURSELF ON THE SPECTRUM OF COUNTRY MUSIC IN 2024?
My career is its own thing. I’ve always wanted to create my own style that can either fill the gaps in the genre or
contribute something completely new. That’s exactly what I love about Atlanta hip-hop. Think about Young Thug and Future and all that they’ve done; they created something impossible to define or place on the hip-hop spectrum at the time it dropped. Same thing with Playboi Carti and Opium. I’ve created something totally new and I’ll let everybody else define what it is.
WHAT OTHER GENRES INFLUENCE YOUR MUSIC?
I love hip-hop and trap music. They have a lot of similar themes to country. There’s a song on my sophomore project called “Dead Opps” that I feel exemplifies the parallels between the two genres. It’s a whole story about an outlaw gang from the 1800s.
WHAT’S YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS LIKE FOR A STUDIO SESSION?
It really depends, but I can say I’ve never once gone into a session with the outlook of: “Today, I’m going to make a county song.” If I ever do that, it ends up being a song I hate. I want to make songs that connect with both other people and myself.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SONG YOU’VE MADE? “Bounty On My Head.” I haven’t released it, but it’s a slow country waltz kinda song. It’s about someone having a bounty on their head, and it’s got a lot of Christian metaphors in the lyrics. It tells the story of a guy who’s about
to be hung, and I’m singing from the perspective of the crowd watching it happen. I speak a lot about God and Jesus in my music, even though I don’t practice Christianity as much anymore.
DO YOU THINK THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN YOUR LYRICS TIES BACK TO YOUR BOARDING SCHOOL DAYS?
100%. I actually didn’t think about that before. A lot of traditional American music stems from gospel—especially country music and Appalachian stuff—and leans heavily into Christian themes. But I think growing up at a Christian boarding school heavily informed a lot of my lyrics.
WHY DO YOU THINK “A BAR SONG (TIPSY)” BLEW UP TO THE EXTENT THAT IT DID?
I think the sample really resonated with a lot of people. A lot of country artists—even those who make pure country music—grew up listening to rap. I think we all need to collaborate on an album of just flipped Three 6 Mafia beats. This is the music that’s authentic to me. It’s a mixture of what I heard growing up and a mixture of the music I love now. It’s a song that just makes sense.
WHAT WAS ONE OF THE CHALLENGES YOU’VE FACED IN ESTABLISHING YOURSELF IN THE INDUSTRY?
I had this internal battle of trying to categorize my music and getting it to sound a certain way. I’ve learned just to make it sound like me.
JACKET: JACKSON T. OWENS
TANK: BLK DNM
JEANS: BLK DNM
SHOES: JIMMY CHOO
CHAIN: REED’S
RIGHT HAND CUFF: QUANCI ARCHIVE
LEFT HAND CUFF: ARTIST’S OWN
PENDANT AND RINGS: ARTIST’S OWN
“I’VE CREATED SOMETHING TOTALLY NEW AND I’LL LET EVERYBODY ELSE DEFINE WHAT IT IS.”
COUNTRY MUSIC IS OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH A STEREOTYPICAL “UNIFORM” OR AESTHETIC. DO YOU FIND YOURSELF LEANING INTO THAT OR TRYING TO REIMAGINE IT?
It’s a mixture of both things and it just depends on the situation—like what the song is or how I’m feeling that day. Recently, I’ve been prioritizing comfort more. But, to me, the country aesthetic is just American blue collar: Timbs, biker boots, and good-quality workwear.
DOES YOUR STYLE EVOLUTION CORRELATE WITH YOUR SONIC EVOLUTION?
My style used to correlate with my music a lot, but my fashion really doesn’t inform my music as much anymore, especially now as my name’s gotten bigger. That sort of gives me some freedom to take even more risks and step out of the box more than I already do. However, sometimes I just want to throw on something simple and clean that aligns with the stereotypical country aesthetic, like cowboy boots or a Nudie denim suit. I’m always going to love classic American-made garments like a Canadian tuxedo or a thick vintage t-shirt and some blue jeans.
HOW DOES YOUR PERFORMANCE PERSONA CONTRAST WITH WHO YOU ARE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?
It’s not too much of a juxtaposition. I like to party and drink and do all that. It’s one-to-one at this point. Nothing beats going out and drinking.
ARE YOU GOING OUT TONIGHT?
Probably. It’s a Saturday night in New York City!
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE NOMADIC LIFESTYLE YOU’RE CURRENTLY LIVING?
I’m really into it. I love traveling the world and getting to do what I’m passionate about. The more traveling and engaging with fans I get to do, the better.
HOW HAS YOUR SONIC AND VISUAL IDENTITY EVOLVED THROUGHOUT YOUR THREE STUDIO PROJECTS?
I’ve learned more and more about myself and how to embrace the things that make me vulnerable. The more vulnerable you can be, the more you can actually connect with people in a real way, as opposed to just trying to make something cool or hard.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE LYRICS OF YOURS IS, “LIVED MY LIFE LIKE IT WAS ONE BIG VEGAS.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO YOU?
I’ve always been a big risk taker—someone who rolls the dice with an all-or-bust mentality. That’s what my life has traditionally been like, and that lyric is a true embodiment of that.
IS YOUR LIFE STILL ONE BIG VEGAS?
Yeah. It’s still Vegas. It’s always gonna be Vegas.
THE VISUAL ARTIST AND MUSICIAN CREATES IMPRESSIONISTIC ART THAT FEELS HAZY UPON FIRST GLANCE, BUT STICKS IN YOUR CORTEX LIKE A RECURRING DREAM YOU CAN’T SHAKE.
WORDS BY ZACH SOKOL
ARTWORK BY FRANK DORREY
FRANK DORREY’S TECHNICOLOR DREAMSCAPES
Frank Dorrey’s artwork invokes the sensation of waking up and trying to remember a dream. A face or a setting may be vivid and crisp—a detail branded into your cortex, ready to be jotted down into that Moleskine on the bedside table—but a character’s identity, the background details, even the action are a little hazy, a little uncanny, almost ineffable. After all, describing a dream over morning coffee is a futile act; the surreal cinema of the unconscious is something you experience rather than attempt to articulate.
Dorrey nods to the hypnagogic energy of his artworks in his Instagram bio: “Things may feel like they have no meaning. An outlet could help you find a meaning!” The 25-year-old has found two which he uses to channel his otherworldly visions: Digital paintings, which are created on his iPhone 8 using an app called PicsArt, and music, which he records under the moniker DORIS.
With both outlets, he uses visual and aural sampling to manifest ideas that are “loud and familiar,” like a recurring figure in a nightmare that you’re certain you recognize from somewhere, but can’t quite place. In his music, it might be an unexpected sample that’s buried underneath pitch-shifted vocals: Was that an Alex G instrumental? A sped-up Barry White chorus? Hell, was that the guitar riff from 311’s “Amber”? In his digital paintings, Dorrey uses the aforementioned PicsArt—which allows users to take pre-existing photos, layer and manipulate them, and add illustrations—to devise people and places that feel “rooted in reality,” but are warped into something fantastical.
Take i want 2 be ur bodyguard, a painting that depicts a man in a two-piece suit and shades swaggering with his arms crossed in the foreground, as a singer performs on a stage behind him with her arms on her hips. The ballroom is empty and a little blurry, yet the impressionistic image feels like it was culled from an archival photograph or a forgotten documentary ripped and uploaded to YouTube in 480p. “One of my earliest goals was putting Black people in as many interesting and honest stories as possible,” Dorrey says. For him, this often means offering up a character or a scene, but leaving the narrative ambiguous enough for the viewer to project what they think are the missing pieces. As he raps on “STRAIGHT FACE”: “You’re in the right chapter, but the wrong page / I don’t like to talk a lot, so I paraphrase.” In other words, he builds a world, but you have to make your own map to interpret the topography.
“WHETHER I’M MAKING ART OR MAKING MUSIC, THE ONE COMMON DENOMINATOR IS I’M ALWAYS ON MY BED AND IN MY BRIEFS.”
Dorrey has collaborated with a who’s who of heady creatives, including musician Noname (whose 2023 album Sundial he created the album art for), Kerwin Frost, rapper MIKE, and skate filmmaker William Strobeck. Regardless of the project, Dorrey’s voice shines through; his subject matter is too personal and his style too distinct to not immediately notice his fingerprints. Like a film production, someone else may have written the script, but it’s always clear that it’s a Dorrey joint.
“I’m a big fan of movies and a lot of times I approach things as if I were in the shoes of each person in a film crew,” Dorrey notes. If those shoes belonged to a particular director, it’d most likely be David Lynch or Hype Williams. The former has described his features akin to moving paintings—an experience best enjoyed if you let it wash over you instead of clamoring to make sense of it in real time—while the latter employs highly-stylized visuals and sound to create a heightened hyperreality.
Dorrey embraces similar approaches to great effect, which results in his imagery haunting the viewer, albeit in a positive way. The ebullient, sometimes demented artworks stay in your head and follow you around, but the sensation is a blessing, not a curse. They’re movie scenes you want to play on repeat, dreams you pray will become recurring. Maybe one day you’ll be able to explain the plot.
“ONE OF MY EARLIEST GOALS WAS PUTTING BLACK PEOPLE IN AS MANY INTERESTING AND HONEST STORIES AS POSSIBLE.”
WORDS BY DYLAN KELLY PHOTOGRAPHY BY MAYA MARGOLINA
Galvanized by the ballroom scene’s extravagance and his mother’s modish closet, Raul Lopez’s voguish vision has always been one for his people. Now, he wants to bring it worldwide.
t’s a Tuesday morning in late July, and Luar’s ninth-floor studio in New York’s artsy WSA Building is bustling with youthful creativity. Against sweeping views of the Financial District, kids from Pratt, Parsons, and FIT gather around sewing machines and design desks, deconstructing and reimagining mood boards Dominican-American designer Raul Lopez has presented to them.
“Granny,” they signal his attention, as he wafts past racks of current-season designs— including the button-covered armor he wore to the 2024 Met Gala—to examine their work. There’s a clear familial energy in the brand’s workspace, the sort of rare intergenerational respect that leads to actual creative breakthroughs. “I like to nurture my kids and then let them fly,” Lopez says. “You don’t know who that kid is going to become. We all started somewhere.”
Lopez got his own start in Brooklyn, though it would take several decades before he launched Luar in 2011 and years of diligent work before the label became one of the buzziest names on the New York Fashion Week calendar. That grind landed him the 2022 CDFA American Accessories Designer of the Year award, thanks in no small part to Luar’s dramatic subversions of classic American sportswear, lucrative hero accessories like the Ana tote, and starry fans including Lil Nas X, Rihanna, and Beyoncé.
The designer struggled to come to terms with his queer identity while growing up in South Williamsburg’s Dominican Catholic community, especially while witnessing many of his LGBTQ+ neighbors’ displacement as the area changed. He was, however, able to find solace in fashion, thanks to his mother Ana’s work as a seamstress.
“My mom dressed up every single day, even if she wasn’t going out. Full look around the house,” he remembers. “I was obsessed.” Inspired by her affinity for style, Lopez constructed a uniform of his own: a suit and tie, which he wore to his public school on a daily basis, despite there being no required dress code: “The private school was a few blocks away, and I always thought the uniforms were so fab.” He wanted to replicate private school “prestige,” and did so with his sartorial choices, ironing his neighbors’ clothes for money he’d use to purchase his formal pieces. Hence, Lopez earned the nickname “Little Tie,” now the reason that his present-day collections are spotted with grown-up, Luar-embossed ties.
New York’s ballroom scene, an underground LGBTQ+ subculture built on performance, self-expression, and chosen family, taught Lopez how to embrace his artistic voice wholeheartedly. He remembers the Christopher Street queens, older members of the community that gathered in the West Village, telling him, “When you step in, you better step in with your good foot.” In ballroom, that means showing up with a “polished outfit, fab accessories, a statement shoe, done-up hair and makeup.” It was that invariable standard that pushed the limits on Lopez’s personal style, and it’s the same mantra that propelled his creative practice.
On Christopher Street, Lopez met Shayne Oliver, with whom he founded Hood by Air— the future-forward streetwear brand with a luxe lift that challenged high fashion’s status quo—in 2006. Four years later, Lopez departed from the label and booked a flight to the Dominican Republic, on a mission to establish a stronger connection with his heritage so that he could tell his personal story through his own imprint. There, he created one-off pieces inspired by his mother’s wardrobe and sold them on Facebook under the first iteration of his label, Luar Zepol, or his full name backward.
The fledgling brand made its New York Fashion Week debut in 2013. Despite earning attention from stores like Opening Ceremony and operating with the help of angel investors, Lopez struggled to turn the label into a profitable business. He shut down Luar Zepol in 2015, then attempted to relaunch it in 2017, before folding once more in 2019. It wasn’t until 2021, when Pyer Moss’ Kerby Jean-Raymond offered him the funding to bring Luar back again, that the brand actually stuck.
Luar’s flamboyancy-packed design ethos is one part fantasy and one part practical; both categories riff on Lopez’s own style codes. The former is what you see strutting down his runways: sculptural leather coats with heightened shoulders, dramatic gowns with exceptionally nipped waists, form-flattering sheer textiles tied together with fantastic L-shaped metals, and more.
Luar has always been “for the culture”—that is the brand’s tagline, after all—and perhaps it was Lopez’s commitment to authenticity that made his path to success so bumpy. To Lopez, culture is not limited to its textbook definition. In his world, “Culture is nails. Culture is hair. Culture is looking fab.” The constant in Luar’s universe is respect, much like that of the ballroom scene. It’s about giving a voice to the faces that surround, uplift, and define the label through fashion so melodramatically referential that there’s often no need to double-check the label. His one rule: there’s room for everyone and none for negativity. “Keep it cute, and keep it mute,” Lopez advises, another life motto he picked up from the downtown queens.
“We should put that on a T-shirt,” adds Luar’s brand manager Adrián Díaz, sitting down next to Lopez in their office. Díaz signed onto the label last year after stints at creative agencies and most recently, as MCM’s global content director. The two were friends before going into business together, and now they work symbiotically: Lopez is able to focus on design, while Díaz handles the brand’s “forwardness.” His work includes expanding Luar’s product lineup; eyewear and footwear divisions are coming “soon,” he confirms. “We call him Purse,” Lopez says, a nod towards Díaz’s integral role in ensuring Luar’s finances remain in order.
One of the best examples of how Luar shows up for the culture —and, inversely, how the culture shows up for Luar—are the brand’s New York Fashion Week shows. Rid of the program’s stereotypical stuffiness, the label’s late-night catwalks are rambunctiously loud and encouragingly unified. “The way my models carry themselves, the way that I dress them, a lot of it comes from ballroom,” Lopez says. His runways become balls of their own: the crowd’s infectious snapping, the models’ powerful struts, the fashion’s downright audacity, and the front-row’s unrivaled fame. These touchpoints make Luar’s shows the most exciting to attend on the American calendar, one that pundits
are fond of deeming “dead.” However, Luar’s February 2024 show, which Beyoncé attended to see her nephew Julez Smith make his runway debut, refuted those claims with proof of life that New York fashion still has a pulse.
Beyoncé’s presence was about more than just the headlines; for Lopez, she is a physical embodiment of the kind of powerful woman that has always circulated his mood boards. After all, the reflective silver Luar tote draped over Beyoncé’s shoulder that evening was eponymous of Lopez’s mother, his two grandmothers, and his sisters, all named Ana. “That bag is a homage to the women who molded me into who I am. My mannerisms, the way I carry myself, and the way I dress up all comes from them,” he says.
“Don’t forget Yahaira,” Díaz pokes Lopez with a smile. “I can’t stand you,” Lopez responds before explaining the lore behind his raillery. “Yahaira is my alter ego. I used to do drag.” He describes his former drag persona as sassy, powerful, and chaotic, though he has not tapped into his punchy, feminine counterpart in more than three years. Nonetheless, when he was designing the hero accessory for his Spring/Summer 2025 collection, the carrier’s cheekiness lent itself too well to the drag character, and his close friends won the battle over its name. “The Yahaira bag has a lot of attitude.”
Lopez loves to dress up. In fact, he often likes to arrive at meetings in his signature, large-frame blazers for that powerful effect. “Corporate drag,” he calls it, but it’s not always his sartorial preference. Today, for instance, he’s wearing a casual white T-shirt and a pair of patterned sweatpants. “The real fashion girls don’t dress up all the time.” While he’s constantly thinking about what everyone else needs to be wearing, Lopez finds that his own need to “pull a look” comes second. “This is what people really wear,” he says. “So I wanted to build a basics collection, where a lot of the pieces seem basic but, in reality, they are not.”
The results are tops and bottoms that can be manipulated in seemingly endless ways, with subtle buttons akin to those on Lopez’s Met Ball outfit connecting slivers of fabric to produce a singular, metamorphic silhouette. Hoodies can become longsleeve tops, which can turn into short-sleeve versions, tank tops, or asymmetrical statements, based on the wearer’s preferences. He sees his basics collection as an easier entry point for those less likely to purchase his more extravagant pieces. “I’m trying to build this world so people start to look like each other in a weird way…not culty, but a little culty.”
Despite the hype surrounding the label, Díaz notes that Luar is still an indie operation, but Lopez wants the brand “to be global.” The designer says that when he travels to cities across the world, he’s often recognized more than he expects. “It’s crazy walking with Raul in another country,” Díaz confirms. Lopez divulges that he’s been offered to stage his runways in other major fashion capitals, but Díaz sees Luar as a New York tentpole. “It’s really tough existing in New York, but Raul has such a respect for this city and its fashion that I feel it’s very important to keep that energy alive.”
Seated amid the city’s skyscrapers, Lopez is pleased with the success he’s found thus far, and he’s equally as proud of the opportunities he’s now able to offer the next generation because of it. “Through this world, I can support all of these kids,” Lopez says, glancing around his studio. To him, that’s the most beautiful part. “I’m fashion’s granny,” he says with a knowing smile.
IDIO SYN CRASY Chapter 3
IDIO SYN CRASY
NOT FLOWERS, BUT THE IDEA OF THEM STERLING RUBY
I’ve only seen one of Sterling Ruby’s sculptures in person. It was a shipping container-sized rectangle of glossy aluminum, painted entirely orange, sitting on the desert floor. It was the kind of aggro orange you can find in certain kinds of camouflage. “Blaze Camo,” it’s called—designed to prevent hunters from being too well camouflaged, so they don’t get shot by other hunters. It’s a color that refuses to fit with any landscape.
The orange box, which Ruby had titled SPECTER, could be found in the Coachella Valley, not too far from Los Angeles. The piece was one of many installations made for 2018’s Desert X, a site-specific art event with works scattered around the Palm Springs area. Viewers could pull their car off the highway and walk right up to a blazing-orange art experience. I remember parking my car and seeing SPECTER from a far distance, probably 100 yards, looking like a phosphorescent Monopoly piece set against distant wind turbines. A sandy, rock-strewn field separated me from Ruby’s installation. A small audience was gathered in front of it, their silhouettes blackened against the orange glow of the 3,000-pound aluminum structure. I could see them selfie-ing, snapping pictures, staring at their faces against the shiny rectangle, doing exactly as they should. I took a blurry picture, then drove back to Los Angeles.
I can’t say I understood what Ruby was trying to pull off with the SPECTER. But it stuck with me, slotted itself into the slimy crevices of my own head. In retrospect, this to me is Ruby’s greatest skill. The scale and splash of his work can resist efforts to closely inspect the ideas. But, simultaneously, that same scale and splash can leave a small crater in your memory.
Much of Ruby’s art is layered in high concepts. It can be deeply referential to his own body of work, which frenetically toggles between ceramics (large and small), hangar-sized paintings, looming fabric sculptures, and other reference points like deep geology, American history, craft, and process. He loathes minimalism, clean art, and the picky Los Angeles art scene. Ask him about his artistic lineage and he’ll tell you about his time assisting Mike Kelley (“We both came from communities that were not particularly cultured.”); his phone calls with Chris Burden before the artist passed away (“We’d talk about the far right or he’d tell me where I could get something cast.”); the sculptor Nancy Rubin (“She hooked me up with her engineer.”). THE
I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE WAYS THAT FLOWERS HAVE BECOME THESE MEMORIALS— ICONS OF THINGS CHANGING AND CEASING.
Ruby has been labeled “the most interesting” American artist of his time by the critic Roberta Smith. He’s also been described as having the “attitude of a grunge rocker with a head full of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.” When he’s describing himself, Ruby opts for a simpler characterization: “I’m manic.”
When I speak with Ruby over Zoom, it’s been four years since I drove away from his work in the desert. While his practice is often industrial-scale, he appears small in the corner of my computer screen. Immediately, we’re discussing fireworks in Los Angeles. “We love them here. It’s terrifying. I’ve been in the city for 20 years now, and every year it gets a little bit heavier,” he tells me, laughing.
He’s calling from his studio in LA’s east side. Ruby’s presence has glitched out my Macbook. The result is a pixelated screen not unlike one of his paintings—smudged and scarred, filled with fiery reds and blacks, maybe inchoate, probably jammed with meaning. These types of artworks regularly sell for six figures in the primary market. (Back in March, Gagosian sold four massive Ruby canvases for $550,000 each.)
Our conversation was centered around a forthcoming gallery show of Ruby’s in Seoul, Korea, at Shinsegae Gallery Cheongdam—his first in the country in over a decade. The exhibition, which runs from September through November, is titled The Flower Cutter Rests on Dust Covered Steps. It’s a kind of mid-career update from Ruby, spanning all of his favorite modes. There are equal parts large-scale painting, palm-sized ceramics, monochrome sculptures, and tranquil drawings. While the show notes describe a “somber sadness” to these new pieces, the whole thing looks like an artist following his nose, diving even further into his obsessions and process. It’s comfortable in all the right ways.
It has been a relatively quiet period for the artist. A smaller moment. Something opposite Ruby’s propulsive rise to the top of the American art scene: His breakout show at Los Angeles’s MOCA in 2008, SUPERMAX; his “Basin Theology” ceramics stealing attention at the Whitney Biennial in 2014; a career retrospective at ICA Miami in 2019; being named guest designer at Pitti Uomo in 2019, where he debuted a collection of acid-washed menswear under the brand name S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA.
Ruby tells me that some of the repose has to do with his age. Ruby’s age, 52, comes up more than a few times during our talk. For so long, Ruby has been a rising artist. Now, he’s in that strange interzone, dreaded by some, embraced by others: the middle period. In this stage, sales usually tamper off. The reviews and press plateau. You become a target, the establishment, a careerist. Ruby himself is just happy to shift into a lower, more sturdy gear.
“As I’m getting older, I want a little bit more downtime. I want a little more nuance. I want a little bit more subtlety,” Ruby tells me. “Mostly, I’m trying to keep myself interested in my own work.”
Until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that a highly-successful artist, both monetarily and critically, could feel anything but elation at their creative vision. Each day an uninterrupted celebration of their creative whims, brought to life by a dedicated team of assistants and expert fabricators. Instead, Ruby tells me about the paranoia of the artistic process.
“I’m constantly thinking to myself, ‘Has this already been seen? How do I make something that hasn’t been seen? How do I change the perception of my own work?’” he says. “That’s probably on me for the most part. I’m thinking about my own work from the perspective of the person who thinks about it the most.”
It’s another turn of thought that unlocks a new chain of ideas in my head. One of these being the upfront and an un-elaborate question that strikes me as perfectly reasonable until the words come out of my mouth.
“Do you like yourself?” I ask Ruby.
“I think it changes,” he responds. “I think that anybody who’s doing anything creative, whether it be writing or something else, you probably wind up having a lot of different feelings about your own work. ‘Oh, it’s not working. This needs to be cleaned up. This needs to be expanded. I’m not happy with this.’ Those things happen to me, too. It could start out very monotonous, like, ‘It doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere.’” After saying this, Ruby stops for a second. “I think one of the things that I really like about being a visual artist is that it’s kind of vulnerable.”
These days Ruby has paired things down. Or appears to have, at least. He’s stepped back from his alternate artistic ego, fashion designer and brand runner. His much celebrated S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA. line—a workwear-themed collection of streetwear constructed in high-intensity fabric washes—has tapered off. He’s paused almost all production, opting instead to drop an occasional small collection or single piece of clothing. “There’s no doubt that it’s almost impossible to run a brand on your own. And that’s really sad. And I feel for people trying to do it on their own without being under the umbrella of a luxury goods brand or a conglomerate,” Ruby says.
I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I REALLY LIKE ABOUT BEING A VISUAL ARTIST
IS THAT IT’S KIND OF VULNERABLE.
Ruby broke with his DIY ethos recently, however, to collaborate with one such corporate behemoth, Vans. He worked with the brand on a high-top skate sneaker, created with the company’s elevated OTW by Vans line that combines elements of four skate classics and comes in the same orange colorways as SPECTER plus a bright neon green. Despite his natural fear of being controlled by corporate partners, Ruby took a chance on the collaboration because, as he puts it mildly, he has a “history with skating.” Starting at age 11, Ruby has described skating as his “everything.” He has skated professionally for small brands, taught at skate camps, and even built his own small-scale skatepark as a teenager in Pennsylvania, where he grew up.
I don’t get the sense that Ruby—once an avid zinemaker and underground concert promoter—is trying to minimize his relationship to skating or punk culture. Or re-make his image as an ascetic middle-aged artist. But it is, let’s say, unexpected to hear him say that these days his mornings are mostly spent in his personal garden. Ruby likes to “flip flowers.” That is, make choice cuts from his garden and then hang the bounty upside down. But he’s also assembled a makeshift grow in the middle of his East Los Angeles warehouse. He’s planted thistles and daisies. Wildflowers. Even a strain of wheat. The cultivation project was an attempt to solve a problem. For weeks, Ruby had been purchasing flowers locally to mold and cast into bronze or aluminum sculptures. “But that’s the problem with flowers,” Ruby tells me, “you kind of have to cast them immediately.”
To gain some time against death and gravity, the artist decided to build his own garden. Ruby and his assistants filled 33 120-gallon animal feeders with fertilized soil and meticulously harvested their crop. His days took on a familiar sequence: Selecting flowers, based on firmness (not aesthetics), cutting them out, rushing the selected batch to a sand-casting facility a three-minute drive away, and making an edit of the molds to cast.
The flowers are a part of a sequence of sculptures that Ruby has designated “FP,” for “Flower Power.” They’re a small part of his upcoming Shinsegae Gallery show. Each of the FP pieces appears to be a fusion of scrap, blocks of wood, rods, and concrete, with one of Ruby’s flowers fused into the debris. They’re painted monochromatic white, with a texture that looks like ash.
Given Ruby’s own habit of making art that looks scalded, by fire, by the elements, by caustic chemicals, by time, the FP sculptures appear serene and untroubled—they look like how it must feel to burst out into a calm meadow after a sprint through a steel forge.
“Everything I had been working on kind of revolved around this garden,” Ruby says. “That led to a lot of cross-pollination between everything. So I started thinking about what are the historical references? What are the narratives to this idea of excavation? I come from an area that was heavily into agriculture. My closest neighbors growing up were, like, three miles away. It was just fields and fields, right?”
He continues: “So, I’m thinking, what do these flowers mean? It’s this narrative of things being propagated, things being cut down, florals. Beauty still lives. Even looking at political photographs from the flower power movement and the Vietnam protests. I was just thinking about the ways that flowers have become these memorials. An icon of things changing and things ceasing.”
Things changing and things ceasing. Deterioration. Ruby the gardener, planting his simple ideas, his massive ideas, seeds of destruction and life, in the sandy valleys of the mind.
It’s not an image of Ruby any of us might have anticipated. It’s far gentler and far weirder than the Gen X, punk sculptor crashing into a gentile art world. We know what to do with the brash and rowdy artist, but softness is a far stranger quantity.
“I think that’s the problem for me,” Ruby concedes. “I don’t want my art to be didactic. I don’t want it to be so easy. I think it should be complicated. I think art should be layered. I think it should be capable of being so open that you can place everything from ideas of beauty and ideas of politics, to ideas of juxtaposition in it.”
Someone’s knocking on Ruby’s door, but he carries on with this line of thought, his ideas unable to be interrupted. Ruby’s in the garden of his mind.
“You never really know when it’s working or not,” Ruby says. “But I think that’s important to me.”
FUTURE NOSTALGIA
THE DESIGNER HAS BUILT HER OWN AESTHETIC UNIVERSE BY BEING HER OWN MUSE. NOW, SHE’S EXTENDING THE SANDY LIANG WORLD THROUGH A COLLABORATION WITH THE CULT-CLASSIC DOLL, MONCHHICHI.
ast year, a TikTok instructing girls how to dress like a Sandy Liang model went viral: “First put on a really, really, tiny top. Then put on a pleated skirt…” Thousands of girls who watched subsequently put on their own Sandy uniform and plaited their hair for the camera.
It’s been ten years since the Queens native and Parsons graduate launched her eponymous brand and permanently altered the downtown fashion landscape. Sandy Liang’s first hero product was a set of super-sized, super-shaggy unisex fleeces with leopard print, floral, and fluorescent details—a reimagining of what a fleece could be that set off a wave of imitators. In the years since, the designer has built her own aesthetic universe and honed in the Sandy Liang “uniform”: recent online trends like girlcore, coquette, and balletcore can be traced back to Sandy Liang through a metaphorical pink satin ribbon. Brand acolytes, like those on TikTok, deem themselves “Sandy Girls” and there’s even a “Uniform” section on the brand’s website, which includes Mary Jane pointe shoes, pleated skorts, and pinafore dresses with a deep scoop neckline.
Part of what makes Sandy Liang beloved by cool girls and celebrities alike is the brand’s implicit encouragement to enjoy girlhood in whatever form that takes. It signifies joy and personal celebration for the things that light up one’s inner sense of youthful exuberance. Even Sandy Liang’s Instagram leans into this ethos. Run by Liang herself, it’s a delightful hodgepodge of lookbooks, casual product shots and mirror selfies, nods to both her friends and fans, and photo dumps from Liang’s personal life. It all adds up to a portrait of a designer who embodies the energy of her own brand and acts as her own muse. In short, Sandy Liang is the ultimate “Sandy Girl.”
By harnessing the transformative possibility of dressing, Liang’s designs invite the feeling that childhood whimsy never has an expiration date. From bags inspired by Sailor Moon, to prints picked from childhood notebook sketches, Liang uses nostalgia as if it were another fabric. Her newest collaboration with Monchhichi—the cult Japanese toy monkey created in the ‘70s— further extends her dedication to keeping things cute, sweet, and stylish by dressing the doll in a classic Sandy Liang uniform.
Liang sat down to explain what makes Monchhichi a natural fit within the “Sandy Girl” ecosystem, her affection for (and own nuanced take on) uniforms, and how she continues to use nostalgia as a tool to create things both familiar and fresh.
I OVE THE IDEA OF IT NO MA TER HAT
I’M DOING
I’M RESSED IN THIS UNIFOR
AND T EREFORE I’M READY
I CAN’T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT THE SANDY LIANG COLLABORATION WITH MONCHHICHI. WHAT DREW YOU, AND YOUR BRAND, TO THE DOLL?
I loved collecting things during my childhood. My little sister always had a Michael Jackson Monchhichi in her room, but that wasn’t what drew me to Monchhichi. At some point, I simply started loving Monchhichi; it’s just so cute. I love that you see Monchhichi in different worlds and outfits, like Barbie.
It’s so sweet because ever since I’ve been vocal about loving Monchhichi, my family and friends all get me Monchhichi dolls to commemorate special moments. My sister gave me a little baby boy Monchhichi before I knew I would have my own baby boy. My husband Dorian got me a Monchhichi that had a baby on it because I was hinting hardcore that it’d be so cute if he got me one when I got pregnant.
HOW DID YOU CHOOSE THE OUTFIT FOR THE MONCHHICHI COLLABORATION?
We went through so many different variations. I looked at my past collections and was like, “What pieces represent me and are not too particular to one collection—a look that’s timeless?” It was a fleece, a pleated skort, our satin Mary Jane pointes, and the flower scrunchie because those are so perennial. They’re just always going to be on brand for us. It’s our little uniform. I’m obsessed with uniforms, so the first Monchhichi collaboration had to be in the Sandy Liang uniform!
TELL ME A BIT ABOUT WHY UNIFORMS, AS A CONCEPT, APPEAL TO YOU. They just feel so clean. Like you’re ready for anything. You don’t have to think about it. When I went to Japan for my honeymoon, I loved seeing all the different school girls in their little cliques after school, walking around in matching uniforms. I just love the idea of a group of girls wearing the same thing, and it doesn’t mean they’re any less individual. In New York, or just in life, you dress according to what you’re gonna do that day. If you’re feeling sloppy, you wear a hoodie, right? If you are going out and want to feel good, you wear that dress. I think the Sandy Liang uniform connects to my aspiration of “you should be able to do anything in the dress.” And I love that aspirational fantasy because it’s not true, right? Because we always succumb to our comfort. Nevertheless, I love the idea of it: No matter what I’m doing, I’m dressed in this uniform, and therefore, I’m ready.
WHAT OTHER DOLLS DID YOU COLLECT GROWING UP AND WHERE DID YOU GET THEM FROM?
My dolls were Barbies. I got them from Toys“R”Us. I didn’t have a lot, but there were three in rotation. I would make my best friend come over and we’d make houses for them out of crap from around my room, then I’d make them outfits with Kleenex or scrap fabrics that my grandma gave me. That, along with drawing, made me fascinated with the idea of dressing a person.
WAS IT THE TOYS“R”US IN TIMES SQUARE?
Oh, my God, no. I wish I was that cool. I was a Queens girl, not a city girl yet.
DID YOU ALWAYS HAVE DESIGN IN THE BACK OF YOUR MIND?
I’m so bad at math, but I love to draw. My dad was like, “You should be an architect.” So I went to RISD thinking I’d do architecture, but at least I’d also be exposed to everything else I loved. My actual childhood dream was to be a fashion designer, but I didn’t think it was possible. I think being so depressed during that first semester at RISD finally pushed me to loop back to New York and apply to Parsons. I planned to intern the entire time I was at Parsons because I knew I wanted to start a brand and be a fashion designer. I was so impatient and couldn’t wait to do it. It was naive to think that, because it’s not that easy. But I was just determined to finally do what I had my heart set on. I would even write motivational things to myself in my journal.
DO YOU EVER LOOK BACK ON YOUR JOURNALS?
I have an on-and-off relationship with my diary, but I tried to journal every day during my pregnancy, as well as during this new time of my life with a baby. Today, it’s less about motivating myself and more about reminding myself of who I want to be and how to make myself happier.
I G T TO BRIN THE N STALGIA BA K TO MY
CURREN
LIFE IN A PO ITIVE WAY
DO YOU FEEL YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO DOLLS HAS CHANGED NOW THAT YOU HAVE A CHILD?
This question is so important because my whole thing is that when you’re a kid, you’re so naive and the world is just dreamy. And I work very hard, in a very adult way, to try and never let go of that. As I get older and more real adult life things happen, like having a baby, I think part of me does shed that sensibility a little bit. That’s also why I chose this career, though. I get to spend so much time reliving the past, but not in a sad way. I get to bring the nostalgia back to my current life in a positive way.
THE WAY YOU USE NOSTALGIA FEELS ALMOST LIKE A FABRIC, LIKE IT’S THIS THING YOU CAN SHAPE AND MOLD. WITH YOUR SON, THE THINGS YOU DO NOW WILL BECOME HIS FUTURE NOSTALGIA. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT?
I do. I was texting with an employee about planning the store’s Monchhichi display, and she said, “Isn’t it so cool that your son’s first Monchhichi will be his mom’s collab?” It is so cool! I’m really excited for him to experience all the silliness, happiness, and wonder of childhood. I love the term future nostalgia, and yes, I’m very aware that it’s the name of a Dua Lipa album [laughs].
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT DESIGN SENSIBILITY?
Sandy Liang has been operating for ten years now, so I feel like I can look at my past collections and reference myself, which is really, really interesting. When I started the brand, I was just like, “I can do whatever.” You don’t know what costs are like. You don’t know what margins are like. Your whole thing is just setting up the brand, and then, as you get a little bit older, you learn more. Maybe, at some point, I was almost too focused on sales because it’s tough to have your own company and run a brand. Things get so competitive. But I am really proud of each thing I put out. That goes back to just working with the right people. You can never do any of this alone. I feel really happy with my team.
WE’LL SEE THE NEW COLLECTION SOON, BUT IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO SHARE ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING RUNWAY SHOW?
You would think that, at some point, I can’t reference the past anymore, but I found a new way to do it. It’s one specific show, and it is still about uniforms, but in a different way this season. I’m generally just excited. Spring/Summer is always the sexier, fun-girl vibe. I think you’ll see a sneak peek soon enough.
WHAT’S YOUR CURRENT UNIFORM?
It’s the Monchhichi uniform!
MANIA
DEATHMATCH
WORDS BY REILLY DAVIDSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICK KARP FOR “VISITORS”
The wrestling arena is mired in performance, its players enacting their violent choreography as fans clamor on. This brutality is a culmination of expert throws and grappling-type techniques somewhere between traditional and contemporary styles, from Greco-Roman and Sumo to folkstyle.
In a world of superfluous images, Nick Karp doubles down on the idiosyncrasies of capturing the moment in VISITORS, a photobook published and edited by Adam Abdalla
in 2024. It is through specificity that the photographer’s role is negotiated: the exact angle from which a scene is captured becomes its own subject. Karp’s camera is the facilitator of this information. Bearing witness to the thing comes first—the decision to document following shortly thereafter. The will to photograph is the first step, though, and, as such, Karp leverages his camera to illuminate the subversive world of professional wrestling. Susan Sontag’s essay “In Plato’s Cave” confirms this: “Photographs really are experiences captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood.”
The artist thus steps back in service of a documentarian approach to the subject. Karp, tasked with recording the action at Game Changer Wrestling in Tokyo—a three-day fête that saw wrestlers and referees from the United States and Mexico brought to Japan, many for the first time—captured the event with marked agility, photographing performers both on the stage and off.
Sontag’s take on photography can be understood under the conditions that “picturetaking is an event in itself.” The image author thus assumes a role that is elevated from mere voyeur, as decision-making and experience framing are necessary factors. The writer further contends that “photographs furnish evidence,” and following any event, “the picture will still exist, conferring on the event a kind of immortality (and importance) it would never otherwise have enjoyed.”
Karp’s orientation of the medium marries pictorialism with preservative technology, counterbalancing scenes of mayhem and repose. Faithful to the subject’s tumultuous and spectacular nature, the images on view deliver an exclusive window into wrestling mania.
WRESTLERS:
KIKUTARO, VIOLENTO JACK, EFFY AND ALLIE KATCH, MAKI ITOH, BLAKE CHRISTIAN, JORDAN OLIVER
(LEFT) FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
VINTAGE, ALL CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR: LORO PIANA,
COURTESY OF HUGO HAPPY ROBINS JUMPER: LOEWE, SHORTS: GUESS, HAT AND SCARF: MARTINE ROSE, BOOTS: JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN, CROSS BODY BAG: KIKO KOSTADINOV, TOTE BAG: LOEWE, RINGS: QUESIAN (RIGHT) FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
LOOK: PRADA TIE: HUGO BOSS, SHIRT: ARKET, GLASSES: PERSOL, TROUSERS: LORO PIANA, SHOES: LORO PIANA, BAG: VERSACE, BELT: TRES BIEN, COAT: JOHNSON OF ELGIN
(LEFT) FOOTBALL TOP (UNDERNEATH): MARTINE ROSE, LEATHER HOODIE: LOEWE,
JEANS: PALACE, GLASSES: RAY BAN, WATCH: COURTESY OF HUGO HAPPY ROBINS, CAP: PASSION, TRAINERS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: ON X LOEWE, NIKE X JACQUEMUS, DIOR, PRADA
COURTESY OF 100 PER CERTI, HELLO KITTY X NIKE)
(CENTER) VEST: AV VATTEV, TOP: KIKO KOSTADINOV, HOODIE (UNDERNEATH): STEFAN
COOKE, BAG AND GLOVES: VINTAGE, JEANS: GUESS, SHOES: CLARKS X MARTINE ROSE (RIGHT) TROUSERS, CARDIGAN, BOOTS ONE PIECE: LOEWE, ZIP UP: CARHARTT, CAP: GUESS, POLO NECK: KENZO, GLOVE: RED WING, BELT BAG: CARHARTT, BOTTLE: NIKE
(LEFT) TIE: HUGO BOSS, SHIRT: ARKET, GLASSES: PERSOL, TROUSERS: LORO PIANA, SHOES: LORO PIANA, BAG: VERSACE, BELT: TRES BIEN, COAT: JOHNSON OF ELGIN (RIGHT) VEST: AV VATTEV, TOP: KIKO KOSTADINOV, HOODIE (UNDERNEATH): STEFAN COOKE
Gou Peggy Acting on Instinct
The globally-renowned DJ and musician ascended to superstardom by trusting her gut and carving her own inimitable path.
WORDS BY COURTNEY KENEFICK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY HONG JANG HYUN
It’s nearly impossible to quantify Peggy Gou’s success—at least by her own standards. For the DJ, producer, and artist, a good day at her job is not defined by ticket sales, although she turned out a crowd of 30,000 for a show at the Lowland’s Festival earlier this year. Nor is it measured in streams, of which her discography boasts billions. To Gou, success is marked by something immeasurable: establishing a palpable connection to her audience. “If the crowd’s energy and my energy match, that’s success for me,” she says.
Gou’s numbers speak for themselves, but they’re even more impressive considering that she’s a woman of Asian descent in a white male-dominated industry. The South Koreaborn artist has paved a new path for female DJs to reach and exceed the heights of their male peers, as evinced by a slew of firsts credited to her. This year, she was the first female DJ to headline the Park Stage at Glastonbury. Her set at Coachella was so popular that the crowd spilled over from the newly expanded Sahara Tent, which typically houses electronic and dance acts. And earlier in her career, she became the first Korean woman to headline at the iconic Berlin ni . a crowd of 30,000 flocked to her set at the Lowlands Festival earlier this year. Nor is it measured in streams, of which her discography boasts billions. To Gou, success is marked by something immeasurable: they’re even more impressive considering that to reach (and exceed) the heights of spilled over from newly-expanded and dance acts. She also became the first Korean woman to headline at the iconic Berlin nightclub Berghain.
Gou’s triumphs can be attributed to exactly what sets her apart from her male counterparts: her female intuition. Being acutely attuned to what other people are feeling makes her a bonafide selector and vibe curator. “O ther people’s energy affects me a lot,” she says. “It’s a blessing and curse, but I feel like that’s one of the reasons why I’m good at what I’m doing.” Another superpower of hers is making big decisions by acknowledging small but powerful signs. “I believe that whenever your body sends you signals, you have to listen,” she adds. “I consider goosebumps and butterflies to be natural instincts.”
Equipped with this keen sense of awareness, she has proven to be a creative force that refuses to be defined by any one thing. Gou is just as much a businesswoman as she is a musician. She’s self-managed—a surprising fact considering her globally-recognized name and timezone-hopping schedule that would make the average person’s head spin—and is the founder and leader of her own record label, Gudu Records.
Gou’s status in fashion is also undeniable, and she makes the majority of her sartorial decisions on her own. “A lot of people think that I have a stylist, but for all my shows, I’m styling myself,” she explains. It’s a skill she carried over from working in the industry as a contributing editor at Harper’s Bazaar Korea before following her passion into music by learning to DJ in 2009. 15 years later, she now graces the covers of glossies the world over.
Remaining unwavering in her vision since the early days of her music career has led Gou into her most pivotal year yet. Prior to the June release of her debut album, I Hear You, she was already a marquee name for anybody remotely tapped into the electronic dance music scene. But the album catapulted her into a new echelon: she landed on the Billboard charts for the first time; turned her album’s first single, “(It Goes Like) Nanana,” into a viral TikTok hit (ironically, she doesn’t use the platform herself); and earned a nomination for International Song of the Year at the Brit Awards. 2024 solidified what Gou instinctively knew all along: she’s a capital-A Artist—a modern superstar who can, and does, do it all.
CARDIGAN, TOP, SHORTS: GUCCI
SOCKS: NIKE
SHOES: BOTTEGA VENETA
JEWELRY: BVLGARI
I
was waiting for this moment for a long time.
TOP: LU’U DAN
SWEATPANTS: JEAN PAUL GAULTIER
SHOES: VERSACE
JEWELRY: BVLGARI
After being in the music industry for so many years, what made 2024 the right time to release your debut album, I Hear You?
I personally wanted to do the album for a long time, but it just never felt like it was ready. My mentors said to me, “When it’s ready, you will know it’s ready—so don’t rush.” That’s why it took almost four or five years for me to finish—I’m quite a perfectionist. And, as a musician, I think having an album is a very big achievement. I was waiting for this moment.
Did your experience as a DJ factor into the recording process?
I’m able to read the crowd and see the crowd’s reaction. I felt like I understood what crowds want to hear on the dance floor, even though my album wasn’t focusing on just dance floor music. I’m a very sensitive person, so I read people’s energies and I react.
The album was uncharted territory for you in many ways. What was the biggest thing you learned while making it?
Working with another artist on a feature spot was not the easiest part. It actually took longer than I expected. I have great artists on my album, but it took a really long time for me to find the right ones.
Lenny Kravitz appears on the song “I Believe in Love Again,” which felt like an unexpected collaboration—but one that worked beautifully. How did that partnership come about?
I was introduced to Lenny at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner in Miami. Lenny had absolutely no idea what I do. But I was able to share some music with him, and after a few months he got in touch with me. I said to him, “There’s one song that I’m trying to finish on the album. Would you be interested?” And he listened to it and wanted to add a different DNA to it. He sang in a very different way—it’s not classic Lenny—which I thought was very interesting. It was very inspiring to work with him because he doesn’t miss any little details. He also respected me in a way that was like, “This is yours.” He didn’t push anything. It just felt good working together with mutual respect.
“Lobster Telephone,” one of the album’s singles, is a reference to the Salvador Dalí sculpture of the same name. How did that come about?
I’m a big fan of Salvador Dalí. I feel like he’s one of those artists who was an alien that came to Earth to save us. In London, I saw his work and noticed the title “Lobster Telephone.” Whenever I see a really interesting or cool artwork title, I always write it down. I sing in Korean on that song, but no one in Korea will understand what I’m saying due to the nonsensical lyrics. I felt like it matched Dalí’s surrealism. A lot of people still ask me, “What are these lyrics?” The fact that you don’t understand them is intentional.
The music video is great, too. There’s a sense of humor and cheekiness to your videos.
Humor is everything. I believe I’m quite a funny person and I like making people laugh. As a human being, you get attracted to people who make you laugh. In Korea, we say, “When a man makes a woman smile, she’s all yours.” But we are in 2024— when a woman makes a man smile, he’s also yours, so that goes vice versa.
How do you approach your music videos?
It’s very simple. If people remember one scene from your video, then it’s a success. You don’t need to put so many messages out there. Just one message, one simple scene. With “Lobster Telephone,” I want people to just smile and laugh. With “(It Goes Like) Nanana,” I want people to think about peak summertime. That’s it.
Can you tell me a little bit about working with the artist Olafur Eliasson on the “1+1=11” video?
It was one of the best things that happened to me in 2024. He directed the whole thing. I usually never like to give my control to anyone. But because it’s Olafur, I gave it to him and he smashed it.
Between the Dalí reference in “Lobster Telephone” and working with Eliasson on the “1+1=11” video, it seems that you have a really good sense of the art world. What role does art play in your life, personally and professionally?
The two things that I do whenever I travel are find the best place to eat and find the greatest museum. If I wasn’t doing music, I think I would be in the art business.
Another very interesting thing that came out of 2024: Your performance from Way Out West is being used as part of IVF treatment in Sweden, where they’re hoping it will help improve fertilization rates.
I know, I thought it was a scam at first! In Korea, it’s believed that the music you listen to while pregnant is really important for the baby. Usually, that’s Beethoven, Mozart, and the classical music greats, but now I guess DJs are the thing.
That probably wasn’t on anybody’s 2024 bingo card! Shifting gears, fashion has played a huge role in your life and career. You worked in fashion media and once said you planned on becoming a stylist, but soon realized that you only like styling yourself. What is your process for dressing and styling now? It really depends on which city I go to, what time I play, and where I play. Obviously, my style has calmed down a little bit. Maybe it’s an age thing. I used to only wear patterns and crazy masculine looks, but these days it’s a little bit different. I go to so many different places in such a short time that I always travel with four seasons in my bag.
Do you still style yourself for your live shows and DJ sets?
100%. I work with stylists when it’s a magazine shoot or fashion campaign because I don’t have time to pull the looks together. But for my own shows, I always just wear my own clothes.
How do you approach choosing your jewelry?
Jewelry-wise, I like to pick things that go with every outfit. The piece I’m wearing right now is a Bvlgari ring. Whatever I wear, the ring just works with it. It can be easily combined with other jewelry, too, or worn alone.
For our photoshoot, you wore the Bvlgari Tubogas collection. What did you notice about those pieces? The design itself is so timeless yet contemporary. It stands out. That kind of jewelry will have a certain effect, depending on what else you wear. If I styled it with a sporty look, it might have a more casual appeal. But if I wore a formal dress, the Tubogas designs would feel very refined and elegant.
You have described I Hear You as “a testament to the power of listening to ourselves and to each other.” How did you learn to listen to yourself?
Since I was a kid, my motto wasn’t “Do what you want.” It was more like, “Don’t do what you don’t want.” I feel like I often only learn that by doing things. I try many things, but sometimes they don’t click at first. So I’ll talk to myself and attempt to see myself from a different perspective. Even when I finish a DJ set, I will look at myself from the outside and assess what I could’ve done better or what I did well.
You’ve clearly had a whirlwind year. Any moments that stand out?
Whenever I get to hear my music playing out in the world, ideally in a place I have a personal connection to, that’s a special moment for me. It doesn’t have to be a spectacle. I’ve learned that you can find special things in a simple moment.
TOP: S/E/O
JEWELRY: BVLGARI
SOCKS: NIKE
SNEAKERS: NOCTA X NIKE AIR ZOOM DRIVE
EXCLUSIVE JEWELRY STYLING COURTESY OF BVLGARI
RITUAL ISTIC Chapter 4
RITUAL ISTIC
M.I.A.’S FOIL HATS
TIN
THE EVER-SUBVERSIVE ARTIST IS BACK WITH OHMNI, A CLOTHING LINE WHICH LEVERAGES TECHNOLOGY TO HELP WEARERS DISCONNECT IN AN OVERSATURATED, EXPLOITIVE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE.
“There are moments where you have to disappear, but then you come back with power… like a catapult,” says M.I.A. with a knowing grin. Though she might not literally be an early Roman weapon of war, the 49-year-old British-Sri Lankan artist (born Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) has chosen a metaphor that perfectly encapsulates her unique ability to perpetually launch herself back into the public eye.
With OHMNI, her latest brainchild, M.I.A. seamlessly merges technology, fashion, and cultural identity in a way only she can. OHMNI is not just another celebrity-backed fashion line; it’s a statement, a fashion-forward vision where technological awareness and innovation collide. M.I.A. is doing more than designing clothes—each piece of the collection is part of a larger narrative that speaks to tech’s global influence, bespoke creative rebellion, and aesthetic challenges to the status quo. Most importantly, OHMNI is not just “high tech fashion,” it takes another direction altogether, leveraging its own tech to help wearers disconnect. Whether it’s a stylish full-body poncho made of chrome-effect copper that deflects electromagnetic waves, or a data protection shoulder bag with a built-in pouch to detach you from all cellular data, the entire line is an antidote to an oversaturated, exploitive digital landscape.
Of course, M.I.A. is no stranger to challenging convention. Over the last two decades, she’s released numerous chart-rattling albums unparalleled in their singular approach and stunning global soundscapes. She’s also used her platform to gleefully explore well beyond the edges of what establishment powers might deem acceptable. Look no further than her public alliances with—and, sometimes, subsequent separations from— luminaries including Madonna, Jay-Z, Julian Assange, Jimmy Iovine, and Ben Bronfman. Accordingly, this pattern has also made the occasional disappearing act a necessary part of M.I.A.’s cultural assault.
What matters now, however, is that M.I.A. is back, on her own terms and with her own vision. And with OHMNI, the artist is leveraging innovative fabrics that claim to protect the wearer from EMF, 5G, WiFi, and other widely-deployed technologies that many, including M.I.A., feel are worthy of greater scrutiny for their health and security implications. Don’t have your own tin foil hat? Fear not—OHMNI has your back with a sleek silver bucket hat, ready to shield you from even the most sinister radio waves. Clad in her OHMNI armor, M.I.A. spoke on how best to embrace a future of unknowns—with creativity, boldness, and a 99% pure silver shield in hand.
TECHNOLOGY
The evolution of tech is always faster than how the public catches up. So when you say something about tech, it’s not like you’re going to make it go away. We’re already used to it, and the public gets used to things very quickly. There are always positives and negatives. I always knew the value of tech, but to live parallel, we must also think about how we can cope and co-evolve with tech. That’s what it’s all about.
PERCEPTION
I’ve been called everything over the last 20 years, so joining the conspiracy theory parade was inevitable. It’s about destroying ignorance. If somebody calls you something, puts you in a box, and you can break out, that helps. It helps you to learn, but it also allows them to learn, and you become a vessel for teaching people something, which is a valuable thing.
DATA
OHMNI is about the concept and ownership of privacy, that you can fight back if you don’t want invasive data mining happening without your knowledge. You have a choice if you want your brain signals to be measured or not. I think that’s a psychological relief, as well as a physical comfort.
EVERYTHING IS A BATTLE ... SOMEONE JUST NEEDED TO MAKE ARMOR. THE
SPIRITUALITY
My journey’s been coming out first as an artist, saying “Look, I’m a citizen of the world and my religion is to do good.” Then, I went into talking about Islamophobia. And then, I embraced Hinduism because I learned what my name meant. Then, I had the vision of Jesus. That was really a lesson for me. I got baptized, so I’m born again, but it’s not quite in a stereotypical way because that’s how I am as an artist. I take in information differently. Coming from war, being a refugee, and having the life that I’ve had, and then to understand my faith as it is now, I have to say I’m at peace because of that.
SURVEILLANCE
The OHMNI outfit I’m wearing is made of Faraday fabric. It cuts out all your cell phone and Wi-Fi signals, and gets you off the grid. Most people use it to coat their houses because it blocks out Wi-Fi, but it’s different from pure silver. Faraday has to have a combination of metals to achieve that goal, whereas pure silver just blocks EMF. Faraday is a stronger material because it has copper in it, too.
FASHION
I think about what I need and what my son needs. Since he’s 15, he’s heavily influenced by fashion and he loves it. I wanted to connect to all of these things that were happening in my life. It was like, “How am I going to make something cool that he’s going to like? How am I going to make something that I need that also helps him and his generation—while still doing something that’s true to M.I.A.?”
SECURITY
To exist is a battle. To live is a battle, to love is a battle, to be happy is a battle. If you weren’t supposed to go through that, you’d be dead. So, everything is a battle—someone just needed to make the armor.
Rocky n’ Roll
BY COLLABORATING WITH FASHION AND ART LUMINARIES, ROCKY’S MATCHA HAS ELEVATED ITSELF FROM A SIMPLE TEA BRAND TO FULL-ON LIFESTYLE OPERATION.
“We want to put our twist on how matcha is consumed,” says Rocky Xu, founder of Rocky’s Matcha. “Not just the tea, but the brand around it.”
In the two years since founding his eponymous beverage label, Rocky has done just that: elevated the act of sipping a bright-green beverage into a modern lifestyle company—one that respects the deep-rooted traditions of tea, while simultaneously attracting first-time matcha drinkers with an eye for style and craftsmanship.
Matcha may be on the menu at every third wave coffee shop (and even Starbucks), but Rocky’s Matcha embraces traditional, centuries-old brewing methodologies—a dedication to artisanship, from the plant cultivation stage all the way through the ultimate pour. This translates to Rocky’s approach to brand strategy, one marked by intention, vigorous standards, and a zeal for aesthetics that even make the paper cups worth collecting.
“We want to share high-quality matcha with the world through the lens of art, design, architecture, fashion, and our culture,” he notes. To do so, the founder has employed a discerning sense of curation when it comes to picking collaborators for his myriad pop-ups, merch releases, and activations. After all, Rocky’s started as a roving “tea house” series without a brick-and-mortar space. By tapping in with his network of creative luminaries, the founder expanded the company’s scope from one-off events at places like Paulo’s Central Flea in LA to “strategic cafe and restaurant partnerships, as well as lifestyle and fashion collaborations—many of which happen organically. It just started to snowball.”
That momentum has led Rocky’s Matcha to release merch or tea products with the likes of OTTO 958, Tom Sachs, Studio Nia Chawan, Echo Park Pottery, and Awake NY—the latter of which hosts Rocky’s only permanent outpost within its LES flagship store. “We’re sharing our love for matcha and art by working with friends and people we admire. What else could we ask for?”
Still, Rocky is aware that every collaboration needs to be as thoughtful as his approach to brewing tea. “When it comes to merch, we always try to remember that the world doesn’t need more of it. So when we do make it, we make sure that it has a purpose.” An example of that commitment to purity includes the brand’s custom blue-and-green thread whisk collaboration with Takayama Shin Kazuho, one of roughly a dozen families who still make traditional bamboo whisks in Japan. “Every partner is special in their own right and marks a moment in time for us as a company,” he adds.
On top of carefully selecting creative partners, Rocky’s Matcha wants to spur education around the drink and how to prepare it. “Most matcha drinkers probably don’t realize that there’s a whole world to tea similar to that of coffee and wine. There’s so many levels to this, and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface.”
Below, Rocky details a number of his brand’s most memorable collaborations, with some thoughts about what made them as satisfying as that first sip of tea in the morning.
STUDIO NIA CHAWAN CERAMIC
“We’ve been working with Daniella Aramnia and Studio Nia since almost the beginning of Rocky’s Matcha, and it’s been wonderful to grow our two brands together. Everyone loves her ceramics!”
ROCKY’S MATCHA CEREMONIAL BLEND TEA
“This is our best-selling matcha product, and we’re so happy that everyone likes it!”
AWAKE NY MERCH COLLABORATION
“We love working with Angelo Baque, Hugo Mendoza, and their amazing team. We’ve been fortunate enough to do some ‘matcha takeovers’ at the store on a couple of Saturdays over the past year or so.”
“A true honor to work with Tom and his team. It was really special to be able to commemorate the occasion with a t-shirt designed by Tom.”
TOM SACHS MERCH
ECHO PARK POTTERY CERAMIC
“We got to work with living legend Peter Shire!”
SUIKAEN WHISK HOLDER
“I visited SUIKAEN in Nara, Japan earlier this year and it’s such an amazing and special place. I’m so happy that we can use Rocky’s Matcha as a platform to highlight Japanese artisans.”
“There are only maybe 10-12 families that still make bamboo whisks in Japan, and we’re so grateful that Takayama Shin created a custom blue and green thread whisk just for us.”
TAKAYAMA SHIN KAZUHO WHISK
OTTO 958 OISHI
“We traveled to Fukuoka in December 2023 and met with the producer, Oishi Tea. It’s an honor to be able to bring their award-winning Oishi matcha to the rest of the world.”
958 MERCH
“This collaboration was special, not just because OTTO 958 is such an amazing brand, but also because we launched it during the Felix Art Fair and sold it at Dover Street Market Los Angeles.”
OTTO
HELLCAT EYEWEAR
WORDS BY ZACH SOKOL
NSO EVIL
Hannah Ladewig, the founder of Hellcat Eyewear, says her brand “embodies the unexplored possibilities of eyewear,” and the designer is hellbent on pushing the limits of what even constitutes a pair of frames.
In the Hellcat universe, sunglasses might be adorned with resin fangs that appear as if they’re swallowing the lenses. They may feature a zipper, so wearers can obstruct their vision and literally see no evil. Some Hellcat designs have frames with piercings, or temples that seamlessly connect into a veil. One release even has lenses that extrude from a leather belt that buckles around the back of the head.
In other words, Ladewig makes wearable, UV-blocking art objects; not the type of product one would encounter at a Warby Parker or Sunglass Hut. “I want to use every material, fabric, closure, or hardware that can possibly be put onto a pair of glasses,” she explains.
Ladewig honed her design chops while studying at Parsons School of Design, though she was someone who always experimented with personal style. Growing up, she’d customize her own clothes by adding straps or studs, as well as hand painting gothic-style symbols on top of the fabric. Once, while tagging a pair of shoes, she scribbled “Hell” and “Cat” on the toes and inspiration struck.
Still, Ladewig is quick to add that the brand became a full-time project “by accident… one quick post on TikTok is sometimes all it takes!” After posting her first video of an eyewear prototype, commenters immediately started asking if they could buy pairs for themselves. “It was crazy to me… people want to give me money for something I designed? Wild!” Hellcat Eyewear officially launched in 2021.
Today, Hellcat has nearly half a million followers on TikTok, with millions of likes to boot. Ladewig regularly posts content highlighting the behind-the-scenes processes of each design, from reference images and sketches, to videos of her 3D-printing various prototypes. As her online following has grown, so has the profile of her customers. In the past few years, she’s made custom designs for the likes of J Balvin, Travis Scott, Ciara, and Erykah Badu. Icons and superstars are a natural fit, as Ladewig says her design ethos orbits around “the spirit of confidence and not being afraid to be the center of attention.”
“I’ve always thought that eyewear is a very unexplored area of fashion, in terms of creative design,” she says. In an effort to inject the form with an avant-garde flair, Ladewig has dedicated her practice to “altering the classic shapes of sunglasses to have a little unique element, whether it be a weird material, a shattered frame, or big spikes reaching outwards.”
Hellcat exists in its own lane, and future designs are near guaranteed to make onlookers do a double-take. “I love making pieces that are a little bit intimidating and, dare I say, eye-catching,” she says. Below, Ladewig details the inspiration behind some of her premier creations, as well as suggests the ideal environment for each optical freakout.
IMAGES COURTESY OF HELLCAT EYEWEAR
Cloudburst
“THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS TO EVOKE RAYS OF LIGHT. THE FIRST ITERATION WAS GOLD AND SUNBEAM-INSPIRED. THIS IS THE NIGHTTIME VERSION. IT SHOULD BE WORN DURING A PERFORMANCE WHILE CAMERAS ARE SNAPPING.”
Leather Bandana
“I COLLABORATED WITH MY OLD BOSS, ISAAC SAQIB, AND HIS BRAND, MERCY X MANKIND. WE TOOK INSPIRATION FROM HOW CARTEL AFFILIATES AND DRUG TRAFFICKERS APPEAR WHILE TALKING TO JOURNALISTS. THEY ALWAYS HAVE POLARIZED GLASSES AND A BANDANA COVERING THEIR MOUTH, SO WE TOOK THAT AND ADDED LEATHER TO ELEVATE IT.”
Double Belted
“THIS ONE WAS INSPIRED BY RICK OWENS. I COULD SEE A SUPERVILLAIN WEARING THIS PAIR. I ADDED THE FRINGE ON THE EDGES FOR MORE TEXTURE AND SPENT HOURS PICKING OUT ALL THE THREADS FROM THE DENIM.”
Fang
“WEAR THESE WHILE WALKING OUTSIDE IF YOU DON’T WANT MEN TO CATCALL YOU. I TATTOOED A SET OF FANGS ON MY HANDS, THEN I THOUGHT THEY WOULD LOOK SICK AS GLASSES. THEY REMIND ME OF A CREATURE’S TEETH.”
Zipper
“USE THESE WHEN IT’S TIME FOR THE CONVERSATION TO END. SIMPLY ZIP THEM CLOSED.”
Wrap
“THESE GLASSES DOUBLE AS A SCARF. I MADE THEM FOR MY THESIS COLLECTION DURING MY FINAL YEAR AT PARSONS. I COULD SEE A CLASSY WOMAN WITH A BIG STYLISH HAT WEARING THEM.”
100 PER CERTI 100percerti.co.uk
ARKET arket.com
ARNODEFRANCE arnodefrance.com
AV VATTEV avvattev.com
BALENCIAGA balenciaga.com
BLK DNM blkdnm.com
BOTTEGA VENETA bottegaveneta.com
BURBERRY us.burberry.com
BVLGARI bulgari.com
CARHARTT carhartt.com
CHANEL chanel.com
CHILDREN OF THE DISCORDANCE discordance.stores.jp
CRAIG GREEN craig-green.com
DIOR dior.com
DISTRICT VISION districtvision.com
GENTLE MONSTER gentlemonster.com
GOLDWIN goldwin-global.com
GLASHUETTE glashuette-original.com
GR10K gr10k.com
GUCCI gucci.com
GUDU RECORDS peggygou.com/gudu-records
GUESS guess.com
HELLCAT EYEWEAR hellcateyewear.com
HUGO BOSS hugoboss.com
ISSEY MIYAKE us-store.isseymiyake.com
JACKSON T. OWENS jacksondesign.co
JACQUEMUS jacquemus.com
JEAN PAUL GAULTIER jeanpaulgaultier.com
JIMMY CHOO us.jimmychoo.com
JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN online.john-lawrence-sullivan.com
