Wizard Damian Lazarus’ Peace, Love, Unity, and Rescued Cats
Damian Lazarus, the wizard of Crosstown Rebels, the filthiest underground electronic label in the world, offers up a stinky brie and a glass of wine to the sun’s setting over a particularly particulate, fuzzy Los Angeles. When he is home, which is rare, here on a spiny crest of upper Echo Park, Lazarus likes to curl up beside friends, have a swim, and yes, a snack. It’s majestic. It’s serene.
But working with the Rebels isn’t exactly wine and cheese. You see, you and your editorial cohorts determine it a brilliant idea for them to take their own photos for the feature you’re about to enjoy. What creativity! So, you send a Fuji Instax camera to Amsterdam, where...
Most days it’s positively impossible to get to anywhere, let alone to work on time. “What’s eating away the minutes, paisano?” your boss asks, arms folded, while putting you on a cautionary probation. Lost minutes in front of the mirror, moving hair part from left to right to middle? Alleged phone calls to Russia? The inability to dodge rush hour traffic? Espresso spills? Early morning boudin blanc vs. noir sausage debates? Full disclosure: we’re actually picking through ten years worth of Yohji Yamomoto x adidas sneakers!
This year, the Japanese visionary, Yohji, has another thing to celebrate besides his recently opened V&A Museum retrospective. It’s also the 10-year anniversary of when Yohji and...
A Brief Reassessment of Products
from Behind the Iron Curtain
Author Michael Idov has amassed the amusing creations from his childhood in Soviet Russia, culminating in this book, Made In Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design (Rizzoli). The book is a collection of delighted insights, personal essays from leading Russian writers such as Gary Shteyngart, and quirky images curated by Idov, who was 15 when the curtain fell.
A bit of history: traditional capitalistic values didn’t appeal to Russia, so in 1922, they became Communist, and formed the USSR. Flash forward to 1959. An American convoy heads to the USSR, overzealously packing everything they could think of, mostly because they didn’t know what to expect from a Moscow...
You Got the Spirit, Don’t Lose the Feeling
Jennifer Herrema stumbles up a laurel canyon side road wearing a poncho and stacks, her RTX bandmate Kurt Midness (bass) strolls behind her carrying a sixer. Herrema’s husky, long-time Californian drawl bleats out, “Perfect timing!” She grins. It’s an hour after we were supposed to meet up, but both of us have arrived at the same time: Laurel Canyon Standard Time. Up in artists Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman’s abode, we sit down for a roundtable discussion.
I call her the last American rock ‘n’ roll frontwoman. “Frontperson,” she says, her eyes locked onto mine, or so I think they are. She’s got shades on perpetually. She pops open some “7-11 wine” and...
Making libraries more stylish
one spine at a time
Thatcher Wine is a liar. and why shouldn’t he be? after all, as Stephen Fry, the British comedian, wrote in his 1991 novel, The Liar: “An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library should be full of them.” Ergo, why not swath the library, so full of original ideas, in one giant, pathological, aesthetic concept? Wine, who works from Boulder, Colorado, builds to suit classic dust jackets which belie the J.D. Salingers and Mark Twains so well known to thinking young adults as one-off stylish imprints. How did he become the proprietor of Juniper Books, the world’s preeminent bookshelf spiffer-upper? Well, settle into that custom leather chair, pour yourself a cognac, bookmark that...
Besides exporting common law and the modern police task force (not a positive if you work at Flaunt), and introducing spinning jennys, power looms, and the first synthetic dye to the world, Britain’s trademark might also be its experimental youth culture. And right now, the excitement surrounding British fashion surpasses every place else. Here are three of the best who are re-envisioning what fashion and clothing can be in this modern age: rooted in craft and out to have fun!
Michael van der Ham, 26. The Dutch, Central Saint Martins alum’s creations are elegant, bold, and positively delightful in their juxtaposition of different fabrics, theories, time, and shapes.
What does it mean for you to be a young London designer, even...
