THE SPRING ISSUE
Posts Tagged ‘hand signals’
Zach Condon
Zach Condon’s voice is as sure as a sunset. The 23-year-old songwriter and singer of Beirut has a delivery as refined as Serge Gainsbourg, and a croon reminiscent of Yves Montand. But while he is still young by music industry standards, his rise to the spotlight did not happen overnight.
Scott Sternberg
Scott Sternberg navigates outside design, where dialogue plays freely and clothes take life. Scott Sternberg premiered Band of Outsiders for fw 04 starting as a humble collection of slim ties and button-downs out of la. A Hollywood agent-turned-designer without formal training, Sternberg took slimmed-out proportions to a full collection of ready-to-wear with suiting, trousers, knits […]
Michael Bastian
Timeless Resonance — Michael Bastian clothes the contemporary man in American classics Examining the world of fashion around him on his way up the industry ladder from Lyons, New York to a menswear directorship at Bergdorf Goodman, Michael Bastian grew distraught with the scarcity of relevant American designers amidst scores of European and Asian innovators. So he […]
Maurice Kanbar
Maurice Kanbar: Vodka king, movie buff, hyperactive, and then some Looking puckish—almost elfin—producer, inventor, philanthropist, author and general man-about-town, Maurice Kanbar lights a cigarette and relaxes into the couch in the spacious, seventh-floor living room of the Renaissance-style Pacific Heights apartment building that he owns. The seventh floor is his guesthouse. His flat is up […]
Phillip Lim
Five years ago, he was relatively unknown. Now everyone in fashion wants to know what’s next for Phillip Lim At 31, fashion designer Phillip Lim was already something of a success, through his LA-based studio, Development. Prior to Development, Lim had worked as a design assistant to the acclaimed Katayone Adeli. Then, almost immediately after […]
Jeffrey Beers
One Man’s vision for restaurants, resorts, hotels and nightclubs Jeffrey Beers has created some of the most alluring spaces around the world. Through his imagination he transforms empty space within any four walls to create destination spots that transport guests to another world. His signature design environments weave a delicate balance between intimacy and spectacle, […]
Adam McKay
Seriously Funny With glammed-up pit bulls and pigs, Walmart moms locked in epic battle with latte-loving elitists, mooseburger jokes, and the odd Paris Hilton cameo, the national stage is beginning to resemble less a pivotal election year than a blockbuster summer comedy. Accordingly we spoke with Adam McKay, the creative genius behind Anchorman, Talladega Nights […]
Dean and Dan Canten
Squaring off with fashion Literally separated at birth, identical twins Dean and Dan Caten—the two D’s that comprise the design dynamo team Dsquared2—practically started designing together while still in the womb. Proving that two minds are better than one when it comes to designing, their secret to success is not taking fashion too seriously. Their […]
Sir Terrence Conran
The design pioneer offers a simple idea that beautiful items should be useful, and useful items should be beautiful Sir Terence Conran, 77, is more than a designer or entrepreneur. His career, spanning over 50 years, includes far too many accomplishments to chronicle here. Early highlights include Conran & Company, a furniture-making business run out […]
Wayne Coyne
Flamnig Lips frontman tells us what it really means to be at war with the mystics Wayne Coyne is the Flaming Lips’ major domo. Lead vocalist and ringmaster for these Oklahoma art provocateurs, he logged in time as a teenage pot dealer and fry cook at Long John’s Silver for 11 years before his band […]
Richard Branson
Viewing the world with virgin eyes Kids seldom dream of flapping a Fortune 500 cape as they mock human flight leaping from front porches, but if businessmen were superheroes they would likely be corporate iconoclast Richard Branson. “I don’t think of work as work and play as play,” he’s said. “It’s all living.” The visionary […]
Neda Sarmast
Neda Sarmast, an Iranian-American documentary filmmaker, is heading up the mission of fostering global youth dialogue with Nobody’s Enemy. Her personal experience growing up as an Iranian-American, combined with her extensive background in music and entertainment, and an ability to bring a message to the masses through the arts, led her to film, in hopes […]
Eric Grunbaum
One of the creative forces behind Apple’s innovative campaigns reveals why it’s about thinking different He may not be a household name, but consumers know Eric Grunbaum well. As Co-Executive Creative Director at TBWA/MEDIA ARTS LAB, he’s been helping craft Apple’s radically simple approach to advertising since “Think Different.” In that time, he’s produced, along with […]
Thom Browne
The prince of proportion raises hemlines, expectations and in the process saves the suit. Any conversation about men’s fashion today inevitably involves Thom Browne. Since establishing an eponymous collection in 2001, Browne has grown a made-to-measure suiting business alongside a limited collection of tops, shorts, slacks, knits, and button downs. While he boasts major fashion […]
Sam Nazarian
SBE impresario sets his sights big In an era when terms like “synergy” and “multi-platform” are so overused they’ve practically lost meaning, it is refreshing to meet an individual whose endeavors tangibly apply these heady concepts. Sam Nazarian, founder and CEO of SBE Entertainment Group, is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur; he collects collections of very successful […]
Alexander Wang
Wonder boy does it better My addiction, I believe, is often motivated by a wakeful—and beautiful—human desire for the ephemeral. For these moments of satisfying transcendence I simply refer to Alexander Wang’s spring/summer 2007 collection. Infused with ’80s utilitarian cool, and spilling at the brim with sex, Wang has taken his eponymous line to new […]
Guess Who?
It is always an interesting moment when a scan of someone’s hand arrives here at SOMA. Palms have been sent to us from around the world—from bustling tech savvy Tokyo design offices to a small copy center in Northern India that serves as an all-in-one grocery/Internet/clothing/rental car store. In the past, this section has featured […]
Rich Silverstein
If you’ve ever caught yourself laughing out loud at an advertisement, it’s probably because of Rich Silverstein. As the creative impetus for such unconventional and massively successful ad campaigns as the croaking Budweiser frogs, E*Trade and “Got Milk?” Silverstein and his equal half Jeff Goodby banded together two decades ago to found Goodby, Silverstein & […]
Kathy Grayson
Anywhere else, she’d be called a prodigy, but in the gallery world she’s simply known as one kickass curator. Hand-picked at the tender age of 22 by art impresario Jeffrey Deitch, Kathy Grayson is one of the directors of Deitch Projects, the SoHo-based gallery specializing in the next generation of street-inflected artwork. Ostensibly, the young […]
Christian Wijnants
The Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde tells the story of a knight who slays a dragon to win the hand of an Irish princess for King Mark of Cornwall, only to be drawn into an adulterous affair with the bride after they accidentally ingest a love potion somewhere on the Celtic Sea. Christian Wijnants’ […]
Alan Vega
Photograph by Kava Gorna Alan Vega has been making people all over the world shudder with anxiety and awe through his cathartic musical intuition for over 35 years. As one half of the monolithic duo Suicide, as a solo artist and as a collaborator, Vega has confronted audiences with his legendary brand of off-the-wall howling […]
Michael Kenna’s Nightscapes
During the sleepy hours most of us never witness, a lone photographer shoots an empty landscape. Michael Kenna is a master at capturing the arresting echoes of light in dim landscapes. There is something mysterious, haunting and – at the risk of sounding cliché – Zen about his work. His pictures are almost always taken […]
Andrew W.K.
photograph by Ruvan The image that Andrew W.K. fosters among the general public who glance once at his album covers (Andrew W.K. with menacing scowl; Andrew W.K. with blood streaming down his face) may consist of sophomoric adjectives: hard-partying, sleazy, tough-guy. But beneath the sweaty and grimy surface lurks a preternaturally articulate and well-grounded fellow […]
John Waters
John Waters movies can either terrify or seduce you. He can screw with your mind and warp your thoughts. He can also enlighten, and nudge people to accept the perverse, the strange, the abnormal, the uncomfortable and other social misfits of our society. Sex, violence, obscenities, bizarre and unthinkable fetishes and addictions are all markers […]
