Slow

OPENHOUSE Magazine 02

The day before yesterday OPENHOUSE Magazine launched its highly anticipated second issue, after 6 months in which the Kickstarter funded debut edition of magazine spread its wings all over the planet, with Tenue de Nîmes as one of the many places where it could be found. Based in San Sebastian, Spain, OPENHOUSE was founded by Andrew Trotter and Mari Luz Vidal and is a magazine with a clear focus on beautiful photography and captivating interviews with people who invite the reader to their special places around the world. In the second issue Andrew and Mari talk to Jermome Waag, head chef at Chez Panisse, about what he likes to cook at home for his friends in his time off. In Barcelona the inspirational warehouse space Espacio 88 is visited. It holds an architecture studio, a coffee van in the mornings, and many different pop-ups. Also the Freunde von Freunden Apartment in Berlin is featured in one of the stories. We particularly love the story that takes its reader to a small village in the Italian countryside, where Attillio and Paola live in the old Cinema Flora, and regularly open their doors for film nights, with in the portrayed night one of our all-time favorite movies, Matthieu Kassovitz' La Haine being shown. We love how Andrew and Mari show great consistency and even growth within this second issue, which very likely will win over even more hearts than their debut. [ Continue reading ]

Engineered Garments Workaday by JIMA

The New York City-based fashion label Engineered Garments showcases its incredible sub-label Workaday in this editorial that was brought to our attention at the end of October by Inventory and still is one of our favorite outings of this year. The extraordinary editorial was launched by the mother company of Engineered Garments and label Needles, the highly inspirational Japan and USA-based collective/stores Nepenthes, and shows the intrinsic skill and style of the regularly contributing highly talented Japanese photographer JIMA once again, portraying the workwear-heavy line along familiar themes. Workadays has a strong focus on jackets and work pants, or maybe even better referred to as uniforms, which are offered in military greens and shades of blue. Overall the collection boasts boxy silhouettes similar to ’60s USMC uniforms, contrast shades are used across patch pockets and trouser panels can be observed on the bottoms. The editorial shows the pieces on a group of classical looking men strolling around The Big Apple in an aesthetic reminding strongly of the great street-photographers like Louis Faurer and Garry Winogrand, combined with the cool of filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and Jean-Luc Godard. Highly inspirational! [ Continue reading ]

L’amateur

In 'L'amateur' Murielle Victorine Scherre, the visionary force behind lingerie brand La Fille d'O, illustrates a world that balances sexual self respect and an object of lust, naughtiness, fantasy and reality: her personal Wunderkammer of the senses. She captures an erotic world, where mind and body each find their own way. The book provokes questions about the contemporary beauty ideals and the universal appeal of the human body and of eroticism. The result is a visionary scrapbook in search of the true meaning of 9 hollow words like beauty, attraction, eroticism and pornography. Words which have been over-used in our modern day hyper-visual commercial world and Murielle finds herself confronted with in her everyday creative process and therefore wanted to visualize into her personal discourse. She draws from the immense image archive of La Fille d'O, which was built over the course of the last 11 years combined with contributions by like-minded amateurs (meaning enthusiast in French, not incompetent) like Jesse Draxler (USA), photobooth meister Marco Ferrari (IT / UK), Richard Kern (USA), S magazine (DK / USA) and Rita Lino (DUI). 'L'amateur' is like a very intimate diary; diligently and obsessive as life itself. In girum imus nocte et igni consumimur. [ Continue reading ]

Nothing White

A year ago Pim de Graaff, an Amsterdam-based freelance copywriter, launched Nothing, a 2.6 x 2.6 x 5.1 inch piece FSC of certified wood with a matte black finish, each handmade and with a unique number, that intends to remind people to enjoy everything they already have, which from quite some perspectives can be seen as everything. The product went viral with posts on blogs like PSFK, Fast Company and swissmiss, which helped Pim to sell hundreds of Nothings this year. His wish was to sell a Nothing to every continent, in which he almost succeeded, with the exception of Africa. To finish the project in style, this Christmas Pim launches his final ten pieces of Nothing in a limited all-white edition, with the revenues of the final batch, no. 351-360 to go to Oxfam which fights poverty worldwide. [ Continue reading ]

Postalco for Calder Foundation

We have been fans of the American-Japanese brand Postalco for many years now, also including some of their incredible products in our selection for Our Current Obsessions Nº 1 – NOIR. Last month the inspirational people of Postalco presented an extraordinary new collection of stationery and leather items inspired by the work of the artist Alexander Calder and developed in close collaboration with the Calder Foundation. Postalco was founded in Brooklyn in 2000, but soon moved to Tokyo, where they produce all their products from traditional Japanese craftsmanship, with every colorway of this particular collection carefully selected from those found in the artist’s work. After a visit to the Calder Foundation archives in New York, which contains more than 26.000 historic photographs, dozens of films, and over 130.000 documents covering all aspects of the artist’s life, Postalco discovered the artist’s lesser-known works, including jewelry, textiles, and domestic objects. Inspired by the way Calder erased boundaries between established genres, the resulting collection offers a unique glimpse into the prolific life of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century in an utmost elegant manner. [ Continue reading ]

The End of Sitting

We have been writing, indirectly, about the beautiful space at the Looiersgracht 60 in Amsterdam, which is a new project space for contemporary art, design and architecture, when they first opened their doors for De Gevonden op Marktplaats Salon earlier this year. The last few weeks the space has been hosting another incredible project named 'The End of Sitting', which closed last weekend. The project is an installation at the crossroads of visual art, architecture, philosophy and empirical science. In our society almost the entirety of our surroundings have been designed for sitting, while evidence from medical research suggests that too much sitting has adverse health effects. RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art Affordances] and visual artist Barbara Visser have developed a concept wherein the chair and desk are no longer unquestionable starting points. Instead, the installation’s various affordances solicit visitors to explore different standing positions in an experimental work landscape. The project marks the beginning of an experimental trial phase, exploring the possibilities of radical change for the working environment, reminding of the aesthetic of fashion designer Rick Owens and  the work of architect Daniel Libeskind. [ Continue reading ]

Inspirations — Andy Rementer

Andy Rementer is an award winning graphic artist from USA. He grew up in a Victorian beach town where an early exposure to the sun faded, local signage educated his love of type and hand-painted lettering. A sense of timelessness and nostalgia is to be found in the world he creates. Another reoccurring theme of Rementer’s work is isolation, something he cites as an effect of his abrupt relocation to an urban environment in formative years and often depicted in his work through his characters’ underlying unease with their surrounding. He graduated from The University of the Arts in 2004. After working with Benetton's Fabrica in northern Italy, he relocated to the East Coast where he divides his time between drawing, painting, and developing his first graphic novel. His work has been featured all over the world, among them Apartamento Magazine, The New York Times, Le Monde and Creative Review. We've been following Andy for many years now and therefore asked him what inspires a bright mind like his. [ Continue reading ]