Nomadism. Technology. Migration. Utopia. Body Politics. The myriad themes considered in the work of Hussein Chalayan are unlike that of any other contemporary fashion designer. Hussein Chalayan uses fashion as a medium for presenting and discussing the semiotics of clothing. Chalayan interrogates standard cultural signs and materials by demystifying the common values related to fashion such as superficiality and frivolousness.
     After graduating from the Türk Maarif College, Chalayan continued his studies at London’s Saint Martin’s School of Art. For his senior thesis project in 1993, his Tangent Flows collection featured silk dresses that had been covered in iron filings, buried in the ground for months and then unearthed just before the show and presented with a text that explained the process. The garment’s rituals of burial and resurrection referred to life, death, and urban decay in material objects. This collection not only launched his career (his label was created only a year later in 1994), but helped him achieve global success as someone working between the complex mix of contemporary artist and fashion designer. Chalayan has twice been named British Designer of the Year and has received numerous awards and honors since Tangent Flows.
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What started out as a solo project of bare bedroom recordings by Ryan Lynch has garnered immediate blog buzz due to Lynch’s previous guitar work with Girls — the Bay Area band whose Elvis-Costello-channeling Album ranked among last year’s most acclaimed records. For this official debut EP, Lynch has been joined by vocalist/keyboardist Hannah Hunt. On “Run Like Hell for Leather”, the street-busker strumming that marked the earlier works is now augmented by both programmed and hand drums of a tropical flavor as well as boy-girl harmonies that call to mind the Vaselines. The title track further bolsters the otherwise stripped-down sound with buoyant synths, while “About My Girls” (stream below) boasts a whirling hook behind Hunt’s dreamy coos and Lynch’s wistful croon: “I just can’t seem to forget/About my girls”. After the jump, check out an acoustic performance of “Clawing Out at the Walls”, filmed in some idyllic yet subtly industrial hideaway — a setting that perfectly befits this band’s evolving aesthetic.

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Buy this at iTunes. And be sure to check out Dominant Legs as they open for Mystery Jets in New York and Los Angeles later this month.
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More than half a century after his death, Albert Einstein’s name is still used as a synonym for brilliance. Although a simmering political climate anchored by two world wars affected the trajectory of the German intellectual’s life considerably, forced emigration and a Nazi-issued bounty on his head failed to dampen Einstein’s enthusiasm for learning and discovery. Inspired by the tenacity of one of history’s most intelligent refugees, Project Einstein works to inspire disadvantaged youth throughout the world to achieve greatness in spite of their surroundings.
     Project Einstein is one of several initiatives launched by Digital Democracy, a New York-based non-profit organization that relies on the ever-increasing capabilities of mobile and internet technology to give a voice to isolated and impoverished communities around the world. The inspiration for this particular project occurred while conducting photography training with youth in a Bangladeshi refugee camp, and has grown into a digital pen pal program spanning South Africa, Haiti, and Thailand.
     Much of Digital Democracy’s campaigns work directly with local organizations in order to tailor their initiatives to the community in need. Project Einstein’s latest venture, taking place in the Zona Reyna region of Guatemala, is a joint effort with state development group Proyecto de Desarrollo Santiago (PRODESSA).
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If San Francisco is the renegade city of the art world, Justin Giarla is most definitely captain of the ship. Since first opening the Shooting Gallery in 2003 (in a neighborhood that gently put, is a little shady), he’s become the shining beacon of a city excluded from both the nexus of New York City and the star-studded vault of Los Angeles, a city no longer taken seriously when it comes to fine art. Specializing in urban contemporary and pop surrealism, Giarla’s spreads his expertise between four different art spaces including Gallery Three and the Shooting Gallery’s influential sister gallery, White Walls. Known in local circles as equal parts philanthropist and curator, Giarla’s work outside the galleries speaks at even higher volumes about his commitment to community engagement through the conduit of art. He hosts annual fundraisers for local nonprofits and is closely involved with Hospitality House, an organization that offers facilities and art resources to the homeless free of charge, no questions asked.
     Giarla’s newest progeny, 941 Geary will host its inaugural show on September 18 with a circus-inspired “art opera of epic proportions” including real life carnies and interactive games courtesy of Mike Shine. PLANET picks the brain of the man who is single-handedly attempting to reinvigorate the San Francisco art culture by example and sheer force of will.
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With the recently opened Treehotel and now Villa Nyberg, Sweden seems to be making a case for itself as the world’s hub of cutting-edge green architecture. In collaboration with Emrahus and commissioned by the Nyberg family, all-star architecture firm Kjellgren Kaminsky has just unveiled Villa Nyberg, setting a new standard for the concept of the “passive” house.
     Still a budding art form in the world of green architecture, passive houses are designed to draw on the energy — and there’s always quite a bit of it — created by the house’s residents and their appliances, thus wasting as little energy as possible for basics like heating. The houses are extremely well insulated, and tests have recently found that the Villa Nyberg will only consume kWh/m2 per year for heating and has set a new airtightness record for Sweden.
     Views from the Villa of the adjacent lake in Borlänge, Sweden are an instant reminder that Kjellgren Kaminsky has given as much attention to form as to function with this house, which has been given its circular shape for purposes of airflow efficiency. As one of the world’s leading firms for passive houses, Kjellgren Kaminsky is now aiming to make eco-friendly architecture, normally the territory of elite home buyers, a more accessible option, meaning we may live to see the day when the word “passive” can be applied to the world of New York real estate.
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Estelle Hanania’s images explore otherworldly spaces, the sharp realness of her photographs a startling contrast to the ethereality of their subjects — burning hands, glittery crystals, spookily-real human scarecrows, and men dressed as eery, totem-like birds. Exploring the allure of ritual, costumes, and folk traditions, Hanania’s photography is a beautiful reminder of a certain eccentricity inherent to all cultural beliefs and behaviors.
     Hanania tells us, “I don’t take pictures on a daily basis, and everyday life is more visually boring to me than inspiring, most of the time. Visually, I like when strange things collide and provoke questions.” Of her photographs of costumed men at carnivals (which she’s been taking since 2006) she ways, “I’m attracted by a feeling of disorientation and excitement that you can find in these gatherings and costumed traditions…. I loved this kind of situation where everything gets confused and uncertain, but you still can define the most familiar shape which is the human figure, vanishing.”
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Have you ever wondered why Japanese design is so damn good? Here is the answer – the Japanese do not differentiate between fine arts and design like we do in the West. They treat both the artist and the artisan equally. This is the way Tomoaki Okaniwa, the designer behind the young label The Viridi-Anne, thinks. Born in Nagano, he moved to Tokyo as a teenager to study oil painting, but then switched to fashion. He launched The Viridi-Anne in 2000. Clean tailoring prevails in Okaniwa’s work, but upon closer inspection subtle details like curved seams and seamlessly incorporated extra pockets give the clothes a sense of vitality that is not aggressive, but rather subdued. “The main concept of my work is based on the beauty of simplicity and the effects of time,” Okaniwa says. “I want to create garments with roots in the ideal of ‘wabi-sabi’ that incorporates the aesthetics of imperfection, incompleteness, and the effects of natural processes, but I want to mix it with a modern vision.“ Okaniwa’s clothes possess a good mix of European and Japanese cultures. His latest collection is based on Picasso’s Blue Period. We asked the designer to answer a few questions about his work.

How did you become a fashion designer?
I began my creative life as a painter. I was inspired by modern art in general, and one Japanese artist, Leonardo Fujita, in particular. He was an oil painter who lived and worked in Paris. His use of colors, fine sense of balance and choice of subjects were extremely beautiful.
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Associations with “steel” might be “cold”, “hard”, and even the bitter mortal sound of the word “slab” — but Spanish architecture and design studio MSB brings us something entirely different. MSB estudi-taller d’arquitectura i disseny (”MSB architecture and design workshop-office”) was established by architect Miquel Subiras in 2008. MSB’s 2010 ESSENCE collection of furniture is “made entirely in carbon steel, strictly selected for each piece, finished with varnish, preserving its unique materiality and personality”. The sleek, spare design shows the soul of steel to be that of a living, expressive, and even warm material.
     MSB created ESSENCE with the goal of exploring the essence of steel — the finish of the varnish coating each piece is selected to display the grain particular to it, as well as to allow the differentiation in shade and color that naturally occurs in steel over time to show through. The collection also takes advantage of steel’s extraordinary strength, as many of the designs form shelves and seating that have the potential to carry weights much heavier than their sleek, minimalist lines would suggest.
     Of the collection, Subiras writes, “When you feel [steel's] density, you realize it is an earth’s son. When you see its expressive skin, you think about the influence time has had. When you know its possibilities, you discover a raw material with a richness of endless nuances, and surely you would have never thought its presence could provide so much warmth.”
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Tonight sees the opening of BOY, an exhibit by Cody Critcheloe and his band SSION (think “percu-ssion”) at The Hole — the gallery run by former Deitch Projects directors Kathy Grayson and Meghan Coleman. SSION, a self-described “queer punk performance art band” comprised of artists and musicians from Kansas City, has just released BOY — a feature-length film documenting Critcheloe’s “life as a small-town punk kid addicted to junk food, dreaming of stardom, who becomes a glamorous pop star with the help and hindrance of a gaggle of crazy dames”.
     And if that hasn’t piqued your interest, perhaps the “shitty green screen and handmade cardboard props” will, or the added bonus of “outrageous spandex conconctions” by fashion designer Peggy Noland. Noland will have a fashion boutique installed, and Critcheloe’s contribution to the show will be “like a sweet hangout zone”, plus video lounge. Be sure to come back for Nolan’s runway show on September 10 — maybe even stay for SSION’s one-night-only performance on September 11.


CODY CRITCHELOE & SSION – BOY opens tonight, 6-9pm, at The Hole, 104 Greene St., New York.

Brooklyn-based designer Shabd Simon-Alexander is something of a jack-of-all-trades. In addition to participating in Saviour Scraps, a textile-based artists’ collective, she is adept at photography, sculpture, and several other forms of visual art.
     When it comes to her eponymous clothing line, however, Simon-Alexander resists the urge to display the range of her ability. Instead, she adopts a meticulous, straightforward approach, channeling her energy into creating unfussy silhouettes from natural fibers. Drawing from folk tradition and her dedication to environmentally conscious fashion, Simon-Alexander begins the construction of each new garment with leftover fabric from the last one. Inspired by imagery of star life cycles captured by the Hubble telescope, the individually hand-dyed prints are rendered in delicate pastels. In addition to her own designs, Simon-Alexander also lends her handiwork to basic pieces, including tees, leotards, tanks, tote bags, and bikinis.
     For her A/W 2010 collection, Simon-Alexander doesn’t plan to stray far from her successful technique. Instead, the latest collection features an improvement of her craft, as she experiments with complicated Shibori methods of dyeing. As Simon-Alexander’s website states, her pieces “bring design, chance and chaos into a perfect balance”. With the juxtaposition of natural and man-made structures influencing her latest collection, the conscientious artist has produced a unique rendering of her latest inspiration.
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