Photography by Chris Jordan

Halfway between the U.S. and Japan lies an island of albatross that have unintentionally become plastic consumers. Lighters, small toys, golf balls, toothbrushes, and bottle caps imported from the nearby Pacific Garbage Patch are among the birds’ staples. Rupturing this surreal symbioses are Chris Jordan’s Midway photographs. Taken only weeks ago, the images depict decaying carcasses of albatross chicks gorged with plastic. Intolerably beautiful (a phrase taken from another project of Jordan’s depicting our collective environmental impact), the photographs are visible consequences of our everyday lives.
     Nestled in the North Pacific, Midway Atoll is a collection of three small islands that are home to seventy percent of the world’s Laysan Albatross. A once-flourishing ecosystem, the islands are now covered in plastic, brought there by adult albatross that mistake it for food and feed it to their young. Consisting on this diet of human garbage, forty percent of all albatross chicks die every year from starvation, suffocation, or poisoning. What this means for the future of the albatross is hard to determine: “But to find lethal quantities of our plastic trash inside baby birds on one of the remotest islands on Earth — it’s like a diagnosis for our planet,” Jordan remarks. “It’s a warning sign of a far bigger and more frightening issue.”

Some fashion world crossovers are to be expected. These days, it seems a hot young singer or actor is required to announce the launch of an eponymous ready-to-wear collection within twenty-four hours of their first album or summer blockbuster. But in the case of 26-year-old Nebraska native Timo Weiland, resettlement in the fashion world meant packing up a desk at Deutsche Bank Securities and explaining to coworkers that theatrical neck ware — and not finance — was his true life calling.
     Weiland’s timely pre-crash Wall Street exodus was fortuitous in producing his first accessories collection, Timo, which featured the ultra-slim neckties and poufy Edwardian satin collars that remain the brand’s signature accents. Business partner Alan Eckstein, 24, supplied the marketing and retail wisdom that got Weiland’s hip frills wrapped around the necks of Chloe Sevigny and Josh Hartnett. Since then, the duo have enjoyed an enduring “downtown darling” status, filling necktie orders for high-profile club-goers and style icons, all the while working toward the launch of a comprehensive Timo Weiland collection for men and women.
     Their plans came to fruition this fall at New York Fashion Week, where Weiland and Eckstein unveiled a fully realized — and startlingly directional — Spring 2010 debut collection saturated in their characteristically androgynous Edwardian flair.

Photography by Jason Frank Rothenberg

Fresh from headlining a show at the Guggenheim last week, this experimental outfit from Brooklyn (by way of Baltimore) has just released the first single from their highly anticipated second record, Odd Blood, due out February 2010 on Secretly Canadian. “Ambling Alp” kicks off with strange sounds reminiscent of gurgling water that soon give way to the kind of tribal-electro rhythms that have fast become the trio’s hallmark. That said, with moments that recall the snarling gospel of TV on the Radio and the dreamy delirium of Animal Collective, this new track boasts a more accessible, uplifting shift from the sometimes esoteric athmospherics coloring their 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals. Suffice it to say, we can’t wait to hear the rest.

Download the track at www.yeasayer.net. Also available on the site is a digital bundle featuring remixes by Memory Tapes and DJ /rupture, as well as instrumentals.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Buy this at Other Music or iTunes.

Images courtesy of Newscom

China is no stranger to making headlines for environmental issues. Two years ago, toxic toothpaste and lead-laden toys were being exported from the country. Last year, a report issued by a German energy institute claimed that China’s carbon dioxide emissions had reached 6.8 billion tons, an increase of 178% over the country’s 1990 emissions levels. But with increased international attention on carbon emissions and climate change, China is cleaning up its act and making headlines for the right reasons. Beijing’s Central Business District is getting the green treatment, making China the first country in the world to have an entirely green business district.
     Green-minded and eager to play a larger role in our ever-evolving future, 2009 marked a year wherein China vowed to increase its alternative energy production and even hinted at goals to become a key player in eco-friendly car manufacturing. It’s an image (and lifestyle) upgrade the country direly needs. So when internationally renowned architecture/engineering/urban design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill submitted its green re-design plans for Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD), the Chaoyang District Government and the Beijing CBD Administration Committee took notice. Seven leading firms around the world were invited to participate in the international competition; SOM outdid the other six with their environmentally focused proposal.

Photography by Kristin Vicari

Ever intrigued with the female body and diverse sources of beauty, London-based Hermione de Paula aptly named her Spring/Summer 2010 collection Las Venus: An Unconscious Elegance. It’s a departure from her darker debut collection (S/S 2009), for which she drew inspiration from Elizabeth Berkley’s character in Showgirls, but it’s an equally masterful and equally fun collection. For Spring 2010, de Paula outfitted her models with dense floral designs in staid palettes. Still body-conscious, but more ethereal, this collection balances the delicacy that spring demands with the playfulness of de Paula’s own laser-cut crowns and high hemlines. From intricate, trompe-l’oeil-printed leggings, dresses, and bodysuits, to simply-draped silk jersey fabrics and delicate cuts, these pieces are both wearable and artistic. De Paula’s modern Venus is beautiful but impish. Drawing on the symbolism of the Anatomical Venus and tabloid-fodder starlets, de Paula calls the aesthetic “a celebrity autopsy of sorts.” The new collection will be stocked exclusively in London at Browns Focus, and in Rome at Le Fate Ignoranti.  The 2006 Central Saint Martins grad has also worked with Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Christian Dior Couture, and Diane Von Furstenberg.

Photography by Owen Richards

The buzz bandwagon hit NYC last week along with the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon — and this precocious London quartet did not disappoint. With the exception of guilefully covering Womack & Womack’s ’80s R&B hit “Teardrops”, the xx’s setlist stuck chiefly to their self-titled debut. The reverb-heavy interplay of guitars and harmonies between Romy Madley Croft’s smoldering siren’s call and Oliver Sim’s disaffected croon wonderfully recalled Interpol and Pixies at both bands’ most intimate moments. And while Sim’s bass proved too much to handle at times for the usually solid-sounding Mercury Lounge, the live drums added a greater gravitas to the basic digitized beats pervading the record’s gothic lullabies. All things considered, it was a stellar performance by these dark stars in waiting.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Buy this at Other Music or iTunes.

Lord of the Flies cover and illustrations by Sam Weber.

“Maybe there is a beast…maybe it’s only us.” First published in 1954, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies became an instant classic for its unrelenting, often horrifying portrayal of human nature, primitive instinct, and the disintegration of civilization. This winter, The Folio Society breathes fresh life into the polemical novel with a cloth-bound illustrated edition that both art fans and bibliophiles will appreciate. The project was truly a dream job for Alaskan-born illustrator Sam Weber whose visceral imagery lends the fable a contemporary level of pathos not yet explored in previous illustrated editions. At once understated and formidable, each painting is a reminder of how fragile the infrastructure of society can be in the midst of true evil. Sam Weber was kind enough to offer PLANET a few moments of his time for this exclusive interview. 

View of the Dysfashional exposition, Luxembourg 2007. Photography courtesy of André Morin.

One could hardly be blamed for expecting to see a few garments at an art exhibit purportedly about style, but you won’t find a single couture-swathed mannequin at Dyfashional, the daring new project that’s causing fashionistas — even after the conclusion of their busiest season — to board one final airplane in the name of global fashion.  Rather than present the clothing and trends typical of a fashion-oriented showcase, Dysfashional fancies itself an expansive investigation into the materials and mechanisms that inform style as a vehicle of self-expression. After two wildly successful tours — the first in Luxembourg to celebrate the European Capital of Culture in 2007, and the second at Mudac, Musée du Design et des Arts Appliqués Contemporains de Lausanne in 2008 — the exhibit will show its new and improved edition on October 30th at Paris’ Passage du Désir.
     “Dyfashional was conceived as a site where the exhibition space becomes an experimentation space, an exploration ground for both the artists and visitors,” says curator Luca Marchetti. “As a fashion exhibition which does not exhibit clothing, Dysfashional shows that fashion is, beyond the objects that materialize it, an unstable state of sensibility.”

Gestalten Books

The next time you’re in Luckenwalde, Germany (population 21,000) make sure to visit the local library. It’s weird-looking. The town’s former train station was rehabilitated and repurposed by the firm FF-Architeckten. The children’s section is housed in a modern addition: a tilted rectangle covered in gold scales. The scales are supposedly meant to resemble dragon skin — the same dragons chasing around maidens and knights in the fairytales kids are reading inside. The old train station is plain and traditional; the new wing is anything but. So does it jive? Sure! It’s saying, “This new shiny area is for children. That old gray building is for grandpa.” And any addition with a clever message is good enough for us. It was also good enough for editors Robert Klanten and Lukas Feireiss, who chose it for their book, Build-On: Converted Architecture and Transformed Buildings (Gestalten; $75). Considering that a modern addition on a beloved older building is one thing that will get the average person really pissed at (or at least talking about) architecture, it’s a subject worth exploring and cataloging.