For #FlashbackFriday, Erik Madigan Heck’s short film flashes forward with some of Brooklyn’s coolest club kids grooving to Mike Dehnert’s tech house classic ‘Detroit Switch Back to City’ – a track he heard at Berlin’s renowned Berghain club. Applying the same anthropological approach used by Dutch video artist Rineke Dijkstra’s 1997 film, where after-hours club goers from popular spots including The Buzz Club in Liverpool, England, + Mysteryworld of Zaandam, Netherlands, were taken out of their dancefloor comfort zone + photographing them in a white cube, creating striking portraits of that isolated social group.
I just love how raw everyone looks, with their own personal style, in this empty space, owning who they are or whatever persona they’re pretending to be for the night, full of confidence + lots of attitude, to Dehnert’s hot track.
Wake up to beautiful people, in this fashion film for track ‘He, She, Me’ by Devonte Hynes + Neneh Cherry. Choreographed by Ryan Heffington + directed by Kathryn Ferguson for Selfridges, their press release reads that the video + hauntingly beautiful track are to work as an exploration of the idea of Agender. In turn, Agender, according to Selfridges, is a celebration of fashion without definition, to explore + examine shifting gender boundaries through ground-breaking fashion, music + design collaborations. Of the film, Ferguson told pitchfork,
‘The film is an evolving journey through a subtle push + pull between masculinity + femininity, captured entirely in one unbroken shot, utilising in-camera camera effects in a world populated by out-scaled physical props inspired by Faye Toogood’s in store realisation of Agender. This film has come at a time when important conversations about gender fluidity + non-binary ways of being are finally getting a lot of attention.’
Hopefully, more projects like this one will continue to blur + eventually obliterate the necessity of labeling someone as one or the other, but rather, just as you + me.
To see more of this amazing project + SHOP THE EDIT, click Selfridges.
Unlike My Little Pony with their Bronies, which are guys that love the candy colored critters, Hello Kitty has not been as an easy sell for guys. Enter the genius of Japanese design studio Nendo with their line of tees aimed at making the iconic white kitty palpable for guys. Now bear in mind, the reasoning behind this is due in part to a collaboration with PEN, the men’s lifestyle magazine, which required Hello Kitty tees for the fellas.
Evolution Kitty (above) is intended as a reference to the character’s subtle design evolution over the past 40 years. Nendo told dezeen, ‘Since her debut in 1974, Hello Kitty has been subtly evolving through the years, incorporating design trends concerning her contours, three-dimensionality + facial features. The design draws attention to Kitty’s continuous evolution, by superimposing her on the classic illustration depicting human evolution.’
Math Kitty (below) uses numbers + mathematical formulas to create a graphic, with the infinity symbol ∞ also intended to reference the hair bow worn by the cat. Biology Kitty features an image of Hello Kitty’s face made from insects, with a butterfly to represent her bow, a black Japanese rhinoceros beetle + a stag beetle for eyes, + a scarab beetle acting as her nose.
Nendo Studio told dezeen, ‘Hello Kitty is a character that has many elements that ‘stimulates the right brain’ to naturally induce the feeling of ‘cuteness’, On this basis we thought up a way to appeal to a new target group by ‘stimulating the left brain’.’
Dictionary Kitty shows extracts from a dictionary with the definitions of hello + kitty. These have been highlighted in yellow, to reference the colour of the character’s nose, + pink to allude to the colour of her bow. The design for Physics Kitty ‘serves as a reference for Kitty’s height as equal to five apples, which are placed next to a scale,’ said Nendo.
The tee collection is comprised of eight different prints called Radiograph Kitty, Math Kitty, Dictionary Kitty, Architecture Kitty, Biology Kitty, Physics Kitty, Art Kitty + Evolution Kitty. My favorite by far is the Architecture Kitty (below) with all of its lines + numbers. Architecture Kitty is ‘based on the sketches of Le Corbusier, known for his anthropometric ‘Modulor’ system of proportions,’ said Nendo, adding ‘When designing architectural spaces, the Kitty Modulor design was made, featuring Kitty raising her right arm +, next to her, five apples to mark her height (Kitty is five apples tall).’
