Liven Up Your Afternoon With ‘Ballroom Battle’ For #TBT

For #ThrowbackThursday, I was thinking, ‘What film can visually express how everyone is feeling on the inside, knowing the weekend is hours away + yet, they’re still expected to concentrate + do work today?’ Then I found Clara Cullen’s ‘Ballroom Battle’, which perfectly captures that energy!

Last year’s winner for Best Hair at the Berlin Fashion Film Festival, this interactive Vogueing experience ties in Ball culture with the aggression of Japanese video games, similar to ‘Street Fighter’, which Cullen admitted to playing as a kid when talking to NOWNESS. But what makes this film interactive is how the viewer gets to name the overall winner during today’s dance-off with eight new-wave ballers werqing it.

The new-wave ballers include Aniyah Lacroix, Bootz Givenchy + Cullen’s close Ballroom Battle collaborator Alex Mugler, which with the help from transatlantic digital studio, Convoy, the underground world of dance-offs that started amongst America’s black + Latino gay communities out of the clubs + into an online world. Of course, for any successful battle, you need the right music + for this film, Philly’s Kevin JZ Prodigy provided both the soundtrack + live vocals. But don’t think for a second their names were selected for them by anyone other than themselves. Every dancer belongs to a different ‘house’ named after a leading fashion label + their clothes, from head to toe, are by that same brand.

Enjoy!

(via NOWNESS)

WANTED: Camo Hologram Leather Skate Shoes By Joshua Sanders

Seriously, what’s not to love about these shoes? Camo with a holographic glaze? Say no more! These ‘Camo Hologram Leather Skate Shoes’ by Joshua Sanders would look great with practically anything, but if nothing in your wardrobe matches, screw it! Just wear them pretty new shoes, with great hair, perfume, some lipstick + carry on!

They’re available for purchase at Avenue 32.

Vessel Video For ‘Drowned In Water + Light’

Ahhhhh….nothing beats starting your day with disturbing imagery + sounds, like this sick video for ‘Drowned in Water + Light’ by the experimental Bristol producer Vessel. Directed by Pedro Maia + taken from last year’s ‘Punish, Honey’, the video’s effect is hypnotic especially with it being brilliantly shot on Super 8 film. Your eyes are subjected to peculiar sexual imagery, heavily underlined with industrial sounds that start off as a noise + slowly but surely, it starts creeping + growing into so much more. The music, full of sounds being dragged around, punctuated with highs made up of brief, rising + screeching tension, to then go back to dragging, kind of reminds me of very slow, deep + sweaty sex, don’t you think?

(A perfect addition to your Valentine’s Day Hook-up playlist, if you even care for that sort of thing.)

Enjoy!

(via pitchfork)

Perfect Valentine’s Day Gifts For You!

Relationship or not, Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse to spoil yourself with a present, especially when it’s a cool pair of shoes like these by i’alave. Both sexy, fun + unique, designer Eva Lai with her i’alave brand, believes that modern women are expressive, have a desire to be independent, purposeful, thoughtful, feminine + strong, which makes up a hell of a blend of self-expression.

For instance, take the ‘Chloe’ + ‘Aurora’ pair above. ’Chloe‘ (first pair above), available in both pink + beige, with it’s signature designer heel, is all about sexy humor – the shoes are given a face complete with a closed well-lashed eye on the front of the shoe, while the lips decorate the tip. Then with the ‘Aurora’, available in both white or black, you have a cool flat shoe with a small heel + a T-ankle strap.

With ‘Lily’, you have a variation on the Spectator shoe with the color blocking, which comes in both blue, green + pink. Besides its signature heel, there’s a slight cutout int he back, leading up to two ankle straps with edges in the same contrasting color.

’Elita‘ is a cool version of the loafer. With clear side panels, the shoe is further accentuated by its graphic use of color + detail. With a play of snake printed skin with a geometric shape in the contrasting color on top + another all-around different color, make this shoe an easy fix to any casual or dressy look.

And ‘April‘ above, pretty ‘April’, is a definitely an eye-catcher. Bearing its signature heel, you have scalloped edges cradling the back of the foot, while being restrained by a think white leather band, complete with zipper, followed by leather semi-circles in the same contrasting color, running down the front of the shoe. ‘April’ comes in green + pink.

All handcrafted of the finest Italian leather, for more on ‘i’alave’, go to Wowcracy.

For #FlashbackFriday, delve into the JonOne‘s intimate world of abstract art meets graffiti in short film ‘This Is Not Graffiti’ (A JonOne Portrait + A Right Jab). Directed by Alexis Deforges, you get to hear a first hand account of what it was like to be one of the pioneers of the ‘graffiti bandwagon’ as JonOne likes to call it, but set apart + criticized for his need to express himself abstractly.

Naming De Kooning + Pollock as some of his favorite artists, what he particularly loved about their style was how physical they were with the paint + their work, which is very apparent in his own work seen throughout the film. With a career that spans three decades, this New York born artist living in Paris, has managed to continue to elevate graffiti to another level while still keeping that art form’s integrity intact + it’s undeniable relevance to all things contemporary.

Enjoy!