TheCreativeRoutine

Future Plans, Tweets on Occupy LA, and Miscellaneous Creative Thoughts

No, I’m not ending TheCreativeRoutine. But I am giving it a noteworthy change. The new banner that debuted Tuesday - and served me faithfully for two days - is gone. So is my divisive background: the glitch-art, film screencap of Enid and Rebecca from 2001’s Ghost World. It was sometimes lauded and other times seizure-inducing.

And lastly: the side portrait of me in a green beanie that served me for so long. It’s been replaced by a photo of me on my third birthday, back in Nigeria, stuntin’ on 100 thousand, sugar cookie in hand.

My new banner seems appropriate for the cultural time of economic and social turmoil our nation is in right now. The Occupy Movement began, get this, September 17th. It hasn’t even been 2.5 months yet. Still there have already been a reported 2,700 Occupy communities worldwide in some 85 countries. Yet the news always misses someone. Amidst all the turmoil going on two nights ago, I saw a tweet in my timeline that read:

To which I replied…

At first I was surprised she took the bait. But it was just my natural idealism towards mankind keeping me from taking in mind that she had just asked what Occupy LA was.

I assume that Giggles’ excited oo-ing is in anticipation of what she assumes will be American Apparel’s Cyber Monday special, for their Occupy LA campaign. In her rapture, she forget that Cyber Monday had already passed. Okay. One more Occupy LA tweet for the road.

#blackpeopleandtwitter

More Creative Thoughts

Part of the reason I was so quick to redecorate after such a short period is because I was eager to start a new idea that struck me the other night. I’ve always viewed TheCreativeRoutine as an ongoing art/creative project, constantly evolving. Anyone who’s followed for awhile has noticed how many banner/background re-designs I’ve done over time. It’s partially because since my Tumblr isn’t a micro-blog (I only post some 6-10 times a month), I’ve always used the different imagery and iconic visuals that serve as my backdrops and banners as displays of what inspires me and serve as my visual references. (Though, I have started using my Twitter as a Tumblr micro-blog, posting different inspiring images and brainstormed design ideas.)

With all that in mind, I’ve decided to try something new here. My background is about to become a revolving door of inspiring images, visuals from prior posts, and awe-inspiring photos. Really anything is fair game. We’ll see where I go with this. But the current plan is to change it every day, post or not. I’m always going to be editing my banner regularly, with different hashtags in the bottom right corner. All of this will begin Monday. For now, I’ll let the design stay stationary for a few.

Basically, I’m trying to break as far out the prototypical menswear/fashion blogger box as I possibly can. (Shout out to prototypes though! Complex just released the funniest, most insightful fashion article I’ve read in some time - The Top 10 Types of Men’s Style Bloggers. I guess TheCreativeRoutine is something like “The Teenage Addicted Tumblr” x “The Made-to-Measure Hip-Hop Fan”, sans the bottomless credit card.)

I know this post has been all over the place, my apologies if it was hard to keep up. I’m not too worried though. I trust that if you like anything you enjoy, then you probably found this post very palatable. I’ll try to get out a post to you guys tomorrow on the artist behind my banner.

Peace, and follow me on Twitter.

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The New York Photo League - Black and White New York

The New York Photo League is an organization I had heard of in the past, but honestly knew little about. However, when I heard of the exhibit showcasing their work that opened at the Jewish Museum in New York City earlier in November (and will be showing until March 25th, 2012), I was intrigued, so I did some research.

History

The origin, history, and demise of the NYPL is a story that’s almost as captivating as the portraits and street photography of New York City that their many prominent members captured over the course of the league’s existence. Active from 1936 to 1951, the League began as a collection of amateur and professional photographers who formed like Voltron around a range of common social and creative causes. Most of the league’s members were Jewish, as well as socialist sympathizers, whose artistic goals were to document and expose the lives and struggles of the American worker and urban New York. Amazingly it was a Berlin-based communist faction, the Workers International Relief, that helped establish the, then named, Worker’s Camera League in NYC. Differences in ideologies and interests led to a split, with the original group becoming the now famous NYPL.

The list of members and prominent supporters that ran in the circles of the NYPL over its 15 year history is unreal. Richard Avedon, Ansel Adams, Arthur Leipzig, Aaron Siskind, Bernice Abbott, and countless others. NYPL cameras were there for the Depression, the New Deal, WWII, and the Cold War, resulting in some of the most extensive urban documentary photography of the 20th century.

Their demise was fairly swift however. By 1947, the “Red Scare” witch hunt for American communists led to the NYPL being blacklisted and named among groups disloyal to the United States. Despite fierce denial of the accusations, by 1951 the membership had declined and the group disbanded in October of that year.

Documentary Film

Arthur Leipzig

ideal laundry, 1946

The two little kids standing on both sides of the display glass almost seem like reflections of each other. That big open shop window acts like a platform displaying the conditions that faced so many children in urban New York at the time.

chalk games, 1950

The chalk drawings on the street seem Basquiat or Picasso-esque in nature. Everything about the composition and the chemistry gives it a painterly feel.

Morris Engel

harlem merchant, 1937

The merchant’s head looks like just another item in line in the shop’s display.

Harold Corsini

playing football in the streets of harlem, 1939

This is probably my favorite photo of any I’ve seen from the League. Take a wide angle lens, shoot overhead at a bird’s eye view, set the camera at a canted angle, and this is what you get. The long shadows cast make it seem like the subjects are running up and down the composition.

Marvin Newman

a child ties on a mask to celebrate the october festival on south side, 1951

Everyone in this shot is stunting on 100% with unique facial expressions. My favorite is the girl on the right. She looks like she could have been cast for an Odd Future album cover.

Ruth Orkin

boy jumping into hudson river, 1948

The way the diving boy occupies the negative space is remarkable. This photograph is so engaging, top to bottom, left to right. All over the composition, there’s something interesting to occupy your eyes. Check out the girl in the bottom left corner.

B-Rolls and Such
I know I’m falling into pretty liberal territory here with my definition of the word b-roll. But it’s such a classier term than the alternative, photo dump. (Not that I’m below photo dumping. I’ve dumped many a photo in my time.)
I had a lot of extra visuals from my recent shoot with Diana. Mostly they were images of her I captured once I took the camera out of her hands and turned it on her. On top of that, I also had a handful of photoshoot-unrelated images from later on in the day. I was finding it hard to resist sharing some of these photos. So I stopped resisting altogether. And now here we are, looking at my b-rolls and other visuals.

sweater - lacoste; oxford - forever 21; jeans - pacsun; moccasins - minnetonka

sometimes we got the feeling that this car hadn’t moved in over 25 years. which led me to wonder how many homeless people had slept in here at one time.

matt humphrey doesn’t quite look like james dean re-incarnated in this one. but you should see him in other pics or in real life. although sometimes he most resembles james franco playing james dean in that biopic.

FIN

Zoom Info

B-Rolls and Such

I know I’m falling into pretty liberal territory here with my definition of the word b-roll. But it’s such a classier term than the alternative, photo dump. (Not that I’m below photo dumping. I’ve dumped many a photo in my time.)

I had a lot of extra visuals from my recent shoot with Diana. Mostly they were images of her I captured once I took the camera out of her hands and turned it on her. On top of that, I also had a handful of photoshoot-unrelated images from later on in the day. I was finding it hard to resist sharing some of these photos. So I stopped resisting altogether. And now here we are, looking at my b-rolls and other visuals.

sweater - lacoste; oxford - forever 21; jeans - pacsun; moccasins - minnetonka

sometimes we got the feeling that this car hadn’t moved in over 25 years. which led me to wonder how many homeless people had slept in here at one time.

matt humphrey doesn’t quite look like james dean re-incarnated in this one. but you should see him in other pics or in real life. although sometimes he most resembles james franco playing james dean in that biopic.

FIN

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Happy Thanksgiving from TheCreativeRoutine

Happy 390th annual Turkey Day folks. To commemorate today, I decided to resurrect an image from one of the most memorable menswear moments in all of Thanksgiving history. While we can’t all be as steezy as Kanye West, we can all be thankful for existing in the same time period as him. And that’s reason enough to smile. Happy Thanksgiving from Kanye and TheCreativeRoutine. Don’t forget to be grateful for the little things in life.

Black Panther Steeze
I’ve spoken on this blog about how big of an influence military attire has had on contemporary fashion, numerous times in the past. Fashion and popular style are both games of re-apportionment, and there’s perhaps no fashion well that gets dipped into more often for the sake of re-purposing than the military world. But what about paramilitary organizations and all the sartorial inspiration that can be found in that realm? The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense were an African-American revolutionary leftist organization that advanced their political ideology and social agendas equipped with guns, berets, and nifty leather jackets. They were an organization with a clean military-inspired aesthetic; an aesthetic that I’ve never seen discussed at length in any sort of sartorial sense.
I’m a big fan of the Black Panthers, perhaps it was my acute attention to the organization as a whole that first made me admire their collective appearance. Politics aside though, one doesn’t have to be a militant afrocentric individual to pick up a few style cues from the Panthers.

to help me with the shoot, i enlisted lovely photographer friend diana liu, who sometimes shoots some cool stuff over at campus street style blog the sardorealist

The (Military-esque) Beret
The beret was a staple of the Black Panther uniform, an integral ingredient to their imposing, militant persona. I did some research on the beret and was surprised to find that the world-famous headpiece didn’t start in the military. The beret (and past variations) actually date back to several thousand years B.C. The beret in police or military use is relatively new within the scope of the garment’s entire history, starting around the 16th or 17th century. Still, the last 500 years plus has been more than enough time to give the beret an entrenched military tradition.
Interestingly enough, if you look at the beret, you find that it’s a garment that has become a salient part of countless cultures, lifestyles, and sub-sects. The piece is easily identifiable with military and police use, intellectuals, artists, beatniks, film directors, and even Rastafarians. Thousands of years of existence has bore enough deviation for the garment to develop differently for different sects. It may surprise you to know that the headdress worn by Rastas is just as much a beret as those worn by the U.S. Army. What intrigued me most was the fact that the type of berets sported by Black Panther personnel was much more akin to the civilian type than it was to that of any military.

unidentified panther with co-founder huey p. newton; sporting a colt .45 and a shotgun, respectively
Here’s the most intriguing part of this discovery though: despite the fact that the Black Panthers wore civilian berets, they still donned them in the manner of military personnel. If you Google any photos of American soldiers wearing berets, you’ll always see the lip (the loose side) of the beret falling to the right. I learned that this is done by most military (excluding some in Europe) to free the shoulder that bears the rifle on most soldiers. Check out the which direction the berets fall in the previous photo and which arm the firearms are on. Pretty cool if you ask me. A friend and I recently had a discussion concerning the “proper” way to wear a beret. It’d be interesting to learn why different cultures associated with berets wore them the way they did.

beret - thrift; jacket - thrift; shirt, tie - old navy; chinos, boots - urban outfitters

The Utility Jacket
The Panthers wore several different kinds of leather jackets. Mine is made of cotton and was thrifted. Mine is also a utility jacket, as were the jackets sported by many members of the organization. The utility garment is a silhouette that has been making the rounds through official military attire and workwear for decades now, usually characterized by two vertically aligned pockets on each side of the garment (at least as far as jackets are concerned). Utility pieces were made for just that, utility. So it would make sense that they have their origins in workwear and military attire, where pragmatic, efficient clothing is most desirable.
I’ve tried hard to figure out the former life of my utility jacket. It’s fairly easy to rule out as military attire, the fit and weight wouldn’t make sense. Perhaps it was some sort of workwear piece, it does have the characteristic blue of classic American workwear. Probably the biggest reason I love it is because of the cut; it can effectively be worn as a blazer because of its construction, material, and light weight.

It’s cool that the Black Panthers seemed to find a middle ground between the classic military silhouette and workwear silhouette normally reserved for utility garments. Or maybe the Panthers were just doing their own thing. After all, their jackets were made of leather, material found in utilities no where else.
One more thing. Keep in mind that the Black Panthers were on the all-black tip long before Rick Owens, Alexander Wang, Jay-Z, SpaceGhostPurrp, or anyone else. That’s also kind of cool.

Zoom Info

Black Panther Steeze

I’ve spoken on this blog about how big of an influence military attire has had on contemporary fashion, numerous times in the past. Fashion and popular style are both games of re-apportionment, and there’s perhaps no fashion well that gets dipped into more often for the sake of re-purposing than the military world. But what about paramilitary organizations and all the sartorial inspiration that can be found in that realm? The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense were an African-American revolutionary leftist organization that advanced their political ideology and social agendas equipped with guns, berets, and nifty leather jackets. They were an organization with a clean military-inspired aesthetic; an aesthetic that I’ve never seen discussed at length in any sort of sartorial sense.

I’m a big fan of the Black Panthers, perhaps it was my acute attention to the organization as a whole that first made me admire their collective appearance. Politics aside though, one doesn’t have to be a militant afrocentric individual to pick up a few style cues from the Panthers.

to help me with the shoot, i enlisted lovely photographer friend diana liu, who sometimes shoots some cool stuff over at campus street style blog the sardorealist

The (Military-esque) Beret

The beret was a staple of the Black Panther uniform, an integral ingredient to their imposing, militant persona. I did some research on the beret and was surprised to find that the world-famous headpiece didn’t start in the military. The beret (and past variations) actually date back to several thousand years B.C. The beret in police or military use is relatively new within the scope of the garment’s entire history, starting around the 16th or 17th century. Still, the last 500 years plus has been more than enough time to give the beret an entrenched military tradition.

Interestingly enough, if you look at the beret, you find that it’s a garment that has become a salient part of countless cultures, lifestyles, and sub-sects. The piece is easily identifiable with military and police use, intellectuals, artists, beatniks, film directors, and even Rastafarians. Thousands of years of existence has bore enough deviation for the garment to develop differently for different sects. It may surprise you to know that the headdress worn by Rastas is just as much a beret as those worn by the U.S. Army. What intrigued me most was the fact that the type of berets sported by Black Panther personnel was much more akin to the civilian type than it was to that of any military.

unidentified panther with co-founder huey p. newton; sporting a colt .45 and a shotgun, respectively

Here’s the most intriguing part of this discovery though: despite the fact that the Black Panthers wore civilian berets, they still donned them in the manner of military personnel. If you Google any photos of American soldiers wearing berets, you’ll always see the lip (the loose side) of the beret falling to the right. I learned that this is done by most military (excluding some in Europe) to free the shoulder that bears the rifle on most soldiers. Check out the which direction the berets fall in the previous photo and which arm the firearms are on. Pretty cool if you ask me. A friend and I recently had a discussion concerning the “proper” way to wear a beret. It’d be interesting to learn why different cultures associated with berets wore them the way they did.

beret - thrift; jacket - thrift; shirt, tie - old navy; chinos, boots - urban outfitters

The Utility Jacket

The Panthers wore several different kinds of leather jackets. Mine is made of cotton and was thrifted. Mine is also a utility jacket, as were the jackets sported by many members of the organization. The utility garment is a silhouette that has been making the rounds through official military attire and workwear for decades now, usually characterized by two vertically aligned pockets on each side of the garment (at least as far as jackets are concerned). Utility pieces were made for just that, utility. So it would make sense that they have their origins in workwear and military attire, where pragmatic, efficient clothing is most desirable.

I’ve tried hard to figure out the former life of my utility jacket. It’s fairly easy to rule out as military attire, the fit and weight wouldn’t make sense. Perhaps it was some sort of workwear piece, it does have the characteristic blue of classic American workwear. Probably the biggest reason I love it is because of the cut; it can effectively be worn as a blazer because of its construction, material, and light weight.

It’s cool that the Black Panthers seemed to find a middle ground between the classic military silhouette and workwear silhouette normally reserved for utility garments. Or maybe the Panthers were just doing their own thing. After all, their jackets were made of leather, material found in utilities no where else.

One more thing. Keep in mind that the Black Panthers were on the all-black tip long before Rick Owens, Alexander Wang, Jay-Z, SpaceGhostPurrp, or anyone else. That’s also kind of cool.

Zoom Info

Modern Prep

I’m not entirely sure how many people dispute me whenever I make this statement, but the amount of influence that prep is having in the modern menswear and womenswear sphere is unreal. The return to classic style and silhouettes, and increased emphasis on fit, that is being embraced widespread is resulting in clothing that is becoming more and more prep and ivy inspired.

It seems like we’re sort of all adopting it too, self-professed preps and otherwise. Look at the pant legs of your favorite #menswear bloggeur. It’s probably cuffed. And check out his feet. If the photo was taken between March and October, he probably isn’t wearing socks either. Some of these prep-originating trends are becoming so infused in the general culture that we often forget where they came from or that things haven’t always been this way.

Documenting the growth and evolution of modern prep, and prep influenced clothing, is especially fascinating on college campuses. Most of all at a school like Vanderbilt, a southern ivy that has been a bastion of prep and ivy culture for decades. It’s cool to see the way that preps interprete preppy style vs. how non-preps incorporate certain elements of the culture into their style template.

You likely remember Alex. I featured him on the site not too long ago. He’s back for a second go, with a look that’s just so effortlessly captivating. It’s preppy no doubt, but with a particular European tinge. Interestingly enough, Alex’s prep style is pretty traditional American prep, especially relative to the rest of preps our age. So it threw me for a slight loop when I noticed that his ensemble seemed uncharacteristically Milanese. The hacking tweed blazer juxtaposed against the polka dot, silk scarf and burgundy leather gloves just screamed Milan. And sure enough, I was unsurprised to learn that the chinos were milano chinos from Brooks Brothers. It’s amazing how one can take an outfit, almost entirely composed of Brooks Brothers, and wear it in an Italian way. In the age of the internet, where regional style genres know no boundaries, it seems like the amount of style mashups of different prep sub-sects, and other genres, is only going to increase in number.

Say hello to Tori. This is her first of what I’m sure will be multiple appearances on TCR. In many ways Tori is a stellar example of the way preppydom is permeating overall fashion culture. I asked her if she considered herself a prep. Because while her outfits aren’t always this outright ivy, she does manage to infuse a fair amount of preppy customs and trends into her aesthetic. Her reply? “Definitely not.”

I think my style is a constant battle between my college prep education and my fringe culture “un-education”…I spent seven years at prep school, so I was definitely influenced…but I would rather die than wear some Lilly Pulitzer confection. I’d describe my closet as a boxing match between Joan Jett and a gypsy, refereed by Audrey Hepburn.

The amazing thing about prep and ivy style is the way in which people have not hesitated to pick and choose the specific particular elements of the aesthetic they like, discarding or defiantly going against that which they find less agreeable. Isn’t that the way that McNairy built his own brand of irreverent neo-prep, or the manner in which Street Etiquette developed their particular urban, afro-prep aesthetic? You don’t even have to “like” prepdom to be influenced by it.

Tori’s outfit reveals one more interesting dynamic: the constant tug and pull between general prepdom and college prep. Although prepdom began with the Ivy League style of the 1950’s, enough time has passed for general prep, college prep, and the college Greek aesthetic to become three distinct entities. Still though, the Greek system’s roots in traditional prep and ivy league style are apparent, as evidenced by how seamlessly a sorority-issued rugby can be infused into a preppy ensemble.

urban hepburn, by shane smith

She really wasn’t joking about that Audrey Hepburn thing.

My Disposable Summer
I find it amazing how much of experimental filmmaking was born as a result of the particular equipment, or rather lack of equipment, being used to create works. The nature of resources available for creating film has such a keen ability to dictate the kind of art created, resulting in numerous film movements and philosophies whose key traits and characteristics are significantly based around the kind of tools being used for creation.
Photography is the same way, where the aesthetic produced by different materials start to become artistic statements in of themselves. The kids over at Street Etiquette dropped some progressive fashion photography not too long ago (via Cleon Grey, of Aveder Outfit fame), shooting a post with disposable cameras on the motorcycle jacket, along with heavyweights Ali of A Noble Savage, Ouiji of The Brooklyn Circus, and Kadeem of KJohn La Soul.
I recently had a chance to have my own fun with disposables as well, over the summer. Without access to my typical camera equipment, I was forced to improvise new ways to document my summer. It was amazing, living in a resort town where 75% of the people in the area at any given time were tourists. Seemingly rows upon rows of semi-vacant, identical $35-a-night motels were juxtaposed with beautiful mountains and creeks. I did my best to capture what I saw around me.

With disposable cameras, you often don’t know what you’re getting. The settings are out of your control, and the results are often as unpredictable as Johnny Weir’s wardrobe. But things really start to get interesting when you start getting liberal with digital editing of your disposable images.

I got in a pretty experimental mood when I was editing these images, trying different approaches that would have likely never occurred to me had I not been editing disposables. Even fully conscious of how much the medium was dictating the way I approached the editing process, I was still unable to go about it in any other way.

The results were great though. I’m really happy with the way things turned out. In the age of super DSLRs and 5Ds that can shoot entire feature-length films and street style blog presentations at the same time, analog photography is oft quickly forgotten. It’s nice to know that there are certain things technological advancement can’t quite replace, the raw aesthetic of a particular medium.

Zoom Info

My Disposable Summer

I find it amazing how much of experimental filmmaking was born as a result of the particular equipment, or rather lack of equipment, being used to create works. The nature of resources available for creating film has such a keen ability to dictate the kind of art created, resulting in numerous film movements and philosophies whose key traits and characteristics are significantly based around the kind of tools being used for creation.

Photography is the same way, where the aesthetic produced by different materials start to become artistic statements in of themselves. The kids over at Street Etiquette dropped some progressive fashion photography not too long ago (via Cleon Grey, of Aveder Outfit fame), shooting a post with disposable cameras on the motorcycle jacket, along with heavyweights Ali of A Noble Savage, Ouiji of The Brooklyn Circus, and Kadeem of KJohn La Soul.

I recently had a chance to have my own fun with disposables as well, over the summer. Without access to my typical camera equipment, I was forced to improvise new ways to document my summer. It was amazing, living in a resort town where 75% of the people in the area at any given time were tourists. Seemingly rows upon rows of semi-vacant, identical $35-a-night motels were juxtaposed with beautiful mountains and creeks. I did my best to capture what I saw around me.

With disposable cameras, you often don’t know what you’re getting. The settings are out of your control, and the results are often as unpredictable as Johnny Weir’s wardrobe. But things really start to get interesting when you start getting liberal with digital editing of your disposable images.

I got in a pretty experimental mood when I was editing these images, trying different approaches that would have likely never occurred to me had I not been editing disposables. Even fully conscious of how much the medium was dictating the way I approached the editing process, I was still unable to go about it in any other way.

The results were great though. I’m really happy with the way things turned out. In the age of super DSLRs and 5Ds that can shoot entire feature-length films and street style blog presentations at the same time, analog photography is oft quickly forgotten. It’s nice to know that there are certain things technological advancement can’t quite replace, the raw aesthetic of a particular medium.

TheCreativeRoutine is Playing Music with Jeff the Violinist
I recently had what is at once one of the strangest and most exciting experiences I’ve had in recent memory. My good friend, and sometimes creative partner, Taylor Raboin and I were recently in downtown Nashville, tentatively talking through and planning an upcoming project we’re working on.
Fate would have it that we would spot a certain, peculiar fellow walking around downtown with a wooden staff that resembled the one Moses most have used to part the Red Sea, along with a backpack that looked large and sturdy enough to carry supplies for half a season of Man v. Wild.
Naturally we struck up conversation with him, not breaking pace as we walked alongside to wherever he was headed. I noticed a violin case in his collection of supplies, and before anyone really knew what was happening, he was sitting in front of a mood-setting sea green wall playing his bright red violin, as I snapped glorious images to the amazement of pedestrian on-lookers. Sometimes you instantly realize that you’re documenting content unlike anything you normally do or will likely do in the future. Everything just clicked. It was beautiful. Jeffrey serenaded us with some of the most surreal bluegrass and mountain music my ears had ever witnessed, as music and conversation wove into one another.

upon meeting jeff; with taylor

Jeff is one of those individuals you don’t really believe is real unless you meet him yourself. He’s a musical vagabond, a fellow who wonders from state to state playing music with local friends in between doing seasonal farming at marijuana farms in both Wisconsin and California. Yes, he’s been to 44 states. And yes he’s homeless. But he’s told me he prefers the term home-free. He owns virtually no possessions aside from the ones he carries on his person at all times. Yet despite his untraditional lifestyle, he seems to be one of the most stable individuals I’ve ever met. I used to joke all the time when I was a kid that I wanted to be homeless when I grew up. Yet the more he spoke to Taylor and I, the more I started to wonder if he’d figured out something the rest of us hadn’t.

jeff serenading an entire block

After playing beautiful music for the entertainment of an entire city block, we took the only logical next step: cabbing with Jeff back to campus to find more buffoonery to engage in. Although there is no photo documentation of the rest of the day’s event’s, you can only imagine the number of eyes that stared when we strolled into one of the dining halls alongside our new wooden staff toting, mountain man friend. Two days later we invited Jeff back to campus for another proper jam session, this time playing alongside a cellist friend of ours in the music school.
Enter Alex Krew

master cello commander, alex krew
Alex is trained in classical cello; Jeff does mainly bluegrass and folksy music. Seeing the two of them jam together was an otherworldly musical fusion that probably shouldn’t have been legal. Much like a few days prior, every so often different spectators would pit stop at our musical jam fusion to pay their respects to the brilliance that was taking place before their eyes. There was even an important looking photographer who worked for a still unknown publication that stopped for like 15 minutes to spectate and take photos in a very important looking way.
Alex and Jeff joining forces was a meeting of the minds; it truly was a musical event. They seamlessly rotated between playing different classical and non-classical pieces, all while talking music, and exchanging notes.

The next day Jeff was gone. Off to North Carolina to play a gig I believe. Where he is now, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s upped his state counter to 45 by this time. What an interesting individual. I wonder how often he has experiences like this, and how many friends and musical compatriots he has all over the country. It’s amazing to see someone who literally seized his own destiny and did as he saw fit. He dropped out of school, against everyone’s advice, moved to New York City, then proceeded to get a gig smoking and harvesting weed for a living, while playing music all over the country and seeing more states than you could recite from memory.
Just another example that there’s no one pathway to anything. If you’re passionate and confident, the only thing keeping you from seeing if you can fulfill your dreams is you. Of course, no one is guaranteed success. But how crippling is life if you’re not willing to take the risk?

Zoom Info

TheCreativeRoutine is Playing Music with Jeff the Violinist

I recently had what is at once one of the strangest and most exciting experiences I’ve had in recent memory. My good friend, and sometimes creative partner, Taylor Raboin and I were recently in downtown Nashville, tentatively talking through and planning an upcoming project we’re working on.

Fate would have it that we would spot a certain, peculiar fellow walking around downtown with a wooden staff that resembled the one Moses most have used to part the Red Sea, along with a backpack that looked large and sturdy enough to carry supplies for half a season of Man v. Wild.

Naturally we struck up conversation with him, not breaking pace as we walked alongside to wherever he was headed. I noticed a violin case in his collection of supplies, and before anyone really knew what was happening, he was sitting in front of a mood-setting sea green wall playing his bright red violin, as I snapped glorious images to the amazement of pedestrian on-lookers. Sometimes you instantly realize that you’re documenting content unlike anything you normally do or will likely do in the future. Everything just clicked. It was beautiful. Jeffrey serenaded us with some of the most surreal bluegrass and mountain music my ears had ever witnessed, as music and conversation wove into one another.

upon meeting jeff; with taylor

Jeff is one of those individuals you don’t really believe is real unless you meet him yourself. He’s a musical vagabond, a fellow who wonders from state to state playing music with local friends in between doing seasonal farming at marijuana farms in both Wisconsin and California. Yes, he’s been to 44 states. And yes he’s homeless. But he’s told me he prefers the term home-free. He owns virtually no possessions aside from the ones he carries on his person at all times. Yet despite his untraditional lifestyle, he seems to be one of the most stable individuals I’ve ever met. I used to joke all the time when I was a kid that I wanted to be homeless when I grew up. Yet the more he spoke to Taylor and I, the more I started to wonder if he’d figured out something the rest of us hadn’t.

jeff serenading an entire block

After playing beautiful music for the entertainment of an entire city block, we took the only logical next step: cabbing with Jeff back to campus to find more buffoonery to engage in. Although there is no photo documentation of the rest of the day’s event’s, you can only imagine the number of eyes that stared when we strolled into one of the dining halls alongside our new wooden staff toting, mountain man friend. Two days later we invited Jeff back to campus for another proper jam session, this time playing alongside a cellist friend of ours in the music school.

Enter Alex Krew

master cello commander, alex krew

Alex is trained in classical cello; Jeff does mainly bluegrass and folksy music. Seeing the two of them jam together was an otherworldly musical fusion that probably shouldn’t have been legal. Much like a few days prior, every so often different spectators would pit stop at our musical jam fusion to pay their respects to the brilliance that was taking place before their eyes. There was even an important looking photographer who worked for a still unknown publication that stopped for like 15 minutes to spectate and take photos in a very important looking way.

Alex and Jeff joining forces was a meeting of the minds; it truly was a musical event. They seamlessly rotated between playing different classical and non-classical pieces, all while talking music, and exchanging notes.

The next day Jeff was gone. Off to North Carolina to play a gig I believe. Where he is now, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s upped his state counter to 45 by this time. What an interesting individual. I wonder how often he has experiences like this, and how many friends and musical compatriots he has all over the country. It’s amazing to see someone who literally seized his own destiny and did as he saw fit. He dropped out of school, against everyone’s advice, moved to New York City, then proceeded to get a gig smoking and harvesting weed for a living, while playing music all over the country and seeing more states than you could recite from memory.

Just another example that there’s no one pathway to anything. If you’re passionate and confident, the only thing keeping you from seeing if you can fulfill your dreams is you. Of course, no one is guaranteed success. But how crippling is life if you’re not willing to take the risk?

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Vandlist by Vandal’s 2012 Spring/Summer Preview and the Emergence of the Manskirt in Contemporary Menswear

Most would agree that we are experiencing a sort of renaissance in contemporary menswear; emerging globalization of trends and common ideas in the menswear society, thanks to communities like Tumblr, is creating perhaps the most excitement and growth modern menswear has ever had. If you’re “part of the community” and know how to properly use the menswear hashtag, then you’ve probably noticed all the major trends and general disposition that crowds the contemporary conversation. There’s the resurgence of heritage and workwear in general; the renewed emphasis on fit and tailoring; of course there’s the inconceivable amount of ivy influence and other “preppytudes” creeping up in every corner of menswear; and we can’t forget about the modern reinterpretation of classic style with a dash of irreverence best characterized by Mr. McNairy and friends.

Wait though. We are leaving out perhaps the most intriguing and revolutionary major style trend of them all: the “Rick Owens/Alexander Wang, #allblackalleverything; shapes, lines, and contours” movement.

It wasn’t until Jay-Z declared that he might wear black for a year straight that I realized that it was the classiest color in all of clothing. And undoubtedly Hov’s endorsement of black only helped its popularity, but it’s still hard to really finger the root behind this growing trend in menswear.

I have a few hypotheses; I’m convinced the Wu-Tang Clan is involved. The 9 wise clansmen from Shaolin once told us that Wu-Tang is forever. Perhaps we all limited the truth of this declaration’s scope to the Wu’s influence in music, or maybe even dismissed the statement as merely a clever line of braggadocios rap. Don’t be deceived. Wu-Tang really is forever.

Is it just me or is much of the prevailing aesthetic of the RO/AW#SLC movement (as properly abbreviated) reminiscent of classic kung-fu and samurai movies, films that the Wu-Tang Clan helped re-popularize with their music and martial arts themes. I realize that many of the assertions made here today may find difficult to prove. But I think it’s no coincidence that many of the prominent figures in today’s menswear community have an acute interest in kung fu films and classic hip hop music and culture, all ingredients that cultivate a cultural breeding ground for Shaolin-inspired garments.

shaolin vs wu tang, 1981; one of the principal wu-tang clan inspirations

Vandlist by Vandal 2012 Spring/Summer Preview

Heemin Yang’s VANDALIST by VANDAL recently showed its 2012 Spring/Summer Collection atSeoul Fashion Week, a showcase very much in the spirit of RO/AW#SLC. Yang drafted a collection that revolves around the ideas of lines and shadows. Most of the pieces are monochromatic, dark ensembles with clever hems and free-flowing fabric. The collection plays well with proportions and layering, mixing numerous fabrics in ways that create beautiful geometric shapes.

Skirts. There were a lot of skirts as well. I’m not sure what image comes to mind when somebody not involved in the fashion blogosphere thinks manskirt, but this collection. That’s what comes to mind for me. There’s strangely nothing unnatural about seeing these men in skirts. It’s not shockingly provocative the way cross-dressing can be, or even obnoxious and obtrusive. In fact, all the clothing is well-fitting and functional and complements the human figure nicely.

Folks, remember how you weren’t around when women first started wearing pants? I wasn’t either. But I imagine the idea in 1945 would be just as societally cringe-inducing as the manskirt is. I have yet to wear (or own) one, but after seeing it done well, all my brain needed to do was get past the negative mental blocks surrounding the word manskirt and I was sold.

I’m honestly overtly excited about the possibilities surrounding this trend. In 30 years, we could be living in a world where manskirts are as much a no-brainer as women in pants. And with the power of globalization, the manskirt (and this RO/AW#SLC aesthetic in general) could become an integral part of the modern “prototypical man”, the same way that a suit and tie embody that now. Still not sold? Check here, here, here, and below.

skirts by soar and thome browne, respectively

Plenty of designers have done manskirts in the past, so disregard all the ones that got it wrong. Ed Hardy’s bastardizations haven’t illegitimatized all of clothing; the same principle applies to manskirts. It’s only a matter of time before the runway is not the only location where manskirts are an unsurprising occurrence. Soon you won’t just be seeing them during your daily blog roll. You’ll go outside after spending the first 45 minutes of your day on your favorite 7 blogs and bam! There’ll be a man in a skirt sitting across from you on the Metro.

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Libertine-Libertine’s 2011 Fall/Winter Inseam Loobook

Fashion’s existentialist darling, Copenhagen’s Libertine-Libertine recently released their 2011 Fall/Winter Inseam Lookbook. It’s an impressive collection of tailored winter fabrics and rich color against a backdrop of blue walls and black skin. Black skin is featured pretty prominently actually. It serves as an integral feature of the entire lookbook.

Libertine-Libertine built a collection of outfits composed of color combinations traditionally known to complement black skin. To go along with it, they installed a blue backdrop to supplement the nicely photographed dark-skinned model hired to sport the looks. The result is pretty beautiful. An impressively composed collection of textures and colors all meant to play off one another.

Why Libertine-Libertine chose the route of creating a collection finely composed to complement skin of a certain tone is uncertain. Whether their existentialist sympathizing has anything to do with it is pending as well. (Though Liam Gaws may have some insight on the topic).

Fashion used to be filled with a certain hesitation towards accommodating models of color, but in 2011 only the most exclusive European fashion houses reserve this view. But what does it say about fashion that in 2011 it’s possible for an existentialist fashion brand to market a lookbook revolving around the idea of dark skin? I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking.

Each Libertine-Libertine look features cutout details of the particular look. Each detail aims at combining skin and fabric in a way that forms an holistic union. It’s a pretty brilliant lookbook in my opinion. Aside from the smart approach to a lookbook, the actual clothes are stylishly, practical, wearable outfits, and the lookbook is nicely shot.

On Libertine-Libertine’s site are blown-up versions of the looks plus extras. Here massive details of black skin donning quality fabrics are featured in all their glory. Libertine-Libertine has created avant-garde lookbooks in the past, so it’s not necessarily surprising that they recently dropped this collection. What the entire collection mounts up to is an impressive display of fashion and racial commentary; another piece in the steadily growing modern cultural conversation.

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