After making a name for himself as a tattoo artist, with clients including the late Heath Ledger, Courtney Love and Marc Jacobs, about five years ago Scott Campbell began exploring drawing, painting and sculpture. While still keeping flesh his main canvas, Campbell’s artistic practice has found another home: the gallery. Thursday night Campbell will have his first solo presentation in New York City, titled “If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long.” His aesthetic is rooted in his background as a tattoo artist, as well as in the culture surrounding American tattooing, and features pieces with ornamented scripts and classic motifs like skulls and hearts carved out of stacks of US Dollar bills. Although this theme has been visited before, the approach of layered notes creating three dimensional shapes, like a topographic map, feels new. As with any artist that lacks formal training or comes already established in another field he is judged in a different light in the art world (NY times featured him in their Style section rather than in Arts). But then where do you draw the line here, when most art that is trying hard to be provocative and unconventional is, in many cases, more about the message and the concept rather then the piece itself? I doubt that this bothers Campbell and his fans. His work should be looked at as single pieces and judged thereafter, regardless of what category it falls into.

If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long is running April 29 – May 30, 2010 at OHWOW, 109 Crosby street in New York.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN FASHION?

I was 16.

WHAT IS YOUR DESIGN BACKGROUND?

I studied at Beckmans College in Stockholm, then assisted at Whyred, going on to Acne and Tiger of Sweden where I designed menswear.

WHERE DO YOU SEEK INSPIRATION?

Art, architecture and street fashion.

WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON ORIGINALITY IN FASHION DESIGN?

Originality comes with a free mind.

DO YOU RELATE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES TO YOUR DESIGN WORK?

I think design work makes an impact on life experience, designing for me is a way of life. It is my day to day life and my long term goals.

WHO  HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST SUPPORT IN YOUR DESIGN CAREER?

My boyfriend.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE FOR INDEPENTENT DESIGNERS?

Access to the global market is growing which offers opportunity for small businesses. This creates new challenges such as creative marketing.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?

In happiness and in creative goals.

WHAT WAS THE LAST ART SHOW YOU WENT TO?

Åsa Cederquists “Vo-ca-bu-la-ry” at Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm.

WHAT WAS THE LAST TRACK YOU LISTENED TO?

Paul Kalkbrenner “Sky and Sand”

WHAT WAS THE LAST GIG YOU WENT TO?

Lykke Li.

WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU WATCHED?

Men Who Hate Women.

Photographer: Amy Troost
Stylist: Alastair McKimm
Hair: Bok-Hee / Streeters
Make Up: Sil Bruinsma / Streeters
Model: Meg McCabe / Marilyn
Stylist Assistants: Zara Zachrisson & Michael Vendola

Skaters have Supreme, tennis players have Tretorn, and now surfers have Saturdays. The Soho café–slash–lifestyle store just opened last September, but it’s already a downtown classic. Beginning with coffee from La Colombe, the shop, opened by good friends Morgan Collett, Colin Tunstall, and Josh Rosen—all refugees from the city’s creative industries—has expanded over the winter months to include surfboards, wetsuits, and a perfectly edited selection of surf-inspired wear, from Isaora parkas and Birdwell Beach Britches board shorts to Spring Court sneakers. “Surf culture used to have such a sharp look, and at some point that was lost,” says Rosen, who oversaw the space’s transformation from gallery to surf-shop. The store is just the starting point for what will become a lifestyle brand, with the first capsule collection available in March. “We wanted to design clothes you can wear to head to Montauk, surf, then throw on a button-down and go out,” Rosen explains. “Very classic, nothing too contemporary.” Summer can’t get here fast enough.

Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used the terms “raw” and “cooked” to illuminate the difference between nature (wild ducks, for example) and culture (paté de foie gras). Michael Cirino, creator of the poetical A Razor, A Shiny Knife–an experimental supper club based in Brooklyn–isn’t so much for those hard-line Structuralist distinctions. Cirino, a dead ringer for Serpico-era Al Pacino, is, however, of a philosophical mind when conceiving his popular experimental cuisine and conceptual dinners, which have occurred all over the world. Cirino has done all-black dinners, all-white dinners and an event that reinterpreted the “locavore” food trend by examining locally-produced tableware. And the hits just keep coming. Recently, in conjunction with New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture, Cirino created a dinner themed around the art space’s current exhibition Landscapes of Quarantine, which was curated by Future Plural and features artworks that respond to “a strategy of separation and containment.” Cirino’s meal, which was produced and served in the gallery space, employed the same ideologies. Dry-aged beef, which is “quarantined” for 28 days, was the main focus, while a course of sous-vide cooked ravioli featured adorable thyme blossoms hermetically-sealed in tiny plastic bags. A standout course of Hirami sashimi was magically captured inside a canning jar filled with cherrywood smoke, which released curls of cherry-scented fumes into the space when opened. Both raw and cooked, the dish, like its proud father, was one of a kind.

By day three, the festival starts to wind down. The headliners are less exciting, the ambience is more subdued and the people less jumpy. Everyone seems to need a little bit more room to breathe and relax. I decided to enjoy the performances from behind the stage, instead of amongst the crowd in front. My feet were blistered, my skin burnt from the sun, my vocal chords on their last stretch. I saw the beautiful Florence (and the Machine) as she nervously psyched herself to get on stage. I chatted with De La Soul’s David Jude about his ambition to start a jewelry line—he was wearing his own magnificent diamond encrusted fish-on-a-hook necklace. I watched Charlotte Gainsbourg from the comfort of own square meter on the back of the stage, water at my disposal.

For the past three days a few things had caught my attention. I noticed how many hot girls are at Coachella. For a casting director like myself this observation is simply a professional hazard, for the straight man at the festival however an absolute joy. Skimpy dresses, short shorts, bikini tops, cut out T-shirts, even some thongs here and there. The sights were dizzying. Models.com was taking notes on passing supermodels, casting agent Douglas Perrett was scouting the next new face of fashion, and photographer Derek Ketella simply said: “Damn!”

And what better way to truly amplify the festival experience than some good old-fashioned, mind-altering drugs. About half the people on the field must have taken mushrooms or XTC. I saw many eyes rolling and smiles that were just a bit too delightful and dreamy. For the local dealers Coachella must be height of their fiscal year. If you stood in the same place long enough something would surely fall in your lap.

All in all, Coachella is the caviar of festivals. Palm trees, dry weather, clean toilets and unbelievable lineups. The crowds might be getting bigger, and the tickets more expensive, but the experience remains stellar. The festival would, however, be a completely different experience if cell phones worked properly. Communication on the field was about half an hour delayed, and by the time your lost party got your text about a meeting place, they had already moved miles away. By the time you received their text to stay put, you had literally walked a marathon to get to them, so neither of you were where you said you would be! I had my own personal melt down after a 4-hour intensive search for my car keys one night. I think there may have even been a few tears…

Young designer Patrik Ervell has made his mark on men’s fashion by creating a line of perfectly calibrated pieces that mesh sharp modernism with forward-march technology. Windbreakers are constructed from reconstituted parachutes, military parkas are cut from oilcloth, and blazers are elegantly stained with rust. Last Thursday, Ervell brought the same sensibility—classic patterns and futuristic technical fabrics—to the Internet with his new online store.

The online store had been in the works since last July, a gestation period that belies the seeming ease and simplicity of the site itself. The architecture of the shop was the complicated part; the videos—produced entirely in house—were easy in comparison. The difficulties involved with establishing such a deceptively intricate showcase may be one reason why many brands are so reticent to make the move online. There’s a lot of pressure to stand out and get it right, an increasingly onerous task on the overcrowded web.

Visitors to Ervell’s site, which until recently featured a video of his latest show, are now greeted by several images of a model dressed in Ervell’s spring collection. Arranged across the screen in three rows, the looks—actually short videos set on repeat—are a rare opportunity to see the clothes in movement before purchasing. The model picks at his nails, runs his hand through his hair, tugs at his collar, peeks in his pocket, little routines meant to emphasize the naturalness and ease of the pieces. The shop also offers several exclusives, mostly different color and fabric options that brick-and-mortar stores didn’t order, as well as other special items. Most of the items from his current collection are available now—including those rust-stained blazers.

http://patrikervell.com/

My personal mission for the day was to meet my teenage crush Mike Patton, singer of Faith No More. With my artist wristband I had access to just about every area on and behind the field, but for some reason the band had taken special security measures. I made a few attempts to slip into their gated backstage section but gave up before it became too embarrassing. Instead I bolted to the field twenty minutes ahead and planted myself in front of the stage, in the center of the mosh pit. I was prepared to get crushed, but found out quickly that American fans are a bit boring. There was not enough singing, jumping and dancing, just a lot of sweating, pushing and groping. The highlight of the show was a crowd surfing Mike, which sent the fans in a mad frenzy. Sadly, my crush did not make it over to me… Mission incomplete…

On Saturday night 2 Many DJ’s trailer party was kicking off. 1. Champagne was handed around 2. Fellow DJs Eroll Alkan, Trevor Jackson and James Murphy visited. 3. Friends from all over the world found each other. 4. DEVO watched from across the “street.”

To get from the backstage to the stages or tents the production team commands a fleet of golf carts. The field is so big it literally takes fifteen minutes to get from one side to the other. And that’s if you’re running and can avoid stumbling over the thousands of festival-goers sprawled across the field. In the Sahara tent, DJ Z-trip was just finishing his set to give the stage to Die Antwoord, a Zef-Rap act from Capetown, consisting of three members dressed in matching white printed, hooded tracksuits. Frontman Ninja looks like a mix of Vanilla Ice and Jeremy Scott. His sidekick Yo-Landi is a tiny girl with a long blonde Mohawk. Their lyrics are in Zuid Afrikaans and apparently quite obscene. When 2 many DJs finished their set at 1am, we had one more champagne for the road. It would take me another two hours before making it back to the hotel. If I were more of a rock star I would’ve jacked one of those golf carts…

A dear friend of mine is a tailor.  He was trained in Saville Rowe in London and makes bespoke suits. This chap will come to measure you up, at work or home, and within weeks you will have a trouser and jacket that fits, well, like a suit should. He makes a suit a pleasure to wear everyday.

So when I was handed this little book, Exercises for Gentlemen: 50 Exercises to Do With Your Suit On, I thought of him immediately. As a lady, I too find myself often compromised by attire choices: bike riding in a short skirt, walking distances in heeled boots, cooking in a silk blouse. But, there are ways around these situations, and I thought it was better to look good doing something inappropriate (with regard to your outfit) than to look inappropriate doing something good. Sometimes your outfit does not match with your activity, but you take it in your stride. Literally.

This book is a little etiquette guide that takes advice from The School of Health, a reference book from the early 1900s that directs one through low-impact exercise. Its aim is to help men with little time to devote to activities outside a busy schedule, enabling one to get the physical exertion they should on a daily basis, regardless of your restricting threads.

With illustrations and instructional notes to accompany the routine, each chapter focuses on the exercises that will target a different region of the body, including Standing Exercises, Head & Trunk, Leg & Foot Movement. The tome also delves into matters of Personal Hygiene & Tonic Measures. In between chapters, there are quoted tips that often relate to the upcoming chapter such as: “If the directions have been carefully followed, the position will be one of erectness, dignity and grace, and pleasing to behold.” Something we all strive for no?