Fader

We've had a fashion crush on NY-based label Vena Cava for a while now and can proudly say that the poster they made for their Fall '09 presentation still hangs on the FADER Style Department walls. Yesterday, while daydreaming about studded VC dresses, an email from designer Lisa Mayock popped up in our inbox titled "We made a blog, it is awesome." After scrolling through multiple inspiration pics—geometric murals by the Ndebele and Mbuti tribes and soviet punk—considering their "touch-of-goth" styling tips and brainstorming sessions in Argentine steakhouses, we've decided we're ready to move in to VC HQ whenever Lisa and Sophie will have us.

Since Australian fashion week wrapped up a while ago, Australian fashion and street style has been sticking with us like peanut butter to the roof of a dog's mouth. Maybe it's because they know how to kill it in studded shorts or maybe it's because they party alongside weird marsupials. We're not sure yet, but we decided to have our Australian correspondent, Nat Jones, give us a little in-depth study of Sydney shop life. Read what he has to say about his latest shop stop after the jump. more...

While a few of our favorite NYC shops sank like rocks this year, some have taken the next step to keep their heads above the rushing waters. Two of our favorite NYC shop owners, Louis Terline and Jeff Madalena of OAK, have done just that with the launch of their new basement store A.OK, a collection of playful summer jaunts at what we term, "vacation prices." Using their style wizardry to source new designer pieces along side selected vintage and their own economically smart styles, prices range from cheap to a step above for those on a sliding scale budget. We scored a few gems last week and even recognized some featured FADER favorites like Warriors of Radness and Alexandra Cassaniti who are singing the fashion anthem to our surf-themed style parade at the moment—scissors, over-sized tee, snip and voila! we naked on our bellies—and to score on a score, OAK is throwing a launch party tonight at Don Hill's with FADER 59's Lauren Flax and others. Peep the invite after the jump. more...

The Summer in the City series is our photographic edit of the best out-and-about New York style of the season. The first slideshow features dapper attendees of the Femi Kuti show at the Fillmore on Thursday, June 4th.

Before we get completely obsessed with telling you all about our summer music issue we want to make sure you got thorough with all of our David Byrne issue, which actually included some non-Byrne content. Maybe the pole furthest on the compass was our interview with Alexi Wasser, who runs the magical blog I'm Boy Crazy, where she writes lots and lots about her love of dudes. But, in many ways, that outward dude love and all of its pitfalls to consummation is really just the world's weird mirror back on ourselves. Wasser bemoans the inevitable crappiness of romance and endless disappointments while always praising the meaty self-discovery on the journey. The above advertisement for herself should give you a taste of her. For more, check Matthew Schnipper's Q+A from F61 after the jump. more...

Back in the summer of ’08 we interviewed filmmaker Kahlil Joseph about Uniform 2008, a joint collaboration between the bureau of social research and fashion designer Built by Wendy. Joseph approached Wendy Mullin to design three different outfits to be worn everyday for six months–one for himself, one for NY-based artist Adia Millett and another SF-based Michelle Blade–with the aim of documenting changes in participant behavior. Sheena Mathieken set herself a very similar sartorial challenge at the beginning of this month, but takes slightly more artistic license with her Uniform Project. When it comes reinventing the LBD she'll be wearing for the next 365 days Mathieken is pretty intense with her layering, and the 17 looks posted on her website so far make us wish there were cut-out dolls like this to play with when we were kids. More than just flexing her styling powers though, Mathieken is using the project to raise money for the Akanksha Foundation, and proceeds will go towards school expenses and uniforms for slum children in India.

WORLD PREMIERE!! FADER #62, our Summer Music issue, hits newsstands next week and these are the covers. But this week might be the end of us. We're seeing our latest coverstars Major Lazer at least three times and Phoenix hopefully twice. We're going to remix the entirety of Guns Don't Kill People Lazers Do on this new Major Lazer iDrum app and then drink some French wine with the Phoenix guys, or at least some kids who work at APC or maybe just by ourselves. We're going to hand out copies of our new issue like we're the rich uncle at the wedding and they are $20 bills and then we're going to pass out on Sunday and start making the next one on Monday (Jokes! We're already working on it.) So if you see us on the town before then, rambling and not smelling very good, just grab a copy and move along. We'll take showers next week, we promise.

The Sartorialist is undeniably awesome, but sometimes we need something a little sweeter in our cup than old cravat-wearing Italian dudes on bicycles. Fashion lady Susie Bubble put us on to lawyer-turned-photographer Vanessa Jackman's street photo blog, which has lately been putting us in just the right mood. Whether they're skipping around the Eiffel tower in nautical stripes with the wind blowing through their hair or smoking a moody cigarette in a backstreet in London, Jackman's subjects are all young, lovely and carefree—yes, life is more beautiful at the "magical hour," obviously.

Since Australian fashion week wrapped up a little over a month ago, we can't help but notice that Australian fashion and street style has been sticking with us like peanut butter to the roof of a dog's mouth. Maybe it's because they know how to kill it in studded shorts or maybe it's because they party alongside weird marsupials. We're not sure yet, but we decided to have our Australian correspondent, Nat Jones, give us a little in-depth study of Sydney shop life. Read what he has to say about his latest shop stop after the jump. more...

We once had this really enthusiastic idea to snap pictures of stylish people on their bikes... but they all got away. So instead, let's talk bikes, because bikes are cool even when people are not. Bowery Lane Bicycles, a new New York-based bike designer, has taken Old World styles and made them modern for those street ready vintage enthusiasts. We personally like the Broncks Raw style because it sounds hard and also has a slender steel frame and shiny brass fixings. Sparkly! If you're more a meat and potatoes biker we recommend the Breukelen since it's a little thicker framed. Anyway you look at it, Bowery Lane is good for a nice NYC afternoon cruise. more...

When it comes to a little black spot, French street wear brand Hixsept knows its expandable bounds. After being featured in our March/April issue, Hixsept released their pixelated Le Terrain Vague collection, a more neutral take on those little Lichtenstein dots. The series is an experiment of black and white gradient—just as much wearable as it is an art project—using various sized black dots to make dark, light and medium grey shades on tailored pants and sweaters. The latest version is a fifty percent surface distribution of black dots on a white palette which the boys over at Hixsept describe as "created through a period of sweet sleepless nights and dark long days." Only the French can make grey seem so intriguing. Peep more after the jump. more...

If we could trade workspaces with anyone right now, it would probably be Andrea Crews. Being surrounded by mounds of vintage sweaters, pants and miscellaneous '80s ra-ra skirts in a huge airy gallery space in Paris would probably be pretty sweet. The latest Crews project probably involved a lot of sifting through those very clothing mountains in search of perfectly worn-in Mickey Mouse tees (Minnie's polka dots makes a cameo appearance but the pieces are predominately Mickey heavy). Besides the mouse cut-n-pastage, we also noticed a very fetching pair of polka dot cheerleader-inspired Air Force 1s on their output list. more...

It's usually about this time that most dudes start thinking about where to go with their facial hair: defuzz and go fresh and clean for the summer or hold on to the fur that you've been working like a well pruned bonsai for four months. Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, the two loopy Aussies behind the label Romance Was Born threw a couple of beardo alternatives in to the ring with their latest show, including detachable doily beards and mustache makeup. But seriously the collection that showed at Australian Fashion Week earlier this month was awesomely playful and fun and made us wish that the doll-face toilet paper covers our granny used to crochet were actually life-sized. more...

Sometimes when we're out running to appointments we stop to take a breather. That breather usually lands smack dab in the middle of street vendor haven where we stock up on fancy bangles and beads on the cheap. On most days a single bangle or two finishes off an outfit, but recently we've been stacking an added one or two to our furnished wrists, edging towards a tower of bulbous metal bands. Check out what we mean after the jump. more...

We like to check in with London-based line YMC from time to time because they've been consistently dapper for the past 10-plus years, but also because their shoe collections are always subtly re-styled versions of the classics we love. Simple ankle-high plimsoles in suede (white suede is somehow infinitely luxurious!), or boat shoes in colored python! Alright so maybe the python joints are a little more to the left of dandy than we would wholeheartedly cosign, but luckily they come in lady sizes too, so in the end it all works out quite nicely for the girls. more...

Dutch designers Mr & Mrs Kind (yes really) won us over with their eponymous line of knitwear back when we spoke to them in FADER #40. They literally knit all their jokes and good humor into each collection, creating lovable huggable wooly characters across sweaters and dresses like winking foxes and flying toothaches. For this summer's knits, cartoonish paint splatters get threaded into the clothes, but it's the insane Photoshop craziness in this season's lookbook that really caught our eye—is this knitwear model growing wings out of the seat of her pants? Is that a giant exploding snowball or the head of a white caterpillar? Hopefully the next collection will include some sartorial riff on these weird electronic doodles, or at least an answer to these questions

Every release of an Icon issue is a special occasion, but this year is a little extra special because we've dedicated it to someone who's still around: man about town and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. We switched up the format and spoke to Byrne himself, as well as profiling five artists we think are carrying on his legacy, namely Grizzly Bear, Michael Bell-Smith, Theophilus London, Micachu & The Shapes and the Dutty Artz crew. There are also life maps, old photos, essays and weirdness. And as always, we've got a bunch of great bands in our Gen F section and a million other interesting things throughout, including a globetrotting fashion photo story of cyclists around the world (That one's for you, Byrne!). We've put together a mix of music from the issue, presented by Bacardi B-Live, that includes jams from Byrne, Salem, Joker, Pterodactyl, Grizzly Bear, Erup, Jahdan Blakkamoore, Theophilus London, Nipsey Hussle and more. Download it below and pick up a copy of the issue now at the newsstand of your choosing. When the paper wears out, come back to FADER.com for a free download of our issue PDF in two weeks.

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Check the tracklist after jump. more...

In FADER #55 we sought out some of the best in chilling styles for those backyard BBQ vibes. One of the featured designers in the issue and a favorite from Los Angeles, Brigid Catiis, is an expert at turning your oldies into goodies, and her most recent collection has brought back tie-dye yearnings in the shape of a little summer dress. Peep our favorites and more of what we had to say about the vintage enthusiast after the jump. more...

Last week our Portland style contributor, Marjorie Skinner, attended the launch of Slow and Steady Wins the Race's collaborative effort, N°20 Rainwear, with Portland's Stand Up Comedy boutique. Fittingly, attendees braved the rain for designer Mary Ping's latest witty and reliable effort, pancho style. Check out the looks after the jump and see what Skinner had to say about one of our favorite indie designers. more...