We have been off to a slow start here (not elsewhere), but with some very exciting meetings ahead in the coming months (stay tuned!), there will be an even stronger overal shift to ‘Less but Better’ in this year. Nevertheless, we will start picking up the pace from here, still sharing those things that continue to move us — today putting focus on the infamous Studio Job once more. As part of the Carpenters Workshop Gallery's ten-year anniversary programme, last week the gallery with three locations worldwide opened its Parisian space for the public to an exclusive exhibition by Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel, which might very well be the most impressive display of their holistic practice till date.

Entitled ‘Here There Nowhere’ the exceptional solo show presents new creations, some of the most emblematic pieces that the duo created over the last few years and, very excitingly so, for the first time it opens up the drawings that form the basis for most physical creations to the public. The result is a highly diverse constellation of the fascinating creatures, iconic hybrid forms and ironic objects that punctuated with iconographic references — forming a kitsch and fanciful world where the object transcends functionality with everything bound together by the ‘Neo-Gothic’ aesthetic, masterfully championed by the Dutch power duo. When in Paris, ‘Here There Nowhere’ in a must visit! [ Continue reading ]

To celebrate the fact that lunatics can become presidents: we bring you this deadstock vintage canvas money bag, hand-customized by our close friend and typographer Guido de Boer. [ Continue reading ]

The tremendously talented photographer Constantine "Costa" Manos, who joined the roster of the legendary Magnum agency in 1965, first began taking photographs while in high school when he joined his school's camera club. Within a few years after discovering the art form, he actually becomes a professional photographer and at 19 he gets hired as the official photographer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, published into his very first book 'Portrait of a Symphony' in 1961. From 1961 until 1964, Manos lives in Greece, the country of birth of both his parents, photographing the people and landscape. Subsequently he returns to the USA, living in Boston. Where for instance in 1974, Manos was hired by the city to create the photographs for the prestigious 'Where's Boston?' exhibition: a large production in honor of Boston's 200th anniversary.

Decades later, in 1995, after having worked relentlessly for all those years, Manos' work finds a totally new audience when his iconic series focussing on the American people named 'American Color' is released. In 2010 he presents his second series of the same kind: 'American Color 2', which once more shows the extraordinary talent of Manos and has been a favorite of ours for years. As the name suggests, the photographer succeeds marvelously in creating incredible colorful images, portraying as much what is actually touched by the sun as what isn't, with most people in the frames hidden in stretches of shade to a slight surreal effect. Every one of the highly captivating images, succeeding to show one highly coherent signature, portray a America in all its richness, represented from a truly unique perspective of a great American photographer that still needs to be discovered by many. [ Continue reading ]

We are back in the new year and start it off with a name we have been closely following for years: Australian photographer Paul Barbera. At the end of last year, the talented imagemaker presented a new volume in his acclaimed Where They Create series — this time by exploring the theme of his series through geographical locales. Reinvigorated by his first visit to Japan in five years, Barbera made this country the focus point of the all new volume.  Published by Frame Publishers, Barbera, accompanied by Japanese writer Kanae Hasegawa, explores the workspaces of 32 leading creatives in Japan. With this considered curation of subjects and Paul's extraordinary eye for iconic details, the new book unveils the sometimes surreptitious nature of contemporary Japanese design culture.

The country is well known for its incredible food, beautiful landscapes, innovative technology and its attitude around perfectionism, that has been been setting a new worldwide bar of excellence from the moment it became known. Most importantly for Barbera in his personal journey is the sense of discovery, of both the creatives and their process, which he has been portraying for years know and is exemplified in his imagery, being able to portray more with composition than words could ever offer (especially considering the reserved Japanese culture) — resulting in quite possibly his most inspirational installment of his by now often copied, but still very relevant Where They Create project. [ Continue reading ]

While we are wrapping up 2016, we’re looking back once again to everything we have done with Another Something. Another year has passed in which we shared all of the inspirational things that moved us in the realms of fashion, travel, craftsmanship, creative culture, printed matter, cycling and photography, did some super inspiring interviews and worked on fantastic projects, that are yet to be released. It was the year where we decided to do ‘Less but Better’ and it really worked out! From creating less, but better content with Another Something, to focussing on the things we really enjoy: building brands in the richest way possible. We stepped down as creative partner at Tenue de Nîmes, ended our adventure with Our Current Obsessions and decided to celebrate our collaboration with …,staat in merging Atelier Joachim Baan into …,staat from the start of 2017 onwards. There are also some extremely exiting projects we’ve been working on over the past months, which we’re not yet allowed to share, but can’t until the moment we can in early 2017!

Exciting times are ahead of us! [ Continue reading ]

With the closing of the year upon us, looking back at the rather strange and undeniably eventful period of time that was 2016, there is still one important story that needs to be shared here: the transformation of Amsterdam-based perfume house Abel, which we worked on for most of the last twelve months and eventually was presented to the world at Tenue de Nîmes last month. It is a story that started already at the end of 2015 and on many levels became one of the most gratifying assignments completed in the last few years, period.

Although it is often not the first thing mentioned when speaking on these particular things, for us it was first and foremost of the highest pleasure to experience the kind of confidence in our vision as shown by Abel founder Frances Shoemack, who started her brand with two all-organic perfumes in 2012 and came to us in the winter of last year to redefine a new direction for the future. At that point several new fragrances were being perfected by Abel's 'nose' Isaac Sinclair, which would mark an important new chapter that asked to completely rethink all the existing paradigms. Finding strong inspirational anchor points through the traditional start of our proces; a deep dive into, in this particular case, the world of niche parfums, complemented by for instance the work of British poet T.S. Eliot, having a focus on the experience of time, and subsequently finding a visual language that in the richest way possible would translate the conceptual framework on an aesthetic level — over the course of the months that passed it resulted in a sharply redefined strategy, a rigorous repositioning of the brand and aligned with that new direction a completely restyled identity for the, at this point perfected, five piece collection of elegant natural 'living' fragrances that we coined vita odor. 

With some time passed, we can look back at both the process and the fruits of the work, and it is safe to say: it makes us as proud as anything we initiated ourselves in the past and it was a unique pleasure to have been part of it all. Now it's time the rest of the world finds out about Abel too! [ Continue reading ]

We've been appreciating the ambitious German bag and accessory label TSATSAS since their Aesthetic Habitat collaboration with our friend Ramon Haindl. This month, after presenting it for the first time during Berliner Mode Salon 2016, they return with a new inspirational artistic project named WHERE I END AND YOU BEGIN, which will be on display at the TSATSAS atelier in Frankfurt am Main through the end of January 2017. In every single one of their designs Esther Schulze-Tsatsas and Dimitrios Tsatsas, explore an object’s boundaries. Their bags and accessories, produced using precise patterns, are made up of countless individual pieces which are assembled using in a complex production process to create a coherent piece.

In the project, the color of the leather becomes a medium for highlighting the transitions within the bags and accessories. Until this moment all TSATSAS leather designs have been monochrome, hiding the fact that the products are made up of different sections. Using different colors for the various elements highlights that diversity, rendering the boundaries suddenly visible. Boundaries, either called for by the design, as with the LUCID tote bag, where different shades of leather come together in the front and back, or are set by the basis of aesthetic considerations, as with the HAZE clutch bag. The space in which the subject is addressed and the designs presented is a solid cube lined with leather. Other pieces that were involved in the project are the iconic FLUKE, cardholder CREAM TYPE 2, clutch bag HAZE and two other bags, LINDEN and LUCID, all featuring two contrasting shades of high-grade natural leather, which with all TSATSAS products is tanned in South Germany. The pieces created for WHERE I END AND YOU BEGIN are one-offs and do not form part of the collection — very inspirational stuff! [ Continue reading ]