Mikael Kennedy is a New York City-based commercial and fine art photographer, which we have been following since the very beginning of our online endeavors. We first noticed his extraordinary work through his internationally acclaimed Polaroid travel blog; Passport to Trespass, which documented his 10 years of wandering the United States with a Polaroid SX70, concluded by the photographer in 2011. Now a days Kennedy’s Polaroids are part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, as well as in private collections worldwide. Other work of his has appeared in print in The New Yorker, Nylon, Dazed & Confused, WWD, and his photography has been being profiled online with GQ, Esquire, Time, Newsweek Magazine, and the WSJ, among others. Having been inspired by both Mikael's nomadic way of living and the elegant aesthetic one finds in his works, oftenly created during these travels: we now ask him what has inspired him along the road. [ Continue reading ]
On Thursday the 23rd of October a new bicycle racing specialist named Meesterknecht, opened its doors in the centre of Amsterdam. Meesterknecht is a bike shop with a cycling café focused on contemporary cycling. The shop caters to everything cycling enthousiasts dream of and on top of that one can enjoy the shop's exclusive espresso blend 'Gangmaker' (Pacer or Derny), while admiring Amsterdam's rich cycling history on the shop’s walls. The shop is proof that cycling is driven more and more by aesthetics and pleasure, instead of purely focused on performance. Due to the pervasive cycling culture in the Netherlands, cycling is not quickly perceived as being cool, even though cycling was the number one sport in the Netherlands until the late '60s. Every neighborhood in Amsterdam used to have its own criterium race and the cycling legends of the time raced its velodromes. Meesterknecht says it wants to bring back part of this lost culture and take the very best from the cycling community to Amsterdam. [ Continue reading ]
After our friends of The Travel Almanac premiered their interesting new venture last June in the form of TTA Editions, of which the second installment will be released somewhere in the beginning of 2015, they now will release the latest edition from their core: magazine number 8. Paul Kominek and his team created yet another incredible edition starting with the subtle blue cover color and suave cover subject Bryan Ferry. Next to the article on the Roxy Music frontman, one will find other features on the provocative photographer Leigh Ledare, the New York City-based painter Bjarne Melgaard, one of our favorite photographers Viviane Sassen, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and finally musician Laurel Halo. The issue also holds a special feature on Iceland, winter boots and a story portraying the very skillful chocolatiers of the capital of chocolate; Belgium (also our all time favorite place to stay in Antwerp: Boulevard Leopold is mentioned). [ Continue reading ]
Inspirational Melbourne-based Barbera Design was established by Australian designer Daniel Barbera in 2004, to create Australian-made furniture. High quality, unique, but above all timeless products, primarily aimed at Oceania and South-East Asia. Since the inception of his studio, Daniel and his team have been working with world class leading architects, specifying batch production products from their range, while also being able to offer custom solutions with existing products or bespoke pieces. Barbera’s product ethos works around logical design outcomes, and is process orientated working with old industrial processes fused with modern technology and craftsmen, to deliver elegant quality furniture which we really like. [ Continue reading ]
Istanbul, the beautiful city on the Bosphorus, is famous for its countless minarets, magnificent palaces, colorful markets and traders, seagulls and stray cats. The Turkish city is the only metropolis in the world that unites two continents. Traditional crafts collide with a young and blossoming art and design scene, which is slowly changing the face and image of the city. The 24th issue of inspirational Karlsruhe-based magazine Slanted takes a close-up look at contemporary design work and all the tumultuous developments in this cultural melting pot city balanced between the Orient and the Occident. On their one-week-trip the Slanted team met 15 design studios and produced comprehensive studio portraits which provide a vivid and up-to-the-minute picture of the scene. The resulting video interviews have been enriched with video material from the Shutterstock collection, and finally, thanks to augmented reality and the Junaio app, readers can easily watch embedded videos of the Istanbul turu on mobile devices. So good! [ Continue reading ]
Last month, Albam, the classic British menswear brand which was founded in 2006 by Alastair Rae and James Shaw, released the imagery for the upcoming season, and instead of the usual lookbook approach they decided to create this clean cut series of portraits, which represents where the brand stands right now. Shot by longtime Albam collaborator and photographer, John Spinks, the portraits which were taken both in the Midlands, where John grew up, and in London, where Albam has stores in Soho, Shoreditch and Islington, aim to reveal the essence of what Albam is. Styling was done by Lynette Garland and art direction by Mark Tappin, the portraits, landscapes and still lives give a snap shot in to the relationship between Albam’s clothes and the wearer. It features normal people, friends or friends of friends of Albam, making them people, landscapes and objects that actually inspire Alastair and James instead of just people and places. [ Continue reading ]
We've been following the very talented Kharkiv, Ukraine-born and Denmark-based Sergei Sviatchenko since he stepped into the limelight about five years ago. This starting point was the foundation of Close Up and Private in 2009, Sergei's online art project in which he shared his collage-like photographic vision on style, which quickly rose to fame through both the created aesthetic as Sergei’s own impeccable style. Based on this fundament of Close Up and Private, Sergei recently decided to take his endeavors one step further, in a concept which features continuing collaborations with an international rage of heritage brands and skilled craftsmen. With the new project, named Private Classicist, Sergei aims to create a solid range of classic menswear items that verges on pushing the boundaries of current minimalist fashion towards the classic style championed by Sergei himself and through his work. Being highly inspired by Sergei for all these years, today we can share some questions we've asked him to find out what inspires a master like him. [ Continue reading ]