• The Cotton Revolution
This shop in Amsterdam, called Mensocks, is devoted to men’s socks. Not just any socks though, extremely colouful ones that represent a challenge to the blue/black/grey orthodox. Happy Socks were there in abundance, but also Falke, Pantherella and Burlington. The open-minded, socially progressive Dutch have obviously spotted that socks can be radical, joyous and life-affirming elements of the contemporary wardrobe, and should be celebrated; men should not be afraid of colourful ankles, seems to be the message.
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| Various modes of sock-wearing catered for |
• Freedom & Sweary Solidarity
Here is a badge picked up at the exciting Design for Freedom exhibition curently open on Torstrasse in Berlin, which celebrates 30 years of Polish graphic design. As you can see, the badge subverts the iconic Solidarity trade union logo and repurposes it so as to express the popular, global post-political sentiment, “WTF”. The brochure for the exhibition is pictured below:
• MacLuhanite Hi-Viz
Corroborating Manzine’s intuition that hi-viz is steadily coming into vogue as an aspirational aesthetic, this gilet, found in the Droog Design shop in Amsterdam, goes one further by invoking MacLuhanite messages on the nature of modern media (Clay Shirky's aperçus are also included). Perhaps it should be the mandatory outfit for all media workers who wish to be perceived as “men at work” (or women, of course), roadmending the media traffic channels, or plumbing new visual-textual systems.
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| The viz is the message. |
• Wasted German Stickers
Paul Snowden’s Wasted German Youth has recently launched a sticker book for fans of the brand to collect the stickers he publishes in regular installments. As the blurb in the book says “the stickers capture one-word truths of the modern rave experience…”, which sounds a bit intellectual really (discalimer: the Manzine wrote it), but is probably true. The stickers are a lot of fun, there’s no doubt about that.
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| A picture of the cover of the sticker book |
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| Not sure what R2D2 has to do with techno/raving |
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| An apposite commentary on life and fast food |
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| Amen: the final word |
• Two magazines worth buying
There aren’t many magazines around today which are worth their cover prices, but here are two. 032c is run by Joerg and Sandy in Berlin, offering a title which “fiercely believes in the intelligence of its readers”. The latest issue includes a lengthy piece on Dr. Hubert Burda, the German publishing magnate and former Warhol associate, along with a challenging photo essay by Juergen Teller featuring the model Kristen McMenamy in various states of undress. The shoot apparently caused controversy among some of the magazine’s more conservative distributors and it’s true that it summons to mind Francis Bacon paintings as much as a conventional fashion story.
The sixth edition of Will Hudson and Alex Bec’s It’s Nice That includes and fascinating interview with the artist Asger Carlsen, whose cannibalised depictions of the human body are similarly Baconesque.
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| Bodies: odd |
There’s an altogether lighter interview with the art director George Lois who seems to be extremely hip these days. It’s a good read, and let’s face it, magazines with vivid pink (or red, like 032c) covers are to be lauded, surely.
That's all for now, thanks for reading. Cheers,
MANZINE
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