White Rabbits

I've been listening to quite a bit of the White Rabbits over the last couple of days. I met these guys out one night at a venue in their hometown of Brooklyn, NYC just after they had returned from their European tour. I had heard their name thrown around a bit on NME but hadn't actually checked out their music. Their debut studio album Fort Nightly was released back in mid-2007 and their second album It's Frightening was released in May this year and produced by Britt Daniels from Spoon. It's Frightening opens with a track well worth its name; Percussion Gun. The track delivers a clever almost tribal-like piano and drum arrangement. Under the guidance of Daniels, White Rabbits have delivered a great record- easy to listen to and cohesive.
I actually also dulled down the vocals and just listened to the instrumental arrangement and the sound was great, it would be interesting to see the direction their music would take if it had a more instrumental focus with minimal vocals, perhaps similar to the style of Wolf and Cub.
The clip for Percussion Guns is very simple yet effective too.

Strung up on Fashion

Thanks to a bit of shameless promotion by Adam Green I came across this amazing editorial shot by Steven Meisel featured in American Vogue which combines some brilliant musicians, the wonderful Sasha Pivovarova and high fashion labels such as Balmain, Balenciaga, Givenchy and YSL among others. I love these types of fresh and fun editorials that exhibit the relationship between music and fashion. I think the choice of musicians was perfect for this shoot. Below are a couple of my favourites.




MGMT had a undeniable major presence during 2008/09, not just across our radio waves but also in our department stores, chain stores and all over ebay with clothes item descriptions referring to tassles and tye-dye denim using 'MGMT as' a keyword. These guys were a perfect example of the powerful influence that music and fashion can share. Though, I think that like a lot of us, they got bored of it pretty quickly (considering they apparently wore head to toe black during their recent Australian tour).

Adam Green has always impressed me with his I’ve-just-thrown-this-together-2 minutes-ago-and-I-look-hotter-than-you-will-ever-be ensembles. He entered the stage during his Australian tour wearing skinny leg jeans teamed with a bare chest, fluro pink leather jacket and matching pink necklace with a charm of the Star of David. His vengeance for style can sometimes be as shocking as his song lyrics and an ever present reflection of his easygoing personality. I might even go as far as describing him as the male Mary-Kate of the fashion world. I’m sure he’d love that analogy…

The Horrors are like the fashion catalogue kids of music. When I saw them play for the Byron Bay music festival Splendour in the Grass in 2008, I expected to see a group of young boys with dirty clothes, unwashed hair and a ruggered appearance. I had seen their well polished outfit ensembles through press photos previously but surely no one can look that good after a 20 hour flight and on the stage at a music festival mid tour, right? Wrong. These boys took to the stage with perfectly styled outfits to go with their ridiculously perfect haircuts (not a hair out of place – I’m looking at you Rhys Webb!). Anyway, they have great style. They also made a couple of boys around my city dress really well and get cute haircuts for a while which was a win (before they got bored and reverted back to their Craig Nichols/ I-don’t-give-a-shit style…or moved to London).

More photos from the editorial can be viewed via ohnotheydidnt.

Oh, Prada - Part 1

After recently visiting the Prada store in SoHo, New York City - I was blown away by the layout of the store; the architecture, the lighting and of course the curation of the visual merchandising which appeared more like a series of art installations exploring the ideas of contemporary high fashion.

As I eagerly skipped up the stairs off Broadway, pushed open the heavy glass doors to enter the design of architect Rem Koolhaas, I was instantly amazed by the sheer size of the store. It was like a dream coming to life, I had entered the Prada castle. What followed was a steep decline down a massive staircase which led to a lower level maze containing, well more mazes. Like a child (yes, a candy store) I explored every corner of the store and was overwhelmed by the amount of current season Prada threads that I was able to (carefully) caress. Through further reading I have since learnt that the store has also been home to various cultural events; musical performance and art exhibitions. I have also read that appropriately enough, the store is located in the space of the former Broadway Guggenheim, Ground Floor and Basient.

Floor plan of the upper level, with the staircases declining into the lower level and the platform which is used for visual merchandising.

I can't wait until the next time I visit the store. I don't doubt that the layout will be completely different, affording a complete new visual experience.


Photos of the Prada Store courtesy of http://www.oma.eu

The ReLaunch

About six weeks ago I was swept under the tumultuous panic and craziness that occurs around the ‘end of semester exams’ period. In this instance it led me to hastily announce that I would be moving all my web/fashion/photography inspirations into the digital domain of Tumblr. I have however made the decision to remerge onto Blogspot under my former identity of ‘Obsolete Antics’. I followed through with my promise of ‘more photos and more posts’ on Tumblr but truth be told it’s actually the commentary and attention to detail in curating specific posts that I miss, and with 3 uni free months ahead of me I now have the time to pay attention to that spectrum once more. My recent trip to New York City awoke me again to the incredible assortment and variance of all things amazing and has reignited my urge to be a part of it, even if through a small contribution that might only be shared among a very small scale.

I will still be keeping my Tumblr because I love having the ability to share thoughts with 3 clicks. But I will also be paying more attention to this blog with specific consideration to art, fashion and music.