Part rogue, part renaissance, Zero + Maria Cornejo is launching her first full-fledged menswear collection. Though pieces have been introduced in past collections, on September 15th, when the Fall/Winter 2010 collection is shipped, menswear will get its own spotlight.
 
“I’ve always been drawn to a certain androgyny, and there is quite a lot of tailoring in our fall collection,” says Maria Cornejo.  As many of her womenswear looks have masculine elements, the men’s washed polyester drop pants remind us of something inherently feminine.  However, paired with a tailored blazer, it looks nothing short of pure gentleman.

Shoes. We would be remiss in forgetting, some might say, the most important part: the shoes. For the first time, Maria Cornejo enlisted the design brilliance of Esquivel shoes in her Fall/Winter 2010 capsule collection.  Handmade in Southern California, the collaborative efforts birthed a beautiful line of men’s shoes, noted for their simplistic design and incredible attention to detail.
 
“We wanted the shoes that accompany our collection to be really special, and I fell in love with the quality and integrity of Esquivel’s handmade approach to shoemaking.  It’s the tiny details of construction that make his shoes so unique.“
 
Zero + Maria Cornejo Menswear will be sold exclusively at Zero + Maria Cornejo stores and Project No 8 in New York.

On the eve of their North American tour, The Drums (who we love) have released the video to their latest single, “Down by the Water,” and unlike previous tracks (e.g. “Let’s Go Surfing”), this one is a little bit more mellow, but still totally heartbreaking. Musically, it’s paired down (even though they’ve never been that sonically complex in the first place), but Jonny Pierce’s always-vibrant vocals still have us hooked. The video pays homage to the girl groups of the 50s and 60s, who have inspired the musical composition and sound of The Drums since their early days. And whether it’s the black and white footage or their no-sweat style, they manage, as ever, to look effortlessly rad.

Let’s talk about today, which is your big day! How are you feeling leading up to the big reveal?

It is big! The world premiere in LA sold out and I don’t even live there. Hopefully it will be well received and as inspiring as it was in California. I have a manager now and he gave me my first script for acting. It hasn’t left my side for the last 3 weeks and I want to nail the audition.

You certainly are a SOHO/Nolita staple. What is it about this area that you are compelled to?

This area has great energy, the prettiest and coolest girls in the world, and a very European aesthetic. When I was younger, I was often sentenced to the “corner” at Montessori School and was forced to wear a thinking cap. So, painting on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth wearing my top hat was where I felt most comfortable trying to accomplish all the things I ever thought of doing in my youth. The streets became my living room, studio, playground and office.

It has been said you have an “old New York bohemian lifestyle.” Do you agree?

I know I live like “The old New York bohemian lifestyle” because my cousin George Rackus (who has lived in SOHO for about 45 years) used to tell me stories about his times with Hendrix and Dylan. They used to hang around the streets playing live gigs and surviving on pretty much nothing. They worked their way to the top bartering their creativity for dinner and shelter. I have lived at friends’ places for almost 3 years in trade for art, and whatever money I made I would help as much as I could. I sold or gave away almost everything I owned 4 years ago and have been living out of two suitcases ever since. I may not be able to take girls out to dinner every night, but I can smile all day long knowing that I am free to create art that makes my collectors happy and hopefully will have a lasting touch on society.

If you had to associate yourself with a past time period, what would it be? Why?

The time period I could associate myself with would be when there was no sense of time, at this point people were truly free. They gave thanks and were grateful for the air they breathed, the fire they created, the water which quenched their thirst, the earth which provided nourishment, the sun which allowed them to see, the moon which allowed them to rest and dream, and the stars which above all else allowed them to use their imagination!

“The Prince of Elizabeth Street” touches on your real life identity, but seems to also challenge one’s perspective. How much of this film is fact and how much of it is fantasy?

The Prince of Elizabeth Street does everything I could not do on my own. I created “The Prince of Elizabeth Street” to save my life when everything went wrong. I was in chronic pain and had numbness for years after being assaulted by a bouncer 4 years ago, but I did not have to feel it because “The Prince of Elizabeth Street” felt it for me. When I went unconscious that night - he woke me up. When I was all alone, he stuck by my side and said everything will work out if you are honest, respectful, positive and believe in yourself.

You are always with your “BoomBox”. What music do you never get tired of?

I love most classic rock but have been appreciating soft rock more which I grew up listening to with my dad traveling to soccer tournaments across the northeast as a kid. I don’t listen to much new music unless a friend invites me to a show. I never had much money to go to Burning Man or South By SouthWest or any of the other festivals, but since things are looking up, I might be able to go one day and it is something to look forward to.

If you had to retire your crown as “The Prince of Elizabeth Street,” what is the next title you would like to adopt?

I would like be called a “Renaissance Man” one day. It is the singular version of the name of our graduating class at Saint John’s H.S. in Shrewsbury, Ma. We were all very talented there and excelled in numerous fields. For now The Prince of Elizabeth Street, BE Radical, Ice Man, and Radio are enough. Oh, and Hollywood has a good ring to it!

BUY TICKETS
www.ThePrinceofElizabethStreet.com

This week, to celebrate Starfucker, a Reznor-esque-in-name-only quartet of Oregonians who just signed to Polyvinyl, we’ve put on brutal repeat their single, “Julius.” The song feels like today: a slow slip out of summer into the glittering dark fall ahead. Enjoy.

01 Julius by vmagazine

In a new series where we ask friends to pick something from the past that’s just as amazing today as it was when it premiered, author Nick Burd looks back at Nike’s killer Twin Peaks-inspired SB Dunk Premium line from ‘09:

It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Laura Palmer was found wrapped in plastic, and even harder to believe that gum you like hasn’t come back into style. But what is in style is Nike’s weirdly beautiful homage to arguably the most beautifully weird show ever to appear on network TV. Any fashionable Peaks fan worth their salt should be scouring eBay for a pair of Nike’s limited edition Twin Peaks SB Dunk Premiums. Somewhere in the Black Lodge, BOB is rocking these with his Canadian tuxedo.

This morning, VMAN headed to the Upper East Side, a favorite if unfrequented Manhattan territory. The reason: J.Crew opened their fourth Men’s Shop at Madison and 79th Street. The two-storied, 3,400-square-foot space houses designer Frank Muytjens’s tightly edited collection of outerwear, shirting, denim, and of course men’s grooming finishes. Using reclaimed wood from old barns, the interior feels (and sort of smells) as if you’re inside an Algonquin Park cabin – but there’s a catch: Mid way through the lower level, you eventually come face-to-face with “The Vault”. As intimidating as the word seems, “The Vault” (an ancient heavy metal bank vault) contains Men’s Shop carryalls, vintage collectables and a selection of shoes (to go perfectly with your tailored suiting needs). With walls full of neatly folded flannels and antique apothecary knickknacks, something tells us we’re going to be spending a lot more time uptown…

J.Crew Men’s Shop at 1040 Madison Avenue

Summertime….and the living is easy. With September just a few days away – we’ve finally accepted that summer is nearing an end. The outdoor patios. The lazy Saturdays at the beach. The beats that defined the hard-to-handle heatwaves of NYC summers. With iPod playlists in heavy rotation, we spoke to VMAN favorite Julia Restoin Roitfield and asked her to compile her “Summer Mix Tape”. She consulted with her main main, Robert Konjic (who she photographed for the upcoming issue of VMAN) and they put together their ultimate Summer playlist. Here, some tunes to help you prolong the last days of August.

Vanessa Paradis - “Joe Le Taxi”
Fleetwood Mac - “Everywhere”
Serge Gainsbourg - “Sea, Sex And Sun”
The Source - “You’ve got the Love”
Roxette - “It Must Have Been Love”
Cut Copy - “Hearts on Fire”
Hot Chip – “Transmission”
Musical Musique - “Warm in the Shadows”
Guns’n’Roses - “Sweet Child of Mine”
Blur - “Boys and Girls”
Iggy Pop - “The Passenger”
Talk Talk - “It’s my life (extended version)”
The Verve - “Bitter Sweet Symphony”
Toto Coelo - “Milk From Coconut”
Kate Bush - “Running Up That Hill”
Johnny Somerville - “Smalltown Boy
La Roux - “In For the Kill”

For the past 15 years, Scottish post-rock overlords Mogwai have been rupturing into ecstasy the eardrums of concertgoers with their insane god-volumes and destroying-the-very-idea-of-decibels decibels of drone and fuzz. A beautiful pain indeed, but let’s not overlook its creation: they are still rocking the fuck out on their instruments, and quantity of sound aside, its manufacturing is a magnificent sight as well. So it was only a matter of time before some geniuses came around and put it on film: enter Vincent Moon and Nathanael le Scouarnec (creators of La Blogotheque’s Take-Away Shows), who turned some April ‘09 concerts in Brooklyn into: Burning, a concert-film of perfect pitch. Along with the DVD comes a live-album, Special Moves, which is as good a live album as we’ve heard in ages. Burning has its New York premiere/screening tomorrow night at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, so we had a chat with director Scouarnec and Mogwai multi-instrumantalist Barry Burns to discuss the film. Q&A and screening dates after the jump.

VMAN: What’s the purpose of the film?

Barry Burns: To try to convey the experience of seeing a Mogwai concert but also so that you can just watch it on your big TV or projector in your house on any day of the week rather than every two years at an actual concert. And more unlikely, long after we’re all dead and a Doors-like revival of our music occurs, people will have something to go back to which is better than the scant, g rainy footage of Jim Morrison exposing his genitals. I would hope our DVD would be better than that but I know it’s a tough act to beat.

Nathanael Le Scouarnec: I often get bored in front of live films to be honest. Even with bands I adore. Because too many live films are just, well, live films. So on every project, I always try to build for them their own history beforehand. Because I think you can’t only film what happens during a live show. You have to push it forward. Because you lose so much between being in the venue and when your are on your couch viewing a live film. The smell, the heat, the vibrations in your legs… You have to express those with images and sounds and so work very precisely on the rhythm of the cuts, the frames you chose, the lights… and all the elements you have to counterbalance from what you lose. It’s an interesting challenge. Live films can’t only be a testimony of what happened, it has to have his own history.

How does the aesthetic of the film participate with the aesthetic of the band?

BB: When we work with people, whether they be other musicians or other people that create, we leave them to do what they feel is right and we are usually afforded the same trust in return. We let the directors do what they felt Mogwai was about to them rather than let us have any direction because there would have been far too many cooks. We’re sometimes told by people who listen to us that it creates imagery or emotions for them and that’s fine: it’s not what we particularly intended (but it’s what happens) so in this film, Vincent and Nat have tried to capture what we are to them. The narrative of the film is pretty much the story of how it feels to us playing a show in a foreign place. Wandering around the towns, trying to see a bit of somewhere new or alien and then playing in front of the people, seeing them walking into the venue when you’re in the diner across the street and wondering how you got to this point, just reflective perhaps.

NLS: With the Mogwai movie, the challenge was to recreate the amazing experience you live when you see them live. The way your mind and your body can float. It’s like a hypnosis moment, the beginning of “Burning”, to let us take them by the hand so they can live an experience. You know, I think there are basically two ways to work a song for a live film. You can either be very efficient, give the viewer a lot of fun and go in an obvious but enjoyable way. The last song of the movie, “Batcat” is like this. Very primitive pleasure. A bit childish but a great simple feeling. And on the other hand, you can trick [the viewer]. Be in opposite with what is obvious. “Burning” also has those moments, like with “Like Herod”, or the moment we introduce the audience in the venue. A live film is a roller coaster with combinations you can mix to make the viewer have his own musical experience. Mogwai is quite perfect for that, because they have very violent and very quiet songs.

Why these songs? Why this set list?

BB: After we played the 3 shows in Brooklyn we listened through the sets and picked the best performances on each night and used them. It was the set list pulled from those shows; on that tour; a wee moment in time is all it was. Ah, the memories.

North American Public Screening Dates
Aug 24 -Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Aug 24 - Vancouver, BC @ Pacific Cinematheque
Aug 25 - Seattle, WA @ JBL Theater
August 26 - Cambridge, MA @ Brattle Theatre
Aug 26 - Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall
Aug 28 - Long Beach, CA @ Art Theatre of Long Beach
Aug 29 – Chicago, IL @ Smart Bar
Sept 2 - Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot
Sept 4 - San Francisco @ Roxie Theater
Sept 10- Portland, OR @ Bagdad Theater
Sept 12 - Los Angeles @ Echoplex
Sept 14 - Toronto, ON @ The Drake Underground (2 showings)
Sept 23 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
Oct 3 – Montreal, QC @ Ukrainian Federtation

Matthew Costa, creator of New York sunglasses label Costalots, describes his designs as works of adaptation. He takes an item, currently disused, “undesigns” it and applies to it a new and refined usage.  His current collection of sunglass styles, the Diego and 83s, were initially safety eyewear that Costa, on a whim, purchased the entire supply. Adapting their role from function to fashion, Costa regenerated each pair with custom Carl Zeiss Italian shaded lenses. The Diego comes in six colors and is the more James Dean of the two, with a single bridge frame with more pronounced horns and angles. The 83s are little more Hunter S Thompson with a double bridge shaped frame in psychedelic colors and translucent frames. You can find both styles at Urban Outfitters, In God We Trust and Odin, and Costa’s online store.

Photography: Neal Franc
Models- Ram Boneh @ Re:quest
Fred Laatsch @ Major Models
Hair - Shawn Mount at ArtList New York
Thanks to - Alessio Boni and Pier 59 Studios.