Tag Archives for Fashion

Jim Kweskin Jug Band Men's Track Jacket

First 2008 nominee for most outlandish capitalization on the Age of Aquarius…Only $78!

“Another Bill Graham line-up acknowledging different tastes, MacLean’s art work abandons detailed design to go with the flow of the Jim Kweskin Jug band and psychedelic-rock band Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Another Canadian band, The Sparrow, is on the billing.

Men’s track jackets are made using the finest combed cotton and polyester to give you the softest, smoothest jacket around. These jackets fit true to size. Be sure to check out our sizing chart to help assure that you’ll get the perfect fit on the first try.”

Rags Magazine: An Underground Style Mag from 1970

untitled-1.jpg

A part of the underground press movement Rags was published for a year, 1970-71. It covered the worlds of counter-culture fashion with street fashion reports, groovy adverts and a very liberated sense of style. As far as I can tell its print run was all b/w on rag paper.

The December 1970 issue includes “Revolution” (with models acting out scenes from peoples history),”Life Amongst the Amazon Today” (on body modification in Amazonian tribes), “If God Hadn’t Wanted You To Wear a Bra He Wouldn’t Have Invented the Contour Council” (all about “the bra” with super hip writing!!) and “Raggedy Robin Raggedy Jane” (a profile of a Haight Ashbury clown couple).

The SF Diggers went to bat against the hip capitalists in SF but the innocence, creativity and DIY styles displayed in this publication, which seems to have been distributed primarily in underground boutiques, is charming nonetheless. A mystery in its masthead is the listing of “commidify your dissent” artist Barbara Kruger. That name appears as one of two art directors.

Cassandro Tondro has a blog uploading pdf’s of her collection of Rags. Check it out!

BOMB POP: Interview with M.I.A. by Piotr Orlov (Arthur, 2005)

Originally published in Arthur No. 16 (May, 2005)

BOMB POP
Born in war-torn Sri Lanka and bred in London, rising star M.I.A.’s pop instincts, radical consciousness and proudly pan-ghetto sound have no easy origin. As the defiant singer/MC explains to Piotr Orlov, it’s both where she’s from and where she’s at. Cover photo by W.T. Nelson.

“The mask is the face.” – Susan Sontag, “On Style”

“I don’t have a side, I’m spread out but I’m a mile wide/I got brown skin but I’m a west Londoner, educated but a refugee” – M.I.A., “MIA”

What, if anything, do we look for in a “pop” star worth supporting? Or more to the point, what are we willing to put up with, besides some gratuitous chart-topping populism and the 15-minutes of media-saturated intrigue, of course? Do we have any right expecting pop stars—not to be confused with musical artists whom luck, trends, circumstance or one great tune propels towards the mainstream—to influence a greater cultural conversation? Pop is, after all, the most powerful global transmitter of ideas in the information age, receiving over the past fifty years equal credit for the democratic tilt of history (Ted Turner’s comment that Western cultural export helped bring down the Berlin Wall) and civilization’s moral decline (Elvis, Madonna, Gangsta Rap, et al.). So, what effect can be brought about by a beautiful young woman whose looks and dance moves, globally minded outlook, state-of-the-art sonics, and spirited attitude recall any number of recent kiddie-pop models—yet whose life experience is based not on driving-towards-stardom dreams and Mickey Mouse Club auditions, but a mix of Third World civil war fatigue and immigrant struggles, Western art-school opportunity and hip-hop generation rebellion, independent experience and mod cons?

Meet Maya Arulpragasam, a 28-year-old Sri Lanka-reared, London-educated singer/MC with the stage-name M.I.A., who is approaching her pregnant pop moment, that inexplicable period when a confluence of fates—real and manufactured, critical and social, art and market—align to create sensations, and, at times, freak cultural anomalies and paradigm shifts. Since late 2003, she’s released a steady stream of dancehall-meets-hip-hop-meets-pop singles (“Galang” and “Sunshowers” being the most prominent) and one mix-tape (“Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1,” co-produced by Philly DJ wunderkind Diplo), blowing up via underground and Internet delivery systems (MP3 bloggers adore her), setting record companies frothing trying to pick up the rights to her debut album, Arular. (One succeeded: The album has just been released by the indie XL, but will soon be worked by Interscope.)

Continue reading →