LETTER FROM THE EDITORThe Master
Plan
JimmyBoi, Japanese Breakfast and
Bobby Hundreds are the stars of
our design issue.I look like an oil painting in this photo, like I had
just taken a sip of arsenic-laced wine and collapsed
in a poetic heap. I arrived in Philadelphia with red
eyes on the red eye. My friend, the photographer
Dora Somosi, took this picture of me at Michelle
Zauner’s (Japanese Breakfast) apartment. It was a
crazy shoot.
Zauner’s downtown apartment was dotted
with Hayao Miyazaki knick-knacks and lined with
shelves of books I’d like to read. Ingredients for
making Korean food filled the kitchen, like that Napa
cabbage on page 4 4. She played records on an old-
school turntable for our listening pleasure. She had
art supplies for drawing.
To our horror, the makeup artist hired for the
shoot was suddenly ghosting me, but Zauner was
like, “No problem, I can do my own makeup.” Instead
of insisting that we hire a stylist, she was confident
in her ability to convey her individual sense of style,
like those fierce yellow, thigh-high boots that her
friend designed, on the cover image. Unlike many
famous people who lean heavily on the skills of the
glam squad to fabricate the illusion of style, Zauner is
the human embodiment of effortless cool.
You can call this issue what you want: fashion,
style, design, whatever. The point is, we are
celebrating people who care about the aesthetics of
things, like streetwear (Bobby Hundreds), music
(Jay Som), jewelr y (JimmyBoi) and home goods
(Poketo and Noguchi). I’m passionate about design,
typography, photography and fashion because they
make life richer, more meaningful and efficient.
When the form of objects are planned with intent
and consideration, they become a thing of beauty
that accrues a deeper meaning, like the balanced
biomorphic shapes of the Noguchi coffee table or
the diamond medallions that signif y to the guys at
the club that you’ve arrived. Matter has meaning.
When things are designed carelessly, they become
wasteful. That’s why design isn’t frivolous; it’s an
imperative.Fashionably late,SERENA KIM
Editor-in-ChiefPhoto by Dora Somosi.