"I'm interested in process, because process in itself is a piece of work. I need to do more in-depth development to get to the final product. I find that the things in research during the process enrich me. Most fashion designers are preoccupied by the final result; I'm more interested in what's led to it."

One of the most innovative, experimental and conceptual fashion designers of the present is Hussein Chalayan. Over the past ten years the turkish-cypriot designer. Born 1970 in Nicosia - has produced more than twenty collections. It is only expected that that this year we have seen the release for a substantial book published on this amazing designer. Chalayan's work often concentrates on cultural or socio-political themes, reflecting his personal history as someone whose identity is shaped by different cultures.

Chalayan's collections consistently challenge familiar notions of fashion while still succeeding in being elegant and beautiful. His work is inspired by the interfaces of technology, science, culture, and the human body. His more conceptual designs are often sculptural, with pieces like the aeroplane dress, molded of glass fiber with a remote-control panel, a tiered wooden skirt doubling as a table, and dresses of sugar-spun glass making their appearances in various shows. While in school, one of his professors suggested he switch to sculpture. If he had, the fashion world would have lost a unique voice whose work blurs the line between art and style with evocative and sometimes brilliant results.

A designer of ideas, Chalayan is also a designer of clothes to be worn. Though some critics judge his work as too eccentric and heady for actual people to wear, an examination of any given Chalayan collection belies this sentiment. Although several high-concept pieces will usually anchor one of his collections, they are accompanied by finely cut, deceptively simple, eminently wearable garments. This kind of commerciality with pure vision at its heart is not a common commodity in any field of design, including fashion; consequently, Chalayan's praises have been much sung by the press, his work well respected by other designers. As one fashion journalist put it, "Watching a Chalayan show is like listening to Mozart. It is moving and magical, always with a hidden meaning, which to detractors sound pretentious." A theme common to all of Chalayan's collections is the body itself, in relation to various aspects of the world we live in from space, religion, and cultural mores to technology and war.

"I'm fascinated by the idea of cultural assimilation, the way people transform their identities and how other people see that as a threat. Actually, in some ways, that's irrelevant. You don't need to know any of that stuff to wear these clothes. All you need to know is how to enjoy them."

The book Hussien Chalayan is out now from Nai Publishers

www.naipublishers.nl

1) How would you describe your work?
My work is usually the end point of an exploration of ideas. By embodying these ideas in an object or in the relationship between a number of objects I hope to create a situation where these ideas can be thought about by others. I am interested in the spaces and places we as humans or individual people create for ourselves. These spaces are interesting not just in a physical sense but also in the social changes that they represent. My recent work has dealt with housing and housing estates, looking at not just the physical structures and changes to the landscape, but also in the personal empires they contain. I am currently exploring the relationships between water, wealth and recreation but the outcome of this is still unsure.

2) You’ve been out of art school for a few years now, how do you find working self-directed as opposed to being in an institution?
There is good and bad in both. Working self directed is great in that you can work at your own pace and explore tangents that appear interesting without having to worry about end products to the same extent. But in saying that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to be more focused on creating more end results. I miss the support structures that an institution offers, both in peer assessment and resources. Having a regular critic of your work is really valuable to me and hard to find outside of school. Everyone is to keen to say “that’s great”, I miss the criticism
3) Your latest installation “21 Blackwood Park Road” is probably one of your most intrepid pieces to date, would you agree?
I think largely that is because of its size. To me it is conceptually no stronger that the other pieces in that series. I guess being so much larger it is more confronting and sure of its self, which is probably a good thing. It’s interesting because in reality it is an object that has been scaled down to the point where it is unusable.

4) Tell us a bit about the process– both conceptually and physically –that you went through with “21 Blackwood Park Road”
Conceptually this work follows on from a number of other works but deals with a different aspect of this exploration. Physically it is much larger than anything I have made before. I don’t have a dedicated studio space so the work was made as a number of kitset pieces. This enabled it to be worked on in pieces and the object, as a whole wouldn’t have fitted in the space. The pools had to look solid once installed, and hold water so the pieces all had to fit perfectly. I worked on this project for much longer than I usually would so at the end of it I was completely ready to let it go.

5) Is there a common link between your last three pieces: a tree stump, a backyard water-feature, and a swimming pool?
Yes. They are all part of a series that deals with similar ideas, related to the type of housing and housing estates being created. These works are the product of an exploration related to the estates around Melbourne specifically, but these developments exist everywhere on the edge of cities. Within each work there are changes to the object inherent to it’s meaning, be it in size or materials. I think these shifts particularly in materials are really interesting, and can be really subtle as well. They change an object completely and yet it can look very similar. All of these works have numerous readings some they share but each can stand alone as well. They are titled in sequence like the houses beside each other in a street 1 3 5 7. Conceptually they follow on as well but still deal with ideas related to places like Blackwood Park Road.

6) Being a New Zealander living in Australia how do you feel working in a new country has affected your work?
Being in a new and much bigger city has given me much more material to explore. I still think of myself as a New Zealand artist, I still look at things from that perspective.

7) Where do you feel your work is heading now?
I’m not sure, I’m looking at a number of ideas primarily related to water but that could change I’ll go wherever they take me.

www.geoffnewman.com

Hi Rebecca, what have you been up to today?
I’ve been on hold to the phone company for most of the day!

Seems like you've been pretty busy with illustration work lately?
It is pretty busy… at the moment I’m working on canvases for my exhibition as well as illustration work.

Doing work for Oyster must have been a buzz, seeing your work in one of Australia's best fashion magazines.
Its been my favorite magazine for a long time and I’ve always drawn a lot of inspiration from their photos. So I feel really lucky to be working with them.

Also, you've done some illustration for Mimco, for Fashion Week. How did you find that?
It was amazing to be involved with mimco at fashion week.I illustrated their invite,programs and did their entry for the Marie Claire canvas competition.Also, painted a huge gold drip at the back of the catwalk,3 metres up!

Would you class yourself as a fashion illustrator?
I started off saying I was, but this year I’ve been involved in a lot of different projects (like drawings for re-branding the movie channel in the U.S) and its shown me that there’s other kinds of illustration jobs to explore. But fashion is what I like drawing the most.

Do you feel traditional fashion illustration is a dying art? Especially with the prominence of computer aided design?
I don’t think that its dying because of computers, its just a different style of drawing.

As an illustrator, do you find illustrating commercial products (clothing, cosmetics) restricting?
I don’t find it that restricting, because if people ask me to draw something, they’ll want it in my style. But I was asked to draw a fairy once– you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere!

Do you have a favorite fashion designer(s)? Who would you love to work with?
I like Zambesi and Michelle jank, drawing for them would be great. I would also really love to work with other more experienced illustrators and overseas magazines / designers.

Did you study illustration?
In Perth, 5 years at tafe and uni– studying graphic design majoring in illustration.

What future plans do you have for your art / illustration?
I’m working towards my first exhibition later in the year.

Is being an illustrator putting food on the table?
I’m not living on cruskits yet!

www.rebeccawetzler.com

1) Where are you from?
Originally I’m from Phoenix, Arizona and I now live up North wandering between Vancouver, BC and Seattle. But my days as a wanderer are sadly coming to an end this June when I’ll be moving to LA as a more permanent resident at least for the next few years. After that who knows, maybe South America or Asia. Moving around and experiencing other cultures is important to me.

2) What are you up to creatively / personally at the moment?
Right now I’m working on a show with friend and design partner Andy Dixon called “Murder Ain’t Shit” a series of tongue-in-cheek illustrations and animations loosely based on hip hop culture. And on the side I’m working on re-editing “Original Lug” for the big screen, a stop-motion animation short Andy and I did with a 6’2 stuffed creature named Lug. All of our work together is done under the name Bad-Ass Magic, a design team that sprouted out of a similar sense of humor and common grounds and styles.

One of the main reasons I’m moving to LA this summer is to finish my education, I’m getting my bachelors in graphic design from Art Center College Of Design. I have no artistic education as of yet and I’ve never been fond of art school students, should be an interesting experience. ACCD is a great school though and I’m extremely excited about the knowledge I will receive, which is what an education is all about anyway.

Creatively it would be nice to live in a secluded beach town on a different continent to work without the influence of other artists or western society in order to completely define my own personal style and plus it’d just be wicked to live in a secluded beach town, but that move comes after school. Regardless of my location that is what I will always be working on.

3) How would you describe your work? If you had to narrow it down?
I think my work is an expression of who I am and where I’m at in my life. There will always be underlining tongue-in-cheek humor in everything I do whether it’s easily identifiable or not. I’d rather it not be, people have to think sometimes.

It’s really all about enjoying yourself and the people around you and not trying to make things more important than they are. I’m an artist because I love to create and explore new mediums and I’m able to incorporate that into all aspects of my life. I will be an artist my entire life but it is not my entire life.

4) Your work is often quite bizarre in subject matter. What inspires you?
Inspiration comes quite randomly for me and is usually very loosely portrayed. Inspiration comes in any form you wish to see it.

5) If you lost your eyes, what would you do instead of draw?
I’d keep drawing. People love artists with disabilities.

6) What would your dream job / project be?
I plan on running my own “firm” with a very select group of colleagues at the same level to collaborate with. Being your own boss is the way to go. Aside from that I’d love to have the time and budget to make a full length motion feature stop-motion animation. I also really want to produce a top 40 hip hop album.

7) You’re just fresh outta your teenage-years, the world is your oyster, where to now?
To eat that oyster and shit it out all over the fuckin galaxy.

www.landonmetz.com

Jenny Lewis had just finished playing a show with her band Rilo Kiley, when singer-songwriter Bright Eyes, approached her and asked if she would record an album for his new label, Team Love. Although she was non-plussed at the time, Lewis most assuredly has found her voice on her debut solo album "Rabbit Fur Coat".

The disc’s dozen tracks were two years in gestation, with songs penned in the Rilo Kiley tour van, rehearsed around sound-checks, and finally recorded last year in the San Fernando Valley and Portland, Oregon. The Watson Twins, a pair of identically mellifluous sister singers, had Jenny’s back the whole way, painting their own hymnal tones around the corners of this poetic album of full of unselfconscious confessions.

Largely autobiographical, the words behind the songs are the stories inside the girl. This is most pronounced on the album’s title track, which underscores the narcissistic parenting style of Lewis’ mother. Equal parts parable and memoir, the song details the woman’s sad obsession over a rabbit fur coat, which is a symbol of prosperity for her. As a child, Jenny’s mom had the garment stolen from her. To reclaim it and its powers, she pimps out young Jenny to network TV. Yes, folks, our currently cool heroine was once a dorky child star, landing guest spots on middling American television shows like “Murder, She Wrote” and “Mr. Belvedere.”

In addition to writing directly about the twisted fairytale of her childhood, Lewis takes a levelheaded look at the complications of love. The already bumpy road to happy couplehood becomes even more fraught when your lover is also your bandmate, as was once the case with Jenny and Rilo Kiley co-founder Blake Sennett. The messiness of romantic entanglements surfaces on the achingly catchy “You Are What You Love,” when Lewis sings: “Every morning upon waking / To you I’m a symbol or a monument / Your rite of passage to fulfillment / But I’m not yours for the taking”. Or, from “Melt Your Heart”: “When you’re kissing someone who’s too much like you / It’s like kissing a mirror”.

Rabbit Fur Coat will likely be the most refreshing album you’ll hear all year. It is art without artifice in a crass and boorish age. The music is pretty and pure, but without being coy, or cutesy, or naïve. The lyrics are open and direct, but so much finer and more carefully crafted than the bloggy spewings of her emo cohorts. Go on now and get yourself a Rabbit Fur Coat.

www.jennylewis.com

Instant Asia! is the recent installation by Singapore artist Brian Gothong Tan, currently showing at the Australian Centre of Moving Image (ACMI) as part of the group exhibition Contemporary Commonwealth. Instant Asia! shows an out-rageously bold combination of bizarre elements such as mickey mouse ears, burqa headdresses, instant noodles, rubbing up against images of Freudian fetishism.

In Instant Asia! you are firstly confronted with a series of short/experimental films, where Tan is at his most poignant. The films here cover territories such as Instant Noodles, an odd spoof of Memoirs of a Geisha, ended with a childish computer generated political piece. His films are funny and often distrubingly ridiculous, yet they are riddled with suggestive questionings of gender identity, the relation between man and woman, fantasy and reality.

The next piece features three figures of man, woman and child masked with black fabric and wearing comical wigs. They are emblazoned with the Chinese characters for "God", "Man eats Man" and "Dog eats Dog" these words whirl around in the darkness, probing and over-powering our thoughts.

The last piece focuses on politics. Images of Asian leaders such as Mao and Lee Kuan Yew are represented while commentary suggests problems with-in the Asia political system: "respect me", "reject me", "heal me", "abuse me", "protect me", "forget me". Tans work is definitely an inconsistent combination of pop imagery, political and social satire, but all this works somehow in a pleasing marriage of amusement and confrontation.

www.briangothongtan.com