Artist // Rebel // Dandy

The Rhode Island School of design was gracious enough to include the infamous Sewn From the Soul poem in their Artist Rebel Dandy: Men of Fashion  exhibit recently. W embarked on a mini road trip out to Providence, RI for the galleries’ opening festivities. Some visuals from that inspiring weekend…

Chace Center Galleries

In a groundbreaking exhibition—drawn from our collection and loans from other national and international organizations and private individuals—the RISD Museum celebrates the dandy, tracing the variety of ways in which this personality has blazed through two centuries and investigating where he resides today.

Rather than following strict definitions, Artist/Rebel/Dandy features myriad manifestations of the dandy’s style and persona, from the discreet sophistication and consummate elegance of Beau Brummell (1778–1840) to the romantics and revolutionaries of today—including Rick Owens, Patti Smith, Ouigi Theodore, and Waris Ahluwalia.

The deft workmanship and particular style of a tailor or designer features alongside representations of the personalities who wore these garments—as seen in portraits, caricatures, fashion plates, fashion photography, and media representations. Likewise, representations of dandies—from George IV to Oscar Wilde and Iké Udé, and from Lord Byron to Sebastian Horsley and Sruli Recht—are grounded in the concrete and tactile nature of the clothing itself.

Artist/Rebel/Dandy is accompanied by an illustrated book (Yale University Press, 2013), with essays by exhibition curators Kate Irvin and Laurie Brewer, fashion historian Christopher Breward, and Barnard College English Professor Monica L. Miller; a preface by menswear designer Thom Browne; and “musings” on artist-dandies by 15 contributors, including Glenn O’Brien (Beau Brummell), Patti Smith (Charles Baudelaire), Merlin Holland (Oscar Wilde), Horace Ballard (W. E. B. DuBois), and Scott Schuman (Luciano Barbera)

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Small city with a great vibe to it… Thank you for your Hospitality

Sewn From The Soul

Sewn From the Soul is an online editorial project brought to light by seven friends who have all collaborated together in order to see a bigger picture; ultimately meshing and intertwining Style and History.  History is important as it gives us the ability to trace back what has occurred previously to help us better direct ourselves to the future. Style contributes to one’s overall character and truly dictates our persona in everything that surrounds us. We all contributed our individual style to this editorial and used a primarily monochromatic palette to assist the Black History Month theme.” –Street Etiquette

Less than 24 hours since Sewn From The Soul has been published & the peoples response to our project has left me speechless…words cant describe how I’m feeling right now. This has truly taken a life of its own. Just comes to show the power when creative minds combine to birth such thing. Overwhelming.

What people may or may not know  is that we shot this on the afternoon of Jan 3oth. That being roughly 2 weeks ago. We were immensely pressed for time considering everyone’s hectic schedule on top of  February being a short month. We wanted to give our audience/readers the full effect of our concept, This was a collaborative project…. once the photos left my  lab they went straight to the flash animators’ who had to compose & interlace the audio the photos to what you see in the editorial & then finally into the Street Etiquette team to piece everything together for the blog. It’s all a group effort, if one falls behind; we all do…domino effect. We made sure we all stayed afloat understanding the task at hand. A few Sleepless nights (like i sleep anyways), days filled with lots of caffeine  & countless hours consumed by Photoshop & final cut. but reading/seeing peoples reaction after viewing our end product makes it all worth while. It’s one of the things that keeps me going….

What my desktop was roughly resembling for the time til release, processing these images…This project is sewn into my soul.

I’ll be back to deliver some more words regarding behind the lens details.

This is just the beginning..

– Street Etiquette

You might of heard of these guys. When Joshua reached out to me to be involved in a video project he was working on with the homie TONE….I was more than down to be a part of it. The project called for a whole day of shooting, spanning from their home turf in the Bronx to ->Harlem->SoHo & then ended up in  the Brooklyn Circus shop. Inspiring day to say the least, what better to be surrounded by focused individuals with a positive message.  Good chemistry & good vibes are what producing great imagery is all about. I’m glad they trust my vision to deliver what they’re about, & this weekend we link up for a studio session to create more magic for 2010. STAY TUNED…

Some visuals from the Genesis of Style Project:

One of my images caught air time in one of the most respected photo blogs around,  Juntin R. Saunders