Interview

Stills courtesy YSL

Tomorrow, Stefano Pilati premieres a new short film in conjunction with his Spring 2010 YSL menswear collection. What we know: It's called "Melinda," and shot by Samuel Benchetrit, "Melinda" looks like a moody piece in black and white. We've taken a look at the stills and will premiere the video Thursday: the visual theme, thus far, seems to be "boys pretending to be men"—a topic straight from the runway itself, but with biographical and autobiographical overtones as well. The protagonist, we've learned, is none other than Benchetrit's son, Jules, who is 11. In the stills, he seems, ostensibly, on some sort of mission: Is it a date? A criminal plot? An escape route? YSL won't tell.

A baby indie icon (long locks and all), Jules is adorably overburdened by adult-sized luxurious, silken tees, sports blazers, and tuxedo hats—garments that magically transform from comically oversized to preternaturally fit on the runway, of course. Will this sense of drowning in a uniform set a metaphorical tone for the menswear collection? Jules may turn out to be just a convenient, cute protagonist, but I'd like to believe he serves as a symbol of proverbial Peter Pans—of the immaturity of ne'er-do-well men. One thing is certain: at some point someone named "Melinda" will become central to Jules. Perhaps she'll come to his (real or imagined) rescue.

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Alexander Wang. Courtesy the Gap

Vena Cava and Alexander Wang, two NYC labels who specialize in edgy understatement, are having quite a year. Between them they have three CFDA awards, after Wang received his second honor, the Swarovski Award for Womenswear, Monday night. But can they reverse a maligned fabric's terminally un-hip reputation? Gap creative director Patrick Robinson thinks so.

Robinson certainly knows a thing or two about transcending the mundane: his own sensibilities have drastically upped the mass retailer's aesthetic value. Shopping at the Gap is cool again. And in the age of the high/low collaboration, Robinson' Gap Design Editions—a CFDA-themed capsule collection project now in its third year—is unparalleled. Each year, Robinson gives his guest designers a specific challenge: to reinvent a staid classic; give utility grace; do it for a fraction of your usual cost. Last year, Phillip Lim and ThreeAsFour rose memorably to the challenge as they alchemized boring buttondowns into Perfect White Shirts. Now, with Vena Cava and Alexander Wang on board, Gap tackles the stodgiest ghost in its closet: khaki.

What is the most challenging aspect of working with khaki? "Giving it attitude," Alexander Wang told Interview yesterday as the collection launched. "It is typically seen as very "mass" and commercial in the styles that its incorporated into, but we tried to give it a new spin in the silhouette and cut."

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As the final fits of neat and narrow revivalism give way to a new era of outright genre confusion, the state of indie music in 2009 can disorient the casual music fan. In New York, hybridity is nothing new, and since 2003, TV On The Radio, Indie rock's cerebral, oddball frontrunners, have redefined the boundaries from the mainstream with their juxtaposition of ghostly soul vocal arrangements and atmospheric post-rock guitars. Now, as eclectic pop finally has its shiny, submainstream moment, TV on the Radio release their third album, Dear Science, an effort that goes into melodic overdrive with maximalist pop riffs and drum lines. There are still the familiar, unearthly moments: on album opener "Halfway Home," space-age soul and shoegaze drone converge into the band's best extraterrestrial gospel hymn to date, but most of the album's standouts—like post-funk lead single "Dancing Choose"—are newly urgent, modern, and polyrhythmic. To critics, Dear Science was the one of the best albums of 2008; to chart followers, it was something of a commercial breakthrough, reaching #12 on the Billboard Top 200; to bloggers, it was a (great) excuse to wax rhapsodic. But to TV On The Radio, drummer Jaleel Bunton says it is simply their "dance album."

This summer, the band take Dear Science to the stage with Dirty Projectors. TV On The Radio's act has always been surprisingly well suited to a live set—for one, lead singer Tunde Adebimpe's agitated stage moves channel both Ian Curtis and James Brown. These days, the band's growing fan base showcase their own spazzy dance routines at shows, Bunton told Interview as his band kicked off Central Park Summerstage Summer Concert Series on Friday, June 5. That night, TV On The Radio played before a very wet, very sold-out crowd. Yes: there was dancing in the rain. Lots of it.


COLLEEN NIKA: This is your biggest tour yet. How do you feel before these new shows?

JALEEL BUNTON: I'm excited, but I'm always more excited to have my guest list anxiety be over with!

CN: I actually saw you open for Bauhaus and Nine Inch Nails in 2006. That was an epic tour.

JB:  Wow. Which show?

CN: It was in Camden. And after you played, I distinctly remember Tunde, Dave, and Kyp handing out bowls of fruit to the front row. I thought it was a great gesture.

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Kenneth Cappello was just a Houston-born sandlot kid with a skateboard and a point-and-shoot camera to keep him occupied—the perfect for training for Acid Drop, his latest book and art exhibit in a career capturing beautiful people in candid moments..
Just knowing that should differentiate Cappello from one-time mentor David LaChapelle; instead of photographing icons  at their perverse peaks, he looks one frame removed from a purposeful, shiny megawatt pose—snapshots of subdued Jessica Stam on a cigarette break, circled in an awkward haze of smoke, Alison Mosshart's neurotic fidgeting in the Kills' "Black Balloon" video, T.I. as a perplexed pedestrian.

As a restless teenager in Houston in the 80s, Cappello thrived on unbridled adventure and risktaking. Before long, he made friends with  the local misfits and skateboarding and punk. "It was what we lived for," describes Cappello. "It was life; it was 'skate or die!" It was also around that time that his dad bought him a cheap point and shoot camera to keep him busy. For the hell of it, Cappello starting taking pictures wherever he went with his friends. With those impromptu sessions, he unwittingly documented a portrait of a suburban subculture in the 80s; he also developed the brazen, off-the-cuff photographic approach that has come to define his later work. In Aperature's book Acid Drop, Cappello's formative, awkward years spent on the halfpipe and behind the lens are chronicled and placed into context of his now illustrious career. A corresponding art exhibit curated by Tim Barber is on view at Milk Studios.


COLLEEN NIKA: I read that these negatives were buried in your parents' basement until they were recently unearthed. Why the decision to publish this set of photos now?

KENNETH CAPPELLO: They were in a shoe box in my old closet—I probably found them five or six years ago. I sat on them for awhile, then got around to them and realized I had a good body of work here. Tim Barber (of Tiny Vices) saw them and was like, "I wanna publish these one day!" So he did.

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