In Fall 2003 J.G. Francis purchased his first Mercedes-Benz for $700. His passion for restoring cars back to their original condition, a cleverness for entrepreneurship and unconventional way to make a living has led to the success of Los Angeles-based Mercedes Motoring. Fascinated with his creative process and attention to detail we sat down recently to learn more about his labor of love.
What made you start taking Mercedes Benz’s apart?
I’ve been taking things apart since I was about six, and although it’s in my nature, I have no idea where or who it came from. My Greek Grandfather owed a deli, my Dad ran a casino, my Mom… well, I guess part of it comes from my Mom. She’s always in the garage making a birdhouse or carving a gourd. Anyway, to answer your question, what made me start taking apart Mercedes-Benzes was sheer fascination. I had always wanted to, so I did. That’s been ten years ago now, and I’ve taken apart 300-400 by now.
Soulland is certainly one of the brand’s of the moment and The Great Divide had the pleasure of speaking to Soulland’s enigmatic designer Silas Adler. We at Limité have been keeping a eye on this brand for quite some time and our friends at TGD are happy to share with you this conversation that took place.
The brand is going from strength to strength and a big part of that is Silas’s know-how. In this quick yet insightful interview we manage to touch on subjects as ranging from skateboarding to the idiosyncrasies of ‘how do you take yours’ in the world of coffee.
To accompany the interview we shot some images in one of London’s most iconic and architecturally revered social housing / council estates. Most certainly a oxymoronic juxtaposition to Soulland’s collection ethos that is based on observations of that funny peculiar breed that is the bourgeoisie.
There’s a lot of architecture in your sweats and shirting for the coming season. The house print/embroidery is definitely my favorite thing in the collection. What was the inspiration behind these pieces? The sleeve print to me seems to reference old skate and metal shirts.
It’s funny because it’s two very strong inspirations merge into one sweatshirt.
The Inspiration for the houses comes from Paris and the fashion house as a structure – The Maison. It all started in Paris with Lanvin, Chanel, LV etc. I started to think of the institutions as the rulers and the ones who control fashion, sort of like the Illuminati or some thing like that. So I drew all these houses and made small sentences to go with each house. Then to make a complete contrast I made the piece as a classic skate sweatshirt.
I recently sat down with Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes in Manhattan’s Film Forum, where his new feature Tabuwill be screening as of December 26th. The film’s story begins in Lisbon where we meet Aurora, an elderly woman with a seemingly uninteresting life. Following her death, Aurora’s neighbor and maid join to find an old man with a connection to Aurora’s past. As the man begins to tell his and Aurora’s story, we are transported to a former Portuguese colony in Africa, where we witness their youthful, eccentric lives play out.
Tabu is told in two distinct parts: the first half set in Lisbon in the present day and the second set in Africa decades earlier. Both benefit from the classic mode of filmmaking that Gomes employed. His use of black-and-white imagery and a 4:3 aspect ratio hearken back to a cinema of old, honoring a long-forgotten art while emphasizing the film’s theme of lost youth.
This year, the film has screened at the New York Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain), and won two awards at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.
Charlet with Lisa Hyper, Jamaican Dancehall Singer/Performer
Vice Media continues to push the envelope with the web series Fashion Week Internationale. The series is a colorful and exotic passport to fashion and style like never seen before. Host Charlet Duboc takes viewers to nontraditional fashion weeks all over the globe, including Jamaica, Rio, and Nigeria. Duboc reveals unique trends like skin bleaching in and “chicken pill” popping in Jamaica, plastic surgery in Korea, the transgender model world in Rio, and the day pajama trend in Cambodia. Duboc talked about the series and her adventures with Limitè Magazine. Fashion Week Internationale can be seen on VICE.COM. The next episode, featuring Seoul Fashion Week, will air on October 22,2012.
What is Fashion Week Internationale?
Two years ago, I was in the VICE office looking for stories and I stumbled across Islamabad Fashion Week. The first ever, was happening that month. I Google searched further and I realized a lot of other places all around the world were having their first Fashion Weeks. I told my editor about it and he was like “what are you like on camera?” and I said “I don’t know”. That was that. We set off to report on as many of them as was humanly possible. The aim was to look at fashion from a different angle, to show people something they might not know about.
We’re all excited and ecstatic to see Lupe Fiasco releasing Food & Liquor 2 this Fall. Matthew Trammel for Rolling Stone speaks to Lupe about his upcoming project.
According to Lupe, Food & Liquor 2 attempts to tackle the history of America in a few hundred bars. Inspired by the writings of James Baldwin and Howard Zinn, tracks range from exposés of Native American alcoholism to analyses of nuclear weapons programs. And then there’s “Bitch Bad,” the scathing commentary on the use of the word “bitch” throughout the black community, framed as a narrative about a young boy and girl. The video, which climaxes with mock rappers and video models applying blackface, premiered on MTV and was followed by a round-table discussion of the expletive and its significance. Lupe played Socratic for most of the segment, content to lob questions to the panel of bloggers and industry insiders (and one video model). These days, he’s careful never to stake a claim or teach a lesson. Instead, he tells Rolling Stone, he’s just trying to “start conversations” – but he refuses to be at the center of them.
Why make a sequel to Food & Liquor now? What was your thought process behind creating a Part Two?
What are you interested in trying to figure out, beyond that? I don’t really look into it that deeply. I think people might be overthinking it. It wasn’t that much of a decision either way, like, “Oh, we’re going to take people back to the first album,” or, “Oh, I’m going to take advantage of people relating it to the first album.” It wasn’t that serious. I guess it’s serious enough for people to ask questions about it, but maybe you should answer it for yourself, too. Not to be a jerk about it, but specifically for that one thing, it’s not that deep. It’s just Food & Liquor 2.
In the “Bitch Bad” video, there’s a sequence during the second verse that shows a rapper and a girl dancing. Were you referencing anyone specific there? The girl is styled like Nicki Minaj.
OK. Nicki Minaj isn’t the only girl with pink hair. Lady Gaga I think had pink hair at one point. To tell the story, that’s what a hip-hop video looks like. The general hip-hop video looks like that. That’s the images you see. Go on World Star [Hip-Hop], nine times out of 10 it’s going to look like that. It’s not taking shots at anybody, it’s not meant to be a diss record. I don’t want to get off into the distractions. That’s a distraction, to be like, “Oh man, are you dissing Nicki Minaj?” That’s a distraction from the point of what the video’s about. That’s what happened with “Around My Way.” People got caught up with “Man, Pete Rock don’t like it?” as opposed to, “The suicide rate in Pine Ridge is really 50 percent?” So I’d rather not indulge. If you feel that way, make sure you say you feel that way. Or Rolling Stone feels that way. Don’t say Lupe said that.
Staple Design’s Jeff Staple has these 1-2-1 sitdowns from time to time with creatives and influentials to talk about about latest projects and life in general. This time he sits down with none other than “Iron Mike”, that’s right the former heavyweight champion and recently Tyson took his talents to Broadway for “Undisputed Truth”. Watch the first part of the interview above.
There have been many attempts to make a Bob Marley movie. At one point, Martin Scorsese was brought on for the job (because of scheduling conflicts, he pulled out). But Kevin Macdonald’s documentary Marley, out today, is the first definitive biography of the superstar to actually hit theaters. It’s a stunning, comprehensive portrait that begins with Marley’s nursery school teacher in St. Ann and ends tragically in the snow, at the Bavarian clinic where he spent the last months of his life. In between is a story about not-belonging: Marley didn’t know his father Norval Marley—a mixed race man with a British father who was considered a white Jamaican. He grew up in poverty, spent some time in Delaware after failing to catch immediate success with The Wailers and didn’t find a black American audience until after his death. At his last show in New York, he opened for The Commodores. Marley is streaming now on Facebook. It’s the first movie released to Facebook on the same day as its theatrical opening, though the site has offered movie rentals since last spring. Below, Marley’s daughter Cedella speaks about her parents’ unique relationship and her role in the film.
How did your family end up working with Kevin Macdonald? Was he a successful choice? Kevin chose us, too. Chris Blackwell called me and said, “I think I have the right person.” Ziggy met with him, and everybody loved him. There’s something about Kevin—good directors can draw stuff out of you that maybe you didn’t want to share. He was the right person for the task, and we give thanks for that. As his children, we walk away from this experience with some knowledge of the later part of dad’s life that we didn’t know. The toe amputation, the stroke. Neville [Livingston, aka Bunny Wailer] talks about dad having his stroke in the film, and watching that I was like, Wait a minute. You guys made it seem like he was just exhausted! But what were they going to say to a 12 year old? A ten year old, four year old, five year old? Maybe it was their way of protecting us. But knowledge is everything. To see the nurse [from the clinic in Bavaria where Marley received alternative cancer therapies] Kevin interviews in the film, and how respectful and loving she was, that was good to know. You see the images of him there without his hair, and for me, I feel hurt. But it was good to hear the nurse say what a great person he was. That’s worth everything. To know that even during those moments he was still Robby—just a nice person.
This unreleased (and unedited) interview with the Notorious B.I.G. from the set of the “Warning” video shoot surfaced on the web yesterday. Cast your mind back to 1994 to hear the Big One expound on suicidal tendencies, East/West conflict, his name change and more–he even shares some baby pictures. Full of awkward Q&A (Q: What was you thinkin’? A: Jus’ Wil’in. Q: Oh, word?) and unlooked-for gems of musical insight (did you know BIG’s personal favorite jam on Ready To Die was “Everyday Struggle“? We didn’t neither). Puff takes a turn in front of the camera as well, before we get some actual making-of behind the scenes of the classic “Warning” vid in this 11-minute reel.
Noisey asked Hima and Kool A.D. from Das Racist to host a hip-hop show for the network – they kept things simple and named it RAP SHOW. For the first episode, Hima sat down with Kendrick Lamar on St. Patrick’s Day to talk about black hippies, the N word, lucid dreaming, and Home Improvement.
Pharrell Williams wears SpongeBob SquarePants toe socks, considers Disney World to be one of his favorite places, and has 17 friends in his studio on an average day – including Busta Rhymes. In the column, Tracked, WSJ.com spent an entire day with Pharrell Williams, trailing his every move. Some of the things they learned about the international style icon include:
- He spends 11 hours straight recording, including little to no breaks
- Snacks he likes include: Snickers bars, Chic-fil-A, Burger King, and breakfast cereal
- He receives 22 emails in one day, 8 text conversations throughout the day and receives 10 phone calls
- It takes him an average of 70 minutes to compose a song from scratch during the day’s session
In the highly imitable world of hip-hop, producer Pharrell Williams has cut a unique path, never content to run with the pack. Among the first to challenge the baggy-pants ideal of hip-hop attire, he champions the work of cutting-edge designers like Rei Kawakubo and Alber Elbaz and has made possible the once absurd notion of a tough young man toting an Hermès handbag.
