Alejandro González presented a proposal for a photographic series depicting Cuba's modern-day teenagers. He initially planned on focusing on urban subcultures, but later decided to also cover the countryside. This is how he expressed his interest in the subject-matter: 

“This millennium’s mass media outlets have homogenized urban subcultures to the point that a teenager in modern-day Havana resembles a teenager in Shanghai. 

Adolescence is a period of search, discovery, and confrontation, as well as a period of ideological formation. In these processes, the conflicts experienced by young people are the same regardless of regional differences.

Twenty years ago I was almost the same age as the young people shown in my pictures. The doubts, satisfactions, and longings were the same. The only thing that separates us is the political-geographic situation of that moment: the Socialist Block was disappearing and Cuba was left alone. 

The young people I have portrayed did not experience the period of economic welfare that resulted from exchanges among socialist countries. They were all born during the Special Period, a moment of moral and economic crisis. This social transformation affected political discourse in light of the chaotic reality.

Christophe Pillet, a multidisciplinary designer whose work extends beyond objects and furniture, takes up residence at the house of Lacoste as Design Director. Pillet gave the next generation of designers their brief, along with encouragement, guidance and a lecture on his years of experience building and shaping environments.

Recently in London to view the result and announce the competition’s winner, Pillet sat down with HOMME+ to chat about the initiative and his role as an architect of our surroundings.

Sabba Keynejad
  
AH+: As a designer you are constantly solving problems of space, form and function. What is your process like?
CP: What I really try to do is to start every single project from scratch. I try not to capitalise on what I’ve done in the past or what’s been done in the past. For example, I’d say to myself, ‘Okay, I have a perfume bottle to design, what it should be’. I try not to read books or see what has been done; I just try to see what is the main purpose, in a way.
 

AH+: It’s very difficult to erase your mental database. How do you do that?
CP: Well it’s impossible because of course your background is what makes you. For example, many times journalists ask me: How long does it take you to design a chair? And my answer is always the same: between 2 and 15 minutes, but it’s 2 minutes plus 25 years. Even if you try to forget everything, you will always have this sedimentation of not only experience – because experience can be good or bad – but also context that enables you at the moment you start conceptualising or designing. So I try to be free by erasing my background.
 

AH+: Do you consider yourself a multi-disciplinary and /or an interdisciplinary?
CP: I think there is a completely new definition of design now and I’ve been raised professionally in such a context. I was worked in [design] offices in Italy where in the morning we’d be working on a hotel and the next day a car. So I’ve been raised within this mentality that we are building complete environments; we are specialists in environments. We are telling stories and we are using all the different products in our surroundings as media to tell a story. So yes, I am multi-disciplinary, but I am doing the same thing within each discipline: telling the same story over and over.

AH+: Can you tell me a bit about your collaboration with Saint Martins. Why did you select the UK school?
CP: We all believe that it’s very important to collaborate with art schools and the world of creation, but in a way that doesn’t use them as young professionals yet gives them an opportunity to be connected with real life and keeps them in a wide creative field. So we don’t expect from this exercise to have a sort of professional result. We just wanted to give a base and platform to help structure individual creativity and of course, we’ve had the amazing opportunity to collaborate with Saint Martins, which as you know, is one of the very best creative institutions in the world.
 

AH+: Why was a French institution not more appropriate?
CP: Because, unfortunately, I don’t think that France has a creative school of the same caliber. We have great schools but for the last 20 years, Saint Martins has been one of the most important schools for providing us with a new, forward thinking creative generation.
 

AH+: And it was the Graphic Design course at CSM that you were working with?
CP:Yes exactly. So it was very open in terms of “Do what you want” – there is a subject but it’s free enough for any person to be able to express themselves but still very tough because the purpose is important. You have to express something, but that something has to be recognizable. And the tool is very limited.
 

AH+: Are you surprised by the result of the brief?
CP: Yes I’m very positively surprised, sincerely. We didn’t really give specific direction; we gave a subject or purpose which was to express the emotion, value and imaginary of the Polo Lacoste and its representation. What’s really most impressed me is that they are first and second year students who come from various backgrounds and nationalities, yet there is a very strong coherence across the work.
 

 Soo Kyung Kim

 And the winners?
 
1st Place: Sabba Keynejad
2nd Place: Soo Kyung Kim
3rd Place: Reiko Hirai

WORDS STEPHANIE WAKNINE

EAU DE LACOSTE L.12.12 Rouge is available nationwide from May 2012.
 

Independently owned and British, Luke draws inspirations on the tough elements of it's birthplace, Birmingham.

The great outdoors concept is brought to life by ‘Luke Sporting Goods’ – a nod of the flatcap to classic and vintage hunting apparel.

Some of our faves can be seen below!

www.luke1977.com

PHOTOGRAPHY ED AVES

His experiments in photography, illustration, film and design have maintained a steady success rate and it’s obvious why. His vision and sensibility is consistent and clear; Sauvage approaches each subject as a case study, to be investigated via multiple platforms.

As a designer, Adrien was recently asked by Dr. Martens to translate his tasteful sensibility into a capsule collection of boots for Spring/Summer 2012. The result: fresh-soled Docs for every man who rejects a suit.

AH+: You’re often the subject of your work, why is that?
AS: If I have been modelling a lot of my looks, it’s for the simple reason that I struggle to find a model that I really feel embodies the clothes and the brand. And then using a model to wear the clothes has always been a bit strange for me because I didn’t produce this brand for models because I felt that men don’t identify with models.

AH+: You have a very specific vision, which is maybe why you’ve retained control over so many areas of your brand. But how do you balance what you do and/or don't do yourself when it comes to your projects?
AS: Delegation is something I find very difficult. But maybe to back track, when I was really young I practiced a lot of individual-based sport, like 100 metre runs, etc. When I got a bit older and I got into basketball, which is very much reliant on the idea of a team, I struggled a lot. Even if I was a very good player, I wasn’t really a team player. And only when I stopped playing did I realise this. And I think it’s been an interesting perspective for me; to see things through that sort of sportsman’s lens. And I think basketball has given me a great deal of insight into working through these various disciplines because at the end of the day, it’s all the same process: you start with a brief and then you need to find a solution.

AH+: You have a very consistent aesthetic in every project you do. Where do your tastes come from?
AS: I think maybe my parents have inspired me a lot indirectly. A lot of references as well, a lot of self-study, maybe. It’s hard to say.

AH+: In regards to Dr. Martens, who approached who?
AS: It was kind of a conversation. Someone who had a relationship with DM said to me “Oh, you’re wearing Docs, with a suit…”. and after that point DM approached me to do this collaboration and I think the partnership really makes sense.

AH+: Do you wear DM’s?
AS: I wear Docs all the time. And I’d felt that a lot of my friends had worn Docs but inevitably put them down at one point in their lives. So I thought with the whole “This is not a Suit” manifesto, Dr. Martens’ anti-establishment ideology kind of made sense as a way for me to get that guy who didn’t wear a suit to wear Docs again, but refine them enough to make it appropriate. For example I took off the back tabs, used a softer leather, changed the signature stitching, and as they’re for summer I decided to put a white sole. I think a white sole on a dark base feels really modern, so I tried to give them a modern twist.

AH+: Can you tell me about your signature Woven Kente Silk? You incorporated this on the DM’s?
AS: Well my family is from Ghana and I used to always see my parents wearing this specific cloth. So I thought, “let’s incorporate that”. And from there, I wanted to have a part of that history, my history, in every collection. The fabrics are made from linen and silk, all produced in Colchester. Each area of the cloth is significant. For example each colour represents something, so green symbolizes spirituality, etc. So on the Dr. Martens, I decided to place a classic print that derives from my main collection.

I don’t know if you’ve seen Tracy Emin’s patchwork blankets where she draws on Asafo flags? They're patchwork blankets from Ghana, made during that Postcolonial moment of the 30’s and 40’s; each has a British flag in the top-left corner…. So anyway, these flags are something I’m currently looking at and trying to incorporate into my work, as another aspect of my DNA.

AH+: Do you own any of the flags?
AS: I have a collection of them actually from when I traveled to Ghana. What’s interesting is that years ago, I followed a client I was styling into a Sotheby’s auction and saw the flags for sale. So when I went back to Ghana searched for the flags again. Each flag depicts characters from a proverb which I find really interesting and am trying to extend. I would like to modernise the concept and style, and translate them to my new collection, as a sort of wallpaper print on suits, shirts, etc.

AH+: What do you find are the limitations and/or allowances to designing for a brand that’s not your own?
AS: I mean you always have to find a compromise and have to work within a given protocol. But I really give it to DM because they made it really easy for me. I know how difficult I am and how many times I change my mind…

A. Sauvage Made in England is now available in stores.

The brand’s first-ever shop, The House A. Sauvage, will open at 48 Maddox Street 9th May.

asauvage.com
drmartens.com

WORDS STEPHANIE WAKNINE

1 continuous looped video keeping you tight with the club revellers, Ben Kelly 'The most famous club in the worlds' original designer has partly re-created a small section inside the gallery.

Also including some of the best and most famous posters and album covers ever by Factory Records designer Peter Saville. His post-industrial aesthetic still as slick some thirty years after the clubbers mecca first opened its doors.

THE BEAT THAT WONT BE BEATEN.

The Homme Plus present in our naturally abstract spirit the Peter Werth polo. 3 button and an oxford colour perform a formal impression combining jersey and mercerised cotton pique fabrics with woven cut away button down collars. Taped, concealed and oxford fabric plackets making you hot to trot.

www.peterwerth.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHY ED AVES

Specifically understated, Jean Machine launched with 3 specific styles- Slim, Straight + relaxed. Like all the best jeans it couldn't be simpler.

Each purchase includes instructions on the best ways to treat your denim. Touch.

View + BUY! The complete collection here www.thejeanmachine.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHY ED AVES

FASHION MAX CLARK

Here's another sneak peek to the S/S 2012 issue of Arena HOMME+

OUT TODAY!

DIRECTOR CLANG

FASHION JOHN COLVER

Check the new issue of Arena HOMME+ for the full story. ON NEWSSTANDS TOMORROW!

PHOTOGRAPHY COLIN DODGSON

FASHION MAX CLARK

TANK LANVIN

SHORTS NIKE SPORTSWEAR

(MIDDLE)

PRINTED BLOUSON Z ZEGNA

SWIMMING TRUNKS ADIDAS

PRINTED SHORT SLEEVE SHIRT WOOLRICH WOOLEN MILLS

PRINTED SNAKE T-SHIRT JIL SANDER