Designed for curious minds, "What's Contemporary Now?" engages various thought leaders across cultural industries taking in their broad, compelling perspectives and unveiling their common threads.
Hosted by Christopher Michael
Produced by Sasha Grinblat
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Fashion, Film, & Fantasy: The World of Shona Heath
Season 4 · Episode 14
Monday, August 26, 2024 • Duration 28:28
Set and Production designer Shona Heath creates enchanting, dense, and detailed worlds. Dreams within themselves, her visions have been manifested across the pages of top publications, and in collaborative partnerships with the likes of Tim Walker, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, Miu Miu, and SHOWstudio. Her style seamlessly blends contemporary and vintage elements, showcasing a unique, fantastical aesthetic—brought to life through paper sculpting, painting, photography, and prop-building. Most recently, her work on Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film Poor Things won an Academy Award for Best Production Design. In an age of worldbuilding, Heath shares a journey from the countryside to imagining entire realms, underlining that creativity plays a role in designing our everyday lives.
Episode Highlights:
Growing up in the British countryside in a modern sixties home, Heath remembers an upbringing spent outdoors, where she became intrigued with visions of scale; her mother’s crafts were also a deep influence.
She started her career in costume design and was moved to create a set from paper for Dazed, which turned into requests for shop windows and later collaborations with Tim Walker.
Heath’s creative process begins with words or an image, but usually, the former encourages original image-making and visualizing.
She sees tools like AI as potentially good research tools but detrimental to her own particular craft; its use depends on the artist and their authenticity.
She recommends working independently rather than starting as an assistant to an established artist, as then you know how to forge your own path first.
Though she used to feel that she experienced “excessive input” when doing a project, she now feels she can better communicate her vision and appease clients and collaborators up front.
She prefers the immediacy and direct access of working in photography to working on film sets; Heath remarks she wouldn’t be interested in doing a period piece that didn’t have an added element of creativity like Poor Things—a film she worked on with James Price, whose decades of film expertise Heath leaned on.
Fashion’s tendency for retro revisits and zeitgeist trends plays well into her work (as opposed to interior design, which she says has more of a lag time between trends and the trend’s appearance in the culture).
Her work on Poor Things won her an Academy Award for Best Production Design.
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The Muse and the Dream: Dara's Story
Season 4 · Episode 12
Monday, August 19, 2024 • Duration 33:33
Dara is a model, stylist, and fashion director at Interview magazine. From her beginnings in San Diego to the iconic runways of New York, Dara speaks of a journey that is a testament to creativity and conviction. Recognized for her bold, visionary style, she views fashion as an art of crafting desire and glamour, where the method of persuasion is as crucial as the message itself. Her styling for Hunter Schafer and Troye Sivan highlights a unique blend of raw talent, intuitive expertise, and hard work. She’s walked the runways for Marc Jacobs, Kenzo, and Moschino; posed across the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar; and styled for an impressive array of brands like Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, and Miu Miu. What she sees as contemporary now is everyday optimism—and fluidity in interpretation, just like images.
Episode Highlights:
Growing up in San Diego with a creative mother and a pop-culture-obsessed father, Allen recalls watching Disney movies, writing in cursive, immersing in arts and crafts, and wanting to be an animator.
She describes herself as a child being in her own “little world,” a feeling that contributed to her strong sense of self as an adult.
With a level of conviction required for creative pursuits and an early interest in image-making, Allen cherishes the performative aspects of both modeling and styling.
Her career in New York took off quickly, through connections to Candy magazine, the VAQUERA label, and stylist Ian Bradley.
Allen says the unique thing about her generation’s access to information—and noise—is “this real emphasis on understanding your history and the context and everything that kind of surrounds what we’re doing.”
Allen became fashion director at Interview magazine, thinking of the role as writing with clothes and writing with photos.
She recognizes a sense of absurdity in the fashion world and emphasizes the performative aspects of everyday life.
When asked what’s contemporary now, Allen says, “optimism; levity,” and speaks to enjoying even the challenging parts of the work, and fluidity.
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Daphne Guinness is a style icon and creative force. Heiress to the Guinness brewing dynasty, she transcends her lineage as a fashion muse, designer, and philanthropist. Renowned for her avant-garde fashion sense—and her extraordinary couture collection—Guinness seamlessly blends artistry and eccentricity, distinctly weaving past sartorial narratives into the contemporary. Her collaborations with designers like Alexander McQueen and Gareth Pugh have left an indelible mark on the fashion world. But beyond fashion, she is a musician, and writer with a flair for the dramatic and the unexpected. A self-described pessimistic optimist, Guinness is an enigmatic persona and a captivating perennial figure in both high society and artistic circles worldwide.
Episode Highlights:
Guinness says her formative years were a mixture of “art, stoicism, military thought, and surrealism.”
She’s interested in philosophy and the Stoics and calls herself happy to be an outcast.
As a child, she lived in a monastery in Spain with no other than Salvador Dali as a neighbor— “he put me up to make some of my best pranks as a child.”
On the pre-1999 era of Daphne Guinness, she says she was never a society wife, only a mother, hermetic.
Her friendship with magazine editor Isabella Blow, her relative “in spirit,” exposed her to things and people most people would only ever dream of or see in a film.
Guinness’s otherworldly aura and fantastical upbringing seems perfectly normal from her perspective.
She was mentored by David Bowie, who spotted her as a singer. She recently released “Hip Neck Spine,” which has a music video directed by the legendary Nick Knight.
Philanthropic efforts are crucial to her; Guinness sponsors a CSM scholarship every year.
She considers herself a pessimistic optimist, exhausted by putting her heart and soul into her art and music—she sees what’s contemporary as pessimism, but she’s “Team optimism.”
She sees the beauty in human error and process, saying, “I like to do things the old-fashioned way.”
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Katie Grand on Magazine-Making: “I like Observing Change”
Season 4 · Episode 3
Monday, June 10, 2024 • Duration 35:07
Editor-in-chief, stylist, and creative consultant Katie Grand is renowned for her relentless creativity and influential contributions to the fashion and print industries. Born in the UK, Grand’s visionary approach propelled her to the forefront of fashion journalism, where she served as the editor-in-chief of renowned publications, such as POP, Conde Nast’s biannual Love magazine,and most recently Perfect. Her collaborations and innate ability to spot emerging talent landed her roles as a creative consultant for major fashion houses and solidified her status as a tastemaker. Long at the forefront of what’s contemporary and experimental, today, she continues to shape the landscape of contemporary fashion with a perspective that often upends the industry’s cyclical norms.
Episode Highlights:
Grand is a marathon runner; she sees fitness and endurance as ways to expand her interests outside of fashion.
She came into “nerdy” or “outsider” friendships in Birmingham, growing up ice skating and attending cultural events together; through this scene, she found out about publications like The Face and i-D.
Her father brought her to London as a child to shop.
What’s kept her on the pulse of the fashion world—from social media revenue to the evolution of print magazines—has been following her instincts and respecting when she finds herself feeling bored with something.
Grand talks about balancing the support of working under a big corporation with a need to collaborate with people who share her lack of rigidity and need for freedom.
She discusses the difference between magazines like Dazed, The Face, and i-D, biannuals, and monthlies, and working on different production timelines.
Grand cites putting Beth Ditto on the cover of Love as something akin to putting Kendall Jenner on a Marc Jacobs runway, in that both changed the industry dramatically and immediately.
Highly invested in social media engagement and quantitative measures of viewership, Grand notes that the evolution of print has been toward more and more careful renderings of the medium, down to the investment in paper quality.
Speaking about future generations in fashion, Grand remarks that she’s optimistic about their opportunities given social media’s reach but cautious and concerned about the use of AI cutting artists out of their work.
When asked what’s contemporary now, Grand says, “AI.”
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Casting Contemporaries, Crafting Culture: The Makings of Greg Krelenstein
Season 4 · Episode 2
Monday, June 3, 2024 • Duration 26:12
New York–born Greg Krelenstein, cofounder of global creative studio gk-ld, lets his instinct for what’s contemporary guide his matching of talent to brands, magazines, and collaborative projects. Formerly a third of the DJ collective The Misshapes, he also directed editorial operations at fashion and communications agency Starworks Groups for 14 years before establishing his agency with partner Lisa Duckworth. Krelenstein is a force in the fashion world, renowned for his ability to shape and direct the images of celebrities and brands, whether they are at the cutting edge of the zeitgeist or were famous decades ago and are seeking a comeback. “A mother hen to young indie stars” and “permanently 12 months ahead,” Krelenstein is an industry visionary with innate instincts for fashion and culture shifts and modes—and the wisdom to take a moment to get a sense of what feels right.
Episode Highlights
Born in Brooklyn and raised in suburban New Jersey, Krelenstein grew up visiting the city and eventually pursued a communications and media degree at NYU.
As interested in celebrities on magazine covers as those working behind the scenes to produce the shoots, his first passion was not for the fashion world but for film and music.
Krelenstein was the editorial director at Starworks for 14 years before opening gk-ld with partner Lisa Duckworth.
He started in film publicity, working with niche magazines and organically growing his clientele to form gk-ld as an industry insider.
Krelenstein sets his ideas apart by taking chances and choosing collaborations, celebrities, and situations that represent something fresh within magazines developing unique identities.
On maintaining decades-long obsessions with certain celebrities, Krelenstein remarks that past monocultures inscribe them in the collective mind, and that peoples’ current attention spans are so short that re-referencing and “comebacks” have social capital.
Krelenstein says he intends to create overall images as an image director rather than cater to trends.
At an auspicious age, Krelenstein can understand the importance and use of both print and digital operations.
Talking about his experience with the #mycalvins campaign, Krelenstein says the ads that you really remember are the ones that appear to be produced from a genuine creative mindset by the designers in the house—and that he’s excited by proximity to those productions.
His metric for success is when talents experience their own organic growth, in addition to brand alignment; he calls himself both a psychiatrist to some talent and a kind of cultural anthropologist.
Emphasizing the importance of trusting his instincts, he states that what’s contemporary now is taking a moment to breathe and get a sense of “what feels right.”
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Writing Her Story: The Multifaceted World of Paloma Elsesser
Season 4 · Episode 1
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 • Duration 43:10
Paloma Elsesser is a trailblazing model, advocate, and writer heralded for her unapologetic celebration of body positivity and diversity in the fashion industry. Growing up in Los Angeles, she navigated various artistic pursuits before finding her niche in modeling—later going on to win Model of the Year at the 2023 Fashion Awards. Her career skyrocketed after being discovered on Instagram by Pat McGrath, leading to collaborations with renowned designers, brands, and publications like Miu Miu, Vogue, i-D, Marni and Balenciaga. Elsesser's advocacy extends beyond the runway as she addresses issues of representation and inclusivity. With her distinctive style, eloquence, and charisma, she continues to redefine the model and inspire a generation globally.
Episode Highlights:
Born in London and raised in California, Elsesser is of Chilean, Swiss, and African American descent to a family of thinkers and what she likes to call “punk” as well as spiritual.
She was encouraged to lean into all of her interests, and now considers applying the curiosity she experienced in her childhood to her work. She studied psychology and literature in New York City.
She was interested in mental health, substance abuse, literature, and writing, often writing and publishing her poetry throughout her adolescence.
Her writing for The Cut was profoundly personal and a cathartic opportunity to discuss representation.
Elsesser surrounds herself with a community (a “social diet” of people) who also prioritize her commitment to openness and advocacy, though she feels the language around and scope of cultural diversity is still limited.
She navigates the intersection of her voice and communicating the things that matter to her while also understanding the complexities of the commercial aspect of being a talent by pacing herself with slow change and being “obsessed with accountability.”
Having stepped back momentarily from social media, Elsesser attempted to “navigate unfettered burnout” of microdramas, gaining confidence from conversations with Richie Shazam and Julia Fox.
She’s chosen sobriety for 12 years and sees her lifestyle as a way of both avoiding pain and avoiding causing pain.
Joking that what’s contemporary now is Ozempic, she says what is always contemporary is curiosity.
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Season 4 Trailer
Season 4
Monday, May 20, 2024 • Duration 01:03
While fashion has become culture's greatest Trojan horse, it's only natural that there should be a show exploring both the contemporary landscape and modern-day human experience through its lens. You'll find both the unique and universal in these conversations that illuminate the pulse of our times as we ask different creatives and thought leaders the ever-present question, "What is contemporary now?"
In our upcoming season, we've lined up extraordinary guests, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic, a brand founder who could give a masterclass on how to do it right and win at life, and award-winning designers, magazine editors, and cultural icons, both established and new.
Tune in for new episodes starting Monday, May 27 with Paloma Elsesser, Greg Krelenstein, Katie Grand, Robin Givhan, Dara, Suzanne Koller, Pierre Rougier, Zoe Ghertner, Willa Bennett, Erik Torstensson, Daphne Guinness, and many more.
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The Business of Ego: Hanan Besovic's Take on Fashion
Season 3 · Episode 16
Monday, February 26, 2024 • Duration 33:12
Hanan Besovic, the content creator and fashion commentator behind @ideservecouture, shares his unconventional journey and outsider perspective into the fashion world. Moving from Croatia to the US, Besovic garnered a significant following on his platform during the COVID lockdown, using it to channel and convey his perspective on fashion—which he comes by through sheer obsessive passion. His honest and timely critiques often challenge traditional norms in the industry.
Besovic details the evolving role of influencers, advocating for discernment in evaluating their contributions to fashion discourse. Expressing admiration for Gen Z’s assertiveness and knowledge, he navigates the industry with a focus on community-building and networking, while maintaining an authenticity that he sees as all too often lacking on social media. His overwhelming fashion insight gives him a unique perspective laced with nuance, allowing him to see what’s contemporary now as both the influence and image of businesswoman Kim Kardashian, as well as pervasive mediocrity that comes from the industry’s exclusivity and commercialism.
Episode Highlights:
Serendipitous start: Introduced to fashion in 2010 after seeing a McQueen show, Besovic transitioned from hospitality to fashion after a move from Croatia to the US and following a layoff from hotel work during the pandemic.
Following a passion: Though he treated fashion as a hobby, joking that he failed algebra because of his obsession with Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert, he found a role in the scene during the COVID lockdown.
Superfan: Citing Plato’s Atlantis and the Horn of Plenty, Leigh Bowery lips, and Dior silhouettes, Besovic recounts how McQueen’s show was “a perfect introduction to fashion because I got a history of fashion in 13 minutes.”
Ending up on a panel for Show Studio, through which he had first been introduced to the fashion world, was a full-circle moment for Besovic.
@ideservecouture: Having been called a content creator, a fashion critic, and an influencer, Besovic sees himself as a commentator, remarking on how the fashion world has changed to include more critiques like those pushing for body diversity.
On influencer culture: Besovic sees the importance of having a discerning view on social media, where unresearched or misinformed influencer opinions on fashion proliferate alongside those of influencers who have dug deeper into the contemporary moment and its historical roots.
Gen Z: Likening the feeling of maintaining an outsider perspective among the insiders to those that look down on Gen Z, Besovic notes that he admires the younger generation’s activeness and knowledge of their value.
Organic growth: Quoting a drag queen, Besovic says that “goals are preplanned disappointments” and prefers relying on organic personal—and social media—growth.
Navigating the industry: Besovic’s advice to young designers is to work more toward networking and building community, as he does on his platform.
“Nice, genuine, and down to earth”: Besovic’s contemporaries don’t have the same egos as most in the industry, and Besovic himself is happy to forgo sources of status, like physically attending the shows.
“I like to know the reality of the things.”: When asked whether the world needs the 24/7 dream or fantasy of fashion on social media, Besovic insists that the world needs to know instead that everything’s not as perfect as it looks.
When clothes speak for themselves: Besovic says storytelling is crucial to a collection, except when garments are too good to need a narrative.
Dream job: Besovic thinks he would be a good consultant for brands like Givenchy, which don’t understand their worth or history.
Polarities: For Besovic, the Kardashians are what’s contemporary now (still), because “no one can dispute how smart of a businesswoman she [Kim] is.” On the other hand, additionally, what is contemporary now is “mediocrity, it’s commercialism, it’s lack of creativity.”
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A Shy Talent Who Became a Name—the Story of Robin Galiegue
Season 3 · Episode 15
Monday, February 19, 2024 • Duration 23:15
French photographer Robin Galiegue has carved a distinctive niche in the world of contemporary photography, captivating audiences with a refreshing vision of beauty, style, and attitude. Galiegue's early experimentation with makeup, styling, and photography laid the foundation for a career marked by raw energy and a timeless aesthetic. Seamlessly blending fashion, portraiture, and reportage, his notable projects include a recently published book and work with directional publications like Vogue Italia, Self Service, and Harper’s Bazaar France, and collaborations with brands such as Saint Laurent, Isabel Marant, Tom Ford, and Hermès. In a world where he sees people molding into different personas online, Galiegue believes what is contemporary now is being oneself, in work and in life.
Episode Highlights:
Early ambitions: Born and raised in Lille, France, to artistic-minded parents, Robin Galiegue always had ambitions to move to a bigger city and first felt drawn to images and fashion at 14 in directing a photo shoot with his sister.
The big move: Dropping out of school at 16, Galiegue attended photography school in Paris, deciding over the course of five days.
Without reference: Coming to school with zero cultural exposure to photography, Galiegue gained technical expertise and was driven to work, though he knew little English and was not assisting.
Nerves: Even as a big name in the industry today, Galiegue is nervous about approaching collaborations, such as with legendary model Linda Evangelista.
Hard to sit still: Being in Paris—or in large, bustling cities—incites Galiegue’s desire to work rather than relax; he sees them as villages that offer bursts of energy.
“Shooting has to be fun”: Known in the industry as a kind presence, Galiegue has an intuitive understanding of when to be firm and when to prioritize kindness.
Merging visions: Galiegue enjoys working with brands, stylists, and collaborators with strong voices to make something exciting and new.
Finding inspiration and peace: Traveling, meeting new people, having friends not in the fashion industry, and discovering new cultures keep Galiegue engaged in his creative work after hours.
What’s contemporary now: Galiegue sees so many people playing roles on social media, so what’s contemporary or necessary now is being yourself.
Fear of AI: Galiegue is not interested in AI and is more scared of its potential to replace collaborators and artists.
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Pioneering Contemporary Vintage with Byronesque’s Gill Linton
Season 3 · Episode 14
Monday, February 12, 2024 • Duration 22:11
Gill Linton is the cofounder and curatorial persona behind Byronesque, a digital boutique department store that uniquely merges editorial content with a focus on contemporary vintage fashion. As editor-in-chief, Linton is a thought leader in the realm of editorial-based e-commerce and has long been a go-to brand strategist well-versed in the subculture of vintage fashion. Hailing from London, Linton divides her time between Paris and New York, collaborating with designers, consultants, editors, stylists, and other in-the-know individuals to reissue vintage finds and preserve creative brand histories. For her, it is essential to encourage people to be more thoughtful and slower when buying clothes—institute a cultural shift in shopping behavior.
Episode Highlights:
“The odd one out:” Born in London into a Scottish family, Linton got her start at M+C Saatchi, where she was able to pursue her passion for advertising, branding, and creating content.
Serendipitous start: From her first job, she moved to BBC Radio 1, which was a state-run representation of youth culture. She was able to move into the fashion industry through a move to New York to work with the agency of entrepreneur Russell Simmons.
Brand evolution: Linton began in the fashion industry at a time when concepts like “brand heritage” weren’t considered in traditional marketing.
Bridging gaps: She cofounded Byronesque, set apart from traditional resale sites, to focus on “contemporary vintage” with a global network of vintage sellers and private collectors.
Resale is the new fast fashion: increased volume and perpetuated ideas of buying and selling in the resale sector have led Linton, through Byronesque, to “encourage people to be a little bit more considered, slower, and to keep things for a long time.”
Fighting flip culture: Byronesque believes the clothes it sells and stories it tells have more meaning than the mainstream gives them.
Careful curation: Making Byronesque “a specialist environment” for vintage and “future vintage” of luxury brands, Linton has been authenticating, partnering with archive teams, and organizing concessions for luxury brands in an attempt to provide more agency and control over resale markets and brand image.
Reissuing vintage: Byronesque has reissued vintage finds from Helmut Lang, Vex Generation, Claude Montana, THREEASFOUR, and other brands that have been producing iconic items in decades past.
Collector’s items in fashion: Her concern with keeping clothing as investment pieces drives a blockchain-based authentication process, and brings up the power of narrative and the importance of story.
What’s contemporary now: Real talent, Linton says, and she hopes to see a resurgence of talent among a generation and in an evolved industry where that’s not always necessary.
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