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BEST OF 2018
by BJ Panda Bear
2018 is finally coming to an end, and through all the massive highs there have also been soul sucking lows in culture, politics, and fashion. As a magazine that has always been there to break the next big things and highlight legendary figures in pop culture, we would like to close the year with an award of sorts. Chosen by the Flaunt staff these selections showcase our favorites as seen in the pages of Flaunt.
Using neural network processing methods to extract commonality from large data sets of Balenciaga’s runway shows, 19 year-old Robbie Barrat has digitally generated entirely original AI fashion.
“I don’t think that clothing designers need to worry about this sort of thing but I do see a future where artists and designers use AI tools like this to augment human creativity.”
From the twisted annals of Charlie Skelton’s mind:
“I found his distress unbearably erotic”
“I was nuts deep in the Pink Panther when a dark waft of forest floor hit my nostrils”
* The Witness Protection Issue
A Fendi fantasy photoshoot by Crown & Owls based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
“I was quite a naughty kid in school, I could never sit through a whole lesson”
“For most of the first season, Winona and I were shooting together and most of the time we were in tears. When you’re doing something quite vulnerable like that, you become very close through the chemistry of the characters.”
“There’s this very northern sense of ‘hang on mate, don’t get too big for your boots,’ and it keeps you grounded”
*The New Fantasy Issue
Quarles is an LA-based, abstract figurative painter from the cover of The Prelude Issue:
“Due to a clerical error I was put in the adult figure drawing class when I was 12, so I’ve had 21 years of experience drawing from nude models.”
“…almost every figure will have boobs but that’s mostly because I think of them as such an ‘on the nose’ way of depicting weight, gravity, and fleshiness.”
*Prelude Issue
Let Them Eat ‘The Most Beautiful Piece of Chocolate Cake’: The favorite foods of the worlds most infamous dictators
“Saddam Hussein could devour a large Doritos bag in under 10 minutes according to guards and never missed his Raisin Bran Crunch for brekkies.”
*The Transience Issue
Like some sexy Swedish disciplinarian fantasy. I think I’ve seen this Bergman film before—it’s Persona…draped in Fendi.
“It’s funny—Erika is just far more masculine than I am. I think that’s going to be really interesting to see on camera. She’s the male version of me and I’m like the female version of her.”
*The Double Standards Issue
A socially conscious magician here to teach your kids about the tougher lessons in life.
“Trickery implies deception. My goal is not to deceive children, but to educate them.”
*The Transience Issue
Fischerspooner: Best Beach Daddy
A Bruce Weber-inspired photoshoot with Casey Spooner, 46-year old singer of electro-pop band Fischerspooner
“I want to help queer people. I’m realizing I have a responsibility to a younger generation to try to share my experiences and help them grow”
“I think there’s a real issue in gay culture where sexuality, in a lot of ways, is devoid of emotion”
*The Witness Protection Issue
Jim Krantz and Kris Zero delivered an action packed editorial of real life cowpeople in the season greatest looks adapted for the range.
The ‘Muscles from Brussels’ himself, featured in The Witness Protection Issue
“Doing things the the old fashion way, there’s the tension of real physical impact. No CGI, no cables. It’s real reactions and real objects we worked with, not like with a green screen and cables where they just say “jump” and you have to pretend. When you can’t see what you’re reacting with it’s not the same. The effort is just not there.”
A cerebral tech-nightmare from artist, filmmaker, and essayist Jon Rafman interviewed for The Next Issue
“I investigate subjectivity, that is, what hyper-accelerated contemporary existence does to the psyche”
“Our digital lives and lived experience are so intertwined that it is hard to formulate that question: what are the sources of our being, our lived experience, what comes from where, where or who are we?…I’m interested in finding ways to represent this collapse”
*The Next Issue
It was hard to not look at the angsty beauty that is the actor/singer Kris Wu!
“I’m trying to be the bridge for East and West with music,”
*The Next Issue
The Emmy award-winning photographer and filmmaker presented a decades-long multimedia project exploring “the influence of affluence”
“Just to make it really clear: this is not a story about money. This is not a story about the 1%. This affects everyone. It was really powerful for me to learn that 75% of women who get plastic surgery make $50,000 a year or less. People are going into debt for these things that they feel are so important because they give them value.”
The musician came back with his latest album Raise Vibration and showed us that Rock Gods don’t age.
“You’re giving all the time. Whether you’re performing, dealing with people, dealing with people in your face, you’re giving, and you get to a point where you get numb. I just did five months of touring. I did months of press before that. I made the album before that and just recently, I hit a wall. I realized, ‘I’m not feeling myself.’ That’s the best way to describe it, a sort of numbness.”
*The Transience Issue
What other animal would you be able to rock this Valentino outfit with?
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What else would you expect after unleashing one of the hottest it K-pop boy bands onto Hollywood Blvd.
“We share in our dreams and become one through music. That’s our core message,”
*The Transience Issue
From “Plug Walk” and this massive hit album The World Is Yours, Rich the Kid’d flow proved not to be messed with.
“I freestyle everything. A verse takes me, like, 5 minutes. A whole song takes me, like, 15 to 20 minutes. It depends on what mood I’m in. “Plug Walk”...I did that in, like, 12 minutes— the whole song.”
“Listen, bro. I don’t believe in all that bullshit. i believe in none of that shit. I don’t even wanna think about that...I’m pouring up right now...”
*The Prelude Issue
Mini bags can barely hold your cellphone, try using a mini cat to hold your hopes, dreams, secrets and maybe some shady tea. Photographed by Gia Coppola and styled by Mui-Hai Chu.
*The Transience Issue
From the Chanel suit and Erdem kitten heels, Sonoya’s look in the flaunt shoot would make Marlene Dietrich proud.
*The Next Issue
Looking like a ‘70s German Hippie Art-rock collective, sounding like a lo-fi electro-pop fever dream.
The young track star Toni Breidinger serves as the perfect figure to be our modern day speed racers in her feature photographed by Chris and Jonathan Schoonover and Stylist Jenny Haapala.
*The Next Issue
TORBJØRN RØDLAND. “MIDLIFE DILEMMA” (2015). CHROMOGENIC PRINT. 140 X 110CM. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GALERIE EVA PRESENHUBER.
People touch in ways that signal either closeness or, possibly, exploitation. Power dynamics are flipped. An uncertain sensuality permeates the scenes, but they are photographed with an almost clinical or commercial neutrality that denies the viewer an easy narrative.
*The Witness Protection Issue