Photography for EVB: James Chiang
Art Director/Stylist: Ken Baldwin
Prop Stylist: David Davis
Model: Kirk Pelarde

All clothing by Walter Van Beirendonck, Spring/Summer 2010 collection and archive.
Special thanks to Walter Van Beirendonck, Ben Ospital at M.A.C. Modern Appealing Clothing, Andrea Cammarosano, and Franklin Melendez

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After designing three collections for women, Swedish-born, New York-based knitwear designer
Lars Andersson has delivered his first menswear collection  - it’s dark dark dark, raw, minimal, sexy as hell, and all produced by hand in Brooklyn. Watch for upcoming collaborations with EVB, but until then get your darkwave on with this video for his fall/winter 2010 collection.

Photography for EVB: David Kimelman
Styling: Shandi Alexander
Fashion Assistant: Neysha Melissa Vázquez
Makeup and Grooming: Mark Anthony Edio
Models: Trent, Patrick, Jamil [RED NYC]

Clothing provided by:
Against Nature / Tim Hamilton / Andrew Buckler / Topman / Marc by Marc Jacobs

Clothing Credits:
1,2. Trent: Shirt, Dior / Vest, Albright / Tie, Band of Outsiders / Pants, Topman / Belt, Stylists own / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs / Pins, Ben Amun. Patrick: Shirt, Tim Hamilton / Suit, Prada / Tie, Band of Outsiders / Pocket Square, Ralph Lauren / Belt, YMC / Socks, Punto / Shoes, Topman / Pins, Ben Amun
3, 4, 5. Trent: Cardigan and Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs / Top Hat, Comme des Garçons / Pin, Maria Pinto. Patrick: Suit and Tie, Band of Outsiders / Shirt, Turnbull and Asser / Pocket Square, Prada / Pins and Cufflinks, Ben Amun
6, 7. Trent: Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs
8. Jamil: Suit, Shirt, Tie and Pocket Square, Against Nature / Pins, Ben Amun
9, 10. Jamil: Shirt, Etro / Vest, Gucci / Tie, Dolce & Gabbana / Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Vintage / Pins, Ben Amun / Flower Pin, Maria Pinto
11. Trent: Suit, Shirt, Tie and Belt, Against Nature / Pins, Ben Amun
12. Jamil: Shirt, Tim Hamilton / Tie, Ralph Lauren / Jacket, Band of Outsiders / Pins, Ben Amun / Flower Pins, Maria Punto
13. Trent: Shirt, Rag and Bone / Vest, Andrew Buckler / Coat, Bottega Veneta

Standing at over six feet five inches Chris Kittrell is closer to the height of an adult alpaca rather than of his stage namesake Baby Alpaca. After sitting down with him for a few cups of tea you soon uncover a warm, gentle and deeply talented artist whose music allows you to escape to the places you’d much rather be, and as his great performance at the recent EVB-hosted happy hour at Pussy Faggot confirmed, you’ll soon be escaping much more with him.

Photographs and video portrait of Chris shot for EVB by Jessica Yatrofsky

Richard Welch: You played some new tracks from your debut EP True Heart at the Pussy Faggot party last month - how did that go?

Chris Kittrell: It was our first Manhattan show. The crowd had a great energy, and I think that’s one of the loveliest things a musician can hope for. I’ve also never played such a male-heavy audience.

Richard: Collaborative, peace and fun loving, living free, making music from whatever is laying around, ethereal dreamy kind of psychedelic music, and designer of feathered jewelry. It all sounds very hippie on paper, but unlike hippies, it all comes together for you in a good way. Are you a kind of ‘new’, hippie?

Chris: I would say there’s a generation of “a new kind of hippie,” but I wouldn’t say that I’m the first! I’ve come across a lot of free-spirited people that love collaboration and are really in touch with nature. But then there are so many degrees of what that might be, and I feel like when it comes to me, I’m doing it in my own way. I’m really in touch with nature but I also have a strong fashion background which in many ways could be viewed as anti-hippie. So, I feel, like, while embracing nature, I also embrace fashion and beauty and a lot of things that aren’t completely natural to the earth, but maybe are completely natural to myself.

Richard: What do you think the “new kind of hippie” should be called? No doubt someone will coin a label for them - maybe you can do that?

Chris: Baby Alpaca!

Richard: Collaboration at the center of what you do. Why is it so important to you?

Chris: I love people and love what other people do. In our super connected age, collaboration is the norm. Collaboration makes life much more full. It has more sides, more view points. When you bounce ideas off of one another the idea grows. Once a candle of an idea is passed along to more and more people they throw their wood onto it and it becomes a full-fledged fire. It’s kind of, like, if you do something by yourself then it’s just yours, but when you do it with a family of people - a family of creative artists - then its all of yours’ and you can see every little part that everyone contributed.

Richard: Baby Alpaca, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Polar Bear, Panda Bear, there’s kind of…..

Chris: Animal magic!!

Richard: Yeah! How did you join the zoo?

Chris: I bought a sweater that was made out of baby alpaca, and it inspired me to write a song called “Baby Alpaca” based on how amazingly comfortable the sweater was. I’d never actually seen a baby alpaca, then I looked them up, and saw similarities between them and my look at the time. I had been traveling and my hair was grown out - it’s naturally curly so it was big and pompadourish, much like an alpaca. Kind of like helmet hair you could say. I hadn’t named my music project so it was just a natural thing, like, “Oh, I should just call it Baby Alpaca!”

Richard: Speaking of comfort, there’s been a resurgence of restaurants serving classic comfort food. Are you making comfort music?

Chris: The music is definitely very comforting.

Richard: It also has an escapist quality to it. Where do you like to escape to when you’re making it?

Chris: Ever since I was a child the place I escaped to is my Grandmother’s farm in Ohio. I used to go there and walk around in the woods and sing to myself. It’s one of the most comforting places that I like to think of. I feel like I’ve gotten so good at being comfortable I can kind of be comfortable anywhere now. It’s not really something that I have to turn on and off. I would like people to feel and hear comfort in my music.

Richard: You play an autoharp. How did you come to learn that instrument?

Chris: Well, I had been traveling with a lot of musician friends, and was in this second-hand music store and happened across one, I had never seen an autoharp before and just started playing it in the store. It was out of tune and really old and there wasn’t a tuner with it but it was really cheap so I bought it and I started playing it - out of tune. Eventually I ordered a tuner and was sort of teaching myself how to play it, watching a lot of videos of people that used to play it and I discovered I used it in a much different way.

Richard: It kind of links back to the farm and the country, doesn’t it?

Chris: Yeah, it definitely does, it’s fitting for me to play and also the sound it really fitting. I was looking into playing a harp, but it’s their size…

Richard: It’s quite a lot to hold between your legs!

Chris: Yeah, they’re huge.

Richard: How do you escape when you’re in Bushwick. Brooklyn is about as far away from a rural idyl as you can possibly get.

Chris: Yeah. I feel like my best escape is through music. When I’m not somewhere where I’m physically escaping, I think that that’s what I do - I make music. And like you said, my music has an escapist quality. Music, and also fashion, is the way that I do it. It allows me to be who I want and defy gravity, or just not think about what’s around me and just make songs. That’s the most creative I feel I can get. I mean, you can do drugs or something else, but those all seem to end up badly for most people, so it seems like music is my best escape.

Richard: Your escapism to me doesn’t seem to be about totally disconnecting yourself from a reality. It’s seems to be more about enhancing your reality.

Chris: Yeah, it’s about finding a reality worth being in, trying to surround yourself with people and friends, and hanging in the places that have a certain type of people, but you do have to sort of escape from where you are if you’re going to eventually find that.

Richard: Your music feels very free form and organic. Do you have a song writing and recording process? How does it work?

Chris: I like to to have a fully developed song and idea before I start recording. I like to play it on my aut harp or accordion, making up chord progressions, or I’ll make beats with my feet while playing the autoharp and sing, and I’ll record it on my iPhone. However, I rarely ever listen to those recordings. I think I use them as a crutch. It’s one of those things where I know, “Oh, I can go back to them, and hear all the words I sang last night on the roof.” But I tend to actually remember the whole experience, and it has almost becomes like a check that I do with myself, like if I don’t remember the words and I don’t remember the chords, maybe they’re not worth remembering.

When other people come in to play with Baby Alpaca I don’t give any direction. I only like to play with people that get it. I like people that fit in, and I don’t have to worry about. I feel doing it any other way would just hinder the whole creative process.

Richard: And is it difficult to find musicians who “get it”, ?

Chris: It’s been extremely difficult. My biggest struggle is finding people that are free and know how to let go, but are also grounded. I’ve gone from meeting musicians that are so free, though really all they are is ‘fucked up’, through to classically trained musicians that just don’t get the sound that I’m going for. But since I’ve been living in Bushwick I’ve made some really close friends thatI know will become solid, long-term musical collaborators. There are some people, like my brother, who started out as a classically trained musician that I would play with, who through playing with me a lot, and me dealing with him and him dealing with me, we ended up developing a great musical understanding of each other. I feel like he’s changed a lot since he’s been playing with Baby Alpaca, which is a cool thing to see, because he’s someone that I really love and care about in so many ways other than just musically. I think it’s the freedom that Baby Alpaca has that gave him freedom to let go and find himself. He’s in Japan now, so he’s become so free he’s gone!

Richard: Tell us about your jewelry and fashion collaborations
Chris: I was shopping in Clifton, a college town in Cincinnati, and came across some really interesting pieces of jewelry by Vein. It turned out that the designer Linda and I have a lot of friends in common, but we only found out when I was wearing her jewelry and she recognized it and now we’ve become really close friends. She started making pieces for me that I would wear to shows, and I had been working for a home accessories label called Middleton, which uses lots of natural materials… so, we started doing a collaborative jewelry line, which we call Vein & Baby Alpaca.

Richard: And what future collaborations do you have planned?

Chris: Future? We’ll definitely continue to do the jewelry, it’s been selling very well, and lately I’ve been planning with a few friends who work at The Row [The Olsen’s label]. I worked there last spring, so it’s kind of how I know everyone there. We’ve been working on ideas for performance-wear for Baby Alpaca. We want to develop a really strong visual aesthetic that embodies everything we’re inspired by: nature, found materials and of course comfort. It’s also definitely got a strong unisex feel - being able to lose gender and lose your mind and lose what you are.
Richard: Back to the music, tell us about your new single, “Beware the Woods”.

Beware the Woods - Baby Alpaca

Chris: I wrote “Beware of the Woods” a couple of months ago on my roof in Bushwick. It’s about the masculine being lost in lust over the feminine. “She’ll take you to the garden with the flowers/you’ll take off all your clothes and lay for hours”. In love, time can disappear. When blind in the arms of another, you become lost.

Richard: When do you plan on releasing your debut album?

Chris: Summertime! Can’t give the exact date, but it’s on its way. There’s going to be a song called “Dark Vodka” which is a mix of the song “Vodka Lemonade.” An alternate video is in the works too, to come out at the end of the summer.

Richard: And finally, you said that Baby Alpaca was a little like John Coltrane’s “A Few of My Favorite Things”. What are a few of your favorite things?

Chris: I love champagne. My dog Apple. I love her, she’s the most comfortable pet. And I love beautiful boys and girls who like to have fun… just like the von Trapp children. I like dressing up in curtains. And I like finding people. My most favorite thing is finding someone on the same page I’m on.

Baby Alpaca will be performing with PAPS, Thursday May 13, at Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, 8PM
and opening for Brahms, Tuesday June 1 at Pianos, 158 Ludlow St, New York, 8pm

Portraits and collection photography for EVB: Austin Green

Accessories and styling: Telfar Clemens
Boards and bikes: Model’s own
Models: Frey Mudd, Abiah Hostvedt, Noma Han, and Ambrose Carter at Red NYC; David Thomas at Adam NYC; and Tyler White (unsigned)

I remember faces really well. It’s a gift I never really asked for. It’s been said that I can spot a bit actor who had appeared on some random episode of Wings or Six Feet Under, walking down West 4th street, and remember exactly what show and episode he or she was in. Again, I never asked for this gift. But, if you were to ask me what their name was, or more accurately, if you were to ask me what 70% of the people I encountered names were, I’d not only draw a blank, I’d most likely shift the focus to New York City’s zoning laws or something equally drab. To put it plainly, when it comes to names, I’ve got room for improvement.

When I first met Telfar Clemens several years ago, I knew the name/face conundrum that had plagued me for years would be laid to rest. Telfar’s persona practically begged for single name recognition, not unlike Madonna, Prince or Strangé (Grace Jones’ character from the 1992 hit film Boomerang, naturally. C’mon, keep up with me people). He was young fashion hopeful that carried himself with an uncanny level of confidence and unwavering direction. At the time, I remember he was living in lower Manhattan, going to school and spending what time he had left over scouring the underbelly of Chinatown in search of materials to craft his designs. Over the years, I watched Telfar grow, not only as a young designer, but as a single-name-in-waiting.

A little while ago, EVB sent me on an assignment to chat with the Queens-to-Liberia-and-back-again New Yorker. During the course of our brief exchange, I got the sense that this drive, this need to design clothing, is a veritable “do or die” action for him. The mentality Telfar approaches design with is not unlike a bulldozer, blindly leveling ancient relics to pave the way to the future.

“In my life, (fashion) came before other aspects such as education or financial situations” he said. “I guess I had no choice but to give in to natural instinct and create my vision.” His vision is simple: the progression and redefinition of American sportswear. From dabbling in his very outsiders take on the suburban grunge aesthetic, to transforming American sportswear staples into avant-garde drapery, his collections recall and almost pay tribute to the past, while quietly putting it to rest.

Recently, while working on one of his own collections for a guerilla showing during New York Fashion Week, Telfar was asked by American Apparel to collaborate on a small limited collection of garments that were made only using contents from a box of used T-shirts and scraps.

The collaboration, titled UN.DER T by TELFAR  is his first collaboration with a brand of AA’s scale. And the task was welcomed with open arms. He said about it, “American Apparel was gracious enough to support a young designer… It’s great for a major company to support those who are up-and-coming”.

Though fashion is clearly in his DNA, it has not been the only industry to get his creative juices flowing. If you’ve been around downtown New York City in the past five years, chances are you’ve danced to the sounds of TELFAR, not the designer but the DJ. “I started DJing in 2004. My friend Melisa Burns thought I would be great at it”, he recalls. “Shortly after, I began my own party called ‘Something Tight’. The rest is Lower East Side history”.

But it was no Larry Levan bootleg nor Madonna studio outtake that he would sling as his secret weapon to get the crowds to a fever pitch. The clever (and shall we say ‘naughty’) young man would wait just until the crowds were swelling with sweat and hunger and drop trou, exposing himself to the crowd for the remainder of the night. I guess it was a rather literal take on the term “full frontal fashion”. “I think that’s history for me”, he said when speaking of hanging up his ‘naked DJ’ title. “I thought it was hilarious for someone to be completely naked at a club, which it was. But this was before party photo websites. It loses it’s edge if you see “IT” too much.”

While he still DJs regularly around downtown, his pants now stay up, and his shirt is safely buttoned. By conversation end, I sensed that there was little chance he’d renege on his descision to stop the strip show. And I don’t think it mattered to him one bit. There just isn’t enough time for Telfar Clemens to stop and ponder the past. He’s aggressively looking toward a future where his name is in lights, six letters long and recognizably solitary. Surname need not apply.

In a stroke of genius last October at the New York Art Book Fair at PS1, J. Morrison brought together artists  Scott Hug, Michael Magnan, Slava Mogutin, Dave Ortega, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Dave Ulrich and Grant Worth to produce a tote bag design collaboration. Produced assembly-line style, each artist designed a visual motif and combined, repeated and collaged it on top of, next to, against or in support of the other artist’s motifs.

Each artist came to the event armed with their motif and a loaded squeegee, donned delightful blue ‘pac-a-macs’, and silkscreened each of the totes themselves. The result was a batch of affordable, one-off, unique pieces of functional art. Editions of one, created by eight of some of the hottest New York-based contemporary artists (OK, Dave Ortega is in Boston, but still…) - and we’re lucky enough to have 20 of them available now in our store.

Each one is unique so when it’s gone, it’s gone!