Link About It: This Week’s Picks
Ron Arad’s all-steel bike wheels, inside Juggalo culture, an in-depth look at camo and more in this week’s look at the web
1. Steel Wheel
Designer Ron Arad has literally reinvented the wheel for London’s W Hotel. Reminiscent of a flower, it’s made of 18 individually pinned strips of sprung steel that work together as one unit. The reportedly smooth ride is open for test rides to any and all hotel guests until 29 October 2011.
2. Leap of Faith
Last weekend, American wingsuit enthusiast Jeb Corliss successfully flew through a cave in Tianmen mountain in the Hunan Province of China, just one day after jumping off the top of the same 1,500-meter high peak. Both remarkable jumps were beautifully captured by Corliss himself using his helmet-mounted GoPro camera. Make sure to keep an eye out for the official edit dropping from GoPro soon.
3. Foldboat
Made from a single sheet of plastic, the Foldboat by designers Max Frommeld and Arno Mathies flattens out when not in use for easy storage and features cushions that float should the boat capsize. Announced earlier this year, the streamlined rowboat is now available for purchase and comes with a set of ash-and-plastic oars.
4. Lady Gaga for Thierry Mugler
Nicola Formichetti taps his muse Lady Gaga once again in a video for his latest collection for the French fashion label Thierry Mugler. The video features an exclusive remix by Lady Gaga which premiered this past week at the Paris Fashion Week runway show.
5. Snowballs
In another interdisciplinary move for fashion, Proenza Schouler continues their collaboration with Harmony Korine, again tapping the filmmaker to create a video highlighting their latest collection. The results mix high fashion with Native American motifs and anonymous Americana for a film as dark as it is weird—yet still managing to elide easy categorization, like the concepts driving the label itself.
6. American Juggalo
Filmmaker Sean Dunne visits the 2011 Gathering of the Juggalos to get a first-hand look at the growing American subculture. His 23-minute documentary uncovers an emphasis on partying and family, from one young Juggalo spray painting his face to another suggesting her unborn baby will grow up in the movement.
7. Kindle Fire
The new Kindle Fire (available this November) won’t kill the iPad, but it will provide hi-res computing on-the-go for the rest of us at an attractive $200.
8. The Complex Guide to Camo
Culled by Maharishi founder Hardy Blechman from his book Disruptive Pattern Material, this guide breaks down the military staple into the 25 patterns used most widely in modern dress. In his Forward, men’s fashion pundit Nick Wooster sums it up as “the perfect uniform, you can wear camo in any application and it is always right.”
