Photographer Katja Rahlwes describes her images as “Cool Women, or better: Femme Intense.” She re-phrases the perception of the female gaze, with her own unfaltering approach to shooting women who are in command of every shot. Her glamazonian subjects often subvert the idea of the classic pinup. Katja has contributed to independent publications such as Self Service, i-D, Dutch, Butt and Made in USA. She has also created works for the fashion houses Celine, Chloe, Miu Miu, A.P.C, Maison Martin Margiela and Gucci. Katja’s closest relationship to date has been with Purple. Her most recent collaboration was the Full Moon supplement for issue #16, comprised of childhood pictures, Polaroid snapshots and a number of her own collection of vintage postcards. The zine is rendered with a combination of black and white images next to a neon orange colourwash. With her numerous editorials, intimate still-life pieces and self-portraits, Katja’s images make for a rich portfolio.

Natasha Arnold: How did you acquire a taste for fashion photography?

Katja Rahlwes: From an early age I was drawn to imagery through magazines. I’d cut out everything that triggered an emotion in me, made me dream, escape or move. I still have a huge collection of bits and pieces, photo cut-outs, postcards, entrance tickets.

Natasha: How did you develop your attachment to still-life photography?

Katja: It’s a very personal process for me to work on stills, I really love that moment when I start setting up a scenario, it’s quiet, there is suspense. My aim was to inject some new sense to it. It all started when I took more and more pictures of my personal environment. I did that to remind me of ideas or situations or set ups I liked. It was a sort of diary memo work. I then discovered the magic of mini photo sets, the way you would set up a situation inspired by the items you photograph. Great design has a lot of soul, so a fabulous pair of shoes can lead you in quite a storyboard.

Natasha: You’ve had a strong connection to independent publications throughout your career. What is your main drive behind this line of work?

Katja: Basically, independent publications allow you to develop your groundwork. You are more or less free to let run your creative thoughts. There is also something quite confidential about it, you work close with a team of people and you sense the passion everybody has for what they do, that is so important. Some magazines can become your house of thoughts.

Natasha: You have worked a lot with Purple. I loved your recent supplement. Can you talk us through the ideas behind the display of intimate childhood Polaroids and vintage postcards?

Katja: That book is a collaboration with Olivier Zahm and I guess we are still looking for who I am. I think we all are driven by a moment of time and images we never forget or helped us form a point of view. I am, for sure. I collected the vintage postcards at the time they were absolutely not vintage but they are today. Postcards help me to capture a moment of me being somewhere no matter where and what I do. A postcard is always the ideal representation of something. At least, I would say that is the intention of a postcard. For me, I sense a lot of loneliness from a postcard too. It really makes me think.

Natasha: In your formative years you worked as a fashion illustrator, fashion stylist and studied fashion design at Studio Berçot. With such a multi-disciplinary background, is there a path outside of photography you’d like to pursue?

Katja: I don’t know, but it is true I am thinking about it a lot, “What is my next step?” I love furniture and lamps, I would love to be able to just buy everything I discover in that domain and furnish a big house or an entire village!

Natasha: Who are your art heroes and why are they important to you?

Katja: I was actually really blown away by a recent show I saw in Paris at The Museum of Modern Art by Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch. I thought to myself: if you come up to such a high point of realization about our today’s today, what’s next? How can you move on and not go crazy? Super hyper lucidity, they are quite strong out there.

Natasha: Could you pinpoint your personal influences?

Katja: Really everything has an influence on me. Essentially it would be my dilemma and my strength.

Natasha: Living between Paris, London, New York and then your home of Frankfurt- are there any tangible differences between each city? Do you have a favorite?

Katja: No, no favorite, but a place like Frankfurt am Main is nice because it’s a ‘wannabe big’ city with all the wannabe clichés of a branded city like Paris or New York, but then its very provincial too. Those elements are very touching to me. I gain new headspace when I go there. I am currently working on a book called Paris am Main, the romantic drama of messed up perspectives.

Natasha: What is your stance on the fashion industry today?

Katja: There is a lot to say, it’s a very reactive ground. I think its best to keep it in the open.

Natasha: Do you think there is something a female photographer can access that male photographers cannot?

Katja: I wonder is it really about making the difference? Because I think the work you do is due to the individual and the therefore each approach is different.

Natasha: What is next for you?

Katja: Going back to work!

All Images, Katja Rahlwes

A welcome departure from the standard holiday festivities, The Grand Street Bakery marks the debut of The Cilo at The Bakery with tonight’s opening party. Situated in the back room of the bakery, which used to house a flour cilo, The Cilo expands The Bakery’s inspired mix of new and vintage clothing, homewares and trinkets by focusing on vintage electronic accessories, including vintage turntables, speakers, receivers and Danish Modern record buffets circa the ’60s. I was lucky enough to have a little sneak preview last week, and they’re truly beautiful. Among the “new” offerings are candles in the shape of Morrissey’s head, each hand carved by Derrick Cruz of Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons. Additionally, vinyls will be available from local bands, including the Wild Yaks, the Minks and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, who will be performing tonight at the opening along with Anyways It’s Monday.

The Cilo at The Bakery is located at 602 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NYC. Its opening party is tonight, December 16, from 7pm-11pm.

“Everything should be beautiful, if you can just start from there.”- AJR

Meet A. Jason Ross, the designer and master craftsman behind a stunning collection of accessories for men and women rapidly advancing into the realm of ‘must have’.  In truth, Ross already has a cult following of fashionistas as well as those who love to indulge in quiet luxury – his designs are absent of, so-called, ‘neon-sign’ labels.

Ross’s design studio is housed in the former Monarch Luggage factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  It’s a fitting home for the designer who crafts leather accessories under the name Artemas Quibble and the Creatures of Mme. Du Barry. Upon entering, you know that you are in an artisan’s lair. A visitor is immediately greeted with the sweet smell of leather and the various rhythms of cutting, sanding, hammering, pounding, forging, casting, soldering and buffing, this as artists are busy at work.  Hand-crafted tools, designed by Ross (he has 27 hammers), share wall space with leather swatches, thick, antique leather remnants, deconstructed keys and crops from other metal artifacts. Ross, with the help of lighting designer Robert Ogden collects a lot of antique materials. Huge windows usher in natural light – showcasing the beauty of the rough-hewn wood floors and the artful chaos of the studio’s walls.

The day I caught up with Ross, he was preoccupied with a new collaboration forged with Donna Karan – a stunning collection of belts for Karan’s ‘Casual Luxe’ line. Of course, that’s not all that’s keeping Ross busy these days. He pedals his wares at Urban Zen. There’s a venture with ABC and handbags for Henry Beguelin. He has also developed a bespoke service with Barney’s called the ‘Watch Transformation Project.’  This is not your father’s watchband, nor is it you your mother’s.  It’s a bold, innovative design embellished with an antique metal over-leather hinge, with a short or long, sinewy strap with or without a buckle. The leather’s rich patina lends a sublime elegance to the band.  Says Ross, “The watch mechanism is a very beautiful thing and I love the idea of having the raw, rougher antique metal work next to say a 19^th, 20^th or 21^st century watch.” A WTP band is a final flourish of one’s dress that uniquely presents a vibe that is both rugged and refined.

It’s a curious mix that is representative of Ross himself. Ross is a history and archeology-buff or “geek” depending on how you look at it. It’s that respect for the past that clearly informs his design sensibility. “My daily read is Archeology.org, Arts and Letters Daily and I also read the latest Discovery and that usually leads me to some kind of interesting website which might lead me in a new direction in my work,” he says adding, “I can look to any ancient period to find inspiration.” Ross admits that as a kid he was eager to dig up dinosaur bones in the yard of his family’s home, alas it never happened. During summer camp in Maine however, he recalls digging up old bottles and fragments of old bottles on the site of a former hospital. “I remember that as being tremendously exciting,” he says adding, “I like, with my work, to have history.”

Ross, who is also a guest lecturer at the Parsons School of Design, describes himself as an ‘abstract perfectionist’. When you look at his work, to the untrained eye, it looks like an accident when in fact there are blueprints, laws, rules and ‘illustrated tales’ that describe everything. “When you work with primitive tools which is part of the process of my work and part of what informs it, you have to have laws that govern the construction of the piece because there’s a certain randomness that happens,” according to Ross. He also gives credit to his girlfriend Natasha Chekoudjian, “She is a muse to me and is really amazing at sourcing ancient references.”

A Philadelphia transplant, Ross has been in Manhattan about a year and a half. The decision to make the move from Philly to Gotham was simple: he had a growing list of clients and business contacts in the City and wanted to be more accessible to them. “The reality is, there was not a store in Philadelphia selling my work,” according to Ross. He grew up on Philadelphia’s Main Line in a home appointed with French antiques, “a lot of gilt bronze,” he says. His mother, the late Caren Ross, in the 70’s, created a line of accessories including belts made of bullets under the label Bang Bang. His father Milton Ross was an inventor and manufacturer with an appreciation for Savile Row suits and Mr. Fish shirts. Ross, the younger, was educated at the elite Haverford School before attending Boston University.

He says he never thought he’d be making accessories. He started off making boxes constructed of reclaimed wood, lined with antique papers from engineering drawings. He then began making furniture. Ross developed an interest in accessories after becoming fascinated by leather machinery belting he saw at a wood-worker’s shop he was renting space in. Eventually, he began incorporating leather into his woodworking. At some point, he was asked to make a bracelet for a friend, Doub Hanshaw, who wore it to work. The buyers she worked with became interested in the bracelet and that ultimately translated into an order from Free People.

The label name, Artemas Quibble and Creatures of Mme du Barry, was initially a character to hide behind, as Ross didn’t see himself as an accessory designer – it was so distant from his woodworking. Nor did he see himself in the world of fashion because he was partly intimidated by it. In any case, Artemas Quibble, borrowed from the Arthur Cheney Train novel, had a quirky, enigmatic appeal. The Creatures of Madame du Barry has its roots in a guide to France from the late 1900’s. The curiously charming collision of the two names to create a label for his brand is also partly Ross railing against the machine. The ‘machine’ that, in a world of texts and tweets, compels ppl 2 shrtn evrythng.

With keen attention to detail a hallmark of who Ross is, intrepid photographer Weston Wells and I were eager to ‘pick his pockets’ and examine the details of his existence.

“I cannot walk out of the door without a journal and a pen in the same way I can’t walk of the door with my inhaler, I don’t know if I’m going to need it but I always have to have it,” says Ross adding that as an artist, “You have to be able to archive your ideas.” Ross makes his own journals using antique book covers. He mixes his own ink for the Mont Blanc pen he carries, “Hopefully it looks like the burnt umber you might find in da Vinci’s notebook or something… I dunno.” The specs are antiques. The two leather cases, Ross made for himself. One is a combination checkbook holder and wallet. The other case, in the photo, plays host to miscellaneous items including business cards, his iPhone, which is great for inspiration photos and mapping. A pocket-knife adorns the keychain. “It’s very functional. It seems like I’m always needing a little blade to open a package or cut a piece of leather,” he says. A final detail, not photographed, is what appears to be a remnant of a shirt or other much-loved article of clothing which has been resurrected as a scarf or roughly tied ascot.

Photography by Weston Wells

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the current The Lake & Stars ad campaign comes this pole dancing video featuring the lingerie brand’s fall/winter 2011 collection. The film, which can also be seen in The Lake & Stars’ new BOFFO pop-up store, is an abstraction of pole dancing. It aims to highlight the strength of women and underline their power rather than their frailty, as well as provide a community of dancers supporting each other in tandem positions. The film features two former Rockette dancers, a principle dancer from The Lion King on Broadway, and two world-class award-winning competitive pole dancers, each reiterating the force of femininity and the possibility of embracing one’s sexuality while still emoting power and control.

SightUnseen, the online magazine devoted to all things design-y, has just launched their latest project, a shop featuring wearable art objects handmade from unusual materials such as copper, rope, powder coated steel, cork, silk, leather, and on and on. So far the artists are mostly known for other endeavors, like Iacoli & McAllister who make high end lamps and furniture, or Confetti System, who adorn shops such as Creatures of Confort and J. Crew with their pinatas and fun decorations. The site is exquisitely curated by SightUnseen founders and former I.D. editors Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer. Just in time to get holiday gifts you really can’t find anywhere else.

top image: Iacoli & McAllister necklace No. Ultra
bottom image: Confetti System rope necklace

This Thursday, November 10, Arts & Sciences Projects presents Proof of Purchase, Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo’s first solo exhibition in New York City. Proof of Purchase investigates the contradictions embedded in advertising, global consumer culture, and the underlying motives deep within the new millennial psyche. Click “Read More” to see more and see you there.

Dossier‘s most recent issue features T. Cole Rachel in conversation with the legendary Stevie Nicks. In the interview, among other things, Stevie talks about the long-running NYC event Night of a 1000 Stevies, a costume ball full of ethereal Stevie Nicks gypsies. To accompany the feature, Brooklyn-based illustrator Jess Rotter has collaborated with Dossier through Rotter and Friends to offer 50 limited-edition “Stevie” t-shirts, printed on a super soft, 100% power-washed cotton dyed a lush grey/purple hue. We can’t tell you how much we love these babies right here.

Dossier x Rotter & Friends Limited Edition Stevie Nicks T-shirt: $35 (plus $5 US shipping or $13 International shipping)

US (select size)

X-Small Small Medium

International (select size)

X-Small Small Medium

Photo by David Black

I first encountered Alec Soth’s photographs while wandering through the 2004 Whitney Biennial. The series on display, Sleeping by the Mississippi, stirred something in me that I still can’t quite shake; the images, possessed with a steely – and uniquely American – longing, chronicled several road trips Soth took down south, using only the Mississippi coast as his guide.

Since that time, Alec Soth has had a meteoric rise to commercial success and cultural importance. By any standards, he is one of the most important American photographers working today, most well known for his deeply personal and poetic chronicling of the American social landscape. It came as a surprise then – even to Alec himself – to be collaborating on a project with the Rodarte fashion designers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy. Titled simply, Rodarte, the resulting book has just been released by D.A.P., and is a visual force. Also contributing: photographer Catherine Opie, and, with an incredibly moving and experimental text, the critic and gallery director John Kelsey. The results are staggering beautiful, and daringly unconventional. In Rodarte, fine art photography, fashion design, and written text all intermingle, creating a visual product unlike any I have ever seen. If it’s a leap for Soth, it is one that he takes seamlessly.

John Kelsey begins his essay for Rodarte: “I once saw a map for the blind,” which describes this collaboration astutely: a coming together of creative minds to charter the possibilities of potential of landscape: of clothes, of photography, of a book itself.

Carmen Winant: You developed an entirely new body of work for the book you just collaborated on with Rodarte, Catherine Opie, and John Kelsey. I assume you must be pretty busy — how did you manage with your schedule? How far out did you guys plan?

Alec Soth: Shooting for this project took place a while ago – about a year and a half. But I am always busy. I have fantasies about the bad economy slowing things down for me!

Years ago I made a project called Fashion Magazine, and after I did that, I stopped doing anything fashion-related. I didn’t want to become part of The Machine, so I regularly said no if asked. When this project came up, it was different. First of all, I wasn’t shooting fashion. And second, Kate and Laura Mulleavy were so cool in their approach; the spirit of the thing was unique and it really lit a fire under me. They approached me way out the blue – we hadn’t met. In fact, we still haven’t met! I didn’t want to meet them before the shooting because of the way the shoot worked, the specialness of it. We are having a public discussion together next month at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and I keep telling them how nervous I am to finally meet them.

Kate and Laura had this idea that I would photograph their influences; it got me really excited. They sent a beautiful package, tied in ribbon, that was full of pictures…like stills from horror films, for instance. It was incredible: a visual world that I could enter. That was the thing about not meeting them – Kate and Laura had given me a window into an imaginary world, and I didn’t want real the world to touch that.

Carmen: You took two weeks and were given over a dozen sites to try and visit. How much instruction did you have beyond that, and how much of it did you take? It must be pretty unique to take an assignment like that.

Alec: There was tons of freedom with this assignment, and that was the beauty of it. Laura and Kate gave me lists, which is how I often work in my own practice. There where two lists: one of places (Tijuana, Salton Sea, etc.) and one of thematic things (horror movies, punks, sleepwalkers, California condor). From their groupings, I did more brainstorming and came up with my own sub-lists. I ended up created a map that I called the “California Sleepwalkers Treasure Hunt Map.” I called it this because I imagined myself sleepwalking through their dream world, searching for treasures to be found. It was like a game; condors, for instance, are only in two places in California, and I had to seek them out. I charted out maps, I had my lists…it was a crazy-man race.

Carmen: You are from, and live and work in, Minnesota. Had you been to any or all of those places in California before? Did you go alone?

Alec: California is huge; the feeling of exploring always exists there for me. I had been to a few of the places on the list, like the Salton Sea. Actually, I had a wild first experience at the Salton Sea, and this time was no different. We got stuck. It was sunset and I was racing around, frantic to get a picture with that light. So, I disregarded a sign, went off road, and promptly my car got stuck in the sand. And it was getting dark. I had two assistants with me, but it was scary. We laugh about it now, but one of my assistants, who is the nicest guy in the world, totally freaked out and started yelling at me while trying to dig the wheel out of this sinking sand. That place is the end of the world — how do you get a tow truck to come? AAA doesn’t assist off-road. We were there for hours. Finally, a special task force came to save us in the middle of the night on dune buggies. What a sight that was! That place makes people a little crazy — not a place you want to get stuck.

Carmen: For a fine art photographer, you have certainly dabbled in fashion: in 2007, Magnum published Volume 3 of Fashion Magazine called Paris Minnesota, in which you explored the distance and similarities between these two places and the culture and products of fashion in both. How do you approach working in fashion? And how does it differ from the strategies of your own practice?

Alec: It’s a fascinating thing. I am profoundly unfashionable in my own life. Maybe that’s their attraction in using me? It’s not my scene; I’m from Minnesota. But that said, there is an interesting relationship between fashion photography, fine art photography, and even photojournalism; they pull from each other. So I have always been curious about that relationship, the ways that we learn from one another and draw inspiration.

It was a real adventure to do Fashion Magazine. I learned a million lessons — how I didn’t like working with models, about maintaining my own eye and not trying to play fashion photographer. In fact, I just did a shoot a month ago for a German fashion magazine (Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin) for which I insisted on not photographing models. And as for Rodarte, I wasn’t photographing clothes. I really didn’t think of it as a fashion job at all — I thought of it as an artistic collaboration in which I had all the freedom in the world. Laura and Kate are clearly artists, and I regard their work very highly. In that way, I encountered it as an opportunity to explore their artistic imagination.

I didn’t know that Cathy Opie was participating at the time I was shooting. I knew there was someone else involved, but I assumed it would be a straight fashion photographer. I didn’t know and didn’t worry myself with it.

Carmen: Indeed, you really had to let go in a sense to make this work, whether it was not knowing that Cathy was contributing to the book, or the final look and feel of the book itself. Was it liberating or nerve wracking to surrender such control? And what did you think upon seeing the final product?

Alec: Well, I have good experience in this realm because I’ve worked quite a bit with magazines, so I am used to just handing over the pictures and not knowing what is going to happen. Sometimes I’m the last person to see it: that fashion piece I mentioned I recently made in Iceland…I just got it, after everyone else! So, I’ve learned to let go and let the work take on different lives. Of course, when I was shooting, I constructed the project as a little book in my head; that’s the way I have to work. But I always knew that it was their book, and that I was handing it over. But I trusted them. And it was staggering how many pictures they kept of my original edit. I was really impressed by that, because I wasn’t fighting for it. I was in good hands.

Photographs by Alec Soth

Stop by Grand Central Terminal this afternoon to catch the final day of the Lacoste La Machine L.12.12 installation. Constructed by world-renowned high-tech collective Tronic, the innovative hexagonal sculpture melds animation and architecture with experiential and interactive design, with the purpose of introducing Lacoste’s Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 fragrance collection. It also allows up the company’s global social media fans to enjoy a few seconds of fame via personalized video sequences, and every 20 seconds La Machine mechanically and virtually transforms a Lacoste L.12.12 shirt into an Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 bottle. In short, it’s a mesmerizing study of the ways in which art, fashion and commerce intersect in a simultaneously virtual and tangible world, while the historical setting underscores the dramatic nature of this continuous and rapid transition.

In an age when people readily put the details of their existence, whether mundane or painfully intimate, “on blast” via Facebook and the beleaguered social networking site MySpace, Conrad Tutek just can’t subscribe to the idea of the public confessional. When asked ‘What should people know about you?’ He responded, “Not much really. Enough to keep it interesting but not too much to take away the mystery, I suppose.”  He adds with a quick chuckle, “When you ask anyone too direct of a question, you’re going to get bullshit, wouldn’t you agree?” I quickly realized in the first few minutes of our meeting at Milady’s in SoHo that the typical Q&A style of interviewing was going to fail miserably.

So to really get to know Conrad Tutek is to engage him in aconversation. As the evening’s exchange wound its way through various topicsranging from literature, to fashion…, to the human condition, to the art ofbuying and selling, to fashion…, to operating a business, to fashion…, to clothingconstruction, to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudon, to trend forecasting, to fashion…, to cicadas, to fashion…, to the joys of Albanian bars, to how to navigate a flea market, to Walker Percy and Southern fiction writers, to racism and prejudice, to food and cooking (Conrad’s specialty is Bacalhau A Gomes De Sa in the Portuguese tradition), to my own family, to fashion – I began to geta sense of Tutek’s broad knowledge base and interesting skill-set.

Bewhiskered with a full head of blond tresses – a wisp will occasionally fall into his eye as he is talking – Tutek is an interesting mix of hair, intellect, piercing wit and whimsy. Conrad Tutek is the proprietor of “ConRags” – a popular fixture at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene and Williamsburg. He also deals at the Brimfield Antique and Collectibles Show in Massachusetts. As cleverly implied by the name of the business, Conrad deals in clothing – vintage clothing. Call it  “vintage” preppy: plaids, stripes, tartans, cardigans, fishermen’s cable knit wool sweaters, duck boots, Hermes “Kelly” H-buckle loafers, L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Brooks Brothers, Woolrich, Benetton. The breakdown of the collection is about 40-percent women’s, 60-percent men’s. He also sells curious objects that may be linked to clothing. When I met Tutek he brought along the day’s find – a 1930’s sepia-tone photo of a group of Girl Scouts sitting in a field in long skirts with a vintage motor-coach parked in the distance. “I buy things and sell them,” is how Tutek describes his work – ever the master of understatement. However, what Conrad does is a bit more involved. With a keen eye, he engages in trend forecasting. As much as he can, he aims to present his goods as a collection – although Tutek admits that a lack of organization keeps him from consistently utilizing this skill. He says there’s really no hard and fast formula, instead it’s more about a feeling, “You see what’s currently in stores, what people are wearing and take into account what has already happened.”

Conrad didn’t attend college, however he was educated at The Hun School in Princeton, NJ. He credits the elite prep school with his being “well-read at a younger age.” He adds that his aesthetic was perhaps influenced by his years at the institution. Everybody wore the requisite blue blazer, Lands’ End oxford, “pegged” khakis and Bean blucher mocs. Although Tutek confesses – his one confession – that he was hauled before the school’s disciplinary committee for “deliberate disobedience of the dress code. I was in the dress but was so messy that I was somehow not in the dress code,” he says. He goes on to explain that at some point he tucked an ice cream sandwich in the inner pocket of his blazer. It was subsequently forgotten about. Apparently it calcified or became encrusted – details are a bit sketchy.

As far as his present style Tutek says he tries to be as simple as possible, “When you have access to so much stuff, you try to limit yourself, y’know a buffet is not the best place to eat.” However when Conrad empties his pockets, and keep in mind he’s wearing cargo pants, there’s an avalanche of gear… of stuff. Tutek is a social anthropologist’s dream. There’s over-the-counter medicine. “I don’t think it’s a laxative,” he says. A bag of ribbon is for tying presents. A tag from the Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show has found its way into the pile. U-Haul truck keys are regular fixtures. A random Salvation Army price tag appears. Two Metrocards of unknown value are present, “Usually I accumulate a bunch of cards that have 50-cents on them.” Conrad keeps his cash in place with a Coach money-clip – he’s quick to point out that he didn’t pay retail for it. There’s a cell phone charger. He carries a Moleskin pocket notebook, “It’s easier to take notes than to keep track of things in a digital format,” says Tutek. A Pilot Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen is on-the-ready for note-taking. He has a fountain pen of sentimental value that he does not want to risk losing so he doesn’t carry it with him.  A small, steel S-hook has found its way into his gear, “I use them all the time, I guess, and who doesn’t use an S-hook?” A New Jersey Light Rail ticket-stub serves as evidence Tutek has been to visit his mother and 90-year-old grandmother in New Jersey. Lastly, Tutek stays connected via his Nokia cell phone. Okay, so this list begged the question: What won’t you leave home without? According to Mr. Tutek, “Whatever I can’t fit in my pockets…”

Photography by Weston Wells