Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2016 i frankie Magazine

These are the queens – as they like to call themselves – of the marokmovement in Botswana. Marokis plural for ‘rockers’ in Setswana; it’s not a real Setswana word, but rather ‘setswanified’ from English. Basically, they’re a subculture made up predominantly of black Setswana-speaking heavy metal fans. I first met the marok in 2011 at a music festival in Gaborone, but at that time I only really met the men. Then in 2014 I was invited to a friend’s wedding – the day after the ceremony her family (who happen to include the forefathers of classic ’70s rock in Botswana) invited us to a show to watch their son’s band, Skinflint. This time around there were noticeably more females. Two ladies approached me out of the blue and sparked a…

When did you start Über den Wolken and how has it developed since then? Über den Wolken was originally a little vintage shop I opened in Barcelona about four years ago. I started upcycling pieces from the shop on my domestic sewing machine, and that’s how the clothing line was created. I was inspired by secondhand fabrics, but wanted to customise and creatively modify the cuts. These unique pieces started becoming very popular among my customers, and I invested more and more time and creativity into the new project. Soon I closed the shop, started buying fabrics and set out to create my first Über den Wolken collection. What were you doing beforehand? I’ve done so many things in my life! Every job or experience has taught me something valuable…

Remember when you were a kid and you thought you were cutting a straight line, but really you were slicing at a 60-degree angle? Remember when you thought it would be a great idea to apply those cutting skills to your hair, and your parents banned you from going to the Royal Show because you looked like Robert Smith’s baby sister? Remember when you kept doing that all through your life, until the age of 34 when someone finally told you you had to stop because now you just looked like present-day Robert Smith? Yeah, me too. I’ve been hacking my hair ever since I was in high school. It was my love of grunge that first had me chopping chunks from my youthful mane. I didn’t want hair that…

Is there a better use of your time than recreating 13.8 billion years – the history of the entire universe – in a humble bowl? Sure, it’s sort of upside down, but that’s only because of the structural integrity of the ingredients. Kick off with a layer of chocolate freckles floating in jelly, representing the universe as we know it, with stars and galaxies drifting about. (NB: if you’re after scientific accuracy, ditch the green sprinkles – there’s no such thing as a green star, after all.) Then comes the 400 million-year Dark Ages – a delicious layer of gooey chocolate whip – symbolising a time before gases clumped together to form stars. On top of that, squirt some vanilla whip with a few 100s and 1000s thrown in, as…

The thing I first noticed about Tunisia: There were so many young people, and I could see the difference between Tunisia and other Islamic countries. The people of Tunisia were more liberal, and I thought, there is a reason why the Arab Spring started here. The thing about the colours: I’ve travelled all around the Mediterranean Sea and, for me, the colours of Tunisia are the same as the colours of the Mediterranean. The white houses, you can find them in Greece, in Italy and in Spain. I think it is not only the colours of Tunisia, but the colours of Mediterranean culture. The thing about the locals: They were very polite. Italian people and Tunisian people have a special relationship, because so many young people of Tunisia come to…

I started piercing a while ago and I loved it. It was like a 16-year-old fantasy come true. Then from piercing, I got heavily involved in tattoos – just getting that urge to modify my bod. But from there I also had regrets, so before I was a laser technician I was a laser removal client. After each session I was unhappy and unsatisfied. I went in and it was this eerie, medical vibe. It wasn’t homely. I was getting laser from someone who had never had a tattoo before, so I felt instantly judged. And I always left just feeling like a dollar sign. I was constantly giving out money to get rid of this thing that was already embarrassing for me; I felt like I could do it…

Here’s how you turn an abandoned Icelandic biscuit factory into a quirky hostel decked out with antiques. Step one: go bankrupt. Step two: indulge in a little low-level thievery. That’s how Kristinn Vilbergsson and his mates got started, anyway. It was late 2010 in a world still reeling from the global financial crisis and, like many Icelanders, Kristinn was out of work. “I had a company that went bankrupt, so I more or less lost everything,” he says. Then he turned to theft – kind of. While helping a movie director friend scout locations for a new film in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, Kristinn came across the 1930s factory, which had sat empty for years. After using “unconventional methods” to get inside, an entirely different plan began forming in his mind.…

Has your brother or sister recently welcomed a new sprog into the world? Maybe a good friend has invited you to be a fake aunt or uncle to their offspring. Either way, you’re set for a lifetime of responsible-slash-awesome aunting or uncling. Here’s how to make the best of it, for you and the kid. BABIES ARE A BIT BORING When your niece or nephew is freshly baked, their main activities will be sleeping, crying and pooing. Even grasping fingers in an adorable fashion takes a while, so settle in for the long haul. Just holding an infant can be terrifying for a baby-rookie, so ask for pointers and try to relax – they can tell when you’re tense and will communicate displeasure by howling uncontrollably. Make sure to work…

As well as cookie jars, vintage board games, children’s annuals and nightlights, I collect vintage children’s squeaky toys. I started when my son was a baby and we were looking for ways to decorate his room with quirky, fun stuff. Today there are a lot more handmade and cool decor items for kids, but in 2005 the best finds were always vintage. It started with seeing a little red soldier boy at Camberwell Market in Melbourne, then when we opened our vintage store, Arthur’s Circus, we would scour online and at other markets for all kinds of retro childhood things. That’s when I got a little obsessed with squeaky toys. I used to regularly look for them on eBay and Etsy, and I’ve also bought them from antique fairs, vintage…

Dear frankie, Just last night I exclaimed over the time after surfacing from my supernatural search of the web – a favourite pastime when I feel particularly anxious or need something to occupy my time (at that point I was fleeing from the prospects of today’s early morning maths lecture) – and ultimately had to drag myself away from the screen long past the witching hour. So you can imagine just how creepy it was to crack open your colourful cover this afternoon, only to discover Sinead Stubbins’s “Spirited Away”. I know, spooky right? Serendipitous? Perhaps it’s a sign that you’ve found followers past the funeral parlour. Or maybe this is a nifty little coincidence? If it’s all the same, I think I’ll stick with the former – it’s more…

I’m a wog, and this means I grow hair from many locations on my face and body, and my pubes can wrap around the Earth. It’s the price I pay for being able to make my own gnocchi. And sure, once upon a time, I didn’t care for this balance sheet. “I’m sorry,” Mum told me, “but you have a moustache and you need to do something about it.” I did what I usually do in situations where I have no control: threatened to kill everyone and blamed my parents. “Well,” Mum said, “I don’t have a moustache…” Then she laughed and ran away. This was back in my early 20s when I really gave a shit about what I looked like, which at that point was a grungy hooker…

I start searching for winter coats sometime around January, just as everyone else is bulk-buying sunblock and Bubble O’ Bills. I’d like to think it’s a money-saving initiative, but it’s actually all about fear. Nothing terrifies me more than the thought of an overcast sky. I don’t know if it has to do with age, Game of Thrones, or the fact that I live in Australia’s drizzliest city, but I’ve developed a ‘winter is coming’ mindset that starts mid-summer and lasts until the end of autumn. I call it the pre-winter-blues blues, like a jazz song, but much more depressing. I first noticed that winter was evil a few years ago, and only once the season was over. After a month spent revelling in the glow of early spring, I…

Poetry is like alfalfa sprouts. Not many people are down with the stuff, but the people who are, really, really are. Right? WRONG. You don’t have to pile whole clumps into your mouth to like it. And poetry is similar – there’s no need to be all in or all out. Once you get past weird old guys singing to trees, there are so many mind-blowing poets to discover. THE MONKEY’S MASK by Dorothy Porter // No, it’s not about monkeys. Or masks. IT’S A METAPHOR, OK? This Aussie classic is a crime thriller in verse, which sounds unlikely, but is just as addictive as watching Poirot re-runs. A young woman called Mickey Norris has been murdered. While on the case, private eye Jill Fitzpatrick meets one of Mickey’s former…

Meghan Remy is the founding member and “head curator” of U.S. Girls – a collaborative music project in which she sings from the point of view of fractured heroines over hypnotic loops and experimental recordings. But the Toronto-based lass, who started playing in bands in Illinois at 15, doesn’t consider herself a musician. “I feel like I’m more of an artist who’s experimenting with their voice and with emotions,” she says. “Plus, musicians are often a bunch of arsehole men. That word just conjures up a male, entitled image in my mind. And I don’t really want to be part of any club or any group. I definitely don’t want to be in the company of most musicians. I think it’s more freeing just to live an artful life where…

LOOM LOOM SHAKE A one-woman band, Loom Loom Shake is the work of artist and weaver Kirilee Clayton, with woven wall hangings and custom art, plus ethically produced weaving looms, shuttles, yarn kits and weaving tools all handmade in Tasmanian Oak.loomloomshake.com THE WINDSOR WORKSHOP A trio of creative Melbourne lasses hosting workshops that have been described as ‘the craft version of a spa day’: hands-on watercolour, embroidery, book-binding, jewellery-making, ceramics and weaving together with gourmet nosh and a tipple or two.thewindsorworkshop.com THE DRAPERY We’re two Adelaide sewing enthusiasts running our dream fabric shop that’s full of beautiful, natural, sustainable fabrics – linen, cotton, hemp and wool – plus quality notions, indie sewing patterns and loads of inspiration to start your own maker revolution.thedrapery.com.au THE MAKERIE NZ A husband-wife duo running…

Arequipa, Peru, has been part of Imogen Evans’s life from a very early age. The Coffs Harbour girl first visited the city when she was just 11 years old on a family holiday, and it would pop up again some years later. “On my first day of uni I met this girl from Arequipa: Maria, who is now my best friend,” Imogen says. “She was a crazy Latina girl. The next day she introduced me to Javi, who was a lawyer from Arequipa doing his master’s in Australia, and he’s now my boyfriend!” It was eight or so years after that initial meeting that Imogen and Javier Chávez finally became a couple – in the meantime, girlfriends, boyfriends and life got in the way. But a couple of years ago…

Hello! Tell us a little about yourself, please. I grew up in the countryside in Germany, and came to Berlin in 2002 to study clothing technologies. In East German times you couldn’t get any branded clothes from the capitalist side, so my mum sewed outfits for us when we were kids. I got my passion for sewing from very early childhood. Why stitched-up meats? I’ve been a vegetarian for a long time. I started to avoid meat as a child; it was a natural decision. But not eating meat is not so easy for other people to understand, so I always had the discussion. Society made it something I had to think about. It’s ironic. It’s dark humour as well, because meat looks nice, but it’s completely dead. This is…

Abbey Rich wasn’t a particularly rebellious teen but, oddly enough, the few things she did defiantly shirk have somehow become central to her adult life. Like fashion design, which she messed around with as a kid, then abandoned because her mum’s an artist and her grandparents had their own textile label. It didn’t feel very cool to follow in their footsteps – until she suddenly did. It was after high school, while focusing more on photography, that Abbey returned to making bits of clothing for herself, just for fun. When friends started asking for replicas, it twigged: maybe there was something to this design caper after all. In 2014 Abbey headed off to study textile design at RMIT, where she played around with geometric prints and grew a bit obsessed…

My belief in many (most) so-called conspiracy theories has been cause for concern among those who love me. While people are happy to imagine an apocalyptic world – their apocalypse outfit, how good they’ll look wielding an Uzi, whether the zombies will be fast-moving or slow, which store they would raid first – they aren’t so happy to hear their kin riff mental on theories of an impending dark future and the shadowy figures that are blindly leading us towards it. My family has learnt ways to defuse these conversations, usually by distracting me with violence or fire. It’s more difficult with strangers – I’m less likely to notice the subtle social cues indicating that I have gone too far until, well, I’ve really gone too far. As I wax…

When you’re into your sixth straight ep of your favourite TV show; the weekend to-do list is basically a bust; there are popcorn particles strewn across your boob-ledge and down the back of the couch; you’ve begun to talk like you’re in Westeros, the Baltimore police department or Lena Dunham’s girl gang; and propping your eyeballs open with matchsticks is starting to seem like a good idea – well, you’re down the binge-watching hole now, friend. Good luck getting out. According to science – well, some researchers at the University of Texas – there’s a big connection between binge-watching and being depressed and lonely. Binge-watchers may also have a “self-regulation deficiency”, they say, which explains the ‘just one more ep, just one more ep, ah crap now it’s 3am’ thing.…

Where is it? 3/2A Raymond Road, Thirroul, New South Wales. Describe Franks Wild Years in a sentence. A nostalgic lounge room full of your favourite old records and bottomless cups of coffee. Why a record store? I was chugging away at my university degree, feeling incredibly uninspired, when 10,000 records fell into my lap. My dad owned a record store in the ’90s, and thought he was doing me a favour by passing on the crates of leftover stock that had been collecting dust in my grandmother’s garage for the past 20 years. The idea was that I’d sell records on the side to help pay my way through uni. I kept the records, ditched the degree, and suddenly I’d opened a record store. How did you end up in…

From her sharehouse bedroom in Sydney’s inner-west, Kaylene Milner creates graphic jumpers with artwork celebrating punk and rock legends. Her one-woman label, WAH-WAH, features collaborations with Aussie icons – including The Hard-Ons and The Meanies – and, most recently, US rock lords Dinosaur Jr. The 28-year-old designer grew up in Wollongong and created her first tribute garments as a teenager. “I would personalise a lot of my t-shirts, just painting over basic little Bonds tees with psychedelic designs,” she says. “I’d look at my favourite albums and reinterpret them myself, just with fabric paints from Spotlight.” Trained as a classical trumpeter, Kaylene studied musicology at university. But when she found herself consuming more fashion publications than music ones, she made a “really naïve snap decision” to change career paths. “I…

You know that bit in “Dancing in the Dark” when Bruce Springsteen says that he’s dying for some action because he’s just so tired and bored of himself? I’ve never heard anyone so accurately express that itchy feeling of restless energy. You probably know the feeling too: that I-just-don’t-know-what-todo-with-myself physical jitteriness that lets you know you need to do something to snap yourself out of it and make it happen – whatever ‘it’ is. I get this feeling a lot and it’s hard to describe. Nothing is actually wrong, but at the same time everything feels just a little wrong, like when you have a high fever and nothing can cool you down, so you just have to wait to sweat it out. “Dancing in the Dark” may just be…

Do you remember that scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams’ character, the sweet, wise psychologist, recalls how he met the love of his life? It’s the typical Hollywood bullshit in many respects: guy sees girl who captures his attention, then he pursues her with relentless obsession, which borders on harassment. In this case, he bailed on some significant baseball game in order to do so. Which is meant to make us think, Wow, what a champ. Good for you! We don’t think, Why didn’t you leave that woman in peace, you fuck? Because it’s pretty standard for dudes to do this. Nay, we consider it ‘romance’. But can a girl take the same approach and not be labelled a psycho? A few weeks back, I heard a DJ’s…

THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES // By a bubbling brook in West Yorkshire, 1917, cousins Elsie Wright (16) and Frances Griffiths (9) decided to punk the world with some ‘fairy’ photos, using cardboard cut-outs traced from a book of dancing ladies. To a modern eye the images – two early shots, plus three more the girls produced in 1920 – look pretty lame. But none other than Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle championed their pixie authenticity, and after he published them other true believers followed suit. A load of top photographers, intellectuals, authors and at least one physicist weighed in on the fairy debate at the time. It wasn’t till the 1980s that the cousins admitted the fakery – though Frances maintained their final shot was real, and both women…

I was born half-deaf and wore hearing aids until I was about four or five. I can speak and hear relatively well; with hearing aids I have close to normal hearing. But I can’t lip-read. I have to rely on facial expressions and gestures. I have a wonderful legacy: I’m one of five generations of deaf women and grew up in a fully deaf family. We’re bilingual, using English and Auslan, which is Australian Sign Language. My childhood growing up was very ‘normal’. I had sibling rivalry with my older brother and did all the usual things. We just used a different language to other people, that’s all. My maternal grandfather was a hearing man, but his parents were deaf so he could communicate with us. All my other grandparents…

EMILY GREEN IN A SENTENCE: Emily Green is a Melbourne-based designer whose name has become synonymous with vibrantly coloured, hand-formed, nine-bead polymer clay necklaces // WHAT WE SELL: Handmade studs, drop earrings, necklaces, watercolour prints and printed cushions – all produced by Emily and her team in a Brunswick studio // PRICE POINT: Earrings from $22, watercolour prints from $44, necklaces from $49 // WHAT MAKES THE SHOP SPECIAL: Unexpected colour combinations in palettes that suit all tastes // FIND US: Buy online and find local stockists at emilygreen.net IKO IKO IN A SENTENCE: The home of all things fun and fancy-free // WHAT WE SELL: From beautiful homewares and crafty things to posters, cool design books and our very own gift cards, we sell what we love, and what…

I’m not entirely sure when ‘decluttering’ became a trend, but I do know that my brain will implode if I hear one more person use the ‘D’ word. At first it seemed sort of harmless. Just a bunch of people chucking out newspapers and vacuuming more regularly. But I realised we’d reached peak crazy when a friend told me she was throwing away perfectly good novels to ‘declutter’ before an interstate move. I’m sure there’s something nice about getting rid of your things. Especially if the things are only there because of a trendy-at-the-time late-2012 Scandinavian woodwork phase. But the ‘declutter your life’ movement seems somehow more sinister – as though people whose homes contain knick knacks are actually a little bit deranged. Or that everyone’s possessions are excess baggage,…