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Category / How to start a subculture

Painting the Apocalypse

Wow, where is that? I thought leaning in closer to my screen, squinting at the ghostly concrete towers. It wasn’t until I actually saved the image to my computer and put it through Google reverse image search, that I actually realised, I wasn’t looking at a photograph. This is the work of Simon Stålenhag– and if you’ve…

Invasion of the Kitschy Carpets

Don’t worry, you’re not tripping. Give your eyes another rub, and you’ll realise you’re just being momentarily hypnotised by the felted creations of Makoto Egashira, the Japanese artist with a Midas touch. Only, swap the gold for your granny’s gaudy carpeting. From pineapples, to rocking chairs, teacups, even entire bathrooms and groups of people — nothing…

Mods vs Rockers in Brighton’s Battle of the Beach Chairs, 1964

One of my favourite things to come across when I’m researching is a snapshot from history that I’m completely unfamiliar with. A forgotten story to re-discover, another clue to the bigger picture or just a bizarre anecdote from the past; these are my little treasures hiding under rocks. And today, I found these baffling and beautiful photographs of what I can only…

The Supersized Ghost City

Welcome to no man’s land, sorry, Naypyidaw, the vast and empty ghost city that became the brand new capital of Burma a decade ago when the government suddenly announced it was moving the capital from Rongoon, without explanation. If you’ve never heard of the place or never seen pictures of it before, that’s perfectly normal. Most…

The Grandma Who Went for a Walk Alone Through 14 States

At the age of 67, Emma Rowena Gatewood told her adult children she was going out for a walk. Little did they know that her “walk” would make her the first woman to hike the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail from Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine solo, and in one season. She was a farmer’s wife from Ohio,…

Beverly Hills of the Dead: Luxury Tombs complete with Kitchens & Air Conditioning

A friend of mine just returned from travelling in the Philippines and told me I should look into a cemetery located in the capital of Manila where the dead have better houses than the living. He was right. Most of these “homes” have their own fully-functioning kitchens, bathrooms and even bedrooms where relatives can sleep alongside their buried relatives. In some cases,…

And the Award for Most Fashionable UFO Cult Goes to…

Ruth Norman, hands down. The gilded leader of “Unarius,” a UFO cult founded with her husband Ernest in 1954, Ruth was not only a figurehead for “interdimensional understanding” but a master at putting together looks fit for an intergalactic space queen. So let’s throw on our tiara and refuel our rocket to explore some of…

The Mexican Subculture That Celebrates Bad Hair Days

We all have bad hair days, whether its uncooperative hairlines or one too many rounds with the hair curler, most of us would rather just stay the f**k indoors. But in the city of Monterrey in Mexico, an urban subculture known as the Cholombians have taken most people’s idea of a very, very bad hair…

The Aladdin’s Cave of Vintage Adidas Found in a Dusty Old Shop in Buenos Aires

An incredible story landed in my email inbox this morning via the Guardian website. The Adidas product research team have shared their tale of how they came to discover an incredible treasure trove of vintage sneakers, stocked with countless styles thought lost forever by the sportswear brand; missing from their own archives. Piled high in dusty boxes from…

The Groovy Imitation Bands of 1960s Japanese Rock

When the Beatles arrived in Japan in June of 1966, they caused as much pandemonium when they did when they triggered Beatlemania in the United States in 1964. A total of 8,400 policemen were mobilized for security at a cost of 90 million yen and more than 6,500 Japanese teenagers were taken into custody. They had been…

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