As a teenager growing up in mid-'90s Cologne, Germany, fashion designer Siki Im was never far from the fringe. "I grew up with hardcore music, hooligans and skinheads," Im says. Obsessed with American street culture, he became a skater and a graffiti artist. "I was never in any sort of traditional scene," he says. So it makes a twisted kind of sense that two seasons' worth of his menswear have drawn inspiration from some of literature's most derelict antiheroes. Leaving behind a senior designer job at Helmut Lang, Im presented his first outting last September just a month after he struck out on his own, heavily influenced by the outsiders from Lord of the Flies. For his 2010 fall/winter collection, Im found his muse in the morally questionable protagonist from American Psycho.   MORE >>

As a teenager growing up in mid-'90s Cologne, Germany, fashion designer Siki Im was never far from the fringe. "I grew up with hardcore music, hooligans and skinheads," Im says. Obsessed with American street culture, he became a skater and a graffiti artist. "I was never in any sort of traditional scene," he says. So it makes a twisted kind of sense that two seasons' worth of his menswear have drawn inspiration from some of literature's most derelict antiheroes. Leaving behind a senior designer job at Helmut Lang, Im presented his first outting last September just a month after he struck out on his own, heavily influenced by the outsiders from Lord of the Flies. For his 2010 fall/winter collection, Im found his muse in the morally questionable protagonist from American Psycho.
 
More specifically, the designer envisioned his fall line as a way to attire newly jobless Wall Street execs -- ironic, considering buttoned-up banker types aren't exactly the sort who might throw on Im's lushly constructed but conceptually skewed suiting basics. Tailored by hand in New York, the collection features a monochrome palette, tempering the strict lines of '90s-style minimalism with warm touches from the East: cashmere trenches with kimono-style sleeves, banded leather accessories that recall samurai scabbards and lapel-less blazers paired with knee-length wrap skirts. Those generous, lengthy cuts represent a recurring motif throughout the collection -- a natural pairing for a designer with tendencies towards punk and grunge, and also one who grew up in a Korean household while learning Western values at school.
 
The soft-spoken, self-taught designer has had such an assured debut -- earlier this year winning the prestigious Ecco Domani prize -- that it's hard to believe fashion wasn't his first calling. After a childhood spent playing with Lego bricks, Im attended the Oxford School of Architecture, and in his first three years in New York pursued a career based on concrete and stone rather than felt and cashmere. But for Im, there's no material difference between the two professions. "People think architecture is about physical environments, whereas I think it's more about psychological spaces. Fashion is the same way. It's not just about the clothes; it's more of a feeling."
 
Even so, in its meticulous tailoring, Im's work bears the mark of his architectural pedigree. On jackets, pocket-tees and pants, the designer employs a detail from the inside of suit jackets, hiding a button under triangle-shaped flaps. He attends equally to interiors, lining pinstriped skirts with quilting and canvassing the inside of blazers with silk organza.
 
When we spoke, Im had just returned from Paris, where he'd shown his spring/summer 2011 collection -- the third in less than a year to be churned out of his four-person Soho atelier. The collection is sportier than the last, and more personal as well, based on the experience of immigrants in metropolitan hubs. "All these subcultures again," Im laughs. But this time the story told from the perspective of an insider looking out, by a designer no longer on the fringe. sikiim.com   << LESS

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"I love a frill. I don't know why, but I need a frill in there somewhere or I'm just not happy. Whether it's leather, or whatever. I'm quite Valentino about it," admits London-based designer Graeme Armour, whose first fall collection has just landed in stores. The 30-year-old, Glasgow-born Armour launched his label last year with a £5,000 loan from his mother, following his master's at Central Saint Martins (where he was a classmate of fellow Scotsman Christopher Kane) and a stint working for both Alexander McQueen's mainline and his McQ diffusion.   MORE >>

 
"I love a frill. I don't know why, but I need a frill in there somewhere or I'm just not happy. Whether it's leather, or whatever. I'm quite Valentino about it," admits London-based designer Graeme Armour, whose first fall collection has just landed in stores. The 30-year-old, Glasgow-born Armour launched his label last year with a £5,000 loan from his mother, following his master's at Central Saint Martins (where he was a classmate of fellow Scotsman Christopher Kane) and a stint working for both Alexander McQueen's mainline and his McQ diffusion.
 
"It was an amazing time," says Armour, who was named Scottish Young Designer of the Year 2008. "I was there years ago as an intern, but went back on a freelance basis after I graduated. They were all so nice and supportive and even gave me fabric when I set up on my own. When you're there you learn so much about craft and details. Now I’m really good at machining and production -- that definitely makes a difference when I’m designing. I just know what works." You can see that influence and skill in his work: deftly cut leathers, cotton-backed jerseys and ultra-clean lines. "I'd say my look is really beginning to develop," explains Armour. "It's quite sporty, probably a little bit dark, with a lot of couture elements such as the built-in bra on the jumpsuit from the fall collection. There's clever construction. I love hidden details."
 
Armour's fall collection, which was shown in February as part of New York's M.A.C & Milk presentation, was inspired by the photography of Robert ParkeHarrison and his own great love of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Each season, he explains, he begins a collection with a selection of key reference points. "Those images are just so graphic and quite industrial in their energy. The black and white lines really inspired the elements of fringing, macramé and laser-cut leather in the collection." It also impacted Armour's very restrained color palette of black, white and silver. "Because there's so much going on with the surface detail, it's cleaner to focus the palette," he says. "It's what works." For next spring, he's thinking about including pops of strong hues.
 
Armour's first collection is stocked at Opening Ceremony in New York and Los Angeles as well as Colette in Paris, while his successful diffusion jersey line J.A.G (Jersey Armour Graeme) has been stocked exclusively at Isetan in Japan, but will join his mainline pieces at Opening Ceremony this spring. Not bad for season one. There's also a resort collection in the works. But just who is Armour's ideal ruffle-flaunting customer? "I do really adore New York and I'm totally thrilled to be showing again this September, but I do wonder whether my aesthetic is a bit much, a bit severe for the US market," he says. "I'd love to show in Paris at some point -- I suspect my work might be best suited there." graemearmour.com
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After receiving hundreds of entries, Surface has selected 10 semi-finalists for its annual Avant Guardian Portfolio (AVG) photography competition under the guidance of an expert panel, which this year included Alexis Bittar, Dean and Dan Caten, Nicolas Alan Cope (2009 AVG), Kelly Cutrone, Nian Fish, Tim Hamilton, Reed Krakoff, Sean Patterson, Todd Selby and Viktor & Rolf.   MORE >>

After receiving hundreds of entries, Surface has selected 10 semi-finalists for its annual Avant Guardian Portfolio (AVG) photography competition under the guidance of an expert panel, which this year included Alexis Bittar, Dean and Dan Caten, Nicolas Alan Cope (2009 AVG), Kelly Cutrone, Nian Fish, Tim Hamilton, Reed Krakoff, Sean Patterson, Todd Selby and Viktor & Rolf.

Each of the semi-finalists -- all US-based talents that have never published a print editorial previously -- will be given a commission for November/December issue of Surface, under the art direction of creative director Matthias Ernstberger for consideration in the portfolio, using all the resources the brand has to offer.

The 2010 semi-finalists are: Isaac Bearman, Michael Casker, Nicholas Duers, Jason Kim, Simone Lueck, Justin Marquis, Tim Melideo, Adrian Nina, Michael Schmidt and Yoshiaki Sekine.

Surface congratulates all of the semi-finalists and wishes to thank the esteemed panel, as well as all of this year's entrants.   << LESS

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This Santa Cruz native and graduate of Cooper Union is a triple threat. Not only a fashion designer, Julian Louie is a photographer and artist whose work has exhibited in New York galleries Vagabond and Stay Gold. Perhaps that's why Calvin Klein's Creative Director Francisco Costa personally chose him to mentor.   MORE >>

This Santa Cruz native and graduate of Cooper Union is a triple threat. Not only a fashion designer, Julian Louie is a photographer and artist whose work has exhibited in New York galleries Vagabond and Stay Gold. Perhaps that's why Calvin Klein’s Creative Director Francisco Costa personally chose him to mentor.
 
The two met during Louie’s unsuccessful internship bid, but a year later, Costa tapped him for the Italian Vogue/AWI (Australian Wool Innovation) Protégé Project. Over the course of 2007, Louie worked as a design assistant on Klein's spring, pre-fall and fall '08 collections, while Costa oversaw the fledgling’s first line. Equally "austere and opulent," as Louie describes it, the inaugural outing showed in Florence, Tokyo and Australia.
Louie's fall 2009 show was inspired by matadors for the silhouette, samurai armor for the embroideries and knitwear and Olaf Otto Becker's photographs of Icelandic landscapes for the palette. Experimenting with heavy wool felt, Louie laser-cut jackets that were then assembled with rivets and centered the rest of the offerings around them. The asceticism was then set off with Swarovski sparkle, whether dusting the epaulettes of a jacket or cascading down the bodice of a dress. For Louie, "tension between elements is key," proving that Costa's instincts were on the mark.www.julianlouie.com   << LESS

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At only 22, Californian Austin Sherbanenko launched his own Los Angeles-based label Odyn Vovk after dropping out of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in 2007. Turning out a brooding, slightly savage menswear collection that contradicts the West Coast’s sporty-casual reputation, he’s already been picked up by, among others, Barneys New York in Tokyo as well as H. Lorenzo and Sartorialoft in his hometown.   MORE >>

At only 22, Californian Austin Sherbanenko launched his own Los Angeles-based label Odyn Vovk after dropping out of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in 2007. Turning out a brooding, slightly savage menswear collection that contradicts the West Coast's sporty-casual reputation, he’s already been picked up by, among others, Barneys New York in Tokyo as well as H. Lorenzo and Sartorialoft in his hometown.
 
For fall, it’s his leather outerwear that stands out, from a charcoal-hued coat Sherbanenko developed with an Italian tannery to hand-dyed leather jackets that "we made ourselves in buckets in the studio," Sherbanenko says. That kind of DIY spontaneity is part of the collection’s whole vibe. Odyn Vovk launched in spring '09, but Sherbanenko sees a silver lining in starting out during inauspicious economic times. "I have more time to correct my mistakes without it affecting me too much," he admits. "I don’t have to rush into anything." He might be a beginner, but that kind of slow-and-steady attitude bodes well for his success. odynvovk.com   << LESS