Chasing the Insatiable High

October 28, 2021

Famous for its miles of white-sand beaches and astonishing weather, San Diego offers an abundance of fun attractions. However, the city isn’t exactly known for having the most notable creative scene. Creatives Darren Vongphakdy and Julian Klincewicz have paved the way towards an alternate reality 一 one where a shared vision unifies like-minded individuals.

Darren Vongphakdy, whose most recent work includes art direction for Tyler, the Creator’s album, Call Me If You Get Lost, has just launched and unveiled his brand, Insatiable High. He drew inspiration from his Asian-American background and fused that together with nods of JDM car culture and dance music 一 catapulting the viewer into a dreamy atmosphere plagued with nostalgia. Julian Klincewicz, on the other hand, is widely known for his work on Beyoncés Netflix special, Homecoming.

Text by Ronald Kahihikolo
Photos by Julian Burgueño
Video and Stills by Julian Klincewicz

Most recently, the two paired up for a special project that highlights a set of campaign videos for Insatiable high 一 a collaboration that offers the outsider a lens that zeroes in on what life is like in this small city.

See below as the two get on a call to discuss their upbringing in San Diego, the importance of community, and working on projects that provide meaning to the way they see the world.

Darren Vongphakdy 一 Since we’re both from San Diego, I wanted to ask what your upbringing in was like there, and whether it helped or hindered your development as an artist.

Julian Kincewicz 一 Yeah, of course. I mean on my end, the context for my whole world is skateboarding. Growing up skating in San Diego and being part of such a creative and connected community down there has really informed my whole approach to pretty much everything. I also think there’s a bit of retrospect in that, like analyzing myself. I think If I was from L.A., what I was doing in San Diego probably wouldn’t have been that interesting because everyone in L.A. is kind of on another level, and has more access. So being in a smaller pond, the stakes are all a bit lower, which I think allows you to experiment more. The smaller pond feels more conducive to creating your own world in a way. I think that San Diego was really instrumental because it didn’t feel like there was this huge pool to compare myself to, or to have that much of a frame of reference. Being a little bit removed was kind of more beneficial because the little bits of cool culture that do trickle into San Diego make a bigger impact, and you have more freedom to explore them in your own way.

DV 一 That’s sick because I feel like San Diego did the opposite for me. There wasn’t much going on in the area that I grew up in, so you had to go search for cool things elsewhere. For me, I was always on the internet spending hours on Tumblr and Instagram, seeing that a lot of things that interested me were in L.A. I felt like that’s where I had to be to learn and grow creatively. I’ll probably get shit for this, but I don’t think San Diego is a very nurturing place for anyone to really be creative.

JK 一 I will say, Edwin, from Gym Standard, was hugely instrumental in that and opened up my eyes to a bigger world. He truly showed me that there was more out there, and that it was accessible. Like you and me becoming friends through Gym Standard 一 as soon as there’s one spot that’s actually cool and feels different and is speaking to this niche 一 it instantly forms a mega community in San Diego.

DV 一 That’s true. He definitely did the same for me too, but I was already living in LA by then.

JK 一 Walk me through that a little bit. You moved to LA, started your own brand. To me, I think it’s sick that you started a clothing brand, got a lot of momentum, and then kind of just re-evaluated your priorities. Now four and a half一five一years later, you’re starting this new brand that feels really interesting.

DV 一 Well I was working a bunch of shitty retail jobs, on top of working on my brand, Tuesday Girlfriend, when I first moved out here. As much momentum as I was getting with the brand, I just felt like I wasn’t well equipped to execute what I wanted to do creatively. And at the time, I had just landed an internship doing graphics for a clothing company. From there, I really just wanted to be a sponge and just soak up as much knowledge as I could from whoever and whatever. So I stopped doing my brand to focus on the internship, and through that, I was able to learn about apparel production, apparel design, art direction and creative direction. Fast forward a few years, I guess I’m an art director now? We don’t really do titles at the company I’m at, but I started to realize all my ideas were going through a filter. I got my dream job. I’ve been doing it for a minute and doing it really well, but then it’s like, “Okay, well what’s next?” and I just wanted to use my voice again and tell people my own story.

JK 一 Something that I’ve admired about you, in this process, is that you had the internal fortitude to say, “Actually, you know what? This isn’t it. The thing that I’m doing right now isn’t it. And I don’t know what the next thing is yet, but I’m going to stop this until I feel really situated in it”. It’s interesting and inspiring to me, because I think that’s just a huge indicator of integrity.

DV 一 Thanks. Yeah, I just felt like I had to refocus my energy towards myself and my personal work.

JK 一 Honestly, I’ve been trying to do the same. For me, it’s been surprisingly emotional actually. With my work, I feel like I boarded the train and kept going. I’m super goal oriented. I set milestones for myself and I work towards them really really fucking hard. But then I reached two of my biggest lifetime goals super early. The thing that I feel like I lost a little bit of track of is just having enough time to play and do those internal types of deep dives. That’s what makes really good work: experimentation. It’s having the time to try out a bunch of different things and make these experiments and these discoveries. Everything that I’ve ever made that I’ve loved has felt like a discovery. Lately, just seeing the people whose company I really enjoy, and whose work I love, bring their personal work into fruition kind of left me with this feeling of like, “Oh man, I forgot that that’s what it’s all about”.

DV 一 It’s really about making the time to do those deep dives. I started Insatiable High as a personal project that I intended to be a book. But as I was working on it, I felt like making a book wouldn’t leave as big of a stamp, or say what I’m trying to say loud enough. Especially when there’s no context for it. So I continued to do an internal deep dive on my history and heritage and family to develop my view point. Being that I’m Asian-American, I just wanted to do something for people like me. I want those kids to be able to have a reference point and feel like there’s someone like them doing cool shit because I felt like I didn’t have that growing up. And that’s why you hear the specific type of music in the video, and see the specific car that the kids are driving in, the clothes that they’re wearing — I wanted to use that to set the scene for what the world of Insatiable High looks like and be able to dedicate this collection to my family and sort of thank them in a way.

JK 一 Well yeah, it’s almost like the whole project was basically born on kind of seeking a deeper understanding of self. And in that process you figured out that clothing is a good vehicle to explore those discoveries in a more in-depth way.

DV 一 Yeah, exactly. I had to do a lot of recollection, like, “What were my uncles wearing at the time, what were they listening to, what were they doing, and how did it affect me?”. And I just remember them working on their cars and motorcycles, but also knowing that they could draw really well, and sew, and do all of these super resourceful, yet creative types of things. I feel like you get a sense of that through the clothes and through the visuals that I’m showing.

JK 一 Absolutely. You want those things to have meaning. When I think about the work that I make and the amount of effort I put into something — I want to put my heart and soul into it. There’s certain people that really appreciate that and allow you to do that. Working on Homecoming, Beyoncé and her team let me pour my heart and soul into it and I think we made something incredibly special.

DV 一 You can definitely see that in those cut scenes 一 especially when your song is in one of the parts 一 it just feels so real. It just felt very you. It felt personal. It allowed Her to feel more personal. It allows your work to feel more personal. And anyone can connect to it in a certain way.

JK 一 I’ve realized, the way I want to spend my time is by making things that just really feel impactful, and matter, and things that I love. It’s really the first time in a few years that I’m able to do that and I feel like that’s the shift in the things I’m working on now.

DV 一 Yeah, I feel it.

JK 一 It’s kind of like a scary, but liberating feeling where you’re just like, “Oh fuck!” But you also want to feel so passionate about the thing that you’re doing, that it really matters to you, and there’s no exception. Clothing is uniquely special because it’s so tactile. One of the things that I really love about your approach is that you’re genuinely pulling inspiration from your experiences, and your family, and you can tell that it’s personal just through the approach. And that it comes across as different because it’s coming from your heart in a way. That’s really exciting and inspiring to me.

DV 一 It’s funny that you say that because when I was in the development phase and concepting this whole thing, It’s like, “Fuck, are people going to care?” because what I’m trying to show—it’s so regular. It’s literally in every suburb. It’s like, everyone is into these JDM cars and everyone works on their cars. Everyone listens to this type of music. Like who’s really going to pay attention to this and actually feel like it’s something different. But the response to everything that’s out so far it’s like—I’m not surprised by it because I guess it is relatable in a way, but I’m just shocked that people care about it. I wasn’t expecting it at all because it’s very much for me and I just wanted to put it out into the world.

JK 一 There’s this saying that I love and that I’ve always used as one of my north stars which is, “In the deeply specific is the deeply universal”. When you really delve into yourself, you find the core of the onion. When you really dive in and you get so specific to your suburb, and your uncles, and your memories, and the clothes they wore, and how they styled it 一 it becomes really personal. It’s San Diego, which is like, “Yeah, who cares?” in a way, but at the same time, it almost makes it more special - because you care, and everyone has their version of that. You can tell when something really has a soul.

Insatiable High “Preface” Fall 2021 Available now on insatiablehigh.com

Fashion

Happy 424 Day!

Simon Rasmussen — What's going on?

Guillermo Andrade — Right now we're just setting everything up.

So, what are you doing, is it a party?

Well, I kind of felt universally forced, right? Because 4/24/24, I was just like, I don’t really have a choice here. The stars also just kind of aligned, so to be honest, I got this settlement that came with a bunch of clothes so I had this idea to give back to the kids who fuck with us by allowing them to buy our shit first. Not handing stuff out for free, but to do it in a way where we could skip the middleman of the industry, so to speak, and not allow clothes to disappear into the abyss of Farfetch or whatever else. So what we’re going to do is a sort of warehouse sale, which we’ve never done before so that was really exciting for me. I didn’t want to do just another warehouse sale, so it’s like a sample sale turns rager. We teamed up with Adidas and a couple of other sponsors, then drinks, DJs, and a performance.

Sick, I love it.

Yeah. My dream sample sale. Also, it’s not just hoodies and t-shirts here in there, it’s proper collections from the past three seasons. I’m also not picking and choosing, trying to make it accessible, like this was the only way I could afford to buy shit when I was a kid, bro. Sample sales were the thing I looked forward to the most.

I feel you. In New York, there's the annual CDG sale, which is when I used to cop all my CDG.

The only time I could afford Rick. I flew to New York once for a Rick sample sale and I was like, Wow, I can't believe I got invited. And it was mental. I still have those pieces. I will never sell them. Not even because I got 'em cheap. It was also just really fun. Even on the flight to New York, I was like, I can't believe I'm going to New York for a sample sale, what a fucking loser I am. But it was like the adult version of when I was a kid and I was like, Wow, I can't believe I'm 20-something and I'm still doing the thing I was doing in high school. So I hope we can create moments like that for kids here in LA.

Yeah. I love that. It’s important to connect with them; they’re essentially creating the brand. If you don't have them, good luck.

I mean, yeah. Fuck, bro. It's cool that we've been around for this long. I mean, it got a little rocky there for a second I think, for all of us. So coming out of it, tomorrow is a celebration. And it’s like an odd day of the week. It's a Wednesday, super random. And now that we've set it up, the homies are all like, Yo, I'm coming. I'm coming. Let me jump on stage, let me do this, and that's really what it's always been about. It's not some other strategy to get likes on the internet.

That’s how the best things happen, you just couldn’t help yourself. It was intuitive.

Yeah, it all came together in a really nice way.

Would you say that’s how 424 started as well? I remember we met in like 2010 on Fairfax and I was visiting with Rasmus…

Oh bro, it’s probably the time when I started the branch… do you remember Cecilia from Black Dakini? She’s the one that introduced me to CIFF and honestly, I didn’t even care what she was doing, I was just like, I’m coming, I’ll go with you. She said she’d give me half of her booth and I said, Awesome count me in. At the time, I had just gotten my green card and I wasn't allowed to ever leave America, so Copenhagen was one of the first cities I went to when I could finally travel. I mean, you see what we did at CIFF bro? It became our fucking hub for half a decade.

That was a moment for sure.

I remember the first account I got was Antonioli, and he came super gangster, being like, You're going to sell me these clothes. And I was like, bro, I didn't come to sell clothes. I'm just kind of catching a vibe with my homie and I made these things. And he's like, No, you're going to sell it to me. And then I was like, Oh my god that’s Claudio Antonioli. So then I went home, I googled wholesale, and figured that shit out. [laughs]

[Laughs]

Like you said, I couldn't help myself, but I didn't just make t-shirts and hoodies either. I was really on my Rick wave, so I made my version of the Rick things. It was that meets like The Boondock Saints, because I'm still a little bit of a Cali bro, sort of rock kid, but not really. I like hip-hop, but I like the way the rock stars look. I like the contrast. I thought it was cool. After that, I just never stopped.

It was clear to me when I first met you that you were onto your own thing in LA. It made a lot of sense, and it was so cool. It was before 424 was its own brand; you just had the store and this really cool curation.

It was all my shit, bro. I was very, very invested in sharing all of these things that I was finding from all over the world, like Astrid Anderson. She was one of those designers at the time, so important to 424. The connection to Copenhagen specifically for me was huge. I had a big fan base there. It was incredible. And then here in LA, we were sharing the things that we were a part of and finding; it was still the early days of Fear of God, Rhude, Martine Rose. A lot of these brands, we were the first store to ever sell it — we were selling Hood By Air on the West Coast.

You had Rick as well, I remember.

Oh yeah. It took me a long time. But I got Rick, bro. By the time I had to close the store on Fairfax, I already had a Raf Simons account. I had reached my ultimate dream. It was really all the stuff I wanted to wear at the time. It was dope. The best of the best.

We had an office magazine newsstand in there as well.

Oh yeah, we did! I came to visit the one you had, and I was like, Yo, I got to bring this whole fucking thing over here. But yeah, in LA, after two days people forget you exist, but everyone’s been super supportive. We’re all 10 years older now. We've been around forever at this point.

It can be dangerous to take those breaks when you’re figuring shit out, but there’s something very genuine to this comeback you’re having.

Thank you, thank you. We’ve been in and out of those fucking showrooms in Paris for long enough. I've been in and out of these factories for the past 10 years of my life. We had to figure something out. And I think now really diving in, being in Italy full time and being there to develop these products over time, I think that the whole thing just really shows the suppliers respect you more. The people who are making your goods understand why you're making them. And I think now I finally got to the place where I'm not making Italian things, I’m making my clothes, I'm making Cali-centric shit, but with that European technicality and execution. With this Fall / Winter collection, it clicked.

So what’s the vision for the next year? What are you manifesting?

I'm just fucking relentless, bro. This is the way I want to live my life. Now that we are more aligned, more prepared, and have more experience, moving forward it is just more of becoming a fully functioning company that can provide and create opportunities for all of the people around me. We’ve been operating just on instinct for a long time.

Sustaining a business is scary, trust me I know.

Scary as fuck, dog. I just opened a store next to Bottega, bro, and it’s like what am I even doing? You have to just believe in the thing you're doing more than anybody else.

100%, and it seems like that’s what you’re doing.

And fashion’s kind of a competitive sport, as much as people don’t think it is. We can reach a certain level without losing ourselves. My biggest ambition at the moment is to create something that, when you leave one of our neighbors you come into our place you don’t feel that the level has been sacrificed at all. And it’s not easy.

Definitely. I wish I could be there tomorrow.

Thank you, bro. 10 years now. You’ve always shown me so much love. We have to do a booth or have the office part of the next 424 day. Shit let’s do a 424 day in New York.

That would be sick. Let's do it. I'm here. Let’s catch up soon.

Next season’s right around the corner so I’ll see you in Paris.

Yes, see you in Paris and Happy 424 day!

Fashion

Luis De Javier's Puta Takeover

April 25, 2024

Last night with Luis De Javier, guests were overheard confirming this generation's most vital conundrum: “If I’m cunt, I can still be pussy.” “And if you’re pussy, you can still be cunt.” This sentiment echoed throughout the night as we celebrated De Javier’s first-ever streetwear collection, "Puta". We spent seven hours at Ella Funt at a dinner turned party that only he could’ve thrown (co-hosted by emcee). It was too dark for even the most aspiring-to-look-mysterious of us to wear sunglasses inside. Under the semi-oppressive flash of party photographers, we danced as much as the space would allow, drank tequila out of teacups and kissed each other on the cheeks with a vaguely European intimacy. “I’m doing streetwear!” De Javier could be heard exclaiming — whether it be in disbelief or excitement, we couldn’t tell you.

Words and photos by Izzy Capulong

The Spanish-born London-based designer has been well-loved for his genderless tailoring, latex mastery, and overall message of empowerment. Dressing everyone from ravers to A-listers, De Javier’s latest drop pushes his design repertoire to a new level. “While designing for my celebrity clientele and showcasing my creations on the runway has always been my dream,” he notes, “It’s equally important to me that my brand resonates with a wider, more diverse audience.” While this collection’s medium has shifted from corsets to sweatshirts, the classic LDJ avant-garde sensibilities remain. Bikinis and booty shorts are shamelessly emblazoned with “PUTA,” blazers are constructed with ample shoulder padding, and I had my eye on the cheekily-named “Faguette Bag.”

The Puta collection will be available exclusively on emcee.

Fashion

Nadia Lee Cohen Celebrates Paris Texas Launch at the Chateau

To celebrate the launch, Cohen and founder and creative director of Paris Texas, Annamaria Brivio hosted an intimate dinner at the Chateau Marmont pictured below. Arman Naféei entertained guests throughout the evening with a special playlist he curated for the occasion.