It’s a question repeated often these days, to an almost eye-rolling degree, across every possible facet of fashion journalism: “Who the fuck is Vaquera?” The evasive design collective has even asked the question of themselves, going so far as to print it directly on a blouse in one of their recent season’s collections. Whether it was a message of self-deprecation, introspection, or just fabricated hype is unclear—Vaquera is purposefully difficult to define. But we do know a few things. They are the New York fashion new wave, first descending on Fashion Week in 2013, and the four founders established the brand as “a reaction to a lack of diversity in the contemporary fashion scene,” translating to their attire angry sentiments on systematic oppression and earning their work the ill-defined label of “anti-” or “art-fashion.”

In 2011, Lucien Smith staged a two-person thesis show while a senior at Cooper Union in New York. The title of the exhibition was “Imagined Nostalgia,” a nod to the falsehood of memory and how we might crave for the paraphernalia of an era that doesn’t directly belong to us, be it a VHS comedy tape or the footwear of our parents’ generation. This desire to look back longingly often expands beyond objects into the realm of social dynamics. In a brave new world of bots and virtual reality, hubs for actual human interaction can feel like a precious commodity.

You might know London-based six-piece HMLTD as Happy Meal LTD—their former alias until Ronald McDonald’s legal department came calling—and if you’ve heard the name chances are you’ve witnessed their genre-defying glam-inspired music and campy aesthetic.

My cousin Lawrence walks with a shuffle, stares at you with one eyebrow up and one down, puckered lips, and a quite intimidating, stiff body. He says “Yep, yep,” over and over in a monotone. I remember getting drunk once in an English countryside pub and completely losing sense of his autism. Just normal talk. It’s nice when that happens.

The space where New York jazz crew Onyx Collective incubates is perceptive, all-hearing—a sort of panopticon of sound. The rehearsal and living space, situated within a nook deep in Chinatown, sits just below where the Q Train’s potential energy is highest, right before it zooms off across the Manhattan Bridge. When I met up with founder and saxophonist Isaiah Barr, he led me through their living room, then through a graffiti-scribbled concrete backyard and into their detached practice room, to join drummer Austin Williamson.

A few months ago, I attended a dinner party where most of the guests—photographers, stylists, makeup artists— worked in the beauty industry. Many of them were high-level professionals, people who were signed to major agencies, shot for big-name publications, and had sculpted the cheekbones and highlighted the ass of one Mrs. Kim Kardashian West. But when I said that I was planning to speak with makeup artist and Dior Beauty creative and image director Peter Philips, the reaction was hardly one of jaded indifference. There were squeals involved.

Gheorghe Muresan is so goddamn big. Best known as the towering center for the Washington Bullets, Muresan tops out at 7 foot 7 inches (he wore #77 as a nod to his height) making him the tallest man to have ever played in the NBA. During his breakout season in ’95-’96 he dropped nearly 15 points per game on average, and led the league in field goal percentage. He is one of a few who can say they went toe-to-toe with Shaq and came away relatively unscathed. So yes, he does play basketball. At the peak of his fame he even had a stint in Hollywood—his outsize stature and earthshaking baritone got him cast (okay, maybe typecast) as the titular star in My Giant opposite Billy Crystal, and even landed him a cameo in the video for Eminem’s “My Name Is” as the ventriloquist, with Marshall Mathers as his dummy. But before he made it to the bigs, he was just a tall-ass kid living in rural Romania looking for any excuse to play ball. He talked to us briefly about life back in his village, and his improbable path to the States.

MERCURY CITY

I’m being driven east along Lake Erie by a Mercedes sprinter van operated partially by satellite and partially by a Moroccan gentleman who appears to really enjoy Cambodian EDM. We are moving at just under 110 mph toward a planned community on the perimeter of the Eastern Cleveland Metroplex. The region, known colloquially as Mercury City, is being transformed from a slum ravaged by black-market pharmaceuticals into a high-tech utopia trying on the fashionable concept of city as artificial intelligence machine.

Its origins as 20th century industrial sprawl are being replaced by a 21st century simulacra of a country village. Not a community of soda jerks and sock hops but a place where you can buy a second-hand Russian prosthesis with fiber-optic nerves and matching Gucci sweatpants. A neighborhood where one might find a Tudorstyle mansion that has been remade into a communal dwelling for transient youth who are partial to vegan Shepard’s pie and benzodiazepine smoothies.