Before I get too ahead of myself, I want to acknowledge where I am right now, both in the physical and mental space I am occupying. I am currently writing this in the comfort of our childhood home—the home where you were surrounded by love; the home where you discovered your passion for art and design; the home where you lost hours of sleep in pursuit of something greater than self; the home where you found God, and then found yourself.

Let me begin with 2020: Yo, you have made it through and that is all that matters. I know that 2021 feels like a long time but, young sir, it will move quite rapidly. The irony is that although the time will pass quickly, the five-year-game will indeed feel like an eternity.

The truth is, I’m interested in a lot of things—which I feel is a great trait of mine. But this year, I’ve been challenging myself to explore my interests with more intentionality. As a multi-hyphenated artist, I find beauty in discovering other artists' processes.

Ethan M. Wong is a writer and photographer who happens to be a menswear obsessive. Dedicated to discussing contemporary and vintage clothing in an accessible way, he's known for his in-depth essays on specific garments, a candid approach to photography, and for co-hosting Style & Direction, a menswear podcast and stream without the stuffiness.

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Morton’s obsession speaks for itself. Black Boy Plants is a growing collective of Black men and boys who have chosen to enter the conversation surrounding indoor plant care, gardening, and wellness.

Do you ever wake up at a decent hour, but choose to go back to sleep? Not because you need the rest, but because you are afraid to wake up to your life? I practically invented this phenomenon. I set and reset my alarm, and then forget about it all together, eventually crawling out of bed sometime in the early afternoon and feeling just as paralyzed by my life’s problems only with less time to solve them.

Loungewear, for much of its existence, has been inseparable from the beginnings and endings of the day. It’s what we put on after stripping off our day, bearing us in and out of sleep. But leisure is a strange, ever-shifting landscape, and it has led menswear to places that are sometimes strange and often beautiful.

The perfect juicy pimple can be the ultimate social kill-shot. The small pockets of bacteria come in various shapes and sizes. Sometimes they come with henchmen, other times they can drift alone. But every time a pimple forms, a siren goes off in your head to eradicate the enemy.

Many of us have thought of ourselves as invincible, as if we could not be easily defeated by the same weaknesses or flaws of other people. But the truth is, that is just a mask we put on when we face the world. It might be to impress the popular girl in school or get that raise at work.

It could be that caring for plants implies that one has an ability to nurture, a characteristic often attributed exclusively to women. Tenderness is a trait not typically attributed to the Black male body. Far too often, our men are solely depicted as aggressive, destructive, and distant. However, it is impossible to deny the quiet, generative properties of plants

There's an intimate level of craftsmanship that does into the production. The ingredients that go into their drinks are entirely real and exclusively natural. They pride themselves on their drinks being "farm-to-bottle." And with this membership program, the new process can be "farm-to-bottle-to-doorstep."

A thrift shop is, in many ways, a maze to be passed through methodically, a puzzle requiring an hour, if not more, of your time. And from that puzzle-box comes the thrill of true discovery, an aesthetic enjoyment not beholden to seasonal release schedules or carefully-designed consumer algorithms.

the STOLEN GARMENT FW21 collection <Lost in Translation> was inspired by the designer’s trip to a used bookstore in Seoul with his friends. Browsing the dusty book section of the store, the designer was inspired by the tragic poignancy of each word that made up the titles of these books, most of which were published in 90s.

KoH T is a Japanese fashion brand with a creative team that embodies Japanese sensibilities. With an aim to create timeless wardrobe essentials, with an emphasis on the wearer’s personality, KoH T presents a collection that’s both progressive yet a revival of tradition. KoH T, helmed by Creative Director Taisuke Kohji and design partner Yumiko Ozawa, hopes to establish themselves as narrators of the story telling behind the careful construction of garments.

Through The Looking Glass, KA WA KEY FW21 collection observes the duality of the imagination and reality inspired by larger than life characters and their dual personalities. Characters like Willy Wonka, Moira Rose, Peter Pan, Mad Hatter just a few to mention.

Deric Augustine is a man of ba ing dualisms and impeccable balance. He is confident, but never arrogant; serious, yet also lax; future-oriented, but present and mindful of the past. His modesty and no-nonsense work ethic are a package deal that have resulted in his success as an actor over recent years, but, oddly enough, he does not consider himself “self-made.” If you were to ask him, he’d tell you that he is a synthesis of several positive and negative forces in his life, with the negatives ultimately working out in his favor.

Everything about Joshua Schiffman is full circle. From the way his eyes reflect the warmth of a hug to the smile that spreads like a hurricane, flooding your body with light and hope to be the best version of yourself that you can be. There’s an astounding amount of faith that emanates from Joshua, whether it be tied to his Christian values or his general love for humanity and the creative energy the world pulsates.

This underhanded appropriation led to slow proliferation of different strains of gin—Dutch genever, London Dry, and, eventually, American, a sub-group exemplified by craft distillers like Few. The Evanston-based distillery is no stranger to changing the formula- in addition to their classic American-style, Few also offers Breakfast Gin, distilled with earl grey botanicals in addition to juniper, and Barrel-Aged, a woody, spiced gin aged in whiskey barrels.

On Saturday, May 2, 2020, I found Islam, or rather I pulled-up a seat to the table. Religion has always terrified me— it still does. “Believing” was a difficult thing to wrap my head around, because it requires submission, and submission was synonymous with weakness in my eyes. I never grew up practicing any form of religion. In my 26 years of living, I’ve been to church maybe two dozen times.

As I walk into Circa Modern, the first thing I notice is how the sun is streaming through the front window, creating a prism of light spread over the impeccably staged living space full of angles and textures. It’s a curation of objects that positions itself as much more than an interior showroom and instead a whole ass mood.