HYPEBEAST Magazine Issue 18: The Sensory Issue retails for $15 USD and is currently available at HBX,
as well as select stockists and newsstands worldwide.
Elsewhere in this issue, we continued our exploration of the intertwining of East and West within fashion. Keizo Shimizu, founder of Nepenthes, recounts his mission of importing middle America’s thrift shop finds to plant the first seeds of the influential Americana movement back in Japan. In our “Conversations With…” section, we ask San Francisco native Alexander Wang on what it’s like having the highest-profile Asian name in fashion.
To both literally and metaphorically reflect the fembot artwork that Hajime Sorayama created exclusively for our cover, The Sensory Issue is our first to feature an entirely metallic cover and comes packaged within a similarly metallic sleeve with special gifts inside.
Sight and sound mix in our next story on animated chart-topping band Gorillaz, who took a break from promoting their new album Humanz to fill us in on their aural explorations during their six-year hiatus in typical
devil-may-care style. These two senses collide again in the world of Belfast-based artist Jack Coulter, whose synesthesia allows him to visualize sounds as animated color. We asked the abstract expressionist how the essence of creativity changes when you’re born with kaleidoscopic eyes.
Our olfactory glands were similarly stimulated by the perfumer behind visvim’s store fragrances, Blaise Mautin. We interviewed him to find out how he succeeds in imbuing his perfumes with the potent power of nostalgia, and the process of creating Hiroki Nakamura’s favorite scent. Founder of the prolific nendo design studio, Oki Sato also delivers nostalgia via the vehicles of product, interior and architectural design that tickle one’s sense of humor and fascinate with their subtle twists on the mundane.
Renowned airbrush master Hajime Sorayama is our cover story this issue, having honed his art down to a science over a four-decade-long career. His chrome-clad fembots continue to confound the male gaze with their curvaceous, impenetrable exteriors, while simultaneously carving out a strange new niche for female empowerment. We visited Sorayama’s Tokyo studio to quiz him on how he creates his unique brand of eroticism, and to take a look inside his hedonistic, hypersexual headspace.
To live in the modern world is to be assailed on all fronts by a constant barrage of sensory information. The very thought may make us want to withdraw indefinitely into solitude but it is immensely more rewarding to embrace the phenomena which add all the more color to our lives. This approach formed the guiding principle for our 18th publication – titled The Sensory Issue – where we sought out the creatives who sift through the reams of raw information in the wider world, distilling it into something all the more profound.
We explore the five senses with Hajime Sorayama, Gorillaz, Alexander Wang and Nepenthes founder Keizo Shimizu.
THE SENSORY ISSUE
ISSUE 18:
