What's Contemporary Now?

By What's Contemporary

Designed for curious minds, "What's Contemporary Now?" engages various thought leaders across cultural industries taking in their broad, compelling perspectives and unveiling their common threads.

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How many episodes does What's Contemporary Now? have?

The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.

What's Contemporary Now? episodes:

September 16, 2024 We Want to Hear From You
It's that time again where we end the season and take pause to review where we've been, where we are, and of course where it is that we'd like to go with this conversation. As always, we want to hear from you, our listeners. What type of topics you'd like us to tackle. Who are your dream guests?
DM us on Instagram or email us at [email protected]. If you've enjoyed the show, leave us a review and we'll be back soon with more episodes answering the insatiable question, whats is contemporary now?

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1min
September 09, 2024Journey Through the Lens of Suzanne Koller: From Vienna to Paris and Beyond
Suzanne Koller, a Paris-based fashion stylist and art director, is renowned for her impactful contributions to the fashion industry. Cofounding Petronio Associates in 1993 and Self Service Magazine in 1994, she worked with prestigious clients and curated a unique creative vision. Transitioning to become the fashion director of Vogue Paris and later M le Magazine du Monde, Koller continues to shape the industry with her collaborations and editorial work. More interested in holistic artistry than anything else, Koller keeps herself out of her comfort zone to stay curious and true to herself—which is what’s contemporary now.

Episode Highlights:
Koller, who was born and raised in Vienna, feels “very Austrian.” She moved to Germany, and then to Switzerland, where she studied graphic design. She’s lived in France for over 30 years.
Knowing from her teen years that she wanted to be an art director, Koller saw the glamour of working for a magazine. She became an intern at Elle magazine in Paris before interning in graphic design at Glamour—where she was first introduced to the idea of working in fashion.
As a consultant, stylist, and art director, Koller found it exciting to make her own way with Self Service and to change hats, working with smaller magazines to avoid creative constraints.
Koller focuses less on fashion and more on individual subjects, orienting herself toward documenting women through time in collaborative projects.
Driven by long-standing obsessions, her current interest is finding emerging talent and working with a new generation of creatives.
Keeping herself out of her comfort zone helps maintain her energy and curiosity even as she considers herself a workaholic.
Koller is not driven by nostalgia but more inspired by the now, whether in the supermarket perusing ingredients, going to a museum, people-watching, or taking a flight. She believes in the significance of “emptying [her] brain” periodically.
In an age of over-engagement with social media, what’s contemporary to her now is staying true to oneself.

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24min
September 02, 2024The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund: Melitta Baumeister and Henry Zankov on Doing It Your Way
Melitta Baumeister and Henry Zankov, the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner and runner-up, are two trailblazing designers working at the intersection of quality and artistry, exploring the tension between fantasy and commercial viability one thoughtful design at a time. Baumeister, a celebrated designer known for her sustainable and ethical approach, launched her eponymous brand in 2011. Her innovative designs merge modern aesthetics with a commitment to environmental consciousness, setting a high standard for sustainable fashion. Henry Zankov, who debuted his label in 2019, combines avant-garde design with exceptional craftsmanship. His background—from his Russian roots to his American influences—shapes his unique, trend-defying vision. Both designers present a singular take on the importance of intention, curiosity, and sculpture—and how to run a label as a business. For Zankov, fashion’s ability to express intention is what’s contemporary now, while Baumeister sees “being concerned about the future” as the zeitgeist.
Episode Highlights:
Born into a family of tailors in Germany, Baumeister studied tailoring and fashion from an early age.
Zankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and arrived in the US at the age of nine. Growing very close to New York City in the ’90s, his first interactions with English and the West were mediated through MTV.
Launching his own label in 2019, Zankov was interested in creating a recognizable visual language unique to his perspective after working as a consultant for years.
To Baumeister, production difficulties are “finding the right people to work with; being so many positions in one, from the production manager to the pattern maker to handling sales; understanding even how wholesale and fashion is working.”
Zankov speaks about the need to “reset” how we consume, living slower and more intentionally curated lifestyles.
Regarding the tension between fantasy and commercial viability, Baumeister says her solution—at the intersection of artistry and sales—is “all in the fabric.”
Zankov starts with a concept every season, aiming toward a curious customer with inner soulfulness and wisdom.
Both designers cite the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund as an incredible support for their creative practice.
Baumeister notes that wholesale gives more reach and territory, while direct-to-customer sales offer more constructive feedback and relationship-building opportunities. Zankov highlights the importance of using both, though DTC allows him to make more accessible garments.
Zankov sees fashion’s ability to express intention as what’s contemporary now, while Baumeister sees “being concerned about the future” as the zeitgeist.

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35min
August 26, 2024Fashion, Film, & Fantasy: The World of Shona Heath
Set and Production designer Shona Heath creates enchanting, dense, and detailed worlds. Dreams within themselves, her visions have been manifested across the pages of top publications, and in collaborative partnerships with the likes of Tim Walker, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, Miu Miu, and SHOWstudio. Her style seamlessly blends contemporary and vintage elements, showcasing a unique, fantastical aesthetic—brought to life through paper sculpting, painting, photography, and prop-building. Most recently, her work on Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film Poor Things won an Academy Award for Best Production Design. In an age of worldbuilding, Heath shares a journey from the countryside to imagining entire realms, underlining that creativity plays a role in designing our everyday lives.
Episode Highlights:
Growing up in the British countryside in a modern sixties home, Heath remembers an upbringing spent outdoors, where she became intrigued with visions of scale; her mother’s crafts were also a deep influence.
She started her career in costume design and was moved to create a set from paper for Dazed, which turned into requests for shop windows and later collaborations with Tim Walker.
Heath’s creative process begins with words or an image, but usually, the former encourages original image-making and visualizing.
She sees tools like AI as potentially good research tools but detrimental to her own particular craft; its use depends on the artist and their authenticity.
She recommends working independently rather than starting as an assistant to an established artist, as then you know how to forge your own path first.
Though she used to feel that she experienced “excessive input” when doing a project, she now feels she can better communicate her vision and appease clients and collaborators up front.
She prefers the immediacy and direct access of working in photography to working on film sets; Heath remarks she wouldn’t be interested in doing a period piece that didn’t have an added element of creativity like Poor Things—a film she worked on with James Price, whose decades of film expertise Heath leaned on.
Fashion’s tendency for retro revisits and zeitgeist trends plays well into her work (as opposed to interior design, which she says has more of a lag time between trends and the trend’s appearance in the culture).
Her work on Poor Things won her an Academy Award for Best Production Design.

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29min
August 19, 2024The Muse and the Dream: Dara's Story
Dara is a model, stylist, and fashion director at Interview magazine. From her beginnings in San Diego to the iconic runways of New York, Dara speaks of a journey that is a testament to creativity and conviction. Recognized for her bold, visionary style, she views fashion as an art of crafting desire and glamour, where the method of persuasion is as crucial as the message itself. Her styling for Hunter Schafer and Troye Sivan highlights a unique blend of raw talent, intuitive expertise, and hard work. She’s walked the runways for Marc Jacobs, Kenzo, and Moschino; posed across the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar; and styled for an impressive array of brands like Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, and Miu Miu. What she sees as contemporary now is everyday optimism—and fluidity in interpretation, just like images.
Episode Highlights:
Growing up in San Diego with a creative mother and a pop-culture-obsessed father, Allen recalls watching Disney movies, writing in cursive, immersing in arts and crafts, and wanting to be an animator.
She describes herself as a child being in her own “little world,” a feeling that contributed to her strong sense of self as an adult.
With a level of conviction required for creative pursuits and an early interest in image-making, Allen cherishes the performative aspects of both modeling and styling.
Her career in New York took off quickly, through connections to Candy magazine, the VAQUERA label, and stylist Ian Bradley.
Allen says the unique thing about her generation’s access to information—and noise—is “this real emphasis on understanding your history and the context and everything that kind of surrounds what we’re doing.”
Allen became fashion director at Interview magazine, thinking of the role as writing with clothes and writing with photos.
She recognizes a sense of absurdity in the fashion world and emphasizes the performative aspects of everyday life.
When asked what’s contemporary now, Allen says, “optimism; levity,” and speaks to enjoying even the challenging parts of the work, and fluidity.

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34min
August 12, 2024Zoe Ghertner on the Importance of Connection in a Fast World
Zoe Ghertner is a photographer renowned for captivating work blending art, fashion, and documentary storytelling. With a keen eye for detail and an innate sense of composition, Ghertner’s imagery transcends conventional boundaries. A New York native based in Los Angeles, her work often reflects the vibrant energy and diverse landscapes of Southern California. Ghertner’s portfolio includes collaborations with leading fashion brands, such as Miu Miu, Chloe, Wales Bonner, and Hermès, as well as publications, such as American and British Vogues, i-D, Self Service, and W. Through her lens, she invites viewers into a world where reality and imagination converge.

Episode Highlights:
Ghertner had a very imaginative childhood, where she learned the importance of positive, clear messaging.
Ghertner has partnered with Fee Steinvorth to create neoNutritions, a new vision of wellness rooted in spirituality and connection, with more of an interconnected focus on education compared to other health and beauty regimes.
She sees what’s contemporary now as a sense of connectedness that resonates despite a modern overabundance of images.
Saying that photography and consumerism go hand in hand, Ghertner speaks to the struggle to achieve and sustain commercial success while also holding to the values deeply rooted in her work, such as unwavering attention to her subjects.
Despite working with digital imagery and print media across personal projects and commercial collaborations, Ghertner says each effort informs another and that she’s a natural multihyphenate creator.
Her first shooting of model Małgosia Bela was a breakthrough in “being able to work with someone with skills and ability.” She went through a phase of digging deeply into her subjects before garnering enough experience to represent that research and those conversations in the final imagery.
The support of women in the industry—such as Phoebe Philo, Miuccia Prada, Grace Wales Bonner, and Gabriella Hearst—has “allow[ed] me to grow and step into their worlds, which expands what my picture is about as well.”
Speaking to how images can traumatize or trigger elements of culture as a whole, Ghertner says her reaction to the male gaze and mental health advocacy are “a big part of the what and the why of how I’m making the pictures I make.”
Having moved to warm and sunny California to experience a better quality of life, Ghertner experienced a shift in perspective akin to experiencing motherhood for the first time and creating a new body of work—and a new book.

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28min
August 05, 2024Behind the Scenes with Emanuele Farneti: A Magazine Maker's Journey
Editor-in-chief of all la Repubblica magazines, Emanuele Farneti, is an influential figure in the fashion and design industries. Born in Italy, Farneti’s career trajectory skyrocketed as he took the helm of esteemed publications like Vogue Italia and L’Uomo Vogue. His keen eye for style, commitment to innovation, and passion for storytelling have propelled these magazines to new heights, earning him global accolades. A fusion of tradition and modernity characterizes Farneti’s leadership, analyzing the DNA of magazines to establish and evolve a language and direction better suited for contemporary society.
Episode Highlights:
He comes from a family of journalists who worked for Italian weekly “Panorama,” so he was “literally born within a newsroom” and has “childhood memories of the good old days of print media, where this group of talented journalists in their 30s, in the middle of the 70s were having a lot of fun playing poker and doing beautiful newspapers.”
Informed by a classical education, he studied law while training as a television and print media journalist, starting with sports before moving on to fashion.
Known as “a true magazine maker,” Farneti knows the importance of working with a brand’s DNA, which he says can evolve but should remain true to itself.
Remembering Vogue Italia’s pandemic coverage, Farneti remarks that the ability to use fashion to address largerquestions and have a voice about what’s important is crucial.
As the director of D-la Repubblica, he’s adept at addressing a general audience with various and surprising topics united under the banner of good writing.
Focusing on making the most beautiful monthly-style, weekly-produced magazine possible, D sets itself apart for the quality and depth of its reporting in beauty, fashion, society, art, and lifestyle sections.
The three limits of D as a print magazine: 1) it takes a long time to come together and is in circulation so briefly. 2) print quality and paper are low when working on a weekly basis. 3) there’s no international distribution.
One of the issues he’s more proud of came out last year and was completely dedicated to Afro-Italian or second-generation Italians, conceived, styled, and photographed by second-generation Italians themselves.
The magazine is launching a men’s monthly on June 24. With D, Farneti oversees three different titles plus a newspaper covering the broader spectrum of fashion and beauty.
When asked what’s contemporary, he says teamwork, and that his coworkers “are all bringing so many ideas, so many opportunities and such a good energy to the magazine.”

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29min
July 29, 2024The Marni Evolution: Francesco Risso's Story
Italian fashion designer Francesco Risso is renowned for his offbeat, innovative approach to contemporary clothing. He learned how to cut and sew from the age of eight with any fabric he could find, going on to study fashion at Florence’s Polimoda, New York’s FIT, and London’s Central Saint Martins. As creative director at Marni since 2016, Risso gained prominence by infusing the brand with vibrant colors, eclectic patterns, and playful aesthetics. His charming exuberance and unique ability to blend craft with modernity sets him apart and captivates audiences worldwide. What he sees as contemporary now is simple and uncontrolled by trends and a fast-paced industry: food and sex.

Episode Highlights:
Risso’s early years were spent not talking in a hectic and blended family home in Genoa, where he communicated by making things with his hands.
At 8 or 9 years old, he began making clothes, scavenging clothes from his grandmother’s closet to cut and sew.
Studying the classics and art, Risso “escaped” from his loud family by moving to Florence, knowing he would make clothes.
He found in the dance, clubbing, and rave scenes a way to escape from the constrictive traditional forces in Italy at the time when he considered himself goth and an outsider.
“Provocative, and visceral, and obsessive.”: Risso talks about how he accepts a darker side of his outlook as a complement to his lighter and romantic side.
He notes one of his mentors, Louise Wilson at Central Saint Martins, taught him to base a world around a garment without using typical fashion references.
Risso read a Virginia Woolf piece in which she invites her friends to the countryside and tells them not to bring clothes, as to leave behind a kind of social structure, and this inspired him to lose reference points.
On the secret of merging creative freedom with commercial success, Risso champions trust, pleasure, and courage,and living in the moment rather than for the final product.
Marni Jam is one example of interdisciplinary creativity that Risso works into the brand, expanding music into fashion.
To Risso, what’s contemporary now is “sex and food”—two exchanges he finds beautiful in that they build community.

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33min
July 22, 2024Pierre Rougier on Vision, Trends, and Challenging the Algorithm
Pierre Rougier, a distinguished fashion publicist and founder of PR Consulting, boasts a career spanning several decades. After studying political science in Bordeaux, Rougier honed his skills in Paris and London with Hermès, Yohji Yamamoto, and Maison Margiela before making his mark in New York in 1993. There, he directed communications while representing icons like Helmut Lang and Alexander McQueen. Establishing PR Consulting in1997, he catapulted emerging talents like Narciso Rodriguez and Nicolas Ghesquiere, then at Balenciaga, to prominence, also fostering brands like Proenza Schouler and Hood By Air. Renowned for discovering and championing young designers, Rougier continues to hold the opinion that a strong vision and sometimes counter-trending codes are often the precursors to a designer’s success.
Episode Highlights:
Rougier grew up far from the front of culture, and though his interests in fashion were indirect at first until he moved to Bordeaux—a larger city—to study.
He started his work in fashion boxing Hermes products before moving to London, still employed at Hermes, learning English and partaking in ’80s gay club culture there.
Yohji Yamamoto employed Rougier to work a PR position, giving him his first taste of serious work and long hours associated with the industry.
Using his London connections, he opened his own PR firm as the Antwerp Six were coming into the spotlight, and worked under Martin Margiela for four years, until he felt that his aesthetic and vision were too overwhelmingly connected to that one house.
Moving to New York, Rougier worked as communications director for a company that held brands like Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, and Michael Kors.
Rougier speaks on learning that the antithesis of what's trending is always on the precipice of an arrival.
He says the conversations in fashion are less now about what designers like and more about what designers find that works, and is successful.
Before the internet, there were few photos of shows and most people waited to see items in stores to determine the zeitgeist; now, Rougier says, the urgency of marketing makes everything “extremely transactional.”
He says it’s fair to say that in fashion, elitism has trended out with a shift to exclusive community identities.

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27min
July 15, 2024The Evolution of Media: Insights from Willa Bennett
Willa Bennett, a trailblazing force in media, is the editor-in-chief of Highsnobiety, steering the publication to new heights of innovation and influence. A Forbes 30 Under 30 luminary, her journey began at Seventeen, pioneering its queer vertical before igniting social strategies at GQ, and championing diversity as Condé Nast's global co-chair. The American Society of Magazine Editors recognized her for social media excellence and video programming, and her leadership at Highsnobiety garnered recognition in the Digiday and Muse Awards. Highlighting the importance of authentic narratives in connecting with young audiences, what she sees as contemporary now is pushing the boundaries and shaping the future of media—even if that means tuning out the background noise and tapping into real community.
Episode Highlights:
Bennett grew up in LA, balancing two passions: masculine menswear magazines and hyper-feminine ballet practice.
Talking about her early passion for vintage finds and retro styles, Bennett says experimenting with styling became another medium for her, “like writing.”
She grew up reading publications like Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Nylon, and Dazed—publications she says understood young consumers and which she still keeps a few print copies.
Bennett moved up through various roles in the industry at a time when social media marketing was in its more raw, early stage.
Her role at Highsnobiety gives her creative freedom in that it moves with the youth culture and its fast-paced, creative, adaptive, and reactive workplace environment.
Bennett is ahead of the curve, balancing personal perspective with editorial consideration and curation.
Her team at Highsnobiety pushes a particular and intentional editorial vision, championing designers and talent that they want to carve out a space for.
Some of Bennett’s favorite cover stars have been Billie Eilish, Andre 3000, and Pamela Anderson, though she felt strongly about the Dries Van Noten cover.
Bennett has spoken about forming real connections as a priority over solely professional relationships, despite how “transactional” the industry can be.
Under Bennett’s eye, Highsnobiety’s niche is to move in tandem with the zeitgeist instead of against it, never telling readers what to do or who to wear.
Bennett considers real-life events crucial to foundational community building, saying, “that to me is a way bigger metric of success than like any influencer with 16 million followers posting one slide that everyone’s going to skip over anyway.”
She’s published poetry collections benefitting The Audre Lorde Project for queer youth.
For Bennett, deleting social media is what’s contemporary now, surprisingly.

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37min

FAQs about What's Contemporary Now?:

How many episodes does What's Contemporary Now? have?

The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.

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