Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, a lot of it is in the ear. My mind is so brainwashed with beautiful music, that even when I was walking in the Himalayas, I was constantly playing my most exquisite tracks on my iPod to make the surroundings even more impressive. I can hear beauty not only in voices and violins, but also in rhyming abilities in rap, little flaws from a drummer in an old jazz record or the way certain music is mixed (engineers can make songs extra dusty or crispy clean for example). Even more than the visible beauty, the audible beauty is extremely arguable. There is no such thing as pretty music or ugly music. In my opinion, the most ‘pretty’ music, if you have to rank it, is music that makes you think about your life. It makes you realize how happy you are or it makes your heart ache. True beauty is something you feel. After seeing it. Or hearing it. I’ve selected three totally different tracks that all contain some form of beauty.
In the spirit of the season, what better way start the new year by awe-inspiring affordable luxury items.
TO LISTEN Music by 22Tracks
TO READPublished by MENDO, Amsterdam
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Kate Moss
by Mario Testino
Mario Testino’s photography is probably the most universal form of ‘beauty’. His photographs are warm, stylish and sensual. His models, whether famous or not, are always portrayed at their best. Often smiling, flirtatious and proud. Putting together photographs of Kate Moss, the most appealing model of the past decade, is the absolute tribute to beauty. Check out citizenM´s original Kate Moss artwork from the portrait collection of Mario Testino at citizenM Schiphol.
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Portret
Van Fleteren
Stefan van Fleteren is a Belgian photographer. At the moment his work is spread across the Netherlands. His work was exhibited at Sail Amsterdam, he’s a recurring photographer for the Volkskrant (a Dutch paper) and his book ‘Portret’ is for sale. Black and white, raw, drawn expressions, sad faces. Totally different from Testino’s work – quite the opposite – but we think it’s gorgeous.
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Adrian Frutiger Typefaces
Complete works
This book is an utter bore… No really… It’s about the Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger, who devotes his life to the quest for the perfect font. Frutiger is known for developing the ‘Univers’ and later the ‘Frutiger’ font (used on many airports, so this letter must be clearly legible from various angles). Let’s face it: you must be a huge nit-picker to like this book of 450 pages on typeface stuff. Was Frutiger the perfect letter? Who knows. But it comes pretty close.
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Fashion Blogs
(reprint)
Are great fashion designers determining what is beautiful? Not in 2011… Today, the 12-year olds with digital cameras who scour the Fashion Weeks for content for their blogs are in charge. And the fashion world is running after them. Because of the popularity of blogs, the book Fashion Blog is currently in reprint.
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The Story Of
Eames Furniture
We choose this book because of the famous Chair and its heritage. But also because of the look of it: a beautiful box, consisting of two volumes. And o, that picture of Charles on the front, and o, that typography, and o, everything is compelling and elegant. There’s always room on the book shelve for this. And o, citizenM hotels have Eames furniture in all their living rooms, we love it!
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The Rat Pack
The Rat Pack is the definitive tribute to Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin & Co. Inventors of style. The TV-serie Mad Men seemed to be copied out of this book. The book has a limited edition, divided into several editions, including the Heritage Edition, which comes with a beautiful wooden slipcase.
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In Almost Every Picture #9
The beauty lies in a small idea. For example: In Almost Every Picture, a series of booklets of KesselsKramer Publishing. The books always tell little curious picture stories. In this edition it shows the pictures of a family who tries to solve ‘how to photograph our black dog’. In vain. Each page consists nothing more than a black silhouette. P.S. KesselsKramer is citizenM’s marketing agency and developed the identity of the citizenM brand.
AR Drone
A true “Toys for Boys,” the AR Drone is not just any ordinary helicopter. The four rotor blades make the Drone extremely manoeuvrable. And the best thing of all, you can control it with your iPhone/iPod Touch.
Travelers Notebook
When traveling around the world it is always great to have somewhere to jot down your ideas, inspirations, and stories. The Travelers Notebook, from Japan, is handmade, with a high quality leather cover that gets beautiful with age.
TO WATCH
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Core 77 and Eames Office’s Powers of Ten Video Response Challenge invites young designers to make a two-minute response video to the classic Eames film ‘Powers of Ten’. An essential document, beautiful reinterpreted.
Property Of… Amsterdam Limited Edition Pannier Bag
As we go green, we all travel green. Cycling to work in style is made better when having the Limited Edition Pannier bag from Property Of… on the back. Made from Waxed canvas and doubling as a messenger bag, it is truly made for the real Mad Man.
Young&Restless | The Flying Squirrel
Beauty is found in the wildest places, and Ashburn Eng found it literally in the wild. He used the flying squirrel landing in an urban cityscape, as his inspiration for the Young&Restless Spring/Summer 2011 Collection.
Heima trailer:
Mykita x Uslu
Beauty is all about coordination. Mykita and Uslu have joined forces, packaging a pair of aviators with color-coordinated nail polish–how fun is that! Available in lilac, neon yellow and grey, each aviator comes in a stylish suitcase with its respective matching nail polish.
Nintendo 3DS
Everything is going 3D, but the next step does not have to wear those outdated glasses. Nintendo have now released their 3DS, the first handheld games console which uses 3, glassless technology. Best part, Augmented reality.
James Blake
Listen to Measurements
James Blake started as a dub step producer, but his debut album (released in February 2011) is full of tracks filled with hardly anything else than his warm and clean vocals. Several layers of singing, combined with minimal use of instruments and several silences even, make most James Blake tracks a true soft listening experience. Funny, since he used to gain recognition without even touching a microphone.
Joy Orbison
Listen to Ladywell
We all know house music. There are hundreds of different ways to make house music. Hard beats, rough synths, annoying bleeps, they all work when you want to party hard. Next to this, there’s beautiful house music you can listen to while falling asleep or waking up with a little dance. Joy Orbison is one of my favourite producers from London, dance music doesn’t get any warmer and more soothing than this.
Henning
Listen to Henning
You can find beauty in a craft or a story. Henning’s story is an interesting one: a young Dutch producer who gains more and more recognition with his mastered craft: creating warm and oldschool funk, sprinkling some new elements all over it. This is music Prince could sing to, or where rappers from the G-Funk era like Warren G and DJ Quick would jump on immediately. How wonderful that every new generation profits and gains inspiration from the great music that was created a generation earlier.
Jónsi
Listen to Icicle Sleeves
Jónsi is the guitarist and vocalist from an Icelandic band you might know: Sigur Rós. His high, falsetto voice and his musical talent never ever bore me. None of his millions of fans care about the fact that he’s half blind, gay and that he isn’t blessed with beautiful facial features. Talent makes one pretty anyway, especially if you’re making beautiful music and combine this with making movies (tip: Heima, 2007) about the extremely nice, green and peaceful island.
Co-founder of 22tracks.com, a jukebox consisting of 22 playlists of different genres. Each playlist is filled with 22 tracks, selected by specialized DJs from Amsterdam. 22tracks provides a quick overview of the latest music, promotes new artists and lets you discover new genres. No registration, no hassle. New music, the easy way.
Maurice Ajanaku is a creative of many fields. As a practicing brand designer, he expanded is creative talents to becoming Editor in Chief of the International Online Magazine, Ajanaku. With an international collective of writers and photographers scouring the globe to unearth the latest in fashion, design, art, music, trends, and more, each story is told in the words of each individual. Maurice Ajanaku is also busy off-line, as a consultant to brands, PR and communication companies. In the end Maurice Ajanaku believes that it is all about the experience one has, and how the story is told.
MENDO is a spectacular bookstore. They sell books on photography, fashion, architecture, interior and graphic design. The store was designed by Concrete Architectural Associates – yep, there’s a link with CitizenM here! The walls are not made of bricks, but of thousands of black MENDO books. With a well-balanced selection of creative books and an exclusive interior, MENDO is definitely one of the most inspiring stores in The Netherlands. For this reason, there is no online store. Taking the time to explore the shelves and browse through the books are an essential part of the book buying experience.
