Born Again
On Hop Nguyen, Joshua Jamal, NOSCENEGIRLS, and more.
Welcome to Weaving Webs, where creative people share their creative references.
Today’s guest is Liam Luker (@__born_again), the Montrealer behind one of the most exciting curation pages on Instagram right now, Born Again. Dubbing his page as the “Athenaeum of swag,” Luker has been keeping an impossibly watchful eye on seemingly every popping designer, artist, and tastemaker moving the needle in the online underground right now. We’re happy to have him on to share some of his recent favorites with us.
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Hop Nguyen has been one of the underground obsessions for quite a while now and I am no different. I love the work she puts out, whether it’s work she does for others or her independent works she is always layering her work with introspective yet incredibly blunt quotes that I always love to read. This particular shoot hit me particularly hard and I'm not entirely sure why, just something about it was very impactful to me at the time. I feel like all of her work has the same effect on me if i’m being honest but I love this shot.
Phoenix Joy is truly the reason why I ever picked up a camera in the first place. Something about his early work was so impactful to me at the time, he was capturing a lifestyle of some of the biggest fashion icons of the decade and he was such an unknown figure at the time while doing it. It was my dream to be like him when I was a kid. Now his work is still getting better and better and his new shoot for “000X1KJOY” was insane. This image in particular shot by @amerikasweetheart on Instagram was truly the cherry on top for me. The color grading of the picture mixed with the attention grabbing graphic t-shirt is everything I was missing from his early work and then some.
Sara M. Shpigler
Sara M. Shpigler or “serroit” on Instagram is one of my favorite designers out right now. She makes her own unique creations and is so independent from the rest of designers. It seems her sense of style and design is in its own world and I take lots of inspiration from her ability to put out high quality work that is so consistently refreshing.
“Gone Homme” is a new brand founded by artist Bryant Giles that has got all of my attention lately. It’s an incredibly interesting brand filled with potential and the styling choices and artistic direction of the brand is incredibly distinctive and once they start to drop consistent products they will quickly be taken into the mainstream. This particular shot from the brand is my personal favorite. It features a beautifully styled fit filled with insane pieces from the brand that I cannot wait to get my hands on.
“NOSCENEGIRLS” is a brand run by @slowwmafia and @austincbanks on Instagram and they are taking a very interesting approach to their drops. Instead of just doing regularly scheduled drops and making shoots for very specific items, they are instead posting fully styled outfits nearly every single day with an array of different items that often feature one or two of the items they will decide to sell in the future. The entire brand is based around incredibly unique styling and photography and between @slowwmafia styling abilities and @austincbanks eye for photography and videography this brand has incredible potential.
Joshua Jamal is hands down one of the most interesting and in tune designers I've seen in a while. He has a very interesting process of adding lots of depth to very basic and uniform pieces and smothering them in his own very noticeable design process. Generally speaking, his designs are centered around vintage dye colors, interesting patterns, large patches covering his hats and crewnecks along with the statement piece he is known for right now, the camo shorts recently seen on Playboi Carti. I think that Joshua Jamals work is just getting started and the current fixation with individualistic yet simple designs is going to propel him very far with everybody's current fashion style.
@therealsmut on Instagram has a very eccentric and refreshing take on styling outfits. The first time I saw him was when he was modeling for @lourdesnewyork and I was hooked. I find it interesting that although he has many layers on himself at once he doesn't go the route of occupying as much space as possible, he retains his sleek figure while combining everything together. I also love the types of clothing that he uses, it’s a very strange blend of very contemporary designers, with a very western/country boy feel to it. In this fit alone he is wearing sweatpants with TEXAS branded on the side of the leg, along with a @lourdesnewyork t-shirt, rose patterned gloves, a camo t-shirt re-styled as a headpiece and to finish it off some vintage cowboy boots. He always has a ton going on in every outfit but it never feels like it’s forced, it seems so fluent when he wears it it’s clear that he isn’t just dressing for Instagram, he really lives for what he wears.
Who else would you want to see share refs on WW?
If I could choose to see anybody’s reference images it would have to be David Friend’s and Prince Greene’s. These two have had such a monumental impact on me from a super young age and to see how far they’ve grown and pushed their art forward continues to inspire me to this day. I would be lying to say their work is not plastered in everyone's moodboards and I would kill at a chance to see what their influences are.
Follow Born Again on Instagram → here to keep up with one of the keenest creative radars in the game.