In our third episode of My Dinner with Sumayya, the architect sits across the table from British artist and writer Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, reknowned for her portraits of fictitious Black figures with their rich, dark palette and almost eerie sense of animation. Sumayya and Lynette discuss colour and its absence, the nature of the figurative, and the decay inherent in the very idea of paint.
In the second episode of our original series My Dinner with Sumayya, shot on location at Mayfair’s Park Chinois, the acclaimed architect Sumayya Vally sits down with Pakistani-American singer and songwriter Ali Sethi. This month, Ali released his debut solo album, Love Language, and he and Sumayya discussed the album’s hybrid, exuberant sensibility, the experiential nature of art, resistance to categorisation, and the importance of infinity.
In the first episode of a new, original series My Dinner with Sumayya, the acclaimed architect Sumayya Vally sits down for an intimate, searing conversation with sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan. The series, inspired by the cult 1981 film My Dinner with Andre, is formed of far-ranging conversations between Sumayya and those whose work shapes our world: architects, musicians, artists and more, all shot on location at Mayfair’s beautiful Park Chinois restaurant. Lawrence is the founder of Earshot, the world's first not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the study of sound – with Sumayya, he discusses Earshot’s work reconstructing Saydnara prison from testimony of what prisoners heard, and more recently, corroborating the call from Hind Rajab from inside a bullet-punctured car.
Erik Davis discusses his canonical 2019 book High Weirdness, an enquiry into the thin line between psychosis and religious experience in 1970s California. Informed by the previous decade's countercultural energies, figures like Philip K. Dick, Terence McKenna, and Robert Anton Wilson each carved new ways of experiencing and imagining reality.
The unveiling of the new Fondation Cartier premises in Paris underscores the institution’s enduring and transformative presence in the global art landscape.
In Florence, a new perfume is launched – and this one is inspired by a silver fish that feeds on algae and has equisitely sweet flesh.
In the first of a trio of readings for TANK, Rosie Stockton reads “Dear End” from their collection Fuel, a collection that describes the overlapping and co-inciting modes of capital, extraction, fantasy, loss, gender, and labour. In this spirit, Rosie reads in front of the assembled posters from Paris’s May ’68 uprisings.
“Like cupid I can only shoot / one arrow at a time / but I’m practising, comrade”. Rosie Stockton reads from their long poem “Carmen et Error”, from Fuel.
Rosie Stockton reads from their long poem “Carmen et Error”, from Fuel, a collection that traces how “underneath the petty vengeances and idle whimsies that Ovid tracked as metamorphosis, even deeper kinds of transformation lurk” (Chris Nealon).
This issue, we’re investigating how lifestyle has swallowed up the phenomena previously known as culture. While culture is fundamentally about creative action and mutual fashioning – how people intentionally shape their worlds and social realities – lifestyle is about pleasure, product, and self-optimisation. In this issue, we dive into anti-ageing technologies, Instagram food culture, healthcare communism, the nature of the internet, the perils of the algorithm, the fetish of the property TV show, how Intellectual Property law has ruined film, and much, much more. Order the new issue today
Life guarantee! Inspecting gadgets on the streets of London. Videography and editing by Ali Golsorkhi-Ainslie. Music by mobygratis.
Venetian heritage meets show-stopping spectacle in Rene Caovilla’s Cleo, the go-to shoe for the red carpet. Video by Matei Octav.
Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection follows the lives of Tom and Anna, two Southern Europeans living in Berlin, working as graphic designers. Based on George Perec’s Things: A Story of the Sixties, the novel is the story of two people defined almost entirely through where they live and what they consume. Here, Vincenzo reads an extract for TANK. You can read our interview with him in the new issue here.
Spot the touristy touches. Longchamp and Gloverall fuse French flair and British craft for a capsule collection that can't get enough of the city. Videography and editing by Ali Golsorkhi Ainslie. The music is armonk by mobygratis.
For his debut CHANEL collection, Matthieu Blazy entered into what he described as “Une Conversation” between past and present, between the house's esteemed heritage and Blazy's future-facing vision. The set was decorated with planets, a celestial backdrop for a collection that was both grounded and otherworldly. Menswear traditions – charvet shirts, tailored trousers – were reclaimed and reworked. Silk suits draped just so, 2.55 bags crushed in hand, and tweed that felt lived-in gave the collection a sense of effortless luxury.
Perhaps the most hotly tipped show of the season, Jonathan Anderson's debut for Dior boasted the Northern Irish designer's signature blend of restraint and subversion. Opening with a film directed by Adam Curtis, the show immediately set a reflective tone, archival footage interwoven with modern gestures, matching the quiet immediacy of the garments. With sculptural buccaneer hats, cropped bar jackets and bows galore, every look felt considered, as if Anderson was asking: What does Dior mean today – and what might it become?
Only two seasons into her tenure at Givenchy, Sarah Burton has already established a decisive new direction for the brand. Her SS26 collection was a luscious ode to female sensuality: oversized trench coats cinched at the waist; suit jackets over underwire bras; new iterations on the brand's signature little black dress. Burton is one of the few women creative directors to helm a major fashion house this season, and her mastery of line and curve, of the female silohuette, was unmatched this season.
In lieu of a runway presentation, Demna's first collection for Gucci saw the newly appointed creative director premiere The Tiger, a star-studded film directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn. Demi Moore stars as Barabara Gucci, the perpetually stressed mother of the dysfunctional Gucci dynasty whose world begins to unravel over the course of one chaotic weekend. The clothes – lavish, always teetering between high glamour and kitsch – managed to combine Demna's shock-jock sensibilities with Gucci’s storied opulence.
Leatherwork and nods to equestrian heritage have always been the cornerstones of Hermès' brand identity. Their SS26 collection “Free Rein” showcased both in abundance: inspired by a Carmargue saddle found in the brand achives, creative director Nadège Vanhée applied its curved detailing to jackets, bags and waistcoats.
Alessandro Michele's show for Valentino was a cautiously optimistic ode to the powe of beauty in dark times. Entitled “Fireflies”, the show drew inspiration from Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini’s reflections on resilience, and the garments were simultaneously flowing and precise. With vibrantly hued silk gowns, beautifully embellishments with lacework and sequins, it was a celebration of individuality in an ever-divided world.
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons termed their SS26 collection “a response to the overload of contemporary culture”, a celebration of liminality at a time of intense polarisation. In the prototypically deconstructive Prada style, garments that appeared normal from far away revealed their strangeness upon closer inspection: loose, unstructured bralettes, wrap skirts made from multiple different textiles, mini skirts worn with cosy knitted cardigans.
After a historic run under the mantle of Jonathan Anderson, questions lingered about how Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the new creative directors of Loewe, could measure up. The result was a confident response rather than a wholesale reinvention. Classic Loewe codes were reframed: what appeared to be a terry fabric dress was revealed to be made from leather, in a nod to the brand's heritage. ccessories were playful yet considered, colors warm yet restrained, and every look suggested a modern wearer who moves effortlessly between work, leisure, and expression.
Art rock surrealists Dry Cleaning release Secret Love, a record steeped in cheese, violence and the strange romance of keeping things to yourself.
The Irish experimentalist discusses collaboration, their new album Songs for Nothing and the infinite wisdom of Sinéad O'Connor.
The Kampala-based metal innovator discusses collaboration and his new album The Adept.
The New York industrial rockers spell it out for us.
The Danish poet and songwriter on love, loss and Luton Airport.