Thanks to all our supporters and fans. AIRA has now reached the end of its road, but we will definitely see you all down the road under different projects and artistic capacities.

The AIRA blog has been an extension of us. Although it will now end, please feel free to check out Karen’s tumblr because inspirations never end, the love for art, music and fashion never ends.

Love,

Karen and Annie
AIRA sisters

Tags: AIRA

Yes, It’s a day Early

But soon enough

We are all one year +

Happy

Birthday



America




Photos by Hedi Slimane

Tags: Hedi Slimane, Photography

There are 14 Aboriginal Tribes in the island of Taiwan. They are constantly fighting to be seen, to be heard, and simply to be. All of the tribes used song and dance to tell stories, preserve family histories, so these people often have these amazing innate talents. Within, the Paiwan Tribe, there is this amazing group called Matzka. They infused reggae into their traditional tribal music and created an amazing sound using a lot of their mother tongue in the songs. To me, their pure love for music, for performance, for their people is amazing. (FYI: All the tribal languages including Taiwanese are ‘dead languages’ meaning they are not taught in school. The only way to preserve the language is by passing it down--and we AIRA sisters understand/speak one of them!) So not only is their sound new to Asian pop culture, it’s making a statement.



Listen #1
Listen #2
Listen #3

Tags: Aboriginal Taiwanese Band, Matzka and Dehot, Paiwan Tribe

Dear tcolla,

Thank you for capturing these moments. I am in love with your work.

Kai

Tags: Tcolla, Surf, nature, COlors, Movement

LP, Badlands, by Dirty Beaches

During a very late night dinner yesterday, where delirium and alcohol on empty stomach overtook hunger, we started talking about taxi stories, which led to a discussion on the film NIGHT ON EARTH by Jim Jarmusch. In my book, I believe it to be one of the first movies that led itself into creating this whole Indie Vignette movie genre that eventually became mainstream when Love Actually was widely received. But unlike Love Actually, Night on Earth has this dark, black, grimy humour coupled with emotions deep beyond the warm fuzzy stuff, that it rips your guts and heart out, all at the same time. Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re crying until tears start to impair your vision...and then it hurts, just enough for you to process. Black screen for 1/16th of a second and then a new story is happening in front of you, only to feel it all over again. Oh, and when it’s really good----by the end of the movie, you just FLOAT . Waiting for your head to process what was felt in your heart. WHOA. To me, that’s what it’s all about...whether it’s film, music, fashion, books, words, people, LIFE. Once there’s an attraction or spark of curiosity, the feeling becomes ingrained, and this whole energy, universe, balance thing reacts--either super strongly and loving...or an absolute shut down, shut off, black.

Dirty Beaches’ ( aka Alex Zhang Hungtai ) debut LP, Badlands, has this dark, creepy element to it that makes me think of a piece of weathered wood, drifting in the swamps, floating on black dirty waters with just rays of sunshine peaking through everyday. And to many, it parallels films with “stylized noir of David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, and Wong Kar Wai...squeezes the sounds of early rock’n’roll and 1950s music through a lo-fi, distortion-drenched filter.”~pitchfork

But hey, listen to it yourself and see what you feel, how you feel, and why you feel. I love it because it MAKES ME FEEL.

-k.

Tags: Dirty Beaches, Badlands, Rock

and Yes, we rock our tutu over neon shorts.

Researched images of inspiration from Portugal.








All images from the NY Public Picture Library.

Tags: Portugal, Lisboa

Watercolor is probably my favorite medium to work in next to Sharpies/pen. I like the bleeding and softness of it. Using it on normal paper also creates a different rawness to it. It captures the strokes immediately.

Oh, by the way, Spring is here in NYC! Hooray!

Tags: Watercolor

Many of us document ourselves with different mediums. It could be “When can I see You Again” by Babyface that suddenly brings us back to the time of our first love, a smell of porkchops that reminds us of our grandma’s cooking at 12, or simply a photograph of a horrible hairdo back in college of ’03. Whatever it is, we are constantly logging our timeline consciously and unconsciously. For artist Shawn Van Daele, he creates/manipulates photos into a surreal state. Which is the real state? Dream within the reality? Or the reality within the Dream? And that is his chosen medium for his self portraits.

When asked why his self-portraits have that surreal storytelling spin, here's what Van Daele told us: "It feels the most 'real' to me. It's much easier for me to recreate my imagination's image of what I'm feeling than to find it in the world around me. I like that the surrealism triggers something different in each person, while it's still meaningful to me specifically...sort of a choose your own adventure."


“Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.” - M. Gandhi


“There is a silence where hath been no sound/ There is a silence where no sound may be/ In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea...” - Thomas Hood (The Piano)

The Curious Happening of Mr. Red Riding Hood


“I think that people who can’t believe in fairies aren’t worth knowing.” - Tori Amos


“To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream” --Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Tags: Shawn Van Daele, Surrealism, Photography, Manipulation

SurfOceanDawnSunWaveSaltBoardSand Break.


Photo by Justin Hollar. ‘Hurricane Bill’

Dear Prada,

You have really outdone yourself this season. The Espadrille mid-sole ‘creeps’ up on you soooo good! I’ve seen it on men, seen it on women..they are even more beautiful in person.
Can’t wait to try them on.

Sincerely,
AIRA

Tags: Prada, Creeper Shoes, SS 2011

Emotions
High above breaths
Sorrows
Below drown hearts

float

Cease sounds.

-k.

Images by Adeline Mai

Tags: Adeline Mai, Underwater II

Objects as lights within space is relative. But when these ‘Lights’ combine and there’s chemistry, it’s definite.





Feel more here.

Tags: Thomas Albdorf, Photography, conceptual

My first job here coming to NYC was working for FUTURA. At that time, I was young, from Texas, and had no idea how big Futura was. I had no clue what NYC was about except that I wanted to do fashion here and needed to start supporting myself. The day after I landed (mind you, it was my first time trekking in snow too!), I walked the streets going door to door to shops downtown that seemed interesting, trying to get a job. Then finally, at Space Salon, I got referred to a small men’s street wear shop in the LES on Eldridge called RECON. They liked me, so I started the following day. That was how I got my foot into understanding urban street wear, grafitti, what a philly blunt was, skater culture, NY hiphop culture, the LES family (before what ‘hipster’ LES is now), Epsteins, Bearbrick, Sneaker culture, Japanese urban street culture, Miss Behave, BOB bar, Nort, Recon, and most of all Stash and FUTURA--the revolutionary graffiti artists and owners of RECON and NORT. Not only was his graffiti amazing, his clothes were well designed and one of the first American labels to be making streetwear all in Japan. I was the only girl (a young naive girl from Texas), among guys/men that have lived most of their lives in NYC. I was thrown in among them, and forever grateful for letting me be a part of RECON. I am extremely happy to see that Futura is featured at MOCA. Lucky LA.
~K.

Tags: Futura, MOCA