Table of contents for Autumn 2023 in Dazed & Confused

September always feels like a reset for me. A new season brings with it a new energy that I find so reinvigorating. Since becoming editor-in-chief at Dazed, my vision has always been outward-looking. I’m proud of how, over these two years, we’ve managed to not only maintain but develop a truly global point of view. When we start to imagine a new issue in its early stages, we search far and wide for ideas and stories. Since taking the helm here at the magazine, I’ve endeavoured to bring a global perspective, and with this new season I wanted to home in on that. Dazed is synonymous with creative fearlessness and groundbreaking art and expression, and our autumn issue is testament to that. Rosalía, the Catalan superstar who conquered the world…

From heat-reactive puffers to actual live horses, the season’s must-have accessories according to TikTok’s finest West Londoner Fem is a social-media style guru and the fashion-brand supremo behind NSLB. In 2024, he plans to “start dressing like James Bond if he was from White City estate” @fempv DAZED Emily in Paris never had to put up with Amine, a TikTok comedy star who stalks the streets of the French capital sharing awkward interactions with the locals: “Attenzione, police!” @notamine DAZED…

Indian filmmaker Kanu Behl doesn’t watch his own films after they’ve been cut. Not even at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes film festival, where his latest film, Agra, premiered in May this year. Instead, Behl makes it a habit to wait outside the doors while the film is rolling, staring at his watch – waiting for the first round of squeamish viewers to exit. They do. For Agra, this occurs at the half-hour mark – our antihero, Guru (played by Mohit Agarwal), spends two-and-a-half minutes jerking off on the toilet. The scene is grim: grey tiles featuring dolphins and bubbles, a grubby cistern, cobalt-blue bottle of toilet cleaner, and a phone in one hand, where Guru types his sexual roleplay fantasies to an anonymous chatroom user with the screen name…

“I think we need to push our genre forward… Because we’re just getting discovered by the rest of the world – that sound seems fresh to them, but for how much longer?” Some time last year, Amaarae and her creative director, Briana, were driving through Accra, chewing over the ascendant singer’s next move. “In Ghana, there are a lot of religious posters,” remembers the musician of their journey, “huge posters, promoting churches, promoting God – whatever.” The billboards are commonplace in the artist’s home nation, she says when we meet via video-call. “There’s this one huge poster on the highway that says ‘REPENT! JESUS IS COMING SOON.’” With all the instinct of a cartoon double act – a ‘you thinking what I’m thinking?’ moment – the pair turned to one…

AUTUMN 2023 STARTERS: CASSIE YEUNG LOCATION: PHILADELPHIA NR. 26 Cassie Yeung An honorary member of TikTok’s Visionary Voices class, Chinese American food creator Cassie AKA @cassyeungmoney has amassed tens of millions of likes on TikTok. Her trick? Creating slow-moving, easy to follow stepby-steps to counter the at-times intimidating output of her peers. A professional dancer for most of her adult life, Cassie pivoted to cheffing and, soon after, Chef Ramsay came calling, inviting her to compete on Next Level Chef this year Orange Chicken 1lb chicken thigh or breast 1 tsp grated ginger 1 tsp grated garlic 1 egg 1 tsp soy sauce 1 tsp neutral flavoured oil 1 tbsp cornstarch 3 tbsp flour 1 tsp white pepper ½ tsp salt Sauce: Zest of one orange Juice of one orange (about ¼ cup) 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 cup chicken broth 2…

Madeline Argy’s world shifted with a worm. Well, the worm first found its way into her sister’s leg while she was travelling, and then Argy decided to tell TikTok about it: how she pleaded with her sibling to see a doctor, and how, horrifyingly, a second worm-shaped protrusion in the limb appeared. This squirmy storytime was Argy’s first viral moment, clocking up 5.7m likes and accelerating the 23-year-old’s now-6.5m follower count across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. “Things changed with the worm video,” Argy tells me. “Someone came up to me in public to say hi. That was the first time something from inside my phone entered the real world. It’s all kind of hit me in the face since then.” Whether you’re a chronic scroller or have fleeting dalliances with…

“We Haitians, despite the misery, love beauty, love to get dressed up, to smell and look good,” says fashion designer David André. “So many people tend to believe that fashion doesn’t affect a society. They are so wrong. Human beings always seek change. They yearn for new tastes and new styles, and this desire is adequately fulfilled by fashion.” André’s comments reflect my own experiences travelling in Haiti over the last few years, researching a book about the country’s music scene. I remember churchgoers in their Sunday best and streets full of schoolkids in pin-sharp navy uniforms, proud Mardi Gras Indians in headdresses hung with tinsel, and Vodou worshippers in paper-white dresses and headscarves gleaming in the early morning light. In my sweat-stained t-shirts and jeans thick with road dust,…

There are several defining moments at any given Spice show; the telltale signs are as inevitable as her ostentatious display of brightly coloured wigs. One: If she decides to walk out in a pair of over-the-knee stiletto-heeled boots, trust that they are merely there for show and will be kicked off faster than she can command the DJ to “run di riddim!”. Two: The Olympic-ready assortment of acrobatic abilities she’ll display are challenged only by Team Spice, her women-only dance crew consisting of round-the-way girls with untameable energy. Their scene-stealing antics showcase a comprehensive mix of tumbles, somersaults, speaker-box mounting, stage-truss climbing, splits, shakes, bumflicks and loose hips, which throw the crowd into a frenzy of ascending decibels. She’ll hand-pick girls from the audience to share the stage with her…

INO A casting and scouting director working with brands from Louis Vuitton to Kiko Kostadinov as well as Tokyo-based creative collectives Babylon and Alter, Ino cast main fashion stories for Dazed’s spring and summer 2022 editions with photographer Takashi Homma BEST VIEWS OF THE CITY AND / OR PLACE THAT NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT My apartment’s tiny rooftop, haha. Tokyo is a busy city with a fast-paced working and living environment, but I can always find peace in this spot. Although it’s just on the third floor, it has a very relaxing view of the neighbourhood and sometimes, in the summer, you can even see fireworks from far away. BEST PLACE TO GRAB FOOD Bamboo is always one of the best places to eat with friends. They don’t really do…

Caleb Kwarteng Prah brings photography and painting together in works inspired by everyday Ghanaian life. For Prah, the past provides a rich field for rethinking image-making in the present, particularly by paying attention to the conditions and forces which have shaped the understanding of Black African life and its representations. The Ghanaian artist’s practice is inspired by storytelling, and his process involves close dialogue with his community to inform the stories that he tells. Prah also gives visibility to those who have been overlooked: in his 2017 series, Dukes of Trotro, he appropriates a work by Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, which portrayed the Duke of Urbino and his wife in side profile staring at each other. Prah recasts the couple as trotro (Ghanaian minibus) drivers adopting the same…

Sometimes, greatness needn’t be defined by metrics you have no control over. It’s also about succumbing to the belief that who you are today is as permanent as a handprint on a cold window. The life of an artist can be like this – a cycle of rebirth, a snake eating itself. Little Simz has no idea who she’ll be tomorrow, next month or ten years from now. What’s assured is her exploration of self through art, and this, probably the most beautiful element of being an artist, is emblematic of the ouroboros. “I guess more people know who I am now,” says Simz with a wry laugh, commenting on life since the release of Grey Area in 2019. “Not much has changed really; I’m still doing what I’ve always…

Last autumn, the lights were pulsing on the stage of a small theatre in midtown Manhattan. A reggaeton medley swarmed like an elevated heart rate, shifting, swelling and cascading across the room and out on to the streets of the city. The last 20 songs have led up to this moment – the top of the third act in her live shows – when Rosalía invites up a small group of audience members to dance with her on stage. As I joined the stage rush, and the previous hour of carefully executed choreography and acrobatic vocals gave way to a frenzy of pure energy, I realised just how easy it was to be drawn into Rosalía’s orbit. At 30 years old, she’s prepossessed, exuding a kind of calm you’d find…

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