Journal
Best of the Month - Vol. 5
The brightest and longest summer's day has passed, but there's still plenty of tropical heat and ice-cold mojitos to consume. Whilst the world news has its ups and downs, we're here to share the things that have made our month ten times better. So here are our favourite things, accounts, tracks and community photos. So grab an appropriate hot / cold beverage and enjoy! Best of the Web Casey Neistat shares his 'First Day Of Summer' video, which captures his teenage fantasies and explores what summer is all about. Which, in his case involves sports cars, superyachts and helicopter rides. We're perfectly happy with poolside cocktails, though. French fashion brand Pigalle teamed up with Parisian creative agency ILL-STUDIO & Nike to give their Rue de Duperreé basketball court site a vibrant makeover. The walls feature hot gradients and hues of fuchsia, dark blue, canary yellow and burnt orange. Vox share this vibrantly fun video exploring the '80s design aesthetic. The 'Memphis Design' movement dominated the '80s with their crazy patterns and vibrant colors. Many designers and architects from all around the world contributed to the movement in order to escape from the strict rules of modernism. Jordan Griska‘s sculpture 'Wreck' - a non-functional model of a Mercedes Benz S550, made entirely from reflective stainless steel. The piece, which is composed of nearly 12,000 individual parts, is meant to highlight both luxury and mortality from a removed perspective. Ustwo Studios released the sequel to their incredibly beautiful, incredibly popular Monument Valley mobile game. The isometric MC Escher style draws you into its world with beautiful colour, and is the perfect train-journey accompaniment. You can download it here (iOS). Tens Soundtrack Early summer is always fantastic for music new and old. We've upped this playlist to 30 tracks, share on Twitter if you're feeling it. Be sure to follow & save your favourites as we update this every month. Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @bigntoasty, @mycameramyrules, @thatshitbuttery, @candyminimal & @aperturefnd. Best of #FilterYourWorld At Tens we put our community first, no matter what it is that we're up to. Here's where we share some of our favourite customer photos with Tens from the last month. We love seeing your tags with Tens, so be sure to tag us + #FilterYourWorld for your chance to be featured! Photos submitted (in order) by @alexanderjdunn, @jmow, @livography, @imagesbyiain, @jocopops, @geobell95, @wcatchpole13, @tomadamgreen & @beckie_finch.
Paris' Pigalle Basketball Court
Formerly cast in a bold, primary coloured scape, the Pigalle Duperreé basketball court has just been given a vibrant makeover. French fashion brand Pigalle teamed up with Parisian creative agency ILL-STUDIO & Nike to give the court site a vibrant makeover. The walls feature hot gradients and hues of fuchsia, dark blue, canary yellow and burnt orange. The court re-up came as part of a new collaboration between Pigalle & NikeLAB, and is sandwiched between two apartment blocks in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The colours match the '90s basketball aesthetic on which the collaboration is based upon. "The anatomy of the human body as well as its performances have had a lifelong relationship with art, since the legacy of greek and roman antiquity, sport is represented as a dominant idea within the beauty of an era. This never-ending quest for modernity has forged a strong bond between functionality and aesthetics over the decades. Through this new court, we wish to explore the relationship between sport, art and culture and its emergence as a powerful socio-cultural indicator of a period in time. We aim to establish visual parallels between the past, present and future of modernism from the ‘Avant Garde’ era of the beginning of the 20th century, to the ‘open source’ times we live in today, and our interpretation of the future aesthetics of basketball and sport in general." - ILL-STUDIO Images by Alex Penfornis & the court's set designer Sebastien Michelini.
Watch: A Tens USA Road Trip
"We drove for 90 hours across 3,392 miles to discover the States' finest views." Follow young Swiss filmmaker Kevin Ringli through west-USA with Tens. He brought with him a very talented crew who dreamed of capturing a new part of the world in a different light. After growing up and developing their skills in and around the Swiss alps, the golden light of the west was calling... Images by David Hubacher Follow the Crew @davidhubacher, @kevlevitate, @opticchina, @dom_nike & @kevin_mr Gear (video):Canon EOS 1DX MKIISigma 20mm f/1.4Sigma 35mm f/1.4Canon 100mm f/2.8Dji Ronin MDji Phantom 3 ProGear (photo):Canon 5D Mark IIICanon 16-35mm f/2.8Canon 35mm f/1.4Sigma 85mm f/1.4
Best of the Month - Vol. 4
It's finally sunglasses season, and as summer arrives we can already taste the cocktail of suncream & piña colada. However, before we hit the pool, here are our most-loved finds, photos, accounts & office tunes from the past 4 weeks. Enjoy, and share if you're feelin' them! Best of the Web Lorenzo Quinn’s ‘Support’ features two giant hands arising from the famous Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. The hands serve as a visual statement of the impact of climate change, and rising sea levels on the historic city. “I wanted to sculpt what is considered the hardest and most technically challenging part of the human body. The hand holds so much power – the power to love, to hate, to create, to destroy.” states Quinn. The sculpture celebrates this year’s Venice Biennale, and will be on display until November 26. The Shiki-Shima Train is a ten-car sightseeing train that was designed by Ken Okuyama - the former Pininfarina Design Director responsible for the Ferrari Enzo. The experience offers a host of delights for its passengers including a dining room serving cuisine from Eastern Japan, an airy lounge, two window-lined observation cars, and suites that combine traditional Japanese design with modern touches. 'The Infinite Now' is a piece by Armand Dijcks in which he brings the oceanscapes of photographer Ray Collins to life in the form of cinemagraphs. Each cinemagraph is created from one of Ray's stills, and sets it in infinite motion, making a unique moment in time last forever. These cinemagraphs inspired André Heuvelman from the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra to get together with pianist Jeroen van Vliet to record a very moving custom soundtrack, which I combined with a selection of the cinemagraphs. This hyper-realistic rendering by visualisation studio VER depict a board-marked concrete house with factory-like glazing, which Mexican architecture studio Lázaro is planning to build in the city of Uruapan. On the Bailang River bridge in the city of Weifang, in the Shandong province of China, stands a mighty installation that takes the title of ‘world’s largest spokeless ferris wheel.’ The ride, which goes by the name of the Bailang Bridge Ferris Wheel, measures a total height of 145 meters — already 10 meters taller than the world-famous London Eye. Tens Soundtrack It's been a great month for new music! Here are some of our office favourites. Who else should we be checking out? Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @lewismillerdesign, @msalisbu, @mattcrump, @geronimoballoons & @mpkelleydotcom. Best of #FilterYourWorld At Tens we put our community first, no matter what it is that we're up to. Here's where we share some of our favourite customer photos with Tens from the last month. We love seeing your tags with Tens, so be sure to tag us + #FilterYourWorld for your chance to be featured! Photos submitted (in order) by @twintheworld, @chloefinlayson, @campbell_ellie, @konradborzy, @hp_visuals & @_mrclark. ~ What things have you discovered this month? Are we missing anything? Message us on Facebook with suggestions!
Burma: To Stand & Stare
By Tom Welsh With a looming job in Singapore I persuaded production to book me an early flight out from London - the very next day. Facing a week on my own anywhere in South East Asia, I juggled the well-trodden destinations... but a couple of friends suggested Myanmar (Burma). Hours before my flight left London I submitted a visa, booked a flight from Singapore to Yangon and a couple of nights in a Hostel. I barely knew anything about the place and joyously had no time for Trip Advisor threads & information overload; I’d packed no digital video kit or laptop, just my Bolex & a backpack of 16mm stock. I dictated my movements each day on advice from locals & other travellers, trying to cover as much of the country as I could by train - travelling North through Bagan up to Mandalay, and further on to Gotiek. It’s a truly beautiful country with undoubtedly the warmest people I’ve met; and a place I spent whole afternoons without seeing another tourist or traveller. The verse is from ‘The Golden Gate’ - a book of British poetry for Burmese school children that I bought on the street on my final day. The poem felt closed my trip perfectly - I’d spent most of the week staring out of train windows feeling a million miles away from London. Soundtrack by the wonderful Leif Vollebekk. I had his record ‘Twin Solitude’ essentially on repeat for the whole of the trip. Shot on Kodak Vision 3 with my Bolex S16. Process & scan by Kodak London. Follow Tom Welsh on Instagram.
Tens 2017: In The Press
With our 2017 now shipping and available to order from anywhere in the world, we wanted to take a look back on some of the love that was shared for our new campaign & collection. We’re thrilled to have received notable press, and can't thank you enough for the support that the community has shown Tens.
Best of the Month - Vol. 3
We're nearing the end of 2017's fourth month already, but things are starting to heat up. With summer on the horizon we're finally approaching sunglasses season. It's been a busy month here at Tens HQ launching our 2017 campaign, but we've still been collating our favourite things from April. Here are our most-loved finds, photos, accounts & tunes from the past 4 weeks. Enjoy, and share if you're feelin' them! Best of the Web Although it's now sold out through June, the colourfully cool Museum of Ice Cream has been catching our eye from across the pond. The immersive experience hit Los Angeles last weekend and features 10 candy-coloured galleries with installations of ice cream-themed art and a little bit of science, and samples of sweet, sweet frozen goodness along the way. There are no tickets left but you can virtually taste the experience via their Instagram here. Minimalist Japanese home goods brand MUJI released their own pre-fab wooden huts. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the huts also offer practical weekend getaway solutions for city-dwellers wishing to escape. Learn more here. "It’s not as dramatic as owning a house or a vacation home, but it’s not as basic as going on a trip." explains MUJI. "Put it in the mountains, near the ocean, or in a garden, and it immediately blends in with the surroundings, inviting you to a whole new life. This was the vision behind our radically new MUJI hut concept." This beautiful new video for Bonobo's 'Bambro Koyo Ganda' ft. Innov Gnawa transports you all over the world, showcasing shots and timelapses that subtly pulse with the beat of the song. Google Earth just released their most impressive update to date. Way more detail, a 'Voyager' feature, and collaboration videos with BBC Earth to explore the incredible natural diversity around the world. Set aside some time in your day to explore here. Also based in Scotland, the Solarcan by Sam Cornwell is a genius photographic invention allowing you to capture exposures of the sun's path over many months. Once set up the Solarcan will capture the Sun's path as it traverses across the sky. Every day the Sun will rise slightly higher or lower depending on the season and create a new path. Over weeks, months or even years, depending on your patience, a beautiful image will begin to form inside the Solarcan on photosensitive card. Check them out on Kickstarter here. Tens Soundtrack It's been a great month for new music! Here are some of our office favourites. A special mention to our friend mtbrd whose music you will have heard in our SS17 'Daydreamers' video. He's just made his album 'Smoovies' available on Spotify, and you can listen to the whole thing here. Who else should we be checking out? Who to Follow Here are some of our favourite accounts to follow on Instagram. If you know anybody that we should be following, let us know! This month we've got @simone_cihlar, @neilkrug, @pat_kay, @twintheworld & @jayzombie. Click on the photos to see more of their work. Best of #FilterYourWorld At Tens we put our community first, no matter what it is that we're up to. Here's where we share some of our favourite customer photos with Tens from the last month. We love seeing your tags with Tens, so be sure to tag us + #FilterYourWorld for your chance to be featured! Photos submitted (in order) by @gaaddison, @jordan.w.hay, @ilsignorfranz, @nclrnld & @afterthelaughtercomestears. ~ What things have you discovered this month? Are we missing anything? Message us on Facebook with suggestions!
The Land of the Rising Sun
Exploring Japan with Sam & Jess The six months of Winter in England’s Capital forces my girlfriend and I into spending copious nights in the deepest darkest depths of the year, plotting where we’re going to escape come Spring. This year, there was a particular draw to Japan. Having visited Tokyo for a severely short four days last year (we were on a RTW trip, it wasn’t a long weekend, that’d be bizarre) we knew we craved the land of the rising sun once again (any sun for that matter).Here’s some images from our 13 day trip that saw us re-visit Tokyo for just under a week, embracing the inspiration that it oozes, before travelling South to Kyoto to explore the city’s temples. Continuing down country on the much famed Shinkansen, we arrived in Okayama, hopping on a local train to the coastal town of Uno as we caught the short ferry to Teshima and Naoshima, or the ‘Art Islands’ as they’re more widely known. Follow @samsbowl & @jessicalew__
Good Things Never Die
A Visual Cuba Trip by Enzo Iriarte “If a person didn’t come to an end, if s/he didn’t dissolve, things would lose their capacity to touch and move ourselves. Indeed, it’s in its uncertainty where life’s most precious gift lies. “When one gives up love on someone else and that lack of pertinence comes to play, even if that person keeps being the same.” The tiny sorrow which goes with a flower drying up, the sense of ending which exists in all things.” I believe in the beauty of all ephemeral things, natural beauty and the implausible. I believe in love and death, do we love thus we’re loved to die OR do we die to love and be loved? Everything comes to an end, whatever the reason may be. A river is itself a river because it ends in the sea, and that’s always like that. It is that constant uncertainty which makes us feel alive. Good things never die.” Follow @enzoiriarte ~ via C-Heads Magazine.
