Style & Substance: Essential Feeds For Your Needs
Whether we like to admit it or not, most of us spend up to an hour each day mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. That’s a lot of time in this busy world, so why not put it to good use? We have rounded up some of our favourite Instagram accounts that will update your feed, adding some inspiration and thought back into social media. From the beautiful and timely words of breakthrough Insta-poet Rupi Kaur to the empowering images of diversity presented by London photographer Ronan Mckenzie, hit refresh on your feed with these:
25-year-old Punjabi Canadian Instagram poet Rupi Kaur is the bestselling adult author in the US so far this year, with her first collection of works ‘Milk and Honey’. She has been launched into the spotlight by her global social media following, shares deeply personal and emotive pieces related to her experience as both an immigrant and as a woman. Kaur is the frontrunner in a revival of interest in poetry, and her Instagram account is a refreshing addition of thoughtful words to the image overload of your daily Instagram scroll.
A former English Literature student, photographer Jack Davison understands the meaning of emotion and texture. An incredibly gifted self-taught student of documentary photography, he has already garnered quite a name for himself, from shooting the likes of David Byrne in the FT to shooting Alexander McQueen campaigns. But it’s not the big names that have captured people’s attention, it’s his dense and nuanced imagery, as shown on his Instagram, that takes your breath away. He is most well known for his project 26 States where he spent 10,000 miles on the road in the US.
All the fashions you forgot. This is the archive of dreams brought to you by Gregory Chester, a fashion archivist at London’s One Of A Kind, where Chester spends his days trawling through a private collection of 5000 of the rarest of pieces from the last 60 years of fashion – from Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen to Balenciaga and Azzedine Alaïa. This is a welcome reminder of the breadth of creativity and exploration in fashion design, at a time where collections seem increasingly homogenised and commercial.
Earlier this year we had the chance to visit the Ma-tt-er studio when we met founder Seetal Solanki. Ma-tt-er is a London-based ‘research design studio that explores the past, present and future of materials’. Consulting for brands ranging from fashion to the automotive industry, Ma-tt-er is paving the way for an exciting and sustainable way of utilising the abundance of natural resources we have at our fingertips. Using new technologies and materials from beeswax to seaweed, their Instagram feed is an enlightening peek into a future of endless possibilities in design.
We featured photographer Chantal Anderson a while back, as she was finishing her mesmerising project New Myths, a portrayal of life as a young adult in the remotest corner of the Icelandic fjords. Chantal’s Instagram feed feels like a road trip through some of the most beautiful and distant parts of the globe, with hazy depictions of breathtaking natural landscapes from Mexico to the Italian Riviera, and the people who inhabit them. Her talent behind the lens has led her to projects with brands like Yves Saint Laurent, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of her work in the next year.
An important voice in the rising prominence of the female lens, Ronan Mckenzie is an uncensored fashion and lifestyle photographer hailing from East London. Her images depict the people in her life, presenting women in their true light and ultimately changing the way that women, particularly women of colour, are portrayed in fashion photography. Her images regularly feature in publications such as i-D and Dazed, and last year she produced the first issue of her own publication Hard Ears, a photographic exploration of people from all different walks of life, from the UK and Portugal to Nigeria and Vietnam.
We are always on the lookout for interesting new photographers, and Aint Bad is the best place to discover just that. An independent publisher of little known contemporary photographers based in Savannah, Georgia, Aint Bad provides support to a growing community of creatives from around the world, finding beauty and provocation in the everyday. Check out their Instagram page to discover for yourselves, and if you really like it you can buy their work in the form of polaroid books, art-zines and more.
This beautiful and meticulously curated Instagram feed comes courtesy of Clo Studio, a multi-disciplinary agency providing creative direction for the fashion industry. The feed offers the finest selection of imagery from around Instagram, taking from fashion houses, architecture, and landscape photography to present a constant inspiration board, loved by everyone from Vogue editors to Virgil Abloh. We warn you that the perfect colour palette of this feed might make you instantly want to overhaul your own…
