In ‘Trauma Plot,’ Jamie Hood writes herself whole again
Meet Jamie. A book character, a woman, a friend. She is a reliable narrator and someone people would call a survivor; of multiple assaults, of...
‘Rarely Do I Dream’ captures the space between waking life and sleep with deft dreamscapes
...Maya Kotomori: The title, Rarely Do I Dream. Rarely do you dream? Trevor Powers: The title came to me during the last tour cycle. I’ve...
To bleed the myth of the American woman
“I’ve created an autobiographical label, exploring a composite of feminine archetypes. This season feels like a biopsy—of myself as a founder, muse, and brand,” says...
Testing the scientific method at Copenhagen Fashion Week
Associate Editor Maya Kotomori shares the disproven thought experiments from CPHFW Autumn/Winter 2025...
The Shoptimist: An advertisement in influencer’s clothing
In her monthly column, amateur business analyst Maya Kotomori explores the ongoing litigation between two beigefluencers through a modern history of advertising...
‘Vanya on Huron’ reminds audiences of the devastating power of yearning
Matthew Gasda’s Vanya on Huron, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s classic in a new translation by Albina Aleksandrova, highlights the timeless affliction of human desire....
Prada’s latest collection creates identity from disorder
The delicate space between when a libidinal urge becomes a decision—this is where Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons decided to start for their Fall/Winter 2025...
Amanita expands close to home
Later this evening, Amanita—a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by Garrett Goldsmith, Jacob Hyman, Tommaso Rositani Suckert, and Caio Twombly—will unveil its second location...
The Shoptimist: The transitional gift edit
In a holiday edition of her monthly column, Maya Kotomori shares four brands redefining what it means for clothing to transform for temperature, mood, or...
‘Modeling Ecologies: Take Care’ creates a living archive of the Caribbean
You can sketch a house using basic geometry: a caret atop two parallel lines for the roof and walls. ⌂. A rectangle on one side...
The Shoptimist: An unbearable uniformity of being
...reduce the key aspects of my personality to any Junya Watanabe collection between 2000 and 2009, a rainbow order of Lanvin ballerina flats, and stripey...
Harley Chamandy’s ‘Allen Sunshine’ is a meditation on the quiet beauty of nature
...accolade. Document sits down with the director to discuss the quiet beauty of life’s subtle, often unspoken moments, and how they’re best captured on screen....
The Shoptimist: Put an end to the microtrend
For her monthly column, skeptic and hater Maya Kotomori shares a list of the most abhorrent as-seen-on-TikTok looks she’s caught in the wild...
When post-irony renders real and fake indistinguishable, irreverence becomes a political weapon
Peace is a naked woman from Greece. Her body, according to fourth-century BCE playwright Aristophanes, stopped the Peloponnesian War. In Lysistrata, its eponymous lead recruits...
Jake Gyllenhaal and Hans Ulrich Obrist put language into action
As a stage and screen actor, Jake Gyllenhaal is in the business of making realities from language. His personal theories on acting are like a...
In Tahir Karmali’s ‘Eternal Rent,’ infrastructure is human
Something is always being built in New York City. Buildings go up, they’re torn down, they’re adorned with scaffolding. Their structures vibrate with jackhammers punching...
Document Launches Fall/Winter 2024–25: A New Perspective
...as reactionaries misremember past transgressive avant-gardes while equally fetishizing new technologies and old faiths. As Document’s Associate Editor Maya Kotomori writes in her essay on...
R. Jamin’s ‘Temperance’ is a study in the spirituality behind science
...sits down with Jamin to discuss the divine intonation of Temperance, and her own scientific method for making art. Maya Kotomori: I want to start...
Darryl Bell brought his Midwestern barbecue heritage to Robert Glasper’s The Black Radio Experience music festival
...opening a restaurant, and what makes a good potato salad. Maya Kotomori: What’s the festival been like for you so far? Darryl Bell: It’s been...
The Shoptimist Speaks: Mati Hays of House of Iconica
...peace. Maya Kotomori: Tell me about the scene. Mati: I get a lot of respect from people because I demand respect. My thing is just,...
Inside Pete Rock’s musical dictionary
...hop, the importance of trusting your impulses as a musician, and his enduring love for the art form. Maya Kotomori: I have to start off...
The Shoptimist: Myths, markets, and the business model of hype
...shared by Maya Kotomori 🔨 (@utilitiesnotincluded) But soon after descending from the box truck and back to the street, the buyer’s high that sustained me...
Larry Gus’s ‘Kerkis (Judas Tree)’ is playing games
Larry Gus—the stage name for musician Panagiotis Melidis—is stressed the fuck out. He’s in a darkened hall of clunky computers staring at one particular monitor...
Best in show: Men’s Spring/Summer 2025 and Women’s Resort Fashion Week—Paris
“The ultimate trick is to appear natural. But sublimely natural,” the early 20th-century designer Paul Poiret once said. While he was referring to his invention...
Best in show: Men’s Spring/Summer 2025 and Women’s Resort Fashion Week—Milan
June is a time for vacation, or holiday as the Europeans call it: dash away to your nearest, cleanest body of water, lushest tropical locale,...
The Shoptimist: It ain’t the same now
In a Juneteenth special of her monthly column, hotep-in-training Maya Kotomori puts on her Dr. Umar kufi to analyze the commodity fetish of hip-hop...
In the experimental play ‘4,000 Dollars,’ the streets of New York City are a fiscal fight club
...of life in New York, language systems, and the art of numbers in 4,000 Dollars’ final weekend of performances. Maya Kotomori: Tell me about the...
Sónar by Day, according to curators Antònia Folguera and Ikram Bouloum
...programming we’ll see in Barcelona. Autechre at Sónar 1996. Maya Kotomori: How did you both get interested in techno music and what led you to...
Decoding the ‘it’ factor with Abbey Lee
...on the sensitivity behind evil characters, her dream collaborators, and the importance of female relationships on set. Abbey Lee wears Tank top, jacket, jeans, shoes,...
Inside the New York Live Arts 2024 gala
On the evening of Monday, May 20th, New York Live Arts held its annual Live Ideas gala to recognize the foundation’s relentless dedication to boundary-pushing...
Lucila Safdie takes a blogger-era approach to the modern woman
...and Miuccia Prada. Maya Kotomori: How did you first get into clothing design, and where does your inspiration come from? Lucila Safdie: From when I...
Bill T. Jones and Hank Willis Thomas reanimate creative freedom
...expression [‘New Mythologies’]. Whose new myths are we talking about? Artists individually, or accepted myths in culture? Maya Kotomori: That is the question, isn’t it?...
Rhizome throws annual gala afterparty in collaboration with NYC-based performance series 29 Speedway
The night air whips around the East River-adjacent streets of the Financial District, forming a giant wind tunnel. Concrete and glass monuments—police precincts and towers...
Club Document: Celebrating SS24 with Erykah Badu, Michèle Lamy, and Editor-in-Chief Nick Vogelson
...Camille Sojit Pejcha, Fashion Critic-at-Large Katharine Zarrella, Editor-at-Large Ann Binlot, Assistant Editor Maya Kotomori, and Lifestyle Editor Katie Rex along with Bottega Veneta’s Jenny Kim,...
Confronting emerging mythologies from the striptease to gang wars to ‘The Sims’
...deep does the image go? How many pores are too many, making a face so convincing it feels like a threat? The Tour de France...
At Pageant’s second annual gala, experimental performance reigns supreme
Up three flights of stairs behind a metal adjoining a dimly lit nail salon, Brooklyn venue Pageant’s wood-floored studio is bedecked in silver tinsel and...
Maya Hawke and Kim Gordon dissect the poetics of commerce
...doing that. Dress, coat, tights, shoes, and gloves by Prada Pre-Fall ’24. Maya Kotomori: In a way that’s a new mythology in music, where those...
The Shoptimist Speaks: In conversation with Christine Alcalay
...Maya Kotomori: Tell me about how you first learned about tailoring. Christine Alcalay: It came with me being born. My mom and I came here...
Aïsha Devi lives in the fifth dimension
Electronic musician Aïsha Devi is a metaphysicist in addition to being one of the most in-demand underground artists. “I developed my own techniques combining alchemy,...
Announcing Katharine Zarrella, Document Journal’s Fashion Critic-at-Large
...breed of fashion critics with historian-level personal collections, but an avid proponent of savoring fashion journalism in a sea of online style content. In a...
The Shoptimist: the olfactory side of high fashion
In her monthly column for Document, the formerly stinky Maya Kotomori examines the world of luxury fragrance...
Cooper Brovenick’s diagnosis for the new age
Art adviser and curator Cooper Brovenick’s disarming sincerity is, like art, simultaneously material and immaterial: physical in his outreached hand offering me a glass of...
Inside Saint Laurent’s secret Fall/Winter 2024 menswear show
Wilted black calla lilies, anemones, and orchids covered the walls of the runway entrance, backlit by a giant reflective YSL logo mounted that appeared to...
Costaiia helps preserve Indigenous textile craftsmanship
...a new child before los conquistadores? A Costaiia dress is built on considering the answers. Maya Kotomori: What was the inception of Costaiia? Patricia Maria...
Style, sustainability, and social democracy: Inside CIFF, Copenhagen’s International Fashion Fair
Fashion Correspondent Maya Kotomori explores the future of the industry at the Danish city’s 62nd annual trade show...
In ‘The Wrong Movie,’ an apartment building and a ring light become metaphors for human connection
Guns are iPhones, as drones are people, as influencers are actors. Visual artist and director Keren Cytter makes these comparisons cinematic at the 74th Berlinale,...
Meet four unique designers from CIFF 62 x Revolver
...four of CIFF’s finest to chat all things unique to their practice in Copenhagen. Henrik Vibskov Maya Kotomori: Have you been experimenting with any new...
Thom Browne’s Gothic fantasy
There are many mysteries to designer Thom Browne, but one thing is certain: he’s well-read. The American suit maker returned to The Shed in Hudson...
‘Queues’ by Louis Osmosis serializes artistic epiphany
...join him there. Maya Kotomori: Is this hole in the wall a part of the show? Louis Osmosis: Yeah, so this is [the gallery’s] storage...
