In his photographic work, Brendan prefers taking the time to create a potent single image, which reminds me of how he loves to stare at the smokestacks and the Williamsburg bridge outside his window. In a chunky herringbone Ben Sherman coat (“A knock-off of Dior,” he says) he speaks of preferring, for his films, screenplays based on reality but with an exaggerated, sci-fi dimension. One, that he was creating at the time of this interview, was a speculative story about what happens to jetsetters when they absorb too much radiation from the x-ray machines at airports. So sincere in his quest for authenticity, Brendan appreciates classic Fred Perry shirts and Bailey’s brogues, as well as the Talking Heads, Joy Division, and Roy Orbison. When asked about how he felt about Madonna, he politely responded: “To be honest, I’ve only heard a few of her songs. I haven’t really followed up.”

If you love Brendan, you may also like Nick Fouquet, Nick Cohen and Rogan Gregory.

A little Joan Crawford meets punk, with her tattoos as accents to peplum jackets and vintage cocktail dresses, Princess Julia is a legendary DJ who enjoys fads, but does not follow them. Suspenders with a red pencil skirt and suede lace ASOS pumps are as trendy as she gets. Unphased by standing out in her Westwood pirate patent mary janes, she considers herself a pioneer in lifestyle as well– between her love for music and writing, and her immersion into the cultural eclecticism of London. “My grandmother was stagey and flamboyant,” says Princess Julia, who feels that old ladies have the best style of all.

If you love Princess Julia you may also like Diane Naegel, Sorcha O’Raghallaigh and Paisley Dalton.

Comfortable in herself — tailored but not uptight — in an American Apparel tanktop and Opening Ceremony trousers, Wandie finds being alone, even while traveling, a luxury. Autonomy is a constant theme in her life. She produced an independent feature film in the past year that was inspired by the work of British director Mike Leigh and his method of creating characters and a story from the ground up. Wandie’s mom, a great source of strength for her, brought individual fruit cups made up of watermelon, kiwi, and pomegranate to everyone on the set on the first day of filming. Behind her oversized Karen Walker sunglasses and glamorous, very “LA” vintage sundress, Wandie feels that breaking down every day helps her when she’s under extreme stress. Either that, or a trip to Laguna Beach and one of her favorite shops– The African Hut.

If you love Wandie, you may also like Nadia, Sophie Assa and Wamuhu Waweru.

Part American Indian, Julius’ family history has the overtones of the romance and dramatic beauty that he lives for. A tidal wave in 1900 in Galveston, TX propelled his ancestors to the East coast. His big persona makes Lily Pulitzer pants debonair with a navy double breasted blazer and a white shirt unbuttoned so as to reveal a crystal choker. Radiating good energy, through the rocks he wears on his body and the plethora of authentic collectibles that he lives among, is a calling for Julius. His hyper-artistic sense of dressing is surreal, like an embroidered kimono with ivory bangles to the elbow and antique claws on his fingers. “There’s no bull shit with me,” Julius states. He even admits in this interview that he is a hundred and one years old.

If you love Julius, you may also like Natalie Gibson, Louise Ingalls Sturges and Patrick McDonald.

As a kid, Sarah was a strange mix of dancer and skateboarder, who found herself after college in the front row of shows at London Fashion Week after talking herself into an internship at W Magazine. It was there that she says she was thrown into writing, working on shoots, and covering street style, but, Sarah throws herself into things. It reminds me of her father who became a Rabbi midstream in his life. She dreams up a red flamenco dress and manifests it, like she found a niche designing camera straps — her first foray into designing accessories — and playing guitar, singing, dancing, writing, with a little tambourine in her bands, Open Ocean and Rockit From A Drone. To be willing to be a beginner takes courage and vision, much like Sarah projects in her vintage velvet high waisted suit.

If you love Sarah, you may also like Louise Ingalls Sturges, Maria Elba and Emily Leonard.

For Fritz and Christina there are no boundaries between life, style, and their zeal to help people heighten their own self-awareness. Life is their stage. Fritz’s criteria for an interesting outfit is whether or not it can be recognized while he is a blur running in it, often over the Williamsburg Bridge. This is why he never wears jeans. Instead, you might see him in his red “filmmaker’s” ensemble, or a gold jacket and unisex leggings — kind of signature for him, as is his mustache, the “international passport to being male,” Fritz says. Once, leaving a play in the metallic piece, a member of the audience was certain that Fritz had been in the cast. By making a “difference” in the world, he feels, maybe somebody will be a little more of themselves. “I think the interplay of our similarities and our differences can take us to a new place in terms of social progress and personal satisfaction.” Christina, in a vintage Pucci dress, toile Dr. Marten’s, torn stockings over crocheted ones, and a Victorian jacket worn backwards, explains that, for her, being “in style” can make you afraid to have fun with how you dress, not to mention what you miss when you get that feeling of finding an unexpected treasure.

When Fritz first met Christina, he put her in his phone as “Christina Punk”. It takes guts to add an exaggerated Mozart wig to a white lace dress while walking down the street, but going against the grain is what creates change; the truest definition of punk. It’s not just dressing up in leather and studs. Punk is what Fritz’s father was living when, as a Roman Catholic priest in New Zealand, he tried to introduce Planned Parenthood and suffered the consequences: getting excommunicated from the priesthood. And Christina’s sewing together a shirt out of his father’s old ones for Fritz is another form of punk; making a conscious and original choice, no matter how small, matters. In his new book, How To Live The Good Life, Fritz explains its main character, who is trying to make other people happy by making his own life happy; someone who is doing something a little bit beyond himself.

If you love Fritz & Christina, you may also like Max Vernon, Lizzie Brandt and Hannah & Landon.

This morning I noticed a tweet that said something like, “We would never leave the celebrities naked on the red carpet,” and I winced at the idea that we have gotten to a point in our culture that they would be helpless dressing themselves and looking good. Cindy could walk down the red carpet in her Topshop white-crocheted shift and her favorite Saludo espadrilles and steal the show, let alone in her black hourglass dress with metallic ballet flats (and not an ounce of bling). Treasure what you have, she feels, and never caught up in what everybody has. That attitude makes you want everything she has on.

If you love Cindy, you may also like Tamara Lowe, Andrea Mary Marshall and Jesse Kamm.

“Dirty hippy” or “Lesbian” — you name it, she gets it in the fearful taunts of her peer group, but Lucia is unfazed and tosses off those who ascribe to the dummied down culture of her generation in favor of an insatiable hunger for consuming and creating art and liberating the world from the very prejudices she is the object of. She is a member of the Riot Grrl Scouts, “we have sleepovers once a month and talk about feminist issues, body image, pro-choice… we organize events and activities,” she states. Her fortitude and passion are not surprising given the tight nuclear family of artists, musicians, actors, and painters that surround her. Lucia appeared in a Beck video when she was 8 rapping and dancing (he is her uncle) and sang with Kimiya Dawson after the singer saw Lucia on Facebook working on a cover of one of her songs. She is committed to her art, with pencil being her strong suit. Lucia loves drawing the human form and accentuating a subject’s most unique features.

Attending school in make-up inspired by Ziggy Stardust, electric yellow leggings she got from Sia after performing together and her mom’s jean jacket — “From a long time ago,” she says — it’s clear that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes from a lineage of independent minded people. Her 97-year-old grandfather still drives himself around and takes care of himself; her great grandmother designed and built dollhouses, and her grandfather has spent his entire life in bands and owns a Thai restaurant full of murals he painted himself. Her grandmother made ceramics, her father is an actor and her Mom is an interior decorator. Beyond her years, or just how you might be if educated about life with an open mind, Lucia says, “If you don’t find the naked body beautiful, then you suck.” I second that.

If you love Lucia, you may also like Annakim Violette, Kay Kasparhauser Goldberg and Sarah Temple-Raston.

The two in live in a way that is refreshingly traditional and yet distinctly modern, much like the quaint countryside to which they retreat from their urban lives. Preferring Dostoevsky and the spoken word to Facebook and Twitter, Hassan wears his Dad’s khakis with a unique touch; he rolls up the hem to fine-tune the proportion with a chambray shirt cut up into a vest worn over a t-shirt. Nadia is interested in esoterica; books like The Poetics of Space, films like Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant and taking photos with film as opposed to digital. She makes kitschy corduroy overalls with a Mickey Mouse belt and sweaters recovered from her childhood seem 21st century. Few can tuck socks into trousers with handmade brogues and possess both a serious stature while remaining hip like Hassan, or exude both a sultry and edgy glamour in a calf-length dirndl skirt with a chopped-off man’s shirt like Nadia.

If you love Nadia & Hassan, you may also like Tat Vateishvili, Freddie Leiba and Desiree Neman.

Christian is known for designing stage costumes for Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, beginning with the deconstructed prom dresses she was making when first she started out as a designer. Their collaboration evolved and persists; Christian recalls a seminal moment for herself as an artist on the band’s tour for 2003′s Fever To Tell. Karen wore a colorful hand-made skeleton suit — “Kind of Day of the Dead,” Christian says — with lots of embroidery, a three-dimensional heart, and arteries. But what excited the designer most was the thirty feet of intestines that could be pulled out by the audience. Christian never stops creating. “I constantly think about it. I dream about it.” Everything in her apartment is silk-screened, from the pillows to her linens. 

Christian’s clean, slicked-back hair and classic red lips make her feel as though she can go a little further out on a limb with her clothing, and reveals the conscious detail with which she approaches everything. A white jumpsuit looks “Bohemian chic” with a burgundy scarf tied like an ascot, matching socks, and shoes covered in her abstract Sharpie patterns — and one of her own silk-screened, floor length skirts with a black tank, and a vintage necklace with bold, “unusual combination of colors.” But most poignant to me is how Christian’s sense of peace in creating manifests in how cool she makes a simple breton shirt from Lands’ End, Ralph Lauren pants and an Ann Taylor belt with her splash-of-paint-on-the-oxfords look.

If you love Christian, you may also like Susi Kenna, Jessica Repetto and Shail Upadhya.