Being From a small city, Amristar, in the foothills of the Himalayans, until he moved to NYC at the age of five, has given Waris a deep connection to his roots and a strong identity. But having a sense of tradition does not mean that he is anti-progress. Commerce for him is just not without a philosophical idea behind it, “I love spending and going to really nice places….so it’s very, in fact, pro-capitalism, very pro… just this idea of that’s your vote, that’s your dollar, your yen, your pound, your vote,” he states, “it’s a respect for ideals.” Humbly inspired by love and history, Waris doesn’t profess to know about either, he produces his jewelry designs in places that are ancient kingdoms, like India, Thailand and Italy. Sitting on top of layers of the past inspires Waris. Similar in it’s consideration, Waris picks the fabric that his tailor uses to make his suits, he knows where his organic eggs come from and he purposefully supports that farmer, wears a simple steel bracelet for its representation of purity and his friend’s APC jeans, for being the real McCoy in fit and quality. Uncontrived, comfortable in her skin and elegant is how Waris describes his mother; super-natural and super-chic is how he describes his father, and all of the above is how I would characterize him. There is no substitute for being conscious, how you feel about what you are wearing and how you are living, shows.

If you love Waris, you may also like Mateo Bijoux, Preetma Singh and Daniel & Steven.

The romantic influences of Justin’s past are poignant – the way his white creeper/oxfords resemble the ones Joe Strummer wore and his skull ring is cast from the same mold as Keith Richards’. Justin’s aunt, Barbara, babysat for Jack Kerouac and he remembers a picture of her, smoking in a pencil skirt with the legendary author in front of a ’49 Studebaker. Justin read “On The Road” at thirteen, which prompted him to hitchhike all over the country later in life and echoes his childhood, growing up with “vagabond” parents who moved around a lot. His father was a drummer for Island Records and met his mother, a former model, when he picked her up while driving a taxi. Justin’s mother turned him on to records, including Paul Revere and The Raiders, Pet Sounds and The Monkeys, which prompted him to start playing music at ten years old. To this day, Justin is obsessed with studying the roots of music, like how the Stones were into Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and all of the Delta Blues musicians. In deference to his mentors, Justin got into poetry through songwriting when he read that Dylan said, “If you ever wanted to be a great songwriter you have to study the greats.” He has now read lots of the classics, including Tennyson and Yeats. Lord Byron is one of his new favorites, of whom Justin poetically says wasn’t wearing any sensitive sweaters and crying in his Earl Grey, but “left this earth in a malestrom of women, hedonism and revolution.”

Lord Byron said, “Every day confirms my opinion of the superiority of the vicious life.” Accordingly, Justin describes his band, The Bowery Riots, as floor to floor rock and roll with a social consciousness, an appreciation of the past that strives to have the impact of a band like the Clash, who took a stand by painting a picture and not drawing hard lines. The romance for nostalgia is everywhere from his Levi’s jeans, original Rat Fink jacket and windowpane plaid pleated trousers with a foulard shirt to his longing for the time of session players when they all knew each other and it was a community. Justin has a photo of “The Million Dollar Quartet” -comprised of Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lewis and Elvis – which he keeps as an example of the possibility of being in the studio with icons before they were icons. Referring to the internet, Justin says, “I don’t think there’s the same player aspect of knowing different musicians, like Paul Butterfield when he was back in Dylan’s band, or The Band who was playing with Ronnie Hawkins, they knew each other. Jimmy Page was a session player for so many different albums from The Kinks to The Who because Townshend couldn’t write his own solos, and so Page had to come in and play on the album for ‘My Generation.’”

The folklore surrounding musicians of yesteryear is missing for Justin. Gone is the time when they gave themselves their own names, dressed a certain way, projected certain things and created a world that had mystery. You bought into that world and it meant something to listen to the whole of the album to share in the obscure meanings, as opposed to the lost context that comes with the iPod. Justin feels that people used to take music more seriously, “look at the liner notes…see who wrote the song, when it was recorded. Now you’re just that band that got on the Twilight soundtrack.” Similarly, fashion for Justin is more about craftsmanship, like his interest in old cars and his collection of two-toned wingtips. In a Paul Smith watch plaid classic trench or a distressed leather jacket from the ’50s, Justin says, “It’s just a world I live in, everyone has one. Call it whatever you want.”

If you love Justin, you may also like Philip Crangi, Sibyl Buck and Ashton Michael.

When I showed up to film Bryrdie, it was also the first time I had met her. She answered the door in a terry bath robe, wet-haired and makeup-free, exuding right away her open and willing-to-share all spirit. While she was lacing up her plastic platform stripper boots, it was easy to get drawn into her stories of being an outsider in Greenwich, CT, where the dress code was topsiders only. The key to Byrdie’s impeccable style is how she pairs these clear massive platforms with the sweetest of floral vintage dresses and her hair swept up. When worn this way, the boots go from trash to class, the latter being what Byrdie is all about. She’s currently obsessed with finishing everything off with her new boxy secondhand jean jacket, and is never sorry about the pieces she has spent alot of money on, like her Rick Owens leather one. Byrdie wears her ultra chunky Dior booties with everything from the riding jodhpurs and white eyelet blouse to the sequin vintage “Balmainesque” evening dress and black leather jacket. It is innate in Byrdie to know exactly what the “essential” pieces are in her wardrobe that give her that eye-catching ease. She is as comfortable and natural in the Dior platforms as in her terry robe.

If you like Byrdie, you may also enjoy Sophie Conti, Ashley Wick, and Sabrina Diaz.

Nick is the spitting image of his free-spirited hero Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Rugged and tanned, in his chambray shirt and Peruvian cowboy hat tilted back, he is inspired by the quote, “Quo non ascendet?”, or “To what heights can I not rise?”. Lofty in his goals, Nick wishes to surf a tsunmai wave, and unrestrained in his lifestyle, his favorite person on SLU is Zarzan, because he has no boundaries. The outer limits are where Nick has gone already, fearlessly backpacking alone for a couple of years from South America to Nepal, Brazil, Thailand, Australia, and many places in between. It’s hard not to love the authentic stylistic touches that come along with traveling to indigenous countries, like a hat made of palm fronds that Nick wears with his toile pineapple pants and studded classic french espadrilles. Not a lot stops Nick from leaving any comfort zone, and once back from his third world excursions, he found himself paddleboarding around Manhattan with professional surfers, which landed him in a loft in Chinatown for a stint before getting evicted and moving to the mountains of Colorado on a whim. The influence of the West can be seen in the most irresistable real-deal Indian beaded moccassins and signature silver lapis cuff with wooly mammoth tooth details made by his uncle. Nick’s present utopia is Venice Beach, where he lives in an adorable bungalo by the beach, complete with hammock and citrus tree. I love how Nick feels clothes come to him as easily as they go – “It’s like a layer of yourself that goes on and falls off.” For him, it’s a symbol of renewal. Nick attributes his open attitude to his travels – he feels it’s necessary to experience new things to live and grow. A moment that he feels has most changed him was a night in Nepal, after two weeks of treking and eating rice and beans. He was welcomed into a house by a local family, and after dinner, the ten-year-old, in her usual ritual, went to another room to pray to her Hindu god. There was something about her faith for Nick that had an impact – she seemed happier than anyone he had ever known and notably, without a BlackBerry in sight.

If you like Nick, you might also enjoy Ash Epps and Nick Cohen.

If you like Liam and Aesha, you might also enjoy Rinat Welsing, Nick Cohen, or Paul Johnson-Calderon.

If there were ever a case for learning outside of the traditional classroom, it’s Natia, a dark beauty whose life reads like one of the many classic pieces of literature that she is an expert in. While I am trying to figure out how to keep this passage down to one paragraph, I have windows open to all of her routine references: Proust, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Baudelaire and her favorite of all, The Master and Margarita (for its dreamlike kindness and devils) by Bulgakov, someone I have never heard of but is now on top of my huge stack of books on my bedside table. I also made an immediate dash to the All Saints site once she extolled their aesthetic virtues – Natia’s obsessed with every leather piece. She studied ballet beginning at eight years old, far from her home of the Republic of Georgia, as in succeeded from Russia in 2003, where she lived through the revolution and remembers being cold in a big house with memories of her family huddled around the one oil heater and where “there was no food at all.” Her dance teacher had escaped the Ramonovs and was given her school by Grace Kelly (this is too fascinating a tidbit to leave out). At thirteen years old, she moved to Paris, where she met people like Jean Paul Gaultier and modeled. Natia switched to acting when she came to New York and though she is classically trained, trusts her instincts more than “a method,” as she does with her style. Her mother is a big fashion influence in her life: “She could wear a skirt down to her ankles with a sweatshirt and gloves…she gets a lot of attention.” Natia buys herself a lot of the basics, like Rag & Bone and vintage band tees and mixes the more dramatic pieces in, many of which are hand-me-downs from her mom, like her crocheted Gaultier cardigan. Most things are given a street-rocker edge by Natia, like her prim Viktor & Rolf blouse and Margiela blazer. She embraces her love and the influence of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss, but Natia does it very much in her highly cultivated way of a “boyish punk chic” with a touch of theater and romance, and always with a certain not “in your face” simplicity.

To learn more about Natia, click on the detailed captions page.

I couldn’t be more with Miranda that long and flowy is the new jean. She literally takes my breath away for the way she captures hippie meets Victorian in the most cosmopolitan sense, with her floor-length floral French chiffon skirt from the ’20s, Kiki De Montparnasse bloomers (hidden, but so there), thick black tights, navy Shetland Miu Miu sweater, waist-length black hair, and pale skin. At times, she imagines herself with a long train held by the perfect antique “ringed” hand (much like her own, with her heirloom family ring worn everyday) and possibly a Gothic mourning necklace with a lock of hair that is a hundred-years-old. Miranda is from a family of performers, actors, and singers, both of which she is, though she is currently focusing on acting. Life is her stage, and right now she is passionate about the electricity of NYC (despite her love of nature). Although Miranda’s Manhattan is of many eras – there’s the 2010 “very Miranda” leather jacket with fur trim, and then the Pre-Raphaelite Miranda, in hooded velvet cape that makes her feel as if she is part of a secret old world society, where “women never lift a finger” and are always in heels.

To learn more about Miranda, click on the detailed captions page.

If you like Miranda, you might also enjoy Jordan Robin, Alessandra Calabi, or Carly Mark.

If you like Lauren, you might also enjoy Maggie Godwin, Philippa Price, or Ruby and Summer.

This summer, Lauren worked on a short film. You can watch the trailer here.

Nova has the emotional depth, range of expression, and vulnerability that screams film ingenue, akin to a young Natalie Wood in Leonard Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’ and Elia Kazan’s ‘Splendor in the Grass’. She can slide into character in her girly trench, fedora, and peacock pumps as easily as she can wear tribal face makeup in Victorian meets Surreal Circus, as muse for designer Michael Calloway. Nova is self-possessed beyond her years, which she attributes to the unconditional love of her mom and having had the unique perspective of being home-schooled. She was never subject to the boxes and labels put upon you by most typical school system experiences, and hanging out with kids her own age solely is actually odd for her. It wasn’t until her intensive pursuit of a professional ballet career at The Joffrey that she started to experience the usual peer pressures. However, the freedom and confidence to be and to explore herself is evident in that Nova is as comfortable as a provocative screen siren, in the pillow case she made out of a dress, as she is as a fragile heroine in her grandfather cardigan and riding boots.

Check out Nova’s website.

Check out the trailer for Ebeneezer’s short film, “6:8.”