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.

Considering herself a dandy who loves a good uniform and likes to be comfortable and dressed up, Rashida makes no apologies for expressing herself visually. Like her roots, she is powerfully eclectic whether in a vintage tuxedo pant and bolero, a native-print corset, her mother’s marching band hat and patent Moschino flats or in a vintage Oscar de la Renta sequined top with denim cut-offs, a jeweled belt and Chanel mary janes, all topped off and made lush by her jewelry from Abu Dhabi and Thailand. Beginning in high school with tennis clothes and leisure suits until today, in rodeo embroidered clown pants with a sheer, classic American Apparel shirt and leopard wedges, it is clear that the once misfit is now getting the last laugh. Though aware of her power, wielding it in the professional arena is where Rashida struggles. She admires the people who, though they may not be supremely confident, appear to be: “When it comes to being an artist, you’re sensitive… I’ll tear something of mine down before anybody has a chance to praise it. There’s a hurdle for females.” The women portrayed in Rashida’s art are the true, indomitable originals, from Josephine Baker to American Indians. With her dark, penetrating stare framed by the halos of her hats, Rashida says of her art, “It’s all in the eyes. They are the window to the soul.”

If you love Rashida, you may also like Lindsey Caldwell, Angelica Nelson and Kaylee Boyer.

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.

Life is seen through his own glamorous lens when he interprets the romantic, rather than dandy side of Paul Smith in a pastel blouse with a bow and the dark, rather than the humorous side of Henrik Vibskov in a military black jumpsuit. His torn Gareth Pugh sweater and Rick Owens skirt reveals his past punk life in Berlin, where he lived for five years and learned to not rush. There, he felt as if he could let all of his walls down. Paisley wore a tethered tee and jeans everyday while he “experienced breathing, looking up, and being an artist for no other reason than for the love of what you were doing,” creating mashups of punk rock and disco. This former Paisley would have felt his current sartorial passions – Malu fishscale pants, silver Patrick Cox boots and Sarah Samoiloff’s tribal foot-long silver earrings (to this day, one of my favorites on SLU) – to be too much armor for the city whose oppressive wall fell in ’89. It took two years in London after Berlin to prepare Paisley to re-enter New York City, but he has, and on his own terms, sipping tea for two hours in the afternoon with his cell phone off.

If you love Paisley Dalton, you may also like Paul Alexander, Guillaume Boulez and Lindsey Caldwell.

In line with what Hiroto says is typically Japanese in terms of their open acceptance of foreign influences, he has been collecting East German military surplus since he was a kid. And like his heritage’s fluid remixing of foreign influences into its own, Hiroto wears Nazi officer’s riding pants with a women’s colorful patterned jacket from the Harlem’s Goodwill and a straw hat that was inspired by a French anime character. His mid ’90s obsessive collection of abstract patterns, neon colors and generally “weird materials” is a dead giveaway to Hiroto’s role of rave music mastermind as a DJ with the label Radical Outing. So Stupid Fresh in his colorful winged Jeremy Scott sneakers, textured hoodie, geometric acid wash Search and Destroy jacket and zebra Tripp jeans from Trash and Vaudeville, Hiroto was asked to model for the latter quintessential St Mark’s brand. The hat that Hiroto made is patterned after Darth Vader and is Star Wars-does-WWII Germanic, but then again is all him with his tux jacket that is made of material similar to a garbage bag. “You always have to put yourself forward to the future,” Hiroto feels, and sometimes it has to be stupid to be fresh.

If you love Hiroto, you may also like Matt Parrotti, Ben Oprstu and Sarah Temple-Raston.

With lots of red lipstick, Lindsay is passionate about the virtues of variations on the little black dress and you can see how this could make living life on the fly in night clubs work in the style department. She adds her eclectic sock collection in the mix, much like she adds classical music to top forty hits. Just as Lindsay is the real deal as a musical artist, she is also authentic in everything she approaches. I appreciate her honesty and depth in recognizing that SLU is not about being outlandish, but about being true to yourself.

If you love Lindsay, you may also like Liz Doupnik, Kristine Barilli and Sabrina Bacon.

If you like Lindsey, you may also enjoy Erica Yarbrough , Ugo Mozie, and Dalad Kambhu.


He is strong on following his intuitions, and found himself randomly summoned out of reclusion by the drummer of his favorite band, The Throbs – whose style is also a big influence – to join forces musically. Kelle played the guitar and sang for me during this interview. One of his goals is “to shed some light, color and harmony on the intruding noise and darkness.” Based on his musical talent, which shook me to my 1970s bones, let alone his unequivocal, poetic style, the positive and powerful repercussions of Kelle’s cultural influence have just begun.

If you like Kelle, you might also enjoy Mark Hester, Don Pedro and Kirsten, Hunter Thompson, or Adia Trischler.

To learn more about Kristine, click on the detailed credits page.

If you like Kristine, you might also enjoy Antino Crowley, James Gillespie, or Becka Diamond.

If you like Jermaine, you might also enjoy Tiziano Mazzilli, Akeem Bazaar, Santiago Castillo, or Don Pedro and Kirsten.