SLOW BURN: The allure and anxieties of an endless summer without boundaries

When we describe seasons, it’s usually in relation to an experience of time. The idea of “slowness” tends to characterize summer—the essence of leisure and the pleasure of feeling unlimited time. But these months can easily feel stifling, cyclical, and motionless. How you feel about “endless summer” boils down to basic factors— like, if you have air conditioning, small children, or curly hair. If you are fortunate enough to refer to summer as a secondary residence or something you “do,” then we know what side of the equation you fall.

In practical life, time is a form of wealth that can be spent in different ways. Quickness gains mobility, agility and speed, equalling more productivity and possibilities for success. In slowness, this path is more of a meander—a strategy for maximizing the journey between point A and point B, creating more surface area for exploration and reflection.

Neither quickness nor slowness is a value in itself—both are simply different strategies for using time. However, the past year has forced us into high gear. We’ve leaped into Generative A.I. at breakneck speed. Conflicts have accelerated overnight into forever wars. And global data shows that the summer of 2024 is on track to be the hottest ever recorded on Earth.

So this summer comes with some burning questions that seem to ask of us – should we be slowing down or speeding up?

In our summer curation series, “SLOW BURN” we explore the narrative, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of summer  sentiments. All of which are also deeply influenced by our cultural diet of movies, fashion, music and books. Entire cosmologies and epics can be reduced to the dimension of a summer. It’s a narrative goldmine, bursting with seduction and adventure.

SLACKER STATES

Decades after cultural touchstones like “The Kids are Alright” and “Dazed and Confused” captured the raw, feral spirit of summer youth, those influence endure in today’s cultural landscape. The essence of youthful abandon—marked by endless summers, carefree attitudes, and a blend of ecstasy and ennui—continues to inspire fashion, music, and rebellion. This aesthetic, rooted in a desire to break free from mainstream conformity, finds a modern echo in trends like Brat Girl Summer. This movement embraces messy authenticity and unapologetic female energy, challenging the polished ideals of previous trends. Inspired by contemporary music and a rejection of societal expectations, it celebrates a lifestyle where confidence thrives amidst chaos, turning conventional standards on their head with an irreverent, IDGAF attitude

SLOW WARMING

I’ll keep this one short since we know the import and gravity of having essentially set the world on fire. Every summer is getting more extreme: warmer, wetter, weirder, drier, deadlier. Where I live in the Mountain West, summer is synonymous with Fire Season. Like clockwork, they ignite every year, and you carry an anxiety spring through fall that the places you love most are forever going to be just one cigarette butt or unattended campfire away from being destroyed. As I write this, there is a 10,000 acre fire burning less than 20 miles from my home. In 2020 we lost 200,000 acres of forest to a megafire in our county that burned August through December. What haunts us in today’s climate is not just the magnitude of loss, but the loss of control over what we will lose.

GOTHIC SUMMER

The darker side of summer continues with an entirely different lens. Summer Gothic is an aesthetically motivated collection that intertwines the elegance of summer with a dark, cinematic allure. It evokes a sense of mystery and ominous beauty, capturing the sophisticated yet shadowy worlds of the affluent on vacation through the eyes of complex and often unlikable narrators. This narrative structure is exemplified by works such as the film “Salt Burn” (2024) and Emma Cline’s New York Time’s summer best seller “The Guest” (2023) which delve into themes of class and sex with plots ripe with hidden desires, jealousy, tensions and power struggles.

EURO STYLE

In this churn and burn world we want to celebrate the admirable European tradition of taking summer seriously with a substantial summer break and deep cultural appreciation for work-life balance. To the rest of the world it’s a curious and foreign idea that a whole continent choses to go vacation at the same time. But summer is not only a break from work—it’s a cultural event, social philosophy, and political stance. And boy do we wish we were there too, eating fresh calamari, breathing in the essential fragrance of diesel exhaust, perfume and cigarettes, seeding the ancient grain of slow living, slow cooking, slow being. Our homage to Euro summer is inspired by retro street and travel photography, impeccable design, seaside eye candy and shameless romanticization.

ILLUSTRATION SERIES: Olena Hnatiuk’s Layered Impressions

Unlike expansive vistas common in landscape painting, Hnatiuk’s joyful scenes of are built as tightly framed, compressed views that draw us into a very human landscape that is layered, warm and dynamic. Her fluid lines and gestural forms vibrate with a sense of movement and spontaneity that is grounded in complex but balanced compositions. I even find her use of color is slightly fauvist in spirit—used more for emotional representation than to reflect reality. For example, in “Sea”, lemon is used throughout the composition, being such a rich and visual symbol of summer experience (lemonade, limoncello, lemon trees….just, lemons in general I suppose). In every work there are delightful easter eggs and multiple narratives to explore. Enjoy!

MATCH POINT PREP

Racket sports are back, baby. After preppy, expensive, membership-dependent sports like golf, tennis, squash fizzled out in the aughts, individual sports became the center of the fitness industry. That was until PickleBall surfaced as a social sport that took communities by storm and is currently the fastest growing sport in the world. Other social sports like Tennis (albeit far more competitive and way less social in spirit) and golf (a sport you can do while driving an electric cart and drinking beer) are making a comeback, and sports fashion is following.

But the current day appeal is not about the stodgy privilege and gatekeeping that was once associated with these sports, but a takeover by young and diverse athletes. The Challengers (2024) featuring Zendaya and a spicy threesome plot have also put tennis balls everywhere this season.