6 Degrees Covered

To produce the set of unique, interconnected covers for this magazine, we approached six people - all well endowed in the creative department - and kindly asked them to provide an image of something that inspires them.

Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales are the ever-imaginative designers behind the Sydney based fashion label Romance Was Born. They make all sorts of intricate and inspired pieces that mix fashion with fantasy and turn everything you thought you knew about style on its head.

This picture was taken backstage at one of their shows during the recent Sydney Fashion Week.

*Anna and Luke are friends with Dustin Dollin and let him into their runway shows even though he has a tendency to yell out things like “boobs” really loudly in the middle of proceedings.

  Dustin is a pro skateboarder from Sydney, which means he gets to travel the globe doing tricks and drinking beer on someone else’s dime. In addition to having a sweet life, exceptional balance and a high tolerance to pain, he’s incredibly funny and also takes a pretty mean photo.

For Dustin’s cover, it was a difficult toss up between a photo of his mum and this picture of his girlfriend — two of the people he said inspire him most.

*Dustin was first introduced to Mark Hunter in 2004. He remembers learning simultaneously about The Cobrasnake, Vice magazine and the definition of the word “scenester”. Dustin’s had his photograph taken by Mark countless times since.

  Mark is the L.A based creator of the Cobrasnake photo blog (thecobrasnake.com). He has literally been flown around the world to attend every good party of the last five years. It’d be reasonable to assume that by now he’d now be a burnt out jaded mess but that couldn’t be any further from the truth.

Mark’s cover is of Australian model Tallulah Morton right after he told her a completely hilarious joke.

*The first time Mark and Vincent met was after a show in L.A where Vincent ended up sleeping in Mark’s backyard.

*SO ME and Mark share an addiction to vintage t-shirts. Mark buys t-shirts for SO ME.

SO ME is a musician, all round creative fireball and the art director for the French record label, Ed Banger. His drawings and videos are instantly recognisable and are the visual counterpart to the distinctive dance music that the label has successfully introduced to the majority of the world’s iPods.

His cover is an awesome, if somewhat literal interpretation of the six degrees theory.

*SO ME has toured the USA with the Midnight Juggernauts. He taught Vincent the lost art of kissing a girl’s hand once at a party. Apparently you’re supposed to gesture that you’re kissing her hand but your lips must never make contact.

  Vincent is one third of the Melbourne based outfit the Midnight Juggernauts, the band responsible for some of the dance floor anthems that have kept you out past your bedtime over the past six years. Vincent is also an amazing illustrator and has created some great clips for his band as well as appearing in

Vice

on multiple occasions.

For his cover, Vincent drew a one-man band after being inspired by an amazing busker in Denmark. It poetically reminded him that people should be free to be their own master.

*Midnight Juggernauts produced an amazing remix for CSS of their song “Left Behind”.

  Luiza is the guitarist in the Brazilian band Cansei de Ser Sexy, aka CSS. They’ve been touring and playing festivals consistently for years but we met Luiza at a group art show in Melbourne recently where she was showing some of her photos.

This is a self-portrait which Luiza took five minutes after her first show in New York. She said that It was like being on a new high and this was a way of capturing that moment of satisfaction and bliss forever.

*Luiza is Vice’s guest music reviewer in this month’s Brazil Issue.

You know what should blow your mind? The fact that any of the almost seven billion people living on planet earth can be connected to absolutely anyone else via a further five people. It sounds like absolute nonsense but since the early 1900s, mathematicians, assorted smart people and the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game have been proving the theory’s inherent truth. Actually, while we’re talking specifics, there are a few remote, lonely Brazilian tribes who tend to throw the stats but with Facebook and people like Mark The Cobrasnake making up that difference, for the most part, the six degrees theory is apparently airtight. Anyway, that’s what this magazine is about – how the world is a deceptively small melting pot of talented people, some of whom, if you play your cards right, you’ll hopefully have the pleasure of meeting. Taking this idea and running with it, four Australian artistes — a graphic designer, a comedian, a musician and a film maker — are on their way with just six beers, 18 days and 12,000 worthless Australian pesos to travel half a world away to track down their respective creative heroes in six steps or less. As you’d imagine, some very funny shit occurred over the course of their travels and at the time of this publication going to print, we honestly have no idea as to whether any of the poor intrepid bastards were successful. Go to 6beersofseparation.com.au or vbs.tv/6beers to see how they fared.