i found an old table on the street and had to fill it with treasures for you.
Sarah Meadows Claire Evans, one half of Yacht, an electro duo based out of Portland.
The Insider profiles emerging tastemakers in the fields of fashion, design, food, travel and the arts. Here, the Portland, Ore.-based singer Claire Evans shares her essentials. Evans is the neo-Annie Lennox half of the electro duo YACHT. They just finished a mini-tour with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and are currently rocking Europe.
Name: Claire L. Evans
Age: 24
Occupation(s): Singer in the band Yacht, artist, science writer.
Home Base: Portland, Ore.
Retail Standby: Rad Summer, which is where my most Gothic, audacious show frocks come from, and Stand Up Comedy, for waterproof Slow and Steady Wins the Race pumps and sci-fi design zines.
Music Venue: The Mormon Temple Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.
Music: The best that the L.A. punk scene had to offer in the late 1980s: Descendents, Suburban Lawns, Black Randy & the Metrosquad, the Screamers, the Weirdos, Nervous Gender.
Provisions: Andy & Bax Military Surplus. A surprisingly comprehensive stash of tiny plastic bottles, ropes, hooks, knives, duffels, compasses, bungees and water bottles. Everything you might need to survive the apocalypse, essentially.
For gifts: The Internet.
Restaurant: I’m a vegan tourist. In Portland, Blossoming Lotus for raw vegan cheesecake. In New York, Blossom for celebrity drag-king sighting and seitan, or Red Bamboo for the callalloo soup. In Los Angeles, Elf for the mind-blowing kale salad.
Drink: Dirty gin martini.
Party central: The Rob Walmart van in Portland, wherever it may be.
Momentary style obsessions: Justin brand cow-roping boots, cupro, Alexander Hi-Tek ’90s Madonna-in-”Truth or Dare” round sunglasses, opacity, a post-apocalyptic spirit, Lindsay Crouse in “House of Games,” black, Gareth Pugh fall-winter ‘09, getting jewelry custom-made by a lapidarist and gem hunter in the West Texas desert.
Reading material: If it’s not one yellowing ’60s sci-fi paperback, it’s another. Right now I’m reading “Picnic on Paradise” by Joanna Russ, one of the great feminist fabulists. I’m on a long-term quest to become a living science-fiction encyclopedia. I even have a blog about it.
Art pick: Everything that AIDS-3D is doing, for perpetuity.
Museums: The Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The shows are always great, and if all else fails there’s usually (in fair weather) some very Euro-hesher critters skateboarding and bongo-drumming all over the beautiful marble statues out back. A close second: the 3D Museum of Art and Photography, in Portland.
Movie: “Paris Is Burning.” O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E!
Vacation destination: Deer Run on Big Pine Key, Fla. It’s a vegan bed-and-breakfast on an island covered in miniature deer. You heard it here first.
Something you are looking forward to this fall: Going on tour in China.
Here are some of her favorite Portland haunts that she visits regularly. The map above is interactive!
3D Center of Art and Photography — A hole-in-the-wall collection of lenticular prints, rotating stereoscopic photography shows and a tiny 3-D film screening room.
Cameron’s Books — Everyone in Portland loves Powell’s Books, of course, but Cameron’s is for when you’re feeling a little seedy and you don’t know what you’re looking for. Eighty percent of my science-fiction novel collection began its life at Cameron’s.
Food Carts (SE 12th and Hawthorne) — Vegan poutine, late-night outdoor summer hangouts and some delicious thing called a “Whiffie.”
Huber’s — The oldest bar in Portland. Has an Art Deco, speakeasy feel, and is famous for its elaborate performances of flambéed Spanish coffees.
Junior’s — Definitive Portland brunch.
Nationale — Imported French sundry goods, papier d’acier and vintage pumps.
Rad Summer — Well-curated vintage, staffed by the most oppressively space-age psychedelic babes I have ever seen.
Stand Up Comedy — Margiela, Mary Ping and a periodicals collection that is way ahead of its time.
Sword + Fern — Handmade jewels crafted from sea glass, crystal and junked car parts.
See my new work at Content alongside 37 more of Portland's finest.
some images of the shop design this past summer, by Laura Dart of d'art photographie.
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