The Material Review

Issue 174: Camouflage, Honda Fit, Charvet, Memory, Baseball, The Shrinking Economy Cabin, Selling a Rolex and Q&A w/ Noah Kalina.

Stories worth reading. Stop indexing the internet.

How American Camouflage Conquered the World

“The world-famous MultiCam pattern was designed for the military by two Brooklyn hipsters. Now everyone—from babies to ICE agents—is suited up for battle.” [Wired]

Hero Car

“Thinking about the Honda Fit on the 25th anniversary of its introduction.” [Alloy Mag]

The Story of Charvet (Or, How to Keep Luxury Quiet)

“The French shirtmaker Charvet is more talked about than ever—and the family behind it wishes we’d be more discreet. Marisa Meltzer visits with Jean-Claude and Anne-Marie Colban, the siblings who run the business and dress its discerning clientele.” [Vanity Fair]

Memory

“All the things we remember ... and all the things we don’t” [Joe Posnaski]

The Interior Stadium

“Baseball’s best writer on how he watches the game.” [Roger Angell]

The Economy Cabin on Airplanes Keeps on Shrinking

“Carriers are expanding options in premium cabins in a bid to boost their earnings” [WSJ]

I Sold My Rolex to Buy a Chair, and It Was the Right Choice

“When flashy luxury goods aren’t hitting anymore, where do you go next? Writer Nick Remsen found his answer in niche handcrafted furniture.” [GQ]

A shortlist of things we’ve got our eye on.

Ken Burns’ Baseball Hat

Coleman Snap ‘N Go 55-Quart Collapsible Hard Cooler

American Trench Vandelay Button Down Shirt

Patagonia Black Hole® Gear Tote 61L

KUIU Ankle Mud Boot

Noah Kalina

Noah has spent the past couple decades documenting life on the internet through photography, video, and a steady stream of small online experiments. Lately he’s been sharing more of that thinking on his newsletter, including Live with Noah Kalina: The Ambient, a simple stream designed to sit quietly in the background while you work. We caught up with Noah to talk about his favorite pants, adapting as the internet keeps changing, and a few recent finds worth knowing about.

You’ve mentioned buying things to enhance your life and your work, not just to have them. What are some things that have actually cleared that bar?

I do a lot of landscaping as a hobby so I work outside a lot. A few years ago I came across an ad for Truewerk pants on Instagram. I am obviously pretty dubious of Instagram advertisements but the pants looked decent enough so I wanted to try them. They have become my favorite pants I’ve ever owned. I wear them not only to work outside but everywhere. They come in a variety of weights for different seasons and I have a pair for each, performing exactly as I’d expect. I own five pairs in various colors, stocked up in case they ever disappear. Speaking of working outside, another essential tool is the DeWalt electric pruner. I have been manually pruning my fruit and pine trees for a decade and I can’t believe I ever lived without this thing. Top ten tool.

You shot a Pizza Hut in Pennsylvania for the Times and wrote about enshittification, corporations hollowing out the things we used to love. What still feels intact?

Nature. Finding a place to take a hike or just be outside. That’s the real shit. They haven’t tried to maximize the profit of parks yet. Other than that it’s hard because even local restaurants are beholden to a corporatized food supply ecosystem so it’s hard for anyone to make good things and have a sustainable business. It’s unfortunate since people genuinely want to but it’s just so much more expensive to do it “right”. We’re such spoiled consumers now so things need to be fast and cheap and in an infinite supply. But then I think about places like Dia Beacon, Mass MoCA, Storm King: these big beautiful spaces where money gets used in service of human creativity. You walk around and feel like someone gave a shit. That still feels intact.

Platforms keep changing or disappearing, so you’ve started owning your own corner of the internet. Does that thinking carry over into anything else — gear, tools, the way you work?

I tell people (as a way to just remind myself) to trust your instincts. You can get feedback and opinions from tons of people but at the end of the day you know what works best and most correctly for your particular circumstance in the moment that you exist right now. I have been on the internet 25 years, I built my life and career using the tools these various internet platforms have made available, but I understand that nothing lasts forever. We need to be able to adapt to whatever new thing seems to be happening. I don’t know if I’ve started my own corner, I just am trying to experiment with new tools and platforms that feel like they could work for me now. If you told me five years ago I’d be streaming, I’d have said hell fucking no. But I changed and these things don’t feel so weird to me anymore. All of my projects start as a test, I do it a little more, see what’s working and keep applying energy to them if they feel like they are working. But I am going to keep trying to figure it out.

In your Substack post about your ambient videos, you mentioned how they are designed to be ignored. What else do you own or use that works best that way?

Maybe ignored is the wrong word. I want people to put it on, appreciate that it’s there, hopefully let it be a peaceful calming presence in the room, but allow people to have space to do other things. I think indoor houseplants are similar. I love my plants. I am glad they are there. I check in on them every now and then but I don’t need to obsess over them. They aren’t really demanding anything from me except water once a week.

We love your random finds like the hat with LED lights in the bill. What have you found recently that you’d tell someone else to go get?

I work in a studio with a lot of hard tables and I have cameras and lenses that I need to put down carefully, and I can’t stand the sound of hard objects scratching against a hard surface. I went searching for a soft surface mat, something like a jewelry mat, but couldn’t find anything simple, without branding and in the sizes I wanted. I eventually found a website called Big Viking Mats that makes custom as well as standard size gaming mats that are exactly what I was looking for. They are affordable and come in a ton of sizes. I have at least four of them in different colors. If you need a soft surface for a hard table to place a fragile item, highly recommend. Speaking of random finds, if you ever want to keep your camera and lenses dry, check out lenscoat.com. I often photograph in rainy weather and I wrap my gear up in these things and they are absolutely perfect. I also picked up some camo covers for my longer lenses. The website is worth browsing.

You’ve taken a self-portrait every day since 2000. Does it still feel like a project, or has it just become something you do?

It is a part of my daily routine. I just do it. I don’t really think about it. It takes me about 20 seconds a day. But it’s still very much a project. Once a month I load all of the photos on my computer, upload them to everyday.photo and confront what I look like, how I’ve changed and how I am getting older. It’s truly horrible.