H&M Opens Mitte Garten Neighborhood Store for Local Talents in Berlin

H&M’s first hyper-local flagship Mitte Garten opened its doors on October 25th in Berlins creative Mitte district. With it’s approximately 300 square meters, it’s one of H&M's smallest stores offering curated womenswear, selected external brands, vintage pieces and a showroom for customers.

"It’s a test for us as a global retailer to elaborate around how we can be more personal and locally relevant."

                                                                            Anna Bergare Business Developer at the Laboratory H&M Group 

H&M Mitte Garten will regularly offer events such as lectures, fashion talks and yoga for its customers. In the public showroom upcoming trends and looks are presented. Here consumers can try on and lend pieces to make sure that their future purchases are consciously made.

"This is a unique location and it has served as a meeting place for Berliners for over a hundred years, a tradition we want to honour. We aim to offer a neighbourhood store serving as a platform for local and global talents within retail, culture and art."

                                                                                          Thorsten Mindermann country manager H&M Germany

Alakiir Deng Channels Organic Beauty by Porus Vimadalal for Fashion Canada

Alakiir Deng Channels Organic Beauty by Porus Vimadalal for Fashion Canada

India-born, Toronto-based photographer Porus Vimadalal captures an exquisite fashion editorial featuring model Alakiir Deng. Eliza Grossman styles Alakiir in poetic, romantic floral-inspired outfits reminding me of the Omo-Valley-People thanks to Coyote Flowers.

Calvin Klein Jeans Fall 2019 Ad Campaign Promotes Sexy | Saitex Sustainability Update

Calvin Klein Jeans Fall 2019 Ad Campaign Promotes Sexy | Saitex Sustainability Update

Theo Wenner captures Calvin Klein Jeans Fall 2019 campaign, styled by Melanie Ward. Models Abby Champion, Aqua Parios, Ben Allen, Iris Law, Lexi Boling and Selena Forrest front the campaign with creative direction by Cedric Murac./ Hair by Holli Smith

As promised, AOC takes a temperature check on denim production sustainability initiatives at Calvin Klein Jeans, a practice that we’re employing regularly for all the major brands that we feature. Fashionista visited Saitex, an innovative, sustainability-focused factory that produces denim for both Calvin Klein Jeans and Tommy Hilfiger — owned by PVH. We don’t know the percentage of Calvin Klein Jeans produced by Saitex, nor whether the sustainable jeans currently being promoted by Calvin are a significant portion of their total inventory. We do know that PVH takes the topic of sustainability very seriously, having opened a denim sustainability lab. (See article end of this one.)

Located in Vietnam, Saitex is “the denim partner of choice for a host of ethical labels including Everlane, Eileen Fisher and G-Star Raw. Saitex also produces for American Eagle, Gap, J Crew, Madewell, Ralph Lauren, Outerknown and more.

Saitex founder Sanjeev Bahl is actually featured on the Madewell website, as part of their transparency initiative.

Satellite Collars to Help Boost Protection for Nigeria’s Largest Remaining Elephant Herd

Satellite Collars to Help Boost Protection for Nigeria’s Largest Remaining Elephant Herd

In early October, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) fitted six elephants in northern Nigeria’s Yankari National Park with satellite collars. The collars will help WCS, which works with the Bauchi state government to manage the park, better monitor and protect Nigeria’s largest remaining herd of elephants.

“The elephants’ collars are quite valuable, not just for protection and for research, but also to reduce human-elephant conflict and promote tourism,” Andrew Dunn, Nigeria director of WCS, told Mongabay.

“It will allow us to know where the elephants are and to make sure our rangers know where they are, watch them closely and make sure the elephants get close protection.”

Dunn said rangers can now track the elephants’ movements and location better and react more quickly when the elephants are in danger or move closer to the edge of the park.

Elephants once ranged from the tropical swamps and rainforests of the south of Nigeria to the savanna in the north, but a combination of poaching, human-elephant conflict, and deforestation from logging for timber and expanding agriculture have diminished these populations.

Artist Micol Hebron's Instagram Account Suspended Shortly After FB Censorship Meeting

Digital collage by Micol Hebron (all photos courtesy of Micol Hebron)

A group of about 20 artists, curators, and activists met Monday afternoon at Facebook and Instagram’s New York City office. The purpose of the gathering was to discuss Instagram’s treatment of artists and its impact on their art and livelihoods.

Interdisciplinary artist, curator, and associate professor at Chapman University in Southern California, Micol Hebron has an extensive history of campaigning to free womens’ nipples. Fellow artist Joann Leah was in attendance as an essential bridge between Facebook and artists, having established long-standing relationships with the organization over its censorship of artwork, writes Hyperallergic.

To Hebron, the policy — and perhaps Facebook’s overall approach to gender — lacks nuance.

“The policies that Facebook enacts are essentially policing the bodies and the identities of the users — and are a particular problem who people who are queer or trans … that is my primary concern from the beginning. How does an algorithm know what someone’s gender is? How does a person know what gender someone is by looking at their nipples?”

“Artists that are working with the nude, who censor their own works on Instagram in order to meet their community standards, can be deleted with no recourse because of a lack of a proper appeals system,” Spencer Tunick told Hyperallergic. “The deletion of an artist’s account is like throwing someone’s address book and portfolio into a fire.”

In a note of irony, three hours after the Facebook meeting ended, Hebron’s Instagram account was suspended for posting the image of her and Tunick below, as they prepared to enter the meeting. Being connected at Instagram, Hebron was able to solve her suspension in short order.

For relatively unknown and unconnected artists, the process is far more complicated and potentially career-defining in today’s Insta-world, Hebron acknowledged.

Londolozi 'Cathedral of the Wild' Teaches Us Meaning of 'Ubuntu'

Londolozi 'Cathedral of the Wild' Teaches Us Meaning of 'Ubuntu'

I watched just now this 2013 TED Women Talk delivered by Boyd Varty, who learned literally minutes before going onstage that his beloved Mandela had passed. Boyd’s is one of the finest TED Talks I remember watching — and only regret that at 12 minutes long, it would have 8 minutes more at Big TED Talks. I want those 8 minutes more from Boyd. Introducing the talk, TED writes:

"In the cathedral of the wild, we get to see the best parts of ourselves reflected back to us." Boyd Varty, a wildlife activist, shares stories of animals, humans and their interrelatedness, or "ubuntu" -- defined as, "I am, because of you." And he dedicates the talk to South African leader Nelson Mandela, the human embodiment of that same great-hearted, generous spirit.

Beehive Fences Can Help Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict

Beehive Fences Can Help Mitigate Human-Elephant Conflict

Human-elephant conflict poses major threats to the well-being of both humans and animals. Crop-raiding by elephants across Asia and Africa can be devastating for small farmers, leading to food insecurity, lost opportunity costs, and even death. Crop-raiding and property damage can also result in negative attitudes towards elephant conservation and retaliatory killings of elephants.

Finding effective and inexpensive solutions has proven extremely difficult. Farmers guarding their fields at night lose sleep and put themselves in potentially close proximity to hungry elephants. Killing “problem” elephants is not only inhumane, but is also ineffective at reducing human-elephant conflict. Electric fences, while effective in theory, often fail in practice because they are costly and difficult to maintain.

Bees to the rescue

More recently, conservationists have explored the use of beehive fences as a humane and eco-friendly way to protect crops from elephants. Zoologist Lucy King of the NGO Save the Elephants told Mongabay the idea came from Kenyan farmers, who noticed that elephants avoided foraging in trees that contained beehives.

Standearth's First Fashion Industry Sustainability Report Card Promises Made v. Promises Kept

Image by Levi’s

Making pledges around sustainability is the easy part for businesses large and small. The question is whether or not brands are delivering on those promises, Vogue Business quotes Standearth as saying that until now, no organization holds the fashion industry accountable on sustainability promises vs deliberables.

The Canadian-American advocacy group released its first fashion industry report card last Thursday, writing that Levis and American Eagle are the only two major players on target with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees, according to Standearth.

The report, titled “Filthy Fashion Climate Scorecard,” ranks the climate commitments of 45 top fashion companies who have joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, or the G7 Fashion Pact.

“A handful of companies, including Levi’s, Burberry, the Gap, H&M, and American Eagle are taking meaningful strides to shift their global supply chains off dirty fossil fuels. But many other companies are relying on false solutions to meet their climate commitments – easy measures that look good on paper but fail to tackle carbon pollution in the real world. While the industry’s progress is encouraging, signing onto one of these initiatives doesn’t guarantee that a company will take climate action in line with the scale of emissions reductions needed to keep the world below a dangerous level of warming,” said Liz McDowell, Filthy Fashion Campaign Director at Stand.earth.

The companies ranked in the report are: Adidas, Aldo, American Eagle, Amer Sport brands Arcteryx and Salomon, ASICS, Burberry, Columbia, C&A, Disney, Eileen Fisher, Esprit, Ganni, Gant, Gap, Guess, Hanes, H&M, Inditex (Zara), JCPenny, Kering group (Gucci, Yves St Laurent, Stella McCartney), Land’s End, Levi’s, LL Bean, Lululemon, LVMH (Dior, Fendi), Macy’s, Mammut, Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC), M&S, New Balance, Nike, Nordstrom, Otto, Patagonia, Pentland, Primark, Puma, PVH (Calvin Klein, Hilfiger), Recreational Equipment Inc (REI), SkunkFunk, Target, Under Armour, VF Corp (The North Face, Timberland), and Walmart.

17 companies have made little to no climate commitments — despite signing a sustainability pledge with fanfare — which would put the world on a path to climate catastrophe, with 3 or more degrees of warming, writes .Standearth.

Robyn Lawley Covers Marie Claire Australia Sustainability Issue | Issues Green Challenge

Robyn Lawley Covers Marie Claire Australia Sustainability Issue | Issues Green Challenge

Model Robyn Lawley is styled by Jana Pokorny in sun-drenched images by Simon Upton for Marie Claire Australia’s sustainability issue.

Looking out across the Whitsunday’s iconic turquoise water after a day of shooting on an isolated beach off Hamilton Island, Robyn Lawley is confused. “The ocean is so beautiful and fragile. I don’t understand why everyone’s not fighting for it,” she says, shaking her head. “Our seas produce half of the world’s oxygen, yet we’re dumping a garbage truck of rubbish into [them] every minute.”

Emmett Till Bullet-Proof Memorial with Surveillance Cameras Opens in Mississippi

The sordid, scarred American story of Emmett Till’s lynching in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi opened a new chapter on Saturday, with the installation of a bullet-proof memorial for the civil rights martyr. Members of Till’s family gathered at Graball Landing, the spot where the pummeled and brutalized, horrifically-disfigured body of the 14-year-old Chicago boy was pulled from the Tallahatchie River after his murder in 1955.

The staggeringly-brutal attack was the result of Till allegedly offending a white woman Carolyn Bryant in her family’s grocery store. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated part of the testimony regarding her interaction with Till, specifically the portion where she accused Till of grabbing her waist and uttering obscenities; "that part's not true.”

Till’s murderers led by Roy Bryant, husband to Carolyn Bryant, and J.W. Milam were absolved of all crimes by what can only be described as a kangaroo court, adding fuel to the historic event largely seen as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.

From left to right, Ole Miss students Ben LeClere, John Howe, and Howell Logan posing with guns by the bullet-ridden plaque marking the place where the body of murdered civil rights icon Emmett Till was pulled from the Tallahatchie River. The photo was posted to LeClere’s Instagram account in March.

Related Articles about Emmett Till

Missy Rayder by Ahmed Klink for Vanity Fair Italy September 2019

Missy Rayder by Ahmed Klink for Vanity Fair Italy September 2019

Model Missy Rayder is styled by Sarah Grittini in ‘A proposito di una donna’, lensed by New-York based, Lebanese photographer Ahmed Klink for Vanity Fair Italia September 2019./ Hair by William Scott Blair; makeup by Samantha Lau

Art Partner Contest for Young Creatives + Climate Crisis | Submit by Nov. 8, 2019

Photo by Venus Evans on Unsplash

One of the greatest challenge for young creatives is getting their work scene and reviewed. If climate activism is your passion, Art Partner has created a significant opportunity to put a creative project in front of an all-star panel of sustainability-focused professionals.

Think you’re good? Then seek feedback from Eco-Age Founder Livia Firth, fashion designer Gabriela Hearst, photographer Harley Weir, designer and entrepreneur Francisco Costa,, artist and writer Wilson Oryema, agent Giovanni Testino, Vogue Italia Creative Director Ferdinando Verderi.

#CreateCOP25 is a contest for young creatives and climate activists to submit artistic responses to the environment and climate emergency. The six most impactful works will be publicized during the United Nation’s COP25 climate conference this December in Chile. These will serve as messages from the creative community that the time is now for governments to end their contribution to climate change.

One (1) winner will receive $10,000 and five (5) runner-ups will receive $2,000 each to fund future projects that respond to climate change. The winner will also have the opportunity to collaborate on an editorial project with Art Partner. All six (6) finalists will receive ongoing mentorship and exposure from Art Partner.

Submissions can be any medium including, but not limited to, photography projects, docu-style and experimental film, performance art, spoken word, musical compositions, fashion design, new media and social media projects. We encourage entrants to submit existing work.

Submission Process

All entrants must be between 14 and 30 years old at the time of submission. The contest is open to participants globally.

Please read the contest rules and procedures before filling in the application form.

#CreateCOP25 application pack

Closing date for applications Friday 8 November 2019, 6pm GMT. 

Questions? Please email earthpartner@artpartner.com

Melinda Gates' $1 Billion To Advance American Women | Trump Voters Want Women at Home

Philanthropist Melinda Gates is not sleeping well in Trumplandia. After a decade of watching the erosion of women’s rights and women’s progress in America, Gates has decided to do a very public reality check on the state of American women.

Reality is that 50 years after the second wave of the women’s movement ignited, only one CEO on the list of people running Fortune 500 companies is a woman of color. Gates cites the sobering fact that in 2018, there were more men names James running Fortune 500 companies than women.

Her action plan involves $1 billion spent towards expanding women’s power and influence in America. “There is no reason to believe this moment will last forever,” Gates, founder of investment and incubation company Pivotal Ventures, wrote in a Time.com opinion piece about the women’s marches, #MeToo movement, and the political activism and elections to office for American women.

“Too many people - women and men - have worked too hard to get us this far,” she wrote. “There are too many possible solutions we haven’t tried yet.”

Goals include dismantling barriers to women’s job advancement such as care-giving obligations and sexual harassment and fast-tracking women in influential job sectors such as technology, media and public office. Gates doesn’t

I, too, lie awake at night worrying about this possibility -- and have for a decade. The arrival of the Republican Tea Party in 2010 signaled an awesome erosion of women’s rights that have exploded since Trump became president.

One night I actually had a terrifying nightmare related to women’s access to contraception in America, and this was several years before the dystopian Handmaid Tale became a Hulu hit.

There is no doubt that Republicans are determined to take US women back to the 50s, eliminate all child care support, even public education in an effort to get American women having babies and even home schooling them with the Biblical good book.

I worry that America is increasingly becoming an Arab country -- and I don't mean too many Muslims. I mean too many Republicans wanting a theocracy where a Christian God runs the country, just as Allah and his men culturally and politically run the Muslim countries. The vast majority (over 70% of Trump's women voters and 58% of men) support this vision for America, as evidenced by extensive research done on Trump voters by Baylor Christian University in Waco, Texas. ~ Anne

THE SACRED VALUES OF “TRUMPISM”

Core Values

Researchers looked at how religious values, behaviors and beliefs predicted political support for Trump, finding that the majority of those who voted for him tend to:

  • Say they are “very religious”

  • Are members of white Evangelical Protestant churches

  • View the United States as a Christian nation

  • Believe in an authoritative God who is actively engaged in world affairs

  • See Muslims as threats to America

  • Value gender traditionalism, feeling that men are better suited for politics and should earn more than women; women should provide primary child care; and working women are deficient as mothers

  • Oppose lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights (such as legal marriage)

NYC Restaurateur Camilla Marcus Partners with Vivvi for Employer Subsidized Childcare

Camilla Marcus’ Westbourne cafe in New York Soho has partnered with Vivvi, to offer flexible hours, employer-subsidized, education-based healthcare for her New York workers.

Worker-conscious restauranteur Camilla Marcus, the founder of Soho’s vegetarian cafe Westbourne, faced head-on the challenges her employees endured to find affordable and flexible hours childcare in New York. Formerly director of business development for Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and the cofounder of TechTable, Marcus clearly has a “let’s get-it-done” mentality.

At first Marcus assumed research on finding affordable, flexible healthcare for her workers was primarily a “connecting the dots” job of finding realistic alternatives to the average $16,000 annual cost of having a family in New York as a working parent. Surely the mayor’s office could point Marcus in the right direction.

Frustrated and at the end of the road in her search for a worker-friendly childcare solution, Marcus was sent to Charles Bonello and Ben Newton, entrepreneurs who also saw the problem. Their checklist included a more affordable and accessible option that includes flexible hours, a robust early education curriculum, and back-up care options for those whose existing childcare is unavailable on short notice, writes Vogue US.

Vivvi, which is now open, partners with local employers to subsidize up to 100 percent of the cost of regular full-time care and backup care for working parents of infants, toddlers, and pre-school-age children. Thanks to Camilla, Vivvi's backup childcare is equipped to meet the needs of hospitality workers, with hours ranging from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. on weekdays and weekends.

"There are just not that many industries left where you don't need to have a certain degree," says Marcus. "You don't need to have a certain background and you can rise to a six-figure salary. We need to keep those pathways open and this [lack of accessible childcare] is a big barrier to that being possible."

For Camilla Marcus, she's leveraging her new partnership with Vivvi, now offering backup care to all of her employees at no cost. It's the beginning of a much-needed equalizing force in an industry that has long undervalued its workers.

"It isn't just a banker or a lawyer who is able to have access to this world class program," said Bonello. "It's also hospitality workers whose entire livelihood is tied up with being able to get to work and being able to get there during the times when it makes the most sense and it's most valuable. So it's empowering for us because our entire mission is honor the potential of work and families."

Read more details about this exciting project at Vogue US.

God's Man, Donald Trump, Played Golf as Hevrin Khalaf Was Stoned to Death

After giving the go-ahead to Turkey’s assault on the Kurds in Northern Syria, disgraced US President Donald Trump played golf on Saturday. As the bullet-riddled SUV of Secretary-General of the pro-Kurdish Future Syria Party and Hevrin Khalaf herself was shot and stoned to death, along with others in her convoy, Trump had a mighty good golf game. The Republicans scream “liar, liar, pants on fire”, but this fact is the truth, the image is real. Trump has nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. The US president has totally disgraced America’s military and American values in support of the Kurds. His self-serving, Putin’s-puppet actions repulse us, and we grieve for the Kurdish people. Trump playing golf via.

God's man in America, Donald Trump, played golf on Saturday, while the bullet-riddled SUV of Secretary-General of the pro-Kurdish Future Syria Party and Hevrin Khalaf herself was shot and stoned to death, articulated Monday by MSNBC on the ground in Syria.

I couldn't second-source the method of killing her on Sunday and refused to spread a false rumor. Has Trump even mentioned her being stoned to death? Has he evoked any sense of horror over what he has unleashed in northern Syria? Not an ounce of concern. NOTHING!!!! Trump played golf through the entire Syrian violence.

Khalaf probably deserved such a horrific death in Trump's misogynist playbook, but she was a great defender of Christians.

I do not believe in revenge, but I pray that the spirit of Hevrin Khalaf emerges quickly into the universe, where she is needed. And I pray that she comes to sit on the shoulder of Donald Trump, connected to him in an inescapable constant presence of what Trump has done to her, to the Kurdish people, and to the total balance of power in the region.

Perhaps she could use her new powers in a way that doesn't harm him physically. We want Trump to live with his actions. Personally, I wouldn't mind if Trump Tower Istanbul went up in smoke.

A Prayer for Hevrin Khalaf’s Return

I want the goddess status of Hevrin Khalaf to appear to Trump, when he's chowing down his cheeseburgers in bed at the White House. I want him to see constant apparitions of her everywhere. I want Khalaf to help us rid America of this corrupt, sinful man and his corrupt posse who surround their every horrific action with God's name.

I want the last vision Donald Trump has of life to be Hevrin Khalaf being stoned to death. If I must live with her vision that is grieving me so painfully, so must Trump -- the heartless, gutless, corrupt golf-playing, sinner man who has duped an entire political party and sanctioned the death of by all accounts, one of the most important women promoting peace and positive action for the Kurdish people.

My last action around stoning was almost single-handedly saving a woman from being stoned to death in Sudan. Within 48 hrs. of my getting involved, it stopped with Khartoum saying "not her again (meaning me)." It gave me some solace in all this violence that my action stopped a horrific death. Now Trump has taken even that small memory of good action from me, because everything happened so quickly to the Kurds.

I don't know if Khalaf was traveling with a poison pill or not. Obviously, events happened so quickly, swallowing one was not an option for her, and all reports are that her death was agonizing.

May the original goddesses of the universe greet and bask in warmth and love the spirit of Hevrin Khalaf. And when her tears have stopped flowing for her beloved Kurdish people, let the goddesses send her on her way to Washington, DC where she sits on the shoulder of this decadent, despicable man.

The Republicans constantly call strong women with democratic values 'witches'. Let them understand the power of a true goddess in their presence, as they plot their ugly assassination of American greatness right under our disbelieving eyes.

As for the Kurdish women soldiers and Hevrin Khalaf, I prostrate myself on the ground and grieve for the horror that Trump and America have unleashed on you. I am so, so, so sorry for this animalistic, subhuman atrocity that EVERY SEASONED MILITARY OFFICIAL TOLD TRUMP WOULD HAPPEN.

Still, Trump powered on — because he is Putin’s Puppet and Erdogan’s, too. Trump has killed the full promise of a great experiment in democracy; you are dead, and chaos reigns in Syria. But then, Donald Trump does not believe in democracy for the Kurds or for America. ~ Anne

Annemarieke van Drimmelen Flashes Naomi Campbell for WSJ Magazine October 2019

Annemarieke van Drimmelen Flashes Naomi Campbell for WSJ Magazine October 2019

Supermodel Naomi Campbell is styled by Alex White in ‘The Naomi Mystique’, lensed by Annemarieke van Drimmelen for WSJ Magazine October 2019./ Hair by Lorenzo Barcella; makeup by Angloma

“Naomi sweeps you into her world—one minute you are in London, next minute you are in India, next minute you could be in Africa. It’s a whirlwind,” says another member of that group chat, Edward Enninful, the editor in chief of British Vogue, who met her when he was a 19-year-old fashion director for i-D magazine. The day of their first shoot, she invited him to hop on a private jet to Dublin with her. Enninful, who named Campbell a Vogue contributing editor in 2017, describes her as having the mystique of an old Hollywood star such as Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. “Naomi came up at a time when models had to really learn their craft, almost like a studio system,” he says. “Apart from being incredibly ambitious, she is incredibly focused. Naomi loves being a model. When you shoot her, you realize there are only a handful of models who can give what she can. It’s just this magic.”

Read the interview at WSJ.com

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Honored With Own Typeface Greta Grotesk

As the world goes totally mad, we must turn to the creatives -- that would be me -- to keep us from losing our minds entirely. LOL and crying through my tears.

Greta Thunberg has been honored with a typeface called Greta Grotesk, inspired by and emulating the teenage activist’s handwriting.

Tal Shub, creator of the typeface, is a designer based in New York who co-founded Uno, a company with a mission to eradicate single-use plastic bottles by offering a reusable alternative.

“We’re all very moved by how this girl has inspired so many people to take action,” Tal states. “From the very first moment of seeing her sign, I was really impressed by the bold design and clarity of the message.” As Greta’s letterings clearly struck a chord with many around the world, not just Tal, he was surprised at how little discussion there was around the actual typography. “Here’s this iconic piece of visual communication, yet nobody’s really paying attention to how that design is central to this movement. It’s really the classic typographic discussion – something that’s starring you in the face, but most people don’t pay attention to it,” he adds.

Read more details about Greta Grotesk’s typeface.

Art by Congo, the Famous Painting Ape, to Go on Sale at London's Mayor Gallery

Art by Congo, the Famous Painting Ape, to Go on Sale at London's Mayor Gallery

In December, a beloved 20th-century artist will finally get his due when a lot of 55 paintings by Congo the chimpanzee goes on exhibit at the Mayor Gallery in London.

The paintings are owned by Desmond Morris, who hosted “Zoo Time,” a U.K. show broadcast from the London Zoo in the 1950s.

Morris was no ordinary television host. He was a noted abstract painter, an ethologist (someone who studies animal behavior) and zoologist. He’s also the author of many popular science books, including 1967’s The Naked Ape, which examines humans through a zoologists lens.

As Nigel Reynolds at the Telegraph reports, one day Morris offered the young chimp Congo a pencil and the rest was history. “He took it [the pencil] and I placed a piece of card in front of him,” Morris recalls. “This is how I recorded it at the time, ‘Something strange was coming out of the end of the pencil. It was Congo’s first line. It wandered a short way and then stopped. Would it happen again? Yes, it did, and again and again.’”

Nick Knight Captures Major #BlackGirlMagic in 'A Certain Romance' for British Vogue November 2019

Nick Knight Captures Major #BlackGirlMagic in 'A Certain Romance' for British Vogue November 2019

Top models Adwoa Aboah, Anok Yai, Duckie Thot, Jourdan Dunn, Joan Smalls, Lineisy Montero, Shanelle Nyasiase, Tami Williams, Ugbad Abdi and Winnie Harlow gather in ‘A Certain Romance’, fearless fashion glamour styled by Edward Enninful. Photographer Nick Knight is behind the lens for British Vogue’s November 2019 cover story./ Hair by Jawara; makeup by Val Garland