Season 6 Trailer

Season 6 Trailer

Author: What's Contemporary September 29, 2025 Duration: 0:52
What’s more contemporary than the pursuit of happiness? The restless task of creating it, sustaining it, sharing it. It’s a game not so far from that of the creative class, with its inevitable demand for the next turn, the next gesture, the next affirmation of relevance. Designers, editors, critics, even self-anointed new media mavens know it all too well. Exploring larger cultural truths in their microcosmic forms is a habit we’ve happily returned to this season, and one we look forward to sharing across the months ahead. Because happiness, like relevance, is never fixed. It slips just out of reach the moment it seems secured, requiring constant reexamination and reinvention. The same holds true for the people and industries we cover: what feels urgent today risks redundancy tomorrow. That cycle of fulfillment, exhaustion, and reinvention, is the rhythm of both creativity and life. And in that rhythm lies the story of what it means to be contemporary now. New episodes begin Monday, October 6th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cultural landscape shifts constantly, and What's Contemporary Now? is a guide to its ever-changing terrain. Host Christopher Michael sits down with creators, critics, and innovators who are actively shaping the arts, from visual design and architecture to music and media. These conversations move beyond simple interviews, delving into the underlying philosophies and shared currents that connect seemingly disparate fields. Each episode unpacks a specific idea or movement through the lens of a guest's expertise, offering listeners a deeper understanding of the forces defining our current moment. Produced by Sasha Grinblat, the sound of the podcast is as considered as its content, creating an immersive space for genuine dialogue. You'll hear architects discuss the politics of space, musicians analyze the aesthetics of sound, and writers trace the lineage of new literary forms. It’s for anyone who feels that simply consuming culture isn't enough-who wants to understand the "why" behind the "what." By focusing on these broad, compelling perspectives, the series reveals the common threads woven through contemporary creative life, providing context and clarity in a fragmented world. Tune in to find your own place in the conversation.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

What's Contemporary Now?
Podcast Episodes
The World According to LDSS [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:29
In his first-ever podcast interview, Ludovic de Saint Sernin traces the journey from a nomadic childhood to becoming one of fashion’s most closely watched voices. He talks about the diary-like beginnings of his brand, th…
The New Masculinity, According to Samuel Hine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:28
For GQ’s global fashion correspondent Samuel Hine, clothes have always been more than fabric; they were a form of identity long before they became his career. Growing up as an identical twin in Chicago, he learned early…
Sarah Ball on Editing What’s Contemporary Now at WSJ. Magazine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:15
At this year’s WSJ. Magazine Innovator Awards, Billie Eilish asked, “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? Give your money away” — a line that instantly reverberated far beyond the room. It was a reminder o…
Tish Weinstock Is an Amorphous and Contemporary It Girl [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:30
Talking to Tish Weinstock offers the kind of unfiltered honesty — or, as she calls it, radical honesty — that every interviewer hopes to find in a guest. She has a unique ability to move between the frivolous and the dee…
Adam Selman Tells Us Victoria’s Secret [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:25
The morning after his show debut as Victoria’s Secret’s new Creative Director, Adam Selman joined me to talk through the emotions still vibrating from the night before. The conversation moved from backstage calm to creat…
Observant and Optimistic, AREA’s Nicholas Aburn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:58
Nicholas Aburn’s path to AREA was never a straight line. He grew up watching CNN Style with his mother, worked full time at Prada while studying at Central Saint Martins, and famously failed under Louise Wilson before sh…
The Shape of Reverence with Jerry Lorenzo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:51
When we first thought to sit down with Jerry Lorenzo, we planned to talk about culture, fashion, the first official womenswear collection from Fear of God, and the unique background that made his future feel wide open —…
A Season in Progress, A World in Flux [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17
While the world appears to have taken leave of anything resembling objective reality, and our feeds continue to oscillate between the surreal and the mundane in a choreography of dissonance, we have returned to the quiet…
Editing Creative Culture with System Magazine’s Jonathan Wingfield [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:11
In recent years, it’s become harder to tell whether fashion can still stand on its own, without leaning on the scaffolding of sport, film, or whatever cultural tentpole happens to be in rotation. But with the sustained r…
Where Optimism Meets Realism with Carlos Nazario [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:52
It’s easy to repeat oneself in fashion. Certain truths return again and again, not because we lack imagination, but because they remain unresolved. One of them is this—authenticity isn’t rare because people are unwilling…