Looking for something to read? Head to Hamburg, as we did, and hook up with Uwe Jens Bermeitinger, whose TISSUE magazine calls itself “a bedroom-produced art and sex manual.” TISSUE is many things – a beautiful curation of erotica, a photobook for kinky fashion, an escape from Bermeiteinger’s day to day work as a commercial art director – but above all it’s a creative project that bends for no-one (no pun intended). “That’s why I make TISSUE in the first place,” he said. “I can do whatever I feel like doing. I enjoy not having others telling me what to do.”
Bermeitinger is the vision behind the magazine (collaborators include Martin Eder, Maxime Ballesteros, Melanie Jeske and many others), whose headquarters are in his apartment, and after visiting him we took off for a spin in the CLS 500 around the Brandshof, where the waterfront is lined with abandoned warehouses being put back to use only now: think of a cafe in an old petrol station and the Kraniche club (Bermeitinger’s favourite niterie). Looming cranes and crumbling brick buildings suddenly gave Hamburg a vibe of a pre-gentrified Brooklyn waterfront. “We’re pretty understated and anti-establishment here in my ‘hood,” he pointed out, before taking us to the Reeperbahn, which, as your probably know, isn’t understated at all…
Read more about Sleek and mb! Magazine’s road trip in the summer issue, publishing soon.