Scrolling through your feed just got better this summer — courtesy of the /brief's latest edition of must-follow Instagram accounts primed for warm weather. All the Porsches you've ever wanted? Check. The secret Greek islands making your travel hit-list? Check. An artist to invest in? Check, check, check. Get ready to double-tap these 16 @s all sunny season long.
Art
Alexis Christodoulou
Visualize the most insane house you can think of, then times it by two (or three) to get an idea of what comes out of this Capetown-based, self-taught 3D designer and artist's big-thinking brain — i.e. imaginary architecture you wish was real.
Travel
La Vie Mediterranea
Dedicated, in their own words, "to promoting a simplified lifestyle that our modern society is constantly trying to 'forget,'" LVM, (cute nickname, guys), is a visual homage to the — you guessed it — Mediterranean way of life. Indulge in a lazy scroll down the carefree feed — on the way you'll find vintage Vespas, Talented Mr Ripley-type bronzed bodies posing with pasta, and seaside retreats rocking rocky shorelines and seas that shade of turquoise you can't find anywhere else.
Mood
a mar é azul
A hit of what their bio terms "reminiscence and nostalgia," the content scratches those with a nomadic itch, but also doles out captions that double as history lessons — one post addresses the horrors of colonialism in Africa, another clues us in on 1970's Cuba. With an eye that roams less to ubiquitous European resorts and more to places not on the influencer route — think: Yemen, Gabon, and Namibia — it makes a refreshing change from regurgitated backdrops favored by the Facetuned crowd.
Design
Stefano Giacomello
Headquartered in Montréal, Giacomello — who has collaborated with Commes Des Garçons and Milanese shoe brand Angela Mitchell — explores alternate dimensions with a steady stream of reverie-inducing interior-adjacent posts that make you want to buy all new furniture.
Design
Stefano Giacomello
Headquartered in Montréal, Giacomello — who has collaborated with Commes Des Garçons and Milanese shoe brand Angela Mitchell — explores alternate dimensions with a steady stream of reverie-inducing ("Did i just take magic mushrooms?") interior-adjacent posts that make you want to buy all new furniture.
Mood
Type 7
Masterminded by Editor-in-Chief Ted Gushue and powered by Porsche, this "daily digital magazine" — indeed, captions are self-contained articles — is dosed with everything an automotive enthusiast with a yen for international travel and German manufacturing could ask for, from plenty of Boxsters and Carreras to a São Paulo living room you can swim in.
Travel
Stavros Kastrinakis
If Greek islands are your thing — particularly those off the tourist track — your obsession will be sated, and then some. Grab some tzatziki and get ready to exercise your index finger with a deep dive (pun intended) into this photographer's non-social-distancing Aegean waters with posts reminiscent of Grey Malin, but, like, before everyone knew who he was.
Travel
Stavros Kastrinakis
If Greek islands are your thing — particularly those off the tourist track — your obsession will be sated, and then some. Grab some tzatziki and get ready to exercise your index finger with a deep dive (pun intended) into this photographer's non-social-distancing Aegean waters with posts reminiscent of Grey Malin, but, like, before everyone knew who he was.
Mood
Pancrazi
Blessed with a healthy appreciation (slightly bordering on obsession) with all things pink, French shutterbug Andria Darius Pancrazi's 'gram soft-serves up snaps giving off what he calls "paradise, half-asleep" vibrations, aka otherworldly exteriors that feel very David Lynch-goes-to-Corsica.
Art
Ian Micheal
This thirty-something Bay area painter, who grew up in '90s Detroit and had stints tattooing in Brazil and L.A. (all of which inform his oeuvre), says he "paints life, black life, intimate moments, often between people of the same sex...people who might go unnoticed by others." With pastel-hued acrylics and enamels, Michael's brush strokes write narratives best told without a road map.
Art
Ian Micheal
This thirty-something Bay area painter, who grew up in '90s Detroit and had stints tattooing in Brazil and L.A. (all of which inform his oeuvre), says he "paints life, black life, intimate moments, often between people of the same sex...people who might go unnoticed by others." With pastel-hued acrylics and enamels, Michael's brush strokes write narratives best told without a road map.
Art
Tiny Cactus
It's easy to see why Brooklynite KangHee Kim has almost 400,000 followers — the South Korean superstar has established a particularly enticing brand of surrealist escapism expressed in masterfully manipulated photography that reflects, in her words, "infinite possibility, free from the limits or restraints of real life." (Kim, though protected by DACA, is unable to leave the US if she wants to return). In a post-COVID world, her windows into new, dreamscape universes — palm trees and sunsets, yes please —are akin to a therapeutic digital exhale, no masks required.
Culture
Kein
For those on the hunt for "behaviors that do not conform with the community ethics" (to quote Kein's unapologetically bad-ass Insta bio), you are in the right place. An account piloted by a subversive-in-a-good-way culture magazine from Istanbul, typical fare includes middle-fingers-a-go-go, chic crotch shots (yes, that's a thing), cigarettes, and sex (plus sexy playlists).
Photography
Tezza App
The virtual lookbook for in-the-know photo editing app Tezza was founded by the mononymously chic multi-hyphenate (photographer-creative-director-musician) of the same name. Culled from its users — including, of course, Tezza herself — the account's content pops with exquisitely saturated jet-setters wearing jet-setting outfits in jet-set locales.
Photography
612
Snapping under the pseudonym sixcentdouze (French for 612), this aerial Monegasque photographer steers his drone to heights that take photos all about composition with jaw-dropping views from the sky focused on subjects that oscillate between glamorous and pedestrian — from say, wait-what? yachts to colorful parking lots to crashing waves, all presented in frames you can only get from up in the air.
Mood
Casa Ayllon
Turning out Insta-hits of "spaces with character, timeless elegance, and the fruits, flowers, and the sea," the gram reflects the pictorial musings of Ayllón, a handmade Argentinean leather goods brand named after the founder's grandmother. Followers like Jacquemus and Caroline Daur (and us, of course) double-tap on the daily — it's hard not to with posts that are undeniably happy, populated with Picassos, and never shy when it comes to ripe tomatoes.
Mood
Casa Ayllon
Turning out Insta-hits of "spaces with character, timeless elegance, and the fruits, flowers, and the sea," the gram reflects the pictorial musings of Ayllón, a handmade Argentinean leather goods brand named after the founder's grandmother. Followers like Jacquemus and Caroline Daur (and us, of course) double-tap on the daily — it's hard not to with posts that are undeniably happy, populated with Picassos, and never shy when it comes to ripe tomatoes.
Mood
Casa Ayllon
Turning out Insta-hits of "spaces with character, timeless elegance, and the fruits, flowers, and the sea," the gram reflects the pictorial musings of Ayllón, a handmade Argentinean leather goods brand named after the founder's grandmother. Followers like Jacquemus and Caroline Daur (and us, of course) double-tap on the daily — it's hard not to with posts that are undeniably happy, populated with Picassos, and never shy when it comes to ripe tomatoes.
Architecture
World Architecture Design
Created by Croatian architecture student Verdan Kustura, expect a feed filled with what the name suggests, namely buildings designed by those whose taste-level is, well, next-level. Clean lines, right angles, and white couches are always post regulars, but we consider the top draw to be Kustura's curation of cool pools that make other pools (blue) with envy.
Photography
Lucy Rose Laucht
This traveling paparazzo serves up a Slim Aarons' mood with a contemporary bent. Sure, there are the requisite (and obviously gorgeous) shots of, like, Polignano a Mare, but Laucht also focuses on less trodden paths. On the itinerary? Camels in the Thar Desert, black-and-white turbaned portraits around India, and a posse of Lincoln Center professional dancers.
Style
L’Étiquitte
Billed as "Le Guide Du Vêtement Masculin," or, translation, The Men's Clothing Guide, do a digital swing by to this if-you-know-you-know biannual French magazine that the Pitti set swears by. With subject matter spanning from bespoke tailoring to high-street casual, the publication's feed conveys their relatively modest mission of "defining what male excellence really is."
Style
L’Étiquitte
Billed as "Le Guide Du Vêtement Masculin," or, translation, The Men's Clothing Guide, do a digital swing by to this if-you-know-you-know biannual French magazine that the Pitti set swears by. With subject matter spanning from bespoke tailoring to high-street casual, the publication's feed conveys their relatively modest mission of "defining what male excellence really is."