Anti Public Library

Anti Public Library comes from the world of Enfants Riches Déprimés and its creator Henri Levy. The shelves are mostly books from artists he likes, shibari photobooks, and issues of Search & Destroy delicately filed in clear sleeves. The bar/patio is a watering hole for people who work with the brand and people who want to. For the most devoted ERD collector, being on a first-name basis at the bar is the goal.

The store is a peek inside Levy's head, something that until now has felt deliberately off-limits. A godsend to the subreddit, fashion students, and edgelords. He's made numerous hoodies and tees with reworked graphics from EXIT, the magazine that regularly quoted Charles Manson and ran an image of a galaxy with Hitler's face as the cover of its third issue. The title of his AW24 collection, The Sun. Disappoints Me So, is from a line he heard in a Captain Beefheart interview. The brand's rule that there are no more than 150 made per piece echoes Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an influence confirmed when he used 250,000 copies for a display at Maxfield.

Since the store opened, ERD has published art books: Rifleman with Larry Clark, Rats at the Ritz, and King of Hate with Vincent Gallo. All shot by Terry Richardson with only 150 copies each. Rats at the Ritz has become a hard grail, reselling at $1000 and $6500 for a signed Richardson copy. In Levy's words, ERD, and now Anti Public Library, "eliminates the masses."