Singer-songwriter Sophia Stel likes to keep it lo-fi – not just in her music, but in her wardrobe too. It’s a style built on expert rummaging in the goodwill stores of her native British Columbia. With her debut album released on A24 this month, we meet the musician styled here in strictly second-hand thrifted finds, as singular as she is.

Every year one of the most sensational natural phenomena occurs: the massed migration of the monarch butterflies through Mexico. Photographer and director SAM YOUKILIS captures this magical scene with a refurbished iPhone from Back Market – a photo-essay demonstrating that by extending the life of a phone we can document the environment while also having less impact on it.

Fashion is perpetually glancing backwards, but why must revivals be confined to the predictable 20-year cycle? There are centuries of styles to choose from…

In an era polluted by mass-produced fast fashion, New York-based label SMALL TALK sets its own pace, creating bespoke garments that are designed to last. More Or Less spoke with founder Nick Williams about alchemising traditional workwear into hyper-individual hand-drawn artworks

Committed, self-sufficient and defiant, Yorkshireman John Alexander Skelton is the kind of fashion designer who looks forward by revisiting – and rewriting – history. Here his timeless creations are modelled by volunteers on a vegetable growing co-op outside London.

Traditional wellness materials such as activated charcoal, clays, honey and hibiscus sit cheek by jowl with organic and eco-friendly cosmetics, as make-up artist CRYSTABEL RILEY explores the relationship between mindfulness, self-care, colour and beauty.

Much fashion now makes its greatest impact by being shared digitally. Blending age-old Taiwanese origami traditions with cutting-edge CGI manipulation, Ujin LiN’s creations exist in a virtual world, constrained only by his imagination.

The present we live in is marked by chaos. Intense warfare, elections, budget cuts – living is stressful. It’s easy to feel like the frayed end of a wire, so what can we do to help ourselves? The answer doesn’t lie in circling endlessly through the same three social-media apps, or throwing ourselves into work. It’s about finding another release, elsewhere. We asked our friends to tell us what they do to continue to keep sane; and writer and author Roisin LanIgan discovered the balm to maintain mental equilibrium was to simply do nothing. Here, she explains why, and how, it helps.

The Farago Projects Prize for emerging talents is a biannual initiative committed to nurturing the next generation of artists, which highlights and accelerates the recognition of young professionals in fashion. This year’s photography winner, JOHN SPYROU, was selected by a panel of judges including Frank Lebon, Georgia Pendlebury, Jaime Perlman, Luis Alberto Rodriguez, Florence Tétier and Marie Gomis-Trezise, and was offered access to the archives of Jean Paul Gaultier for his debut shoot

A record insurance payout made Californian mother DIANE JOHNSON wealthy, but over the years she has given almost everything away. It’s easy if you try

Instagram star TOBY BOORNE DAVIDSON is the Wombat Guy – dedicated to curing the burrowing marsupial of the outbreaks of mange that threaten its existence, and thereby helping preserve one of Australia’s most endearing species

A new cohort of young and emerging designers are giving fresh purpose to upcycled and reclaimed materials – and lending the human form a dramatic silhouette in the process