Top Rank Magazine

On episode 6 co-hosts Isabel Flower and Marcel Rosa-Salas speak with New York-based activists Elaine Paredes and Lori Adelman about Planned Parenthood’s essential work, the current state of women’s health-related legislation (domestic and overseas), and how we might prepare for what’s to come. Paredes and Adelman lay out the implications of defunding Planned Parenthood and the repercussions of and relationship between such legislation as the Mexico City policy and the Helms Amendment. They discuss the significance—as well as the critical fault lines—of the Women’s Marches, and, perhaps most importantly, express why it is essential that our strategies for the days and years to come be intersectional at their core.

On Episode 5, co-hosts Isabel Flower and Marcel Rosa-Salas speak with members of BRUJAS, a New York City-based feminist organization who use skateboarding and community activism to foster radical social change. Brujas members ARIANNA GIL, ANTONIA PÉREZ, and REBECCA STURCKEN discuss the group’s representation in mainstream media, the labor involved in producing and sustaining their program, and the challenges of using social media to incite political resistance while considering the threat of surveillance. Sharing their influences and aspirations, the Brujas members talk though the possibilities of youth-led activism in the digital age. You can find Top Rank online @toprankmagazine. You can learn more about Brujas on their website https://brujas.nyc/ and @BRUJAS A special thank you to Red Bull Studios New York, and to each of our wonderfully generous participants. This episode was produced by Sienna Fekete. Isabel and Marcel welcome input for future content. You can reach us at isabel@toprankmagazine.com

On the occasion of Knockdown Center's MAMI exhibition and market, Top Rank Podcast co-hosts Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower talk intersectional identity with journalists Jenna Wortham (NYT Magazine) and Doreen St. Félix (MTV News), Brujas skate crew leader Arianna Gil, and Bklyn Boihood founder Ryann Holmes. Available here as the Top Rank Podcast’s 4th episode, their conversation addresses the promises and pitfalls of digital media as a tool for social change, the importance of fostering self-affirming environments that prioritize self-care, and, more generally, how Mami Wata’s hybrid identity serves as a framework within which we can question conventional binaries and locate strength in paradox, contradiction, and multiplicity. You can find us online at toprankmagazine.com and on Instagram @toprankmagazine. A special thank you to Red Bull Studios New York, and to each of our wonderfully generous participants. Isabel and Marcel welcome input for future content. You can reach us at marcel@toprankmagazine

In Episode 3, co-hosts Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower reflect on their enduring affection for Selena Quintanilla Perez, the beloved Tejana singer, and assess what it means to memorialize and perform her identity.

Our second episode, “Elements of Style,” is a post-Fashion Week reflection consisting of conversations about the politics of fashion imagery, beauty, modeling, and self-styling. Co-hosts Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower ask what fashion can teach us about configurations of power in contemporary society, and discuss the industry as an institution that produces culture through collective knowledge. In conversations with each other, fashion industry professionals, and scholars, Isabel and Marcel seek some insight into this mammoth question. On this episode you'll hear from: Brandi Thompson Summers, Assistant professor of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University Christelle de Castro, photographer, filmmaker, art director, and creative director for Top Rank Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati Nafisa Kaptownwala, founder of modeling agency Lorde Inc. Paloma Elsesser, model, writer, and student Eric Darnell Pritchard, Assistant Pr

Hosts Marcel Rosa-Salas and Isabel Flower nerd out about nameplate jewelry, discussing the style's formal qualities, its material and social history, and its relevance in American culture today. Music Credit: "Uptown Top Ranking" by Althea & Donna Original interlude by @dyani_douze