Best Homage to Old Atlanta

Every brand starts with a story. For the proprietors behind urban merch startup Ateaelle (pronounced A-T-L), theirs began with a shirt bearing a concise but profound message. As soon as company founder Kirsten Daniel and her business partner Destiny Stokes released their OLD ATLANTA sweatshirt (also available in tees) nine months ago, it became an instant conversation piece. In a town hell-bent on homogenizing its cultural identity, they’ve joined other homegrown brands in making nostalgia a fashion statement. Daniel’s desire to preserve a sense of the city that raised her in the ’90s has become a calling card for natives and longtime residents who remember when “the ATL” was coded language reserved for cool kids. That subtlety is reflected in the Old Atlanta shirt’s unspoken critique of the rampant gentrification and cultural displacement turning the black mecca into a shell of itself. But it’s more positive proclamation than protest fashion. Whether your favorite era of Atlanta is best represented by Kilo’s booty shake anthems or Dr. King’s hard-fought dream, one size fits all. Just have your A-Town credentials on deck when you wear it or you might get checked. www.ateaelle.com. less...

Atlanta author Joshilyn Jackson puts a new twist on the family feud in BETWEEN, GEORGIA, in which the biological daughter of one family is raised by that family’s sworn enemies. As an adult, only she can keep the two families from killing one another. No pressure. Set in a fictionalized version of the real town of Between, the novel adeptly mixes cold-blooded creepiness with lyric love and loyalty.
$22.99. Warner Books. 304 pages.

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