MAY TO-DO LIST

Musing on America’s – and Los Angeles’, in particular – relationship with cars isn’t a new concept, but there’s an admirable straightforwardness to Mike Mandel’s approach. For a period in the 70s, the photographer would post up with his 35mm camera on a street corner in his neighbourhood of Van Nuys, and snap portraits of drivers as they slowed to turn right in the late afternoon sun. By turns intimate, confrontational, humorous, lonely and crisply cool, Mandel’s black-and-white images are collected in a new book (published 12 May, Stanley/Barker) released to coincide with an exhibition at New York’s Robert Mann Gallery.

You may have to wait until the end of the month but May’s most stylish exhibition comes in the form of the V&A’s latest offering, Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion (opens 27 May). Head to London for a closer look at the work of master couturier, Cristóbal Balenciaga, the man widely acknowledged in the industry as ‘the designers' designer’. Grab a rare chance to see some couture up close and take advantage of a programme of talks, workshops and events to see how the the label’s Spanish founder continues to influence fashion.