ASTONISH Magazine Sample Packet by ASTONISH Magazine

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COVER CREDITS Photographer TONY VELOZ - www.tonyveloz.com Designers wire corset & necklace: JULIAN PIERRE BONEY rope cone bra: TENNIEL CORDAE hand dyed tights: JULIAN PIERRE BONEY

Photographer: NATALIE J. WATTS

ISSUE ONE

SAMPLE PACKAGE

Model JULIA NAISMITH @ Modelogic www.modelogic.com Makeup artist YEIKOV - www.yeikov.com Hair stylist KAHLIL OLIVER - www.kahliloliver.com Photographer’s assistant LUIS ZAFFIRINI

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LOVE, LUST AND THAT

BASTARD CALLED

DESIRE

Photographer: AN LE Designer & Stylist: APRIL JOHNSTON Make-up & Hair: WADE CALHOUN, AMANDA ROSE GILBERT Assistants: NIC CULLISON, CHRISTOPHER HENCH, BRITTANY STURRETT *Models: CAROLINE MCELHINNY, ERINN FOWLER, AMANDA ROSE GILBERT, NIKITA M’BOUROUKOUNDA | COLE WHITWORTH, ALEXANDER GRAUDINS

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IT’S A CHEMICAL ENERGY FUSED WITH UNAVOIDABLE ATTRACTION

THAT MAKES CHEEKS FLUSH AND PANTIES MOISTEN. For sake of structure, let’s set out to define all three terms. Lust is straightforward sex. Great sex. It’s a chemical energy fused with unavoidable attraction that makes cheeks flush and panties moisten. Love happens when great sex meets best friend. But what is desire? A tricky, fickle, little bastard? Yes. Influenced by a vast array of things such as competitive nature, insecurities, and power struggles? Yes. Beauty and misery wrapped into a furious moment of flashing eyes and frustrating patience? All of the above. But what makes desire so incredible? That it is almost impossible to control. The driving force of human motivation is a volatile little beast that takes years of wisdom and experimental failure to manage even decently. Let’s begin at ‘Once upon a time.’ Those four fateful words are most little girl’s first encounter with the desire that inspires daydreams laced with love and lust. These words begin every fable of true love. Why do nice guys finish last? Because little girls have been socially conditioned to believe that it is not true love without dragon-sized obstacles to overcome and a miraculous transformation of the fatally flawed. Examine our heroes. Beast was an ass hole masking his insecurity with bullying and abuse, but Belle and true love’s first kiss changed him. Aladdin was a liar and a thief, but Jasmine made an honest man of him. Simba was self-absorbed, afraid of commitment and had no desire to grow up until he frolicked with Nala in the woods. Why do women want to make projects out of irreversibly screwed up idiots? Don’t blame her. Blame Disney.

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His princesses gave us our first taste of desire and taught us that it is sweetest when unattainable, sweetest when we have to suffer for it, and even sweeter when we are special enough to attain it anyway. This need to be special, the need for self-validation, the need to conquer fuels a lot of desire. Why do we want what we cannot have? Because we want to know that we are good enough to get it. How, then, do we tame that desire? That fiery crazy that rears within us and abandons all logic and reason? It’s a simple answer that is damn near impossible for most to truly accomplish. Love yourself. Love yourself independent of any external affection. Truly loving yourself brews the sincere confidence capable of hushing fits of unhealthy desire. Because the roots of unhealthy desire lie in the need to reassure a sense of empowerment. True empowerment comes within. So, love yourself. This requires getting to know yourself without shame or inhibition. Get to know what you really want and lose the need to chase false fairy tales. If Disney were decent enough to put out a sequel that began with the words, “Five years later,” the current divorce rate wouldn’t seem so shocking. Allow genuine, untainted desire to seek out love that’s real, a love that is not plagued with games and power struggles people mistake for passion. I’m not saying it won’t require patience, but while you are waiting, there’s nothing wrong with a little lust on the side.

by Jenny Baker

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Black jacket by APRIL JOHNSTON Body tight by APRIL JOHNSTON Stylist’s own Accessories

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Black gown by APRIL JOHNSTON Black dress by APRIL JOHNSTON

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Body tight by APRIL JOHNSTON Black dress by APRIL JOHNSTON Stylist’s own accessories

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Black gown by APRIL JOHNSTON Stylist’s own accessories

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THE FABRIC OF HER STRIFE: 2011 Fashion Institute of Technology graduate

Elin Johansson Tells Kristen Irby how she rebelled

“against the nature of knitwear” Elin Johansson began making garments at the tender age of 10, mastered the use of the sewing machine by the time she reached 13 and at 19 completed the Arts & Crafts program at the Virginska School, a former shoe factory converted into a high school with theoretical and vocational courses in fashion design, in her native Sweden. Johansson strongly doubted her chances of gaining admittance into the fashion design program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. “I was very nervous,” said Johansson. “I thought I’d never be able to get into FIT.” This apprehension compelled

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Johansson to enroll at the famed Central Saint Martin’s School in London, where the talents of Westwood, Galliano and McQueen were honed, to enhance her chances of admission into the Fashion Institute. With her technical knowledge of design and construction, along with advanced illustration skills, for which she credits Central Saint Martin’s, her enrollment into the BFA program at the Fashion Institute was secured. “Every garment we made here at FIT I’ve already done once but it allowed me to repeat everything and that was very useful,” said Johansson. “It also

made it easier for me to make more complicated garments. I thought I could take everything one step further.” Johansson, blessed with high cheekbones, hair the color of pale honey, and wide blue almond shaped eyes of her Swedish heritage began developing her final collection in the spring of 2011. “I knew this would be the last time for a very long time that I would be able to do something completely of my own,” said Johansson. The only stipulation, however, was to design a garment made of only 100% cotton per guidelines of a competition sponsored by Cotton Incorporated,

known internationally for building demand for U.S. cotton and its products. “I have never been a big fan of cotton,” exclaimed Johansson. “I thought to myself, what am I going to do with cotton?” After a year long collaboration with luxury brand Loro Piana, which selected Johansson as one of three FIT students to help the brand develop new yarns, she grew accustomed to working with the most exclusive yarns made of silk, cashmere and steel. The thought of designing a knitwear garment made only of cotton seemed a fatuous task for Johansson. Driven by a competitive edge along with a renewed sense of confidence after being honored with the second prize CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) scholarship award just a few months prior, Johansson began sculpting shapes for her final garment. A fateful peruse around an art store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn would lead Johansson to a material that would help her go against the very nature of knitwear, which naturally drapes and is shapeless, to create the structured knitwear garment she’d envisioned. The material Johansson discovered was the very antithesis of the “fabric of our lives.” It was not the soft, fluffy material resembling little balls of white clouds nor was it the comforting form used to make quilts that are passed from mothers to daughters. It was paper! Johansson used the $100 given her by Cotton Incorporated to purchase a large roll of 100% cotton paper imported from Thailand. “I was being sarcastic,” quipped Johansson. “I thought it was stupid that we had to use one material to make our final garment.” From the initial presentation of her sketches Johansson battled with accepting the guidance of her professors and critic, an industry professional assigned to each class who would later select one student for the Critic’s Award, or take full advantage of the artistic autonomy she had been granted for the first time since she began her academic career at the Fashion Institute. “My professors and the critic didn’t understand,” said Johansson. “These garments have nothing to do with knitwear they said.” Johansson’s greatest challenge was working with her designated critic, from Theory, who told Johansson she was completely on her own. Johansson desperately wanted to win the Critic’s Award but after realizing she and the critic didn’t agree she decided to follow her own creative sensibility rather than submit to the injunctions of the critic. Inspired by “organic shapes from nature,” Ernst Haeckel’s Artforms in Nature, which Johansson playfully refers to as her “new bible,” and the idea of

sculpting a structured knitwear garment, she had to concoct a new technique in order to knit the paper. The use of needles was impossible as they caused the paper to twist. Johansson tried various types of glues but eventually decided to use double-stick carpet tape because of its durability. The garter stitch, the simplest form of knitting, of the garment creates the loops and thickness of the piece. The garment consists of three long strips of paper that are connected by nylon yarn. The sleeves twist around the arm to accentuate an hourglass silhouette. The collar and high neck are double-knit both horizontally and vertically from the inside of the garment to make it more stable. Johansson’s garment evokes the whimsicality of Gustav Klimt’s 1903 portrait of Hermine Gallia, as well as the dauntlessness of recent collections by the late futurist, Alexander McQueen. “I love Alexander McQueen,” said Johansson. “I am totally inspired by him.” Johansson’s senior collection is not made for the faint at heart nor is it for the follower of fleeting trends. The wearer of these garments is at

once fashion innovator and adventurist. Taste maker and trendsetter. She is the personification of classical elegance and an exemplar of prowess as fashion maven victorious. Johansson’s detailfocused creations are bold, daring and audaciously suitable for the likes of the Lady Gaga or the reigning Queen B herself, Beyonce Knowles. Fortunately, Johansson had the courage and insight to design as her heart dictated. She didn’t win the Critic’s Award but Cotton Incorporated was so astonished by her garment that she received 1st place in the knitwear category of the competition. Johansson is living in New York City and working as a paid intern with Helmut Lang. “A dream for me now would be to work full-time with Helmut Lang,” exclaimed Johansson. Johansson is also working as a freelance designer helping to develop a new collection with a former associate designer at Tse Cashmere Company. “I’d love to succeed with my own label,” said Elin Johansson. “But I want to be happy and stay who I am.”

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By: Leona Liu

Just how far are women willing to go to conform to society’s standard of beauty? Initially invented for nothing more than practical purposes, women’s undergarments have evolved throughout the decades to become the penultimate sartorial vehicle for sexual fantasy and seduction. Simply slipping on a lacy bra and shimmying into a pair of racy panties instantly transform women into objects of lust. Most women don’t don skimpy unmentionables solely to indulge in the carnal desires of the opposite sex. Remember Madonna rocking Jean Paul Gaultier’s dominatrix gold conical bra during her 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour? Celebrities from Lily Allen to Taylor Momsen are increasingly sporting scandalous underwear as outerwear. Yet there are few women who would actually aspire to incarnate the fetishistic femme fatale. Throughout history, undergarments have either accentuated or downplayed their natural curves. Intimate apparel, ranging from the torturous stiff corsets of the Elizabethan era to the modern day tummy-flattening Spanx underwear, have put pressure on women to artificially manipulate their silhouettes in order to conform to society’s demanding standards of beauty. Take, for instance, the brassieres that flattened bosoms during the heyday of the flappers in the 1920s. Boyish slender figures like that of Louise Brooks were all the rage. Or how about the pointy bullet bras of the 1950s that accorded women the coveted hourglass figure that was so en Vogue at the time. Luckily, a new trend is underfoot. Lingerie is now designed to be, at once, aesthetically pleasing to the viewer and at the same time comfortable for the wearer. Ditch the artificial cleavage-enhancing Wonderbra in lieu of a demure unpadded bra in a luxe satin fabric that delicately caresses your skin. Add a pair of retro high-cut panties and seductive silk stockings to infuse old Hollywood glamour into your ensemble. Heighten the drama by curling your tresses in romantic tendrils and pinning up your hair to coyly expose your neck. Women have and always will be so irresistible to men when wearing nothing but their underwear. Beyond carnal desires, men are equally aroused by a woman’s proverbial and poetic nakedness. By stripping down to nothing but our unmentionables, we allow ourselves to be disarmed, in the same manner as we do when in love.

Body Suit by LYN LINGERIE ZURICH (www.lynlingerie.ch) Fur Coat by VINTAGE

So, swap bright, colorful eye shadow for matte neutral shades; draw focus to your pout by finishing off your look with a strong, crimson lip color; and polish fingernails with a clear glaze — steering away from ostentatious bright reds and pinks. If you can, avoid overwhelming baubles and instead opt for a simple elegant pair of dangling chandelier earrings that add sparkle to your eyes. Top it all off with a strand of classic white pearls that channels ladylike prim and virginal innocence, and you’ll end up with a sharp contrast to an otherwise sexy ensemble. ASTONISH | 15

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Fur Coat by Vintage

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Lingerie by LYN LINGERIE ZURICH

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Lingerie Set by LYN LINGERIE ZURIC, Thigh-High Stockings by LYN LINGERIE ZURIC

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Vintage Fur by LYN LINGERIE ZURICH Lingerie by LYN LINGERIE ZURICH

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