C California Style & Culture by C Magazine

AMANDLA STENBERG Reaches for the Stars

BRUNELLO CUCINELLI Has California on His Mind

Spring 2024

SHEPARD FAIREY On Street Art and Activism

Cover

NEW HORIZONS SPRINGTIME Starts Here

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Spring 2024 STATEMENTS

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The new Gucci finds its stride............................................................................................................. 51 Tory Burch x Humberto Leon pop-up is the cat’s meow on Melrose Ave....... 55 The best bags for business..................................................................................................................... 58

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FEATURES

Jason Rhoades’ California car exhibit motors into Hauser & Wirth......................62

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Meet Amandla Stenberg, new star of the Star Wars universe......................... 82 Why Brunello Cucinelli has California on his mind............................................... 94

Brush up on these collegiate looks....................................................................................... 100 A Malibu house rebuilt from the ashes of the Woolsey Fire............................. 112 Shepard Fairey on 35 years of street art activism and political pop art.. 120

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51. DISCOVERIES Three charmingly restored waterfront getaways await........................................ 127 How to get ‘90s rock chick eyes à la Kate Moss........................................................ 130 Where Sara Foster goes to chill in the Golden State.............................................. 134

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pring is here in all its glory, but how to tell the changing seasons when we are forever at a blissful 72°F? Fashion always provides a clue. The collections are on point this spring/summer, but it is the way we Californians wear clothes while taking notes from our sunny surroundings that gives us our unique style. In our spring fashion portfolio (“Class Act,” p. 100), we give this season’s sartorial stunners a scholarly turn, all set upon the fields, classrooms, and lockers of Los Angeles High School. Cover subject Amandla Stenberg (“Force for Change,” p. 82) learned a few life lessons while growing up as a child actor in Hollywood. Now a mere 25 years old, she plays the lead in the upcoming Star Wars series The Acolyte. We predict even bigger things for this California-

AMANDLA STENBERG wearing BOTTEGA VENETA.

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ON THE COVER Photography by GUY AROCH. Fashion Direction by CHRISTIAN STROBLE. Hair by CASSANDRA NORMIL at The Visionaries Agency using CAROL’S DAUGHTER. Makeup by LOFTJET at Forward Artists using DR. BARBARA STURM and PAT McGRATH LABS. Manicure by KAREN JIMENEZ at Opus Beauty using CHANEL.

born activist, actor, and musician, feted by Time magazine while still a teenager, in the year ahead. What we already know about renegede street artist Shepard Fairey (“‘I Feel Disappointed and Disillusioned. But Not Paralyzed or Demotivated,’” p. 120) comes from his three decades of sociopolitical art — who can forget the iconic “Obama Hope” poster from 2008? Always interested in pushing the boundaries to get a message across, he has plenty to say about propaganda and politics in this election year. Don’t miss this L.A. great’s new show in Glendale. More than five years ago, victims of Malibu’s Woolsey fire wondered how they could ever rebuild their lives and homes. Now families like the Wolskis of Point Dume are back — and better than ever (“Paradise Regained,” p. 112). Their newly finished abode, which stands on the same plot, saw renowned cinematographer Dariusz Wolski turn the twisted remnants of his former house into a modern sculpture, a symbol of his family’s resilience. And on the subject of celebrating great families, I can’t think of one more deserving than the Cucinellis (“California, Ti Amo,” p. 94). Brunello has put his heart and soul into his brand but remains deeply engaged with philosophy, philanthropy, and family. When the clan descended on Los Angeles recently with an intimate dinner for 200 friends and fans, it was a la dolce vita–fueled evening that felt authentic and warm — just like the Cucinellis themselves. And isn’t that the essence of style? To be true to yourself in the way you live and dress, day in and day out, no matter the season.

Van Cleef & Arpels

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IRA MADISON III Ira Madison III is a New York City–based culture critic and TV writer who formerly lived in Los Angeles. He is also a host of the pop culture podcast Keep It. He penned our cover story on Amandla Stenberg, “Force for Change,” p. 82. MY C SPOTS • Found Oyster doesn’t take reservations but has the best oysters in L.A.; I’d gatekeep if I still lived there • Don Nacho’s is a holein-the-wall delicious Mexican restaurant in Solvang • Coachella, because everyone insists it’s dead and no one goes anymore; if you’re cool you go the second weekend and don’t make a big deal about it

Stylist Katie Mossman — who did the fashion direction for our fashion story “Class Act,” p. 100 — has worked with industry legends including Patrick Demarchelier, Karl Lagerfeld, and Peter Lindbergh. The New York City– based creative’s work has been seen on the pages of Elle and Harper’s Bazaar. MY C SPOTS • Pierce & Ward in Los Feliz is a charming little shop with antiques, artwork, and yummy cozy farmhouse tchotchkes • L.A. Rose Café in East Hollywood for traditional Filipino food • Switzer Falls Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains is an epic hike that leads to a gorgeous waterfall

BRAD TORCHIA

ADAM FRANZINO

The photographer for “Paradise Regained,” p. 112, Brad Torchia, is based in Los Angeles, where he channels the qualities of the sun and ocean as he aims to transcend genre in favor of emotion, connection, and a cinematic alchemy of color and luminosity. His clients include Apple, Conde Nast Traveler, Soho House, and The New York Times. MY C SPOTS • Skylight Books because I’m a sucker for endless art-book perusing • Palos Verdes Cove, which has maybe the best sunset spot around L.A. • Ellie’s in Long Beach for gnocchi with pork ragù and bone marrow butter

New York City–based lensman Adam Franzino specializes in fashion, beauty, and advertising photography, with clients including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Anthropologie, Victoria’s Secret, and Hervé Léger. For this issue he returned to his native California to shoot spring fashions for “Class Act,” p. 100. MY C SPOTS • The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica is my favorite bar • The steak at L.A.’s Chi Spacca is a can’t-miss • I love to hike Point Dume • Caffe Luxxe has the best coffee

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Statements Opener

GUCCI’S NEW GROOVE

Sabato De Sarno’s innovative debut injects FRESH IDEAS into the Italian powerhouse

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Tailored short shorts and miniskirts put legs front and center at Sabato De Sarno’s debut Spring collection for GUCCI.

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N EWS S T Y L E GUCCI long coats in De Sarno’s men’s offering mirrored his women’s designs; a red Jackie 1961 bag, green patent leather slingbacks, and the Marina Chain necklace.

De Sarno calls his debut “a story of richness and Statements Turn lust-desire”

ew proportions emerged, a new shade of deep red proliferated, and the Jackie bag was reinvented — with archival features such as the pressing hook closure and red fabric lining — as part of Gucci’s palette-cleansing Spring 2024 collection Gucci’s dreamed up by Sabato De Sarno. A first look at the new creative director’s minimalist vision began with a starkly geometric Marina Chain necklace and earrings worn poolside at Chateau Marmont by longtime friend Daria Werbowy for De Sarno’s debut jewelry campaign. De Sarno expanded on this notion of the glamour of simplicity in Milan with his first collection, titled Ancora — riffing on the Italian word for again, still, more. Short shorts, unembellished tanks, peak-lapeled coats, patent leather miniskirts, slit A-line skirts, and lace-lined

slip dresses all made the cut. De Sarno, who previously spent more than a decade at Valentino, where he worked closely with Pierpaolo Piccioli, calls his debut collection “a story of richness and lust-desire, of red but also blue and green, of flash, of spontaneity, of light,” and his men’s debut followed a similar course. To which we say, bravo! gucci.com. E.V.

Front lobby of THE ELWOOD CLUB, which features three distinct culinary venues.

Since Orange County–based hotelier Alan Fuerstman, the founder of Montage Hotels & Resorts group, and his son, Michael, launched the modern, designforward lifestyle concept Pendry a decade ago, the idea has taken off. Sharing the same address as Pendry Newport, members-only The Elwood Club has become a local attraction with three different dining concepts and access to exclusive programming, including sessions with workout guru Tracy Anderson, a simulated Topgolf Swing Suite, and nightly live music. 690 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach, 949-688-8001; pendry.com. K.M.

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Sanderson Design

Sanderson Design CUPID’S BEAU An original design, Etchings & Roses, has been elegantly repainted and coloured in a botanical illustration style. Featuring rare and beautifully engraved prints from Mulhouse, faithfully reproduced and including miniature insects scattered throughout the design, Cupid’s Beau is elevated to the next level of contemporary design with Giles’s illustrative bows and calligraphy, including his signature ‘G’. Available in fabric and wallpaper.

DISCOVER THE FULL COLLECTION

sanderson.sandersondesigngroup.com @Sanderson1860

TORY BURCH’s new pop-up runs wild.

T A T E M E IVY NEW YORK has a vibrant new line of hues.

COLOR HAZE

Vlad Yavorskyy’s devotion to colored gemstones is fueling a vibrant new collaboration with responsible miner GEMFIELDS, the innovative global supplier that specializes in finding and sorting stones in a spectrum of hues. Tapping rubies from the company’s Montepuez mine in Mozambique and emeralds from Zambia’s Kagem mine — collected through a transparent process and technologically advanced sorting house — Yavorskyy and his IVY NEW YORK designers have crafted a new collection of jewelry with the rubies and emeralds set alongside rose-cut diamonds in 18-karat gold. Each piece, designed and handcrafted in-house at IVY, takes inspiration from 19th-century grand balls, myriad other sources, and the stones themselves. Yavorskyy has added them to bold solitaire rings and baubles with floral motifs plus regal chokers and chandelier earrings — always foregrounding chromaticity. ivynewyork.com. E.V.

FELINE PHENOMENAL A playful game of cat and mouse is under way at the new TORY BURCH pop-up in Los Angeles, created in collaboration with Humberto Leon. The space’s facade and interiors are adorned with supersize versions of expressive animal portraits shot by German portrait photographer Walter Schels. Burch emblazoned his cats, lions, and rabbits across her Resort 2024 collection’s tops, skirts, and pants, all hanging inside. Leon, the Opening Ceremony cofounder and L.A. native, commissioned Mexican artist Aranza Garcia of Chuch Estudio to create a series of pale pink ceramic seats and vases shaped like giant strawberries for the space, open through the end of the year while the line’s Rodeo Drive flagship is renovated. Additional catnip includes the first drop of Burch’s Spring 2024 collection, with hoop dresses, silk jersey goddess frocks, and pierced wedges, curated by Leon. 8483 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, 323-300-6068; toryburch.com. E.V.

Statements - Style News DONNA’S BACK Donna Karan revolutionized fashion for modern women, and the DONNA KARAN NEW YORK label is reintroducing looks based on her archives for its Spring 2024 collection. A black collared bodysuit joins fluid skirts, belted blazers, draped dresses, coats adorned with sculptural hardware, and minimalist sequined eveningwear she pioneered, now crafted for new generations. The “Seven Easy Pieces” are instantly recognizable as they evolve into a true “System of Dressing” reimagined for

today’s women. The versatile line includes everything from apparel, eyewear, and fragrances to accessories with oversize belts and gold finishes evoking the line’s DNA in concert with the crisp tailoring and flattering cuts Karan has championed since 1985. A palette primed in black and white with neutral hues spans a trove of fabrics, including satin burnouts, soft leathers, blistered jacquards, nylon, and textured charmeuse. Easing into spring just got simpler. donnakaran.com. E.V.

TIME TO HEEL Slingbacks for springtime

TORY BURCH: MARC PATRICK/BFA.COM.

1. BURBERRY shoes, $1,290. 2. JIMMY CHOO sandals, $995. 3. BOTTEGA VENETA heels, price upon request. 4. ALEXANDER McQUEEN sandals, $1,090. 5. ZIMMERMANN sandals, $725. R.R.

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ENCHANTING DISCOVERIES Van Cleef & Arpels’ expanded COSTA MESA BOUTIQUE unveils captivating salons

From top: VAN CLEEF & ARPELS’ redesigned jewel box in South Coast Plaza; Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux Jour 18K gold watch, $141,000; Lucky Spring plum blossom 18K gold earrings, $4,550; the boutique’s private Poetic salon.

Statements - VCA

striking minaudière, designed by Van Cleef & Arpels in 1937, inspired the pyramidal pattern of the elegant new ivory-andgold facade fronting the French jewelry house’s reimagined boutique in Costa Mesa, which opened in 2002. The new 4,200-sq.-ft. space takes design cues from historic archival works alongside the natural landscape, flora, and fauna of its Southern California perch. The art deco roots of the facade motif reemerge inside, where two large display rooms are filled with creations that also share pluckedfrom-the-archives provenance combined with of-the-moment constructions. Five salons with libraries touch on dance, culture, love, nature, and fairy tales, and the space includes a bridal salon as well as the private Poetic salon. Inside, Alhambra baubles drawing on the four-leaf clover with carnelian and guilloché sunbeam-like streaks across rose

gold join the signature delicate gold beads of Perlée designs. Zodiaque collection themes blend nature and astronomy on pendants with elements of fire, air, water, and earth. Diamondencrusted timepieces, including Midnight Planétarium evoking the constellations and Lady Arpels Heures Florales with its enchanted gardens and butterflies, sparkle in threedimensional tableaus. High jewelry Brume de Saphir ensembles steeped in bezel-set blue sapphires bring to mind the changing colors of ocean waves as light reflects across the surf at Pacific Coast beaches a few miles away. Open-worked designs in white gold ripple with diamonds and dark and light blue stones to form cascading earrings, draped necklaces, and shimmering bracelets. Nearby, stunning drawings of house designs with faceted stones intricately shaped and shaded adorn salon walls. The bucolic Flora and Fauna collections, as well as the blooms of Frivole with delicate heart-shaped petals, are also here. All the pieces are in conversation with French artist Marianne Guély’s vivid paper sculptures constituting the boutique’s new immersive Winter Garden installation. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, 714-545-9500; vancleefarpels.com. 2

Words by ELIZABETH VARNELL 56

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Minotti

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LOS ANGELES

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FELIX ART FAIR collabs with DSM this year.

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VERONICA BEARD is opening a new boutique and launching a line of handbags.

BRAND NEW BAGS

This year’s installment of Los Angeles’ FELIX ART FAIR (Feb. 28 – March 3) includes sculptor Oscar Tuazon’s architectural structures, one of which houses a shoppable Dover Street Market installation inside the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s ballroom. Alongside more than 60 galleries invited to this latest edition of the famously laid-back show launched in 2018 by Dean Valentine, Mills Morán, and Al Morán — where galleries rent rooms and poolside cabanas to display works inside the labyrinthine hotel with its David Hockney pool mural — the immersive boutique will house DSM wares. More than 70 brands championed or nurtured by the retailer, a brainchild of Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe, are on offer inside Tuazon’s structure during the annual gathering. Artistic collaborations plus products created for the fair fill its entrance, while work from familiar artists and upstarts wait to be discovered inside. 7000 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.; felixfair.com. E.V.

Fabrics raffia wallpaper. Next up, the entire assortment of clothes and accessories will arrive in San Diego, where the brand will open up shop in late April. 401 Newport Center Dr., Fashion Island, Newport Beach; veronicabeard.com. E.V.

WORK IT Bags that mean business

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1. DIOR Tujours bag, $4,400. 2. FENDI Selleria bag, $5,900. 3. MAX MARA bag, from $995. 4. BALENCIAGA Rodeo bag, $4,550.

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FELIX ART FAIR: ZACK WHITFORD. GABRIELA HEARST: BEN MEIER. JIMMY CHOO: RICHARD VALENCIA PHOTOGRAPHY.

Statements Style News

After years of simplifying wardrobes, VERONICA BEARD is adding bags to its roster of ready-to-wear classics for on-thego women. The line, helmed by sisters-inlaw Veronica Swanson Beard and Veronica Miele Beard, is launching seven silhouettes, from leather buckets to canvas cross-body styles to carryall totes, in a neutral palette: white, blue, green, brown, and black. They are on offer at all the line’s boutiques, including its newest in Newport Beach, the company’s seventh door in California. There, they join the lineup of dickey jackets, denim, and stretch nylon scuba suits, plus dresses, tops, skirts, outerwear, and shoes arrayed inside walls draped with Newcastle

GABRIELA HEARST’s boutique offers clothing and accessories for men and women.

MIU MIU denim trucker jacket, $3,300.

HEARST AMONG EQUALS GOOD JEANS Norman Foster, the Pritzker-winning sustainable design pioneer, devised GABRIELA HEARST’s first West Coast boutique in Beverly Hills. The space, on the street in front of the Beverly Wilshire hotel, echoes the line’s emphasis on handcrafted elements and includes bespoke furniture — created by Benji Gavron and Antoine Dumas

of Gavron Dumas Studio — made from fallen local Western Sycamore trees shaped by the artisans of L.A.’s DUSK studio. Hearst’s responsibly sourced women’s and men’s ready-to-wear collections, cashmere and merino wool knitwear, shoes, accessories, and bags are here, including her rounded Nina bag (named for Nina Simone), the accordion-like Diana (a nod to Diana Ross), and the versatile Baez (after Joan Baez) designs. Additionally, the space takes inspiration from the designer’s family ranch in Uruguay and architect Paul R. Williams’ regional standouts, including the hotel itself and the Theme Building at LAX. 9502 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 310-273-2200; gabrielahearst.com. E.V.

Denim sourced from specialists with stockpiles of the material created before 2000 — the holy grail of circularity — comprises the latest MIU MIU Upcycled collection. Jeans in particular hues and weight with unique fading marks are repurposed as wardrobe archetypes, including wide-legged jeans, trucker jackets, bra tops, and shorts, plus hair bands and baseball caps. Prized for their singular patinas, the outer seams on each vintage garment are preserved before being deconstructed and reimagined by hand with as much of the original material as possible. Black silk chiffon petals, faceted beads, and crystals set into antique metal, inspired by 1950s haute couture, embellish the garments. The collection also includes purses, which is a first: Lush leather remnants from the house’s array of carryalls are reconfigured as Upcycled Patch bags in this limited offering accompanied by Aura Blockchain verification. miumiu.com. E.V.

Statements Style News TWINKLE TOES Exacting craftmanship and the allure of individually applied Swarovski crystals led to JIMMY CHOO’s newest eye-catcher, the Lorem ipsum Crystal Slipper ($5,300). Heart shapes and dolor sit amet, nine other varieties of the geometrically consectetur adipiscing elit faceted sparklers cover each pair, including est. the underside, leading to the hand-finished result: pumps embellished with more than 12,000 crystals. The house’s creative director, Sandra Choi, found inspiration for the radiant footwear in 18th-century rococo court shoes and adorned each pointy-

toe with hand-embroidered clusters of crystal hearts. An iridescent lining combined with the heels’ glassy exteriors adds to the shoes’ distinctive glow. 250 N. Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-860-9045; 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd., Westfield Valley Fair, Santa Clara, 408-516-1470; 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Westfield Topanga, Canoga Park, 818340-7221; jimmychoo.com. E.V.

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5. BOTTEGA VENETA Cabat bag, price upon request. 6. PRADA buckle bag, $4,900. 7. LOUIS VUITTON Alma 103 bag, price upon request. 8. SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Baby Sac de Jour bag, $2,950. R.R.

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MASTER PIECE A painterly palette meets a perfect form in Loewe’s FLAMENCO PURSE

Statements - Loewe

LOEWE’s Flamenco Purse is the newest addition to the house’s signature Flamenco family. Finished in the house’s classic supple leather, the bag comes with adjustable leather strap and iconic Donut strap. $3,550, available at LOEWE, 327 N. Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-388-6771; loewe.com.

Buccellati

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Lucile evening dress, 1921.

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T Artists in California are drawn to water — from David Hockney’s hypnotic S swimming pools to James Turrell’s Skyspaces reflected in basins — and San Francisco–born painter JOAN BROWN’s depictions of the bay’s choppy waves and the turbulent or meditative flow of its openwater swimmers are another key addition to the region’s aquatic canon. On view at Orange County Museum of Art’s retrospective, Joan Brown (through June 2) comprises more than 40 works charting the breadth and depth of her evolving career in painting and sculpture. The

WHO IS THE FAIREST?

exhibition, organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, charts her early days as a student at California School of Fine Arts (later known as San Francisco Art Institute) creating abstract expressionist canvases alongside her representational cityscapes, portraits, selfportraits, and later depictions of travels and Eastern spiritual explorations. Here, ordinary moments like a morning swim are worthy of large canvases. 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa, 714-780-2130; ocma.art. E.V.

Statements - Art ERIN HUPP’s custom mirrors start at $500.

“Our attention is called elsewhere by news, social media, phones, and email. My portals are meant to bring you home,” says Oakland-based ceramic artist ERIN HUPP of the circular mirrors she has created that reflect light, color, texture, and whoever is present in a room. The one-off designs range from 4 to 11 inches in diameter and are made from varying colors of hand-cut glass framed by Hupp’s wheel-thrown porcelain clay. She finds mirrors grounding because they focus attention on the room and the moment at hand. Additionally, Hupp’s artistic practice includes lamps alongside the handmade vessels, vases, and bespoke dishes she creates for Michelin-starred chefs. Each lamp includes a porcelain Tala light bulb and can also be shaped in collaboration with interior designers with adjustments in size, style, glaze color, cord fabric, and more. Mirrors from $500, lamps from $2,100. erinhuppceramics.com. E.V.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are opening the door to one of the most important collections of 20th- and 21st-century women’s costumes with FASHIONING SAN FRANCISCO: A CENTURY OF STYLE at the de Young Museum, which runs until Aug. 11. Through the work of more than 50 fashion designers, from unique pre-1920s Callot Soeurs ensembles and early haute couture pieces by Chanel, Lanvin, Patou, and Grés to looks by Saint Laurent, Galanos, Ferré, Galliano, McQueen, Rodarte, and Christopher John Rogers, the exhibition is the first in more than 35 years to share the depth and breadth of the institution’s costume holdings. Highlights include a Sybil Connolly evening ensemble that Denise Hale wore to meet Queen Elizabeth in 1983. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, S.F., 415-750-3600; famsf.org. D.N.

BODY OF WORK “This is a very diaristic show,” says photographer CATHERINE OPIE as she walks through her latest Los Angeles exhibition, Harmony Is Fraught (through March 3) at Regen Projects. The solo show includes more than 60 images drawn from 30 years of her work and life — a downtown loft, a Koreatown apartment building home primarily to lesbians, MacArthur Park windows — and the freeways, bridges, oceans, and landmarks surrounding her. “None of the images in this exhibition — even though they hint to other bodies of work — are actually part of those bodies of work. So these are all negatives that I chose surrounding the bodies of work; in the same way the city surrounds you, the bodies of work begin to envelop you and surround you as well,” she says, noting that none of the shots has been shown publicly. Opie’s sense of place emerges from this patchwork of memories and the markers they depict: 1980s smog, pay phones, protests, houses, a burning neighborhood, The Palms, surfers waiting for waves. 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A., 310-276-5424; regenprojects.com. E.V. CATHERINE OPIE, Licking Sheree, 1992, 16 x 24 in.

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BROWN: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST. FASHIONING S.F.: RANDY DODSON, COURTESY OF THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS OF SAN FRANCISCO. HUPP: KELLY PULEIO. OPIE: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST. RHOADES: COURTESY OF THE ESTATE OF JASON RHOADES AND HAUSER & WIRTH. ALUMINAIRE: RENDERING BY CLAUDIA CENGHER. CITY OF DREAMS: TIM STREET PORTER.

JOAN BROWN, SelfPortrait With Swimming Coach Charlie Sava, at Larsen Pool, San Francisco, 1974.

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ALUMINAIRE HOUSE arrives at Palm Springs Art Museum.

Jason Rhoades with the Caprice overlooking Los Angeles International Airport, 1996.

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Long before he opened two Los Angeles galleries and purchased a historic home in the hills, Swiss gallerist Iwan Wirth was introduced to the city by his dear friend JASON RHOADES (1965–2006). Rhoades, the celebrated California-bred installation artist, would take Wirth along with his wife, Manuela, and his mother-in-law, Ursula Hauser (his business partners in the mega multinational Hauser & Wirth), on driving tours around Los Angeles. This month, to honor and celebrate Rhoades’ legacy, Hauser & Wirth is dedicating an entire gallery at its Downtown Arts District location to Drive, a yearlong exploration of his work. Perhaps a case of nominative determinism, Rhoades’ deep passion for cars

and car culture will be shown through a series of thematic iterations beginning with The Parking Space, featuring a Chevrolet Caprice and Impala, a Ferrari 328 GTS, and a Ligier microcar parked in the gallery alongside a video in which Rhoades draws connections between cars and his art. As someone who likened parking a car to sitting in a sculpture, he may even be able to change the way Angelenos think about being stuck in traffic. Feb. 27, 2024 through Jan. 14, 2025. 901 East 3rd St., L.A.; hauserwirth.com. K.M.

Statements - Art

Left to right: JASON RHOADES, Swedish Erotica and Fiero Parts, 1994, and Caprice Auto Project, 1996.

HEAVY METAL The first all-metal residence, built stateside by Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher as a case study in modern design and affordable housing using industrial materials, has a new permanent address. The ALUMINAIRE HOUSE — originally built collaboratively from factory-made prefabricated sheet metal, plate glass, steel beams, and linoleum — will become a permanent fixture at the Palm Springs Art Museum this spring. First shown in 1931 in New York, in dialogue with modern architecture pioneered in Europe by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, the work logged years in upstate New York and Long Island before arriving in the Coachella Valley. Accompanying the house is a comprehensive exhibition on the influential SwissAmerican visionary who helped dream it up, Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist (through June 3; Feb. 24 symposium). 101 Museum Dr., and 300 S. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs, 760-322-4800; psmuseum.org. E.V.

DREAM DIGS Every few years, the professional lives of photographer Tim Street Porter and his wife, Annie Kelly, a writer and decorator, dovetail in the form of a marvelous coffee table book on architecture and design. This month, the couple return to one of their favorite subjects with CITY OF DREAMS: LOS ANGELES INTERIORS, a compilation of home tours. Divided into two parts, the first features homes of the city’s most celebrated architects, designers, and artists in a range of architectural styles, from antiquarian Lee Stanton’s English manor-style hideaway in Laguna Beach to Joel Chen’s eclectic emporium of 20th-century treasures in a historic Hancock Park Tudor. The second section is devoted to all things midcentury, with landmarks from the likes of A. Quincy Jones and John Lautner. Whether it’s Blackman Cruz owner Adam Blackman’s post-and-beam pad overlooking the Getty Center or artist Mary Weatherford’s angular Pilot House in East L.A., the moral of the story is that it never gets old. rizzoli.com. K.M. CITY OF DREAMS: LOS ANGELES INTERIORS, by Annie Kelly and Tim Street Porter (Rizzoli, $65).

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SAVING L.A.’S SILVER SCREENS Statements - Long Read Hollywood wouldn’t exist without its HISTORIC THEATERS. So who is coming to their rescue?

ovie theater owner Sid Grauman hardly had a glittering origin story: In the early 1900s, his marquee was a makeshift tent filled with discarded church pews. Yet on October 18, 1922, he presided over an unprecedented spectacle unlike any in history: the premiere of Robin Hood, starring one of Hollywood’s first global megastars, Douglas Fairbanks, who preened on a red carpet for a press scrum in front of a legion of fans. Bright searchlights scanned the sky above. This brouhaha took place at the most American of inventions: a brand-new movie palace called the Egyptian Theatre, founded by Grauman.

When conjuring the theater, Grauman admittedly borrowed from history and a faraway culture: Thousands of miles away, a much-publicized search for King Tut’s tomb in the Egyptian desert had set off a craze in America for “Egyptian revival” décor and embellishments. The Egyptian had accordingly been built to resemble a temple resplendent with hieroglyphic murals, palm trees, and pharaoh head sculptures. An enormous gold scarab crowned the proscenium. This past fall, the latest rebirth of the Egyptian was celebrated with similar fanfare. Its new owner is Netflix, the DVD-vendor-turned-streamer-turnedpowerhouse-studio, which just undertook a $70 million restoration of the theater. By 2020, the building’s previous owners and caretakers, the nonprofit American

Cinematheque, had been putting “almost all of their efforts into keeping the building from falling over,” says Netflix co-CEO Ted Saranos. The theater remains, in his opinion, “as important to the history of Hollywood as the Hollywood sign.” Netflix’s goal, says Peyton Hall, a historical architect who consulted on the project, was to restore the Egyptian to its 1922 glory while installing state-of-the-art film and audio equipment. The overhaul involved a massive structural and seismic retrofitting using tons of concrete, but the meticulous restoration team also attended to the most minute design details. The auditorium’s sprawling ceiling sunburst and scarab was lovingly restored; the hieroglyphic murals and art were painstakingly repainted. An

Words by LESLEY M. M. BLUME Illustration by DEREK CHARM 66

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archaeological study of the murals themselves had been commissioned to decipher their original 1922 colors; Netflix even hired an Egypt historian to input on the project. When the theater reopened in November, the restoration was widely lauded as an outsize success. Yet an uncomfortable question remains: After the initial fanfare dies down, can the Egyptian — or any of the other characterful landmark theaters in Los Angeles, for that matter — continue to bring in enough crowds to ensure its continued survival in the golden era of streaming? Netflix’s role as the Egyptian’s savior is an irony that has been lost on few commentators. In an early story on the restoration, Los Angeles Times columnist Glenn Whipp likened the streaming giant to a “destroyer of worlds.” Perhaps that was a bit extreme, he conceded, and then clarified: “Streaming, for many in the business, is just the destroyer of movies.” The longish list of recently resurrected historic Los Angeles movie theaters seems to signify good news, at least in terms of architectural preservation. “It’s not a trend, but a movement,” says Hall, citing major restoration projects starting in the 1980s. “The Los Angeles Theatre, the Pantages, El Capitan, the Egyptian — hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent. A lot was spent on the Chinese Theatre, converting it to IMAX. There’s reason to be very pleased and optimistic.” There have, of course, also been theater near-deaths and casualties. Among the more prominent: the Cinerama Dome movie theater, which opened in 1963 and was shuttered during the pandemic. Its abrupt closure delivered a gut punch to the city’s film lovers and seemed to drive home the existential threat to theaters. Despite reports that it may reopen in 2025, the theater’s fate remains on many Angelenos’ worry list. Yet the brave and the bold continue in their theater-lifesaving efforts, betting that younger generations will grow weary of exclusively watching entertainment at home on smaller screens. Brain Dead Studios has opened a repertory cinema in a former silent movie theater on Fairfax Avenue in West Hollywood. Filmmaker

Quentin Tarantino, who bought and reoutfitted the New Beverly Cinema in 2007, also recently purchased the historic Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, a single-screen cinema that opened in 1923. (Like the Egyptian, the Vista’s interior appears to be a dramatically lit, King Tut–inspired theme park of sorts.) Following a threeyear renovation, the Vista reopened last November with a screening of True Romance, shown on 35mm film. (Tarantino’s theaters would continue to show movies on film, he has said, “as long as I’m alive, and as long as I’m rich.”) The theater will also show new releases. Ownership of single-screen cinemas might seem like an especially risky proposition, but Tarantino says he’s optimistic about the future of moviegoing. “I do think boutique cinemas will actually thrive at this time,” he said in a recent podcast interview. “I got a living room. I want to go to a movie theater.” Historians point out that surviving landmark theaters have already weathered waves of other existential threats over the past century. “It’s always been a losing battle for movie theater owners to keep up,” says historian, architect, and filmmaker

James Sanders. The invention of cinema sound quickly winnowed out a generation of 1920s silent film theaters that could not upgrade their technology. The 1950s introduced a new, terrifying rival: the home television set. More historic theaters closed as “the pictures got small,” as has-been silent film star Norma Desmond put it in Sunset Boulevard. Subsequent decades brought in additional challenges, such as the advent of cable television and multiplex movie compounds in the 1980s. The COVID-19 pandemic and streaming are just the latest assaults. If many industry observers were playing taps for postpandemic moviegoing, certain events in 2023 seemed to jolt the whole enterprise back to life. It turned out to be a big, fat year for many theaters, with much of that very-welcome momentum credited to the Barbenheimer phenomenon. (Barbie has grossed nearly $1.5 billion globally at time of writing, and Oppenheimer nearly $1 billion.) “Moviegoing isn’t dead; it’s just been dormant in many people’s lives,” says film historian and critic Leonard Maltin. The success of films like Barbie and Oppenheimer show that movies remain a tenable, even highly lucrative business, he adds — and still have the potential to create cultural flashpoints. “If you wanted to be part of the conversation on Monday morning, you’d better have seen Oppenheimer, and in order to do that, you had to go to an old-fashioned theater.” As they hope for more blockbuster fare and a continued strengthening of the public’s appetite for moviegoing, owners of L.A.’s historic theaters will also continue to rely on the primary enticement that their predecessors created more than a century ago: an immersive, transporting experience in a physical space cut off from the bustle and reality of daily life. “Loew’s Theatres founder Marcus Loew once said, ‘We don’t sell tickets to movies; we sell tickets to theaters,’” says Maltin. “The show begins on the sidewalk. You step outside your ordinary frame of reference into a magical environment. By setting foot inside a theater like the Egyptian, you transcend the mundane.” •

Statements - Long Read Historians point out that surviving landmark theaters have already weathered waves of other threats

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A ringing endorsement for the URSULA TOTE from Michael Kors Collection

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Photography by MARK GRIFFIN CHAMPION Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL 68

MICHAEL KORS COLLECTION’s Ursula tote is crafted from supple Italian leather, and the sleek, minimalist silhouette is finished with a gilded ring top handle. $1,890, available at michaelkors.com.

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Japanese cherry-salmon tartare with jalapeño and trout caviar.

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A special bar menu in the works at THE SLANTED DOOR.

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The jazz café at CIPRIANI is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

CIP CIP HOORAY! When Giuseppe Cipriani opened Harry’s Bar in 1931 on a quiet side street in Venice, Italy, he surely never imagined the cozy little place — where he served the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles, and Peggy Guggenheim fresh Bellinis and calf’s liver and onions — would be replicated all over the world. You can dine at CIPRIANI in New York City, Miami, Dubai, Uruguay, Milan, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and now Beverly Hills. Designed by Florentine architect Michele Bönan, the space shines with Murano chandeliers, lots of polished wood, tobacco leather chairs, and dark green velvet banquettes. The menu proposes Harry’s signature dishes, including

For 10 years, Charles Phan, the James Beard Award– winning chef-owner of San Francisco’s legendary restaurant THE SLANTED DOOR, quietly searched for a location to expand in the Napa Valley. Eventually he stumbled upon a standalone farmhouse-style building off the beaten path. The modern, 220-seat Olle Lundberg–designed eatery, which opened recently, features a circular bar and an interior courtyard with a roaring fireplace. On the menu are longtime favorites like shaking beef and daikon rice cakes alongside a roster of newfangled Vietnamese dishes (think: claypot chicken, caramelized shrimp, and gua choy cua). For a town with a famously early bedtime, perhaps the best part is that dinner is served until 10 p.m. 1650 Soscol Ave., Napa; slanteddoor .com. K.M.

carpaccio alla Cipriani, baked tagliolini with ham, risotto primavera, and that svelte calf’s liver. Because we’re talking Beverly Hills — and the first Cipriani in California — of course there’s a patio for outdoor dining, as well as a chic jazz café. 362 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-866-5060; cipriani.com/ciprianibeverly-hills. S.I.V.

JONESING FOR QUINCE After two decades and a yearlong renovation and redesign, San Francisco’s QUINCE, one of only five restaurants in California to have three Michelin stars, has reopened with a new look and more flexible menu options. Staying at the top in a city with a stellar dining scene is no small feat: Quince’s contemporary Mediterranean-inspired food is just as deftly executed and exquisitely balanced, but instead of just one extravagant 10-course tasting menu at $360, chefowner Michael Quince and his wife, Lindsay, have added a four-course menu at $270, with choices and a new à la carte menu in the first-come, first-served bar and salon. The chef changes the menus almost daily, depending on what’s come in from the restaurant’s own Fresh Run Farm in Bolinas. Expect dishes like Tomales Bay golden nugget oysters with pomegranate and Monterey seaweed, turbot cooked in the fireplace, or squab with red cabbage and huckleberry. If you’ve saved for a splurge, revisit this iconic spot. 470 Pacific Ave., S.F., 415-775-8500; quincerestaurant.com. S.I.V. If you don’t snag a table at QUINCE online a month ahead, you can drop in for the four-course menu at the bar.

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CIPRIANI: SIMON TCHOUKRIEL (INTERIOR), COURTESY OF CIPRIANI (FOOD). QUINCE: DORA TSUI. SLANTED DOOR: COURTESY OF SLANTED DOOR.

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KNOTS LANDING WINDY CHIEN left tech behind to create sculptures out of sailor’s knots, putting craft back on the map

indy Chien’s studio in the Heath Ceramics building in the Mission District of San Francisco resembles a well-appointed nest. It’s an idyllic and cozy place for that rare bird — an organized and disciplined artist — to work and think and play. The first thing you notice about the loft-like space, which is draped with cording tied in intricate knots from which Chien creates her works, is that the floor is covered in thick white shag carpet. “I’m a child of the ‘70s,” she says, “so I love a shag. But it’s also a necessity to keep the workspace clean and to prevent my work from picking up dust.” A wall of large industrial windows, a holdover from the property’s former life as a commercial laundry, is lined with blond wood shelves and cubbies to store the materials Chien uses, custommade and dyed cordage fabricated by the performance fabric company Sunbrella,

to make her knotted rope installations. Pulley systems with copper rods and wooden rods are hung from the ceiling so she can adjust the height of her latest project to work at chest height. On one wall, Chien displays the 366 knots she taught herself to tie back in 2016, one for every day of a leap year, after which she published a book, The Year of Knots, about the experience. Her pieces are minimal and meticulous, and she treats every knot like an “artifact of ingenuity.” Each one was designed with a purpose and function, primarily by sailors, and often carry a cultural significance. “I taught myself by reading dusty old sailors’ knotting books from the last century,” she says, sorting through nearly 4,000 documented knots to select her favorites. At the time, Chien was transitioning from her former life at the intersection of music and tech — first as the owner of the famed Aquarius Records store, where she was known for promoting the obscure and underappreciated punk artists she loved,

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: BRADEN YOUNG, CAST JEWELRY, WINDY CHIEN (2), MOLLY DECOUDREAUX.

Statements - Design Profile

Clockwise from top left: Chien at work in her Mission studio with her 366 mastered knots on display; a necklace from her Cast jewelry collaboration; assembling a large-scale piece; one of her “Hitching Post” works in forest green hangs at Osito restaurant; a playful installation occupying a wall and a ceiling.

and then as an early employee of Apple Music. Hints of her past lives in both industries are evident in her pieces. For each work, she chooses a single style of knot from the hundreds she knows and uses it in a repetitive rhythm, like a beat. The patterns are often inspired by the intricate geometry of a circuit board. In the eight years since Chien has been creating art full time, she has made works for Denver International Airport, Ritz Carlton, and Nobu Hotels and has exhibited in museums like the de Young and SFMOMA, occupying that somewhat blurry bridge between the worlds of fine

art and craft that struggles to receive the recognition it deserves. Chien has plenty to say about that. “There is this assumed hierarchy that places craft way lower on the totem pole and fine art much higher,” she says. “I often quote this wonderful curator named Glenn Adamson who presents the idea that this is straight-up sexism and racism in the art world, and that’s bullshit. Who are the people who practice craft? It’s mostly women, and mostly people of color. Macramé is a craft. But I am interested in making contemporary art. I look at the journey of the line through

each individual knot, and in order to make the knot the most prominent thing the viewer sees, I downplay color.” Chien is a creature of her environment. She moved to San Francisco from Hawaii as a teenager to study experimental film at Cal State San Francisco and never left. She’s informed by the future-minded optimism of the early days of Silicon Valley, and the concurrent drive to innovate, evolve, and create. “I tend to fetishize the time when the people who wanted to go back to the land and the people who wanted to save the world with tech were the same people,” she says. Last year, she gave herself the theme of striving to be a good neighbor, which led to collaborations with other accomplished locals. She developed a new pasta shape for Flour + Water, a beloved restaurant near her studio; created a fine jewelry collection for Cast; loaned one of her favorite circuit board works to the Heath shop for her landlords; and created an artwork for Osito restaurant that evokes wood, trees, and the forest canopy, a nod to its open-fire cooking technique. Although her adventurous spirit has taken her cycling across Asia and sailing the Mediterranean, Chien is happiest at work in the studio, and she always comes home to roost. “I’m omnivorous about life,” she says. “My ‘someday, maybe’ list is as long as my arm. There’s not enough time to try all the things I want to try. I spent a year learning how to tie 366 knots, and every one of them is waiting for me to find its expression and figure out what it wants to be.” windychien.com. •

“There is this hierarchy that places craft lower on the totem pole” - Design Profile Statements WI N DY C H I E N

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GET A GRIP On the magnificent PEAK BAG from Alexander McQueen

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ALEXANDER McQUEEN’s Peak bag is crafted from calfskin leather with a curve-shaped magnetic frame and includes a chain strap or a four-ring handle. $3,200, available at alexandermcqueen.com.

Photography by MARK GRIFFIN CHAMPION Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL 74

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DIAMOND DROPS Dazzle from ear to ear

GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES MAISON MARGIELA’s iconoclastic house codes, strengthened by creative director John Galliano, have arrived at the SOUTH COAST PLAZA. Hand-cast plaster columns in the house’s trademark white accompany the full line of coed ready-to-wear, plus shoes, accessories, and fragrances. A serene gallery for Lucie and Luke Meier’s JIL SANDER runway and precollections is also now in Costa Mesa. Ceiling lamps evoke skylights illuminating slabs of Calcite Azul marble, minimalist

dresses, suits, and chic oblong Cannolo bags. MARNI’s colorful new space, set with beveled silver tile walls that reflect creative director Francesco Risso’s eye-catching designs for men and women, is also open. The boutique’s larger footprint is carpeted in hues of pink and rust, an homage to vibrant California sunsets. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa; Maison Margiela, 714-512-3400, maisonmargiela.com; Marni, 714-380-3155, marni.com; Jil Sander, 714-512-3401, jilsander.com. E.V.

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LET’S DANCE

The graceful fluidity of ballet combined with Austrian Secessionists’ mission to integrate progressive art into all aspects of life inspired Vienna-born designer Arthur Arbesser’s Spring 24 collaboration with WEEKEND MAXMARA. The deconstructed silhouettes of the Phantasie collection riff on dancers’ full skirts and flouncy dresses while also touching on their postrehearsal nonchalance. Vividly colored geometric designs in royal blue, mint, and aubergine — with a hint of Klimtian sparkle — join striped or solid shirts, jackets, and pants made from cotton poplin, silk, and jersey. An inventive trench includes a utility-inspired canvas collar, and there’s

5. a ballet pink iteration of the Pasticcino bag. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, 714-754-1876; 660 Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto, 650-323-1740; us.weekendmaxmara.com. E.V.

1. BULGARI earrings, $21,100. 2. SUZANNE KALAN earrings, $7,600. 3. GRAFF earrings, price upon request. 4. CARTIER earrings, $49,600. 5. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS earrings, price upon request. R.R.

LORO PIANA’s new fabric is a denim lover’s dream, reworked for the warmer months. Developed by a creative coalition of Italian artisans in Piedmont and denim manufacturing experts in Japan’s Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, the new Denim Silk is the warp of indigo-dyed denim yarn, woven slowly with gray silk weft. Yarn moves through vintage looms rarely used in today’s textile factories, tended by expert technicians who produce only about 55 yards per day, reflecting a respect for craftsmanship and savoir faire. The lightweight fabric headlines the Italian house’s spring designs. A classic denim jacket, five-pocket jeans, a collarless double-breasted jacket, and palazzo trousers complete with a pressed crease round out the women’s offering this spring. Now there truly is a jean for all seasons. loropiana.com. E.V. LORO PIANA denim jacket, price upon request.

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SCP: JOSH CHO PHOTOGRAPHY FOR MAISON MARGIELA.

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FIRST CHOICE Make Giorgio Armani’s LA PRIMA your number one GIORGIO ARMANI’s La Prima handbag, made from soft palmellato calfskin, is available in the classic style with characteristic side mounted with double bellows. $2,095, available at all Giorgio Armani boutiques and armani.com.

Photography by MARK GRIFFIN CHAMPION Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL 78

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GUY AROCH.

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Meet AMANDLA STENBERG, the new star of Star Wars p.82. Why BRUNELLO CUCINELLI is dreaming of California p.94. Brush up on those collegiate looks; SCHOOL’S IN FOR SPRING p.100. A MALIBU FAMILY HOME rises from the ashes of the Woolsey Fire p.112. SHEPARD FAIREY on 35 years of street-art activism and political pop art p.120. California Style & Culture 81

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LAQUAN SMITH blazer, $2,200, shorts, $1,300, and belt, $475. DIOR boots, $2,650.

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As she enters the Star Wars universe, AMANDLA STENBERG talks about her rise from child actor to a voice of Generation Z 83

VALENTINO dress, $22,000, and skirt, price upon request. VALENTINO GARAVANI shoes, $950. Opposite: GIVENCHY dress, $12,100.

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“Social media shaped my generation, but I have a lot of disillusionment around it”

AMAN DL A STE N B E RG

mandla Stenberg is nervous. Being launched into the Star Wars galaxy is not an easy undertaking. First, there’s the seemingly neverending backstory to absorb. And then there are the fans. “I definitely have been feeling a little more trepidation than I thought,” says the lead of the upcoming Disney+ series The Acolyte. But Stenberg couldn’t possibly say no to working with Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland, who created the role with Stenberg in mind. Here’s how it went. The pair met in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, around the corner from Stenberg’s house, and Headland pitched the concept. “All the artwork was conceptualized with my face, and Leslye was like, ‘So I’ve been working on this for about three or four years for you. I don’t know what I’m going to do if you don’t do it. No pressure.’ So I was sent to the moon, of course.” I meet Stenberg at Café Paulette in Fort Greene. It’s unexpectedly busy for a Friday afternoon, so we snag a spot outside in one of the covered booths. Stenberg — in jeans, a shirt underneath a winter coat, and a baseball cap with “New York” on it — grabs an oat milk latte and the omelet of the day with a side of fries. Maybe it’s because she’s Gen Z, but for an actor who has garnered critical success for Bodies Bodies Bodies and The Hate U Give, has been honored by Time magazine and other organizations for her political and LGBTQ activism, has worked with Beyoncé, and has started out in one of the biggest movie franchises of the past decade, she has zero airs. Stenberg, 25, had her breakthrough in the sci-fi dystopian adventure The Hunger Games playing Rue, a 12-year-old “tribute” selected to compete in the latest death

match who forms an alliance with Katniss, the central character portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence. Not only did the film give Stenberg an introduction to a worldwide audience, but it also introduced her to some of the baggage that comes with it — in this case, a first encounter with online trolls. When it was announced that Rue and Tresh, two prominent characters in Suzanne Collins’ young adult series, would be portrayed on screen by two Black actors (Stenberg and Dayo Okeniyi), some fans spouted their racist opinions online. It continued throughout the film’s press tour and release. “I think already, at age 12, I was like, Yeah, people are racist. Why are y’all surprised?” Stenberg says, taking a sip of her latte with a laugh. “When I reflect on it, I don’t remember being very upset about it. I remember feeling that I don’t give a flying f**k what these racist people think of me. I think bigots don’t really bother me.” In fact, the entire Hunger Games experience, spending three months on set in the forests of North Carolina, was more like a summer camp to the young actor. “I got to play with the other castmates,” she says. “It was a kid’s dream come true. [But] I was very much a supporting character. I don’t know what Jennifer Lawrence was going through. In retrospect, I feel for the girl!” Now she probably does, as she takes on the titular Jedi trainee role in The Acolyte, her introduction to George Lucas’ Star Wars universe, which he sold to Disney in 2012 for $4 billion. “I have a really, really heavy load in this show, an abnormal load,” she says. Shot largely at Shinfield Studios in Berkshire, England, a new facility comprising 18 soundstages, it follows The Mandalorian, Andor, and Ashoka in the line of spin-offs commissioned for Disney+ in the age of streaming, which has seen huge budgets aimed at episodic shows over twohour cinematic releases. “The crews are so hard core, they’re so hardworking, and it’s

very kind of hierarchical and competitive, and people work their asses off,” she says. “It’s very different, I think, than what I’ve experienced on most American sets.” Stenberg can’t share too much — or anything, really — about the plot of The Acolyte because Lucasfilm’s NDAs are notoriously restrictive. (“They’re already hacking into my phone right now. They’re listening,” she jokes.) What she can say is that it takes place in the High Republic era before Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, which was released in 1999 and grossed just shy of $1 billion worldwide. It’s a prequel to the prequels, if you like — Lucas famously started his epic tale in 1977 on Episode IV: A New Hope. “In the context of the Star Wars universe, it’s a time of great peace, theoretically,” Stenberg says. “It’s also a time of an institution, and it’s a time in which conceptions around the Force are very strict. And I think what we’re trying to explore within our show is when an institution has a singular conception of how power can be used…we try to provide a lot of different perspectives and answers to that question. The idea is to kind of honor the ethos of Star Wars and ideas around the Force and also challenge them, hopefully harmoniously.” All the time away shooting the eight-part series opposite Squid Game’s Lee Jungjae (who plays her Jedi master) has left Stenberg’s Brooklyn home in need of some attention. Recently, right before a Zoom audition with Scarlett Johansson, a chunk of ceiling came down. “There was dust flying around everywhere, and I was coughing, hacking, and I was like, ‘Hey, I might be a little out of it right now. My ceiling just fell down.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, you live in New York.’” Still, Stenberg is happy in Brooklyn, regardless of the pitfalls of living in the city: “When I’m not traveling, I really try to stay

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my ass at home. I’ve had moments when I was younger where I traveled more for fun. I went to Japan for a month once. But when I’m not working, I’m just holding on to my regular life for dear life, just trying to carve out the infrastructure of it and hold it down because I need that for when I go away.” Her mother, Karen, a music journalist turned counselor, hails from the South Bronx. Stenberg still has family in the neighborhood and spent a large part of her formative years there. “A lot of my adolescence was defined by being here. I feel like the first time I really experienced freedom and autonomy was here, so I think I probably fell in love with New York and knew it was the place I wanted to live when I was 15 or 16. Then I had a series of unsuccessful attempts to move here that were thwarted by different things,” she says. Stenberg was born in Los Angeles. Her mother and her Danish father, Tom, a music promoter, divorced when she was very young. (She has two older half-sisters on her father’s side and spent three months in Denmark during the pandemic.) Life as a child actor meant growing up fast and moving out at 16. She describes her relationship with California now as “borderline contentious,” but she still holds a sweet spot for the state. “It wasn’t until I started living in other places that I realized that growing up with the backdrop of a mountainscape is not everyone’s experience. And so, since moving here and spending time in other metropolitan cities, I always respect and deeply appreciate the nature. I’m like, Wow, growing up next to a huge body of water I think shaped me in a way. Big Sur, the cliffs, the ocean, the mountains — that holds one of the most special places in my heart.” A longing for nature is what you might expect from someone who has been vocal about her love-hate relationship with

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UNROW blazer, $235. DIOR earrings, price upon request.

Features - Stenberg “I have a really, really heavy load in this show, an abnormal load” AMAN DL A STE N B E RG

technology. In 2017, Stenberg told W Magazine she gave up her iPhone because it was taking over her life and switched to a flip phone. I notice the iPhone she has with her today. Recalling the interview, she laughs and says, “I got one of those Light phones stripped of all the other capabilities. I’ve been switching my SIM card back and forth depending on how accessible I believe I need to be to other human beings.” Although a double-edged sword, social media and that level of accessibility

helped Stenberg become a poster girl for Generation Z. But it’s not just about images: Over the past decade, Stenberg has shared her thoughts on a broad range of topics, including cultural appropriation, identity, feminism, and sexuality. When she came out as gay in 2019, she shared snapshots of her relationship with musician King Princess. Together with fellow generational voices and friends Yara Shahidi, Rowan Blanchard, and Hunter Schafer, they’ve helped a generation express itself and rebel against

social norms. There’s a reason Chanel and Calvin Klein have made Stenberg a face of their brands as they court the next generation of consumers. “Social media really shaped me and my generation and our ability to organize or express our thoughts,” Stenberg says. But it enrages her as much as it once empowered her, and she is currently on a social media break. “I have always had and continue to have a lot of disillusionment around social media, particularly Continued on p. 133

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GUCCI jumpsuit, $6,300, and shoes, $1,490. BUCCELLATI necklace, $53,000. Opposite: LOEWE cape, $3,400, and jeans, $990.

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Hair by CASSANDRA NORMIL at The Visionaries Agency using CAROL’S DAUGHTER. Makeup by LOFTJET at Forward Artists using DR. BARBARA STURM and PAT McGRATH LABS. Manicure by KAREN JIMENEZ at Opus Beauty using CHANEL. Prop styling by DANIELLE VON BRAUN. Shot on location at BLUE CLOUD MOVIE RANCH.

VERSACE dress, price upon request. Opposite: FENDI dress, $3,590.

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Having charmed Hollywood’s leading lights and Silicon Valley’s brightest minds with his unique brand of casual elegance, BRUNELLO CUCINELLI has his sights set on the Golden State

CALIFORNIA, D TI AMO Features - Cucinelli

esigner Brunello Cucinelli has built his brand on a certain idea of modern Italian living, and in many ways he is the embodiment of it. This incarnation was on full display one morning in New York last fall, where he was splayed on a sumptuous sofa at Casa Cucinelli, his private showroom for the type of VIP client who prefers not to step inside a store. Cucinelli, 70, was elegantly rumpled in earthy shades of beige and cream, his skin sun-kissed, his hair a little shaggy in that effortless Italian way. As he sipped a coffee and spoke in animated fashion through a smartly dressed interpreter, members of his family — many of whom work at the brand — chimed in, overlapping and laughing in unison. Around him were racks

Photography by

SAMI DRASIN Words by

MAX BERLINGER

of sophisticated yet relaxed garments, from insouciant suiting to downy knitwear with just a touch of flamboyance (festive plaids for men or a hint of sparkle for women). His designs constitute an evolving wardrobe with the well-traveled and high-net-worth in mind, which has made him as wealthy as those who can afford his wares. For the Cucinellis, it’s always la dolce vita. “Every year we have a Thanksgiving in Solomeo, where I live, for the Americans,” Cucinelli says through his interpreter, grinning. Although he won’t reveal who shows up, he does note that Gwyneth Paltrow and Ryan Seacrest own properties nearby. “It’s an open invitation, and anyone who’s there can come. And my wife cooks because she’s never happy with someone

Brunello Cucinelli, the dapper, philosophy-minded paterfamilias of the brand that bears his name, in California late last year.

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also has its own Casa Cucinelli). In 2021, it opened at Rosewood Miramar Beach in Santa Barbara, the brand’s first location at a hotel property and a one-stop shop for Montecito’s well-heeled admirers of his soft and cocooning garments — a crowd that knows all too well that the ultimate luxury is to be comfortable. Just last year, as industry insiders started promoting the idea of quiet luxury — clothes that were opulent yet subtle, as seen on the California-based episodes of the final season of Succession (and an aboutface reaction to the flashy maximalism of certain other Italian houses) — they pointed to Brunello Cucinelli as a lodestar of the movement. Not that the family paid much mind; they were just doing what he’d been doing for years. The world, it seemed, had caught up. “I use California for research,” he says. “Especially the summer collections. I get a lot of inspiration there.” Cucinelli has more than just a commercial grip on the Golden State; he has a somewhat psychic hold on it as well. His clothing — decadent yet subtle, unassuming to the eye yet downright opulent to the touch — feels particularly attuned to the lives of the monied but notoriously casual West Coasters. The brand has become something of a known secret among movie stars, their minders, and, further north, tech entrepreneurs. Mark Zuckerberg famously favors the gray T-shirts, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is a noted devotee. In 2019, when Cucinelli beckoned a smattering of Silicon Valley elite — men like Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo — to his hillside castello to talk business, they did just that. At the time, he called them “the Leonardos of the 21st century.” There’s also a personal connection to California. Carolina, who serves as the brand’s copresident and co–creative director, recently bought a house in Los Angeles, which is being renovated. She declines to call it her home because Solomeo, the Umbrian village where her parents reside and the business is based, is her terra patria. But she recalls being seduced by the state a decade ago as she drove along the coastline, drinking in all it has to offer. “I could not help but notice the similarities with some areas of Italy — the vineyards, the rocky coastline, and the sense

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else’s cooking — and it’s a dinner for 50!” His wife, Federica, has mastered the turkey, but the family says they’re still working on finessing the desserts, specifically the pies. “We should invite Martha Stewart,” Carolina, his youngest daughter, says. Everyone nods in agreement. When you’re with the Cucinellis, this idea doesn’t seem so farfetched: Stewart was a guest at Cucinelli’s 70th birthday party last summer, where 400 guests feasted on paccheri al pomodoro and drank the first reds from his new vineyard.

Lately Cucinelli has been thinking a great deal about America — specifically, California. Days after our chat, he hosted an intimate candlelit dinner party at the Chateau Marmont, which in a certain light resembles a sprawling Italian villa. There he held court for Hollywood heavyweights, including Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Oprah Winfrey. The brand, after all, has a strong following in California given its retail presence, which extends from San Francisco to South Coast Plaza via Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills

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Cucinelli with his son-in-law, Alessio Piastrelli, who is on the board of directors and is married to Carolina Cucinelli. Opposite: Cucinelli with his wife, Federica. They run the Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation and the Foro della Arti, which promote the arts and preserve architecture in Solomeo, Italy, where they live and work.

“The future of fashion is chic, elegant, dapper clothes, like The Great Gatsby” B R U N E L LO C U C I N E L L I

of community in each city,” she says. The resemblance doesn’t end at topography. She noted a certain way of living that Californians share with Italians. “The sense of freedom, the creativity of the movie industry, the art and the style conveyed by everyone; the cultural melting pot of people who come to L.A. from all over the world and the typical flavor of local music, as well as Hollywood,” she explains. “I feel so at home when I arrive in L.A.,” she says. “Our collection is suitable for people who live in a climate like California’s. It suits both leisure and office wear. If you live in California, you might start the day with a

light blazer, wear a T-shirt in the afternoon, and then add a cashmere sweater underneath your blazer. This ability to mix colors and layers is key to the Cucinelli aesthetic.” Indeed, part of Brunello’s success was his farsighted approach to blend the business acumen of an Italian industrialist with the laid-back ethos of the West Coast. This is, no doubt, partly the result of his upbringing. Cucinelli grew up the son of a sharecropper, without electricity and deeply connected to the rhythms of the land. At 15, he and his family moved to a nearby city, where his father started to work in a factory. Young Cucinelli discovered the philosophical

teachings of Plato, Socrates, and Epicurus after hearing university students debating at a café. He has been obsessed with the humanities ever since, and he quotes ancient philosophers with alarming frequency. “I was struck by something Kant once said,” he tells me while remembering those heady days in the café, watching the students argue. “‘Two things move me: the stars in the sky above me and the moral law inside me.’ This is precisely what my father used to say, that you must be a good man, which means you need to have your moral law inside you.” These tenets have greatly influenced

Cucinelli as he built his company into a global enterprise. It’s been a long time since he borrowed a small sum in 1978 to weave a few plush cashmere sweaters in bold colors (as opposed to the reserved neutrals popular in the day), which immediately sold out. Since then, his business has grown into a full-fledged multibillion-dollar lifestyle brand encompassing relaxed tailoring and spiffy sportswear for men and refined yet easy dresses and smart separates for women. He has just launched his first fragrances for him and her, and next up will be eyewear following a successful partnership with Oliver Peoples. But it’s not merely what Cucinelli makes that fascinates and excites fans, but how he makes it. Today he may oversee many hundreds of employees, but he approaches his business with the heart of a farmerturned-philosopher, creating garments made from natural fibers and made by craftspeople who are paid and treated well and work in the best of conditions. He calls this “humanistic capitalism”: a way to honor people, products, and profits. “I think capitalism is under change,” he says. “Like everything else. Capitalism needs to be contemporary, in step with the times. Youth, especially, they want to know exactly how much you make, your profit — if it’s ridiculous or if it crosses the line.” “My aim was to have an ordinary kind of business,” he adds. “And make an ordinary kind of profit. And respect everything around me, nature and human beings.” It may sound

From top: Models at Brunello Cucinelli’s 70th birthday celebration. Gwyneth Paltrow and Cucinelli at Chateau Marmont. Opposite: The Cucinelli family is as Italian as they come, but California has been a focus for them of late.

much of his company is based and where he interacts with his employees daily. It’s not uncommon for him to watch soccer matches or dine with his colleagues. In 2010, he and his wife founded the Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation and the Foro della Arti, philanthropic ventures that seek to apply the ideas of those revered philosophical greats to modern life. The foundation is based on Epicurus’ Letter on Happiness, and it seeks to invest in community-based, beauty-seeking projects that will improve the lives of his workers, such as promoting arts and culture (like Solomeo’s spectacular library and the teatro that hosts performances), protecting and maintaining historic architecture, and safeguarding the natural world. “I’ve always loved things having to do with the above,” he says. “Lofty things. That’s how I spend my evenings. I was reading just the other day — I think it was Plato — that you have to use philosophy throughout your life to prepare for death. And still, today, that’s the kind of life I lead. I don’t watch too much TV and I take a lot of strolls. And look at my phone — no messages! I spend a lot of my time thinking. I have a big fireplace at my house…it’s a former villa from the 16th century, and I just sit there and my wife will come in and say, ‘What are you doing?’ And I say I’m looking at the flames.” I ask Cucinelli what he thinks of the future of fashion, and he predicts a return to formality and joy, much like the way the world emerged from the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919 into the Roaring Twenties. “Chic,

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“Capitalism is under change. It needs to be in step with the times” specious for someone who sells outerwear that can set you back five figures, but there’s a reason he was asked to present these ideas to world leaders at the G20 summit in 2021. It seems that Cucinelli has become something of a philosopher king of the business world. “We need to find a human side to capitalism,” he says. “Of course there needs to be an economic side, but they have to coexist with the same kind of purpose.” Cucinelli walks the walk, which can be best seen in the tiny town of Solomeo, where

elegant, dapper clothes,” he says. “Like The Great Gatsby.” But, as common with Cucinelli, the fashion chatter eventually turns toward headier discussions of his legacy. He talks of Solomeo, and his dedication to preserve it, but also the fact that this town, which is hundreds of years old, even exists at all. That it was built, all those years ago, with eternity in mind. “I have always worked thinking about eternity,” he says. “Like Marcus Aurelius said, you should plan for eternity but live as if it were the last day of your life.” •

COURTESY OF BRUNELLO CUCINELLI; COURTESY OF BFA FOR BRUNELLO CUCINELLI.

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School is in for spring as COLLEGIATE ATTIRE, from blazers to rugby shirts, polos to rara skirts, swept the collections of the world’s foremost fashion houses

CLASS ACT Photography by

ADAM FRANZIN0 Styling by

KATIE MOSSMAN

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Megumi and Cheyenne wear POLO RALPH LAUREN long-sleeve shirts, $448, pants, $148, shirts, $168, and briefs, $30.

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Cheyenne wears LORO PIANA coat, price upon request, cardigan, $2,700, and skirt, $2,200. CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE necklace, $690. DIOR shoes, $1,120. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Megumi wears LOEWE sweater, $2,500, and skirt, $1,950. CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE shoes, $1,050. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Megumi wears PRADA jacket, $3,450, shorts, $1,520, belt, $650, and shoes, $1,220. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Megumi wears MIU MIU shirt, $3,950, and brief, $925. Cheyenne wears MIU MIU short-sleeve shirt, $1,020, long-sleeve shirt, $1,350, and skirt, $3,300. CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE shoes, $1,050. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Cheyenne wears CHANEL jacket, $4,450, shirt, $2,350, and skirt, $2,400. CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE shoes, $1,050, and bag, price upon request. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Megumi wears BRUNELLO CUCINELLI vest, $1,450, shirt, $2,195, and skirt, $3,795. DIOR shoes, $1,120. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Cheyenne wears LOUIS VUITTON shirt, price upon request.

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Hair by LAUREN PALMERSMITH at Forward Artists. Makeup by AMY CHIN at Forward Artists. Manicure by MERRICK FISHER at Opus Beauty. Model MEGUMI McKENNA with Nomad Management @megumimckenna. Model CHEYENNE TICHICH with Elite Models. Prop styling by TIM GEHLING. Shot on location at LOS ANGELES HIGH SCHOOL.

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Megumi wears BURBERRY coat, $3,550. CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE shoes, $1,050. Socks, stylist’s own.

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Megumi wears POLO RALPH LAUREN jacket, $298, and shirt, $168. ZIMMERMANN jeans, $595. Cheyenne wears CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE jacket, $2,300, sweater, $1,350, and pants, $1,200.

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How DARIUSZ AND BECKS WOLSKI built their double-height barn on idyllic Point Dume after losing a home in the Woolsey Fire

t took a team of no less than 20 men to lift a solid 13-by-6-ft. tropical cedarwood dining table into the Malibu barn where Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski — whose camera skills helped define the Pirates of the Caribbean series — resides with his British wife, interior designer Becks. Quite an undertaking, when it had already made the journey from an antique warehouse in Cape Town, South Africa, but a small price to pay to make their house a home again. The couple and their three children lost their abode in the 2018 Woolsey fire in Malibu, which jumped the PCH and wreaked havoc on the residents of Point Dume. They have spent the past five years painstakingly rebuilding it. A clutch of contorted steel beams from the original house is all that remains of its bones. Now a sculpture grounded in concrete, it serves as a reminder of the dwelling that shaped the Wolskis’ life together. In the mid-2000s, he was designing and building the home on a site he had purchased in 1996 when he and Becks met and fell in love on the

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Dariusz and Becks Wolski standing by the swimming pool. “We spend so much time outside and the house is an indoor-outdoor fluid space, so I wanted the garden to have different zones to hang and relax,” Becks says. Opposite: The second iteration of the barn was completed in 2022. Upstairs is a square Spanish hacienda-style balcony. “Most homes would put in another floor to create more rooms, but we sacrificed that to have the open space,” says Becks.

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PARADISE REGAINED

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A painting by New York–based Polish artist (and Dariusz’s sister) Hanna Will-Wolski, sofas by Sutherland furniture, and an antique fireplace from the Netherlands. Opposite: Dariusz stands on a staircase of tiles made from volcanic lava stone by Italian company Made a Mano. Tillo plays on a Kawai piano from Kim’s Piano. “We lost our piano in the fires, so it was important to find a beautiful replacement,” says Becks.

set of Pirates of the Caribbean, where she was working as a stylist and costume designer. The house turned Becks into an interior designer after she took a leap of faith and followed Dariusz back to Malibu, where they collaborated on the final design. It was also where the couple got married in 2010, and where they grew their family. They have three children: Cosmo (Dariusz’s son from a previous relationship), Tillo, and Stash. “Some of our friends say, ‘Isn’t the sculpture a constant reminder?’” Becks says. “But it’s a reminder of our strength and resilience. We got through it and we came out the other side.” The dining table, made from

an unusual grain of wood rarely seen in the United States, might not sound significant, but the centerpiece of their indoor-outdoor open-plan living space has become an emblem of harmony restored. “As soon as it was installed, I instantly felt the familiarity of the old space come back to life,” says Becks, relaxing into one of the solid oak dining chairs from Belgian furniture company Ethnicraft. “I framed the house and the light fixtures around this one piece.” The dining table is one of many purchases made in the months following the fire, when the family relocated to Cape Town while Dariusz

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“I have always loved the classic French bistro-style globe lights you see across Europe, so this felt like a modern interpretation of that look,” says Becks about the Alabaster Globe Pendant lights from Restoration Hardware.

filmed the TV show Running With Wolves with Ridley Scott, with whom he has collaborated on films such as House of Gucci, Alien Covenant, and Napoleon. Becks threw herself into hunting for furniture and antiques to replace everything they had lost. “The craftsmanship out there is amazing,” she says. “We have a bunch of ebony oak pieces, including the console in the hallway and our bed upstairs. I also picked up soft furnishings like the rug and the baskets.” Three months in the Southern Hemisphere before moving to a Malibu rental proved healing, and the barn-like houses in Cape Town also spurred them toward a white plaster finish instead of wood, which they relayed to contractor Arni Osvaldsson. When designing the original house, Dariusz was inspired by the work of American graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff, who renovated a 150-year-old barn in upstate New York in the 1980s, and French architect Pierre Chareau, famous for his use of concrete, steel, and brass in the 1920s.“It was a combination of everything that influenced me in my early years living on the East Coast in the 1980s,” says Dariusz, who was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 2020 Paul Greengrass epic News of the World, starring Tom Hanks and set in the aftermath of the Civil War. “I was always aware of modern architecture. I was surrounded by young architects. At one point I actually almost became an architect.” Design comes intuitively to the cinematographer, whose work spans four decades. “Dariusz walks onto sets every day, so he has the most incredible sense of space and light,” says Becks. Although the finished aesthetic is a little softer than before (think

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“Dariusz walks onto sets every day, so he has the most incredible sense of space and light” BECKS WOLSKI 117

From top: “I used the same tiles from the staircase in the kitchen to unify the open plan space,” explains Becks, pictured here with (left to right) Dariusz, Tillo, Cosmo, and Stash. The outdoor space includes a skateboard ramp. Becks collaborated with Cape Town interior design company Lim on many oak pieces for the house, including the bed in the “very calm” primary bedroom. Opposite: The living room sits directly below the library. “With an open plan house it’s more challenging to create intimate spaces,” Becks says. “I really wanted this space to look elegant but also invite you in.”

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light oak over dark and textures over stark minimalism), the structure and layout of the house is an exact replica of its previous iteration — even down to the industrial island in the kitchen, which Dariusz sketched after seeing it in a New York store 20 years ago. “We made a conscious decision not to design a modern high-tech kitchen. We still wanted it to feel like a country house kitchen that had charm and character,” says Becks. “The kitchen island and raw steel mesh panels on the kitchen cabinet screens all add to this aesthetic.” Dariusz was keen to avoid the current trend of what he calls “pseudo-Spanish villas that are super modern and too sterile because they don’t understand how to keep the balance between stark and soft.” Bringing in old elements, such as an antique fireplace from the Netherlands, definitely helped. “A house needs some old pieces to give it gravitas; otherwise, everything feels new,” says Becks. What was impossible to replicate, sadly, was a memorabilia archive accumulated over a lifetime in Hollywood. For Dariusz, that included props such as the trunk from Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, Johnny Depp’s sword from Pirates of the Caribbean, and clapper boards from every movie he’s ever worked on — not to mention his extensive library of art and photography books. “I had a personal library, and it’s what I miss most about the

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house,” he says. “All my architecture books burned.” The new library is “quite empty but growing,” he adds, as the family slowly builds a new collection. Case in point: a colorful painting by Brazilian artist Bruno Novelli, given to Dariusz by Greg Berlanti, the director of his forthcoming film Project Artemis, which stars Scarlett Johansson. “Dariusz has a small part in it,” says Becks. “It’s so not like him! The kids are super excited because we’ll be able to go to the premiere as a family. His previous movies have been too grown-up.” The painting sits at the top of the stairs, below a Kawai piano from Kim’s Piano, which Tillo (named after jazz pianist Thelonious Monk) plays every day. “The best advice we got was to always have instruments out and your kids will play them when they feel inspired,” says Becks, as Tillo launches into an impressive rendition of some Philip Glass. For the Wolski family, the Malibu barn is more than a house or home; it’s an anchor, a “hub for everybody” to recharge, rest, and play. (The family have a coveted key to the Little Dume gate, where Dariusz paddle surfs.) “There’s something about being here that’s relaxed and unpretentious, and so much of that circulates around the beach. Everyone knows everyone’s kids, so everyone looks out for one another.” says Becks. “We basically don’t need to go on vacation now.” •

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Artist Shepard Fairey working on portraiture for Shepard Fairey: Icons at L.A.’s Subliminal Projects.

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SHEPARD FAIREY’S activist art has made its way onto buildings, T-shirts, and campaign posters for 35 years, and as his latest exhibit opens in an election year, he still has plenty to say Words by

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“The status quo structures need a little wrench in their spokes” S H E PA R D FA I R E Y

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Fairey’s show Peace Is Radical opened in January, presented by Glendale Library, Arts & Culture and ReflectSpace Gallery.

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ifty-something New York street artist Kaves once daubed: “Graffiti writers never die. They just fade away.” Like Kaves, L.A.-based contemporary Shepard Fairey, 54, has done no such thing. After 35 years of activism, in which he has played David to the sociopolitical Goliath through graffiti, screen prints, artworks, and street murals — all evolved from his notorious viral sticker campaign “André the Giant Has a Posse,” which questioned governmental control of public space in the late 1980s — Fairey has shown no sign of letting up or diluting his art’s progressive messages. He declares he has been “manufacturing quality dissent since 1989” on his website Obey Giant, which bares both his manifesto and his prolific output of art (often available as posters for free download or with profits donated to charities) on pertinent themes of societal, racial, political, and environmental justice. Stylistically borrowing from Soviet-era agitprop, Fairey attempts to appeal — in stark contrast to conventional politics — to some highest common denominator in all Americans by playing the idealizing iconographer of symbolic heroes. His “We the People” series of Latino, Muslim, Native, and Black Americans as emblematic U.S. citizens were famously held aloft as antidotes to discrimination at U.S. Women’s Marches in 2017. Fairey is unequivocal about the democratic power of public art and activism. “People call the internet the digital town square. It’s more like the public toilet,” he says via Zoom from one of his two L.A. studios (he has one

space for fine art in Frogtown and another for design in Echo Park). His most renowned work is the “Obama Hope” poster, of which 300,000 copies and 500,000 stickers were distributed in 2008 in a feat of grassroots electioneering. The New Yorker called the poster “the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You,’” and it now hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Fairey has been described as an heir to Keith Haring, whose work also went from the streets to galleries to museums, as well as a successor to the legacies of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual art. His activist clothing label was once dubbed “the anti-corporate, anti-Man street unbrand.” But his brand of populism has its haters, and some people think he has sold out with his giant publicly sanctioned murals, which are partly painted by assistants. Fairey has completed more than 135 murals around the world, including a nine-storyhigh Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg (2014) and Marianne of France in Paris’ 13th arrondissement after the 2015 attacks. Around 10 murals have become part of the fabric of L.A., from Hollywood Library’s “Peace Elephant” (2011) to “Maya Angelou Rise Above” (2019) on East 53rd Street. “I still do street art without permission,” Fairey says. He has been charged at least 18 times for vandalism-related crimes. “Street art has that transgressive quality when it’s done as a hit-and-run thing,” he notes. “It’s visceral. But a mural has a visceral quality, too, because it’s literally changing the urban landscape and it’s not done by the government or a massive corporation. What

people don’t understand is that my approach was never ‘I’m only going to do things illegally because I’m anti-establishment and that’s the single way I define myself.’ I think that’s really selfish and obnoxious. But I’ve evolved away from just saying, ‘The status quo structures need a little wrench in their spokes’ to looking to make a difference by working with organizations and recognizing the value that the fabric of society provides everyone. Because society is a [Gaia-like] organism where all the parts are intertwined. [People] not respecting that and [acting only in their own self-interest] creates a lot of our problems. It makes even the lives of the middle class worse. Because only the top one percent can get away with being selfish jerks and souring it for everyone else.” He’s now a big promoter of civic participation. “Everyone is a selective libertarian these days. They take for granted that their trash is taken out, they have a paved road and electricity; all the things that are generated by society and government for the collective need that make their vision of themselves as a ‘supremely brilliant independent being’ possible.” Alongside his turbo-charged “Obama Hope” campaign, Fairey has been involved with 15 voting drives over his career. “I’m very involved with the Get Out the Vote drive working both directly with people in government [like U.S. Representative for California Adam Schiff] and a bunch of organizations,” he says. He has his work cut out for him this year. It doesn’t help that there’s an Obama-shaped hole in an

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“Obama was a once-in-alifetime candidate” S H E PA R D FA I R E Y

uninspiring political lineup for the 2024 presidential election. “Obama was a oncein-a-lifetime candidate for me. I’ve never known anybody as compelling. I think that sets expectations really high for people,” he says. “I do think Joe Biden is a very decent human being who has evolved to become more progressive. He doesn’t have the skills as an orator or the same charm. That’s unfortunate.” Fairey’s number-one priority, he says, is “making people consider that if things are imperfect, they are more imperfect when there isn’t robust civic participation, which doesn’t mean just voting. It means being aware of issues that shape [our] culture and using your voice.” But how does he combat feeling weary about the Groundhog Day–like cycle of American politics? Fairey says that there’s a lot to be disenchanted with on both sides of the political fence. On the left, he says, it’s philosophical hairsplitting “and the apathy and malaise. It’s so counterproductive and a waste of time, and it ends up demotivating people who are on the same side. And [on the right] the fearful and hateful side of people has been stoked so effectively. I feel very disappointed and disillusioned. But I don’t feel paralyzed or demotivated.” Frustration seems to be his fuel. “My parents learned quickly that the more they tried to dissuade me from something, the more motivated I became,” he says. “I do like a challenge. But I don’t like the weight of the

Charlotte, a real estate agent, the pertinacious young Shepard developed his fierce sense of social justice in the 1970s while growing up in Charleston, South Carolina. “Charleston was almost exactly half Black and half white, and with a few exceptions the top 50 percent economically were white and the bottom 50 percent were Black. It seemed really uncool to me. I asked a lot of questions about social structure. My school was also a microcosm of what was wrong with society: If you wore expensive preppy clothes, you came from money, and you were a good athlete, you were OK. Everyone else was to be bullied.” He soon honed a defiant streak. “I was very insecure as a kid, but I started listening to the Clash and the Dead Kennedys, who had some really thoughtful lyrics about conforming, U.S. foreign policy, and fascist tendencies. Later I got into Public Enemy. I started seeing people making art that I thought was visceral and a very powerful articulation of ideas, and I thought, I want to do stuff like that.” Teenage Fairey showed a talent for disruptive, conceptual ideas. While studying at Rhode Island School of Design, he prefigured the internet meme with his ambiguous sticker of French wrestler André René Roussimoff (André the Giant), a victim of gigantism at 7 feet 4 inches tall and 520 lbs. The East Coast skater community distributed the sticker by hand in 1989, with tens of thousands mysteriously popping up around the world by the ‘90s. The Village Voice called Helen Stickler’s 1995 documentary about André the Giant “a canonical study of Gen-X media manipulation” and “one of the keenest examinations of ‘90s underground culture.” Fairey says, “I could never replicate the campaign now. Part of the power of the André sticker was the mystery around it. Now someone would just look online and whoever thinks they are clever on Reddit would explain it away.” After graduating, Fairey moved to California — first to San Diego and then Los Angeles in the early 2000s, where he cofounded commercial design agencies, masterminded guerrilla marketing campaigns, and created album artwork for Led Zeppelin’s Mothership and Smashing Pumpkins’ Zeitgeist. Things didn’t “coalesce” for him as a contemporary artist, he says, until after he saw Continued on p. 133

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challenges we are dealing with [in this election]. It’s really heavy.” It’s easy to imagine the election as the dominant topic of conversation in the Fairey household this year. Based in Los Feliz, Shepard and his wife of 22 years, Amanda, have two teenage daughters, Vivienne, 18, and Madeleine, 16. So how does his family feel about his indefatigable idealism and social commitment? “My kids sometimes say that I’m too obsessed, that I don’t give people in the family as much attention. Or when they are being really mean, they will say that I’m doing these things because I’m a narcissist and I want to be given credit for being a do-gooder. And that’s not true.” He hesitates. “Of course, for all the mudslinging that goes on, it’s very nice to be recognized for at least trying.” Born to Strait Fairey, a doctor, and

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Fairey’s work takes inspiration from Soviet-era agitprop. Opposite: Images from Peace Is Radical. Guns and Roses, 2006.

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R From top: With renovations to Crystal Cove’s historic North Beach cottages well under way, the first group of eight beachfront abodes have recently reopened to the public, each with its own unique style and retro quirks. Rustic Retreat cottage, a shingle-clad, twobedroom bungalow situated on the sand, is the ultimate surf shack.

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Nature lovers with a penchant for luxury travel, meet the newly transformed LODGE AT MARCONI, set within 62 acres of the Marconi National State Park overlooking the Tomales Bay. Originally built in 1914 by Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of radio, it later became the infamous home of the cult Synanon in the 1960s before it was purchased by the San Francisco Foundation, which later gifted it to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Now in the hands of Oliver Hospitality, the 45 guest rooms and suites have been reimagined by New York–based Home Studios; Bay Area firm Dune

Hai designed the grounds. In keeping with modernist Sea Ranch style, the camp-esque environment has a residential vibe with plenty of communal spaces to work, read a book, or enjoy a glass of wine. The rooms boast a highly curated assortment of custom furnishings, Heath Ceramics tiles, and amenities, from plant-based Born Bathing products to waffle robes and retro rotary-style phones. Televisions, however, are purposefully missing so guests can unplug from digital diversions and reconnect with nature and each other. For that, there are more than 3 miles of trails where hikers can even find remnants of Marconi’s old transmission towers. From $245/night. 18500 Hwy. 1, Marshall, 415-663-9020; lodgeatmarconi.com.

Clockwise from top: A nook in the reception lounge of LODGE AT MARCONI. Each room has custom furnishings. The outdoor courtyard features a firepit. The tile-clad bar inside the Redwood Dining Hall.

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LA PLAYA: CHRIS MOTTALINI. MARCONI: BRIAN FERRY.

LODGE AT MARCONI

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Clockwise: A lounge space at LA PLAYA HOTEL honors the mansion’s iconic Spanish-style architecture. A moody corner illuminates a historic map of California. An oceanfront guest room features an old-school rotary phone. The mansion’s pool was the first built in Carmel. An original Frances Adler Elkins plaster shell pendant hangs in one of the guest rooms.

LA PLAYA HOTEL

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Old-school techies will remember when LA PLAYA HOTEL, a historic Mediterranean manse in one of Carmel’s toniest neighborhoods, made headlines in 1983 as the birthplace of Apple’s Macintosh computer. The so-called Grand Dame of Carmel, originally designed in 1905 by landscape painter Chris Jorgensen for his wife and pupil, chocolate heiress Angela Ghirardelli, now celebrates a new beginning following a dramatic restoration from Brooklyn’s Post Company. Paying homage to its origins as a bohemian hideaway, the 75-room property has been reenergized for modern travelers while retaining its historic charm. To wit, there are original plein-air paintings by Virginia Grossman, stained-glass windows, and plaster shell pendants by design icon Frances Adler Elkins. After a sun-drenched day at the beach or by the pool, the dark and moody Bud’s Bar, named after the hotel’s former owner and Carmel legend Howard “Bud” Allen, beckons as a hideaway for a new generation of beatniks and techies alike. From $500/night. Camino Real at 8th Avenue, Carmel-by-the-Sea, 800-5828900; laplayahotel.com.

Nestled between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, Orange County’s Crystal Cove was once used by Hollywood filmmakers in the early 20th century as a location for Polynesian-set films before it became a quintessential California beach community with 46 historic cottages built directly on its beaches and bluffs. In 2018, the Crystal Cove Conservancy embarked on a massive restoration project, and CRYSTAL COVE COTTAGES recently unveiled eight perfectly preserved units that are now available for rent (in total 33 of the 46 historic cottages have been restored). What these cottages may be lacking in luxurious amenities they make up for in location and quirky charms. Shell Crafter’s cottage, which is painted sunny yellow on the outside and a vibrant teal inside, is decorated in a shell motif with fishing rods hung as artwork in the dining room. A few doors down, Little Grass Shack, a fire-engine red two-bedroom cottage, is separated from the Pacific by only a white picket fence. Over the course of the next two years, the remaining seaside cottages will be completed along with the creation of an additional 22 new units. From $49/night. crystalcove.org/beachcottages.com.

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CRYSTAL COVE COTTAGE’s North Beach Tower cottage.

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Beauty

runge makeup is back, but the revival is minimalist, feels messy, and — dare we say — looks healthier. Inspired by the smudgy, kohl-lined eyes of ‘90s models — think Kate Moss after a late night at The Viper Room or Linda Evangelista’s smoldering glare

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in a Pirelli calendar — it’s an easy alternative to the clean girl aesthetic that has reigned supreme. “It’s all about the eyes,” shares celebrity makeup artist and founder of Bakeup Beauty Jo Baker. With clients like Olivia Wilde, Natasha Lyonne, and Gal Gadot, Baker is a bona fide trendsetter. “Our Triple Threat eye primer helps this messy eye makeup look stay in place,” she says. “I use it on every client — it’s universally flattering — to get a bright, durable base.” Baker suggests going for an old-school

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RANDY BROOKE/GETTY IMAGES.

The ROCK CHICK EYE synonymous with Kate Moss makes a comeback

GET THE LOOK 1.

3. 2.

Beauty

1. CHANEL Le Crayon Khôl Intense Eye Pencil, $32, chanel.com. 2. BAKEUP BEAUTY Triple Threat Smoothing Hydrating Amplifying Eye Primer, $25, bakeupbeauty.com. 3. DANESSA MYRICKS BEAUTY Groundwork Palette, $65, danessamyricksbeauty.com. 4. RETROUVÉ Nutrient Face Serum, $325, retrouve.com. 5. SKKN BY KIM Soft Matte Lip Color, $32, skknbykim.com. 6. KJH.BRAND The Hyper Shine High Lite Kit, $75, kjhbrand.com.

Grunge makeup is inspired by the smudgy, kohl-lined eye of ‘90s models kohl liner that will smudge, like Chanel Le Crayon Kohl, and downplaying mascara. “The ‘90s was not a big play time for lashes,” she explains. “It was about liner and matte bases and nude lip — very opaque.” As for matte skin, we can do better now than the dry, tight, cakey look of the time. “I love a matte foundation used sparingly on top of juicy skincare,” Baker says. “I’m obsessed with Retrouvé’s serum. It nourishes the skin so when you put a matte foundation on top, it looks plump and

hydrated underneath the matte finish.” She also loves the versatility of The Hyper Shine Serum from KJH.Brand. “You can use it on eyes, cheeks, and lips. I love using it on the top of the lids, which turns this ‘90s look into a 2024 kind of vibe. It’s minimalist rockstar cool girl,” she adds. “It’s about creating this smudgy rock ‘n’ roll almost slapdash liner look, which has no symmetry and no peaked, pulled-out cat wings. It’s just about hollow peepers with a little city grunge.” •

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DR. DIAMOND’S METACINE Instafacial Collection, $550, drdiamondsmetacine.com.

Beauty

n the ever-evolving world of beauty, regenerative skin care is a game changer. This fusion of cuttingedge science and innovation is poised to take center stage this year. Regenerative skin care aims to counter the effects of aging and environmental stressors by harnessing the power of stem cells, exosomes, and growth factors, which are blended into formulas or injected in a medical environment. These ingredients, sourced from human or synthetic/ plant origins, breathe new life into your skin. Dr. Nathan Newman — a Beverly Hills– based dermatologist, cosmetic surgeon, and the creator of multiple science-backed brands including STEM, Luminesce, and Exo|E — plays a pivotal role in this beauty revolution as the co-founder of Rinati Labs, a hub of stem cell research and development. “Abrasive and irritating chemical acids and devices are

being replaced by biotechnological signals that restore balance, provide raw materials, and regenerate desired changes in the skin.” Dr. Newman stresses that regenerative skincare isn’t merely postponing aging; it’s also revitalizing and reinvigorating the skin’s fundamental components through bioactive signals. His concept, Consortia Factors, is a combination of bioactive signals, peptides, and growth factors working in synergy to restore the skin’s balance and vitality. A-list plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Diamond, also based in L.A., anticipates substantial growth in regenerative skincare product options and awareness. Recently he debuted Dr. Diamond’s Metacine. “The power molecules in my products mimic the effects of my InstaFacial® procedure and signal skin to increase the growth of new youthful cells while eliminating aged ones,” he says. “Youthful skin has an abundance of healthy collagen, elastin, and hyaluronic acid, and my Plasma + Emulsion support the production of these, giving the skin the youthful, radiant appearance we all want.” •

ANGELA CAGLIA Cell Forté Serum, $395, angelacaglia.com.

THE STEM COMPANY Apt+ Serum, $179, thestemcompany.com.

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It’s time for your REGENERATION

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FORCE FOR CHANGE now,” she says. “I think I’ve always been wary of it.” She brings up Meta’s recent rollout of its Threads platform and the suggested posts the algorithm feeds her, which she calls “rage baits.” “I feel really disheartened by the fact that there’s no infrastructure legislation to control and mitigate the amount of manipulation that is occurring toward the public by these private organizations and corporations who just want to make money off us and control our thoughts. You would think that after the 2016 election, Meta would’ve learned something, but this is a confirmation of what their agenda is. And that infuriates me. It makes me really upset.” She goes on. “Twitter, X, whatever that hell it’s called now — X, Y, Z. I see how Elon Musk is trying to apply more sort of radical tactics to free speech, but every algorithm, I just feel like, further divides people ideologically. And I am really scared of the echo chambers of information that people spend time in, including myself.” But she won’t give up on her 2.2 million Instagram and 830,000 TikTok followers just yet. “I don’t think there’s ever been a moment where I’ve thought social media is not for me, because I’m obsessed with social media. I have three meme accounts!” This much-needed social media break has allowed her more time to focus on her first love: music. Stenberg has played the violin since first grade, and she went on to learn the guitar and keyboard. “Music was always a thing I was most passionate about when I was a little kid,” she says. “My dad is a musician. My mom’s a huge music lover.” She’s recorded songs for two recent film projects, Bodies Bodies Bodies and the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. She has also worked with producer Dev Hynes of Blood Orange and released a handful of singles, most recently the trip-hop-sounding “Wicked Animal.” She’s currently working on her first album, which she describes as “painfully earnest, stripped back a bit, mostly layer vocals and maybe guitar and some drums, some bass. Very simple.” For someone who enjoys being at home so much, I ask if she has any desire beyond

making music to perform it on stage. “I’m going to have to figure out how to fit that in, but that’s a dream of mine,” she says. “It’s a big dream of mine.” We know she’s not afraid to reach for the stars. • Continued from p. 124

“I FEEL DISAPPOINTED...” the photo-and-text collages of Barbara Kruger and the work of L.A.-based guerrilla street artist and political satirist Robbie Conal, with whom he would collaborate in 2004 as art collective Post Gen (along with fellow L.A. street artist Mear One) for “Be the Revolution,” an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war street art campaign. Conal’s work also inspired Fairey’s “Obama Hope” poster, which was originally emblazoned with the word progress — Team Obama asked him to change it to hope. The artist was named as one of GQ’s Men of the Year in 2008 for this work, but he was also charged with criminal contempt in 2012 for “destroying documents and manufacturing evidence” that covered up his breach of copyright by using an uncredited image by photographer Mannie Garcia. He did get a thank-you letter from President Obama, however, and the Fairey family was invited to the White House the day after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. “I thought he’d cancel because that election result was so unexpected, but he spent about 40 minutes with us,” Fairey says. His poster of Nelson Mandela hangs in Obama’s Chicago office. Fairey’s art hangs in places as lofty as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He had six global exhibitions last year, including one at Singapore’s Opera Gallery — he also painted the “Mosaic of Peace & Harmony” mural in the city’s Chinatown — and Shepard Fairey: Icons at L.A.’s Subliminal Projects. Peace Is Radical subsequently opened in January at the ReflectSpace at Glendale Library, Arts and Culture. The timing couldn’t be more tragically on point for a thematic curation of his works against oppression and violence. “I made the “Peace Is Radical” poster 18 months ago, so it was after the war in Ukraine had started but before what’s happening in the Middle

Runover

East.” He says he’d like to do a street mural in Gaza: “I’ve even reached out to see if it could happen. I’d be interested in doing a mural in Ukraine as well. But it’s very tricky. Some people see art as an essential tool for promoting and reinforcing humanity [even in inhumane circumstances]. But other people consider art to be a frivolity while human beings are being killed.” On show are Fairey’s screen-printed portraits of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ai Weiwei, as well as a lithograph of “Obama Hope” and graphic collages of symbolic figures with peace signs, doves, scales of justice, and lotus flowers. “I used to say to myself, I’m never going to use a flower in anything I do. I’m never going to use a seascape. Because those things are clichés. But then I realized they are cliché because they connect emotionally for people. [That’s why] they are on greeting cards — they are universal symbols.” There also seem to be references to multicultural religious iconography in his more recent work. “Religion was the most pervasive language and culture for centuries,” he says. “[And my work] isn’t meant to be opaque at all; it’s meant to be very clear. The idea of how you were supposed to live your life morally was connected to religious allegories and their symbols. My work is secular, but it also may be spiritual in appealing to a higher purpose than ‘I define myself by how many likes I got on Instagram and by what clothes I wear.’” Fortunately, his teenage daughters are too evolved to do that. “The girls were on Instagram for a while. Now they don’t really post or participate. They learned, both around age 14 or 15, that it was a source of perpetual anxiety and perpetual maintenance. It’s a time suck. They decided that they could just step off that treadmill.” They can even out-woke their dad. “Yesterday I used the word exotic and they told me off and said it’s like saying ‘Oriental,’” he says. But Fairey is no stranger to jibes. “I wish I were thicker skinned because it always hurts, but I would feel worse if I became apathetic out of fear of a negative response. But we live in a world now where everybody’s got a megaphone. So I just do what I believe in and hope that when the dust settles on things, time will back my approach.” •

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I Favorite spa? Treatment? Sensei Spa in Palm Desert is my favorite spa. For a treatment, a Swedish massage. I’m not picky — anything relaxing will do.

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Where do you take visiting friends? I like to leave my house as little as possible, so I try to convince them to come over and sit on my couch with me. But if I must get out of my robe, we usually go to San Vicente Bungalows, Javier’s for Mexican food, or Nobu Malibu if it’s a special occasion.

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Favorite Daughter cofounder shares her insider picks Where do you live? Los Angeles.

Hills Hotel to escape my children for a staycation alone.

Where do you feel most zen? Under my red light in my robe — just kidding, but not really. I would say a Sunday in Malibu horseback riding with my kids.

Favorite health food fix? I’m really trying to eat less like a teenage boy and am currently doing the Sakara Life reset.

Favorite hike? I love the Santa Monica Stairs. It’s a love-hate relationship. Favorite beach? The beaches in Sarasota, Florida, are underrated. The water is like a bathtub and the sand is white. Favorite relaxing getaway? I hate flying, so anywhere by car is definitely the least stressful. It’s a toss-up between the Rosewood Miramar and a standard room at the Beverly

Do you follow a diet? I believe in leaning into your cravings. That’s probably not good advice, but I’m just being honest. Favorite hotel? You can’t go wrong with a Four Seasons. Love the one in Lanai and recently tried the one in Costa Palmas, Cabo San Lucas, and I’m obsessed. Favorite workout? Forma Pilates. Just an incredible workout. I would go every day if I could.

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What’s in your cosmetics bag? Kosas brow pencil in taupe. Tower 28 cheek stain. I’ve used the YSL Touche Clouet for under the eyes — it’s a classic. Charlotte Tilbury Iconic nude lip pencil and the Favorite Daughter lip oil on top of that. And I finish off with a spray of our Favorite Daughter fragrance Grecian Nights. Favorite hair products? I’m very low maintenance when it comes to hair. I don’t even own a blow-dryer. And my biggest splurge is my colorist Sergio Garcia because as I get older, my base color is mousy. Favorite home items? Homecourt soap is at every sink because the packaging is stunning and elevates every space. I also have a Barefoot Dreams blanket in every corner. What are you reading? Just finished Nicole Avant’s Think You’ll Be Happy. It’s brilliant and so is she. Favorite podcast? I would be a bad businesswoman if I didn’t say mine: The World’s First Podcast. I also listen to All In, a finance podcast, religiously. 2

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