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NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM OF FRANCE PARIS-LE BOURGET AIRPORT
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I spent the past twenty years traveling the world non-stop and it seemed to me like a natural way of life. While it was supposedly my home, I barely got to stay an entire week in Paris. Always in-between flights, anywhere in the world felt near and yet so far. The past year was an awakening. Being forced to stay in Paris happened to be an opportunity for me to rediscover my city, people I had encountered but never really met, and new faces shaking up the city’s creative scene. Check-in counters, boarding passes, and security gates started to feel like they belonged to a bygone era. And yet I began to dream again about escaping, about all these countries and cities I crave to visit. I would happily trade an average takeaway dish for a deliciously bad airline tray meal.
This season, we joined forces with guest editor Honey Dijon, legendary DJ and producer, whose creativity, values, and fashion knowledge has taken CR to new heights. With this eighteenth issue we call AIR CR, the tarmac has become our runway. We want to take you on a journey full of duty-free souvenirs, yellow hazmat suits, and irreverent flight attendants. From Berlin to New York, Seoul to Marrakech, Los Angeles to Paris, this aviation fantasy united an entire team in four different time zones, but all on the same page. Welcome aboard!
—CARINE ROITFELD, CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Steinberg wears Clothing, shoes, accessories and bags DIOR Tights WOLFORD Hazmat suits and gloves stylist’s own
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EDITOR’S LETTER Carine Roitfeld
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WELCOME ABOARD AIR CR
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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PARTY? A new era for dancing Tim Lawrence
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DUTY FREE The sky’s the limit when it comes to airport shopping
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LOUS AND THE YAKUZA An ode to humanity Naomi Clément
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UNDER COVER Layered with hazmat suits and rubber gloves, travel style goes sterile
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CEVAL OMAR KNOWS NO LIMITS Real-time revolution Ana Escalante
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FLYING PRIVATE Hailey Bieber travels in style
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CABIN FEVER Sex in the air Joseph Akel
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RAVE IN THE SKY On the way to Ibiza, the party starts in the air
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LOST IN DESTINATION A desert love story
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WELCOME ABOARD
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From models to mamas, businesswomen and ladies of leisure, AIR CR welcomes everyone to fly the friendly skies. Captain Honey Dijon and copilot Carine Roitfeld wish you a pleasant flight. 11/02/2021 18:27
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Cushion BALENCIAGA Tank top ERL Jeans LEVI’S
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MODEL IN-BETWEEN SHOWS, Malika Louback
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BOUGIE LADY, Georgina Grenville 11/02/2021 18:28
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Jacket and shoes SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Skirt, tights, necklace, scarf and gloves stylist’s own
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COPILOT, Carine Roitfeld
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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Tracksuits and shoes (throughout) NIKE Earphones, watch, bags and pouch LOUIS VUITTON Headphones stylist’own
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HAIR Pierre Saint Sever & Olivier Schawalder Makeup AURORE GIBRIEN Nails CAM TRAN Set Design NICOLA SCARLINO Production JIM SCHACHMES
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BEACH BABE, Rebecca Leigh Longendyke 11/02/2021 18:29
LOUS AND THE YAKUZA A celebrity in Italy, idolized in France, and recently gaining attention in England and the US, Lous and the Yakuza is an unstoppable force. The first time we met, in spring 2019, Lous and the Yakuza’s first single “Dilemme,” which would put her in the spotlight later that year, had yet to be released, but she was already showing a desire to talk to the world with a fire burning inside of her. Today, twenty-four-year-old Lous, a.k.a. Marie-Pierra Kakoma, is a name on everyone’s lips. In only a couple of months, the RwandanCongolese singer who was raised in Belgium, succeeded in becoming one of the most promising voices of her generation with her first album, Gore, released in October 2020. The album, which plays with both shadow and light, evoking her inner struggles and claiming her identity as a Black woman, seduced listeners way beyond the borders of Belgium. Naomi Clément: How well does the description “unstoppable” represent your current state of mind? Lous: Oh, if only you knew how much I would like to stop. I’m so tired [laughs]. No, I’m actually exaggerating. I’m not planning to stop at all, because I don’t want to be recognized only for what I’ve done so far. In my opinion, I have not done anything. What I truly want is to make better music. All the songs from my first album were written in 2017 . . . and we are in 2021 [laughs]. Since then, the way I write music has evolved a lot and I’m really eager to share it. I’m so excited by everything that’s going to come out. In fact, that’s precisely what makes me truly happy: the excitement of always doing better, of doing more. NC: Since the launch of your first album, Gore, you went through a lot of defining moments. Which one do you consider the craziest? L: Coming back to my hometown last December, I realized how famous I had become. It was amazing to see people who know me in Kenya, and in Rwanda, where I lived for quite a long time as a child. This made me feel so happy. To do photoshoots, to cover magazines, is not really what makes me happy. I mean, what does make me happy in all that is that I am a Black woman. It contributes to changing the landscape, to put Black women in it, to eventually turn it into something natural, so that one day no one will have to say: “Hey, look, this is the first Black woman to do this and that.” Because that’s all I was hearing in 2020: “Look, you’re the first Black woman to do this and that, do you realize it?” I just want it to be normal, and I hope that all the hard work I’ve been doing lately will permit that one day. I’m glad to tell myself that I represent something positive. Even if it also puts way more pressure on my shoulders as my margin of error has become so small. NC: Do you feel that you have a duty to your community? L: For sure, and sometimes it’s way more than that. For instance, people just keep thinking that it is the role of artists to teach their children. When Cardi B is pointed out as a bad example for children, or when I’m said to not be
a good example just because I smoke on an Instagram story, I just want to tell people that I’m only human! And just because I’m a Black woman doesn’t mean I’m perfect. Rather, I’m more like a surplus of defects [laughs], but I’m kind of OK with it. Especially because I don’t have much to complain about for the most part. I have so many blessings. I have so many different opportunities that have been rising recently, especially outside of music. It makes me feel so good. NC: What kind of opportunities? L: For instance, I’m currently designing a coworking building in Brussels, so I’m drawing every day and it’s very exciting. I’ve also received a lot of propositions to work for the cinema, which I appreciate a lot. With all that I’ve been through since I started, I now know exactly what I like and what I don’t like. And I realized that the only thing I really like is art. NC: Has art always been a powerful engine for you? L: Yes! As a child, I was really disciplined in that field. I was used to telling myself, “OK, this week, I’m going to write ten texts and do three paintings.” I was writing books, painting, and dancing all the time. I loved it. Now I have way fewer moments to make art. This makes me a little bit sad. It’s actually weird: you’re known for making art, but on a daily basis you don’t have a lot of time to actually make art! NC: Your appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in late 2020, to me, was clearly an artistic performance. L: I took it the same way I take every performance. I try to give the best of myself hoping that people will like it. Yes, it was in the US, but you know, my first appearance on TV ever was in Italy, so I immediately started with that kind of international pressure. That’s the only thing I have ever known. To be part of that Jimmy Fallon show was like doing the TV news in France, especially because I do not consider myself as being Belgian. I first feel Rwandan and Congolese. In fact, it’s what moved me to go back to my hometown, as I’m now well-known there. NC: Thanks to this growing notoriety, you can now reach new artists. How did you react when you learnt that Joey Bada$$ wanted to do a remix of your song “Amigo”? L: I immediately accepted. First, because I loved the fact that an American artist would like to do a remix of one of my songs. I believe that American people really have a great conception about that, and also because there were no featured artists on my first album. But what I’ve been preparing lately will be totally different, with so many collaborations. In the end, to share art with other artists is what I like.
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“What does make me happy … is that I am a Black woman. It contributes to changing the landscape, to put Black women in it, to eventually turn it into something natural….” NC: Among the artists you’ve been sharing with a lot are your “yakuzas” as you call them. There’s El Guincho who produced your first album. To what extent did he help you find your musical persona? L: My songs were already written and composed when we started working together. But it was indeed him who helped me find my sound. He was so intensely involved. I did not plan that someone I had never met before would invest so much in me. Especially because I was nobody at this time, while he was already someone with his eight Grammy Awards [laughs]. But he really isn’t into fame, he doesn’t care. What counts is art. And it was the first time another artist was putting me on an equal footing. Today, we keep working together and I ask him for advice sometimes. He is a little bit like my side brain, if you will. I’m often being asked if I would like to work with other producers, but my answer is no. It’s too early. NC: Tell me more about Gore, the first album he helped you to create. L: Gore is an autobiographical album retracing the past four years of my life, my early twenties. I talk about the atrocities I lived but also about the moments of incredible happiness I have been through. You can feel a lot of anger but also so much resilience. It’s an ode to humanity. As I’m used to saying, I want people to feel compassion and empathy through this album. I want them to see my failures in my lyrics, to make them feel that I’m only human, as they are, to eventually be able to get along better between humans. Music taught me to have so much compassion. NC: You also talk a lot about loneliness on this album, a loneliness that you sometimes choose, and that you sometimes suffer. Does being successful help reduce this loneliness or increase it? L: Both. Sometimes I feel very supported, and sometimes I feel so, so alone. And sometimes, I have that feeling of being misunderstood, that my friends but also others from the music industry can’t properly understand what I’m going through. For instance, I get along very well with Christine and the Queens, who was very popular internationally at the beginning of her career. But our backgrounds are still so different. She had a huge success in France before she started to be known in England and in the US, while, for
me, it’s a complete mess [laughs]. I first started to make it a bit in Italy, then a bit in Turkey, in Denmark, then just a little in the US. People are listening to my songs everywhere in the world, but it still happens to me to feel very alone sometimes. NC: What did being listened to across the world change the most in your life? L: The people. Or maybe more the way people react to me. I realize that in some places I’m not transparent anymore. When people are leaving, they say goodbye to me first. Also, I’m not making so much effort not to be seen [she shows off the large gold and turquoise jewels that adorn her fingers, neck and wrists]. But then I started to understand why artists were so sectarian. Before that I didn’t really understand why actors and singers were only hanging out together, exclusively. I also found it kind of weird and told myself that it had to be so boring to only be with people who have the same job as you. What do you learn? But now I understand. NC: Did fame change who you are? L: For sure, it is impossible not to change, I am still a human being. That being said, I don’t think it changed my humility. If one day I don’t have a good head on my shoulders or my feet firmly on the ground, then it sucks. My shitty ego would get the upper hand . . . this would be awful [laughs]. No, honestly, it didn’t change. However, I have become more inflexible, especially about my team members as I know that I would be held responsible for each and every mistake they would make. So, I smile a little less [laughs]. You’ve got to be steady as a rock to do this job. But besides, it’s made me evolve so much, and there is so much joy! I’m doing this job for all those moments of joy. NC: Can we expect a new project from you in 2021? L: Absolutely. A new project will drop this year and I’m so excited! It will have nothing to do with Gore. This project will set up the link between my first and second albums. And this second album will be . . . Wow! It will be interpreted in Swahili, in English, in French . . . it will make no sense [laughs]. I’m kidding, quite the opposite: It will be fully realized. But in the meantime, I’m giving my label cold sweats [laughs].
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UNDER COVER
Photography PIERRE-ANGE CARLOTTI Fashion CARINE ROITFELD
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Steinberg wears Clothing, shoes, accessories and bags (throughout) CHRISTIAN DIOR Tights (throughout) WOLFORD Hazmat suits and gloves (throughout) stylist’s own
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Layered with hazmat suits and rubber gloves, travel style goes sterile.
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Clothing, shoes, accessories and bags (throughout) CHRISTIAN DIOR Tights (throughout) WOLFORD
Hair YOANN FERNANDEZ Makeup HELENE VASNIER Production CLEMENT CAMARET Location MUSEÉ DE L’AIR ET DE L’ESPACE
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Photography DANIEL REGAN Stylist MAEVE REILLY
FLYING
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Dress, shoes, sunglasses, and scarf VALENTINO Earrings, watch and rings CARTIER
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Clothing CHANEL Earrings CARTIER
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Clothing MAX MARA Shoes PRADA Earrings, necklace and ring CARTIER Bag GUESS
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Dress, shoes, sunglasses, scarf and bag VALENTINO Watch and rings CARTIER
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Clothing BURBERRY Sunglasses SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Necklace FALLON
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Clothing, shoes, necklace and sunglasses SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Earrings and ring ANITA KO Suitcases RIMOWA
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Clothing, shoes and sunglasses TOM FORD
Hair BRYCE SCARLETT Makeup NINA PARK Nails MODERN PAMPER SALON Tailor MD TAILORING Production CARLYE BURKE
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FROM LEFT: Gabriel wears Jacket and pants Y/PROJECT T-shirt and belt vintage Boots RANI BAGERIA Sunglasses BALENCIAGA Suitcase RIMOWA Monica wears Jacket LUISA SPAGNOLI Pants Y/PROJECT Earrings BALENCIAGA
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RAVE IN THE SKY
FROM LEFT: Qaher wears Top, sunglasses and brooch GUCCI Kelvin wears Shirt SITUATIONIST Shorts LUDOVIC DE SAINT SERNIN Shoes VINTAGE Necklace JOHANNA GAUDER Bag and socks GUCCI
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On the way to Ibiza, the party starts in the air. 11/02/2021 18:30
FROM LEFT: Aaron wears Shirt MIU MIU Jeans Y/PROJECT Earrings and necklace CHANEL Ellen wears Clothing and boots BURBERRY Pau wears Clothing MIU MIU
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FROM LEFT: Moustapha wears Clothing, shoes and bag GIVENCHY Awut wears Clothing, belt and necklace (in hand) SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Earrings CARTIER Isi wears Dress OTTOLINGER Earrings BOTTEGA VENETA
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FROM LEFT: Chloe wears Clothing and jewelry CHANEL Qaher wears Clothing and jewelry BOTTEGA VENETA Shoes vintage Anthony wears Sunglasses and earrings BALENCIAGA
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FROM LEFT: DJ Hell wears Coat Y/PROJECT Shirt HIEN LE Pants vintage Boots DRIES VAN NOTEN Necklace (top) RICHERT BEIL Necklace (bottom) vintage
Kelvin wears Dress and jewelry MUGLER Hitomi wears Jacket, shorts and boots SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Shirt and skirt SITUATIONIST Bag PRADA
Aaron wears Jacket MUGLER Pants and earrings RICHERT BEIL Shoes ABRA Necklace Aaron’s own
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FROM LEFT: Honey wears Coat LOUIS VUITTON Dress and boots Honey’s own Gloves GUCCI Femi wears Top and necklace BOTTEGA VENETA Earrings MALAIKARAISS DJ Hell wears Clothing and sneakers BALENCIAGA
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FROM LEFT: Moustapha wears Top, pants and coat PRADA Shoes ABRA Sunglasses BOTTEGA VENETA Awut wears Top, pants and belt (in hand) BLUMARINE Earrings CARTIER Femi wears Jacket CELINE Shirts KARMUEL YOUNG Pants Y/PROJECT Necklace JOHANNA GAUDER
Hair DUSHAN PETROVICH Makeup SUSANNA JONAS Production JANNIS BIRSNER
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WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PARTY?
DJs jetting across the world on a weekly basis to play packed clubs and sold-out festivals was the norm right up until the pandemic hit. But with dance floors closed and travel suspended, what will a return to partying look like? The future, says British author and party organizer TIM LAWRENCE, might just be a new era of the kind of intimate, grassroots dance parties from the days of disco and early house. 70 028-085_SIDEA_CRFB.indd 70
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“When a plane takes off, there’s a moment when the pilot decides that the speed is right, he pulls back, and—boom!—you leave the ground,” the late David Mancuso, host of New York City’s seminal private dance party the Loft, once told me about his first “Love Saves the Day” party, held on Valentine’s Day 1970 in downtown Manhattan. “The party was like that. There was a point at which it just went up.” Back in the early ’70s, as DJ-led party culture took root and multiplied in NYC, the only traveling of significance occurred on the dance floor, with Mancuso leading the way as he shaped the Loft into dance culture’s first and most advanced utopian space. DJs would take partygoers on a marathon journey that combined music, dance, communal ecstasy, and, for the many who fancied, some blotter acid. Partying was local, traveling was done on foot or by subway, and the destination was unknown. The idea that a party might happen at the end of a plane journey emerged tentatively during the second half of the ’70s, when a cluster of New York DJs were offered residencies in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Dancers started to make the kind of exotic, transatlantic clubbing trips that had previously been the preserve of the wealthier “jetset” class after Laker Airways launched its “no-frills” low-cost flights from London to JFK in 1977. “I followed the music from the moment I boarded a Freddie Laker flight to NYC,” recalls north-of-England party aficionado Jimmy the Dancer. “It got me into Studio 54, a few Lofts, and the Paradise Garage, to name a few.” Transatlantic traveling intensified during the second half of the ’80s as dancers began to make pilgrimage-style trips to New York’s cutting-edge venues, principally the Paradise Garage and Bruce Mailman’s Saint. As Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Ibiza, London, and Tokyo emerged as hotspots for global party culture during the late ’80s and ’90s, house and techno DJs from the US learned that they were often more loved abroad than at home— and could earn more money there, too. Party culture’s air miles debit increased exponentially in the years running up to 2020, as promoters increasingly took to booking DJs according to the size of their Instagram following, and partygoers showed a growing readiness to fly to club events and festivals held in faraway cities, fields, beach resorts, and stretches of desert. They didn’t even need to book a room if they partied all night before returning on a flight the next morning. Concerns about the inflated fees being paid to DJs to perform at mega-events emerged before the outbreak of COVID19. “A lot of people in the scene lamented the way headliner/Instagram culture has impacted the smaller end of the clubbing world,” says Andrew Pirie of Melting Pot in Glasgow. “Clubs that, for decades, operated successfully with strong residents and some guests found that things became a lot tougher in the last few years. Clubs with a capacity of 500 couldn’t afford the guests that would enable them to hit capacity, and those that were affordable could no longer fill the floor.” COVID-19 reversed these trends as governments across the world responded to the pandemic by introducing restrictions
“The idea that a party might happen at the end of a plane journey emerged tentatively during the second half of the ’70s, when a cluster of New York DJs were offered residencies in Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.” on socializing that have had catastrophic consequences for party culture. DJs found themselves at the vanguard of a class of creative workers whose income from performance has routinely fallen by close to 100 percent. It makes sense that many can’t wait to crank up the decibels (and air miles) once conditions allow. Yet COVID-19 has also provided party organizers with an opportunity to think laterally, and some have found the restrictive conditions to be liberating. The elimination of the virus in New Zealand along with the ongoing restrictions placed on people entering the country have led to a resurgence in domestic partying. “Promoters have swiftly made stars of local DJs, giving them more exposure and opportunity to shine in the clubs and at festivals,” says New Zealand DJ and producer Christopher Tubbs. “Those DJs, for the most part, have risen to the challenge, giving partygoers those moments that turn nights and shows into folklore. It’s really healthy. The clubs are full, festivals are selling out, and the proceeds are staying in New Zealand and fueling the scene and the economy.” The environmental benefits that would follow if the world’s tiny proportion of frequent flyers cut down on traveling are also clear. Latest figures show that in 2018 just 1 percent of the world’s population created 50 percent of carbon emissions caused by flying, with the US emitting more carbon from aviation than the next ten countries combined. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect DJs to reject the international invitations that might help them return to financial health. Yet a sea change is also
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required if party culture is to honor its early utopian promise. Questions remain about the future of party culture. “Perhaps COVID will change people’s attitudes to local providers,” adds Pirie. “The public has become a lot more aware that if they don’t use local shops they will go bust. Will this localism feed through to supporting local DJs and promoters?” On the other hand, pre-COVID habits could also make a swift comeback. “After COVID there will be a lot of people that need to make money to pay off debts from lockdown, leading to a more risk-averse booking policy. The big name headliners might even be able to increase their fees further since they will be in greater demand.” The intensifying challenge of climate change along with the increased value placed on community during the pandemic suggests there will be no simple return to pre-COVID times. “A lot of people here think that globalization is over and that the era of cheap world travel at the drop of a hat is on its way out, too,” says Tubbs. “Many have found the current reality far more optimistic, self-supporting, and profitable than they might have imagined six months ago.” The desirability of curtailing international arrivals and departures will be questioned by those who value the importance of freedom of movement. Yet the example of New Zealand, along with other countries that have brought the virus under control through closing borders, shines a light on the simple, deep joy that can be found in the organic rituals that shaped dance culture at its inception. This can become partying’s new direction of travel.
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CEVAL OMAR KNOWS NO LIMITS
Fashion’s freshest face talks to ANA ESCALANTE about breaking the glass ceiling and the industry’s longoverdue real-time revolution. It used to be a common occurrence for twenty-six-year-old Somali-Norwegian model Ceval Omar to walk into a room and not see anyone like her. Omar is a Black, trans curve model, an intersection not often represented by the fashion and media industries. But in 2018, she put a decent-sized dent in those barriers when she was signed to three global modeling agencies—Heartbreak in Oslo, Muse in New York, and Present in London— all within ten hours of each other. Growing up, Omar always felt othered looking at the pages of glossy magazines. She loved fashion but never thought she would be a face of it, preferring instead to work behind the scenes as a model scout for Heartbreak. All that changed when a client contacted her on Facebook and she realized that a career in front of the camera was in her cards. In the two years since, she has graced the pages of British Vogue, Elle Norway, and V magazine to name a few. Her debut as a model, however, felt less than welcoming. Omar recalls arriving
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on set and it quickly becoming apparent that she had been hired as the label’s token face for inclusivity points. Even worse, she was paraded around in a dress that had to be cut open to fit her body. It wasn’t just humiliating, it was minimizing. “It very much takes away your energy,” she says. “But also disenfranchises you and your being.” It would be an understatement to say that the world has shifted since then. Last summer’s global calls for racial justice awakened the fashion industry, Omar believes. “I think there’s more people aware of their positions, more aware of their responsibility to acknowledge and validate these aspects of people that have been othered for so long,” she says. Today, Omar prioritizes working with Black photographers, stylists, and designers. “Fashion in itself was never meant to stay still,” she adds. “Fashion is living, moving, constantly redesigning itself. So, how hard was it to imagine other people being in fashion? I don’t understand that.” As her star has risen, Omar is
conscious to lift others up with her. She’s outspoken on social media, celebrating and advocating for people of color and calling for an end to white supremacy. She sits on the board of the Norwegian Fashion Hub’s diversity task force, ensuring her Black trans brothers and sisters are properly heard, and last year she was nominated for Norway’s Today’s Business Guiding Star Award for empowering trans youth. The recognition comes years after her own confidence battles growing up, and she’s aware that earning a seat at the table isn’t a trend—it’s real life. “You can post three things and you’re called an activist,” she says with a laugh. “I’d rather use my space for critical, important things.” Little Ceval would be proud, she muses. What words of encouragement would she give her younger self? “Understand that pain is today, and maybe even tomorrow, and maybe even the third day, but it’s not forever,” she says. “Let yourself live and let yourself love, and don’t be fearful of it.”
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CABIN FEVER
The slow roll down the runway leading up to the crescendoed thrill of takeoff. That almost out-of-body feeling as the wheels come up and the aircraft floats, followed by the momentary release one feels when the plane hits cruising altitude. It’s no wonder our feelings are heightened when we fly and, for some, it’s a real turn on. JOSEPH AKEL charts the flight path of the “Mile High Club” fantasy, from its origins to physiological significance.
As history has it, the rather ignominious origins of the “Mile High Club” can be traced back to an aeronautical accident that happened in late November 1916. A twenty-three-year-old pilot by the name of Lawrence Burst Sperry, along with his passenger, socialite Dorothy Rice Pierce, crashed into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Long Island. Young Sperry was already well known among aviation circles as something of a flying daredevil and inventor, gaining notoriety—and a $10,000 prize—in 1914 after successfully demonstrating a device he designed that allowed a biplane to cruise above the Seine hands-free. Inventing the “autopilot” function, Sperry freed up a pilot’s hands for other, more pressing, tasks. Jump to 1916. During the course of alleged carnal antics, Sperry and Pierce managed to dislodge the autopilot device, sending Pierce’s Curtiss Flying Boat C-2 into the waters of Great South Bay. Rescued by duck hunters, the duo was reported to have been found completely naked. While Sperry claimed the force of the impact had stripped the pair of their clothes, one well-known New York tabloid reporting on the story ran the infamously ribald headline, “Aerial Petting Ends in Wetting.” More than a century later, the bawdy allure of the “Mile High Club” persists, although grounded for the time being by the ravages of COVID-19. In a survey released in 2016, the travel website Jetsetter polled 1,600 travelers, finding that some 15 percent of respondents claimed to have had amatory relations while flying. Meanwhile, a 2005 global survey by the condom-maker Durex queried some 300,000 flyers on their midflight activities, reporting that 2 percent of respondents admitted to engaging in some
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form of sexual encounter. Indeed, the low number of reported incidents would seem to bear out two unsurprising results: more passengers fantasize about engaging in aeronautical shenanigans than act on it and, dovetailing on that point, that friend who claimed to have gained admittance to “the club” is likely a wistful fabulist. Perhaps just as expectedly, men aspire to “knock boots” midair more than women do. In a 2011 “Sex Census” published by yet another condom manufacturer, 33 percent of men indicated they strive to hook up while flying. The question begs, what makes the prospect of coitus in a cramped airplane toilet so appealing? For his part, Sigmund Freud, the cigar-smoking founder of psychoanalysis, believed the fantasy of flight was steeped in “infantile erotic roots.” Today’s clinical thinking around the impulses behind those who seek out public sex acts such as the “Mile High Club” has begun to take a more reasoned approach in understanding their origins. According to Heather McPherson, a nationally recognized sex therapist and founder of both the Sexual Health Alliance and Respark Therapy, a clinical practice focused on couples and sex therapy, while “the mental health and psychological community at large tends to pathologize” behaviors such as the “Mile High Club,” there is a shift underway to frame discussion of it in the context of other sexual behaviors. McPherson notes that there can be a wide range of reasons why people seek out such charged encounters. Individuals who fantasize about or partake in the “Mile High Club,” she says, “might be high sensation seekers, meaning they often enjoy and thrive in riskier activities
like skydiving or motorcycle racing.” Without judging those who engage in public sex acts, McPherson points out that “often, the fantasy is sexier than the reality.” And for those who do seek membership in “the club,” she advises “clarifying how to do it in a safe way that is also pleasurable,” should be discussed beforehand with a partner, adding, “Spurof-the-moment decisions can be riskier and bring more pain than pleasure.” In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a Frontier Airlines flight was escorted by F-16 fighter jets and forced to land in Detroit after two passengers emerged from a lavatory at the same time. If the prospect of hefty fines and a lifetime ban on flying still doesn’t deter the randy traveler, several airlines offer amenities that, while not explicitly designed for connubial relations, may assist with them. For the well-heeled, Singapore Airlines offers travelers the option of combining first class “pods”— currently a feature in the first-class cabin of their A380s—where couples can share a double bed, replete with bottles of Dom Pérignon. However, for the ultimate in stratospheric shagging, nothing can compete with the late Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s private jet, the “Big Bunny.” Purchased and renovated in 1969 to the tune of $5 million, Hef’s all-black, customdesigned DC-9 featured everything from a fur-covered elliptical bed to a micro discothèque, all serviced by the black leather miniskirt-wearing stewardesses referred to as “Jet Bunnies.” After selling the plane, Hefner remarked, “When anyone asks me if I ever miss the plane, I reply, ‘Only when I fly.’” To be sure, following in Hefner’s contrails, the skies were never friendlier.
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Like Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point lovers lost and free in the desert, a dalliance among the dunes is the ultimate escape. 11/02/2021 18:31
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