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Real estate agents affiliated with The Corcoran Group are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of The Corcoran Group. The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker located at 590 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10022. All information furnished regarding property for sale or rent or regarding financing is from sources deemed reliable, but Corcoran makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy thereof. All property information is presented subject to errors, omissions, price changes, changed property conditions, and withdrawal of the property from the market, without notice. Equal Housing Opportunity.
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SPRING 2022
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LET TER FROM THE EDITOR
34 40 43 352
MEET THE TEAM GUEST LIST GAME CHANGERS ONE MORE THING
ON THE COVER Lana Condor, photographed by Sam Spence. Styled by Erin Walsh. Styling Assistance by Madeleine Kennedy. Makeup by Melissa Hernandez. Hair by Kat Thompson. Manicured by Thuy Nguyen. Oscar De La Renta set, oscardelarenta.com; Le Silla shoes, lesilla.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
SPRING 2022
MOST WANTED
LOOKING FORWARD
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N E W Y O R K S TAT E O F M I N D
With Creative Director Emily Smith’s keen eye for new fashion influences and unparalleled standards for the finest fabrics, Lafayette 148 New York is pushing its brand to new heights with quality crafted garments and reimagined retail stores. By Karli Poliziani
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IN FULL BLOOM
This spring, it’s not just the flowers that are emerging from a long hibernation. Put your own best face forward with inspiration from the season’s most vibrant blossoms.
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F O O T L O O S E FA N C Y
Dress up to stay home in the spring’s most delectable footwear.
FA M I LY M AT T E R S
Carolina Cucinelli is following in her father’s footsteps and bringing Brunello Cucinelli’s brand philosophy to a wider audience. By Colleen Kratofil
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DREAM TEAM
IMG’s fashion division makes magic happen every NYFW. Here’s how. By Kevin Sessums
103 L I V I N G T H E S T R E A M
Hollywood takes a breather from glitz and glam, but the best movies are playing on our phones and in our living rooms. By Michael Kaplan
104 A R O S É O U T L O O K
After taking over the family business, Joey and Marc Wölffer, Roman Roth, and Max Rohn are revamping their beloved Summer in a Bottle in a big way. By Jaclyn Roth
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CATCH MY DRIFT
This spring, look to new horizons.
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LOOKING FORWARD
129
GIRL ON TOP
To all the Lana Condor fans, you’re welcome. To everyone else, here’s what you’ve been missing. By Maggie Kim
158 H O W T H E W E S T WA S W O R N Come locked and loaded at high noon. It’s a fashion face-off.
136 G R A B B A G
180 R O A M R O M A
152 S P R I N G AWA K E N I N G
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The totes, clutches, and must-have bags to make your spring wardrobe shine. A dewy glow and rosy hues bring forth that first flush of spring.
In saturated hues and luscious silks, a fashion empire rises. C R E AT I V E T R A N S C E N D E N C E
Nikolai von Bismarck retraces the steps of the Bloomsbury Set in The Fendi Set: From Bloomsbury to Borghese. By Hannah Militano
208 S H O R T C U T S
The miniskirts are micro and the tops are cropped. Do you dare to bare?
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E V E R Y T H I N G WA S R E D
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BEAUT Y ODYSSEY
The year is 2030. The first human setlers have arrived on Mars, and they’ve come dressed for the occasion. If you’re not quite ready to jetset yet (and even if you are) these beauty products will immerse you in the ingredients, rituals, and sensations of our favorite destinations around the world. No passport or vaccine card required. By Emily Algar
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POP CULTURE
Bold colors, embellishments, and everything to the max. It’s time to celebrate every moment from head to toe.
224 C A S A C I P R I A N I : A B E A U X ARTS BEAUT Y
The formerly crumbling landmarked Battery Maritime Building in New York City is now home to a private members-only club and a stunning hotel open to everyone. By Aaron Rasmussen
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GRAZIA USA
SPRING 2022
LOOKING FORWARD
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T H E O N E , T H E O N LY
One&Only Resorts adds to an already iconic portfolio with new additions in Mexico and Montenegro. By Casey Brennan
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VIVID DREAMS
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OUTSIDE IN BALANCE
When WFH life has you climbing the walls, look on the bright side. Interior designer Lukas Machnik curates his most personal project at his own summer abode in East Hampton. By Ty Gaskins
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FLOWER POWER
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RISE & SHINE
Experience a spring awakening in technicolor.
Swarovski immortalizes its illustrious past while looking to the future with a new and mesmerizing Chamber of Wonder. By Hannah Militano
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L E B L U E-J E A N
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PA R C H E D
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ONE MORE THING
An American staple in Paris brings a touch of laidback cool to French girl chic. Bold prints, delightful details, and saturated hues are sating our thirst for the new. Fashion luminaries share the lights of their lives.
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SPRING 2022
G
rowing up, I often heard the proverb, “Hope is the last thing ever lost.” The pithy quip is basically an old-world version of the famous kitten on the clothesline poster — the one that pleaded with us all to “Hang in there, baby!” For sure, that kitten has been hard at work over the last few years, as we sought inspiration to carry on in a world whose obstacles — the global pandemic, climate change, racial inequality — left us hanging on to our proverbial clotheslines ever more tightly. In such an environment, creating and launching new endeavors is an exercise in confidence, a dash of defiance, and hope. That’s something we know firsthand at GRAZIA USA, having built our team and created our brand here in the U.S. during some of the darkest times we’ve ever known — as an industry, a city, and a nation. We’re so grateful for the warm welcome we’ve received, including the honor of being named the best new magazine launch of 2021 after our very first issue. With our second quarterly issue now in your hands, we’re more excited than ever about what the future holds for us all. GRAZIA has celebrated style, sophistication, and glamour for close to 85 years and has provided readers with optimism and inspiration through both good times and bad. That heritage sparks the energy that moves us forward.
‘GRAZIA HAS CELEBRATED STYLE, SOPHISTICATION, AND GLAMOUR FOR CLOSE TO 85 YEARS.’ As we begin to (hopefully, carefully) emerge from the pandemic, we are all thirsty for inspiration and the joy of a new direction. That could mean a new bag (our favorites can be found on page 136), or — if you are quite lucky — perhaps a return to travel. We profiled several inspiring destinations in this issue, from the picturesque Wölffer Estate vineyard on Long Island to Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit, where One&Only has recently unveiled a resort crafted for reconnection. Whatever you hope to find in our pages, I’m certain you’ll find it. The exuberant fashion photography and insightful journalism that we have brought together for this issue were created to put a smile on your face, new ideas in your mind, and — hopefully — keep you hanging in there, baby.
DAVID THIELEBEULE EDITOR IN CHIEF / CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER
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GRAZIA USA
WWW. PROJECTUNFOLLOW.COM
SPRING 2022
DAVID THIELEBEULE EDITOR IN CHIEF, CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER
BRIAN CAMPION EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR
CASEY BRENNAN & AARON RASMUSSEN EXECUTIVE EDITORS AT L ARGE SENIOR ST YLE EDITOR Colleen Kratofil ST YLE EDITOR Ty Gaskins HEAD OF ENTERTAINMENT Jaclyn Roth ST YLE WRITER Hannah Militano CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Michael Kaplan Maggie Kim Karli Poliziani John Russell Kevin Sessums JUNIOR DESIGNER Alexandra Sexton
DIGITAL INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jessica Bailey DIRECTOR, E-COMMERCE Karli Poliziani FASHION DIRECTOR Charlotte Stokes FASHION WRITER Grace O’Neill FEATURES WRITER Rebekah Clark BEAUT Y EDITOR Emily Algar CONTRIBUTING BEAUT Y EDITOR Kate Lancaster DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Jeff Mazeo DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION & MULTI-MEDIA Sean Kravit
HEADQUARTERS 100 BROADWAY, 11TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10005 • PHONE (917) 231-8680 • EMAIL CONTACT@GRAZIAUSA.COM GRAZIA USA, 100 Broadway, 11th Floor, NY, NY 10005 (graziamagazine.com; UPC 0-74820-40390-7) is published quarterly by Pantheon Media Group LLC, a company registered in the U.S. © 2022 Mondadori Media S.p.a. All rights reserved. Published by Pantheon Media Group, LLC, with the permission of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.a. and Mondadori Media S.p.a. Reproduction in any manner in any language in whole or in part without prior written permission is prohibited. Advertising inquiries: sales@graziausa.com. Press inquiries: press@graziausa.com. General inquiries: contact@graziausa.com. For syndication, email contact@graziausa.com.
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anOnlyChild.com
SPRING 2022
‘A TIME OF DARKNESS WORLDWIDE HAS BEEN SATURATED WITH ENDURING SPOTS OF CREATIVE BRIGHTNESS.’
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f necessity breeds invention, then it’s adversity that sparks inspiration. Never has that been more clear than in the last two years. A time of darkness worldwide has been saturated with ephemeral and enduring spots of creative brightness — one of which, I hope it’s not too hubristic to suggest, has been the launch of this very publication. Looking back on our first issue (a time that already seems so far away) we all felt as if we were finally escaping the pandemic period and heading into a new era of possibility and — as our issue theme heralded — evolution. Of course, the omicron wave interrupted all of that.
Now, six months later, our hopes are rising to the surface again, if timidly. It almost feels like tempting fate at times to make plans or projections for a future that has proved its malleability. And so, we look to and celebrate those bright spots to nurture our hope and give us the inspiration to move forward. That’s a goal that I hope this issue can meet for you. Immerse yourself in the glittering world of Swarovski on page 310, or journey to the Riviera Nayarit with One&Only on page 270. Travel to other realms entirely via the breathtaking fashion photography we’ve laid out for you to savor. Brighten your world with a delightful bag or perfectly impractical shoes for spring. Whatever inspires you,
seize it and use it as your inspiration to move forward in the new world we are building every day. Continuously building our team, creating new print products (like the ever-expanding GRAZIA GAZETTE, launching soon at the Formula 1 in Miami), and welcoming new advertising partners into the mix as we watched so many titles shutter this year has been bittersweet. Yet, it is our hope that with GRAZIA USA’s continued success, we will bring joy to our readers, opportunity to our partners, and a dash of hope and optimism to the world at large. Now more than ever, hope is audacious. But — in the best way — so are we.
BRENDAN MONAGHAN EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT / GLOBAL CHIEF BRANDS OFFICER
GRAZIA USA
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SPRING 2022
MELISSA CRONIN
PRESIDENT, CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
BRENDAN MONAGHAN
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL CHIEF BRANDS OFFICER
ANDREW LEE
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
VICE PRESIDENT, GENERAL MANAGER Tanya Amini EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Brian Campion CHIEF INNOVATIONS OFFICER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Paul Dousset CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER Jeremy Zimmerman VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS & MARKETING Sara Shenasky EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FASHION & LUXURY Maria Eliason EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MARKETING, BRAND STRATEGY, & COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPS Emily Sigman SALES DIRECTOR, BEAUT Y Koko Drechsler DIRECTOR OF SALES, WEST COAST, USA Nancy Cooper DIRECTOR OF SALES, FRANCE & SWITZERL AND Guglielmo Bava CREATIVE DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL & INTEGRATED MARKETING Ilaria Svitic SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Gabriella Zurrow EXECUTIVE EDITOR AT L ARGE Casey Brennan CHIEF WRITER, DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Dominic Utton CHIEF OF STAFF Melissa Melendez Reale
DYLAN HOWARD CHAIRMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER & PUBLISHER
HEADQUARTERS 100 BROADWAY, 11TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10005 • PHONE (917) 231-8680 • EMAIL CONTACT@GRAZIAUSA.COM
SUBSCRIPTIONS • PHONE (917) 231-8680 • EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS@GRAZIAUSA.COM WWW.GRAZIAMAGAZINE.COM/US/SUBSCRIBE
GRAZIA is a trademark registered and owned by Mondadori Media S.p.a. MONDADORI MEDIA S.p.a. Chief Executive Officer Carlo Mandelli; Vice President & Artistic Director Carla Vanni; Managing Director International Business Daniela Sola; Head of International Platforms Marne Schwartz; International Marketing Manager Fashion & Design Francesca Brambilla; International Advertising Manager Daniella Angheben; Photos & Rights Manager Melania Landini. For further details, please write to graziainternational@mondadori.com © 2022 Mondadori Media S.p.a. All rights reserved. Published by Pantheon Media Group LLC with the permission of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.a. and Mondadori Media S.p.a. Reproduction in any manner in any language in whole or in part without prior written permission is prohibited.
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SPRING 2022
GUEST LIST
The stakes were high when we launched our very first issue in 2021. As the latest iteration of an 84-year-old brand, we had all eyes on us, waiting and watching to see where we would take our rich heritage. With a little help from our friends, colleagues, and readers like you, we made magic happen — and were crowned the best new magazine launch of 2021, according to our industry peers. So, suffice to say the stakes are just as high for round two — and we think we’ve delivered. Enjoy our sophomore issue and know that we plan to continue exceeding expectations. Above, enjoy a glimpse behind the scenes at our sunny California shoot with equally sunny cover girl Lana Condor.
SAM SPENCE
Korean-American fashion and fine art photographer Sam Spence’s background as a dancer brings a sense of movement and joy to her work, now including our cover. 40
OLIVIA WEEDEN
Sustainable and ethical stylist Olivia Weeden was the perfect choice to style our Lafayette 148 New York feature: The company places social responsibility and sustainability at its core.
MELISSA HERNANDEZ
Celebrity makeup artist Melissa Hernandez is the MUA of the moment, with celeb clients including Sydney Sweeney, Hailee Steinfeld, Kylie Cosmetics Campaigns, and our cover girl, Lana Condor.
RYAN LOWRY
NYC-based image-maker Ryan Lowry captures the dynamism, creative spirit, and resilience of his subjects, a perfect fit for our feature on IMG and NYFW.
GRAZIA USA
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SPRING 2022
GAME CHANGERS
GRAZIA USA AIMS TO BE A CULTURAL AUTHORITY THAT INSPIRES, EDUCATES, AND CELEBRATES INDIVIDUALITY, BEAUTY, AND STYLE. WE HAVE IDENTIFIED 17 CHANGE AGENTS BLAZING PATHS TO A NEW AND BETTER FUTURE. ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER OUMANSKI
Athena Calderone
The interior design guru, author, culinary queen, and Eyeswoon mastermind prioritizes her passion first and foremost.
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y work saddles food and design, both working in tandem. I was a young mom in my early twenties, and while I was always a very creative being, I found myself at home a lot and in need of creative expression. I used the kitchen and food to exercise creativity and to take risks. Food and design not only gave me passion and purpose, but a social outlet as well. Gathering people in my home unified my love for setting the table, creating a mood, lighting, and flowers; but also, creating a beautiful meal. I’m the founder and CEO of Eyeswoon, a digital platform that surrounds both design and food. Everything I’m doing today has to do with the home and creating a beautiful experience. My cookbook Cook Beautiful and my design book Live Beautiful came out after both of my homes were featured in Architectural Digest. The cookbook won a James Beard Award, while the design book remains a top seller on Amazon. It’s been this incredible unraveling of different ways to create through the lens of home and design. I love to distill a breakdown of my design process, especially on social media. Rather than
GRAZIA USA
having an unattainable, beautiful space, I explain why it works. I like to be generous with whatever I’ve learned over the years and share that wealth of knowledge. I really love making design intimate and personal. Think of your home as an expression of the person you’ve been, and the things that you’ve collected. You should walk into a home, see who someone is, and have some visual intrigue while looking at their space. I want to teach people to shop around their homes and see what they’ve collected over time. I want to encourage people to try new ways to style them and create little vignettes, breeding more appreciation for things that maybe they didn’t realize they loved or appreciated as much until seeing them through a new lens. Over these challenging past few years, I’ve leaned into my home life even more, sharing my creativity, recipes, and styling tips. All of us found ourselves cooking more, and in our homes more. I wanted to give people confidence about what they’re creating in their homes, the items they surround themselves with, and the meals they make. As I continue to share and create, it brings me joy to know that somebody might appreciate their space more, or that somebody
feels better about creating a meal for themselves, because of a simple trick I taught them. I create for myself, but I also love to share with others. There’s been a recalibration of what’s important. There’s been a resurgence of appreciation for being at home, redefining your friendships and who you surround yourself with, and the integrity of how you enjoy your space and life. Taking care of yourself, surrounding yourself with positivity and people that you love and love you back brings more hope into your life. Just do what you love. It’s always worth it. Figure out what brings you joy, something you can do every day that’s exclusively for you. Find something that lights you up and fires you up. So many of us feel trapped into doing things we don’t love. I felt lost for a long time because I thought I didn’t have a “quote/unquote” “career,” but I ended up creating a career through my passion unknowingly. I believe that if you work hard at something, even if it seems impossible, you can make it a reality. Anything is possible if you have the perseverance, the passion, and the will to make it happen. Hope itself is never giving up. — As told to Hannah Militano. 43
SPRING 2022
Seema Bansal Chada
I
The Venus ET Fleur founder grows beyond viral status to true worldwide renown.
’ve always been very entrepreneurial in spirit. From a young age, I watched my father build his business from absolutely nothing. I learned business acumen through working for him all throughout college and even in my teens on the weekends. As a creative individual, I’m continuously challenging myself to think outside of the box, innovate, expand, and inspire. This mindset and mentality ultimately birthed Venus ET Fleur. When my husband, Sunny (then boyfriend!), gifted me Valentine’s Day flowers that withered away upon arrival, I immediately began brainstorming how the floral industry could change and evolve to make special occasions more memorable and create longevity and deeper meaning behind the art of gifting. Our dream grew and further developed into a global company that has truly disrupted the billion-dollar floral industry. There’s so much room for expansion and growth when it comes to diversity in product lines and offerings, and not only am I hopeful that Venus ET Fleur will be at the forefront of this evolution in our industry; but also, I am
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confident that we will be. We are continuously brainstorming new ways to take the brand in new directions, reach different audiences, and reimagine what Venus ET Fleur is capable of. There is truly limitless potential for the brand to keep on spearheading luxury, aesthetics and all things lifestyle. I’m humbled and proud to be at the forefront of this revolution, and I look forward to continuing to empower other young women — especially minorities — and to show them that the sky’s the limit when it comes to championing their own futures and creating the career paths of their dreams. Especially now that I’m pregnant, the word “hope” carries a much deeper meaning. Everything I do is now all the more intentional to ensure that I’m contributing to shaping a world that I’ll be proud for my child to live in. I feel the most hope in my life when I surround myself with people who make me feel the happiest and most at peace. I am very selective with who I choose to spend my time with, as time is the most limited resource, and I’m grateful to have curated a circle that shares my values, interests, goals,
and overall perspective. They truly give me hope, as well, that the future we’re building is promising, exciting, and one that I’m proud to bring a child into. Make sure to prioritize your inner peace and center yourself in what truly makes you feel happiest. I wholeheartedly believe that you cannot give your time and energy to others if you aren’t aligned and balanced yourself. This is why I always strive to create boundaries between my personal and professional lives, and prioritize both equally, but in different ways, so that they can coexist in harmony. I would also encourage all young women with entrepreneurial endeavors to ask questions, and soak up information like a sponge! Reach out to other bosses who inspire you, network like crazy, set up coffee dates, and learn as much as you can. You can truly never stop learning. I love expanding my reach and connecting with like-minded ladies so we can grow together, learn from one another, and continuously support and challenge each other. Have faith in the value of collaboration over competition. There really is room for everyone to be so successful and fulfilled. — As told to Melissa Cronin.
GRAZIA USA
SPRING 2022
Sharon Chuter
The Nigerian-born beauty entrepreneur is redefining what it means to be inclusive and diverse through her brand, UOMA Beauty.
T
o be an entrepreneur, you either have to be running away from something or running towards something so passionately that you’re willing to drop off a cliff. I worked my way up in the beauty industry: from the sales floor all the way to the C-suite, most recently at Benefit Cosmetics. But in 2017, I decided I was done with corporate. I felt strong enough that I didn’t care what I lost. I thought the journey was going to be worth it, so I walked out and never looked back. At that time, I started to really care about values and realized I couldn’t be working for a company that makes concealers in three shades. The more I went on that journey of understanding the impact of non-inclusivity, the more I started to understand that there was such a thing as culpability by complacency. If I’m sitting back knowing that what my company is doing is not morally right, but I work for them every day, I’m just as equally culpable as the people who make the decisions. I no longer wanted to be a part of the problem and turning a blind eye to it; I wanted to be part of the solution. That was how my journey
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with UOMA Beauty started. UOMA Beauty is a place where people can really come and be themselves. We don’t go around saying we don’t see color. We absolutely see color, because we need to. Color is so beautiful! I founded the brand in January 2018 and brought it to the market in April 2019. But talk about the trials for a new business to launch amid the pandemic! It really required us to be more disciplined operationally on the back end. The supply chain is crazy, and we couldn’t get products to market as fast as we used to — which, for a start-up, is a real big hit. Getting used to being a bit slower than we normally operate has been a huge adjustment for us. Such are the times that we live in. But we were lucky in other ways. When we first launched, people thought we were being divisive because of the blunt and honest messaging that we had. There was a huge subset of the market that was uncomfortable because I came out and said, “I’m here to have a conversation.” But the world sort of caught up post-June 2020. It was a mass education of the public to understand that No, this is not being divisive; this is what we should all be doing. I think the positive thing that came out of the
past two years is the pressure on companies now to be more purpose-led. You can’t have profit as your only objective. You must contribute as a company. UOMA Beauty alone cannot change the world; it’s going to take everybody moving in the same direction to see a positive impact. But if I could change anything, it would be to pour some tolerance and acceptance into the world and make everybody understand that there is beauty in diversity. What makes the world beautiful is the fact that we all have different roles to play, and it should absolutely make no difference how we look. I’m not just talking about race; I’m talking about everything: from women’s rights to LGBTQ+ rights. If everybody just understood that if it doesn’t affect them and they don’t like something, then don’t do it, we’d be good. At the end of the day, what gives me hope is humanity — and that ultimately the will of the good will always prevail. Good will always come before evil. But if anyone needs to stay hopeful in these trying times, I say look to the past. Hang onto something good from the past and then manifest it and make it reality, because the past always gives you hope for the future. — As told to Colleen Kratofil.
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Trevor Daniel
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The singer-songwriter aims to find connection in authenticity.
’m a big believer in manifesting and just speaking positivity. Throughout 2020 and a lot of 2021, I had a really hard time doing that. But the last few months of 2021, I made it a thing that I did: If a negative thought came into my mind, I would ask why it was there and whether it was realistic. Even if it was realistic, I would make the choice not to sit there and think about it over and over. The more you give negativity attention, the more effect it has on you. The title of my upcoming album, Sad Now Doesn’t Mean Sad Forever, originally was just an idea that I jotted down in my journal. It was something that I kept saying to myself when 2020 first started. It was kind of hopeful that things would get better, that things would improve. In 2020, it felt like overall it was kind of hard to be hopeful, because we were just being told all the time that it just seemed to be getting worse. A lot of stuff was going on, and that idea was something that helped me. I wanted it to become the title of a project, but over time it’s become more of
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a mantra, a thing that I continue saying to myself and that I want to continue saying to friends, and not just with one project. When people listen to my music, I want that to be the world that they go to. That’s what they hear and that’s what they feel: Just because things are down now doesn’t mean it will always be that way. If you look back six months, or a year, or five years, are the things that felt like the end of the world then still feeling like the end of the world now? Usually, that’s a no. How can you grow from that? How can we make change? There’s always the possibility for things to change, and there are a lot of beautiful things in this world. There’s bad and there’s good, and focusing on the good really does change a lot of things. That’s the overall picture of music, for me: to bring that awareness that even though it feels like it will last forever when you’re in the moment, a couple months from now, a year from now, however long, things improve. I think the main thing that I can do as an artist is make things that allow people to escape. People kind of create their own world
when they listen to music — at least that’s my experience. So, when you go to a show, you see everyone is there for the same purpose. It brings people together. It’s really hard not to look around and get goose bumps. Wow, all these people are here for the same reason! Everyone’s singing along, everyone has that in common. They’re having the same experience. That’s my main goal: to let people know, on an individual level, that sad now doesn’t mean sad forever, and when everyone comes together, I think that’s the best thing that I can do. Hopefully people see that. People are looking for a sense of connection, so what they want to listen to comes down to feeling now, versus a specific favorite genre. If you ask someone their favorite musical genre, most people now will say some random subgenre most of us have never even heard of, and that’s because you can just blend anything. People are looking for something new, so it’s okay if you explore and you try things you’ve never heard. It will connect with people because they can tell that it’s genuine. Anything is possible. — As told to John Russell.
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Honey Dijon
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The DJ, fashion icon, and musical artist remains optimistic that change is coming — and she’s happy to be part of it.
was born and raised in Chicago, and I always say I was very fortunate to experience the beginning of a subculture that turned into a global form of art, which is house music culture. My parents were very musical; they played a lot of R&B in the house, including artists such as Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan and Donna Summers. That is how I fell in love with fashion, because you had all of these Black, middle-class kids who were dressing up to go dancing. My love of fashion coincided with my love of house music. It was all intertwined. My sister’s best friend was dating this guy who was really into house music culture and he introduced me to Derrick Carter, a legendary Chicago house DJ. I was sucked into the culture. I was born in the right place and right time. It wasn’t so much about genre; it was about storytelling and it was about pushing the envelope forward musically. Since then, the industry has improved in some ways, but in other respects it’s gotten worse. Even though things are very painful, change is painful. I believe the #MeToo Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement and the Trans Awareness Movement are really
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big global social changes. I think just the fact that we are just having these conversations and people have become more aware of the problems that need fixing has been great, but it’s moving too slowly. There’s still a lot of work to be done, and it’s the same with house music and the same with festivals. You can have as many diverse lineups as you want, but unless you have festival promoters, concert promoters and venue owners who are diverse, it’s just optics. Going forward, I think you need to be able to find out what is your story and what is your truth. It’s not so easy, but if you can find that power, I think that is how we can be hopeful about making a change. I always hated being called a “role model” because that puts me on a pedestal, and I am not perfect by any means. I always liked what Laverne Cox said: You can be a “possibility model” because you can be a possibility for others. I hope others see how it’s possible for me to have this career even though I didn’t have anyone reflecting back at me growing up. I always go back to my teenage self. I just wanted to participate and contribute and it wasn’t about what I could get from it, the fame
or the perks. I am a working artist who gets to work in fashion, music, art, and inspirational speaking. I pinch myself every day. I never would have imagined that I would be here in my career or have my own fashion line. I never even thought that was humanly possible. The thing about being a creative person is you don’t ever feel like you have arrived. You never arrive. As long as you live, you are going to be multiple people in your lifetime, you’re going to have multiple desires, you’re going to shift, you’re going to morph and change, so nothing is sedentary and fixed. I always find it funny when people talk about trans people transitioning. We are all transitioning every day — all of us. No matter what gender or sexual orientation or social status or whatever you are, you are shifting, morphing, changing, and transitioning every day. This year, I have my album coming out called Black Girl Magic, and it’s been really, really fun to work on. I got to work with a lot of Black female songwriters and queer artists, and I feel like this is my most personal album to date, and I am excited about that. I know it sounds corny, but I live in gratitude that I get to do it all. — As told to Jaclyn Roth.
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SPRING 2022
Dr. Muge Erdirik Dogan
The president of Amazon Fashion brings her background in technology and mathematics to the fashion forefront.
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e’re in a world where technology is increasingly making a presence in the fashion industry. I have been with Amazon for 14 years, leading Category, Technology, and Operations teams in the Baby and Beauty businesses before being appointed as President of Amazon Fashion in February 2021. My background is rooted in technology and innovation, and it’s been really exciting to see more science play into fashion. What I look forward to in my new role in the company is continuing to leverage my expertise in science, technology, and innovation as Amazon Fashion continues to expand its selection and deliver inspiring shopping experiences for customers. For example, my team’s progress with The Drop’s made-on-demand model — where items are only produced when an order is placed to reduce waste — is an area we will continue to test, learn, and innovate on behalf of customers. It has been such an exciting and rewarding journey throughout my time at Amazon and I’m excited to continue working with the team to create more ways to surprise and delight customers. While my responsibilities in this
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new role include developing and executing Amazon Fashion’s growth strategy, building technology, developing new private brands, and merchandising and marketing in inspiring ways to our customers, I also believe that building a culture that is welcoming and inclusive is integral to people doing their best work. Through unprecedented times comes incredible ideation, and I want everyone to feel empowered to speak up if they have an idea or are interested in making a change, so we can all work together to shape the future. I want to see an environment that is equitable, where everyone has a seat at the table, and I hope to see more companies continue to champion women and underrepresented groups at the leadership level. While I took on this new role amid these unprecedented times, there have been a few ways I stayed motivated. First, it helps when I break big problems into smaller manageable chunks. I find that it makes the task at hand seem a little less intimidating. Second, a self-care routine is very important to me, which includes running, leaning into authentic connections where I can be my most vulnerable self, being kind to others, remembering to look at
situations from other’s perspectives, prioritizing intentional and quality time with family and my two kids, and — most importantly — being kind to myself. I have found that the best way to stay hopeful in our ever-changing world is to build a support network, inclusive of friends, families, and mentors in one’s career field. This support system brings hope and encourages you to be confident in your ideas, which will in turn help you deliver on your commitments. As a working mom, I find the support system and community more helpful than ever as we navigate through the world of balancing work and family. Also, I encourage everyone to prioritize their own version of a self-care routine. I find it incredibly important to prioritize activities that recharge me so I can show up as my best self every day. I catch myself quoting Lincoln a lot these days: “This too shall pass.” To me, hope is the feeling of optimism. Remembering that everything is temporary is a good reminder to bring us back to the present, celebrate the small wins, and let go of things we cannot change — even though that last point is extra hard to do sometimes! — As told to Colleen Kratofil.
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SPRING 2022
Veronica Etro
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The Italian fashion designer is carrying on her family business by embracing change, staying hopeful, and keeping things in perspective..
never really thought I wanted to be a fashion designer. It wasn’t my plan, but it actually happened very naturally. When I finished school at 19, I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something creative; so, I moved to my dream city, London, and I applied to Central Saint Martins. London was very alive, very energetic. I really loved that period. After getting my degree, I didn’t want to go back to Italy straight away, so I applied to the Royal College of Art. Then my brother, Kean, called me asking for help. He was in charge of men’s and womenswear, and it was really a lot for him. I thought, “Fashion is not like medicine, where you have to study for seven years.” So, I went back to Italy at 23 and my first womenswear show was in 2000. What was interesting about the work, was that it is very versatile. There’s so much going on, and in the end, I really loved it because every day was different. We were shooting campaigns, we were thinking about the music; it wasn’t
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just about the clothes. What still fascinates me today is that it’s not just about creating beautiful collections. It’s about sending messages. There is a lot of marketing. There is a lot of storytelling. We’ve been very involved with inclusivity. From the very beginning, we’ve been embracing race, gender, age, body positivity. But a lot has changed in the last two years with the pandemic. We reduced the collection, by I think more than 40 percent. We are trying to reduce waste and be much more focused. When I started, I was more of a dreamer; now I’m much more downto-earth. When I’m creating a collection, I think, Why should people buy this? Everyone has a wardrobe full of clothes, so you have to create an emotional connection. Another one of the big changes I learned in the last few years is that I have to be more flexible. Before, we were planning collections six months in advance. Nowadays, it’s really working on things weekly. But when I see that things are getting difficult, I always try to compare my situation to something that
is worse to try to see things from a different perspective. Sometimes we have drama, but I say, “We’re dealing with fashion and clothes. I’m not doing open heart surgery.” It’s about trying to put things in the right order. There is this phrase: “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls the butterfly.” Sometimes in life, you may see things in that moment as very difficult; but at the same time, you don’t know what’s coming next. It’s really believing that there is something better that may be coming; it’s just that you are not seeing it at that moment. In the end, what matters in life is what makes you happy. It’s the little things. We don’t need much. It’s being with my two kids, being healthy. There is a campaign running through Milan that the mayor organized that caught my attention. It’s about being kind and gentle towards other people. I think having gratitude towards life, and towards the world, and dealing with other people with kindness — that can make change. — As told to Colleen Kratofil.
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SPRING 2022
Tyler Henry
With a new show on Netflix (Life After Death with Tyler Henry), a new book (Here & Hereafter), and a national tour, the Hollywood Medium brings a message of hope to the masses.
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I got Season One of Hollywood Medium when I was 19 years old and I’m in my “old age” of 26 now. Some time’s passed and for me, and if anything, it’s reiterated the importance of trying to maintain a sense of balance, the importance that we all have to place on self-care — especially when we’re in a job or we’re in an occupation where our energy is exchanged, or if there’s a depletion of energy. I think most people can relate to that. Allowing time to work and then having time to put my medium hat on the hook and just be a human being is really important for me. So, I do maintain a number of routines. I think the term “ritual” has gotten kind of hijacked. We think of that as lighting candles or burning incense, but rituals and routines are very important for me to maintain a sense of groundedness, to be able to get through every day. I would encourage people to look at the routines that they’re emulating and to implement good ones, ones that are going to allow for soft places to fall throughout our day. If we can do that, I think we insulate ourselves with this really valuable structure that only our
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habits can give to us. [During the filming of the Netflix show Life After Death with Tyler Henry], I was making a huge family discovery that culminated from an ancestry test. I basically discovered that the people I thought were my grandparents were not, and that my mom had been stolen as a baby. So for the first time, the show goes into my family origin and understanding my own identity. It was really strange to have the tables turned on me. I’m used to people typically expressing their innermost feelings and being vulnerable to me, but in the show I found myself crying more than I anticipated and really exploring that vulnerability myself. I always say when it comes to losses — whether it’s in the past year or in general — there’s so much that we can learn from those who’ve passed. They never want their death to be what defines how we remember their lives. I always try to think of opportunities to introduce those we’ve lost into a world that will never know them physically. For example, my grandmother and I were extremely close, and while I will never be able to introduce her to my new friends
or people that I meet along the way, I can take the impact that my grandmother had on my life and the love that she gave me and the belief that she had in me, and I can remember what that felt like, and I can share that with other people. So, I think that when it comes to grief, the greatest way we can honor our grief is to take the legacy of the person’s life and introduce them, through our actions, to new people. In that way, they live on in a way that otherwise they may not have. Death is truly the greatest of all equalizers. In my work, I read people from all walks of life, all different ideologies, all different cultures. I have found it really fascinating to see that the common vein that went through all of those people was a genuine need to connect, a genuine awareness of their grief, and wondering if there was more to life than what we see. When things are stripped away, we do have a lot more in common than different. If people had that understanding of each other, we woud obviously live in a much more united world. — As told to Melissa Cronin.
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SPRING 2022
Patrick Janelle
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The content creator and influencer continues to expand his social media clout while rethinking what he wants his life to look like offline.
was kind of early in the scene, working full-time as a creator really before the term “influencer” began to be used. I actually moved to New York City on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, so this was 10 years ago, in 2011. Being new in the city and looking for community, Instagram really made sense for me. I didn’t know anyone, and this was the first way that I met people. We’d become friends on social media; we’d meet up; we’d shoot together; we’d get coffee together. So, there were a lot of other reasons why growing an audience was important to me, but not necessarily because I was seeking a career. It was about this outlet that I had: the confluence of my interests, which were visual design, aesthetics, and experiences. My goal is always to show an image that, because of the way it was constructed or the specific moment that’s being shown, is able to convey that same heightened sense of delight that I was personally feeling in the moment — the best vantage point into what that experience looked like and felt like to me. There’s obviously a kind of dopamine rush that you get from having people recognize your work and responding positively to it.
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In the beginning, there was no road map for this being something that was monetizable or a business opportunity. At a certain point, I realized there was a need for us to apply what I had created internally to the business of others. I realized that this really was an opportunity for growth, both for me professionally and for the industry, and I launched Untitled Secret. We’re a boutique agency that does both talent management and creative services for clients. We are kind of like the talent agents and the managers all rolled up into one. Social media is a beast that always needs to be fed. It requires you to continue keeping up with the platform changes, trends and the ever-increasing amount of information posted on social media, so you have to try to cut through the noise. That’s challenging and not always fun, and yet, at the same time, I think there’s the opportunity to continue to grow as a creative and shift the way that I communicate and the types of things that I talk about. I think it’s really wonderful that there continues to be other types of voices and individuals who are given a platform. At its very best, social media truly can give a voice to people that otherwise wouldn’t have one. And there are
incredibly talented, funny, interesting, weird, niche people who have found audiences. For me personally, I think that there’s always the challenge to continue to maintain relevancy and to change with the times. I recently turned 40, so I’m a decade in from where things started. What I now want for the future looks completely different than what I wanted in the past. In the past, my hopes were driven by how I was making my mark in New York City and my mark as a creative. In many ways, I’ve accomplished certain aspects related to those hopes, but I’m thinking smaller than I used to: Who do I want to spend my time with? How do I make time for myself? How do I ensure that everything that I’ve created ultimately creates a life where I feel comfortable and satisfied? I like risk and making swift changes, but right now I’m thinking about how I can give myself the time to slowly transform. I’m looking towards my future from a longer-term perspective than I had before. I’m now in a space where I post less frequently. While I still want to show those highlights, I want to think more about the moments in between where I’m creating just for myself — and not for an audience. — As told to Aaron Rasmussen.
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SPRING 2022
Tina Leung
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From a magazine, to a blog, to Instagram and beyond, the stylist and street-style queen continues to create new modes of expression.
ilm, drama, and television were where I initially thought I was heading in life. I went to the University of Bristol, where I graduated in 2004, but I decided it wasn’t what I wanted. Shortly after graduation, my heart drew me to fashion; so, of course, I moved to New York, where I studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology and received a certificate in fashion styling. In that year, I did all the things you would do as an assistant stylist: from assisting others and running around fashion houses collecting garment bags, to setting up looks and steaming garments on set, to build my portfolio. I then moved back to Hong Kong to start working at Prestige magazine. Back then, it was just starting and wasn’t as wellknown as it is today. It was tiny. I worked across fashion and accessories markets and also interviewed industry professionals. I had the fantastic opportunity to interview luminaries: from the chief engineer at Lexus, to a watchmaker at Hermès, and even Giuseppe Zanotti. After getting that valued experience and making a name for myself in the industry, I decided to pursue the freelance
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life. I dabbled in styling and was writing for a few publications up until recently. What a lot of people don’t know about me is before I had my Instagram, I launched a blog called “Tina Loves” in 2010. Originally, I started it to show friends and family what exactly it is I do every day, since most of the people around me were either in law or finance or anything that wasn’t in the creative field. The idea of working in fashion was so eccentric! I honestly didn’t expect anyone outside of my friends and family to have any interest in the blog, but it gained a following after a stretch, and one thing led to the next. My first triumph moment as a blogger was when Dior reached out to fly me to Paris Fashion Week. This was right in between Galliano and Raf, and when Dior calls naturally, you say yes, no second thoughts needed. I fell in love. I’ve gone to every single fashion week since, in Milan, London, Paris, New York. Once the Instagram era came around, my blog turned into my IG feed, which was the perfect transition since I love taking photos and documenting moments. It’s what I’ve been up to since. After these past two years, hope has been
a solid and necessary element in life. Hope has been those moments when I’m able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. For me, my friends are more often than not that light — whether it’s just a text, phone call, or our weekly dinners. Even if we’re not able to see each other weekly, those moments when we do lift me up and help me stay motivated to move forward. One positive that came out of the pandemic was that people began taking a little more time for themselves. They’re taking a little more time for their friends, for their relationships, businesses, or otherwise. And I love that. I love that people are thinking of a four-day workweek. I love how people are working from home and being so creative during the pandemic and the lockdown, which otherwise was a very dark time. These are all examples of hope in our lives and looking at others grow makes me feel extremely hopeful for the creative industry as we move into better days. As we enter this new reality, I would love to see people kinder to each other. Simple. Kinder to each other and more empathetic. — As told to Ty Gaskins.
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SPRING 2022
Elle McPherson
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The supermodel and founder of WelleCo is making the world more beautiful, from the inside out.
’ve been sharing the importance of inner beauty and wellness since the beginning of the 80s. That’s because I’ve seen and felt the real natural benefits you experience when you nurture your wellbeing. WelleCo was born from my own personal experience, and as a natural evolution of living my own wellness journey. Several years ago, I began to notice how run down I felt. I was taking a whole host of vitamins and supplements but nothing seemed to be working. I was struggling with my sleep, my skin was dry and dull, my hair was brittle, and I felt unmotivated – I didn’t feel like myself any more. I wanted answers, so I sought the advice of Dr. Simone Laubscher PhD, at her Harley Street clinic in London. She is a clinical nutritionist and naturopath. Simone helped me to better understand my body, which it turned out was severely inflamed. She blended a custom antiinflammatory super-greens formula for me, which formed the basis of our iconic supergreens formula, The Super Elixir™. Within weeks, my energy surged back, I felt lighter and leaner, and my digestion improved. My hair thickened, my nails were stronger, and my skin was clear and glowing. It was life changing.
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So much so that I felt a strong calling to share it with others. In 2014 WelleCo was born, launching, The Super Elixir™. The inspiration and foundation for our business is the heartfelt desire to help empower people on their unique beauty-through-wellness journey. I believe that beauty begins from within and today, people are more consciously connected with how their internal and external environment influence their body, emotions, mind and spirit. Now more than ever, people are prioritising their wellbeing. That means feeling well and doing what supports their wellness. It’s exciting to see the incredible growth in ingestible beauty and its connection with wellness. Happening Hair has always been my thing and this month we launched The Hair Elixir – the powerful new vegan capsules for hair that feels thicker, stronger and alive. Our unique vegan formula contains a potent blend of proven ingredients to promote hair growth. The Hair Elixir thickens, strengthens and nourishes right down to the follicles to minimise hair loss and reduce breakage. Its powerful minerals and adaptogens fast-track growth, encourage the formation of keratin, manage stress and build a healthy thyroid function. I could see and feel
the difference in no time at all! Just two capsules daily with The Super Elixir™. It couldn’t be easier. I believe your authentic beauty is revealed when you are well. You become more vibrant and vital, with the confidence and capability to live the life you’ve always dreamed of. The WelleCo collection was created to support your whole body; to nurture real beauty that is soul deep, not just skin deep; to put you in the driver’s seat of your own wellness journey. One of the best tools I’ve found is a strong, simple daily routine. Diligently sticking to a simple routine trains your mind and body to build and sustain wellness. What’s more, its grounding, and it keeps you focused and connected to your real you on so many levels - a more conscious connection to your body, to your environment and to nature. We all need to learn to trust our inner sense instead of all the outer influences. Be willing to make mistakes, it’s part of the process. The vital key is to learn from those mistakes and go on to apply what you learn. What matters is how you respond to life, not so much what seems to be happening around you. — As told to Melissa Cronin.
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SPRING 2022
Felicia Mayo
Nike’s Chief Talent, Diversity, & Culture Officer is redefining sport for a new generation and moving people into action to create a better world — all at the same time.
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was born in a small city, Rocky Mount, NC, to loving parents who focused on wanting more for their kids. My father was a mechanic at heart while working in the pharmaceutical industry and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. In hindsight, solving challenging problems was from the experiences of my parents and the dinner conversations. You can see that my background set the path for my future. As I reflect on some of the experiences that I had in this small city that was predominantly Black, I found that it prepared me for my life’s work in diversity and inclusion at Nike. I always desired for ways to grow in my community but did not have resources like those we currently provide through the partnerships of grassroots organizations we partner with for our philanthropic initiative, the Black Community Commitment. What attracted me to joining Nike’s leadership team is our unwavering commitment to purpose through the pillars of People, Planet, and Play. Nike is a growth company committed to innovation, purpose, and sport, where we believe that if you have a body, you are an athlete. Fifty years
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ago, Nike started with 30 employees and a dream to build the best running shoes in the world. Since Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman founded Nike on a handshake, we’ve been guided by our values and a commitment to doing the right thing for athletes. As we celebrate 50 years of breaking barriers this year, we are reminded of our hopes and dreams as a company and how much more we must do at the intersection of innovation, purpose and sport. In the current landscape it is imperative that companies like Nike continue to focus on purpose. The power of Nike bringing purpose through the product and athletes gives so much hope to the same youth and causes the glimmer of hope in the youth’s eyes. I am also motivated by the impact that we are having by partnering with athletes in innovative ways to accomplish our purpose-driven goals. For example, we are incredibly proud of our partnership with Serena Williams on the creation and launch of the Serena William Design Crew (SWDC). As part of the SWDC, Nike designers and mentors worked with Serena to identify up to ten up-and-coming designers to create a new era where diverse perspectives are celebrated
and empowered. Consumers have a heightened sense of purpose and require it from brands like Nike. At Nike, we recognize that purpose is critical, and we take it very seriously. We set targets that are ambitious to continue to push boundaries in the industry and to push ourselves. We see the power that people have to move the world forward. It’s important to create visual cues that keep you focused and hopeful during these unprecedented times. If you need to place reminders around your home, do it; speak it. Sticky notes on your mirror with sayings of hope. Meditations in the morning to set your intentions and incorporate health and wellness into your daily routine. For me, taking a walk provides space and the ability to focus on a hopeful future. Also, be good and do good always. That is positive change within itself. Being good and doing good accelerates hope for others and will in turn attract positive outcomes for you as well. Values and a focus on doing good for the world create a chain reaction, one that we at Nike hope we are a part of through our commitment to purpose. — As told to Melissa Cronin.
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SPRING 2022
JJ Martin
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An American in Milan uses wellness to spread hope worldwide through lifestyle brand La Double J.
riginally from Los Angeles, I’ve lived in Milan for 20 years now. Moving here, I was originally drawn to the craft and dedication of Italians. In my first 15 years here, I was a journalist: first the European editor for Harper’s BAZAAR for five years, and then I was on staff at WSJ. Magazine and then at Wallpaper for eight years. I wrote about all these exceptional creative people in Italy while on the side madly obsessed with vintage, gathering an enormous collection of vintage clothing and jewelry. As a side hobby project, I launched a website called La Double J, which was basically an online magazine where I not only sold the vintage pieces I curated, but I was showing it and all the creative women behind it in a super editorial way. I would feature everything from the incredible women’s designs to how they decorated their homes, lay their tables, and organized their closets to how they were just super chic, and that was the start of Double J in 2015. A year and a half later, I started making this one dress from vintage prints — slowly, like really slowly — which has since exploded into an entire company as it’s known today. We
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have grown into doing ski wear, beachwear, evening wear and have merged into lifestyle with tabletops and porcelain plates made in Verona and glassware in Murano. Everything in the company is made in Italy, typically by historic Italian manufacturers to support Italy for being such a magnificent nation. I appreciate the dedication to excellence of quality they bring to the product, and then I bring the Double J aesthetic with a really zany, fun, joyful color print package. We’re a big ball of hope at Double J, which doesn’t come easy for anyone. You really have to make a conscious effort to be hopeful. Hope is a compelling energy, all of these emotions that we have represent different vibrations and frequencies and when we dive into a pessimist pool, that’s a low frequency. Hope, however, is a really, really high frequency, like love, that can transform. Hope is a vast, massive ball of optimism that always finds where the light can shine. Personally, I have a spiritual morning practice that I do without fail, which is really just my reset button. No matter what happens in my own body, in my mind, in my own home, in my own office, or the world, it all gets washed away and soaked and
scrubbed off every morning. I start with a little bit of bodywork and then mantra singing and thinking about the future. I’ve found that the quietness of yoga helps so much in coming into the grace of silence and allowing my intuition, wisdom, and resources to come forth to remain hopeful. Professionally, I try to boost our customers’ hope in everything we do at Double J. We use a lot of color and print, elevating the mood. We wrap all of that up in our messaging conveyed in joy, laughter, happiness, the way we talk to our customers when they come into the store, and how we present our product in visuals. We want everyone to feel included and a part of the brand, and there’s nothing more uplifting than that. To be hopeful on a global scale, I would like to see unity consciousness become a phenomenon. We have to start realizing that we are one as a human race and get away from individualism. The constant judgment, criticism, and punishment divide us further and take us away from humanity’s natural state, unity. Unity is about consciousness and understanding others — not that you have to agree with others. With unity, we can all have hope for a positive future. — As told to Ty Gaskins.
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SPRING 2022
Jessica Plummer
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The English actress and singer manifests the life of her dreams, one project at a time.
here’s a saying: “Everything will be OK in the end, and if it’s not then it’s not the end.” I’ve definitely used that saying in times of desperation — including in the past two years. I’m the daughter of a dad who always made me believe that I could be anything I wanted, and a mother who kept my two feet firmly on the ground. I feel like having the support that I did from family and close friends, I truly believed that I could do what I wanted to. I left school and decided to chase my dreams. I went to Identity School of Acting in London. If I hadn’t found them, I’m not sure how I would have gotten to where I am now. My professional career started when I was 18. My first acting job was on a show called Wizards vs. Aliens, and it was while I was shooting that, that these auditions for a girl group were happening. I kind of went on a whim. I love to sing. I love to perform. Acting is my path, but why not? I had nothing to do that Monday at 4 p.m. — or whenever it was. I made the cut. I was going to be in Neon
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Jungle and we were going to tour the world! I think because of that experience, the belief in manifesting your dreams was truly solidified. I believe it was my years of putting on performances in the playground and for my parents at home that made that possible. But Neon Jungle was a whirlwind. It kind of ended as quickly as it started. We collectively, as a group, decided to call it a day. Afterward, I remember my manager at the time saying to me, “You want to go back to acting, don’t you?” I did — 100 trillion percent. I missed everything about acting so much! The Girl Before coming out [on HBO Max] was such a gear change for my career. It’s just a challenge. A role like this is something juicy to get into, to push myself to my limits. Can I go there? Am I able to do this? How can I best represent someone who is going through this? I know there’s probably a part of everybody that wants to leave their footprint on the world. The hope in playing a role like Emma in the series is that an audience member, somebody in that position might recognize signs of abuse or trauma earlier. Things end
tragically for my character, but I think the hope in having these stories on TV is that they’re, sadly, relatable to people. But, people can spot red flags and make necessary changes. The glimmer of hope is that it will potentially make a difference for the audience. And that’s definitely part of feeling good about my work. The past couple of years have been so testing and so different from anything that we’re used to. But rewind a few hundred years back: Was that any better? We’re going through a pandemic, but at the same time we’re so lucky with the technology and the science that we have, to be able to get the vaccine. There are times when I think my grandchildren are going to be swimming to school with the state of the bloody climate at the moment! But as a mom, I look at my daughter and she is my biggest inspiration. She is so present and in the moment. I want to be more like her! Generation by generation, we’re all adapting and learning. The world is absolutely crazy right now, but I think things are heading in the right direction. I definitely see hope in my daughter, and I feel really proud of that. — As told to John Russell.
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SPRING 2022
Olly Sholotan
The musician and star of Peacock’s Bel-Air finds a legacy of hope in his ancestry — and aims to pay that forward with his own art.
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y parents are Nigerian. I was born in Atlanta, and then we lived in Nigeria until I was about 10 — when we moved to Texas. I think that every first-generation American, every child of immigrants, is so familiar with the concept of hope, because I’d say hope is the driving factor in all of our parents’ decisions. They all left something at home to come here to give us a better life. My parents left my grandparents in Nigeria knowing that they wouldn’t be able to see them all the time. They left the familiarity with their culture. Our parents left all of that behind with the hope that we would do better in this country. I think, in a way, hope ties to love and motivation. Remembering their love and their hope is what has pushed me and kept me going. I think in the media, there is a homogenization of Black people, and Black men specifically. When you watch a TV show or a movie, Black men are generally portrayed as super tough, manly, grew up rough, from the projects. And there’s not really any space in media for Black men who are more
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sensitive, Black men who deal with mental health issues like anxiety, Black men that are more privileged. So, if one Black kid who has felt othered by their background or by how they talk or how they dress or the types of art that they’re into—if they can watch Bel-Air and see themselves and feel seen, that’s my goal. The thing that brings me hope is the belief that I can positively impact the world. My goal every night is to go to bed having put more good into the world than bad. Obviously, as human beings, we will naturally put a little bit of bad in the world. You’ll have a bad day, you’ll say something unintentionally rude. But if I can go to bed at night having done more good, that’s a good day. For me, the pandemic afforded me the ability to really look inward: Why do I make the art that I do? What change do I want to affect in the world? My relationship with my art changed. I want to practice my art. As a music producer and an artist in general, I think there is this common idea that you get struck with divine inspiration. You have this brilliant idea and it’s done in an
hour, when in reality, you have to get up every day and try again and again. Talent really is consistency. You have to hope that something eventually will happen, but the thing that keeps you coming back is the love that you have for your art. The reason art exists is because we look at these awful things that happen, and we go, How can I deal with that? How can I express that? And all of that is in an effort to move on from that thing or move on with that thing. Think about all the breakup songs in history! Hope starts with love, so you need to find something — ideally not someone, because people disappoint you — but you need to find something that you love and make sure it’s something that’s powerful enough to get you out of bed every morning, because life is tough! I think of this quote that I see all the time: “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.” Nowhere is that more apparent than the stage I’m at right now. I don’t know who my great granddad was, but I know for a fact that he wouldn’t have imagined where I am right now, and that’s just the coolest thing ever. — As told to John Russell.
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Stacy Smallwood
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The powerhouse behind Charleston’s Hampden boutique finds inspiration in an array of sources.
rowing up in Greenville, South Carolina, I never thought I would end up in the world of fashion. While my environment was traditional, my parents loved to travel and always took my twin sister and me with them wherever they went. This exposed us to so many different environments and cultures at a very young age, all of which helped shape who I am today. I attended Vanderbilt University, where I met so many strong women from all over the country. That was such a pivotal moment in my life. Without it, I would never have had the opportunity or courage to move alone to Dallas, Texas, and work for Neiman Marcus corporate as an assistant buyer. The training I received at Neiman Marcus was another pivotal moment in my journey to creating the success I have today with my boutique, Hampden. In those five years, I learned everything, from the importance of buying reports (and how the numbers tell you the facts, versus your feelings), to listening to feedback and taking action on it, to a strong work ethic that drives me today. At the same time, my experience at Neiman Marcus on the floor ignited my love for the client experience.
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Three things have kept me hopeful these past two years and in general: Strength, belief in myself, and trust. For me, hope isn’t a destination; it’s a work in progress. I work on it by listening to podcasts with inspiring leaders like Second Life with Hillary Kerr, How I Built This, Building A StoryBrand, Dare to Lead, and Hitting Rock Middle. I want to hear their stories and struggles, as well as their advice on how they got where they are today. I read books like Greenlights, The Energy Bus, and Dare to Lead so I can continue to get out of my head and not only gain clarity on what; but also, I want but also tap into the belief that I can get there. I make time for myself to be alone. Being an entrepreneur is fast-paced, ever-changing, and constantly interactive. Over the years, I’ve learned that I need time alone to process and realign my energy to do my job well and approach life with a hopeful attitude. Our ability to consciously choose how we set up our day for success by setting healthy boundaries and planning time for ourselves to refuel is critical to maintaining a healthy mindset. After 15 years of owning Hampden, we have endured six hurricanes and two snowstorms — both of which have shut down the business
for a week or more and dulled tourism to a near standstill for over a month each time. Not to mention, an economic crisis in 2007 and a global pandemic in 2020. Adversity continues to show up, but how you handle it defines you. Hope is a massive part of my story because I never let those adversities stop our belief in what we do at Hampden and our greater purpose of empowering women to believe in themselves and express themselves through fashion. My dream is to give the world more patience and empathy. When you can listen to the needs of others, then you can be more empathic to their circumstances. When you have empathy for others, your inclination for kindness increases. I truly believe that when you come from a place of kindness, compassion, and listening, you can get into action and help contribute to the solution of a global problem. Just think how many problems could be solved if we began by changing our ability to have patience and empathy. Although you cannot change the past, you can shape your future! It’s so important not to cloud yourself by what others are doing! Be kinder to yourself allows you to be kinder to others. — As told to Ty Gaskins.
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Jessamyn Stanley
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The advocate, podcast host, and author is all about spreading love — one yoga pose at a time.
started practicing yoga when I was in graduate school. I was studying nonprofit arts management, and I was going through a period of depression that is pretty characteristic of anyone who is in their early 20s. At the time, I went to a hot yoga class with a friend of mine who was obsessed with it. She said, “This is going to change your life,” but I was really not sold at all. When I went, the postures seemed completely impossible to me. Even just to sit with my legs crossed felt excessive! But what yoga offered me was an opportunity to see beyond the boundaries that I created for myself and to see that as long as I just show up and be present in this moment, then that is sufficient. I started sharing my yoga practice on social media, not thinking about creating community or connecting with other people; I really just wanted to track my yoga practice. But what ended up happening was that a lot of people saw my practice and said,
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“I didn’t know that fat people could practice yoga,’” and I said, “Fat people can do all kinds of stuff, all of the time!” We obviously have a huge visibility issue and that really spurred me to keep sharing my practice — to show that I am not alone, that I am not the first, and there are so many fat people, Black people, queer people, and others who don’t look like me, period. There are so many different people who don’t see themselves represented who deserve to believe in themselves, and that’s why I founded my wellness community, The Underbelly. It came from this desire to make space for other people to accept themselves and for all of us to be in a community together. Since I started The Underbelly, I have seen way more diversity in the wellness and tech industries and more conversations about body inclusivity and inclusivity in general are happening. It’s been really heartening to see, because I think it will pay dividends, even as things continue to evolve.
I think that before the pandemic, there was a reluctance to be as committed to an at-home practice, but now, more people have turned to online and I love seeing that, honestly. I think it says a lot about how we can all take care of ourselves in the long-term. I would love to see all human beings individually believe in themselves, and I think that the more that we can love ourselves, practice compassion towards ourselves and be gentle with ourselves, it will make the world a better place. I would literally not be the person I have become without yoga. The biggest result of my focus on yoga is that it allows me to understand that waves in life are supposed to happen and nothing is ever supposed to be good all of the time. The dark is just as important as the light, and if I can find myself in the midst of the darkness, if I can find myself in the center of the intersections of the chaos, then I can just roll with it and I can expect the change to come. — As told to Jaclyn Roth.
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Knowledge, Unfiltered
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NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
With Creative Director Emily Smith’s keen eye for new fashion influences and unparalleled standards for the finest fabrics, Lafayette 148 New York is pushing its brand to new heights with quality crafted garments and reimagined retail stores. BY KARLI POLIZIANI PHOTOGRAPHY BY CLÉMENT PASCAL STYLING BY DAVID THIELEBEULE
Lafayette 148 New York dress, blazer, trousers, sandals, lafayette148ny.com.
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Lafayette 148 New York scarf, top, jeans, dress, belt, sandals, shoes, lafayette148ny.com.
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he year is 1996 — a time where the emerging art scene in SoHo is influencing the world of modern luxury fashion in way we haven’t seen before. At 148 Lafayette Street, New York, NY, fashion executive and entrepreneur Deirdre Quinn is working behind the scenes joining forces with seasoned fashion factory owners Ida and Shun Yen Siu. It is there that Lafayette 148 New York — a lifestyle brand based on the belief that women deserve beautiful clothing created for women’s needs — is born into existence.
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Over the years, Lafayette 148 has become the epitome of luxury womenswear with uncompromising quality and flawless construction. With new silhouettes pushing the envelope of modern style, and tailored garments made to complement the female body, Lafayette 148 has grown to represent top-of-the-line ready-to-wear. As a completely in-house company, their headquarters on Lafayette Street started as the sole location of the brand, where all of their initial concepts were carried out into creation. In 2008, Shun Yen Siu moved the company’s manufacturing to his hometown
of Shantou, China. With the relocation of Lafayette 148’s factory, Mr. Siu continued to oversee the brand’s design studio and production facility overseas ensuring alignment from start to finish — until his passing in 2013. Today, his wife, Ida Siu, leads L148 in cutting-edge fashion manufacturing with her unmatched expertise. Going against the grain of a growing fast fashion industry, Lafayette 148’s state-of-the-art design workshop in Shantou ensures that all garments are consciously created, with each and every piece of clothing remaining in L148’s hands from beginning to end.
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Lafayette 148 New York sweater, skirt, dress, hat, lafayette148ny.com.
Lafayette 148 New York scarf, jumpsuit, coat, belt, dress, lafayette148ny.com.
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Lafayette 148 New York dress, belt, top, skirt, sandals, lafayette148ny.com.
Lafayette 148 remains a completely verticallyintegrated fashion brand to this day. Now, L148 is taking the time to step back out into their own with a new direction, one shaped by the vision of Creative Director Emily Smith. Once a design assistant at Lafayette 148 back in 2002, Smith has now built a team of top talent to propel the apparel brand into a new chapter. The Atlanta native is very hands on within the company, working to trend forecast for every collection that launches and traveling the world in search of the finest fabrics — evolving the fashion house to a whole new level of luxury.
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Fabric has become the top priority at L148, with the brand now accepting nothing less than the best cashmere from Loro Piana, printed silks from Como, Italy, cotton from Reggiani, shearling from Spain, and classic wool from Botto Giuseppe. According to Lafayette 148, “Our European mill partners are considered some of the finest textile producers in the world, not only for the quality of their yarns; but also, for their extraordinary commitment to sustainability.” Sustainability and social responsibility are at the core of the female-led fashion brand. L148 holds themselves — and their global
partners — to the highest standards for both environmental and workers’ rights. They have made a commitment to working in solar-powered production facilities, utilizing energy-saving technologies, creating new and unique ways to utilize excess materials and minimize waste, and ensuring that all their garments are created with efforts to reduce chemicals and water usage during the process. Creative Director Emily Smith has driven these initiatives forward, making sure that their New York-based team follows the same sustainability standards as their international counterparts. This has included
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revolutionizing their US headquarters into a sustainably built loft space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and — of course — ensuring they are always creating high quality clothing that is meant to last. In addition to their sustainable mindset, Lafayette 148 also prioritizes social responsibility. Believing that success is nothing if not shared, they stand behind the belief of leaving the world a better place than when they found it. To wit: When Co-Founder Mr. Siu opened L148’s production facility in China, he made a dream of his come true by making a commitment to helping the children of his community. Mr. Siu opened the School of Dreams, a subsidized private education center for students to grow academically, alongside a wide array of athletic and artistic opportunities focused on “nurturing the whole person.” To this day, the school is entirely funded by Lafayette 148 and a group of private investors, helping give the next generation of children opportunities to succeed in all that they want to do and become. Truly, the future of the luxe fashion house is just beginning, with 2022 as a pinnacle year for the reemergence of the brand. Formerly seen within larger luxury retail stores, Lafayette 148 is now focusing on their own standalone spaces — recently opening their first new concept store located at 59 Greene Street in New York City. “The primary store space evokes the scale and luminosity of an art gallery, a nod to Lafayette 148’s SoHo origins, as well as the brand’s ongoing commitment to craft and handwork in its collections,” L148 noted in their Greene Street press release. This new concept store was designed alongside the talented architect William Sofield, who has worked on numerous high-end brick and mortar locations for Gucci, Tom Ford, Saint Laurent, and more.
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“I see the new Greene Street flagship as a holistic expression of Lafayette 148’s unique take on femininity, where style is imbued with confidence, purpose with romanticism, heritage with modernity,” Smith exclaimed. “Studio Sofield has designed it with the modern woman in mind, for whom flawless quality, luxurious and well-considered materials and a dynamic New York sensibility are of equal importance. Created and crafted with a lightness of touch, the space is the essence of Lafayette 148’s modern luxury.” Soon to come are seven new store openings throughout this year, increasing the brand’s presence across the country. And what can we expect from a fashion lens? Lafayette 148’s latest Spring/Summer 2022 collection is a “feminine riff on workwear,” designed with New York in mind and inspired by the workers and makers who built the city that L148 calls home. Featuring elevated jumpsuits, tailored jean jackets, striped sweaters, carefully crafted patchwork, denim pants with trend-forward details, and more, L148’s SS22 assortment is nothing short of perfection — filled with fashion meant to build confidence through purpose, romanticism, heritage, and modernity. The womenswear brand continued to capitalize on the arrival of warmer weather by unveiling L148 Swim — a Made in Italy line full of beachwear created from recycled ocean plastics. This new swim line focuses largely on reversible swimwear, with the addition of crop tops and a doublelayer terry beach-towel to round out the collection. L148 Swim has mastered the “sophisticated mix of cutting-edge design and construction, exquisite and sustainable materiality, versatile dressing, and selfexpression,” as the brand puts it. With their spring line also comes the
evolvement of the brand’s commitment to size inclusivity, harmonizing pricing for every single design — no matter the size. L148 currently produces fifty-eight sizes across their line. The womenswear label explained that they are “devoted to making beautiful, meticulously constructed clothing for women everywhere, regardless of size or shape.” Furthermore, to ensure accuracy, the in-house team personally tries on and tests every garment made to guarantee that the fit is flawless for all females. As a customerfocused company, L148 promises that if a customer cannot find their size, the brand will happily create made-to-order custom fits, as a dedication to inclusivity. The designs of this dynamic team have even been introduced into the realm of couture celebrity dressing, having been worn by stars including Amy Adams, Jodie Comer, Barbie Ferreira, Rosario Dawson, Laura Dern, Tiffany Boone, and Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, who wore a custom L148 red carpet gown for the SAG Awards in February 2022. This season, Lafayette 148 is also celebrating the launch of the L148 Outdoor collection. Smith became the visionary for this outerwear assortment, partnering with Italian craftsmen to reinvent the “traditional construction details into modern designs.” The sustainable practices of the brand’s European partners also influenced the creation of this collection, which features thermosealed taped seams to heighten water resistance and eco-conscious fabrics. A traditional Trench, an elongated Anorak and a Car Coat — each piece in the collection is created with quality in mind and fashion-forward function to carry on Lafayette 148’s luxury legacy, while introducing a new realm of modern ready-towear womenswear to the world.
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Lafayette 148 New York dress, top, trousers, sandals, lafayette148ny.com.
Keep your lips petal-soft and oh-so-supple with light layers of hydration. Hourglass lip oil, hourglasscosmetics.com.
In Full Bloom This spring, it’s not just the flowers that are emerging from a long hibernation. Put your own best face forward with inspiration from the season’s most vibrant blossoms.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEN WILDING STYLING BY PINKY
For skin that’s lit from within, double down on moisture. Look out for organic ingredients like beeswax, coconut oil, and matcha tea powder for a plump, luminous complexion.
FALL 2021
CocoKind moisture stick, cocokind.com.
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Pair a superfood blend with a wash of golden highlighter for radiant skin. Kjaer Weis illuminating glow, kjaerweis.com; Melrose Health organic superfood blend, melrosehealth.com.au.
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FALL 2021
When it comes to cheeks, look to shades found in nature: soft pink, deep plum, and subtle peach.
Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Eyeshadow Palette, $57, charlottetilbury.com.
Milk Makeup blush stick, milkmakeup.com.
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This year has given a whole new meaning to the concept of natural brows. Complement with a red superfood blend for glowing skin. EcoBrow brow gel, ecobrow.com; Melrose Health organic superfood blend, melrosehealth.com.au.
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Moschino dress, heels, moschino.com.
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Footloose FANCY
Dress up to stay home in spring’s most delectable footwear.
Giorgio Armani dress, shoes, armani.com.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLIVIER DESARTE STYLING BY TAMARA GIANOGLIO HAIR BY MIMMO DI MAGGIO MAKEUP BY ALESSANDRA CASONI
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Ruslan Baginskiy straw hat, $380, ruslanbaginskiy.com; Nanushka hood, $245, nanushka.com.
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Versace sneakers, jacket, top, pants, necklace, versace.com.
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Elisabetta Franchi sweater, trousers, necklace, earrings, sandals, elisabettafranchi.com.
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Dsquared2 dress, jeans, platforms, dsquared2.com.
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Louis Vuitton top, skirt, ankle boots, headdress, louisvuitton.com.
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GUCCI dress, boots, hat, necklace, bag, gucci.com.
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Ermanno Scervino shirt, mini skirt, platforms, ermannoscervino.com.
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Tory Burch dress, mules, toryburch.com.
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LOOKING FORWARD
FAMILY MATTERS Carolina Cucinelli is following in her father’s footsteps and bringing Brunello Cucinelli’s brand philosophy to a wider audience. BY COLLEEN KRATOFIL CAROLINA CUCINELLI PORTRAIT: SHOT EXCLUSIVELY FOR GRAZIA USA ALL IMAGES ARE COURTESY OF BRUNELLO CUCINELLI
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C
arolina Cucinelli grew up in the idyllic Italian village of Solomeo, which her father, the founder and chief executive of his eponymous luxury men’s and womenswear label Brunello Cucinelli, restored to serve as the brand’s headquarters. Despite living in the “hamlet of cashmere and harmony,” Carolina never heard much about the family business inside her home. In fact, there was “absolutely never” any talk about work by her parents. “From the beginning, when my sister Camilla and I were very young, my father and my mother decided not to speak about their jobs at home,” Carolina says. “We’d have lunch and dinner together every day and they wanted to leave us out from all the nuts and bolts of the business.” Carolina, who now serves as the co-president, co-creative director and board member of the company, wasn’t lured to work for the family business by pressure or necessity; instead, she found the love of the work all on her own. “My father always said that I’m completely free to choose my path, which was important to me,” she explains. “Growing up I was passionate about art and dance and fashion. When I was very, very young I started to create sample clothes for my Barbie dolls. But being that my father and mother were very busy working at the company every day, I was a bit curious about it. So, when I finished school, I decided to spend one year in the company. After almost 11 years, I’m still here.” She didn’t shoot straight to the top when she began, despite her last name. Instead, she spent five years working in the production department and with the design team to better understand the fabrics and craftsmanship involved in the line. Then, she moved to the communications and digital side, working on the website and online boutique.
Today, being the co-president and co-creative director means she oversees just about everything going on in the company. From working with the design team, to communicating with clients, journalists and all vendors outside the company, Carolina is busy day to day. “Design and communication are a big focus for me,” she explains. “The majority of my time, around 80 percent, is dedicated to the product.” No matter what she tackles in any given day, she’s always thinking about the overall image of the brand. “We try to work every day to create a connection with our client and better explain our philosophy, our brand, our product,” she shares. Most recently, that effort has taken shape through three different platforms — by launching a new video series campaign, getting into the celebrity dressing space, and debuting the brand’s first collaboration. The first initiative she helped launch was the Be Your Change project, a video series the brand began in 2021 and will continue this year, featuring stories of creative and accomplished individuals. The company wanted to highlight friends of the brand who are “very in line with our values and with our perspective of life” and who could share the “real stories and challenges” that people go through, Carolina explains. Some of the videos feature Olympic skier Eileen Gu, pianist Alexander Romanovsky, and figure skater Elladj Baldé sharing their thoughts on hope and the future. “The idea was to try to create a connection with the new generation, and the new generation is very focused on the digital world,” Carolina says. “It’s a very fresh campaign with a message that the young generation can appreciate: a message for the future, a message of hope. I’ve seen a lot of re-posting of this video. It’s something different from the fashion part of the brand; this is taking it to a second level.” Another way the brand is connecting with
“I’m very proud and I’m very happy to be here. I feel lucky.”
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inspiring individuals is by breaking further into the celebrity dressing scene. While the brand has always had “a little collection of clothing for occasions,” Carolina says, now they are extending their reach into Hollywood. Brunello Cucinelli hosted an event in Los Angeles in December 2021 to show celebrity stylists and friends of the brand a special 10-piece selection of men’s and women’s redcarpet designs so they could “better understand our kind of style,” says Carolina. “We like the idea of mixing and matching pants and a jacket with other pieces, like a very funky T-shirt, or with precious shoes. We like the idea that women can adapt the look for a special event.” The third way she’s expanding the brand is through a collaboration with the Californiabased eyewear brand, Oliver Peoples, which launched last fall. The debut line marked the first-ever collaboration for Brunello Cucinelli, which happened to be a very organic fit “because our companies hold the same values and have the same approach to business,” Carolina says. It’s not lost on Carolina that having her father as her mentor — “my stroke of luck” — makes her experience in the workforce a bit different than others. Brunello, who is as well known for his ethical and humanistic approach to business as he is for captivating the industry with his innovative dyed cashmere when he launched in 1978, paved a bold path. Still, being a woman comes with its own challenges. “As a woman, a mother, a young person, the world of business is not the easiest place to be,” Carolina notes. “Sometimes I do have the feeling that you have this constant need
to prove your worth, to show how much you value yourself.” And, there’s no question she feels pressure in the role that she’s in today. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know whether this pressure came from others or whether I put it on myself. But the latter is what matters the most. I contributed to it, and I put pressure on myself, that’s for sure.” What shifted her mindset was becoming a mom. “It really has helped me a lot in finding and setting my priorities right,” Carolina admits. Before COVID-19, she traveled often, but now what’s most important to her is being at home, raising her 1-year-old son Brando in the same town she grew up in with her husband, Alessio Piastrelli, who also works for Brunello Cucinelli on the men’s style team. In fact, the precedent her parents set to keep work out of the home is still something Carolina and her sister Camilla — who also works for Brunello Cucinelli as co-head of the women’s style office along with her husband Riccardo Stefanelli, the company’s CEO — continue to embrace today. “When we are at work, we are colleagues and at home, we are friends,” says Carolina. “It’s important to divide it into two different worlds.” “The choice that my parents made — never to bring work into the home in the evening — really paid off for them, because that was a reason why my sister and I actually fell in love with the job and enjoy the business.” If it worked for Carolina and Camilla, it may be the ticket to priming the third generation to take the reins one day. “I definitely hope that my son and my two
nieces, they can sort of fall in love with the company, so maybe one of them can really carry forward the legacy,” she says. “But it needs to be a choice that they make themselves.” In the end, Carolina knows what’s best for her son is “to be really happy,” no matter what that looks like. Carolina muses, “Whether he wants to become an artist, or he wants to join the business, or if he wants to move to the other side of the world, I truly just wish for him to be happy and to have a lot of different experiences and to travel and be a child of the world.” Whether or not her son works side-byside with her one day, the teachings Brunello instilled in Carolina surely will be passed onto the next generation. To Carolina, “What my father conveyed to me the most was that of respect. Respecting all the different points of view of the people I work with, my family, and my whole community.” That very act of respecting those around her at work and in life is what keeps Carolina motivated and inspired every day. Noting that her favorite aspect of going to work is “getting to learn new ways of tackling things and interacting with many different people,” she says. “Whether it’s the seamstress, who makes and manufactures the garment, or somebody who talks to me about communication or finance, I want to work with all of them and hear the ideas they bring into the office.” At the end of the day, having the same focus as her family is a uniquely special experience. “I’m very proud and I’m very happy to be here,” says Carolina. “I feel lucky.”
‘Growing up I was passionate about art and dance and fashion. When I was very, very young I started to create sample clothes for my Barbie dolls.’
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DR EAM IMG’s fashion division makes magic happen every NYFW. Here’s how. BY KEVIN SESSUMS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN LOWRY
TEAM
PRODUCED BY IMG FOCUS
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n February, executives of IMG’s fashion division gathered on the empty and cavernous eighth floor of a building on West 22nd Street, the Chelsea neighborhood of art galleries where the Dia Art Foundation is down the block and the Commes des Garçons flagship next door. Although the month would bring meetings and celebrations galore, this gathering had a different purpose: The team would be sitting for a photograph. The crew of IMG executives and assistants were all wearing their own personalized, updated versions of the downtown fashion crowd’s all-black-everything uniform as they chatted and checked their phones. There was an efficient modernity to them all. Gathered and gabbing, they brought to mind another term: a murder of crows. Too severe? Not really. A kind of keen-eyed severity is what IMG brings to NYFW: The Shows, which it owns and operates, and which the ostentation of peacocks it serves needs from it. Crows, moreover, are known for being one of the smartest of animals and their feathers are seldom ruffled. Leslie Russo, President of Fashion Events and Properties at IMG, has a thing about the number two, so she was excited in February to be moving into the new suite of offices for her division of the company on the sixth floor of this same 22nd Street building. After
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the photo shoot, she gave me a quick tour, which included her corner office. From her desk, she can see the Eduardo Kobra mural above the Empire Diner below — a Mount Rushmore of artists that includes Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Frida Kahlo, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sitting at her desk and gazing out at Warhol is a full-circle moment for Russo, since she got her start helping run events at Interview magazine when the late Ingrid Sischy was its Editor-inChief. Indeed, Warhol once said, “Fashion wasn’t what you wore someplace anymore; it was the whole reason for going,” which could be the cryptic mission statement for IMG’s NYFW: The Shows. Kahlo, for her part, summed up fashion’s shape-shifting allure itself with her comment that “nothing is absolute, everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.” But, it was Haring and Basquiat who were fashion prophets with their championing of streetwear, a category that has gained such importance in the 21st century and moved American fashion to the forefront, as Russo likes to point out. “If commercialization is putting my art on a shirt so that a kid who can’t afford a $30,000 painting can buy one, then I’m all for it,” Haring once said. Meanwhile, Basquiat’s estate has licensed his artwork’s imagery to fashion labels at an assortment of prices, but the streetwear category has given his art a new framework. In 2018, the late Virgil Abloh —in his last year at Off-White before becoming Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear — created a capsule collection that utilized Basquiat’s art. “Life is collaboration,” Abloh once said. “Where I think art can be sort of misguided is that it propagates this idea of itself as a solo love affair: one person, one idea, no one else involved.” That too could be a mission statement for IMG since what it brings to New York Fashion Week is its collaborative zeal and expertise. It, like Abloh giving Basquiat a renewed framework, gives one as well to each New York Fashion Week
that rolls around. I was thinking of Abloh and his use of quotation marks when Russo and other executives settled around the table in their new conference room for some conversation. Indeed, it was the first “meeting” being held there and we were “christening” the space, as Abloh surely would have wanted me to write the terms. Also at the table, among others, were Patrick Connors, Senior Vice-President, Global Brand Partners; Joshua Glass, Executive Editorial Director; and Dominic Kaffka, Senior Vice-President. Russo expounded on NYFW: The Shows being more than New York-centric and helping American fashion itself take its place globally — even citing Abloh while doing so. “First of all, social media and technology have changed access to consuming Fashion Week,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in Paris, France, or Paris, Texas, anymore. You can follow along on your Instagram. You can participate now by buying things through our partner, Afterpay. I do feel that American fashion has an opportunity right now on a global scale to take credit for our contribution to fashion. Look at Virgil Abloh who literally changed fashion as the first Black designer to head Louis Vuitton men’s. He was from Chicago. American culture and diversity are here — streetwear, sneakers — but I don’t think we’ve gotten credit as a country for our contribution that is incredibly relevant right now.” I sensed Russo’s pride — not only in American fashion; but also, in the company she keeps here at IMG’s fashion division. She has helped shape it and create it and nurture it. There is no doubt that she is the boss here at the table but there is also a camaraderie that cuts through the corporate bull that can often bungle up the workings of a company. So, does she see this as more of a team or a family? “I am old-school Italian so I do like to think of it as a family but I am going to say team for this reason: We’re competitive,” she said. “I honestly think of it as a band, so that’s a little
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bit of both.” I stopped her to remind her that she once told me she thought of herself as Keith Richards in her job. The camaraderie at the table erupted in guffaws at that image. “I have zero of the talent, but I am the quieter personality type,” she explained when the laughter itself quieted. “I do think of us more as a band. We are aligned in terms of being able to play together and complement each other. I think what we try to do is put together a band that agrees philosophically but plays together really well in bringing their individual points of view and strengths to the table.” “Troubleshooters. That’s what we are,” she said, which actually sounds like a good name for a band. When I asked if his job was about finding a way to say “yes” instead of saying “no,” Kafka jumped in: “It’s hands-on. It’s solving problems from morning to night. We are prepared, so we have a solution at the ready for most problems.” The IMG fashion division also owns Art+Commerce, the agency that represents an array of image-makers. But do the leaders of the division here at the table think of themselves as more of the “art” part of the industry or the “commerce” part? “I think we are truly both,” said Russo. “Maybe we’re the ‘+.’ I think this group that we have now — Patrick, Josh, and Dom — really comes from the background that merges the two. When I was interviewing Josh for his job, we discovered we both approach fashion as a sort of cultural pillar. We’re not making clothes. We’re not doing supply chain. What we really do is the cultural view of fashion and that entire ecosystem of the business gets routed through the things we do. We provide this platform and the resources for the artistic community in fashion. We all come from this background. Patrick and I come from Condé Nast. He was also at InStyle. Josh was Global Digital Editorial Director at L’Officiel and at CR Fashion Book he was Editorial and Digital Director. Dom as been in production here at
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IMG. It is the steroid version of what Interview magazine used to be. It creates culture.” With that said, does IMG see itself as a publisher? And, if so, is there a wall between it and the shows just as there was a wall between editorial and advertorial in the magazine world from whence its executives came? “Every designer is different,” said Glass. “Some designers are very intensive and very collaborative and we’re talking with them every day. Other designers want to come up with ideas themselves and we come to them once a month to talk to them about what they’re doing and how we can work together. It’s never us telling them what to do or their telling us. It’s a mixture of things. As with the CFDA, they manage the calendar but we will say ‘Oh, we’re doing this special exhibition at this point so maybe we should do this,’” he continued, referencing the “Art of Rodarte” immersive exhibition that was presented by Afterpay as part of NYFW: The Shows. “It’s finding where all the pieces fit together.” “What is the IMG brand itself” I asked Connors. “The IMG fashion brand within our community really does connect up our brand sponsors to culture,” he said. “When a brand wants to plug in to IMG fashion, they not only have the opportunity to plug in to New York Fashion Week; but also, off-season opportunities that we can custom create for them, too. But the truth is that what they are tapping into — yes, through a lens of fashion — is culture. And brands today, no matter whether they are historic brands or emerging ones like Afterpay, they want to tap into culture. The fastest way to do that is with brands already associated with culture.” But “culture” is a huge term; it goes from Kardashian to Balanchine. “Do you ever say ‘Well, that’s a little vulgar for us but it’s perfect for you’?” I asked. “I guess what I am really asking is if the client is always right?” “No,” said Connors. “This is why: They are coming to us for our advice. They are coming to us as consultants and experts in this.”
Giorgio Armani once said that “elegance is not standing out but being remembered.” As our conversation came to a close, I asked this rather elegant lot of executives to recall their first fashion memory that came to mind. Kaffka described the walk-through he gave a top executive of their parent company, WME, at the Moynihan Hall space back in 2015 when NYFW moved from the tents in Bryant Park. Glass recalled an eighth-row seat at a 9 a.m. Lacoste show in those tents when he was an assistant. “I wanted to be a rock star and took guitar lessons and saved up for a cherry red electric guitar,” said Keith Richards wannabe Russo. “A few years later, I sold it on my grandmother’s front lawn at a yard sale because I desperately wanted the white leather fringe crop coat worn by Sloane in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Having sold the guitar, I started school that year with the jacket, effectively ending my music career. I wish I had that coat right now.” Connors: “I was at Condé Nast and I was working at Lucky magazine. I remember having to go to the tents in Bryant Park — not for myself, I was going to run something over to someone — and walking into the lobby area and my publisher at the time told me, ‘Just come in with me.’ I didn’t even have a seat. I just stood in the back. I can’t remember what show it was. After the show, I walked back to Condé Nast and Anna Wintour was right in front of me at the elevator bank. I got into the elevator and it was just her and me. And I thought, ‘This is the fashion moment. I came from the tents in Bryant Park to Anna Wintour.’ You were supposedly not to get into an elevator with her. But I thought, This is it. This is why I came to New York. There was the exclusivity of it but also the power of it.” “What did you talk about with her?” I asked. “Absolutely nothing,” he admitted. And there you have it: fashion. As was the cackle of camaraderie at Connors’ selfdeprecation redesigned as a couture moment. And the need, finally — always — to get back to work. That was their “cue.” So they did.
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LIVING THE STREAM
Hollywood takes a breather from glitz and glam, but the best movies are playing on our phones and in our living rooms.
BY MICHAEL KAPLAN
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER OUMANSKI
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ll across Southern California, red carpets have remained mothballed as yet another awards season limps along, crippled by COVID-19. Plagued by recent variants — and rumors of more mutations (flurona, anyone?) — glitz and glamour have remained largely off the menu. But, with streaming sizzling hotter than ever, we might not even miss them. Hopes for a return to the awards seasons of yore were dashed in December 2021, when the Palm Springs International Film Festival Gala — long seen as the kickoff to awards season — was canceled. The Golden Globes went virtual after that (perhaps more due to recent bad PR than anything else) and the Grammys were pushed to April “due to uncertainty concerning the Omicron variant.” The Oscars opted for a new hybrid model filming in multiple COVIDsafe locations. Even when the show has gone on, we can all agree that couture, tuxedos, and diamonds feel a little offnote two years into a global pandemic. While efforts to keep the ball rolling are admirable, perhaps we’d be better off celebrating the year’s artistic creations by doing what we’ve been doing for nearly two years: enjoying the fruits of Hollywood’s labor on the biggest screens that our homes can handle. Thanks to extended lockdowns and more time than ever on our couches, streaming has become second nature for many of us, and the networks have responded with ever-more top-tier content. Still, while audiences embrace the sweatpants era of entertainment, it remains an adjustment period for those who are used to negotiating full-fledged movie deals. As one high-flying Hollywood producer recently bemoaned, “It’s been so difficult to get features made at the moment. A lot of my [big-screen projects] are sitting in development. My goal is to now be
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developing material for various platforms.” But not everyone is crying over the recent turn of events where Hollywood movie-making and viewing are concerned. James Cameron, for example, sees a silver lining. He has described streaming’s overall impact as “chaos,” while still expressing a fondness for the changes being wrought. Putting his money where his mouth is, Cameron recently told Variety that he looks forward to making six-hour movies well-suited for at-home streaming. “You can stream it for six hours, or you can go and have a more condensed, roller-coaster, immersive version of that experience in a movie theater,” he said. “Same movie. Just, one’s the novel, and one’s the movie. Why not? Let’s just use these platforms in ways that haven’t been done before.” Or maybe just use the platforms, period. That is what Disney has done with its latest Pixar release. Turning Red — a beautifully produced animationextravaganza about a Chinese-Canadian girl who transforms into a red panda — skipped theaters altogether and premiered March 11 on Disney+. Disney Media and Entertainment chairman Kareem Daniel said in a statement, “Given the delayed box office recovery, particularly for family films, flexibility remains at the core of our distribution decisions.” That may be a good thing in light of the fact that the only movies truly crushing it at theaters these days are the ones for which mega returns are almost a fait accompli. Spider-Man: No Way Home, for example, raised eyebrows in a good way when it broke the $100 million mark during its first week of release. But even the mighty Spielberg faltered when his long-awaited West Side Story (a Golden Globe winner) scored rave reviews from critics and indifference from theatergoers who generated only $30 million in box office. Warner Bros., which owns HBO Max, found a drastic work-around for tepid returns on theatrical
releases. All of the company’s movies over the course of 2021 came out on the service simultaneous with theatrical releases. In response to that surprise move, director Christopher Nolan groused, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.” Nevertheless, there are others who maintain that streaming is the vehicle that saved Warner Bros. in that it pressed the studio to put movies into theaters as planned, rather than pushing release dates like its competitors did. The strategy certainly helped HBO: Globally, HBO and HBO Max had nearly 70 million subscribers when the third quarter of 2021 ended, which represented growth of 12.5 million. What happens next, however, remains to be seen. Respected entertainment journalist Mark Harris recently made a point that would call the ’22 strategy into question. “The number of non-genre adult dramas that have cracked $50M [through theatrical box office] is ZERO,” he tweeted. “The world of 2019, in which ‘1917’ made $160M, ‘Ford v. Ferrarri’ made $120 M, and ‘Parasite’ made $52 M, is gone.” All of Hollywood is reckoning with this reality, and it goes beyond revenues (which A-list stars have been, in some cases, loudly complaining about and even suing over). The cancellation of awards galas, caution exercised for premieres, and a general loss of the need to dress up for glimmering events have all seriously impacted below-the-line workers: the stylists, makeup artists, and hair teams that make those red carpet looks happen. One thing is difficult to argue: Hollywood’s most impactful sequel of early 2022 has been “The Pandemic: Part III.” Let’s hope Part IV is not already in post-production.
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A ROSÉ OUTLOOK
After taking over the family business, Joey and Marc Wölffer, Roman Roth, and Max Rohn are revamping their beloved Summer in a Bottle in a big way. BY JACLYN ROTH PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF WÖLFFER ESTATE
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n 2014, when Joey Wölffer, her husband and Wölffer Estate Vineyard CEO, Max Rohn, her brother Marc Wölffer, and their business partner, Roman Roth, all came up with the Summer in a Bottle brand — a dry, elegant and light rosé — they had no idea their concept would explode. The proof was in the pudding as their limited initial run ended up selling out in just one month. “We just kept making more and more Summer in a Bottle,” Joey, 39, tells GRAZIA USA. “We said, ‘OK, this is actually iconic.’ We would put it on the website and immediately we would sell 100,000 bottles and it would disappear.” The colorful bottle, which features flowers and bright colors, has attracted a loyal following from the get-go, and it has now become the de rigeur drink of the Hamptons — and any summer location for that matter. The making of a modern-day classic began
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back when Joey’s husband pushed her to talk to former design colleagues of his “about the story of Wölffer.” Joey wanted the new bottle to represent her roots, which included her parents’ dinner parties, with household names being part of her fun years ago. For example, Joey recalls Lee Radziwill dancing, while Bianca Jagger’s presence was also a must-see event. “The designs came back, and they were perfect,” she recalls of seeing her vision come to life. “I said, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’ It was, Who do we want to be? Who are we? And it was so different than what everyone else was doing and we loved that.” Now the brand is introducing a new product sure to be just as much of a smash: Summer in a Bottle Côtes de Provence, which is made at Chevron Villete’s Château Reillanne, just north of St-Tropez, France. This time, the drink — which is a perfectly pale light rosé color — consists of “amazing aromas of tangerine, citrus, peach, and lovely
floral notes” — a combination that’s sure to impress. But why mess with the singular perfection of their trademark blend? After gaining a loyal brand following, it was “only natural” that Joey and Co. pondered how they could take the company to another level. “We thought, ‘What is actually the birthplace of rosé?’ It’s Provence. It was a process of working with the right people. We actually considered a couple of different wineries and Chevron Villete was just immediately a natural fit.” What’s even sweeter is that Guillaume de Chevron Villete, who is the owner of nine estates in Provence, was able to grow, produce and make the bottles all in one place. “He is very passionate about his grapes, his vineyards, his process,” Joey notes. “He’s ahead of the times with his machinery and technology, and he’s got everything computerized. We were really impressed with him, and he was also very
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‘AT THE END OF THE DAY, JOEY AND HER TEAM PRIDE THEMSELVES ON NOT HAVING AN EGO AND BEING FRIENDLY WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS.’
passionate about the wine that he processes because we were not looking to buy bulk wine.” In fact, Marc, de Chevron Villete, and Roth make the wine together, which is an important detail. After partnering in 2015 with Argentina’s first female winemaker — Susana Balbo of Dominio del Plata winery — to produce the Wölffer Finca brand, Rohn and Marc wanted to explore manufacturing in France. “We built Wölffer Finca to a point where people are like, ‘OK, Wölffer can make wine in other places,’ so it wouldn’t be such a stretch to make a wine in Côtes de Provence, whereas beforehand we would have gone from making a New York wine to all of a sudden making wine in Provence. I think it’s a more natural progression now,” Joey says of their latest venture. “We now make rosé in all of the key areas of the world.” However, their initial plans to expand in France were complicated by COVID-19 and weather-related issues. Despite the ups and downs, Joey says that since the brand is almost 35 years old, they were “ready to take this on and own it.” “I don’t think you want to put a product out there in a way that is not fully what you want it to be,” she shares. “It was really important to us that we did it correctly, because we are a boutique brand and a family-owned business. I think a lot of times you just want to get it done, but I think the pandemic kind of slowed us down to make us do this correctly.” As for what people can expect, the bottle and design have a new look that differs slightly from the original. “The capsule is different. It is red and white and blue on the top, which is a little ode to France, and the flowers are more French,” Joey explains. “They are both beautiful bottles, so they both sit nicely together. The flavors are different because the grapes are different.” Now, more than ever, Joey is passionate about the industry — but that wasn’t always the case growing up. The businesswoman describes herself as “a defiant rebellious teenager” who didn’t have an early interest in learning about her father’s winemaking business. Her father, Christian Wölffer, had the idea of starting Wölffer Estate Vineyard in the Hamptons after he went to a party and spoke to a man that loved vino. “He said, ‘If this guy can grow grapes, I can grow grapes,’” Joey recalls. The rest is history: Christian slowly grew vines on their property, which was all potato fields at the
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time, and he asked Roth to come on board. The two started making rosé in 1992, but unfortunately, Christian’s life was cut short when he died in a tragic accident in 2008. The family then had to decide what they wanted to do with their estate. At the time, Joey was working in fashion, but she “had something pulling me in to want to continue” her father’s legacy. As a result, she asked Roth if they could be partners — a proposal he gladly accepted. Though Roth and Joey didn’t know each other very well, things worked out, as the two of them, along with Rohn and Marc, built their empire together. Before Christian’s death, he never saw the business make a profit, but Joey and Marc were determined that the brand would become a meaningful player in the world of wine. Fortunately, the two have come a long way towards achieving their goal since, and they have many other goals in mind going forward. “We would like to build an international brand with Summer in a Bottle. It has a lot of legs,” Joey says. “We also have a lot of other great products that we’re still making and growing, and there are plenty of options at the winery where people can come and drink and try new wines. I really want to continue this kind of family business feel and that is something that we really stress with people who work for us.” One of the reasons Joey, Roth, Rohn and Marc have proven to be successful is that they have all grown so close together in such a short amount of time. “As outsiders, we didn’t have this amazing background in wine and beverages, and so therefore we had amazing new ideas,” she admits. “Also, not having the experience was somewhat helpful. I think that being a small company, we are
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able to take calculated risks. If you’re at a bigger company, there are too many cooks in the kitchen.” At the end of the day, Joey and her team pride themselves on not having an ego and being friendly with their customers. “We want this to be a place that you come and say, ‘I feel really comfortable here,’ and so that feeling has to remain no matter how much bigger we get,” she says. “We are not trying to be something to everybody. We are exactly who we are and we’re comfortable in that way and that is something I always stress. Don’t try to be too many things to too many people; just try to be really good at what you do. Our brand is bohemian. It’s floral. It’s free-spirited. We’re not changing that, so that is important.” Recently, Joey was in Florida at a wine store when two women from different demographics were buying Summer in a Bottle, which melted her heart. “I said, ‘This is the dream.’ A woman from Nantucket who is around 75 years old, and a really cool young woman were both going straight for Summer in a Bottle. I thought, ‘Great, this is exactly who we are. We are a wine for everybody.’” Looking back on how far the foursome have come, she gushes, “I am a very humble person, but I feel really proud of this. I think this would be a dream come true for our dad to have his brand be recognized in all of these magazines and to have this following.” She continues, “Working as a team is super challenging, but it’s also amazing to be working with such great people around me, including my family. We all have our different traits that add to the whole team, but we work really well together and it really is a family business. I am proud to say to my kids, ‘We built this.’”
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H C T A CMY
T F I R D to k o , lo g n i pr zons. s s i Th hori new E RIC NP IDE R R MA H EN RT Y RAP TO G AILE LLY HA LEY O Y H B N P E G O K N I T M L N ST Y NE ISTA ADI ASS N N IO BY A Y BY
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H EUP FAS MAK ND A IR
LOEWE dress, loewe. com; Rhodin earrings, rhodincollection.com; Vintage bracelet, ring, cuff, stylist’s own.
Fendi dress, earring, ear cuffs, fendi.com.
Sportmax dress, sportmax.com; Rhodin earrings, rhodincollection.com; Max Mara sandals, maxmara.com; bracelet, stylist’s own.
Louis Vuitton jacket, top, skirt, louisvuitton.com.
Giorgio Armani sweater, skirt, earring, armani.com.
CHANEL swimsuit, skirt, necklace, chanel.com.
Givenchy sweater, pleated skirt, givenchy.com; Seafolly bikini bottom, seafolly.com; Vintage rings, stylist’s own.
LOEWE dress, loewe. com; Rhodin earrings, rhodincollection.com.
Tory Burch dress; Vintage earrings, rings, stylist’s own.
Prada top, cuffs, skirt, belted shorts, prada.com.
Sportmax shirt, shorts, sportmax.com; Millinery Jill hair piece, millineryjill.com; Rhodin hoop, rhodincollection.com; Vintage bracelet, stylist’s own.
Tom Ford sunglasses, tomford.com.
NO MORE COMPROMISES. ONLY RESULTS. www.maikainutrition.com
GRAZIA USA
In Your STREAMS LANA CONDOR
ACTRESS, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, MODERN MOGUL
Bottega Veneta jacket, dress, shoes, bottegaveneta.com.
Dior skirt set, dior.com; Le Silla heels, lesilla.com; Fogal tights, fogal.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
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T GIRL O ON P To all the Lana Condor fans, you’re welcome. To everyone else, here’s what you’ve been missing. BY MAGGIE KIM PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM SPENCE STYLING BY ERIN WALSH MAKEUP BY MELISSA HERNANDEZ HAIR BY KAT THOMPSON
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ana is not Lara Jean. Lara Jean is not Lana. For fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, it can be a confusing distinction. They’re in good company, though, because Lana Condor also gets confused. Sometimes. The 24-year-old actress, who’s calling in on Zoom from the Seattle home she shares with musician and actor Anthony De La Torre, her longtime boyfriend and brand-new fiancé (we’ll get to their sweet-funny engagement story later), laughs about being on the set of the new Netflix series she’s starring in and executive producing. “Our set designer on Boo, Bitch was named LJ,” says Condor, who’s leisurely settled on her bed for our conversation like we’re college girlfriends having an overdue catch-up. Her thick black hair is parted neatly in the middle and smoothed back into a low pony. Somehow, she makes a shamrock green, crewneck tracksuit look chic. “For the past four years, I’ve been called LJ [for Lara Jean, from To All the Boys]. People scream ‘LJ!’ at me on the street so much that sometimes I think it’s my name. I’d be filming a scene for Boo, Bitch and they’d call out [for the set designer], ‘LJ, can you fix that thing?’ And I’d turn around, ‘Yes? What do you need?’ It was embarrassing, but it’s conditioning.” She’s moving on from LJ, in more ways than one. The To All the Boys trilogy, based on the
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bestselling books by Korean-American author Jenny Han, cemented Condor’s current status as a Gen-Z Molly Ringwald. Like Ringwald, Condor is anything but a typical blonde romantic lead — which is why so many people connected to her and her character, Lara Jean Covey. For AsianAmericans starving to see themselves on-screen, Condor’s star turn in a teenage romantic comedy was simply epic (and long overdue). The young actress is acutely aware of her rarified position when it comes to Asian representation and she’s been outspoken about #StopAsianHate during the pandemic. Even though I know she’s been asked this a hundred times, my inner Korean tween wants to hear for myself what it was like to play a groundbreaking, “first-ever” role that electrified the Asian diaspora. Condor, whose energy is best described as vivacious and engaging (tldr; she’s smart and fun), carefully considers my not-sogroundbreaking (but meaningful, to me) question. “Something I loved and will always love with To All the Boys, and moving forward with Moonshot (her new HBO Max film, co-starring Cole Sprouse, released this spring), is that everyone falls in love. Period. Asian girls fall in love, too, and it’s not a weird mystery,” she says. “I don’t understand why love stories in the past — and still right now — have been reserved only for white people. That’s not fair; nor is it realistic. I thought Jenny
Han perfectly captured a young girl falling in love. That was one of the reasons I was like, I need to get this job. I have to get it.” Thank god she did, because Condor is born for the girl-next-door-who-gets-the-guy role. Of course, this is Hollywood, so while Condor reads co-ed cute on camera, she’s gorgeous in person and over Zoom. With a heart-shaped, Vitruviansymmetrical face and luminous skin that’s got enough collagen to supply a busy Beverly Hills surgeon for at least a fortnight, Condor looks like a living doll. She and I had met a week earlier on the GRAZIA USA cover shoot in L.A., and while I watched her beauty team work on her makeup and hair for a little under two hours, I could barely tell the difference from when she first arrived, makeup-less, in the morning chill of the Topanga Canyon set, to where she ended up in front of the lens. “You’ve got dolphin skin!” I basically yell at her during our call. “What’s dolphin skin?” Condor’s belashed eyes go wide as she raises a hand to her pillowy cheek. I describe the K-beauty apex of glass skin meeting super-plump dewiness and she nods vigorously: “That’s the goal, baby! Dolphin skin!” Even though genetics play a big part, I still demand her skincare secrets, but not before asking about … the ring. I’d first spied it on her
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Dolce & Gabbana dress, dolcegabbana.com; Le Silla heels, lesilla.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
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Oscar De La Renta set, oscardelarenta.com; Le Silla shoes, lesilla.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
CHANEL dress, chanel.com; Stuart Weitzman shoes, stuartweitzman.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
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left hand at the shoot, a week before she’d make the big announcement on Instagram. Obviously dazzling with a vintage air, it was hard to miss but remained the ring-that-must-not-be-named that day as the engagement hadn’t yet been announced. Not long after, Condor and De La Torre made it public with a series of adorable photos on Instagram that showcased their dogs, their love, and the diamond. De La Torre had worked with the Vietnamese-Canadian jewelry brand, Paris Jewellers, to design her ring. “Anthony is the most thoughtful person,” gushes Condor, who was adopted at four months old from a Vietnamese orphanage. “He’s the more romantic one in this relationship and kind of puts me to shame. He knew what a fan of Paris Jewellers I am and how important it would be for me to have this forever piece made by femaleowned, Vietnamese jewelers. It’s a great reminder of who I am and what I love.” Her fiancé also knows when a joke’s gone too far. “A few years ago, he goes to me, ‘Wooden engagement rings are all the rage now.’ It was not funny at all,” Condor remembers. “I was like, ‘If you think for a second you’re getting me a wooden ring, you got another thought coming!’ He really redeemed himself.” As for how the engagement went down, Condor reveals that it happened on Christmas Eve and that she was being nosy AF — like any woman who’s been in a relationship for over six years and thinks “the moment” might be coming. “I was really hoping he would propose and I kind of thought over the holidays would be the perfect time because we were seeing his family and mine and then going to Mexico,” she tells me. “So I had my eyes peeled, like super aware,
for any kind of sign.” “You were being so Asian!” I joke. “I was! You don’t even know!” Condor and I burst out laughing. “I did the sketchiest thing. I’d gotten my nails done and the morning of Christmas Eve, I was looking at my nails and sighing, ‘My nails are starting to fall off. How sad. I’m going to need a new manicure.’ Anything I could do to get that ring on my finger before the manicure falls off!” De La Torre picked up on the neon flashing signs she was dropping and prepared what Condor thought was Christmas Eve dinner on the balcony of their hotel. “In the end,” she remembers, “I was really surprised, and everything was perfect.” The couple’s “meet cute” story is the stuff of PG-13 rom-coms, too. De La Torre introduced himself at an Emmy nominees reception and said, “I thought I would make a friend.” Condor has compared their meeting to a Taylor Swift song. When I ask for relationship advice from the self-professed “love triangle expert” (her expertise coming from the To All the Boys story lines, not real life), Condor is the opposite of fireworks and drama. “There’s this weird misconception that love has to be difficult,” she muses. “It’s messy and painful and there’s so much passion, your world burns down. That’s beautiful on paper, but it’s not right. Love should feel safe and comfortable. With Anthony, I feel like I’m in a cocoon. Love doesn’t need to break you apart.” Which brings us to Moonshot and her pairing with Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse. During the To All the Boys era, fans were zealously shipping a reallife Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky, but Condor and her co-star Noah Centineo kept it strictly
platonic. Now that she’s engaged, I wonder what fans will want from her IRL relationship with Sprouse. “I’ve been thinking about that, too, once this movie comes out,” she admits. “Because of everything that happened with Noah, I wonder what the narrative will be around this movie if people like it. I’m engaged now and I’ve made it super clear. So, I’m genuinely curious.” At the very least, fans can console themselves with the fact that her co-stars have a history of becoming life-long friends. “Noah and I grew together. We lived through the same experience,” she says. “Cole has been acting for twenty-six years. I knew it was going to be fun working with him. I admire how he’s grown up in the limelight and is still a normal human being. Out of doing Moonshot, I got a really great friend, which was really exciting and better than I expected.” In fact, Sprouse was in Mexico with Condor and De La Torre when they got engaged. “He was the first in-person human being we told. We celebrated on the beach together.” Onscreen in Moonshot, Condor and Sprouse spar like a 21st-century Odd Couple, but in space. She and I discover we had the same dream of being astronauts when we were little—of the Neil Armstrong, not Jeff Bezos, variety. “That was what I was so initially drawn to with Moonshot,” she says. “In YA, you don’t get to explore space. Matt Damon goes to space, but when do college kids get to do it? This is a space movie, but it’s also about what happens when your hopes and wants and dreams change.” I ask Condor what her hopes are as a newly engaged woman with an already significant career under her designer belt. Like many of us,
‘The young actress is acutely aware of her rarified position when it comes to Asian representation.’
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she spent much of the pandemic reflecting on meaning and happiness. “I’m hopeful for a lot of things after the trauma of the past two years,” she says with clarity. “I’m hopeful we can get to a point where people can get to be present and just be happy. Everyone was afraid or sad or confused. So was I. We got afraid to dream and make plans. If anything, the past few years have taught us that the future is so unstable and everything can change on a dime. I’m working so hard at keeping the dream alive, being happy with just the present moment and not being afraid to make plans for the future. “The number one question people have now that we’re engaged is ‘When’s the wedding?’” she notes. “My first instinct is to be like, ‘Life is crazy, I don’t know what the future holds in terms of COVID-19. I don’t want to get my hopes up.’ But no, that shouldn’t be my mentality in my engagement; or, more importantly, in my life.” This awareness and wisdom are continuously surprising coming from Condor. She exemplifies the best of her generation: grounded, generous, supremely conscious, and self-aware. Anyone who gets engaged at twenty-four seems destined for heartbreak, especially when it’s their first and only adult relationship. But when Condor tells me she’s going to “be with Anthony for the rest of my life,” I believe her. If anyone can defy the vagaries of marriage in the modern age — and of the celebrity kind — it’s Condor. We exchange thoughts on mindfulness and presence being the path to joy, a fundamental tenet of Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who had recently passed away. Condor had started the new year at a wellness
retreat to focus on just that. “The reason I went was because I want to be more present,” she says. “I want to develop better practices on existing in the moment and not feeling like I’m falling behind or not doing enough. I’m really grateful now from the moment I wake up.” The tools she learned helped her accept a fortypound weight gain during quarantine. “I’m a big comfort eater and prior to COVID-19, I’d been working consistently for years,” says Condor, “so I had to make sure my body looked a certain way. The pandemic was the first time I got to let loose and enjoy myself. I was so happy! But going back to work and going to shoots and not having the clothes fit was a real bummer. It’s so easy to get super down on yourself. But I realized it was a really good time to practice positive self-talk and have grace with ourselves.” I make a mental note to go easier on myself about my own “Quarantine 15” and Condor smiles as I thank her for the reminder. “I just want to be a good person. I want to make people smile. Make myself smile,” she laughs. “I also want to go blonde so bad! When I saw your hair for the first time, I was like, OMG, is this a sign?” The first thing Condor ever said to me was, indeed, a compliment about my blonde hair — which probably says everything about her goodness. Like I did then, I encourage her to just do it. “I am such an intense K-pop fan,” she offers as another reason why the bleach job needs to happen. “I see Lisa from BlackPink and she’s got the coolest hair. If they can do it, why can’t I?” Maybe Lana Condor will be a blonde romantic lead, after all. Just not a typical one.
‘Matt Damon goes to space, but when do college kids get to do it? This is a space movie, but it’s also about what happens when your hopes and wants and dreams change.’
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The Attico dress, theattico.com; Fogal tights, fogal.com; Le Silla shoes, lesilla.com; De Beers jewelry, debeers.com.
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The totes, clutches, and must-have bags to make your spring wardrobe shine.
GRAB BAG Max Mara blazer, bandeau, skirt, culottes, sandals, bag, maxmara.com.
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AWA K E N ING
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How the West Was Worn COME LOCKED AND LOADED AT HIGH NOON. IT’S A FASHION FACEOFF. PHOTOGRAPHY BY VLADIMIR MARTI STYLING BY ANNA CASTAN HAIR BY FIDEL FERNANDO MAKEUP BY FIDEL FERNANDO
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Photographer Nikolai von Bismarck and Artistic Director of Fendi Kim Jones pose for a photo.
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CREATIVE TRANSCENDENCE
Kate Moss lensed by Nikolai von Bismarck in Fendi Spring/ Summer 2021 Couture in Paris.
Nikolai von Bismarck retraces the steps of the Bloomsbury Set in The Fendi Set: From Bloomsbury to Borghese. BY HANNAH MILITANO PHOTOS COURTESY OF FENDI
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Bella Hadid, photographed by Nikolai von Bismarck in Fendi Spring/Summer 2021 Couture in Paris.
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ain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us,” wrote Virginia Woolf in her 1925 novel Orlando. That which grabs our attention and maintains a stronghold on our minds in our formative years of adolescence tends to occupy a perennially special place in our hearts. For Fendi designer Kim Jones, that singular, insatiable obsession was sparked by a revolutionary brigade of English writers, artists, philosophers, and intellectuals dubbed the Bloomsbury Set, with literary legend Woolf at its center. Indeed, the Set and their travels (in some cases, travails) served as the foundational inspiration for Jones’s current tenure at Fendi. In September 2020, the announcement of Jones’s appointment as artistic director of Italian fashion house Fendi’s womenswear division was met with an unprecedented degree of well-deserved hype. That coming January, Jones’s debut haute couture collection did anything but disappoint. Working alongside Silvia Venturini Fendi herself, Jones recruited his most beloved muses — from Demi Moore and Kate Moss to Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington — to take the runway in an assortment of ethereal and otherworldly garments, sartorially expressing his enduring adoration for the Bloomsbury Set while simultaneously paying tribute to Fendi’s storied heritage through the Spring/ Summer 2021 couture collection that was shown at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. Now, with British-German photographer Count Nikolai von Bismarck’s trained eye, Jones authentically captures the essence of the Bloomsbury Set in a new book: from England to Paris, then Rome. Jones’s Bloomsbury-inspired collection appears right at home in aged images by Bismarck and altered to look as though they’d been taken 100 years ago. Available to purchase from March 29 in the U.S., the pages of the artfully curated Rizzoli tome The Fendi Set: From Bloomsbury to Borghese unfurl as von Bismarck follows in the footsteps of the Set, tracing the interwoven connections from Charleston to the Roman birthplace of the House of Fendi.
Von Bismarck hopped on a Zoom call with me after two hours of signing books alongside Jones. It was the very night of the launch party for The Fendi Set at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Recalling the process of building the book, he told GRAZIA USA, “We wanted to expand on Kim’s vision of what he’d already done — what he couldn’t necessarily portray beyond the show. We wanted to give it even more context, flesh it out a bit.” The 20th-century British creative collective included the likes of modernist writer Woolf, her sister, painter Vanessa Bell, artist Duncan Grant, and author Vita Sackville-West. Von Bismarck examines the relationship between the group’s roots in the luscious green, mist-coated hills of England and their adoration for Fendi’s home of Rome. First, we follow von Bismarck’s enchanting lens through the English countryside with a frisson of déjà vu. From there, we time-travel to modernday Paris, chronicling Jones’s Fendi debut and featuring the likes of Bella Hadid and Cara Delevingne. After that, we thoughtfully consider the ever-entwined ties of the Bloomsbury Set to Rome. In an homage to Fendi’s rich origin story, von Bismarck features an elegant portrait of three generations of women in the Fendi dynasty: Anna Fendi, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, Leonetta Luciano Fendi, and Silvia Venturini Fendi, draped in Jones’s first ready-to-wear collection for the Italian Maison. From city to city, “I was going from one form of romance to another,” explained von Bismarck. With the volume’s foreword written by Woolf admirer, Academy Award winner, and star of the 1992 adaptation of Woolf’s Orlando, Tilda Swinton, it also features actress Gwendoline Christie modeling Fendi Couture and channeling the formidable essence of Woolf at Knoll in England, where Orlando was based. This is only the latest collaboration between the photographer and designer. While Jones built his career in London, von Bismarck built a parallel path elsewhere, studying photography at the Parsons Paris School of Art and Design, and working under the inimitable Annie Leibovitz for two years. After photographing Princess Beatrice of York GRAZIA USA
Delfina Delettrez Fendi was one of von Bismarck’s muses.
Lila Grace Moss Hack transcends time in Fendi Spring/Summer 2021 Couture.
Lila Grace Moss Hack and her mother Kate Moss in Fendi Spring/Summer 2021 Couture.
Cara Delevingne in Fendi Spring/ Summer 2021 Couture.
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Delfina Delettrez Fendi and Leonetta Luciano Fendi at the Villa Medici.
and producing an exhibit of his work in Ethiopia, von Bismarck sought the guidance of a master of his craft. “I started off by getting advice from this incredible war photographer, Don McCullin. I worked a lot in Africa, Burma, and in Cuba taking a lot of reportage photos,” he recalled. After looking through von Bismarck’s photojournalist work, McCullin affirmed his obvious talent while suggesting he fine tune his technique. “He said, ‘You’ve got to learn discipline and patience. You’ve got to do a black and white portraiture book. That’ll teach you to stay in one place, and really learn your craft. Once you do that, you can go and do whatever you like.’” After going to Jones with his new GRAZIA USA
notes from McCullin, the Fendi designer suggested the two of them create a portraiture book together, beginning the pair’s vast collaborative relationship. For their sophomore publication, von Bismarck began by documenting the fittings for Jones’s inaugural Fendi collection in honor of the Bloomsbury Set. “It was an incredible experience to watch all of this going on, and to really learn. I was watching Kim [Jones] and Silvia [Venturini Fendi] discussing how they’d put the clothes together, Alister Mackie was deconstructing the clothes, and Amanda Harlech was walking me through it. While I was videoing and taking photos, I’d be there for days on end,” he said.
‘I was going from one form of romance to another,” explained von Bismarck.’
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scholars and devotees of the bohemian And although the inspiration may renegades. Eventually, they were pointed have seemed obscure to some, for von in the direction of Bloomsbury scholar Bismarck, the Bloomsbury influence was and New York-based professor, Dr. Mark no surprise. “Kim felt very closely tied to Hussey. Said the photographer, “It was the Bloomsbury Group because he grew amazing that we could go through most up in the same village as a lot of them of this on Zoom during the pandemic. had lived. He spent a lot of time going to He helped us go through the New York Charleston and doing art classes there,” he explained. “He was obsessed from a young Public Library, research, and find all the actual letters that the Bloomsbury Set had age, and you really see that obsession now. written from Italy, back to their various “He’s got first editions of Orlando, an members.” unbelievable collection of books written Filled with original letter excepts, by the Bloomsbury Group, pieces of art, intimate diary entries, still lifes, and furniture painted by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. It’s an unbelievable obsession. landscape imagery with a continuous human element running throughout, It’s incredible.” the book also was inspired by VictorianRecalling his time at the atelier and looking back on his collaborator’s first year era British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron’s pivotal soft-focus method at Fendi, von Bismarck remarked, “I love his willingness to look into the archive and for inspiration, von Bismarck said: “She the history of the house, as well as his own was taking photos around the 1870s and 1880s, and personal journey. that was quite The way that he amazing because would dive, both she happened to be into the archive Virginia Woolf’s at Fendi and look great aunt. She was at all the leather a great reference goods and such, but point.” also how he had Bringing an personalized it. I unmitigated level think he’s done that of authenticity seamlessly.” Charleston, Firle, East Sussex to his work, von With Amanda Bismarck diversified his photographic Harlech as lead stylist, Jerry Stafford techniques throughout the illustrious served as lead researcher. In the midst of voyage. “We used expired 8x10 Polaroid the COVID-19 lockdown, the team ate, film, and we used a French printing lived, and breathed everything to do with technique from the 1890s to give it that the Bloomsbury Set, from chatting about sense of romance,” he explained. “The Sackville-West and Woolf’s wardrobe expired Polaroid film made it feel quite choices at lunch, to taking walks to the ghostly. I wanted the pictures to feel like Roman Anglican cemetery where Woolf’s heroes, English poets John Keats and Percy they were found photographs. Almost as if Duncan Grant could have taken the Bysshe Shelley, were buried. Continuing photographs in his studio, and you may to connect the dots between the have just found them in a drawer. Bloomsbury Set and its Roman ties, Jones “A lot of the processes we used were and von Bismarck quickly honed in on from the time that they lived. Some of the cemetery as an essential photography them were from the ‘40s, some of them destination for the tome. When it was were from the ‘30s. The cameras were discovered that Duncan Grant was all from that period as well, so they were provided a grant at the Villa de Medici and had a studio nearby, that too became a those big ones where you put the sheet over your head, and then you click the necessary stop along the way. button and it goes, ‘PSHHH!’ You have Back in England, taking photos at the to stand completely still for 10 or 15 Charleston farmhouse, von Bismarck seconds.” and the Fendi team were introduced to
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Bella Hadid sis an ephemeral dream in Fendi Spring/ Summer 2021 Couture in Paris.
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Delfina Delettrez Fendi and Leonetta Luciano Fendi in Fendi Spring/Summer 2021 Couture.
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British artist and model Kesewa Aboah wears Fendi Spring/ Summer 2021 Couture.
View of Rome from the Hotel Hassler, where Vanessa Bell stayed in 1935. Shot from the top of the Spanish Steps by Nikolai von Bismarck.
‘Bringing an unmitigated level of authenticity to his work, von Bismarck diversified his photographic techniques throughout the illustrious voyage.’
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Von Bismarck knew from the project’s inception that he wanted to mix and match an array of photographic methods throughout the final work. “I knew about the Bloomsbury Set through school. I had read many articles, and a couple of the books before all of this,” he said. “But when Kim was so obsessed, I really got excited with him. I thought, ‘This is incredible.’ They had the Omega Workshops, which is where they collaborated when they were quite young, and they were doing everything from the marbling on books, to setting the individual type font, to then creating their own type fonts, and so on. They were painting in different styles. One of them was an art critic; one of them was an economist. It was such a rich topic that I felt that all these different photographic processes — as complicated as it made my life — would reflect and mirror the Bloomsbury Set quite well. Because it was the same kind of feeling.” Becoming the modern equivalent of the Bloomsbury Set, this band of Fendi creatives joined forces to create an ethereal
and mystifying tome, recounting the steps of these prolific creatives of the past. Immortalizing their immeasurable influence through poignant imagery and radiant sartorial means, the Fendi crew brought together intellectuals, scholars, artists, fashion designers, and photographers of our own time — just like their predecessors. “They’re all quite amazing people,” von Bismarck remarked of the Bloomsbury Set. “I think what really inspires me about them, is the collaborative spirit that they shared.” Indeed, it’s a quality shared by The Bloomsbury Set, the Fendi family, Jones, and von Bismarck, too. Virginia Woolf did through the written word what Kim Jones does through his designs and Nikolai von Bismarck has done with his lens. Serving as an opulent cauldron, The Fendi Set is a radiant creative quest, a respectful nod to artistic legacy and heritage, an ode to the collaborative spirit, and — finally, but certainly not least — a love letter to the incomparable Bloomsbury Set.
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Short CUTS
The miniskirts are micro and the tops are cropped. Do you dare to bare? PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMONE FALCETTA STYLING BY SELIN BURSALIOGLU HAIR BY MAURIZIO KULPHER MAKEUP BY DEBORAH SASSO
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CASA CIPRIANI: A BEAUXARTS BEAUTY
The formerly crumbling landmarked Battery Maritime Building in New York City is now home to a private members-only club and a stunning hotel open to everyone. BY AARON
RASMUSSEN
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IMAGES COURTESY OF CASA CIPRIANI
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D esigned in 1906 and completed three years later, the Battery Maritime Building (BMB) at 10 South Street in Lower Manhattan was once a vital waterfront ferry hub for Brooklyn commuters who crisscrossed the East River on one of 17 lines. But the elegant and ornate beauty of the Beaux-Arts-Expressionist terminal faded fast, and it began to fall into a state of disrepair after ferry service between its slips and the outer borough ceased in 1938. For better, and more often worse, efforts to revitalize the cast-iron creation designed by architects Richard Walker and Charles Morris ebbed and flowed through the decades. In 1957, one renovation destroyed architectural features of the building, which contains stamped zinc and copper, rolled steel plates, ceramic tiles, stucco-paneled walls, rosettes, rivets, glazed tiles, and nearly 10,000 other elements both decorative and structural. BMB was designated as a New York City Landmark in 1967 and earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places nine years later — two vital acknowledgments that may have helped save it from a worse fate, like the one that its now-missing next-door twin, the original Whitehall Street Ferry Terminal, ultimately faced. Despite its lofty protected status, the
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city-owned Battery Maritime Building continued to crumble over the subsequent years as it shed its past as one of New York’s transportation crown jewels and served as everything from a homeless shelter to municipal offices. A Diller Scofidio + Renfro plan that could have repurposed the BMB into a mixed commercial-artist space ultimately never came to fruition. In 2001, however, the Battery Maritime Building received a major lifeline. The city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) splashed out almost $60 million over the following five years to tend to the aging structure’s facades and roof, buying the venue time until the Cipriani family, led by fourthgeneration member Maggio Cipriani, began eyeing the property in the Financial District as they looked to expand their impressive portfolio of New York City landmark venues. (Their portfolio already included the Cunard Building at 25 Broadway, the Merchant Exchange at 55 Wall Street, and Midtown’s The Bowery Savings Bank.) Working with the EDC and development partners Midtown Equities and Centaur Properties, the Ciprianis spearheaded the project, bringing on Jonathan J. Marvel, the founding principal of Marvel Architects, to
renovate and burnish the fading steel-and-slab gem. “Marvel’s architectural transformation of this incredible structure into Casa Cipriani reimagined its possibilities, maintaining the stately and grand building while also creating intimate and elegant hospitality spaces,” Marvel explained to GRAZIA USA. The private members club, which opened its doors last year, continues to appear from the front north-facing side as a two-story structure, stretching 263 feet across and featuring five bays for pedestrians and vehicles. One of two main lobby entrances ushers guests into the building’s events lobby and to a grand (and historically accurate) re-created steel staircase, bathed in plush maritime blue carpet. That leads up to the second floor’s soaring doubleheight concourse and an adjacent 9,000 squarefoot Great Hall event space — originally the waiting room for ferry passengers. Adorning BMB’s front upper exterior, the loggia, with its Guastavino-tiled vault, peers down onto the street. The south-facing harborside half of the 198-feet-deep Battery Maritime Building now features three updated ferry slips. Architects rebuilt the original pergola and cupolas topping the structure’s backside and added a fifth floor
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fronted by a glass curtain wall to house the club level. Said Marvel, “The restoration and re-design embraces the one-of-a-kind harbor views and infuses them with luxury and beauty, assuring the property’s storied future into the next century and beyond.” Thierry Despont of the New York-based firm Office of Thierry Despont was responsible for melding that unique architectural detail with an interior design that tied together Casa Cipriani’s 110,000 square feet of space spread across its five floors. Despont already was well versed in working with the city’s most treasured icons: The French architect took charge of restoring the nearby Statue of Liberty for the masterpiece’s 1986 centennial, and also worked on the renovation of the Gothic Revival-style Woolworth Building on lower Broadway in 2015. Despont’s Cipriani challenge: Create a look and feel for the historic site’s interior that would be in line with the restaurant and hospitality brand’s focus on understated elegance. Despont, like Marvel, drew upon the property’s prime position for inspiration. “The Battery Maritime Building was a wonderful opportunity to create a hotel club inspired by the great ocean liners of the 1930s — with a view directly over the water,” Despont explained of his concept. As part of the vision, Despont said, the property’s two floors containing 47 guest
accommodations “have been designed as first-class ocean liner suites.” (Although the term “posh” is derived from an ocean liner’s “port out, starboard home” rooms, referring to the rooms’ location on the ship relative to less-desirable options, at Cipriani all rooms are top-class.) “Staying at Casa Cipriani, one can dream of sailing to Europe in sybaritic comfort,” the designer added. On a sunny day, the vistas from the upper levels’ outward-facing guestrooms are vintage New York: the Brooklyn Bridge, Governor’s Island, and the Statue of Liberty. But when clouds or fog shroud this part of Manhattan, guests can easily imagine themselves sailing off Giudecca in the Venetian Lagoon or passing through Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor. While the views and mood evolve with the weather, the hotel floors steadfastly hew to the hotel’s Art Deco ocean-liner feel. Glossy, gleaming mahogany-lined walls stretch along hallways that are carpeted in gold and lined with cylindrical light fixtures and oversized porthole-shaped mirrors. The effect is seamlessly carried through to the accommodations, beginning with Casa Cipriani’s deluxe and premier guestrooms, which range from 370 to 470 square feet and come with city, patio, or river views and all the thoughtful details the Cipriani brand is known for: from custom 1930s-style mahogany furniture designed by Tedeschi and marbled walk-in rain showers with La Bottega
amenities, down to fine Italian linen bedding by Rivolta Carmignani and in-room Lavazza coffeemakers. For those who want the ultimate Casa Cipriani experience — and plenty of room to roam — the expansive one-bedroom corner Bartholdi Presidential Suite on the fourth floor boasts a 10-seat dining table, walk-in closet, full bathroom with freestanding soaking bathtub, and a 920-square-foot private terrace with views of Lady Liberty, the East River, and the city. The main suite, decorated in warm cream tones and featuring Loro Piana cashmere fabrics, can be combined with two additional rooms and closed off to make a nearly 3,000-square-foot haven. Anyone staying at the hotel, however, can enjoy the members-only property’s various spaces, including the fifth-floor club level’s Jazz Café, restaurants, living room with a fireplace focal point, and outdoor promenade. “The main club floor has been designed as a sequence of rooms, not unlike what you would have found on the first-class deck of the Normandie,” Despont pointed out. Two floors below lies the 15,000-square-foot Casa Cipriani Wellness Center on a mezzanine that was added to the original building and features cast-iron architectural details. Hotel guests have access to the fitness area as well as personal trainers who can design bespoke plans that might include Pilates or yoga in the space’s private studio. The spa, a quiet bastion
‘MARVEL’S ARCHITECTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF THIS INCREDIBLE STRUCTURE INTO CASA CIPRIANI REIMAGINED ITS POSSIBILITIES, MAINTAINING THE STATELY AND GRAND BUILDING WHILE ALSO CREATING INTIMATE AND ELEGANT HOSPITALITY SPACES.’
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bathed in soothing white oak, offers massages, reiki, acupuncture, Thai stretching, body scrubs, oxygen facials, and a full menu of other treatments. Completely overhauling a space such as the once-derelict Battery Maritime Building has simply been par for the course for the Ciprianis — a dynasty of good taste, starting with the family’s patriarch, Giuseppe Cipriani Sr. In May 1931, almost exactly 90 years before Casa Cipriani opened its doors in New York City, Cipriani Sr. launched Harry’s Bar in what was then an abandoned rope warehouse near Piazza San Marco in Venice. At just 540 square meters, the first Harry’s Bar was miniscule in comparison to the 100,0000 square feet that the Manhattan Casa Cipriani now boasts. The Italian eatery, still unchanged almost a century later and now a landmarked property, became the standard for what has continued to be Cipriani’s goal when entertaining their wellheeled, eclectic clientele worldwide: a timeless focus on impeccable service, understated elegance, and a lack of imposition. “It has been an exciting journey to bring back to life this extraordinary building, once at the center of the lively activity of the New York waterfront and nearly lost to time, and house, under one roof, my family’s ninety years of hospitality culture,” Maggio Cipriani, a fourthgeneration Cipriani, told GRAZIA USA. The property joins other high-profile additions to the family’s growing list of properties around the world, including those in Mexico City, Mexico; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ibiza, Spain; Punta del Este, Uruguay; and, most recently, the new Casa Cipriani in Milan, Italy. Architect Marvel noted, “As one of the city’s greatest treasures, the Battery Maritime Building is a living testament to New York’s gilded age and its working waterfront history.” And, now, Casa Cipriani will be, too.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY VLADIMIR MARTI STYLING BY ANNA CASTAN HAIR BY FIDEL FERNANDO MAKEUP BY FIDEL FERNANDO COLLABORATOR DANÉ STOJANOVIC
EV Alberta Ferretti dress, albertaferretti.com.
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The year is 2030. The first human settlers have arrived on Mars, and they’ve come dressed for the occasion.
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Missoni dress, missoni.com.
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Moschino top, shorts, moschino.com.
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Versace dress, loafers, versace.com
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Fendi dress, fendi.com.
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Dsquared2 dress, dsquared2.com.
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Salvatore Ferragamo dress, scarf, necklace, ferragamo.com.
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Luisa Spagnoli sweater, shorts, luisaspagnoli.it.
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SPRING 2022 Missoni dress, $2,560, missoni.com.
Max Mara top, skirt, belt, sandals, maxmara.com.
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Ermanno Scervino dress, ermannoscervino.com.
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Emporio Armani jacket, trousers, sandals, armani.com.
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GUCCI dress, hat, corset, socks, loafers, gucci.com.
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Elisabetta Franchi jumpsuit, elisabettafranchi.com.
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Sportmax dress, trousers, sandals, sportmax.com.
Etro button-down shirt, top, shorts, bracelet, sandals, etro.com.
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Luisa Spagnoli jumpsuit, $990, luisaspagnoli.it.
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BEAUTY ODYSSEY
If you’re not quite ready to jetset yet — and even if you are — these beauty products will immerse you in the ingredients, rituals, and sensations of our favorite destinations around the world. No passport or vaccine card required.
BY EMILY ALGAR
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hen I was 17, my final high school English assessment was to critically analyze the idea that one could feel connected to the notion of a place, that physical surroundings could foster a sense of belonging. The work I specifically analyzed was a poem by Robert Frost titled The Tuft of Flowers, where two people who have never met in the flesh are connected by tending to the same garden. Once aware of the other layers of that experience had by someone else, the narrator says, “I worked henceforth not alone.” Our experiences of place, even when not contiguous, connect us to each other as well. My takeaways were somewhat
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provincial, but I still managed to grasp the idea that where you are, or where you come from, can alter the way you see the world. It’s something that’s stayed with me well into adulthood, where travel and discovering new places have been defining factors in everything I do (until the pandemic, that is). Years of my life are now marked by trips I’ve taken, wardrobe items are linked to the country of purchase and I spend hours in my kitchen at home trying to re-create flavors experienced abroad. This intrinsic idea of place is something that’s also saturated my career as a beauty editor. Brands and products are so often inextricably linked to the story of where they come from. Just look at the French pharmacy, K-Beauty, native Australian skincare ingredients, and so much more.
It’s never been more appropriate to find a sense of place through beauty — experiencing the world through fragrances, ingredients, rituals, and sensations. It feels especially relevant, as we emerge with not a small amount of timidity towards the idea of travel in a post-pandemic world and everything that it may entail. So, we’ve put together a world map of a different kind, one that looks at places via products, whether it’s a perfectly Parisian bath, a zesty citrus scent that captures all the light of the Amalfi in a single spritz, or an 800-year-old fragrance hand made by Italian monks in the world’s oldest pharmacy. We can’t travel, but we can have tiny pieces of the world in our bathroom vanity, and I think that’s special. Your journey awaits…
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PROVENCE, FRANCE
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
L’OCCITANE LAVENDER FOAMING BATH
SULWHASOO FIRST CARE ACTIVATING SERUM
Every year come June, Provence’s sprawling farmlands turn a striking shade of purple as the lavender blooms. With its scent — soft, delicate, clean — suspended in the air, a blue-ish haze falls over the provincial town (blue magic, as it’s affectionately referred). The resulting crops are picked and packed, shipped internationally so the rest of the world can enjoy a tiny piece of Provence at home. Luckily for us, L’Occitane has done the legwork, infusing the French flower into its Foaming Bath. Lights dimmed, jazz on, red Bordeaux in hand… who needs a vacation anyway?
Of all the far-flung destinations, none are tied to beauty quite like Korea. It’s the birthplace of snail mucin and 10-step routines, all in the name of a complexion that’s glassy, bouncy and seemingly poreless. K-Beauty products are in no short supply, but Sulwhasoo’s First Care Activating Serum is in a league of its own. Since launch, it’s sold two trillion units thanks to the signature JAUM Balancing Complex™ — five herbs perfectly combined to nourish, calm and hydrate the skin. The critical element is to apply directly after cleansing to boost all that comes after. Glass skin, minus the flight to Seoul.
L’Occitane, Lavender Foaming Bath, $39, loccitane.com. ILLUSTRATION: PETER SCULLY
Sulwhasoo, First Care Activating Serum, $89, sulwhasoo.com. ILLUSTRATION: SEOUL 1910
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BONDI BEACH, AUSTRALIA
THE AMAZON RAINFOREST, BRAZIL
RECREATION BONDI BEACH VIBRANT SKIN FACE OIL
COSTA BRAZIL KAYA JUNGLE FIRMING BODY OIL
Ahhh, Bondi. Where the surfers are up before the sun. Where the avocado toast is abundant and the air is thick with salt and fresh coffee. It’s the glittering jewel in Sydney’s crown — a blue-water paradise loved by locals and tourists alike. It’s also a place where wellness is paramount. Enter Recreation Bondi Beach: a clean, non-toxic beauty brand founded by former magazine editor Nedahl Stelio. In line with the coastal hub’s less-is-more aesthetic, Recreation recently launched Vibrant Skin Face Oil — a moisturizer-serum-eye-cream hybrid that nourishes all complexions thanks to a blend of 25 botanical ingredients. Take a few drops and really push it into the skin for maximum glow with minimal effort. It’s laissezfaire beauty with a Bondi twist.
Fashion industry veteran Francisco Costa was born in Brazil, but didn’t actually experience the Amazon Rainforest until 2016. He spent months immersed in its beauty and in the process learnt local healing rituals and the untapped wealth of curative native ingredients. The amalgamation of his experience was Costa Brazil, a sustainably produced beauty brand that feels considered but incredibly chic. Our pick is the Kaya Jungle Firming Body Oil, a superlative blend of kaya, cacay, breu branco, tucuma seed, Brazil nut, buriti, and cupuaçu to smooth the body and nourish the mind. Costa Brazil, Kaya Jungle Firming Body Oil, $98, livecostabrazil.com. ILLUSTRATION: BRAZIL 1932
Recreation Bondi Beach, Vibrant Skin Face Oil, $96, recreationbeauty.com. ILLUSTRATION: JENNI SPARKS
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GREEK ISLANDS, GREECE KORRES GREEK YOGHURT PROBIOTIC SUPERDOSE FACE MASK
With its sapphire sea, brutish (but beautiful) landscape, and sweeping views, nothing quite possesses the physical impact of the Greek Islands. Somewhere between the tiny white villages and rocky peaks, Korres was born — a brand that pays homage to ancient Grecian beauty rituals. The offering is vast, but our pick is the Korres Greek Yoghurt Probiotic Superdose Face Mask, a gentle resurfacing treatment that will soothe and hydrate better than anything this side of the Cyclades. Just slather onto clean skin, leave for 20 minutes and rinse. It’s not a sunset Assyrtiko in Santorini, but the afterglow is the same. Korres, Greek Yoghurt Probiotic SuperDose Face Mask, $49, sephora.com.
THE AMALFI COAST, ITALY TOM FORD MANDARINO DI AMALFI
Bronzed limbs, salty hair, languid afternoons spent dipping in and out of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Few have captured the brilliance of the Italian Coast quite like Tom Ford. Mandarino Di Amalfi specifically is light, luminous and inviting, just like the Costa Amalfitana itself. A sunny blend of jasmine, orange blossom, grapefruit and mint, it’s the olfactive incarnation of the European summer many of us (sadly) are not having: the precariously steep drive down the cliff, endless scoops of gelato and too many glasses of local wine at Da Adolfo. Proof that scent has the power to take us places… even if just for a moment. Tom Ford, Mandarino Di Amalfi, $270, tomford.com. ILLUSTRATION: PORTA DELLA MARINA.
ILLUSTRATION: ANCIENT GREECE 1875
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NIGERIA, AFRICA
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LIHA BEAUTY IDAN OIL
JO MALONE ENGLISH PEAR & FREESIA COLOGNE
In Nigeria, it’s tradition to extract oils from local nuts, barks, and plants to create nourishing soaps and elixirs. These rituals and learnings are what informed Liha Beauty, a Black-owned brand that’s staked a claim within Net-A-Porter’s beauty offering. At the heart of Liha is the Idan Oil, a delicious blend of cold-pressed coconut oil and tuberose flower. Aside from smelling like a sun-drenched exotic vacation, it nourishes from top to toe. Smooth it onto hair and massage into the body for silken, glistening limbs.
Just two hours from the bustle of London are The Cotswolds, a place of rolling hills, quaint cottages, and pastoral clichés as far as the eye can see. Yet, it’s a world we desperately yearn for: one of chunky cardigans, cobbled streets, and freshly cut flowers. Thankfully, Jo Malone has captured the pure magic in scent form: English Pear & Freesia Cologne. This fragrance feels light and chic and quintessentially English: Think clean laundry, ripe fruit, and early-morning dewdrops clinging to flower petals.
LIHA Beauty, Idan Oil, $55, lihabeauty.com.
Jo Malone, English Pear & Freesia Cologne fragrance, $145, jomalone.com.
ILLUSTRATION: DANÉ STOJANOVIC
ILLUSTRATION: WILTSHIRE COUNCIL
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NEW DEHLI, INDIA
ALGERIAN DESERT
UMA OILS PURE CALM WELLNESS OIL
CIRE TRUDON ABD EL KADER CANDLE
Ayurveda is an ancient form of Indian medicine that puts a great deal of importance on the mind-body connection. It is not just a science but a philosophy for living, whereby our beauty and health are rooted in the balance between our physical, spiritual, and emotional selves (along with our physical surroundings). Uma Oils is a modern Indian beauty brand built around the principles of Ayurveda, using the finest essential oils from the family-owned Uma Estate in Central India. A ritual worth partaking in is an Ayurvedic foot massage using the Pure Calm Wellness Oil, a soothing blend of chamomile, vetiver, jasmine and clary sage. In Ayurvedic tradition, the feet are considered organs of action, so gently apply it to the soles, heels, and the thin skin between the toes.
It’s late at night in the Algerian Desert and there’s a cool breeze moving across the Mascara Coast. It cuts through the thick air, offering temporary respite from the desert heat. It also carries a fragrance — a heady blend of mint, ginger, clove, tea and tobacco. It’s fresh but deep; light but dark. A tribute to the Ouled Naïl tribe, Cire Trudon’s Abd El Kader candle is like a shimmering mirage in scent form. Housed in a hand-blown green glass vessel, it’s a desert dream from the comforts of home. Cire Trudon, Abd El Kader Candle, $125, trudon.com. ILLUSTRATION: EMILY BURROWS
UMA Oils, Pure Calm Wellness Oil, $85, umaoils.com. ILLUSTRATION: VANDANA SINGH
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FLORENCE, ITALY
PARIS, FRANCE
SANTA MARIA NOVELLA ACQUA DI SANTA MARIA NOVELLA
ROUGE HERMÈS LIPSTICK
Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence is thought to be the oldest pharmacy in the world. It dates back to 1221 when a group of monks started experimenting with herbs and flowers, turning the Monastery into an apothecary of sorts (it even produced herbal treatments designed to treat the Bubonic Plague). In the 16th century, the Queen of France commissioned the monks to create a fragrance in her honor resulting in Acqua di Santa Maria Novella: a light, watery scent that smells distinctly of Italian citrus. The tiny piece of Florence (and French royalty) is still available for purchase today. Ciao Bella!
Few transpose the romantic ideals of Paris quite like Hermès. Born in the French capital, it embodies all the intricacies the city is known for: luxury, quality and a keen eye for artistic detail. The house ushered in its Beaute Métier earlier this year, giving us all a tiny piece of Paris in the form of Rouge Hermès, a high fashion take on the humble lipstick. Now at the turn of seasons, we’ve been presented with an ephemeral curation of three limited shades: Rose Ombré, Rose Pommette and Rose Nuit. Inspired by fine art, the trio all play with the color pink… how perfectly Parisian of them. Hermès, Rouge Lipstick FW2020 Collection, $72, hermes.com.
Santa Maria Novella, Acqua di Santa Maria Novella, $135, smnovella.com.
ILLUSTRATION: ALLAN DEAS
ILLUSTRATION: FLORENCE 1493
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NEW YORK CITY, USA
KYOTO, JAPAN
PERFECT BY MARC JACOBS
TATCHA DEWY SKIN CREAM
John F. Kennedy once said that most cities are nouns, whereas New York is a verb. It’s dynamic, electric, gritty but hopeful. It’s got its own pulse, an electric current that vibrates through each and every person within it. For Marc Jacobs, growing up in such a place has played a formative part in his career, one that’s been as diverse and colourful as the city itself. His latest fragrance, Perfect by Marc Jacobs, is the Big Apple bottled: a clash of bright flowers, juicy fruit and softer, deeper, more complicated notes. But most importantly, it’s a celebration of originality, quirkiness, and the perfection of being imperfect.
Tatcha is a brand inspired by the unmatched beauty of the Japanese Geisha. The ethos is one of holistic treatments and gentle products, all extracted from a sacred Japanese text that mapped out ancient beauty rituals (widely considered to be the oldest text of its kind). Take Tatcha’s Dewy Skin Cream, a rich, emollient moisturiser that leaves even the driest complexion plump, luminous and smooth. It also contains Tatcha’s signature Hadasei-3 blend of green tea, rice, and algae. Sounds like a sushi restaurant, but for your skin.
Marc Jacobs, Perfect Eau de Parfum, $100, marcjacobs.com.
ILLUSTRATION: KYOTO 1880
Tatcha, The Dewy Skin Cream, $69, tatcha.com.
ILLUSTRATION: KATHERINE BAXTER
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U T L U C P O P . d to toe a e h m , fro oment m y r e e ev elebrat c o t e im x! It’s t a m e h ot thing t y r e v e and ments, h s i l l e mb olors, e A Bold c LC E T T NE FA O
Y SIM LU PHY B ALIOG OGRA BURS P H OT IN L R E S LPHE G BY IO KU ST YLIN AURIZ M ASSO S Y B H A R HAIR DEBO Y B P U M A KE
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E R U NaraCamicie shirt, naracamicieonline.com; Rochas dress, rochas.com; Maison Michel hat, michel-paris.com; Alhaja necklace, alhajastore.com; Roger Vivier rings, rogervivier.com; Dior shoes, dior.com.
Kocca dress, kocca.it; GUCCI crystal top, bag, gucci.com; Swarovski headband, rings, swarovski.com.
Guess Jeans dress, guess.com; Roger Vivier headband, bag, rogervivier.com; GUCCI earrings, necklace, gloves, gucci.com.
Balenciaga dress, balenciaga.com; Ambush earrings, ambushdesign.com.
L’Autre Chose cardigan, lautrechose.com; Dior dress, earrings, dior.com; Maison Michel bow, michel-paris.com; Alexander McQueen bracelet, alexandermcqueen.com; Roger Vivier bag, rogervivier.com.
Ambush cardigan, ambushdesign.com; MVP Wardrobe dress, mvpwardrobe.com; Maison Michel headband, michel-paris.com; Christian Louboutin boots, christianlouboutin.com.
Peserico sweater, peserico.com; Loewe dress, loewe.com; Alhaja earrings, alhajastore.com; Aurélie Bidermann bracelets aureliebidermann.com; Miu Miu shoes, miumiu.com.
Thom Browne top, thombrowne.com; Maison Michel hair clips, michel-paris.com; Roger Vivier earrings, rogervivier.com.
Jil Jil dress, jijil.it; Luisa Beccaria tiara, luisabeccaria.it; Alhaja earrings, pearl necklace, alhajastore.com; Roger Vivier necklace, rogervivier.com; Christian Louboutin boots, christianlouboutin.com.
Miu Miu dress, miumiu.com; Luisa Beccaria tiara, luisabeccaria.it; GUCCI earring, gucci.com; Givenchy earrings, givenchy.com
Moschino top, moschino.com; Diego M skirt, diegom-store.com; Roger Vivier headband, rogervivier.com; Swarovski earrings, ring, bracelet, swarovski.com; Bea Bongiasca rings, beabongiasca.com; Fendi boots, fendi.com.
MANDARINA SPRING 2022
THE ONE
BY CASEY BRENNAN IMAGES COURTESY OF ONE&ONLY
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One&Only Resorts adds to an alreadyiconic portfolio with new additions in Mexico and Montenegro.
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fter a couple of years with little to no travel for many, the tourism industry seems to be bouncing back — and thankfully, in a major way. Travelers are seeking exciting and unique experiences to make up for lost time, and brands like One&Only Resorts aim to deliver. With an impressive portfolio of resorts located in some of the most exclusive destinations around the world, One&Only Resorts continued to be the gold standard for those seeking a vacation experience like none other. Known and loved for their take on understated luxury, the One&Only Collection boasts a collection of award-winning properties in picturesque locales: One&Only Reethi Rah Maldives, One&Only Le Saint Geran in Mauritius, One&Only Wolgan Valley in the Blue Mountains of Australia, One&Only Desaru Coast in Malaysia, and One&Only Gorilla’s Nest in Rwanda, among many others. One of the newest resorts from the ultraluxe brand is the One&Only Mandarina, a five-star resort tucked away on a spectacular stretch of coastal rainforest on Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit. Set amid 80 acres of lush
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coastal cliffs, the beachfront resort was first opened to guests in November 2020 amid the pandemic. With a close proximity to the United States and less restrictive travel regulations, Mexico offered many Americans willing to brave pandemic travel a friendly and culturally rich destination just a short flight away. Meanwhile, the One&Only Mandarina has welcomed guests with the brand’s unparalleled hospitality. While the nearby towns of Punta Mita, Puerta Vallarta, and Sayulita have become popular destinations for travelers, the Riviera Nayarit remained largely undeveloped before the arrival of the resort. “We were thrilled to introduce One&Only Mandarina and to bring refined luxury to a rare, undeveloped stretch of coastline along the Riviera Nayarit on Mexico’s Pacific Coast,” Philippe Zuber, Chief Executive Officer of Kerzner International, the parent company of One&Only Resorts, tells GRAZIA USA. “This brand-defining resort showcases One&Only’s commitment to the destination, allowing nature to take center stage, and has been designed to respect and blend with the environment.” Featuring 105 guest rooms perched on jungle cliffs and nestled within lush rainforest, Treehouse or Villa accommodations are available to guests. The expansive eco-conscious rooms, built using natural materials and Mexican craftsmanship, are spaced out to offer the ultimate privacy, making the resort a top choice for couples eager to reconnect and relax. Meant to blend effortlessly into the surrounding landscape, each room features panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, jungle, and mountains nearby. Add the fact that each is purified with a smudge stick upon arrival, stocked with all-natural Tata Harper products, and boasts a private plunge PORTONOVI
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pool and it is peak social distancing, indeed. Elevated among tropical greenery, the Treehouse rooms include private decks with open-air bathtubs, perfect for taking in the surrounding natural environment. Villas, meanwhile, feature retractable walls to provide guests with a breathtaking indoor-outdoor experience, along with neutral-toned furniture and décor and outdoor showers. Available in one- to threebedroom configurations, the Villas offer the ideal space for families; some even include private dining rooms, hot tubs, fire pits, and cinemas. Villa One is the property’s exquisite two-story, three-bedroom suite, equipped with a dedicated butler and chef, wine cellar, private spa, Technogym fitness equipment, and secluded infinity pool. Featuring more than18,000 square feet and a nearly
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5,000-square-foot terrace, this Villa can sleep up to 8 guests and offers jaw-dropping views of the rainforest and ocean below. “Like all properties in the One&Only collection, One&Only Mandarina introduced an ultra-luxury experience with an emphasis on privacy and seclusion that are perfect for both couples and families,” says Zuber. While lounging in the room is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the days at One&Only Mandarina, there is no shortage of activities available. Aside from the private plunge pools, there are six additional resort pools for lounging. Beach cabanas sit on a stunning stretch of white sand beach with swimmable waters. Active travelers can partake in water sports, including scuba, snorkel,
paddleboarding, sailing, and deep-sea fishing, while biking, soccer, pickleball, and even archery are just a few of the activities on land. Tennis lessons and clinics are led by former ATP tour star Janko Tipsaravić, perfect for beginners and competitive players alike. For thrill-seekers, a zipline and rappel ropes course will supply more than sufficient adrenaline. A real highlight of the resort, though, are the hikes led by expert guides who give guests a tour of the surrounding area — home to three microclimates, including lush rainforest, ancient ruins and pyramids, and local wildlife. The connection with nature is evident all around, concluding at “La Abuela,” an ancient tree dating back almost 500 years. A day at the spa is a must and the perfect
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antidote to the stresses of the past few years. Set within a volcanic rock garden surrounded by tropical vegetation, the Wellness Centre offers everything from personalized Tata Harper treatments to a rejuvenating mud grotto along with a cold plunge pool, sauna, and steam room overlooking the jungle. There are also yoga and meditation, sound therapy, and breathwork sessions, quantum reading and frequency healing, tarot and oracle ceremonies, astrological code reading, and personalized spiritual guidance headed up by Spiritual Leader Steffy Téllez Schnaas. In short, it’s a playground for adults, but children are far from an afterthought at the One&Only Mandarina. The KidsOnly Club — a 42,000-square-foot play space described as a “magical adventure playground” and designed by Academy Award-winning
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Moulin Rouge art director Brigitte Broch — features tree houses, nature trails, suspension bridges, climbing walls, a butterfly farm, and a variety of crafts and sports for kids age 4 to 11. Unplugged from the world, little ones can let their imaginations run wild. The food, of course, is another hallmark of the resort. Modeled on a traditional Mexican palapa, Carao is helmed by celebrity Chef Enrique Olvera of Pujol and Cosme renown, and features “authentic Mexican flavors with a modern touch.” Set on the highest point of the hotel with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean below, Olvera’s restaurant uses traditional local ingredients to create globally influenced cuisine, such as roasted palm hearts, aged fish, and smoky octopus zarandeado. “Carao is a celebration of not only food,
but the destination of Mandarina, the community, and its vibrant culture through music and art, sparking a connection between all of these elements and our guests,” Olvera has said. At Alma, Chef Olivier Duboise curates a “garden-to-plate” menu — think wood-fired flatbreads and duck prosciutto — along with natural wines and a Latin flair. Jetty Beach Club is the place to be for casual beachside dining and Treetop Bar is a must for a sunset cocktail with incredible views. For a deeper exploration of the local cuisine, on-site workshops include taco making and a barista workshop. There is, to be clear, no shortage of divine food and drinks at the resort. In fact, there is an abundance of just about everything at the One&Only Mandarina, most notably the warmth and hospitality the
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brand is known and loved for. Which is why the expansion continues. “Further afield, we are looking forward to taking our guests on a Greek journey, with the opening of One&Only Aesthesis, our new Grecian escape on an exclusive beachfront in southern Athens, and One&Only Kéa Island,” says Zuber. “We are also excited about the most recent announcement of One&Only Moonlight Basin in Big Sky and to introduce the glamour, elegance, and immersive experiences through the lifestyle and energy of One&Only to one of the world’s most dramatic landscapes in Montana and the Western United States.” For now, guests can travel to Montenegro for the very first One&Only resort in Europe. “Following the successful introduction of One&Only Mandarina, we brought One&Only’s unmatched hospitality to Europe with the opening of One&Only Portonovi in Montenegro, which is quickly becoming one of the most sought-after fashionable destinations on the Adriatic,” Zuber explains. The ultra-luxury property — the first One&Only resort in Europe — is located at the entrance of Montenegro’s Boka Bay and was designed to reflect old world architectural styles of the region, including grand façades, red terra-cotta rooftops, lush gardens, and a selection of indoor and outdoor pools. Surrounded by a dramatic coastline and impressive mountains, One&Only Portonovi is located on 60 sprawling acres near captivating UNESCO World Heritage Sites and sandy Mediterranean beaches. The 123 guest rooms, suites, and villas were designed with views of the adjacent marina, bay, and mountain landscape and feature modern fireplaces, massive
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bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and expansive terraces. (Interconnected rooms can be requested for larger groups and families.) For a truly superlative oenophile experience, Suite One is the standout: It comes complete with a dedicated butler and private wine vault stocked with 268 bottles from the region and other European locales. Villa One also boasts a three-bedroom layout, while Villa Two offers two large guest rooms; both have an outdoor shower and private pool, dedicated butlers, chef and valets, and — naturally — exceptional views of the Adriatic Sea. With wellness as a centerpiece of the brand ethos and its status as a growing priority for sophisticated travelers, the property’s Chenot Espace is a major part of One&Only Portonovi’s global appeal. Combining the latest scientific advances with the best offerings from Chinese and traditional medicine, the Chenot Method provides guests with a better understanding of their personal needs and helps create a program to achieve optimal performance and wellbeing. The bespoke one- to sevenday plans include nutritional consultations, detox menus, fitness schedules, targeted spa treatments, and stress-relieving techniques, along with hydrotherapy and cryotherapy facilities, sauna, steam room, Oriental hammam, indoor pool, and relaxation areas — the ultimate in much-needed R&R. “We are particularly excited about our exclusive partnership with Chenot, a firstof-its kind wellness concept for guests to focus on their vitality, looking to lead a more active, healthy, and balanced life,” Zuber tells GRAZIA USA. “This immersive offering is set to revolutionize resort well-being experiences for our guests in a spectacular locale at the entrance of the wild and beautiful Boka Bay.” The food and beverage offerings are, of
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course, another major draw. La Veranda offers à la carte and buffet-style dining with a Montenegrin flair, while Caminetti is a relaxing lobby bar with picturesque views and expertly crafted cocktails such as the Novi Sunset (barrel-aged tequila, Cointreau, and orange bitters), and the Monte Fire (made with local spirit Rakija, sweet vermouth, and Amaretto). For a special experience and an impressive raw bar, Sabia by Michelin-starred Chef Giorgio Locatelli features savory Italian dishes with a focus on fresh seafood and vegetables. At Tapasake, the small plate Japanese fusion cuisine is paired with sake selections, and when the sun goes down, the party starts with a lineup of DJs, performers, and musicians. With a backdrop of the sea, this poolside soirée is the place to
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sip, see, and be seen. Guests can cruise the Adriatic and explore nearby medieval towns and National Parks, enjoy a seaside yoga class, or go for a guided run through the spectacular routes. Meanwhile, younger guests ages four to 17 can hang out at the KidsOnly (inspired by Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), and teens can turn to the OneTribe club, offering watersports, raft building, and treasure hunts. It’s no surprise that unforgettable visits to the various One&Only global resorts have created a group of passionate devotees, eager to return and explore all of the portfolio’s offerings. Thanks to the Private Homes collection, the experience of visiting a One&Only resort is elevated and personalized
even more. “For those looking to be part of the One&Only lifestyle on a more permanent basis, we are thrilled to introduce Private Homes for guests who wish to make this stylish resort their home at both One&Only Mandarina in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico as well as One&Only Portonovi, Montenegro,” says Zuber. Available at a handful of properties, the Private Homes will help One&Only continue to redefine the ultra-luxury hospitality scene. “As part of the strategic growth,” Zuber continues, “we will continue to introduce resorts and exclusive communities of One&Only Private Homes in the world’s most incredible natural settings and buzzing urban centers.”
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SPRING 2022 GUCCI blouse, removable collar, skirt, gucci.com.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SVEN BÄNZIGER STYLING BY TAMARA GIANOGLIO HAIR BY GIOVANNI ERROI MAKEUP BY SEIKO NISHIGORI
When WFH life has you climbing the walls, look on the bright side.
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Louis Vuitton dress, louisvuitton.com.
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Purotatto sweater, purotatto.com.
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Marina Rinaldi trench, marinarinaldi.com; Max Mara top, skirt, belt, maxmara.com; CELINE by Hedi Slimane bag, celine.com.
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Lili Sidonio by Molly Bracken jacket, shorts, top, mollybracken.com; CELINE by Hedi Slimane sneakers, celine.com.
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Prada sweater, skirt, earrings, bag, shoes, prada.com.
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Diego M overcoat, diegom-store.com; Salvatore Ferragamo dress, ferragamo.com; Fendi bag, fendi.com; Jeffrey Campbell shoes, jeffreycampbellshoes.com.
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Blauer USA padded top, blauerusa.com; Dior skirt, bag, boots, dior.com.
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Tagliatore 0205 trench, tagliatore.com; Boss top, shorts, hugoboss.com; Casadei sandals, casadei.com.
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Herno blazer, herno.com; Falconeri T-shirt, falconeri.com; MSGM shorts, shop-msgm.com; Hogan bag, hogan.com; Cielo Alto hair cream, cieloalto.it.
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CHANEL tweed cardigan, vest, shorts, chanel.com; Furla bag, furla.com.
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OUTSIDE
Interior designer Lukas Machnik curates his most personal project at his own summer abode in East Hampton.
Lukas Machnik dining table, lukasmachnik.com. Light fixture, Serge Mouille.
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BY TY GASKINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY LINCOLN PILCHER
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eatly placed on Gerard Drive, a narrow peninsula on the north end of East Hampton, sits interior designer Lukas Machnik’s weekend and summer getaway. For the artist, curator, designer, and TV personality (Season 1 winner of NBC’s American Dream Builders), the Hamptons is a place to step back, take a different perspective on daily life, and reflect on what’s to come. Of course, for someone with their own interior design firm, outfitting your own space can be a daunting prospect — one that Machnik has embraced. From the spacious and airy living space to the dining room, both of which have become sacred entertaining spaces for Machnik and his partner, the carefully curated rooms allow for oblique views of the water and beaming light from sunup to sundown. Machnik’s part-minimalist, part-Bauhaus, part-avant-garde aesthetic shines through, becoming one with nature through furnishings he either created himself, discovered among his many travels, or sourced from his most respected peers. Ahead, Machnik gives GRAZIA USA a peek inside his home to experience the shift he feels every time he walks through the door. GRAZIA USA: Tell me a bit more about you and your work. Lukas Machnik: In general, [when it comes to] my practice and my background, it’s a minimalist design approach. It’s about unique items. It’s not about chasing trends, and more about creating these bigger environments that are not a cookie-cutter thing. But, each home obviously has its own history and the client is another part of the determining factor of how things are going to work in the space. The way that I work, it’s almost like an art installation for me as well, because the other part of my background is fine arts. In addition to interior design, I’m a painter, photographer, sculptor, and product designer, so it’s kind of an overall play on visual aesthetics.
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G: Which came first? The fine arts or interior design? LM: Fine arts. I’ve been studying arts since I was very young in Europe. That was always my focus of education, and at one point when I moved to United States about 20 years ago, I started realizing that maybe fine arts are not necessarily the way to have a successful career in life right away. It’s a much more difficult process. I accidentally stumbled into interior design, and I enjoyed the process of it. I was self-taught. I’ve always worked for myself and that kind of became my meal ticket, so to speak. I started my company 18 years ago, and the rest is history. I’ve also been designing furniture, going back to my practice. I used to have a gallery in Paris at one point. So, it’s kind of been an exploration of all those visual aspects in everyday life. G: What would you say inspired the aesthetic of your home? LM: This home particularly is a summer house. It’s meant to be kind of like a beach shack, so to speak. But, the dictating point in the design of this home was to create it to make it feel very easy, laid-back, without making it feel like it’s a very pristine home. It needed to feel welcoming at the same time, not too precious. So, it’s a modernist bohème chic. We kind of joke that it was a loft on the water. G: What would you say is your favorite room in the house, and why? LM: I love, obviously, the main room, but the dining room and the living area are also two of my favorites. The house is in an area called Gerald Drive in East Hampton, which is this very skinny island, so you are surrounded by water on all sides. In the morning, you get the sunrise in the east coming in from one beach, and then the sun travels all the way through to the west, which is where the living room and dining area are. You get these incredible sunsets and it’s such a big part of what this house is. I love entertaining, so in every one of my homes — personally and
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Wall piece, special piece from Italian church.
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for clients — I always have very large dining tables. I think it’s very important for people to get around the table, and I think it’s a different experience of sharing time together when you are sharing a meal. The water itself is just so stunning to look at between the dining room and the living room, where I love making fires in the winter and just casually sitting on the floor, or lounging on the daybed that’s in there for reading, or just taking an afternoon nap. That room becomes the center of the house and that’s why the open concept for it was the key to making this the communal space. G: It does seem like a home that is meant to welcome the visitor, not just to be observed. LM: Yes. I actually love cooking, too. I love flavors. I figure out how to make things, and I love just entertaining people, but baking is the worst, it requires a measuring cup, and I like to kind of go by, “Okay, this is how it tastes. This is how it’s going to be.” Going back to the table, it’s actually one of my designs. I use it often in interior design. It’s a very simple minimalist table concept. This particular one is made out of pine, so it has this Nordic feel to it, but then I stain it with Japanese ink so that it has this really deep black saturation and extremely matte feeling and finish to it. So again, that table is not about being precious and worrying about smudging it or putting your coaster on it. It’s about this whole house is designed to be lived in, and there’s no intent whatsoever to use a coaster or to make it feel too precious. G: Do you find it harder or easier to design your own space compared to designing spaces for clients? LM: Well, the inside joke is that I am my worst client. As a creative, you’re exposed to so many different things, and you see so much that it is really hard to find the right things for the house. We see so much. I also travel a lot, and I collect a lot, so there are times when I go into my inventory and see that I have things that maybe wouldn’t
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work for the different house. But, the biggest client, I think, in general, in what I do, is the architecture, the house. The house itself dictates the direction that we’re going to go in, and this house obviously dictated the direction. I was very undecisive with certain things. In the living room, the two chairs facing the fireplace, I think I went through six or seven options until we landed on these chairs. Funny story about those chairs, actually: I bought those vintage Italian chairs, and I didn’t like the finish, so one afternoon, we thought, “Well, are we going to resand them and turn them black?” And, we ended up taking a blowtorch and charring the chairs black. With my personal homes in general, there is a plan; however, things change. With the bookcases there in the living room, they constantly get re-edited and moved around, and I bring in different pieces. So, sometimes certain parts become a revolving installation that changes around, because I might, in the winter, have a feel for these certain objects around me because they are more appropriate within the landscape of nature in the winter. And then, in the summertime, it might be changed around to something different that is more appropriate for a warmer climate. So, I would say all my homes in general are always a work in progress, and the joke is that they’re finished when I’m ready to move. G: Do you have a dream space or location that you would love to design or like to work in? LM: Yes. Actually, one of my favorite cities is Marrakesh. I love to spend as much time as possible in Marrakesh, and for me the big dream was always to have a riad in the Medina and just work with something that is a ruin, restore it, and kind of work with the ancient feeling that that city has. I think that it’s kind of a draw to me, too, because I love ancient civilizations. I love Japan for the reason of things being current that were [current] 1,000 years ago. It’s about the textures and things that are not perfect, but time has given them the patinas that cannot be duplicated.
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Sportmax jacket, sportmax.com; Pull&Bear necklace, pullandbear.com; earrings, stylist’s own.
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Experience a spring awakening in technicolor. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JELENA BALIC STYLING BY PETAR TRBOVIC HAIR BY MIJO MAJHEN MAKEUP BY SIMONA ANTONOVIC
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Zimmermann top, shorts, zimmermann.com.
Nataša Mihaljčišin top, scarf.
Pull&Bear necklace, pullandbear.com; earrings, necklace, stylist’s own.
Sportmax dress, sportmax.com; Dr. Martens boots, drmartens.com; hat, socks, stylist’s own.
Diesel jacket, shop.diesel.com; Nataša Mihaljčišin top, Zara skirt, zara.com.
Matija Vuica dress, matijavuica.com.
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& SHINE
Elton John’s starry shirt and red overall stage ensemble emblazoned with Swarovski crystals.
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BY HANNAH MILITANO PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF SWAROVSKI
Swarovski immortalizes its illustrious past while looking to the future with a new and mesmerizing Chamber of Wonder. The Art of Performance shines a spotlight on Swarovski’s significant contributions to the entertainment industry’s most iconic moments.
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hey’re covered in Swarovski crystals, girl,” declared Rihanna at the 2014 CFDA Fashion Awards. Clad in a shockingly sheer Adam Selman gown emblazoned with over 230,000 Swarovski crystals, the look has gone down in pop culture history — like so many other moments where Swarovski was front and center and sparkling. Adorning some of the most prolific creatives in the entertainment industry, Swarovski has been there through it all: Old Hollywood, the Olympics, music’s most epic performances, and even a Presidential scandal. Sprinkled throughout pop culture history, Swarovski’s pervasive impact is crystal clear. Looking to the future while simultaneously reveling in the past, Swarovski’s illustrious heritage is one worth celebrating. As pioneering creative director Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert breathes new life into the Austrian crystal company’s latest collections, Swarovski’s cultural director and curator of crystal worlds Carla Rumler has conceived the latest installment for Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds). A new and mesmerizing Chamber of Wonder, The Art of Performance shines a spotlight on Swarovski’s significant contributions to the entertainment industry’s most iconic moments. The immersive experience in Wattens, Austria, charts some of the most monumental pieces in pop culture — all emblazoned with Swarovski
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crystals, of course. Having called upon Academy Award production designer Derek McLane and fashion designer Michael Schmidt to complete her dream team, Carla Rumler told GRAZIA USA, “Swarovski has a long history and a long legacy in the world of entertainment, but who has those beautiful costumes? We had some in our archive but most of them were elsewhere. I needed to find someone who could curate these pieces. It took a long time, but I eventually found Michael Schmidt.” Indeed, Schmidt actually created some of the pieces in the collection. The creative is responsible for the metallic, cut-throat glove worn by Lady Gaga in her role as the Countess in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story — a fashion statement cum murder weapon composed of 11,000 Swarovski crystals with sterling silver lattice. Known for having dressed the likes of Madonna, Cher, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Dolly Parton, Janet Jackson, and more, Schmidt has landed his work on grand world tours, music videos, album covers, popular television series, and major motion pictures. His extensive background, immersed in the world of lavish entertainment, made Schmidt the perfect man for the job. Rumler met Schmidt in L.A. a few years back and asked him for his help in creating the new Wonder Chamber. Jumping on the opportunity, Schmidt and Rumler immediately
began working together, quickly realizing the challenges they would face. With many costumes in deteriorated conditions, the pair summoned the energy to push through and persevere. “We didn’t give up and he was wonderful,” said Rumler. “I love working with him. He has this passion for Swarovski; it’s incredible.” With the cultural director beginning to shape the idea in 2015, it took about three years to locate all the desired pieces. Then, although the exhibit was originally due to open in 2020 in conjunction with Swarovski’s 125th anniversary, the Wonder Chamber was postponed due to the onset of the novel coronavirus. As the global pandemic put a halt to many pending projects, Rumler found the international pause actually provided them with the time they needed to track down all of the desired pieces. “This idea has been in my mind forever. It was always growing,” Rumler said of the exhibit. “I guess you could say I got pregnant with it.” With so many of these pieces inextricably tied to landmark historical events, personal recollections are bound to be sparked by this luminescent walk down memory lane. For Rumler, it was “Marlene Dietrich with her suit. It was very provocative at that time that a lady had a suit, and we all remember this. All of us have these images programmed somewhere and it’s amazing that we now have these pieces here. People can have their own memories when they
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: One of 17 Chambers of Wonder, El Sol is designed by Swarovski collaborator Fernando Romero; Ready to Love is designed by Swarovski collaborator Manish Arora; Grace Jones’s Philip Treacy white satin bowler hat with Swarovski crystals in aurora borealis color (2009); The Giant at Swarovski’s Kristallwelten Wattens, created by multimedia artist André Heller to celebrate Swarovski’s hundredth anniversary in 1995; The Timeless collection encompasses Swarovski’s most pivotal moments since its inception; A replica by Michael Schmidt Studios of Katy Perry’s chandelier dress worn to the 2019 Met Gala by Jeremy Scott for Moschino; Eden is designed by the artistic duo Fredrikson Stallard: made up of Swarovski collaborators Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard.
Cher’s original Bob Mackie designed opening ensemble with golden wings worn during her shows at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, 2008.
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see it, and their own biographies.” Referring to the re-creation of Dietrich’s 1932 film Blonde Venus, the original white tuxedo with the crystal-emblazoned lapel marked Swarovski’s debut appearance on film. While the original garment no longer exists, the splash it made is responsible for the adoption of Swarovski crystals by iconic costume designers Edith Head and The Wizard of Oz wardrobe designer Adrian Adolph Greenberg. Their rubyred Swarovski-studded slippers, worn of course by Judy Garland, made cultural history in the 1939 cinematic masterpiece. Swarovski also collaborated with Academy Award-winning costume designer Sandy Powell for the 2015 Walt Disney live-action production of Cinderella starring Lily James, making it responsible for two of the most famous pairs of shoes in cinema history. The iconic pumps were made up of more than 200 facets, coated in a blue aurora borealis iridescent finish, and molded out of one solid piece of crystal. A harmonious blend of replicas and original pieces, the experiential presentation displays pieces you’ve probably known all your life, through a new, crystalized lens. Does, “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” ring a bell? Included in the illustrious array is a reproduction of Marilyn Monroe’s Swarovskiembroidered Jean Louis dress, which the star donned to serenade President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962. Although
the original gown was purchased by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in 2016, a respected collector of Monroe memorabilia reached out to the Wonder Chamber creators with an alternative. “The Marilyn Monroe dress came in accidentally,” Rumler remembered. “At the time, Ted Stampfer approached us and said, ‘I have a few items originally from Marilyn Monroe.’ I thought, Woah, what a coincidence. I asked Michael (Schmidt) what he thought, and we were impressed that he had such a collection. He did a show in Germany, and we went to see it. He had items that we wanted to integrate, so we got the replica of the dress and some original items, including the birthday invitation.” While Monroe and Nicole Kidman share the showtune “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in their respective places in Hollywood history, Kidman’s jazzy burlesque performance ensemble in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 jukebox romance Moulin Rouge! came courtesy of Swarovski crystals, not diamonds. With the film’s costume designers Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie taking home the Academy Award for Best Costume design for the effort, the silver and black Swarovski crystal-
bedazzled corset became a recognizable character in and of itself. Much like Kidman swung from the ceiling as Satine, the exhibit features theatrical creations suspended from the ceiling and even a shimmering mannequin leaping through the air, symbolizing the record-breaking Olympic gymnast, Simone Biles. Donning her crystal encrusted leotard, the standout piece is decorated with a small beaded goat on her hip, symbolizing the acronym for “Greatest of All Time.” Among the other floating confections, a recreation of Katy Perry’s show-stopping 2019 Met Gala ensemble by Moschino creative director Jeremy Scott hangs perhaps more appropriately than most, considering it was meant to evoke a chandelier. In accordance with the Gala’s theme Camp: Notes on Fashion, the pop star popped up in a dress with fully functioning light bulbs. Quite possibly the star of the show, however, is an original crystal-encrusted Michael Jackson Victory Tour glove that sits alongside one of his famed fedoras. “I was very touched about Michael Jackson’s glove, because we didn’t know
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until the end whether we could get the original one,” said Rumler. On loan from Jackson’s personal costume designer Michael Bush, the invaluable piece of pop history was a delightful surprise. “As a creative, utilizing Swarovski Crystal gives you infinite opportunities to express yourself. When you think about all the impactful moments throughout cultural history that Swarovski has been a part of, it’s truly incredible,” said Schmidt. “From Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Michael Jackson’s glove to Simone Biles’s attire when winning all her gold medals, these moments are all covered in Swarovski Crystal.” Rumler went on to add, “We all have these images in front of us when we think performers. Of course, I had Michael Jackson’s glove in mind from the beginning. I knew that everybody would know that. The glove and the Cinderella shoe were some of the first pieces I thought we’d have to include. The Cher dress had to be included as well, the incredible Bob Mackie. This was also something that came to mind immediately.” On loan from costume designer Mackie, the fantastical gold and crystal fringe ensemble and coordinating headdress depicts a feathered look from Cher’s epic Las Vegas residency. With the assortment’s balanced curation of sports, film, and music, icons like Cher and Michael Jackson are joined here by the likes of
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the ever-dazzling Elton John. Along with John’s rainbow crystalembroidered Rocket Man navy blazer is a pair of red crystalized overalls above a coordinating navy star emblazoned long sleeve top. Tony Award-winning set designer Dereck McLane, responsible for major Broadway productions and the opulent Oscars stages for five consecutive years crafted crystal-covered mannequin to pick up on the light exuded from these effervescent garments. The end result? “When I walked into the completed exhibit for the first time I thought, Wow. This is Hollywood. I am in the epicenter of Hollywood here. It was a feeling of elegance and glamour, and felt very light, in a way. I felt like I was on a cloud, and it was just beautiful,” Rumler recalled. Items worn by the likes of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Björk, Grace Jones, Lizzo, Mila Kunis, Selena Gomez, and Dita Von Teese and more have been included in the vast assemblage as well, detailing Swarovski’s incomparable star power. With 17 other Chambers of Wonder currently in rotation, Swarovski Kristallwelten was created in 1995 in celebration of the company’s hundredth anniversary. Called upon by the Swarovski family, Austrian multi-media artist André Heller helped to create an expansive attraction in Tyrol. Creating the imaginative narrative that
Swarovski was a metaphorical protective giant in the mountains, Heller shaped a piece of landscape architecture with that inspiration in mind. Dubbed the realm of the Giant, it now looks out across the park and its treasures. According to Rumler, Swarovski’s realm of the Giant quickly became the second-most-visited place in Austria. With her position as the curator of crystal worlds, Carla Rumler is now in the middle of the formative process. “I started back with André Heller in the beginning collaborations with him. I’m very honored to develop this further because this is a very important heritage, and we have to be very sensitive with it. Now we have our latest Wonder Chamber and I’m really proud of that- I’m actually proud of all the wonder chambers. They’re all my babies.” Calling Yayoi Kusama’s Chandelier of Greif “a world star,” Rumler finds the collaboration to be a “perfect fit for Swarovski.” While the Art of Performance will be on display for the next seven years, the curator of crystal worlds plans to keep the Wonder Chamber fresh and exciting throughout its duration. “I love this Wonder Chamber because it will be in constant evolution. Lots of pieces are on loan, so when we give them back, we have to find other pieces. It’s very exciting. It will be always fresh and new,” Rumler explains. “And who knows! I have some new pieces in mind, but we’ll see.”
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Carousel in the Garden of the Giant at Swarovski’s Kristallwelten Created by Designer Jaime Hayon, Carla Rumler and Michael Schmidt, Cinderella’s glass slipper from the 2015 Walt Disney film starring Lily James, created in collaboration with costume designer Sandy Powell, One of 17 Chambers of Wonder Ready to Love is designed by Swarovski collaborator Manish Arora, The killer glove worn by Lady Gaga in American Horror Story: Hotel in 2015 designed by Michael Schmidtcourtesy of FX Networks and Ryan Murphy Productions, Swarovski’s new immersive Chamber of Wonder Art of Performance chronicling the brand’s impressive history in the world of entertainment, Included within the 17 Chambers of Wonder the Timeless collection encompasses Swarovski’s most pivotal moments since its inception.
Michael Jackson’s original white glove with Swarovski crystals and fedora hat courtesy of Jackson’s longtime designer Michael Bush.
‘I WAS VERY TOUCHED ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON’S GLOVE, BECAUSE WE DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL THE END WHETHER WE COULD GET THE ORIGINAL ONE.’
Elton John’s original “Rocket Man” jacket with Swarovski crystals, 2016 by Keith Gregory and Mr. Alex, courtesy of the “Collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish”.
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As Swarovski looks back on its ubiquitous Hollywood-adjacent heritage, Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert is looking to the future. The first company-wide creative director in the brand’s history, Battaglia Engelbert told GRAZIA USA the development was a “natural evolution” and “the perfect storm.” Having been appointed in mid-2020 amid the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, Battaglia Engelbert shares Rumler’s perspective that the lockdown may have inadvertently helped move the process along: “Things were quite crazy, but we actually moved 10 times faster than we would normally.” Stylist, editor, street style maven, and now creative director of Swarovski, Battaglia Engelbert has worn many hats in the fashion industry. “It’s my past experiences that all contribute to what I’m doing now,” she said. “All my different hats, the common thread is that they’re all creative disciplines. Everything was a preparatory study for what I’m doing now. It’s a fulfillment of everything I’ve done before.” Musing over what originally lured Swarovski creative director Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert to the field of fashion, she credited her native city of Milan. “I was born and raised in fashion because I was born in the center of Milano,” she said. A mecca of the fashion industry, Milan afforded her a glimpse into the flashy lifestyles within. “I was a teenager when the
‘WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THE IMPACTFUL MOMENTS THROUGHOUT CULTURAL HISTORY THAT SWAROVSKI HAS BEEN A PART OF, IT’S TRULY INCREDIBLE.’ 1990s were exploding in the city. When I was 13, I remember waiting outside of Versace shows just to look at the people going in, like Madonna and Elton John. Those shows were like concerts.” “I thought, One day, maybe I’ll be able to go inside the show. The models, Linda, Cindy, and Naomi, those girls made me want to work in fashion,” recalled Battaglia Engelbert. After growing up with parents that were artists, Battaglia Engelbert went on to study art as well. Implementing those tendencies towards crystal production now, Battaglia Engelbert places the meticulous use of color and geometry at center stage in her design process. Citing the
works of artists Kenneth Noland and Josef Albers as inspiration, Battaglia Engelbert’s exuberant expression and fun-loving aesthetic have found a home in Swarovski’s jewelry. “Crystals allow you to express yourself in this way, which is a lot of fun. Even though I adore fine jewelry, I just it just a bit stiffer, and a little bit harder to play with,” she says. At Swarovski, though, “It’s really like working with candy sometimes.” Featuring unexpected shapes, statement pieces, and colors that scan the whole rainbow, Battaglia Engelbert’s collections I, II and the UNA assortment have all been met with a tremendous amount of adoration. “It’s been quite a wild ride,” noted Battaglia Engelbert. “It’s been very exciting to see how people were ready for change and excited for a new chapter of Swarovski.” Hoping to exude a more accessible energy at Swarovski, Battaglia Engelbert has big dreams for the state of the jewelry industry. “I’m making sure that our product is visible and understood by everyone- that it’s done in a way that is accessible to everyone. My dream is to democratize the jewelry world, where jewelry is an expression of who you are, it’s not an expression of your wallet. The attitude is that it’s about who you are, not what you have.” And, how the right dose of sparkle can turn you into someone else entirely — maybe even a cultural icon.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMRE GÜVEN STYLING BY SELIN BURSALIOGLU HAIR BY SIBEL TEKIN
An American staple in Paris brings a touch of laidback cool to French girl chic.
LE BLUE-JEAN MAKEUP BY YANN BOUSSAND LARCHER
Guess Jeans denim jacket, jeans, guess,com; Mugler top, mugler.com; Prada shoes, prada.com.
H&M Studio jacket, hm.com; Blumarine denim dress, blumarine.com.
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Piombo in OVS denim jacket, ovsfashion.com; Miu Miu sweater, skirt, belt, loafers, miumiu.com; Calzedonia socks, calzedonia.com.
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Vicolo denim jacket, vicolo. com; Roberto Cavalli jeans, robertocavalli.com; Jimmy Choo sandals, jimmychoo.com.
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Acne Studios blouse, sandals, acnestudios.com; Cigala’s jeans, cigalas.it.
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Manila Grace denim shirt, manilagrace.com; Dsquared2 denim bodysuit, denim skirt, dsquared2.com; Diesel boots, diesel.com.
Chiara Boni jacket, shirt, pants, price upon request, us.chiaraboni.com.
Balenciaga sweatshirt, jeans, belt, sneakers, balenciaga.com.
Louis Vuitton denim jacket, trousers, sunglasses, louisvuitton. com.
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Kiabi jacket, kiabi.ae; Dior overalls, foundation, dior.com.
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Molly Bracken denim jacket, mollybracken.com; Valentino shirt, jeans, valentino.com.
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Versace denim jacket, sweater, foulard, versace.com; Yes Zee shorts, yeszee.it; Miu Miu sandals, miumiu.com.
CHANEL blouse, trousers, shoes, chanel.com.
PARCHED Bold prints, delightful details, and saturated hues are sating our thirst for the new.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCESCO SCOTTIEL STYLING BY ASEHER KHAN HAIR BY JEAN LUC AMARIN MAKEUP BY JEAN LUC AMARIN
Dsquared2 jacket, vest, trousers, sandals, dsquared2.com.
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GRAZIA USA
Moschino bag, moschino.com.
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Elisabetta Franchi shirt, trousers, hat, elisabettafranchi.com.
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Valentino Garavani bag, valentino.com.
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Valentino dress, Valentino Garavani sandals, valentino.com.
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Emporio Armani vest, trousers, shoes, armani.com.
Miu Miu coat, shirt, pleated skirt, loafers, miumiu.com.
Dolce & Gabbana dress, dolcegabbana.com.
Max Mara coat, pants, maxmara.com.
SPRING 2022
ONE MORE THING... “Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.” — Desmond Tutu. Fashion luminaries share the lights of their lives with GRAZIA USA. AS TOLD TO TY GASKINS ILLUSTRATION BY PETER OUMANSKI
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG DESIGNER
BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AND DO THE BEST YOU CAN. LOOK FOR THE LIGHT. GROW THE LIGHT. SHARE THE LIGHT. IT’S THE LIGHT THAT PUSHES THE DARKNESS AWAY LUKE MEAGHER (@HAUTELEMODE) FASHION COMMENTATOR
I would say I’m excited about quite a bit. The ability to actually converse more openly about fashion’s issues is one; the slow but hopefully growing pivot to include a diverse range of bodies on the runway and in campaigns [is another], and even pushes for fabric circularity and access through a range of fashion businesses. But, I feel the most hopeful when I hear younger fashion businesses discuss their lack of desire to grow into conglomerated behemoths, from Christopher John Rogers to Peter Do to Chopova Lowena. This idea of scaling a fashion business to astronomical heights and forgoing quality in order to create vast quantities has lost the plot of what fashion is about. It’s not about branding everything under the sun, but about well-made clothing and product. These young businesses recognize that and want to keep their worlds smaller and more community-based, which is lovely to see. EDWARD BARSAMIAN CREATIVE CONSULTANT
Seeing what comes out of this shared, collective experience — the pandemic — gives me hope. It’s been a period of reflection for many, and the results — from art and music to fashion and film — have been inspired. On a more fun note, I’m really hopeful for more travel. I miss the ability to hop on a plane to Europe on a random weekday.” NILI LOTAN DESIGNER
BACH MAI AMERICAN COUTURIER
WHAT MAKES ME HOPEFUL FOR THE FUTURE IS THE FASHION INDUSTRY’S GROWING OPENNESS TO CHANGE — WHETHER THIS IS IN REGARD TO RETHINKING MODES OF FUNCTIONING AND THE SYSTEM AT LARGE, THE ONGOING AND IMPORTANT DISCUSSION REGARDING INCLUSIVITY, OR EVEN THE AMAZING INNOVATIONS I AM SEEING IN THE TEXTILE SECTOR, PARTICULARLY WITH REGARDS TO SUSTAINABILITY. THE FASHION INDUSTRY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE HARBINGER OF CHANGE, SO IT GIVES ME GREAT HOPE THAT WE ARE REIMAGINING EVEN SOME OF OUR MOST DEEPLY INGRAINED CONVENTIONS IN ORDER TO FORGE A BETTER PATH TOWARDS THE FUTURE.
Despite these challenging times, I am as hopeful as I’ve ever been. I believe that the past two years have helped so many of us put our priorities in place and check in with regards to all parts of our lives. I’m looking forward to seeing my children move forward successfully with their lives and their talents. I’m looking forward to many family gatherings, trips, happy occasions, and to spending time with my four-month-old granddaughter. I’m looking forward to seeing my business grow, and to reaching so many more women. 352
RAJNI JACQUES GLOBAL HEAD OF FASHION & BEAUTY, SNA
FINDING HOPE AND DELIGHT AMONGST THE CHAOTIC — AND LATELY, OFTEN MELANCHOLY — ENVIRONMENT WE LIVE AND WORK IN AT THE MOMENT, HAS BEEN MY MOTIVATION. TAKING THE TIME TO CONNECT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE IS THE KEY TO MAKING SURE YOU STAY HAPPY. FAMILY AND CHOSEN FAMILY IS ESSENTIAL TO MY POSITIVITY IN THE WORLD.
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