14 minute read
FASHION
T I M E
IS A COMMODITY
NEWLY RESIGNED GREEN BAY PACKERS QB AND REIGNING NFL MVP AARON RODGERS IS TIME TALKING.
BY LAURA SCHREFFLER PHOTOGRAPHY RANDALL SLAVIN STYLING MONTY JACKSON HAIR CHRISTIAN MARC GROOMING JENNA NELSON
SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE MALIBU BEACH INN, MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
REIGNING NFL MVP AARON RODGERS HAS NEWLY resigned with his team of 16 years, the Green Bay Packers, after a summer where his football fate hung in the balance. We caught up with the philosophical 37-year-old Zenith ambassador in Malibu while he was still figuring out his fate to talk fashion, passion and, of course, time.
Haute Living: Have you always had a thing for watches?
Aaron Rodgers: Growing up, because we didn’t have any money, I didn’t really have a watch. So when I got drafted, I bought this silly diamond bedazzled watch, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I still have it, and it still means a lot to me just because of the nostalgia associated with buying it. But I have always enjoyed wearing watches. I think there’s something classy about still rocking a wristwatch.
HL: What is your first watch memory growing up?
AR: I always wanted a calculator watch. I remember watching a movie and thinking, Man, one day I’m gonna get a watch that has a calculator on it. That was the coolest thing ever.
HL: How would you describe your style? Would you say it’s old-school?
AR: I think so. My game is old-school. I don’t wear a mouthpiece; I wear a single strap, a paper-thin chin strap. The way I dress in my uniform is very kind of classic. I feel like there’s something to be said for that old-school mentality, old=school toughness, and that’s how I’ve always tried to play the game. With fashion, I’ve always loved different eras for different reasons, especially the ’50s and ’60s, the way people dressed back then with suits and top hats. I don’t dress up all the time, but when I do, I do it right.
HL: Did you ever think you were born in the wrong era?
AR: Wrong environment, wrong era — definitely. I’ve been a lover of history since I was really young. I studied it in college and probably lived through those eras in other lifetimes. I do love the simplicity and the class of some of those eras. John F. Kennedy is the perfect example: you don’t have to be in the fashion business to see the way he changed how suits were worn in the ’60s.
HL: Do you share your style tips with your teammates?
AR: No, not at all. I mean, I’ve got teammates who are rocking fanny packs at the waist and over the shoulder. I want to tell them, “You may be wearing it over your shoulder, but a fanny pack is still a fanny pack It may say Gucci on it, but that doesn’t mean it’s fashionable.”
HL: Would you say that time is a construct?
AR: Time is a construct for sure. The passing of time is an incredible marker for me to think back to what I was doing a year ago on a certain day. To look at the ocean and look at the growth and the change that has happened positively and experientially. Time is [also] a commodity. I heard this guy give a toast one time, and he said that. He talked about how the greatest currency in the world today is actually not money, it’s time, and we all have a certain amount of currency to spend. So spend it with the people who truly make your life better, the people you care about and who truly breathe life into you. I really, truly believe that that’s the most important currency that we have, because we get to choose who we want to spend our precious time with.
HL: Speaking of time, what do you hope the next year will bring?
AR: I think I’m pretty surrendered at this point. As I look back on the last year in my life, I wanted to be in this position, but when you’re in that specific moment, it’s hard to see how it’s all going to play out. You have a desired destination for a year from now, or maybe a hope. And the beauty is looking back and seeing the choices that were made and the synchronicities that happened. The divine appointments, divine timing. It teaches you to surrender to the universe, but also to heighten your awareness and your intuition. There’s life happening all around you at all times, and it’s on you to try and find ways of tapping into those moments and not pass them off as coincidences. I think we lose the awe and the beauty in life when we don’t realize that things do happen divinely.
MODERN MASTERPIECES
For the fall-winter 2021 collection, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, collaborated with renowned Italian artistic design atelier Fornasetti—further revealing the maison’s mission to blend the worlds of fashion and art. “With this collaboration, I wanted to use the pieces to evoke the continuing modernity of Fornasetti’s artistic world,” says Ghesquiere. “Fornasetti’s enduring body of work is the realization of a remarkable hand-drawn technique and magical take on the world, and I am particularly drawn to the way Fornasetti reexplored and reworked the heritage of classicism and ancient Rome, adding new references to historical imagery.” The collection is comprised of clothing and accessories that draw upon specific Fornasetti themes and artworks selected by Ghesquiere and artistic director Barnaba Fornasetti, such as the Cannes bag in the Fornasetti black-and-white architectural drawing reminiscent of the Renaissanceera Florence Baptistery, as well as velvet dresses and shimmery printed jersey tops featuring Fornasetti drawings of ancient statues overlaid on high-tech thermal-camera imagery. Ghesquiere’s contemporary eye and Fornasetti’s magical depiction of the world come together in this collection to create true modern masterpieces.
CREATIVE AND FASHION DIRECTOR: ADRIENNE FAUROTE PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK SQUIRES STLYING: DAVIAN LAIN HAIR STYLIST: JEROME CULTRERA L’ATELIER NYC USING LIVING PROOF MAKEUP ARTIST: MARK EDIO AT SEE MANAGEMENT USING DIOR BEAUTY MODELS: GÜNCE GÖZÜTOK AT FUSION MODELS AND
TATIA AKHALAIA AT MUSE MANAGEMENT
PHOTO ASSISTANT: DUNCAN MELLOR FASHION ASSISTANT: ALEXANDER WILLIAMS SHOT ON LOCATION AT FLOYD BENNETT FIELD IN NEW YORK ALL CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES BY LOUIS VUITTON WOMEN’S FALL-WINTER 2021
WORKS OF ART
LOUIS VUITTON HAS INVITED SIX MORE INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED ARTISTS TO JOIN ITS ARTYCAPUCINES COLLECTION. HAUTE LIVING TOOK AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT EACH UNIQUE INTERPRETATION OF THE CLASSIC CAPUCINES BAG.
BY ADRIENNE FAUROTE PHOTOS COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON
A luxury maison dedicated to fostering its relationship with the art world for nearly a century, Louis Vuitton continually commissions leading contemporary artists to bring their creative expression to its iconic pieces, to catapult the design beyond fashion. The brand has entered the third chapter of its limited-edition, artist-designed Artycapucines Collection, designed to provide artists with the distinctive Capucines design and silhouette as a blank canvas. For the 2021 collection, Louis Vuitton partnered with six renowned artists — Zeng Fanzhi, Paola Pivi, Gregor Hildebrandt, Donna Huanca, Huang Yuxing and Vik Muniz — who reimagined the bag, fusing the beauty of their artistic background with the maison’s unparalleled craftsmanship. Like the previous collections by celebrated artists including Henry Taylor, Beatriz Milhazes, Urs Fischer, Zhao Zhao, JeanMichel Othoniel and Tschabalala Self, the third Artycapucines Collection captures the innovative Louis Vuitton spirit. Each artist’s intricate technique and creative process blends with the brand’s artisanal expertise, resulting in incredible works of art.
Contemporary Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi brought a Van Gogh self-portrait to life with more than 700,000 remarkably worked embroidery stitches. Zeng’s works have been revered for demonstrating intuitive psychological sense through meticulous expressionistic techniques. “I’ve been painting all my life; it’s the one thing I’ve always been good at,” he says. “I don’t think I ever thought twice about becoming an artist.” “The whole process was nourished by my experience of visual observation,” Zeng continues. “The Louis Vuitton artisans then added an extra layer to the process by developing their application of the work onto the bag’s surface, which reflects the texture of the original work really well.”
Italian multimedia artist Paola Pivi explored the complex leather marquetry and rich goldleaf gilding in her Capucines creation, creating a sophisticated and thought-provoking piece. “Working with specialists is part of all my work,” she says. “I’ve developed skills for doing that successfully, sticking to my original idea while gaining the input from another person to the advantage of the final work. So working with the Louis Vuitton experts was extremely pleasurable. They challenged themselves; nothing they did was easy. It required their maximum skills. They got really attracted to the graphic techniques that would replicate the image on the bag’s surface: the cups inserted by marquetry onto the bag, gold leaf applied where the cappuccino would be and the leopard rendered in a very special embroidery.” Pivi adds, “I am totally happy because I’ve been so involved in the creation of the bag with the Louis Vuitton team. My art has been protected because of the quality of the entire operation, and wherever the bag might go, I think it will feel sophisticated. Plus, it looks like the kind of bag that elicits conversation.”
German artist Gregor Hildebrandt took great inspiration from music, ultimately creating a stunning black-and-white design with screenprinted leather and inlaying the LV signature with vinyl records. “I studied art in Mainz and then moved to Berlin in the mid-1990s, and around this time I started thinking about how to integrate music physically into my painting work,” he explains. “The Einstürzende Neubauten song ‘Falsch Geld’ [‘Fake Money’] perfectly encapsulated what I wanted to say, so I took the physical audio cassette tape of the song and glued it into my drawing book. This metamorphosis of bringing music into painting led me to start working with different types of analogue audio and visual materials, such as vinyl and VHS tape, which I incorporate into paintings and installation works. I have always been interested in motifs, logos and patterns, and this merging of music and the Louis Vuitton signature feels like a new technique.”
Working with various textiles to create purposeful, tactile works of art is how Donna Huanca authentically expresses her vision. Her Capucines bag is designed with handpainted embroidery and piercing rings in a range of textured blue shades. “This Capucines bag is based on a work that incorporates collage from body paintings that were part of my Piedra Quemada performance and installation at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna,” she says. “My work is rooted in collage — I assemble materials, images, colors and textures in paintings, sculptures and installations, as well as in sound and scent works. Likewise, this bag is a collage of past works, as well as sensations of texture that resurface in my works. Working at the relatively small scale of a bag reminds me of the body paintings that inspire all my painting. Painting on [the] skin is very freeing, as an ephemeral, interactive and affective site for expression. My instinct was to project my work onto this special Capucines bag using Louis Vuitton’s incredible savoir faire to create vibrant colors, unique textures and unexpected surfaces that are the vocabulary of my work.”
Huang Yuxing is recognized for his ability to create pieces that preserve the evolution of the artistic process through vibrant brushstrokes. His Capucines creation is beautifully embroidered and brilliantly colored, in true Huang fashion. “This bag was inspired by Images Hidden in the Hills, a series of painting works on the theme of mountains that I have been working on for the past five years,” he reveals. “I was keen to transfer my personal vision, my current style, my signature artistic symbols, and my sense of color and line from the canvas to the bag.” “It is both interesting and challenging for me to think that different people around the world will be carrying this bag around in different spaces,” he adds. “The bag will accompany different conversations and different everyday activities rather than simply remaining static in an exhibition.”
Brazilian artist and photographer Vik Muniz was initially a sculptor, which is often reflected in his work. For this collaboration he incorporated his characteristically joyful design, with its effervescent trompe l’oeil effects and playful aesthetic. “I loved connecting with Louis Vuitton’s experts,” Muniz says. “When I see the bag, I can tell that so much skill and attention was put into its creation. The fact that Louis Vuitton trusted me to do something with my work and I trusted them to take that work and transform it into a beautiful bag resonates with the values in my work. The challenge for me was figuring out how to make the bag work, navigating all the decisions about form and configuration and technique and finish.” He adds, “The destiny of any artwork is always beyond your control, and I’m happy with that. Handbags are like little sculptures, and the Artycapucines project is like a series of little pictures framed within bags that you can take anywhere with you.”
THROUGH THESE INTIMATE ARTIST COLLABORATIONS, LOUIS VUITTON’S CAPUCINES BAG CONTINUES TO REINVENT ITSELF WHILE PRESERVING ITS TIMELESS ELEGANCE — AND THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF ART. EACH BAG IN THE THIRD ARTYCAPUCINES COLLECTION WILL BE AVAILABLE IN A LIMITED EDITION OF 200, RELEASED IN STORES WORLDWIDE AT THE END OF OCTOBER 2021.
eternally gucci
This year marks the centennial of the iconic Italian luxury fashion house. For creative director Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s long history cannot be contained within a single inaugural act. “In my work, I caress the roots of the past to create unexpected inflorescences, carving the matter through grafting and pruning,” he says. “I appeal to such abilities to reinhabit what has already been given. And to the blending, the transitions, the fractures, the concatenations.” To celebrate the brand’s monumental milestone, the Aria collection for fall/winter 2021 reimagines the famous Bamboo Bag in a range of styles, as well as presenting a new collection of contemporary gender-neutral jewelry, Link to Love. Together — photographed at Manhattan’s Beekman Hotel — these handbags and fine jewelry embody the timelessness of the house and the beloved design heritage that is eternally Gucci.
CREATIVE AND FASHION DIRECTOR CREATIVE AND FASHION DIRECTOR ADRIENNE FAUROTE ADRIENNE FAUROTE PHOTOGRAPHER PHOTOGRAPHER JEFFREY WESTBROOK JEFFREY WESTBROOK STYLING STYLING LIZ SERWIN, REPRESENTED BY JUDY CASEY LIZ SERWIN, REPRESENTED BY JUDY CASEY PHOTO ASSISTANT PHOTO ASSISTANT SETH ABEL SETH ABEL SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE BEEKMAN HOTEL IN NEW YORK CITY SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE BEEKMAN HOTEL IN NEW YORK CITY
