Nº 17 | SPRING 2021
SPRING 2021
$5.99 | LOFFICIELUSA.COM
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8 0 0 .9 2 9. D I O R ( 3 4 67 ) D I O R . C O M
8 0 0 .9 2 9. D I O R ( 3 4 67 ) D I O R . C O M
8 0 0 .9 2 9. D I O R ( 3 4 67 ) D I O R . C O M
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TOMFORD.COM
B:11.2687"
S:9.875"
T:10.875"
SIENNA MILLER PHOTOGRAPHED BY TOM MUNRO AND STYLED BY CATHY KASTERINE MAKEUP: Wendy
Rowe HAIR: Earl Simms HERMÈS ABOVE—Jacket, skirt, shoes, earrings, and belt CHANEL ON THE COVER—Shirt
Volume 4, Number 17 | lofficielusa.com | L’OFFICIEL USA | Lever House 390 Park Ave New York, NY 10022
TOMFORD.COM
B:11.2687"
S:9.875"
T:10.875"
SIENNA MILLER PHOTOGRAPHED BY TOM MUNRO AND STYLED BY CATHY KASTERINE MAKEUP: Wendy
Rowe HAIR: Earl Simms HERMÈS ABOVE—Jacket, skirt, shoes, earrings, and belt CHANEL ON THE COVER—Shirt
Volume 4, Number 17 | lofficielusa.com | L’OFFICIEL USA | Lever House 390 Park Ave New York, NY 10022
READY-MADE IN FRANCE BY Laure Ambroise PHOTOGRAPHY BY
14
Pierre-Ange Carlotti
Emma Reynaud’s eco-conscious label Marcia has become a leader in Parisian upcycling.
RE:SET
Corey Olsen STYLED BY Dora Fung PHOTOGRAPHY BY
116
Must-have handbags find themselves in new contexts.
JEAN THEORY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alberto Tandoi STYLED BY
40
Giulio Martinelli
Today’s denim is a throwback to ’90s style.
FICTION AND REALITY Fabia di Drusco PHOTOGRAPHY BY Gianmarco Chieregato BY
48
Italian actress Linda Caridi takes on tough roles to heal herself and her audience alike.
RE:BIRTH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alberto
Maria Colombo STYLED BY Fabrizio Finizza
BY Hannah Amini
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Olivia
Spring has sprung. Bright pastels and whimsical flower patterns are everywhere.
20
RED ALERT Malone
BY Joshua
30
BY Sabrina Abbas
66
SEARCHING TIME
Sam Visser finds new meanings in the many shades of Rouge Dior.
WILD ROSE
126
Glass
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Tom
Munro STYLED BY Kathy Casterine
LA PARISIENNE ACCORDING TO MADAME D’ORA
BY Piper
McDonald and Tori Nergaard
138
The groundbreaking photographer brought an uncompromising female gaze to a male-dominated field.
Sienna Miller and Twiggy discuss their origins and why our pasts have never felt so contemporary.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY David
Newton Cartier’s latest collection of fragrance sees the rose in new lights.
82
THE DREAMER LOST AT THE ARTS & CRAFTS TABLE BY Kat
Herriman
52
Craft’s recent pop culture revival opens important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery.
BY Cristina
Manfredi PHOTOGRAPHY BY Simone Battistoni
Tod’s creative director Walter Chiapponi aims to make fashion aspirational again.
88
RE:WIND
A fashion portfolio in which current collections are re-styled in unexpected ways.
BUILDING BLOCKS
BY Nathalie
Nort
142
Interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch’s latest mission is a furniture line of his own.
HOME SLICK PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jacques STYLED BY Paulina
Burga
148
Castro
Draw your inspiration from Slick Woods and claim your space in style.
90
RE:MIX
Guendalina Fiore STYLED BY Vanessa Seward PHOTOGRAPHY BY
BY Virginie Apiou
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Stella
RE:CLAIM
32
Jon Ervin STYLED BY Gabrielle Marceca PHOTOGRAPHY BY
This season’s most fascinating combinations cleverly mix fresh pieces with classic vintage.
Berkofsky
The Celine muse wrote, directed, and stars her own Cannes Film Festival-selected film.
FORCE OF NATURE BY Laure Ambroise
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Noel
Manalili
Kenzo Artistic Director Felipe Oliveira Baptista’s pieces play with prints with a vibrant freedom.
36
TÊTE-À-TÊTE
Greg Lotus STYLED BY Arnold Milfort PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Supermodels Brooke Shields and Helena Christensen reflect on their glory days and enduring friendship.
58
BY Audrey Wollen PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Shake up your personal style with a few of your closet’s beloved classics.
SUZANNE LINDON SEES HERSELF
WINDOW SHOPPING IN DISGUISE
104
156
Roeg Cohen
Spanish artist Amalia Ulman makes the leap to the big screen with her Sundance debut, El Planeta.
L’LOOK BACK BY Piper
McDonald and Tori Nergaard
Over the past century, silver has been a bold standard-bearer of the new and revolutionary.
160
READY-MADE IN FRANCE BY Laure Ambroise PHOTOGRAPHY BY
14
Pierre-Ange Carlotti
Emma Reynaud’s eco-conscious label Marcia has become a leader in Parisian upcycling.
RE:SET
Corey Olsen STYLED BY Dora Fung PHOTOGRAPHY BY
116
Must-have handbags find themselves in new contexts.
JEAN THEORY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alberto Tandoi STYLED BY
40
Giulio Martinelli
Today’s denim is a throwback to ’90s style.
FICTION AND REALITY Fabia di Drusco PHOTOGRAPHY BY Gianmarco Chieregato BY
48
Italian actress Linda Caridi takes on tough roles to heal herself and her audience alike.
RE:BIRTH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alberto
Maria Colombo STYLED BY Fabrizio Finizza
BY Hannah Amini
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Olivia
Spring has sprung. Bright pastels and whimsical flower patterns are everywhere.
20
RED ALERT Malone
BY Joshua
30
BY Sabrina Abbas
66
SEARCHING TIME
Sam Visser finds new meanings in the many shades of Rouge Dior.
WILD ROSE
126
Glass
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Tom
Munro STYLED BY Kathy Casterine
LA PARISIENNE ACCORDING TO MADAME D’ORA
BY Piper
McDonald and Tori Nergaard
138
The groundbreaking photographer brought an uncompromising female gaze to a male-dominated field.
Sienna Miller and Twiggy discuss their origins and why our pasts have never felt so contemporary.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY David
Newton Cartier’s latest collection of fragrance sees the rose in new lights.
82
THE DREAMER LOST AT THE ARTS & CRAFTS TABLE BY Kat
Herriman
52
Craft’s recent pop culture revival opens important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery.
BY Cristina
Manfredi PHOTOGRAPHY BY Simone Battistoni
Tod’s creative director Walter Chiapponi aims to make fashion aspirational again.
88
RE:WIND
A fashion portfolio in which current collections are re-styled in unexpected ways.
BUILDING BLOCKS
BY Nathalie
Nort
142
Interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch’s latest mission is a furniture line of his own.
HOME SLICK PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jacques STYLED BY Paulina
Burga
148
Castro
Draw your inspiration from Slick Woods and claim your space in style.
90
RE:MIX
Guendalina Fiore STYLED BY Vanessa Seward PHOTOGRAPHY BY
BY Virginie Apiou
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Stella
RE:CLAIM
32
Jon Ervin STYLED BY Gabrielle Marceca PHOTOGRAPHY BY
This season’s most fascinating combinations cleverly mix fresh pieces with classic vintage.
Berkofsky
The Celine muse wrote, directed, and stars her own Cannes Film Festival-selected film.
FORCE OF NATURE BY Laure Ambroise
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Noel
Manalili
Kenzo Artistic Director Felipe Oliveira Baptista’s pieces play with prints with a vibrant freedom.
36
TÊTE-À-TÊTE
Greg Lotus STYLED BY Arnold Milfort PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Supermodels Brooke Shields and Helena Christensen reflect on their glory days and enduring friendship.
58
BY Audrey Wollen PHOTOGRAPHY BY
Shake up your personal style with a few of your closet’s beloved classics.
SUZANNE LINDON SEES HERSELF
WINDOW SHOPPING IN DISGUISE
104
156
Roeg Cohen
Spanish artist Amalia Ulman makes the leap to the big screen with her Sundance debut, El Planeta.
L’LOOK BACK BY Piper
McDonald and Tori Nergaard
Over the past century, silver has been a bold standard-bearer of the new and revolutionary.
160
PUBLISHERS
Marie-José Susskind-Jalou, Maxime Jalou CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
CHAIRMAN
Benjamin Eymère
GLOBAL CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
CHRISTOPHER BROWN
Anthony Cenname
GLOBAL DEPUTY CEO
GLOBAL DIGITAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
CONSULTING GLOBAL CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER
GLOBAL HEAD OF CONTENT PROJECTS AND FASHION INITIATIVES
Maria Cecilia Andretta
Joshua Glass
Stefano Tonchi
Caroline Grosso
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
GIAMPIETRO BAUDO BOOKINGS EDITOR
CASTING DIRECTOR
Joshua Glasgow
FASHION FEATURES EDITOR
Jennifer Eymere
MARKETING MANAGER
SENIOR EDITOR
Sara Ali
Laure Ambroise
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Sabrina Abbas
ART DIRECTION
Sophie Shaw
Giulia Gilebbi
INTERNS
Carmenlucia Acosta, Jennifer Bindman, Alice Cavallo, Alexa Dark, Mina Dragani, Robbie Gutman, Greta Jelen, Tamara Jiji, Irene Kim, Johnny Rabe, Siena Stern
CONTRIBUTORS CREATIVE DIRECTOR
TREY LAIRD
CONSULTING EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR
DESIGN DIRECTOR
Regan Solmo
PHOTOGRAPHY
Simone Battistoni, Jacques Burga, Pierre-Ange Carlotti, Roeg Cohen, Alberto Maria Colombo, Jules Faure, Guendalina Fiore, Greg Lotus, Olivia Malone, Tom Munro, David Newton, Corey Olsen
ART EDITOR
Michael Riso
PRODUCTION
Dana Brockman, Lauren Tabach-Bank
Kat Herriman FASHION
Paulina Castro, Fabrizio Finizza, Gabrielle Marceca, Giulio Martinelli, Arnold Milfort, Rebecca Ramsey, Vanessa Seward
FEATURES
Hannah Amini, Piper McDonald, Tori Nergaard, Nathalie Nort
In this Issue
Sam VISSER
Cathy KASTERINE
Jon ERVIN
An Urban Oasis on the Sunset Strip. Dora FUNG
“Red Alert”
“Searching Time”
STYLIST
PHOTOGRAPHER
“Re:Claim”
“Re:Set”
“Olivia Malone and I created a world of glamour met with masculinity for a lip story showcasing Dior’s new Rouge Dior collection.”
“We wanted to capture all sides of Sienna Miller in this story—a more playful moment to something more full-on fashion. But always joyful, brilliant, and engaging.”
“We mixed old and new, not only with fashion but with different avenues of visual representations to help bring this narrative of a modern archive to life.”
“I was excited to play with all the stunning new bags from the Spring/ Summer 2021 collection for this story with Corey Olsen.”
MAKEUP ARTIST
STYLIST
Audrey WOLLEN
Introducing Pendry Residences West Hollywood, a new luxury offering by Montage—California’s most desirable address. A limited collection of two- and three-bedroom Residences from $3M - $30M.
WRITER
“Window Shopping in Disguise”
Call for pricing and availability 310-849-0202 | PENDRYRESIDENCESWEHO.COM
“There’s always more to say about money, mothers, cities, sex, work, and loss, and Amalia Ulman’s work says it in elegant, unexpected ways.”
This does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy a unit. Nor is it an offering or solicitation of sale of condominium units in any jurisdiction where registration is required to offer real estate unless we have met such requirements. We will not knowingly disseminate any information regarding the condominium where such offering or solicitation would otherwise be prohibited by law. Obtain all disclosure documents required by applicable laws and read them before signing anything. No government agency has judged the merits or value, if any, of the development. Further, ownership of a condominium unit in the development will be subject to the terms of various documents relating to the development which include membership in a condominium association and the obligation to pay various assessments. The project described herein (the “Project”) and the residential units located within the Project (the “Residential Units”) are not owned, developed, or sold by KT Intellectual Property Holding Company, LLC (“KT IP”) or Montage Hotels & Resorts, LLC (“Montage”) (collectively, “Licensors”) and Licensors do not make any representation, warranties or guaranties whatsoever with respect to the Residential Units, the Project or any part thereof. Sunset Subsidiary LLC uses the PENDRY, MONTAGE, and MONTAGE RESIDENCES REAL ESTATE brand names and certain other KT IP and Montage trademarks (collectively, the “Trademarks”) in connection with the sales and marketing of the Residential Units in the Project under limited, non-exclusive and non-sublicensable licenses from Licensors. Montage Residences Real Estate. WARNING, THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF REAL ESTATE HAS NOT INSPECTED, EXAMINED, OR QUALIFIED THIS OFFERING. CalDRE#0121140.
PUBLISHERS
Marie-José Susskind-Jalou, Maxime Jalou CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
CHAIRMAN
Benjamin Eymère
GLOBAL CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
CHRISTOPHER BROWN
Anthony Cenname
GLOBAL DEPUTY CEO
GLOBAL DIGITAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
CONSULTING GLOBAL CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER
GLOBAL HEAD OF CONTENT PROJECTS AND FASHION INITIATIVES
Maria Cecilia Andretta
Joshua Glass
Stefano Tonchi
Caroline Grosso
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
GIAMPIETRO BAUDO BOOKINGS EDITOR
CASTING DIRECTOR
Joshua Glasgow
FASHION FEATURES EDITOR
Jennifer Eymere
MARKETING MANAGER
SENIOR EDITOR
Sara Ali
Laure Ambroise
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Sabrina Abbas
ART DIRECTION
Sophie Shaw
Giulia Gilebbi
INTERNS
Carmenlucia Acosta, Jennifer Bindman, Alice Cavallo, Alexa Dark, Mina Dragani, Robbie Gutman, Greta Jelen, Tamara Jiji, Irene Kim, Johnny Rabe, Siena Stern
CONTRIBUTORS CREATIVE DIRECTOR
TREY LAIRD
CONSULTING EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR
DESIGN DIRECTOR
Regan Solmo
PHOTOGRAPHY
Simone Battistoni, Jacques Burga, Pierre-Ange Carlotti, Roeg Cohen, Alberto Maria Colombo, Jules Faure, Guendalina Fiore, Greg Lotus, Olivia Malone, Tom Munro, David Newton, Corey Olsen
ART EDITOR
Michael Riso
PRODUCTION
Dana Brockman, Lauren Tabach-Bank
Kat Herriman FASHION
Paulina Castro, Fabrizio Finizza, Gabrielle Marceca, Giulio Martinelli, Arnold Milfort, Rebecca Ramsey, Vanessa Seward
FEATURES
Hannah Amini, Piper McDonald, Tori Nergaard, Nathalie Nort
In this Issue
Sam VISSER
Cathy KASTERINE
Jon ERVIN
An Urban Oasis on the Sunset Strip. Dora FUNG
“Red Alert”
“Searching Time”
STYLIST
PHOTOGRAPHER
“Re:Claim”
“Re:Set”
“Olivia Malone and I created a world of glamour met with masculinity for a lip story showcasing Dior’s new Rouge Dior collection.”
“We wanted to capture all sides of Sienna Miller in this story—a more playful moment to something more full-on fashion. But always joyful, brilliant, and engaging.”
“We mixed old and new, not only with fashion but with different avenues of visual representations to help bring this narrative of a modern archive to life.”
“I was excited to play with all the stunning new bags from the Spring/ Summer 2021 collection for this story with Corey Olsen.”
MAKEUP ARTIST
STYLIST
Audrey WOLLEN
Introducing Pendry Residences West Hollywood, a new luxury offering by Montage—California’s most desirable address. A limited collection of two- and three-bedroom Residences from $3M - $30M.
WRITER
“Window Shopping in Disguise”
Call for pricing and availability 310-849-0202 | PENDRYRESIDENCESWEHO.COM
“There’s always more to say about money, mothers, cities, sex, work, and loss, and Amalia Ulman’s work says it in elegant, unexpected ways.”
This does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy a unit. Nor is it an offering or solicitation of sale of condominium units in any jurisdiction where registration is required to offer real estate unless we have met such requirements. We will not knowingly disseminate any information regarding the condominium where such offering or solicitation would otherwise be prohibited by law. Obtain all disclosure documents required by applicable laws and read them before signing anything. No government agency has judged the merits or value, if any, of the development. Further, ownership of a condominium unit in the development will be subject to the terms of various documents relating to the development which include membership in a condominium association and the obligation to pay various assessments. The project described herein (the “Project”) and the residential units located within the Project (the “Residential Units”) are not owned, developed, or sold by KT Intellectual Property Holding Company, LLC (“KT IP”) or Montage Hotels & Resorts, LLC (“Montage”) (collectively, “Licensors”) and Licensors do not make any representation, warranties or guaranties whatsoever with respect to the Residential Units, the Project or any part thereof. Sunset Subsidiary LLC uses the PENDRY, MONTAGE, and MONTAGE RESIDENCES REAL ESTATE brand names and certain other KT IP and Montage trademarks (collectively, the “Trademarks”) in connection with the sales and marketing of the Residential Units in the Project under limited, non-exclusive and non-sublicensable licenses from Licensors. Montage Residences Real Estate. WARNING, THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF REAL ESTATE HAS NOT INSPECTED, EXAMINED, OR QUALIFIED THIS OFFERING. CalDRE#0121140.
More than a season-long obsession, Emma Reynaud’s eco-conscious label Marcia has become a leader in Parisian upcycling. By LAURE AMBROISE Photography PIERRE-ANGE CARLOTTI
More than a season-long obsession, Emma Reynaud’s eco-conscious label Marcia has become a leader in Parisian upcycling. By LAURE AMBROISE Photography PIERRE-ANGE CARLOTTI
Marcia began with a tube dress, the now-famous TchikiBoum, designed with cut-outs down the side and meant to be worn with nothing underneath. The brand’s founder, Emma Reynaud, first pursued a career as a ballet dancer and then as a model, before becoming a fashion designer after being encouraged by her friend, jewelry designer Charlotte Chesnais. With Marcia, Reynaud says she wanted to create “a clothing brand that sublimates the body with sensuality, femininity, and eco-responsibility.” It’s an idea that is increasingly riding the wave in the fashion industry in response to our new way of consuming. But what does the designer think of the recent fascination
with upcycling—the repurposing of existing clothes and textiles—which has been one of the founding principles of her 100-percent Made-in-France brand? “It’s a huge project,” Reynaud says. “Starting from an existing piece to create another is the most environmentally friendly way to design a garment. I have a lot of admiration for the designers who upcycle, like Hala Moawad [of Momma’s Blues], who creates clothes from scraps of leather, or Gaëlle Constantini, who made a dress out of discarded curtains from the French Senate. It takes unwavering commitment and so much creativity. Bringing that to a production scale is a challenge I’d like to take on.” This challenge is not Reynaud’s only one. If all the big brands are wondering how to make a luxury product from recycled materials, customers are still hesitant to buy into it, too. The only way, the designer muses, is for the consumers to refuse to buy clothes made without respect for the environment.
and shirt MARCIA shoes PRADA PREVIOUS PAGE—Jumpsuit MARCIA Shoes AEYDÉ ABOVE—Coat
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress, top, and
16
I have A LOT of ADMIRATION for the DESIGNERS WHO UPCYCLE... IT TAKES UNWAVERING COMMITMENT and SO MUCH CREATIVITY. With Marcia, Reynaud uses only one material, Econyl, a regenerated nylon made from ocean and landfill waste. When it comes to Made-in-France production, she has always been lucky to find French workshops that are able to adapt to her evolution. The name of the brand is a tribute to the 1984 song “Marcia Baïla” by Les Rita Mitsouko, because Reynaud loves its sense of celebration. Her creations are inspired as much by Pascale Ogier in Éric Rohmer’s film Full Moon in Paris as they are by the queen of the ‘60s Mods Edie Sedgwick. The designer’s ideal party-girl wardrobe takes sexiness to the extreme, and her online shop features shots of the coolest girls in Paris. “I was fortunate to have inspiring friends who supported me from the start. For my first campaign, I asked actresses Leïla Bekhti and Adèle Exarchopoulos to pose for me.” And who better to immortalize this collection than her best friend, photographer Pierre-Ange Carlotti, known for his collaborations with Proenza Schouler and Jacquemus. “He is a longtime friend whose work and talent I have always admired. It’s always very stimulating to work with him. I love the way he looks at women,” she says. “Marcia is a story of friendship, whether it is with my muses, with Pierre-Ange, or with my friends who work in fashion and who have given me enormous amounts of advice. But it is also a love story, because my husband [film producer Hugo Sélignac] is a partner in the adventure.” More than a fashion story, it’s a lifestyle.
Marcia began with a tube dress, the now-famous TchikiBoum, designed with cut-outs down the side and meant to be worn with nothing underneath. The brand’s founder, Emma Reynaud, first pursued a career as a ballet dancer and then as a model, before becoming a fashion designer after being encouraged by her friend, jewelry designer Charlotte Chesnais. With Marcia, Reynaud says she wanted to create “a clothing brand that sublimates the body with sensuality, femininity, and eco-responsibility.” It’s an idea that is increasingly riding the wave in the fashion industry in response to our new way of consuming. But what does the designer think of the recent fascination
with upcycling—the repurposing of existing clothes and textiles—which has been one of the founding principles of her 100-percent Made-in-France brand? “It’s a huge project,” Reynaud says. “Starting from an existing piece to create another is the most environmentally friendly way to design a garment. I have a lot of admiration for the designers who upcycle, like Hala Moawad [of Momma’s Blues], who creates clothes from scraps of leather, or Gaëlle Constantini, who made a dress out of discarded curtains from the French Senate. It takes unwavering commitment and so much creativity. Bringing that to a production scale is a challenge I’d like to take on.” This challenge is not Reynaud’s only one. If all the big brands are wondering how to make a luxury product from recycled materials, customers are still hesitant to buy into it, too. The only way, the designer muses, is for the consumers to refuse to buy clothes made without respect for the environment.
and shirt MARCIA shoes PRADA PREVIOUS PAGE—Jumpsuit MARCIA Shoes AEYDÉ ABOVE—Coat
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress, top, and
16
I have A LOT of ADMIRATION for the DESIGNERS WHO UPCYCLE... IT TAKES UNWAVERING COMMITMENT and SO MUCH CREATIVITY. With Marcia, Reynaud uses only one material, Econyl, a regenerated nylon made from ocean and landfill waste. When it comes to Made-in-France production, she has always been lucky to find French workshops that are able to adapt to her evolution. The name of the brand is a tribute to the 1984 song “Marcia Baïla” by Les Rita Mitsouko, because Reynaud loves its sense of celebration. Her creations are inspired as much by Pascale Ogier in Éric Rohmer’s film Full Moon in Paris as they are by the queen of the ‘60s Mods Edie Sedgwick. The designer’s ideal party-girl wardrobe takes sexiness to the extreme, and her online shop features shots of the coolest girls in Paris. “I was fortunate to have inspiring friends who supported me from the start. For my first campaign, I asked actresses Leïla Bekhti and Adèle Exarchopoulos to pose for me.” And who better to immortalize this collection than her best friend, photographer Pierre-Ange Carlotti, known for his collaborations with Proenza Schouler and Jacquemus. “He is a longtime friend whose work and talent I have always admired. It’s always very stimulating to work with him. I love the way he looks at women,” she says. “Marcia is a story of friendship, whether it is with my muses, with Pierre-Ange, or with my friends who work in fashion and who have given me enormous amounts of advice. But it is also a love story, because my husband [film producer Hugo Sélignac] is a partner in the adventure.” More than a fashion story, it’s a lifestyle.
MARCIA IS A STORY of FRIENDSHIP ...but IT IS also A LOVE STORY, BECAUSE MY HUSBAND is A PARTNER in the ADVENTURE.
skirt MARCIA Shoes AMINA MUADDI MARCIA OPPOSITE PAGE—Top MARCIA Pants GIVENCHY Boots DR. MARTEN’S STYLIST: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx ABOVE— Coat, shirt, and RIGHT— Dress
MARCIA IS A STORY of FRIENDSHIP ...but IT IS also A LOVE STORY, BECAUSE MY HUSBAND is A PARTNER in the ADVENTURE.
skirt MARCIA Shoes AMINA MUADDI MARCIA OPPOSITE PAGE—Top MARCIA Pants GIVENCHY Boots DR. MARTEN’S STYLIST: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx ABOVE— Coat, shirt, and RIGHT— Dress
RED alert
Dior Makeup’s newest ambassador Sam Visser finds new meanings in the many shades of Rouge Dior. By HANNAH AMINI Photography OLIVIA MALONE
RED alert
Dior Makeup’s newest ambassador Sam Visser finds new meanings in the many shades of Rouge Dior. By HANNAH AMINI Photography OLIVIA MALONE
ROUGE DIOR #999 Matte ROUGE DIOR #792 Lady Dior and #775 Darling
DELILAH: PREVIOUS PAGE—HALIMOTU:
ROUGE DIOR #999 Matte ROUGE DIOR #792 Lady Dior and #775 Darling
DELILAH: PREVIOUS PAGE—HALIMOTU:
SARAH: ROUGE
DIOR #634 Rouge Orange DIOR #895 Avant-Garde
OPPOSITE PAGE—SARAH: ROUGE
SARAH: ROUGE
DIOR #634 Rouge Orange DIOR #895 Avant-Garde
OPPOSITE PAGE—SARAH: ROUGE
Before becoming a master couturier, Christian Dior dreamt of many wondrous things: astrological projections, freshcut flowers—a fixture of his upbringing on the coast of Normandy—and, of course, feminine beauty. He deviated from just about every assumed standard in order to materialize his vision, from his opulent debut collection in 1947, which veered so drastically from the fabric-conserving styles of the time that it was dubbed the “New Look,” to his frequent use of red, a color once reserved for nobility. Dior employed the evocative hue to liven up his shows—a strategy he referred to as his coup de Trafalgar (“unexpected event”)—and his love for red inspired him to dress not only a woman’s body but also her smile. In 1953, Rouge Dior was born, a lipstick housed in an artful obelisk of gold and glass. The designer’s propensity to play with and set precedent has cemented Dior as a pillar of beauty for over half a century. For Sam Visser today, actualizing his inspiration into his artistry comes from the same intentions. “I always wanted to create a narrative within my creative space and makeup is tied into it,” the makeup artist explains. “I ask myself, Does this strike an emotion within me? Does this make me want to create and inspire?” Since becoming Kris Jenner’s makeup artist during his sophomore year of high school, the now-21-yearold’s work has been hard to miss—a wellreferenced but one-ofa-kind beat seen on the likes of Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber.
rosewood, adjusted to flatter every skin tone. “From the deep purple Heroine shades all the way to the lightest, pale milky colors, they inspire and make you want to put on makeup,” says Visser. “As a makeup artist, I love when there is a range of colors and different undertones. I can use them on any kind of look that I want to achieve. That’s the beauty of Dior Makeup, it really embodies that diversity.” As for his favorite shade, Visser is partial to #999—Dior’s historic crimson red. Rouge Dior’s new launch arrives just as we approach the oneyear mark since normal life was moved indoors, and the initial relief of switching out foundation for sheet masks is making way for the desire to go all out—even out of previous comfort zones—just for the sake of artistry and creative expression. “The pandemic has expanded the way I see beauty,” says Visser. “It’s helped me experiment more and become more in touch with what I find desirable.” Gentle on the lips, full of versatile choices for going subtly defined or strikingly bold, and surprisingly multipurpose, the new Rouge Dior line represents what the world of beauty will need post-pandemic. Joining the new carefully crafted hues are also two new finishes (alongside the original matte and satin formulations), inspired by fabrics important to Dior’s history: an ultramatte, plush velvet and a bright metallic. Visser is especially excited for the latter: “Metallic lips had a moment that faded out, but they’re coming back,” he says. “I love the nude metallic, the fuschia metallic, and the red metallic. It can really change your look, but also magnify what you want to bring out.” Recalling Dior’s love for botanicals and the house laboratories’ 50 years of utilizing floral science, Rouge Dior’s new formulation includes natural lip care that will have lips looking just as beautiful without product. Red peony and pomegranate blossom add radiance and longevity to the line’s vibrant shades, while the addition of shea butter ensures an even application. To round out the line, Philips also debuts 24 new shades of lip liner and a moisturizing satin balm.
I ALWAYS WANTED to CREATE A NARRATIVE WITHIN my CREATIVE SPACE and MAKEUP IS TIED into IT.
After lending his artistry to Dior Makeup in the past, Visser now joins the French house officially as its newest U.S. Makeup Artist Ambassador under the direction of Creative and Image Director Peter Philips. “It happened organically,” Visser says. “I love the Dior team; they’ve been supportive of the creativity that I’ve wanted to outlet, the images I’ve wanted to make, and the makeup I’ve wanted to do.”
Visser’s appointment comes with the relaunch of Rouge Dior, an expansive project that serves as an ode to Dior’s original lipstick from 1953. According to legend, the designer could not find the perfect red for his models to wear, so he created two new shades himself. This time around, a sleek, black lipstick case replaces Dior’s original glass-cased bullet, but the memory of its founder is honored through a ring of his initials—”CD”—atop a silver trim. The lipstick is refillable, too, providing an authoritative push for sustainability. Philips expanded Rouge Dior’s range to 75 shades, and included a series of nudes: day-ready colors from light beige to OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—ROUGE
DIOR #999 Matte ROUGE DIOR #964 Ambitious and #720 Icône ROUGE DIOR #888 Strong Red ROUGE DIOR #895 Avant-Garde ROUGE DIOR #771 Radiant ROUGE DIOR #634 Rouge Orange
Like the legendary designer whom he follows, Visser is specific in his vision of beauty. When asked how to correctly achieve the perfect red lip with Rouge Dior, the makeup artist launches into fine details right away, his knowledge of and genuine passion for the craft abundantly apparent. “Layers are important for it to become really rich and have a lot of opacity,” he says. “It definitely helps to do a first base layer where you almost create a stain on your lips. Blot it off, do another layer, blot it off, and then do your final layer. Even different colors—you could do, say, your first layer of a really deep shade of red and then go over it with a brighter shade. It creates a rich, opaque lip that I find really beautiful and alluring.”
27
Before becoming a master couturier, Christian Dior dreamt of many wondrous things: astrological projections, freshcut flowers—a fixture of his upbringing on the coast of Normandy—and, of course, feminine beauty. He deviated from just about every assumed standard in order to materialize his vision, from his opulent debut collection in 1947, which veered so drastically from the fabric-conserving styles of the time that it was dubbed the “New Look,” to his frequent use of red, a color once reserved for nobility. Dior employed the evocative hue to liven up his shows—a strategy he referred to as his coup de Trafalgar (“unexpected event”)—and his love for red inspired him to dress not only a woman’s body but also her smile. In 1953, Rouge Dior was born, a lipstick housed in an artful obelisk of gold and glass. The designer’s propensity to play with and set precedent has cemented Dior as a pillar of beauty for over half a century. For Sam Visser today, actualizing his inspiration into his artistry comes from the same intentions. “I always wanted to create a narrative within my creative space and makeup is tied into it,” the makeup artist explains. “I ask myself, Does this strike an emotion within me? Does this make me want to create and inspire?” Since becoming Kris Jenner’s makeup artist during his sophomore year of high school, the now-21-yearold’s work has been hard to miss—a wellreferenced but one-ofa-kind beat seen on the likes of Bella Hadid and Kaia Gerber.
rosewood, adjusted to flatter every skin tone. “From the deep purple Heroine shades all the way to the lightest, pale milky colors, they inspire and make you want to put on makeup,” says Visser. “As a makeup artist, I love when there is a range of colors and different undertones. I can use them on any kind of look that I want to achieve. That’s the beauty of Dior Makeup, it really embodies that diversity.” As for his favorite shade, Visser is partial to #999—Dior’s historic crimson red. Rouge Dior’s new launch arrives just as we approach the oneyear mark since normal life was moved indoors, and the initial relief of switching out foundation for sheet masks is making way for the desire to go all out—even out of previous comfort zones—just for the sake of artistry and creative expression. “The pandemic has expanded the way I see beauty,” says Visser. “It’s helped me experiment more and become more in touch with what I find desirable.” Gentle on the lips, full of versatile choices for going subtly defined or strikingly bold, and surprisingly multipurpose, the new Rouge Dior line represents what the world of beauty will need post-pandemic. Joining the new carefully crafted hues are also two new finishes (alongside the original matte and satin formulations), inspired by fabrics important to Dior’s history: an ultramatte, plush velvet and a bright metallic. Visser is especially excited for the latter: “Metallic lips had a moment that faded out, but they’re coming back,” he says. “I love the nude metallic, the fuschia metallic, and the red metallic. It can really change your look, but also magnify what you want to bring out.” Recalling Dior’s love for botanicals and the house laboratories’ 50 years of utilizing floral science, Rouge Dior’s new formulation includes natural lip care that will have lips looking just as beautiful without product. Red peony and pomegranate blossom add radiance and longevity to the line’s vibrant shades, while the addition of shea butter ensures an even application. To round out the line, Philips also debuts 24 new shades of lip liner and a moisturizing satin balm.
I ALWAYS WANTED to CREATE A NARRATIVE WITHIN my CREATIVE SPACE and MAKEUP IS TIED into IT.
After lending his artistry to Dior Makeup in the past, Visser now joins the French house officially as its newest U.S. Makeup Artist Ambassador under the direction of Creative and Image Director Peter Philips. “It happened organically,” Visser says. “I love the Dior team; they’ve been supportive of the creativity that I’ve wanted to outlet, the images I’ve wanted to make, and the makeup I’ve wanted to do.”
Visser’s appointment comes with the relaunch of Rouge Dior, an expansive project that serves as an ode to Dior’s original lipstick from 1953. According to legend, the designer could not find the perfect red for his models to wear, so he created two new shades himself. This time around, a sleek, black lipstick case replaces Dior’s original glass-cased bullet, but the memory of its founder is honored through a ring of his initials—”CD”—atop a silver trim. The lipstick is refillable, too, providing an authoritative push for sustainability. Philips expanded Rouge Dior’s range to 75 shades, and included a series of nudes: day-ready colors from light beige to OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—ROUGE
DIOR #999 Matte ROUGE DIOR #964 Ambitious and #720 Icône ROUGE DIOR #888 Strong Red ROUGE DIOR #895 Avant-Garde ROUGE DIOR #771 Radiant ROUGE DIOR #634 Rouge Orange
Like the legendary designer whom he follows, Visser is specific in his vision of beauty. When asked how to correctly achieve the perfect red lip with Rouge Dior, the makeup artist launches into fine details right away, his knowledge of and genuine passion for the craft abundantly apparent. “Layers are important for it to become really rich and have a lot of opacity,” he says. “It definitely helps to do a first base layer where you almost create a stain on your lips. Blot it off, do another layer, blot it off, and then do your final layer. Even different colors—you could do, say, your first layer of a really deep shade of red and then go over it with a brighter shade. It creates a rich, opaque lip that I find really beautiful and alluring.”
27
ROUGE DIOR #784 Rouge Rose and #775 Darling ROUGE DIOR #792 Lady Dior CLOTHING THROUGHOUT: DIOR (Similar styles available at DIOR boutiques nationwide) MODELS: Delilah NEXT Halimotu Shokunbi THE LIONS Sarah Chin PHOTO/GENICS STYLIST: Rebecca Ramsey MAKEUP: Sam Visser using DIOR HAIR: Maranda THE WALL GROUP MANICURIST: Ashlie Johnson THE WALL GROUP CASTING: Suze Lee VIEWFINDERS PRODUCTION: Dana Brockman VIEWFINDERS DIGI TECH: Dustin Edwards PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Brook Keegan and Andrew Arboleda SPECIAL THANKS: Hubble Studio HALIMOTU:
OPPOSITE PAGE—HALIMOTU:
ROUGE DIOR #784 Rouge Rose and #775 Darling ROUGE DIOR #792 Lady Dior CLOTHING THROUGHOUT: DIOR (Similar styles available at DIOR boutiques nationwide) MODELS: Delilah NEXT Halimotu Shokunbi THE LIONS Sarah Chin PHOTO/GENICS STYLIST: Rebecca Ramsey MAKEUP: Sam Visser using DIOR HAIR: Maranda THE WALL GROUP MANICURIST: Ashlie Johnson THE WALL GROUP CASTING: Suze Lee VIEWFINDERS PRODUCTION: Dana Brockman VIEWFINDERS DIGI TECH: Dustin Edwards PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Brook Keegan and Andrew Arboleda SPECIAL THANKS: Hubble Studio HALIMOTU:
OPPOSITE PAGE—HALIMOTU:
Wild
ROSE
There is nothing quite so elegant as a bouquet of roses. With I Only Love Wild Roses, Cartier’s latest olfactory collection, perfumer Mathilde Laurent seeks to rethink the archetype of the flower as a symbol of delicate femininity and rediscover the rose’s truly untameable wild nature. The normally sweet flower is interpreted in three distinct ways, from a pure pale pink rose to a punk iteration with hints of oud and musk. Pure Rose, a fresh, delicate concoction, offers the truest and most traditional interpretation of the flower. L’Heure Osée is the boldest of the bunch, an explosion of bright pink rose petals that is sure to turn heads. The daring Oud & Pink rounds out the collection, an adrogynous take on the familiar floral.
By SABRINA ABBAS Photography DAVID NEWTON
Wild
ROSE
There is nothing quite so elegant as a bouquet of roses. With I Only Love Wild Roses, Cartier’s latest olfactory collection, perfumer Mathilde Laurent seeks to rethink the archetype of the flower as a symbol of delicate femininity and rediscover the rose’s truly untameable wild nature. The normally sweet flower is interpreted in three distinct ways, from a pure pale pink rose to a punk iteration with hints of oud and musk. Pure Rose, a fresh, delicate concoction, offers the truest and most traditional interpretation of the flower. L’Heure Osée is the boldest of the bunch, an explosion of bright pink rose petals that is sure to turn heads. The daring Oud & Pink rounds out the collection, an adrogynous take on the familiar floral.
By SABRINA ABBAS Photography DAVID NEWTON
At just 21, the Celine muse has already directed, written, and starred in her own own,, Cannes Film Festival-selected film. Suzanne Lindon fiddles with two tiny pendants hanging from her neck. Handmade by the delicate Italian brand Merù Gioielli, one portrays a blue pansy flower, the other a stripper with the motto “Good Luck.” Barely visible, these little gems nod to the dual nature of their wearer: a young woman just beginning her life journey, and a more experienced, already accomplished, perhaps somewhat bruised creative. Aside from her forthcoming studies at Paris’ École des Arts
Décoratifs, all of Lindon’s attention is on Spring Blossom, her directorial debut that she also wrote and stars in. The film, which was named part of the official selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, tells the semi-autobiographical story of Suzanne, a young girl who falls in love with an older man. Inspired by Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character in the 1985 Claude Miller film L’Effrontée (“An Impudent
By VIRGINIE APIOU Photography STELLA BERKOFSKY
At just 21, the Celine muse has already directed, written, and starred in her own own,, Cannes Film Festival-selected film. Suzanne Lindon fiddles with two tiny pendants hanging from her neck. Handmade by the delicate Italian brand Merù Gioielli, one portrays a blue pansy flower, the other a stripper with the motto “Good Luck.” Barely visible, these little gems nod to the dual nature of their wearer: a young woman just beginning her life journey, and a more experienced, already accomplished, perhaps somewhat bruised creative. Aside from her forthcoming studies at Paris’ École des Arts
Décoratifs, all of Lindon’s attention is on Spring Blossom, her directorial debut that she also wrote and stars in. The film, which was named part of the official selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, tells the semi-autobiographical story of Suzanne, a young girl who falls in love with an older man. Inspired by Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character in the 1985 Claude Miller film L’Effrontée (“An Impudent
By VIRGINIE APIOU Photography STELLA BERKOFSKY
somewhere else, she has her world, she does things that I did–like kiss her wall. When I fell in love with a boy, I did it twenty times! We stage ourselves, we need it because we’re all alone.” Prepared in just one week and filmed in three, Spring Blossom was imagined by Lindon with the utmost attention to detail. “It’s about a universal subject, no period markers, no cell phones, and no overly modern words,” she explains. “My character wears a man’s shirt. Something sensual, seductive. The clothes help me. It was very important to put Arnaud Valois, who plays Suzanne’s older lover, in a tie, because it’s rare to see young men in ties today. It’s very charming and at the same time, I ask myself: Is it comfortable? Does the man feel trapped?” Dressed in a long wool coat over a white cotton tee and jeans, Lindon is very deliberate in her personal style offscreen.
“I have my way of being feminine. I never put on makeup, I very rarely put on a dress. I can’t walk in heels. I have tastes and I follow them.” Such was the determined look that was first noticed by Hedi Slimane. The infamous auteur made Lindon his muse, and photographed her in a series of blackand-white portraits for Celine.
WE STAGE OURSELVES, WE NEED it BECAUSE WE’RE all ALONE. “I really like what [Hedi] does,” Lindon says. “I love his simplicity. There is nothing more complicated than keeping it simple, and he does it in a sublime way. And he is a movie fan! Beyond fashion, his work around images is so piercing and intelligent that he even convinced the very discreet JeanLuc Godard to be photographed. I looked at those pictures with Godard a lot before working with him. Hedi captured the presence of Godard, and of me—a desire to be myself. I like what he saw in me.” Lindon is quite private about her own life. “To be 21, it means to want to achieve my goals, to change things. It is to desire. To want to love and to be loved,” she says. Is she in love right now? “No, I would like to be, but no. It can’t be decided like that. I’m a big romantic. I fall in love very easily.” Speaking about love naturally brings cinema back into the conversation. “My favorite director who speaks about love is François Truffaut. The Woman Next Door is the greatest love movie in the world. I saw it for the first time when I was 10 years old, but I understood that love was stronger than anything the two heroes [Fanny Ardant and Gérard Depardieu] lived.”
Girl”), Lindon has been thinking about her fictionalized self for years. “I wrote Spring Blossom when I was 15,” she says. “Sixteen is the heart of adolescence. In the literature that I love—in [Pierre de] Ronsard’s poems—you have the impression that all the girls are 16. Eighteen is adulthood, and 17, who cares! So 16!” With Spring Blossom, Lindon focuses on an adolescence that is more sensual than sexual. “I don’t really like love scenes,” she admits. “The only cinematic kiss that takes me away is between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Notorious—it lasts a hundred years!” Spring Blossom portrays the relationship
between a 30-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl. While this relationship is not shown to be sexual or at all concerned with the realities of the power imbalance between a man and a much younger girl, “We needed to have something physical going on between them,” Lindon says. “That’s why they dance together. It’s their language of love.” Later in the film Lindon dances alone to French musician Christophe’s 1974 song “Señorita,” showing her as a mad teenager. “I was very extreme,” Lindon remembers. “My sorrows were endless and my joys immense for things that were in fact mundane.” Suzanne, her heroine, looks like her, with just the right amount of introvertedness and whimsicality. “She’s
Lindon has been watching films since she was little, and she often references Charlie Chaplin’s Tootsie, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Splendor in the Grass, and Running on Empty to her friends. She loves strong and committed directors like Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi or James Gray. “I love seeing movies twice, including ones I hated, because I hate to hate a movie,” she smiles. “I want to understand why I didn’t like them. I love going to the movies on my own, but I always have a bad time when I go to the movies for a date. I’m nervous; I’m focused on the boy next to me. Afterwards, if he asks me if I liked the film, I’ll say stupid things.” Top and jeans SUZANNE’S OWN OPPOSITE PAGE—Shirt CELINE Top, jeans, and shoes SUZANNE’S OWN PREVIOUS PAGE—Sweater CELINE Jacket, jeans, and shoes SUZANNE’S OWN STYLIST: Jennifer Eymère MAKEUP: Christophe Danchaud PHOTO ASSISTANT: Thomas Rigade STYLIST ASSISTANT: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx
35
somewhere else, she has her world, she does things that I did–like kiss her wall. When I fell in love with a boy, I did it twenty times! We stage ourselves, we need it because we’re all alone.” Prepared in just one week and filmed in three, Spring Blossom was imagined by Lindon with the utmost attention to detail. “It’s about a universal subject, no period markers, no cell phones, and no overly modern words,” she explains. “My character wears a man’s shirt. Something sensual, seductive. The clothes help me. It was very important to put Arnaud Valois, who plays Suzanne’s older lover, in a tie, because it’s rare to see young men in ties today. It’s very charming and at the same time, I ask myself: Is it comfortable? Does the man feel trapped?” Dressed in a long wool coat over a white cotton tee and jeans, Lindon is very deliberate in her personal style offscreen.
“I have my way of being feminine. I never put on makeup, I very rarely put on a dress. I can’t walk in heels. I have tastes and I follow them.” Such was the determined look that was first noticed by Hedi Slimane. The infamous auteur made Lindon his muse, and photographed her in a series of blackand-white portraits for Celine.
WE STAGE OURSELVES, WE NEED it BECAUSE WE’RE all ALONE. “I really like what [Hedi] does,” Lindon says. “I love his simplicity. There is nothing more complicated than keeping it simple, and he does it in a sublime way. And he is a movie fan! Beyond fashion, his work around images is so piercing and intelligent that he even convinced the very discreet JeanLuc Godard to be photographed. I looked at those pictures with Godard a lot before working with him. Hedi captured the presence of Godard, and of me—a desire to be myself. I like what he saw in me.” Lindon is quite private about her own life. “To be 21, it means to want to achieve my goals, to change things. It is to desire. To want to love and to be loved,” she says. Is she in love right now? “No, I would like to be, but no. It can’t be decided like that. I’m a big romantic. I fall in love very easily.” Speaking about love naturally brings cinema back into the conversation. “My favorite director who speaks about love is François Truffaut. The Woman Next Door is the greatest love movie in the world. I saw it for the first time when I was 10 years old, but I understood that love was stronger than anything the two heroes [Fanny Ardant and Gérard Depardieu] lived.”
Girl”), Lindon has been thinking about her fictionalized self for years. “I wrote Spring Blossom when I was 15,” she says. “Sixteen is the heart of adolescence. In the literature that I love—in [Pierre de] Ronsard’s poems—you have the impression that all the girls are 16. Eighteen is adulthood, and 17, who cares! So 16!” With Spring Blossom, Lindon focuses on an adolescence that is more sensual than sexual. “I don’t really like love scenes,” she admits. “The only cinematic kiss that takes me away is between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Notorious—it lasts a hundred years!” Spring Blossom portrays the relationship
between a 30-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl. While this relationship is not shown to be sexual or at all concerned with the realities of the power imbalance between a man and a much younger girl, “We needed to have something physical going on between them,” Lindon says. “That’s why they dance together. It’s their language of love.” Later in the film Lindon dances alone to French musician Christophe’s 1974 song “Señorita,” showing her as a mad teenager. “I was very extreme,” Lindon remembers. “My sorrows were endless and my joys immense for things that were in fact mundane.” Suzanne, her heroine, looks like her, with just the right amount of introvertedness and whimsicality. “She’s
Lindon has been watching films since she was little, and she often references Charlie Chaplin’s Tootsie, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Splendor in the Grass, and Running on Empty to her friends. She loves strong and committed directors like Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi or James Gray. “I love seeing movies twice, including ones I hated, because I hate to hate a movie,” she smiles. “I want to understand why I didn’t like them. I love going to the movies on my own, but I always have a bad time when I go to the movies for a date. I’m nervous; I’m focused on the boy next to me. Afterwards, if he asks me if I liked the film, I’ll say stupid things.” Top and jeans SUZANNE’S OWN OPPOSITE PAGE—Shirt CELINE Top, jeans, and shoes SUZANNE’S OWN PREVIOUS PAGE—Sweater CELINE Jacket, jeans, and shoes SUZANNE’S OWN STYLIST: Jennifer Eymère MAKEUP: Christophe Danchaud PHOTO ASSISTANT: Thomas Rigade STYLIST ASSISTANT: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx
35
L’ATELIER FORCE of
Nature
Newly minted artistic director Felipe Oliveira Baptista returns to the fundamentals of the brand with architectural lines and inclusive pieces that play with prints with a vibrant freedom freedom.. It is said that in the early ‘60s, when Kenzo Takada left his native Japan and, after six months of travel, arrived in Paris, the first thing that he did was dance the night away. It was a moment of endless possibilities for the young designer. Even though he did not speak French—which led him to work on the wrong season for his debut fashion show—he knew an even more universal language: that of color. And so he combined his poetic sensibility with the rigor of Western cuts, articulating the dialect of nature and the vocabulary of flowers. It was a period of lightness.
Even if today’s times are more pragmatic and his arrival within the brand is more thoughtful, 45-year-old Portuguese designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista—appointed by LVMH in the summer of 2019 as the artistic director of men’s and women’s collections at Kenzo—is one of the most anticipated designers of the season. His first collection, inspired by travel, demonstrated Baptista’s mastery of cut— the technical side of design he loves so much—and exhibited an elegant poetry, while its easy-to-wear and joyful side was carried by the brand’s prints. The fashion house brought
By LAURE AMBROISE Photography NOEL MANALILI
L’ATELIER FORCE of
Nature
Newly minted artistic director Felipe Oliveira Baptista returns to the fundamentals of the brand with architectural lines and inclusive pieces that play with prints with a vibrant freedom freedom.. It is said that in the early ‘60s, when Kenzo Takada left his native Japan and, after six months of travel, arrived in Paris, the first thing that he did was dance the night away. It was a moment of endless possibilities for the young designer. Even though he did not speak French—which led him to work on the wrong season for his debut fashion show—he knew an even more universal language: that of color. And so he combined his poetic sensibility with the rigor of Western cuts, articulating the dialect of nature and the vocabulary of flowers. It was a period of lightness.
Even if today’s times are more pragmatic and his arrival within the brand is more thoughtful, 45-year-old Portuguese designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista—appointed by LVMH in the summer of 2019 as the artistic director of men’s and women’s collections at Kenzo—is one of the most anticipated designers of the season. His first collection, inspired by travel, demonstrated Baptista’s mastery of cut— the technical side of design he loves so much—and exhibited an elegant poetry, while its easy-to-wear and joyful side was carried by the brand’s prints. The fashion house brought
By LAURE AMBROISE Photography NOEL MANALILI
back Kenzo’s archives, held by collector Olivier Châtenet, with Baptista exploring and reviving the brand’s heritage— particularly honing in on its ’70s collections. Now, as the designer presents his second collection, the world is more complex. We are lost in a global health crisis. “I put together this collection during the first lockdown; it’s a combination of worry and joy, with a willingness to be optimistic about getting through. I wanted to highlight this reconciliation between man and nature with this idea of adjusting the ecosystem,” Baptista explains. The collection is a call to the beauty of the outdoors, flower gardens contrasted by the long protective veils on beekeepers’ hats, a cocooning fashion for nomads in need of travel. The bees, after all, are the muses of this collection: A force of nature that protects us and consumes only what it needs. Which brings us to Baptista’s attention to sustainability. “At Kenzo, we are committed to the use of 80 percent organic cotton and recyclable cashmere, nylon, and polyester. Our packaging is made from eco-friendly materials. We also have a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to support the goal of doubling the tiger population in the wild by 2022.” Yes, the famous tiger is there. This icon, so prominent in the collections of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim—former artistic directors of the house from 2011 to 2019—is still present with Baptista. This time in a more committed and artful spirit, since it is also found in the form of a print taken from the work of Lisbon-based artist Júlio Pomar.
In all of Baptista’s work we find the idea of “usefulness in connection to pleasure.” He explains: “I have always been very interested in utility. I like this pragmatic side in clothing, which we find in uniforms, where everything corresponds to a need. Fashion that is both functional and aesthetic.” This approach is evidenced by his coat/sleepingbag inspired by the hooded clothing of women of the Azores, the archipelago where the designer is from. His clothes are therefore removable, reversible, and practical. More than a style, a signature.
I love ARCHITECTURE, IMAGE, PHOTOGRAPHY ...FASHION IS a MIXTURE of ALL OF THESE, it STUMBLED UPON ME by CHANCE. Baptista also always likes to blur the lines between generations in his collections. “What better compliment than seeing people of different ages wearing the same garment.” In addition to being a designer, Baptista is a stylist and photographer. “I have always been multidisciplinary, I love architecture, image, photography...Fashion is a mixture of all of these, it stumbled upon me by chance.” This art lover was very touched by the late Christo’s final exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2020. When asked about collaborations, he explains that he loves to mix his work with that of others, as he did with Kansai Yamamoto, the legendary Japanese designer (who passed away last year) known for his eccentric collaborations in the ’70s with David Bowie. Kenzo Takada and Felipe Oliveira Baptista: two men, two styles, the same energy and the same taste for beauty and poetry. Baptista will certainly pay tribute to Takada in his next collection, the first presented since the house’s founder passed away last fall.
LEFT— Vest
and dress KENZO
shoes KENZO Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx MODEL: Nina Fresneau WOMEN HAIR AND MAKEUP: Aliz Perrot
OPPOSITE PAGE— Vest, dress, and STYLIST:
back Kenzo’s archives, held by collector Olivier Châtenet, with Baptista exploring and reviving the brand’s heritage— particularly honing in on its ’70s collections. Now, as the designer presents his second collection, the world is more complex. We are lost in a global health crisis. “I put together this collection during the first lockdown; it’s a combination of worry and joy, with a willingness to be optimistic about getting through. I wanted to highlight this reconciliation between man and nature with this idea of adjusting the ecosystem,” Baptista explains. The collection is a call to the beauty of the outdoors, flower gardens contrasted by the long protective veils on beekeepers’ hats, a cocooning fashion for nomads in need of travel. The bees, after all, are the muses of this collection: A force of nature that protects us and consumes only what it needs. Which brings us to Baptista’s attention to sustainability. “At Kenzo, we are committed to the use of 80 percent organic cotton and recyclable cashmere, nylon, and polyester. Our packaging is made from eco-friendly materials. We also have a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to support the goal of doubling the tiger population in the wild by 2022.” Yes, the famous tiger is there. This icon, so prominent in the collections of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim—former artistic directors of the house from 2011 to 2019—is still present with Baptista. This time in a more committed and artful spirit, since it is also found in the form of a print taken from the work of Lisbon-based artist Júlio Pomar.
In all of Baptista’s work we find the idea of “usefulness in connection to pleasure.” He explains: “I have always been very interested in utility. I like this pragmatic side in clothing, which we find in uniforms, where everything corresponds to a need. Fashion that is both functional and aesthetic.” This approach is evidenced by his coat/sleepingbag inspired by the hooded clothing of women of the Azores, the archipelago where the designer is from. His clothes are therefore removable, reversible, and practical. More than a style, a signature.
I love ARCHITECTURE, IMAGE, PHOTOGRAPHY ...FASHION IS a MIXTURE of ALL OF THESE, it STUMBLED UPON ME by CHANCE. Baptista also always likes to blur the lines between generations in his collections. “What better compliment than seeing people of different ages wearing the same garment.” In addition to being a designer, Baptista is a stylist and photographer. “I have always been multidisciplinary, I love architecture, image, photography...Fashion is a mixture of all of these, it stumbled upon me by chance.” This art lover was very touched by the late Christo’s final exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris in 2020. When asked about collaborations, he explains that he loves to mix his work with that of others, as he did with Kansai Yamamoto, the legendary Japanese designer (who passed away last year) known for his eccentric collaborations in the ’70s with David Bowie. Kenzo Takada and Felipe Oliveira Baptista: two men, two styles, the same energy and the same taste for beauty and poetry. Baptista will certainly pay tribute to Takada in his next collection, the first presented since the house’s founder passed away last fall.
LEFT— Vest
and dress KENZO
shoes KENZO Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx MODEL: Nina Fresneau WOMEN HAIR AND MAKEUP: Aliz Perrot
OPPOSITE PAGE— Vest, dress, and STYLIST:
JEAN theory
Patchwork, acid, shredded, slim, wide … Today’s denim is a throwback to ’90s style. Photography ALBERTO TANDOI Styled by GIULIO MARTINELLI
JEAN theory
Patchwork, acid, shredded, slim, wide … Today’s denim is a throwback to ’90s style. Photography ALBERTO TANDOI Styled by GIULIO MARTINELLI
Sweater, shorts, and bag DIOR Shoes WANDLER Bracelet BULGARI DAVID: Jeans, boots, and belt DIOR Jumpsuit and corset ALBERTA FERRETTI Shoes PAULA CADEMARTORI Necklace, bracelet, and ring BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT—DAVID: Jacket, jeans, and briefs CALVIN KLEIN Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT—FIEN: Top, pants, and shoes DOLCE & GABBANA Necklace and ring BULGARI DAVID: Jacket, pants, and belt DOLCE & GABBANA Boots DR. MARTEN’S PREVIOUS PAGE, RIGHT—FIEN: Top and jeans DSQUARED2 Shoes WANDLER Necklace BULGARI Briefs ERES DAVID: Jacket and jeans DSQUARED2 Ring BULGARI ABOVE—FIEN:
OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT—FIEN:
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Sweater, shorts, and bag DIOR Shoes WANDLER Bracelet BULGARI DAVID: Jeans, boots, and belt DIOR Jumpsuit and corset ALBERTA FERRETTI Shoes PAULA CADEMARTORI Necklace, bracelet, and ring BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT—DAVID: Jacket, jeans, and briefs CALVIN KLEIN Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT—FIEN: Top, pants, and shoes DOLCE & GABBANA Necklace and ring BULGARI DAVID: Jacket, pants, and belt DOLCE & GABBANA Boots DR. MARTEN’S PREVIOUS PAGE, RIGHT—FIEN: Top and jeans DSQUARED2 Shoes WANDLER Necklace BULGARI Briefs ERES DAVID: Jacket and jeans DSQUARED2 Ring BULGARI ABOVE—FIEN:
OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT—FIEN:
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belt VALENTINO Jeans LEVI’S x VALENTINO Necklace BULGARI and jeans BALMAIN Necklace BULGARI DAVID: Coat, jacket, and shorts BALMAIN
ABOVE—FIEN: Shirt, shoes, and OPPOSITE PAGE—FIEN: Jacket
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belt VALENTINO Jeans LEVI’S x VALENTINO Necklace BULGARI and jeans BALMAIN Necklace BULGARI DAVID: Coat, jacket, and shorts BALMAIN
ABOVE—FIEN: Shirt, shoes, and OPPOSITE PAGE—FIEN: Jacket
44
Jacket, top, jeans, boots, and hat CELINE Rings BULGARI DAVID: Jacket, jeans, shoes, belt, and helmet CELINE Ring BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT—FIEN: Jacket and skirt TOD’S Boots DR. MARTEN’S OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT—DAVID: Shirt, top, shorts, and belt SAINT LAURENT MODELS: Fien Kloos WOMEN DIRECT David Trulik INDEPENDENT HAIR: Chiara Bussei WM MANAGEMENT MAKEUP: Riccardo Morandin WM MANAGEMENT STYLIST ASSISTANTS: Adele Baracco and Terry Lospalluto ABOVE—FIEN:
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Jacket, top, jeans, boots, and hat CELINE Rings BULGARI DAVID: Jacket, jeans, shoes, belt, and helmet CELINE Ring BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT—FIEN: Jacket and skirt TOD’S Boots DR. MARTEN’S OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT—DAVID: Shirt, top, shorts, and belt SAINT LAURENT MODELS: Fien Kloos WOMEN DIRECT David Trulik INDEPENDENT HAIR: Chiara Bussei WM MANAGEMENT MAKEUP: Riccardo Morandin WM MANAGEMENT STYLIST ASSISTANTS: Adele Baracco and Terry Lospalluto ABOVE—FIEN:
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Italian actress Linda Caridi takes on tough roles to heal herself and her audience alike. Linda Caridi expresses herself with a mix of grace and enthusiasm. The actress possesses a natural elegance, and clearly does not fear the vulnerability required by a theatrical monologue. How did you become an actress? I played dress up as a child, imitating my parents. I then attended a theater workshop during high school in L’OFFICIEL:
LINDA CARIDI:
Milan, which was so inspiring that I decided to enroll at Paolo Grassi Civic School of Theater. It was three very intense years; I was in school for 10 hours a day. Acting was then a forbidden dream and seemed very far away. I staged a theatrical monologue, “Blu,” directed by Giampiero Judica, and among the audience was the casting director for Antonia, Ferdinando Cito Filomarino’s first work about the Milanese poet Antonia Pozzi. Getting the role was a long process that
By FABIA DI DRUSCO Photography GIANMARCO CHIEREGATO
Italian actress Linda Caridi takes on tough roles to heal herself and her audience alike. Linda Caridi expresses herself with a mix of grace and enthusiasm. The actress possesses a natural elegance, and clearly does not fear the vulnerability required by a theatrical monologue. How did you become an actress? I played dress up as a child, imitating my parents. I then attended a theater workshop during high school in L’OFFICIEL:
LINDA CARIDI:
Milan, which was so inspiring that I decided to enroll at Paolo Grassi Civic School of Theater. It was three very intense years; I was in school for 10 hours a day. Acting was then a forbidden dream and seemed very far away. I staged a theatrical monologue, “Blu,” directed by Giampiero Judica, and among the audience was the casting director for Antonia, Ferdinando Cito Filomarino’s first work about the Milanese poet Antonia Pozzi. Getting the role was a long process that
By FABIA DI DRUSCO Photography GIANMARCO CHIEREGATO
began with an audition at the Chiaravalle Abbey, where Pozzi committed suicide. Before the film I only knew one of her poems—today they are part of school anthologies. Even now I hear her voice say: “Little things chisel me. Miseries corrode me.”
I WOULD like to MOVE AWAY FROM THE SWEETNESS OFTEN ATTRIBUTED TO ME and EXPLORE SENSUALITY.
Do you have any secret desires relating to your work? I would like to move away from the sweetness often attributed to me and explore sensuality. I would love to work with Alice Rohrwacher, the D’Innocenzo brothers, and with Xavier Dolan. I speak French and before COVID I was about to go to France…who knows. My impossible dream is to have been able to work with Valentina Pedicini [who passed away last November]. I was on the jury with the D’Innocenzo brothers and Betta Olmi for the online edition of the ShorTS International Film Festival in Trieste that awarded her film Faith. It’s a very tough film. I didn’t know she was sick, and she disarmed me with her sweet curiosity. L’O: LC:
Who is your ideal costar? John Cazale [the highly acclaimed actor in The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, and Dog Day Afternoon, who died of cancer in 1978] for everything I have heard about him. On set he managed to establish a kind of creative effect on those around him. L’O: LC:
Is it different to play a fictional character rather than a real figure? Completely. You have a responsibility toward reality, images to draw from, diaries, letters, and also a body to enter. When I played Denise, the daughter of Lea Garofalo [a victim whose daughter provided damning testimony against her own family, part of the Italian Mafia branch known as ‘Ndrangheta, in a sensational Calabrian trial], director Marco Tullio Giordana immediately made known to us the weight of the film. I have never met Denise [she lives under witness protection] and I only heard her modified voice, but I know from Libera [the anti-mafia association of Don Luigi Ciotti] that she had read the script. On the other hand, it was different working on the role of Felicetta Vitale in the film Felicia Impastato, because the family of Peppino Impastato [the journalist murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1978] were very open with us from the beginning. We met Felicetta and went to Cinisi where Casa Memoria is situated. I remained friends with Felicetta after we finished filming. It’s important to make people understand the Mafia mentality and its dynamics of violence and abuse. L’O: LC:
Are you still doing theater? Yes! I’m working on “Il Bambolo,” an ironic and light-hearted monologue with an inflatable doll about abandonment, anorexia, and abuse. The monologue is a time-keeping experiment. It doesn’t scare me. L’O: LC:
RIGHT—Blazer
GIADA
STELLA McCARTNEY belt SPORTMAX Shoes STELLA McCARTNEY STYLIST: Giulio Martinelli HAIR: Giannandrea Marongiu MAKEUP: Nicoletta Pinna PRODUCTION: Eleonora Pratelli PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Adele Baracco and Terry Lospalluto HAIR ASSISTANT: Alessandro Rocchi MAKEUP ASSISTANT: Raffaele Schioppo PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Umberto Granata OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer
PREVIOUS PAGE—Jacket, pants, and
Theater school was fundamental for you. Have you ever thought about teaching? LC: Teaching is dear to me. I like to convey what I know to younger women, and I had a little teaching experience in a theater workshop inside the Niguarda hospital [in Milan], in the department for eating disorders. I believe that theatrical dynamics can be truly revitalizing, and that the relationship between gaze, gesture, story, and image has the ability to heal people. L’O:
51
began with an audition at the Chiaravalle Abbey, where Pozzi committed suicide. Before the film I only knew one of her poems—today they are part of school anthologies. Even now I hear her voice say: “Little things chisel me. Miseries corrode me.”
I WOULD like to MOVE AWAY FROM THE SWEETNESS OFTEN ATTRIBUTED TO ME and EXPLORE SENSUALITY.
Do you have any secret desires relating to your work? I would like to move away from the sweetness often attributed to me and explore sensuality. I would love to work with Alice Rohrwacher, the D’Innocenzo brothers, and with Xavier Dolan. I speak French and before COVID I was about to go to France…who knows. My impossible dream is to have been able to work with Valentina Pedicini [who passed away last November]. I was on the jury with the D’Innocenzo brothers and Betta Olmi for the online edition of the ShorTS International Film Festival in Trieste that awarded her film Faith. It’s a very tough film. I didn’t know she was sick, and she disarmed me with her sweet curiosity. L’O: LC:
Who is your ideal costar? John Cazale [the highly acclaimed actor in The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, and Dog Day Afternoon, who died of cancer in 1978] for everything I have heard about him. On set he managed to establish a kind of creative effect on those around him. L’O: LC:
Is it different to play a fictional character rather than a real figure? Completely. You have a responsibility toward reality, images to draw from, diaries, letters, and also a body to enter. When I played Denise, the daughter of Lea Garofalo [a victim whose daughter provided damning testimony against her own family, part of the Italian Mafia branch known as ‘Ndrangheta, in a sensational Calabrian trial], director Marco Tullio Giordana immediately made known to us the weight of the film. I have never met Denise [she lives under witness protection] and I only heard her modified voice, but I know from Libera [the anti-mafia association of Don Luigi Ciotti] that she had read the script. On the other hand, it was different working on the role of Felicetta Vitale in the film Felicia Impastato, because the family of Peppino Impastato [the journalist murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1978] were very open with us from the beginning. We met Felicetta and went to Cinisi where Casa Memoria is situated. I remained friends with Felicetta after we finished filming. It’s important to make people understand the Mafia mentality and its dynamics of violence and abuse. L’O: LC:
Are you still doing theater? Yes! I’m working on “Il Bambolo,” an ironic and light-hearted monologue with an inflatable doll about abandonment, anorexia, and abuse. The monologue is a time-keeping experiment. It doesn’t scare me. L’O: LC:
RIGHT—Blazer
GIADA
STELLA McCARTNEY belt SPORTMAX Shoes STELLA McCARTNEY STYLIST: Giulio Martinelli HAIR: Giannandrea Marongiu MAKEUP: Nicoletta Pinna PRODUCTION: Eleonora Pratelli PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Adele Baracco and Terry Lospalluto HAIR ASSISTANT: Alessandro Rocchi MAKEUP ASSISTANT: Raffaele Schioppo PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Umberto Granata OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer
PREVIOUS PAGE—Jacket, pants, and
Theater school was fundamental for you. Have you ever thought about teaching? LC: Teaching is dear to me. I like to convey what I know to younger women, and I had a little teaching experience in a theater workshop inside the Niguarda hospital [in Milan], in the department for eating disorders. I believe that theatrical dynamics can be truly revitalizing, and that the relationship between gaze, gesture, story, and image has the ability to heal people. L’O:
51
Revisiting tradition can open important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery. But can pop culture craft’s recent revival stay long enough to impact our consumption habits, and ultimately how we treat one another? We are living in a post-industrial world—or at least that’s what my hair stylist, an amateur astrologist, tells me. People are going back to their hands, he says, because of a recent rare eclipse of Saturn and Jupiter. I nod obediently in the sink; but later I realize my agreement is more than absent-minded salon submission. Surely we all felt the tectonic rumble of a cultural tipping point over the past year: the shift from mass and fast to something more human. If it’s written in the stars, all the better.
For my own sake, I’d like to say yes. Online I see TikTokers making their own clothes and fashion designers, in response, releasing their patterns. Gen Z and millennial mentors are home-brewing herbal remedies for limited distribution. I see artists bringing marquetry, glass blowing, and bead working back into the gallery, as makers and curators. Take Fringe Selects, Katie Stout’s recent exhibition at the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, where the artist’s curation brought contemporary airs and new audiences to a traditional archive. Or Essex Street’s 2019 Shaker furniture inflected show, Concerning Superfluities, where works by Wade Guyton, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jackie Windsor were mixed in amongst rare antiques. Craft’s return is inseparable from the art world’s current preoccupation: the decolonization of its institutions. Part of this work requires addressing the schism between the words “artist” and “artisan.” In the West, the former’s work is lauded
By KAT HERRIMAN
Courtesy of the artist and The Gallery @, Los Angeles.
Upon further inspection, the shift turns out not to be as abrupt as it seems. It’s been brewing for decades, as curator Glenn Adamson asserted in the 2007 book Thinking Through Craft and Rafael Cardoso further framed in his essay “Craft Versus Design: Moving Beyond a Tired Dichotomy” a year later. According to both, Do-It-Yourself revivalism grew up alongside the digital revolution, gaining strength in the ‘90s and 2000s and becoming a lingua franca among video game designers, Etsy business owners, HGTV fanatics, Burning Man float fabricators, obsessive shut-ins, and hobby survivalists. Fueled by equal parts nostalgia and financial ruin, this movement was in prime position to explode in the impending next Great Depression. And it did—when in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 christened a new generation of crafters, otherwise known as ordinary people trapped endlessly indoors.
However, by August, the ranks of the DIY newcomers had thinned. Social media documented friends and defectors slowly tiptoeing away from the same ravenous sourdough mothers, gung-ho victory gardens, and ambitious home renovations they’d proudly touted weeks earlier. It made me wonder: does the plastics generation have the attention span to let craft and its handmade ethos lead the mainstream?
“AKA Ricky the Rat,” 2020, by ISHI GLINSKY
Revisiting tradition can open important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery. But can pop culture craft’s recent revival stay long enough to impact our consumption habits, and ultimately how we treat one another? We are living in a post-industrial world—or at least that’s what my hair stylist, an amateur astrologist, tells me. People are going back to their hands, he says, because of a recent rare eclipse of Saturn and Jupiter. I nod obediently in the sink; but later I realize my agreement is more than absent-minded salon submission. Surely we all felt the tectonic rumble of a cultural tipping point over the past year: the shift from mass and fast to something more human. If it’s written in the stars, all the better.
For my own sake, I’d like to say yes. Online I see TikTokers making their own clothes and fashion designers, in response, releasing their patterns. Gen Z and millennial mentors are home-brewing herbal remedies for limited distribution. I see artists bringing marquetry, glass blowing, and bead working back into the gallery, as makers and curators. Take Fringe Selects, Katie Stout’s recent exhibition at the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, where the artist’s curation brought contemporary airs and new audiences to a traditional archive. Or Essex Street’s 2019 Shaker furniture inflected show, Concerning Superfluities, where works by Wade Guyton, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jackie Windsor were mixed in amongst rare antiques. Craft’s return is inseparable from the art world’s current preoccupation: the decolonization of its institutions. Part of this work requires addressing the schism between the words “artist” and “artisan.” In the West, the former’s work is lauded
By KAT HERRIMAN
Courtesy of the artist and The Gallery @, Los Angeles.
Upon further inspection, the shift turns out not to be as abrupt as it seems. It’s been brewing for decades, as curator Glenn Adamson asserted in the 2007 book Thinking Through Craft and Rafael Cardoso further framed in his essay “Craft Versus Design: Moving Beyond a Tired Dichotomy” a year later. According to both, Do-It-Yourself revivalism grew up alongside the digital revolution, gaining strength in the ‘90s and 2000s and becoming a lingua franca among video game designers, Etsy business owners, HGTV fanatics, Burning Man float fabricators, obsessive shut-ins, and hobby survivalists. Fueled by equal parts nostalgia and financial ruin, this movement was in prime position to explode in the impending next Great Depression. And it did—when in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 christened a new generation of crafters, otherwise known as ordinary people trapped endlessly indoors.
However, by August, the ranks of the DIY newcomers had thinned. Social media documented friends and defectors slowly tiptoeing away from the same ravenous sourdough mothers, gung-ho victory gardens, and ambitious home renovations they’d proudly touted weeks earlier. It made me wonder: does the plastics generation have the attention span to let craft and its handmade ethos lead the mainstream?
“AKA Ricky the Rat,” 2020, by ISHI GLINSKY
WE ALL FELT THE tectonic RUMBLE OF A CULTURAL TIPPING point LAST YEAR: THE SHIFT FROM MASS and FAST TO something MORE HUMAN. the most rewarding part of the art-making. But if you asked me as a student, I would’ve been much more invested in the pyramid of fine arts and the idea that contemporary art should be about producing these incredible unique visions.” The flyzapping sculpture of Damien Hirst appears in my mind. Cohen continues: “These days I find myself drifting away from those not necessarily bad pursuits. I can’t help but think they run counter to the kind of community building that the fine arts community so heavily wants to identify with. We try to get away from things like the ownership of ideas in our own work by investing in the communal narratives of craft.” Working together under a singular moniker seems tailormade to Bush and Cohen’s approach, which delves in and out of chapters of history using technique as a time machine. “When we are having these visions together, it’s a dialogue instead of a private funnel methodology, and that’s where it returns to craft. We have to think out loud through our
Detail of “Ganymede (the Cup Bearer),” 2020, F. TAYLOR COLANTONIO ; Two wall lamps by F. TAYLOR COLANTONIO
FROM LEFT:
54
Unquestioned for decades, this othering of the skilled handiwork and creativity of non-Western, non-conforming bodies has actually become a reason for young artists to want to produce work, even in an era of too much. Artist F. Taylor Colantonio falls into this category. He sees his embrace of craft as a direct rejection of macho 1990s art culture, when scale and taboo became a kind of pissing contest. “Most of Damien Hirst’s works feel like they’d be better accomplished as cartoons,” the artist says bluntly. “If you are making something today, it is irresponsible not to ask yourself, Is this the best vehicle for my idea? I left the U.S. [for Rome] because it felt like if I stayed, I was going to end up making the same thing everyone else does. The world doesn’t need more crap that kinda looks the same.” Colantonio blames this homogeneity of today on what he calls the “mood board designer,” his catch-all for peers who freely mix and match references stripped of their original
context in order to simulate familiar and already-approved aesthetics for new consumption, which he sees as inherently antithetical both to art-making and to a baseline ecological conscience. His own work stems from a lengthy papier-mâché apprenticeship with a master who taught him traditional modes of making—a foundation from which Colantonio now invents his own variations. Today you would find the artist in his Roman atelier, focused on fabricating celestial-looking marbled objects out of a special amalgam of minerals and colored paper. The resulting vessel-like lamps could be cut to their centers, and, just like the earth’s mantle, they’d be swirled to the core. This is a detail my iPhone Pro 11 cannot perceive, yet it’s the kind of off-screen material integrity that validates the process to Colantonio. The same could be said for New York–based artists Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen’s joint sculptural research and development project, Ficus Interfaith, which over the past five years has amassed a quiet but indulgent fan base. Their commission-centric practice experiments with all kinds of classical techniques including caning and marquetry, but it’s their resplendent narrative terrazzo that they are best known for. The pair see this manmade substrate as a physical means by which they wrestle the meaning out of a material rich in narrative. “Crafts like terrazzo or marquetry tend to be histories built by many people over time; they hold records of what was important, scarce, and valuable to a community,” Cohen says. “Tracing the etymology of those things and parsing out all those ingredients that go into the final forms is
F. Taylor Colantonio images by Giorgio Benni. Photographs courtesy of Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen.
as genius and shown without edit in a kunsthalle, while the latter’s is almost always shown anonymously in specialty showcases or museums. This is a rejection of non-Western and Indigenous aesthetic traditions, a way of devaluing and othering comparable works of genius by placing them outside what constitutes the modern. For those who view this condition as passive happenstance, see the U.S. government’s financial backing and global dissemination of Abstract Expressionism, which was used to tout individual achievement as part of a cultural contest against Soviet communism during the Cold War. The Ab-Ex movement continues to enjoy the fruits of that investment—just look at the auction prices.
Two examples of privately commissioned terrazzos by FICUS INTERFAITH
hands in order to be clear with one another,” Bush says. “The same could be said of our commissions. Clients are [often] unsure of how much of it is about us and how much is about decoration. We are interested in that disruption.” Berkeley, California–based Frank Traynor takes it a step further. “Transforming a space you occupy is the most rewarding type of work you can do as an artist,” he says. “It is only then that the distinction between living and art-making vanishes. People need to know they have the power to change their surroundings in order to feel safe and connected.” Unlike Ficus Interfaith, Traynor doesn’t have a specific trade. Instead, he dabbles as the town fix-it man might. His ongoing participatory artworkcum-afterschool program, No School, exemplifies this mode of working. Partnering with different artists, Traynor offers students the chance to realize architectural interventions within the structures they occupy. One of Traynor’s favorite projects was staged during a residency at non-profit art space 2727 California Street, where he invited Bush and Cohen to help pour a terrazzo entryway. “There are so many decisions that are made for you as a kid,” Traynor says. “You might never see the broom you are working with, but if you make it, every time you use it you will have an experience that is more than just sweeping up the dust.” Traynor’s words recall Fin Simonetti’s mind-bending polished sculptures, which wear their labor-intensive origins on their sleeves. The New York-based artist is a self-taught stone mason and apprenticed stained glassmaker, and these two
WE ALL FELT THE tectonic RUMBLE OF A CULTURAL TIPPING point LAST YEAR: THE SHIFT FROM MASS and FAST TO something MORE HUMAN. the most rewarding part of the art-making. But if you asked me as a student, I would’ve been much more invested in the pyramid of fine arts and the idea that contemporary art should be about producing these incredible unique visions.” The flyzapping sculpture of Damien Hirst appears in my mind. Cohen continues: “These days I find myself drifting away from those not necessarily bad pursuits. I can’t help but think they run counter to the kind of community building that the fine arts community so heavily wants to identify with. We try to get away from things like the ownership of ideas in our own work by investing in the communal narratives of craft.” Working together under a singular moniker seems tailormade to Bush and Cohen’s approach, which delves in and out of chapters of history using technique as a time machine. “When we are having these visions together, it’s a dialogue instead of a private funnel methodology, and that’s where it returns to craft. We have to think out loud through our
Detail of “Ganymede (the Cup Bearer),” 2020, F. TAYLOR COLANTONIO ; Two wall lamps by F. TAYLOR COLANTONIO
FROM LEFT:
54
Unquestioned for decades, this othering of the skilled handiwork and creativity of non-Western, non-conforming bodies has actually become a reason for young artists to want to produce work, even in an era of too much. Artist F. Taylor Colantonio falls into this category. He sees his embrace of craft as a direct rejection of macho 1990s art culture, when scale and taboo became a kind of pissing contest. “Most of Damien Hirst’s works feel like they’d be better accomplished as cartoons,” the artist says bluntly. “If you are making something today, it is irresponsible not to ask yourself, Is this the best vehicle for my idea? I left the U.S. [for Rome] because it felt like if I stayed, I was going to end up making the same thing everyone else does. The world doesn’t need more crap that kinda looks the same.” Colantonio blames this homogeneity of today on what he calls the “mood board designer,” his catch-all for peers who freely mix and match references stripped of their original
context in order to simulate familiar and already-approved aesthetics for new consumption, which he sees as inherently antithetical both to art-making and to a baseline ecological conscience. His own work stems from a lengthy papier-mâché apprenticeship with a master who taught him traditional modes of making—a foundation from which Colantonio now invents his own variations. Today you would find the artist in his Roman atelier, focused on fabricating celestial-looking marbled objects out of a special amalgam of minerals and colored paper. The resulting vessel-like lamps could be cut to their centers, and, just like the earth’s mantle, they’d be swirled to the core. This is a detail my iPhone Pro 11 cannot perceive, yet it’s the kind of off-screen material integrity that validates the process to Colantonio. The same could be said for New York–based artists Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen’s joint sculptural research and development project, Ficus Interfaith, which over the past five years has amassed a quiet but indulgent fan base. Their commission-centric practice experiments with all kinds of classical techniques including caning and marquetry, but it’s their resplendent narrative terrazzo that they are best known for. The pair see this manmade substrate as a physical means by which they wrestle the meaning out of a material rich in narrative. “Crafts like terrazzo or marquetry tend to be histories built by many people over time; they hold records of what was important, scarce, and valuable to a community,” Cohen says. “Tracing the etymology of those things and parsing out all those ingredients that go into the final forms is
F. Taylor Colantonio images by Giorgio Benni. Photographs courtesy of Ryan Bush and Raphael Cohen.
as genius and shown without edit in a kunsthalle, while the latter’s is almost always shown anonymously in specialty showcases or museums. This is a rejection of non-Western and Indigenous aesthetic traditions, a way of devaluing and othering comparable works of genius by placing them outside what constitutes the modern. For those who view this condition as passive happenstance, see the U.S. government’s financial backing and global dissemination of Abstract Expressionism, which was used to tout individual achievement as part of a cultural contest against Soviet communism during the Cold War. The Ab-Ex movement continues to enjoy the fruits of that investment—just look at the auction prices.
Two examples of privately commissioned terrazzos by FICUS INTERFAITH
hands in order to be clear with one another,” Bush says. “The same could be said of our commissions. Clients are [often] unsure of how much of it is about us and how much is about decoration. We are interested in that disruption.” Berkeley, California–based Frank Traynor takes it a step further. “Transforming a space you occupy is the most rewarding type of work you can do as an artist,” he says. “It is only then that the distinction between living and art-making vanishes. People need to know they have the power to change their surroundings in order to feel safe and connected.” Unlike Ficus Interfaith, Traynor doesn’t have a specific trade. Instead, he dabbles as the town fix-it man might. His ongoing participatory artworkcum-afterschool program, No School, exemplifies this mode of working. Partnering with different artists, Traynor offers students the chance to realize architectural interventions within the structures they occupy. One of Traynor’s favorite projects was staged during a residency at non-profit art space 2727 California Street, where he invited Bush and Cohen to help pour a terrazzo entryway. “There are so many decisions that are made for you as a kid,” Traynor says. “You might never see the broom you are working with, but if you make it, every time you use it you will have an experience that is more than just sweeping up the dust.” Traynor’s words recall Fin Simonetti’s mind-bending polished sculptures, which wear their labor-intensive origins on their sleeves. The New York-based artist is a self-taught stone mason and apprenticed stained glassmaker, and these two
According to Simonetti, it is actually because of craft’s physicality that she is able to arrive in unexpected territories. “I think about how my work would be different if it were outsourced to fabricators. I doubt the difference would be substantial. But I do know that in the process of making something slowly with your hands, you come to weirder decisions,” Simonetti says. “Months of staring at the same object affects the decisions you make, how you digest the ideas, and where you go next. Making something by hand is a way of thinking and seeing.” Like Traynor, Simonetti makes the process of craft sound like a place. This is the key that has enabled traditional modes of making to stay afloat, even in margins of the mainstream; it is a vehicle for a collective escapism. While Simonetti arrived at stained glass of her own aesthetic accord, her family’s history with the medium opened up a bridge for the artist to reconnect with her otherwise estranged roots. Similarly, for the New York-based artists André and Evan Lenox, extensively researching and learning how to inlay mother of pearl became a pilgrimage through which they accessed the heritage encrusted in some of the heirlooms they’d grown up alongside. They learned that Palestinian
mother-of-pearl shadow box carving originated in Bethlehem, and that outside of that area there are very few who know how to deal with the finicky shell. Cross-referencing advice from a hive of hobbyists, including musical instrument makers, they taught themselves the technique and have since been executing designs informed by their upbringing (namely chunky 1990s-era computer graphics) as a way to welcome in their abstracted Palestinian past. “The scale of these shadow boxes suggest a domestic space, a wall, a fixed place, yet they perpetually seem to be seeking a new place to exist as they are unlike anything else in the home,” André says. “This isn’t just limited to the idea of a community in exile; we spent the summer thinking about it in relationship to the fragileness of planned communities and queer utopianism.” Craft’s complicated relationship to otherness has become a whetting stone for its new practitioners, who see the potential opening up of cultural space for those who have been previously banished to its fringes. Craft is another. Craft is feminine. Craft is indigenous. Craft is queer. Of course, there are still institutional and discourse-related growing pains to tackle. In T’ai Smith’s 2016 essay for Art Journal titled “The Problem with Craft,” the critic writes: “As the contemporary art world is broadening its scope to include ‘global’ (meaning not ethnically European) artists in its midst, there is a tendency to use practitioners’ engagement with traditional mediums as a means to brand (to exoticize, or recolonize) them.” Smith goes on to cite a notably problematic 1989 exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris—Magiciens de la Terre—
2,” 2019, by FIN SIMONETTI ; A close up of a mother-of-pearl inlay in progress by ANDRÉ and EVAN LENOX
FROM LEFT: “Keeper
and the reaction this show elicited from Anishinaabe artist Olivia Whetung: “Whetung’s work [‘onjishkawigaabawin,’ (2015)] was an attempt to disrupt two narratives at once: an art world that appropriates and spits out artists as brands, and a craft world that abstracts making-as-skill by deracinating practitioners and craft patterns from their colonial history.” No one embodies this paradox quite like that of Los Angeles-based artist Ishi Glinsky, whose work I encountered while visiting curator Fiona Duncan’s group show Comedy of Errors at The Gallery @, where Glinsky’s “AKA Ricky the Rat,” (2020) caught my attention. Hung above eye level— just beyond a podium bearing a diamond ring panty set by the fashion brand Vaquera and alongside a painted series of cartoon buildings by Matt Denny—Glinsky’s Santo Domingo necklace-inspired resin sculpture demanded one consider the correlation between built environments and socioeconomic power structures.
FROM LEFT: A welded door with floral accents created by FRANK TRAYNOR and the students in his after artist school program, No School; Detail of “Cathedral 3,” 2020, by FIN SIMONETTI
All images courtesy of the artists.
physically demanding techniques extract their pound of flesh: “Currently, I am missing the lower half of my thumbnail. I have open wounds on two fingers and countless small slices. And I still work like this—grinding glass and chiseling stone. It’s not because I have a high pain threshold, it’s just that the discomfort becomes background noise after a certain point.”
“These were personal adornments made out of what was available: shattered Dairy Queen plates, cut up car batteries, and remnants of silver jewelry. But if you came across them in a museum, they’d be in a case besieged by other Southwestern jewelry, obscuring that history of resourcefulness,” Glinsky states. “By enlarging it, I’m ensuring that you are coming across it in a new way. The scale also allows me to take some necessary distance from the actual tradition itself.” Like Simonetti’s scars and the calluses the Lenox twins earned while shaving down individual tiles, taking on these legacies carries a toll—one that
YOU MIGHT never SEE the BROOM YOU ARE WORKING with with,, BUT if YOU MAKE IT, every TIME YOU USE it YOU WILL HAVE an experience OF MORE THAN just SWEEPING up DUST. FRANK TRAYNOR
is deeply felt by Glinsky. “When I started to include things in my practice that are of my descent or intertribally inspired, it immediately became a focus for the work, but also its central challenge. Speaking to these stories, some of which are violent and sad, and to pay respect to the sacredness of the designs, requires an effort beyond what practice required before.” In our conversation, I realize that it will take more than an astrological shift for craft to truly come into its own. Artists alone can’t let go of ego; they need critics, curators, and consumers to follow. It requires a fundamental shift towards a more communitarian way of living and understanding history that aligns with the utopias we invoke in art and online. Maybe individuals like Glinsky will help lead that revolution by showing us how to use our hands to make it real.
57
According to Simonetti, it is actually because of craft’s physicality that she is able to arrive in unexpected territories. “I think about how my work would be different if it were outsourced to fabricators. I doubt the difference would be substantial. But I do know that in the process of making something slowly with your hands, you come to weirder decisions,” Simonetti says. “Months of staring at the same object affects the decisions you make, how you digest the ideas, and where you go next. Making something by hand is a way of thinking and seeing.” Like Traynor, Simonetti makes the process of craft sound like a place. This is the key that has enabled traditional modes of making to stay afloat, even in margins of the mainstream; it is a vehicle for a collective escapism. While Simonetti arrived at stained glass of her own aesthetic accord, her family’s history with the medium opened up a bridge for the artist to reconnect with her otherwise estranged roots. Similarly, for the New York-based artists André and Evan Lenox, extensively researching and learning how to inlay mother of pearl became a pilgrimage through which they accessed the heritage encrusted in some of the heirlooms they’d grown up alongside. They learned that Palestinian
mother-of-pearl shadow box carving originated in Bethlehem, and that outside of that area there are very few who know how to deal with the finicky shell. Cross-referencing advice from a hive of hobbyists, including musical instrument makers, they taught themselves the technique and have since been executing designs informed by their upbringing (namely chunky 1990s-era computer graphics) as a way to welcome in their abstracted Palestinian past. “The scale of these shadow boxes suggest a domestic space, a wall, a fixed place, yet they perpetually seem to be seeking a new place to exist as they are unlike anything else in the home,” André says. “This isn’t just limited to the idea of a community in exile; we spent the summer thinking about it in relationship to the fragileness of planned communities and queer utopianism.” Craft’s complicated relationship to otherness has become a whetting stone for its new practitioners, who see the potential opening up of cultural space for those who have been previously banished to its fringes. Craft is another. Craft is feminine. Craft is indigenous. Craft is queer. Of course, there are still institutional and discourse-related growing pains to tackle. In T’ai Smith’s 2016 essay for Art Journal titled “The Problem with Craft,” the critic writes: “As the contemporary art world is broadening its scope to include ‘global’ (meaning not ethnically European) artists in its midst, there is a tendency to use practitioners’ engagement with traditional mediums as a means to brand (to exoticize, or recolonize) them.” Smith goes on to cite a notably problematic 1989 exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris—Magiciens de la Terre—
2,” 2019, by FIN SIMONETTI ; A close up of a mother-of-pearl inlay in progress by ANDRÉ and EVAN LENOX
FROM LEFT: “Keeper
and the reaction this show elicited from Anishinaabe artist Olivia Whetung: “Whetung’s work [‘onjishkawigaabawin,’ (2015)] was an attempt to disrupt two narratives at once: an art world that appropriates and spits out artists as brands, and a craft world that abstracts making-as-skill by deracinating practitioners and craft patterns from their colonial history.” No one embodies this paradox quite like that of Los Angeles-based artist Ishi Glinsky, whose work I encountered while visiting curator Fiona Duncan’s group show Comedy of Errors at The Gallery @, where Glinsky’s “AKA Ricky the Rat,” (2020) caught my attention. Hung above eye level— just beyond a podium bearing a diamond ring panty set by the fashion brand Vaquera and alongside a painted series of cartoon buildings by Matt Denny—Glinsky’s Santo Domingo necklace-inspired resin sculpture demanded one consider the correlation between built environments and socioeconomic power structures.
FROM LEFT: A welded door with floral accents created by FRANK TRAYNOR and the students in his after artist school program, No School; Detail of “Cathedral 3,” 2020, by FIN SIMONETTI
All images courtesy of the artists.
physically demanding techniques extract their pound of flesh: “Currently, I am missing the lower half of my thumbnail. I have open wounds on two fingers and countless small slices. And I still work like this—grinding glass and chiseling stone. It’s not because I have a high pain threshold, it’s just that the discomfort becomes background noise after a certain point.”
“These were personal adornments made out of what was available: shattered Dairy Queen plates, cut up car batteries, and remnants of silver jewelry. But if you came across them in a museum, they’d be in a case besieged by other Southwestern jewelry, obscuring that history of resourcefulness,” Glinsky states. “By enlarging it, I’m ensuring that you are coming across it in a new way. The scale also allows me to take some necessary distance from the actual tradition itself.” Like Simonetti’s scars and the calluses the Lenox twins earned while shaving down individual tiles, taking on these legacies carries a toll—one that
YOU MIGHT never SEE the BROOM YOU ARE WORKING with with,, BUT if YOU MAKE IT, every TIME YOU USE it YOU WILL HAVE an experience OF MORE THAN just SWEEPING up DUST. FRANK TRAYNOR
is deeply felt by Glinsky. “When I started to include things in my practice that are of my descent or intertribally inspired, it immediately became a focus for the work, but also its central challenge. Speaking to these stories, some of which are violent and sad, and to pay respect to the sacredness of the designs, requires an effort beyond what practice required before.” In our conversation, I realize that it will take more than an astrological shift for craft to truly come into its own. Artists alone can’t let go of ego; they need critics, curators, and consumers to follow. It requires a fundamental shift towards a more communitarian way of living and understanding history that aligns with the utopias we invoke in art and online. Maybe individuals like Glinsky will help lead that revolution by showing us how to use our hands to make it real.
57
Helena Christensen and Brooke Shields have carved paths well beyond their original claims to fame in fashion. Known for her work in front of the camera, the former has since become a well regarded photographer and creative director, while the latter has always been a model and performer well ahead of her time. The supermodels reunite here to reflect on their glory days and their enduring, decades-long friendship. Photography GREG LOTUS Styled by ARNOLD MILFORT
Helena Christensen and Brooke Shields have carved paths well beyond their original claims to fame in fashion. Known for her work in front of the camera, the former has since become a well regarded photographer and creative director, while the latter has always been a model and performer well ahead of her time. The supermodels reunite here to reflect on their glory days and their enduring, decades-long friendship. Photography GREG LOTUS Styled by ARNOLD MILFORT
With HER SEXY, BOHEMIAN, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL energy, HELENA REPRESENTED EVERYTHING that I WAS NOT BECAUSE I HAD SPENT my LIFE JUST TRYING to PLEASE OTHERS. BROOKE SHIELDS
MÔNOT Skirt CHRISTIAN SIRIANO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. HELENA: Suit CHRISTIAN SIRIANO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings and ring JACOB & CO. Dress and earrings CHANEL Shoes JIMMY CHOO Ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress, shoes, bag, and earrings CHANEL Ring HAMMERMAN PREVIOUS PAGE—BROOKE: Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes CASADEI Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress VALENTINO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings and ring CARTIER
ABOVE—BROOKE: Top
OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
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With HER SEXY, BOHEMIAN, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL energy, HELENA REPRESENTED EVERYTHING that I WAS NOT BECAUSE I HAD SPENT my LIFE JUST TRYING to PLEASE OTHERS. BROOKE SHIELDS
MÔNOT Skirt CHRISTIAN SIRIANO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. HELENA: Suit CHRISTIAN SIRIANO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings and ring JACOB & CO. Dress and earrings CHANEL Shoes JIMMY CHOO Ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress, shoes, bag, and earrings CHANEL Ring HAMMERMAN PREVIOUS PAGE—BROOKE: Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes CASADEI Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress VALENTINO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings and ring CARTIER
ABOVE—BROOKE: Top
OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
61
There WAS NEVER ANY COMPETITION between US. WE TOOK VERY GOOD CARE OF EACH OTHER and TREATED EACH OTHER like SISTERS. HELENA CHRISTENSEN
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OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
BROOKE: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings TATIANA VERSTRAETEN Bracelet JACOB & CO. Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes ALTUZARRA Earrings, necklace, and ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress EMPORIO ARMANI Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. MAKEUP: Kale Teter THE WALL GROUP PRODUCTION: Daniele Carettoni ESPRESSO PRODUCTIONS RETOUCHING: Lara Chrome VIDEO: Nikita Kholkin PHOTO ASSISTANT: Ernesto Sempoll SPECIAL THANKS: Tony McHale and Jennifer Cooke at The Carlyle
There WAS NEVER ANY COMPETITION between US. WE TOOK VERY GOOD CARE OF EACH OTHER and TREATED EACH OTHER like SISTERS. HELENA CHRISTENSEN
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OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
BROOKE: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings TATIANA VERSTRAETEN Bracelet JACOB & CO. Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes ALTUZARRA Earrings, necklace, and ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress EMPORIO ARMANI Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. MAKEUP: Kale Teter THE WALL GROUP PRODUCTION: Daniele Carettoni ESPRESSO PRODUCTIONS RETOUCHING: Lara Chrome VIDEO: Nikita Kholkin PHOTO ASSISTANT: Ernesto Sempoll SPECIAL THANKS: Tony McHale and Jennifer Cooke at The Carlyle
When this magazine was published for the first time, in 1921, a World War had just ended, and a battle against a deadly virus had finally been won. The Roaring Twenties were beginning, and art in all its forms was blossoming. Paris was at the center of it all. One hundred years later, times are very different, and we truly hope that 2021 will bring the same rejuvenating energy and creative spirit that L’OFFICIEL witnessed throughout its beginnings. Starting with this issue, we are taking a voyage through our vast archives, looking back into our past for the seeds of our future. Together we want to discover the stories never before told, and to herald the lives and talents of the editors, the designers, the photographers, and the illustrators—the men and the women—who made this magazine possible. We are examining our heritage with today’s eyes and sensibilities, not to simply celebrate it but to draw wisdom from it—to share it. By this fall, L’OFFICIEL’s complete visual archives—more than 70,000 fashion, art, and cultural images from more than 900 issues—will become an immense online gallery experience. The L’OFFICIEL Centennial Gallery will be an inviting, inspiring space—one in which our readers will be encouraged to play, learn, and discover this storied magazine’s rich history. We can’t wait to share it with you.
When this magazine was published for the first time, in 1921, a World War had just ended, and a battle against a deadly virus had finally been won. The Roaring Twenties were beginning, and art in all its forms was blossoming. Paris was at the center of it all. One hundred years later, times are very different, and we truly hope that 2021 will bring the same rejuvenating energy and creative spirit that L’OFFICIEL witnessed throughout its beginnings. Starting with this issue, we are taking a voyage through our vast archives, looking back into our past for the seeds of our future. Together we want to discover the stories never before told, and to herald the lives and talents of the editors, the designers, the photographers, and the illustrators—the men and the women—who made this magazine possible. We are examining our heritage with today’s eyes and sensibilities, not to simply celebrate it but to draw wisdom from it—to share it. By this fall, L’OFFICIEL’s complete visual archives—more than 70,000 fashion, art, and cultural images from more than 900 issues—will become an immense online gallery experience. The L’OFFICIEL Centennial Gallery will be an inviting, inspiring space—one in which our readers will be encouraged to play, learn, and discover this storied magazine’s rich history. We can’t wait to share it with you.
From fashion spreads to the stage and silver screen, Sienna Miller and Twiggy have done it all. Separated by lockdown but together in spirit, the fashion icons discuss their origins and why our pasts have never felt so contemporary. A year into our second lives as indoor cats, Sienna Miller is wearing Uggs. To be clear, the American-born, Britishraised actress has always been a champion of the contentious, shearling-lined shoe, but now that a new era of the Frankensteinian boot-slipper has been ushered in, her choice seems especially poignant. Like all of us, Miller has had to adjust her rhythm to an unfamiliar tune, becoming an at-home tutor to her daughter, Marlowe, while still trying to make movies in the middle of a pandemic. And her latest, Wander Darkly, which is available on streaming services now, might be her most powerful appearance in recent memory. Directed by Tara Miele, the emotional film analyzes trauma through the deconstruction of a relationship. “It was extremely intense but almost cathartic,” explains Miller, who stars alongside Diego Luna. Bleeding time and space together, the film is an honest portrayal of our distorted memories. Across town, not so far away, Dame Lesley Lawson—known more famously by the nickname that changed the look of fashion, Twiggy—is in slippers, too. Although the ’60s supermodel’s aren’t namebrand, the two women share in the delight of coincidence. There is something to be said for two longtime friends— whose lives often run on parallel tracks in more ways than one—to reconvene online over video chat. But in a time of adjustments and precaution, there is comfort in knowing that a physical reunion will come all too soon. Probably just in different shoes.
By JOSHUA GLASS Photography TOM MUNRO Styled by CATHY KASTERINE
From fashion spreads to the stage and silver screen, Sienna Miller and Twiggy have done it all. Separated by lockdown but together in spirit, the fashion icons discuss their origins and why our pasts have never felt so contemporary. A year into our second lives as indoor cats, Sienna Miller is wearing Uggs. To be clear, the American-born, Britishraised actress has always been a champion of the contentious, shearling-lined shoe, but now that a new era of the Frankensteinian boot-slipper has been ushered in, her choice seems especially poignant. Like all of us, Miller has had to adjust her rhythm to an unfamiliar tune, becoming an at-home tutor to her daughter, Marlowe, while still trying to make movies in the middle of a pandemic. And her latest, Wander Darkly, which is available on streaming services now, might be her most powerful appearance in recent memory. Directed by Tara Miele, the emotional film analyzes trauma through the deconstruction of a relationship. “It was extremely intense but almost cathartic,” explains Miller, who stars alongside Diego Luna. Bleeding time and space together, the film is an honest portrayal of our distorted memories. Across town, not so far away, Dame Lesley Lawson—known more famously by the nickname that changed the look of fashion, Twiggy—is in slippers, too. Although the ’60s supermodel’s aren’t namebrand, the two women share in the delight of coincidence. There is something to be said for two longtime friends— whose lives often run on parallel tracks in more ways than one—to reconvene online over video chat. But in a time of adjustments and precaution, there is comfort in knowing that a physical reunion will come all too soon. Probably just in different shoes.
By JOSHUA GLASS Photography TOM MUNRO Styled by CATHY KASTERINE
Top, pants, and belt LOUIS VUITTON Bracelets CARTIER OPPOSITE PAGE—Sweater, top, skirt, and shoes PRADA PREVIOUS PAGE—Dress and shoes LOEWE
Top, pants, and belt LOUIS VUITTON Bracelets CARTIER OPPOSITE PAGE—Sweater, top, skirt, and shoes PRADA PREVIOUS PAGE—Dress and shoes LOEWE
Shirt and bra SIMONE ROCHA shorts CELINE Bracelets CARTIER
OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer, top, and
Shirt and bra SIMONE ROCHA shorts CELINE Bracelets CARTIER
OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer, top, and
JOSHUA GLASS: The two of you have been close for a while now. Do you remember the first time you met? SIENNA MILLER: I was filming Casanova in Venice with Leigh [Lawson], Twiggy’s husband, in 2002 or 2003. We all really just fell in love quite quickly, didn’t we? Wandering around the city together, cooking roasts for late Sunday lunches. We had a real gang. TWIGGY: You were very sweet to let me in. SM: We were desperate for you! T: I remember meeting you, Sienna, this gorgeous girl who would ultimately become our surrogate daughter. Of course, you already have a lovely mum, who I adore, and dad, but we’re your surrogate parents when they can’t be there. Up until this virus took hold of us, life was busy and sometimes we weren’t able to see each other for a year or two. What’s nice about making real friends is that you just pick right back up where you left off, don’t you?
I WOULD HATE to HAVE TO JUMP OUT of A PLANE, but THAT FEELING OF HAVING DONE IT, and ARRIVING BACK to EARTH, WOULD BE ONE of ACCOMPLISHMENT. Sienna, as an aspiring young model in London at the start of your career, how were you influenced by Twiggy’s incredible legacy? SM: Surely every English girl or woman has been influenced by Twiggy. She represented what was happening in London in that era, which was the most exciting time to be alive. You can track a lot of today’s fashion trends back to those iconic images of Twiggs, so I’d never even dare to imagine being that level of a model. I really started it as a gateway into acting; that’s always what I’ve wanted to do. But obviously, yes, I’ve done the Twiggy haircut, the makeup. I haven’t raided the wardrobe, which is mad, actually, and something I need to get into, Twiggs. She’s gone on to become this sublime actress, and the best mum, the best granny— T: —oh you’re very sweet! You haven’t done too badly yourself, huh? Looking back, it was an amazing time to be a young person. England’s class system was really changing, and suddenly it became very—let’s say fashionable—to be working class, in film, in fashion, and in music. I think you know who The Beatles were? SM: There were five of them right? The Fab Five! [Laughs.] T: I was 16 when everything happened to me; a funny looking little school girl with skinny legs. I was a Mod with long hair parted in the middle wearing grey pleated skirts below our knees and brown lace-up hush-puppy shoes. With my legs I must’ve looked like Olive Oyl! I used to paint my eyes based on a ragdoll’s spiky lashes. One day a friend asked me to do JG:
72
JOSHUA GLASS: The two of you have been close for a while now. Do you remember the first time you met? SIENNA MILLER: I was filming Casanova in Venice with Leigh [Lawson], Twiggy’s husband, in 2002 or 2003. We all really just fell in love quite quickly, didn’t we? Wandering around the city together, cooking roasts for late Sunday lunches. We had a real gang. TWIGGY: You were very sweet to let me in. SM: We were desperate for you! T: I remember meeting you, Sienna, this gorgeous girl who would ultimately become our surrogate daughter. Of course, you already have a lovely mum, who I adore, and dad, but we’re your surrogate parents when they can’t be there. Up until this virus took hold of us, life was busy and sometimes we weren’t able to see each other for a year or two. What’s nice about making real friends is that you just pick right back up where you left off, don’t you?
I WOULD HATE to HAVE TO JUMP OUT of A PLANE, but THAT FEELING OF HAVING DONE IT, and ARRIVING BACK to EARTH, WOULD BE ONE of ACCOMPLISHMENT. Sienna, as an aspiring young model in London at the start of your career, how were you influenced by Twiggy’s incredible legacy? SM: Surely every English girl or woman has been influenced by Twiggy. She represented what was happening in London in that era, which was the most exciting time to be alive. You can track a lot of today’s fashion trends back to those iconic images of Twiggs, so I’d never even dare to imagine being that level of a model. I really started it as a gateway into acting; that’s always what I’ve wanted to do. But obviously, yes, I’ve done the Twiggy haircut, the makeup. I haven’t raided the wardrobe, which is mad, actually, and something I need to get into, Twiggs. She’s gone on to become this sublime actress, and the best mum, the best granny— T: —oh you’re very sweet! You haven’t done too badly yourself, huh? Looking back, it was an amazing time to be a young person. England’s class system was really changing, and suddenly it became very—let’s say fashionable—to be working class, in film, in fashion, and in music. I think you know who The Beatles were? SM: There were five of them right? The Fab Five! [Laughs.] T: I was 16 when everything happened to me; a funny looking little school girl with skinny legs. I was a Mod with long hair parted in the middle wearing grey pleated skirts below our knees and brown lace-up hush-puppy shoes. With my legs I must’ve looked like Olive Oyl! I used to paint my eyes based on a ragdoll’s spiky lashes. One day a friend asked me to do JG:
72
Dress SAINT LAURENT and shoes FENDI Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE—Top, skirt, shoes, and socks GUCCI
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress
Dress SAINT LAURENT and shoes FENDI Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE—Top, skirt, shoes, and socks GUCCI
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress
beauty shots for a magazine she was working at—she said I was way too short to model but that I had an “interesting” face—so she sent me to Leonard’s, a very posh salon in Mayfair. I remember sitting in the chair close to tears because I didn’t want to cut my hair. When Leonard [Lewis] came in, I was too frightened to say anything. Afterwards, the photographer Barry Lategan took my headshots, which turned out to be very beautiful. Leonard put the black-andwhite images up in his salon, and eventually a journalist saw them. Two weeks later my dad opened up the newspaper to a whole center-page-spread that read: “Twiggy: The Face of ’66.” That changed everything.
BECAUSE EVERYBODY USED to PAY SO CLOSE ATTENTION to WHAT I WAS WEARING, I BECAME QUITE self-CONSCIOUS... self -CONSCIOUS... ONCE THIS IS OVER I’m GOING TO NEED to GET the SPARKLE OUT. Sienna, have you had any transformations similar to Twiggy’s moment at Leonard’s that affected you in unexpected but profound ways? SM: I don’t know if there was anything as definitive as that, but for my second film, Alfie, I had a haircut of my own. They cut my hair into a very ‘70s kind of fringe. It was a very bohemian style that went with the very bohemian clothes that I loved to wear at the time. I suppose that became my “look” for quite some time. T: That was definitely the beginning of people following you through your personal style. It was actually very similar to me in the ’60s: everyone wanted to know what you were wearing—who you were wearing—to copy your look. And really, you wear clothes beautifully. The thing is, I didn’t plan it, and neither did you. I don’t think you can plan things like what happened to us. SM: No, you can’t. It has to fit into the zeitgeist at the right moment. JG:
JG: You both successfully transitioned from fashion into film, and have had unforgettable roles throughout the years. After playing so many different types of women, have any roles stayed with you more than others?
T: Well, Sienna’s done so much more than I have, and she’s a bloody good actress. Sometimes—I think especially in the UK—it’s very hard to be accepted as talented if you’re beautiful like Sienna is, don’t you agree? SM: The idea that you can’t possibly be good at more than one thing. T: Yes. Personally, Ken Russell changed my life. He was the hottest director in England when he cast me in The Boy Friend. Without him I would have never tried anything other than modeling. If you have that person that really believes in you, it really does work. But what stayed with me more than any other project was the Broadway show My One and Only, because it was like nothing else I’d ever done before. Filming was scary, but in a way it was also just an extension of modeling. You know one of my favorites that you did, Sienna, was Edie Sedgwick [in Factory Girl]? SM: That role definitely stayed with me. The really flawed people always do because they are more rounded. With Edie, it was easy to understand psychologically why she was the way she was, but it was so fun to play her because she was so magnetic and lived in such an interesting world. Meeting people like Brigid Berlin, who had been at The Factory, and hearing all those stories was something I could do for hours. I didn’t take off the tights or the leotard for a good three months after we finished filming. I didn’t want to shake that feeling. T: I was taken to meet Andy Warhol when I first went to New York in 1967, and he frightened me so much. I was so straight and so square. I mean, I smoked cigarettes, but that was the only kind of “bad” thing that I did. There were boys everywhere, and it was very dimly lit with lots of music. Then this man who had this white face and grey hair, who looked like a walking cadaver, came up to me. I remember almost saying to him, “I don’t like it here, I want to leave!” That was my one and only trip to The Factory, but I did meet Edie Sedgwick! SM: You know what they would say if you got sucked into it: “You can stay but you can never leave.” It was a performance artist space, but [Warhol] designed the environment so that he could watch people just implode and destroy themselves, which is riveting if you’re sadistic. JG: Speaking of flawed characters, Sienna, your new film, Wander Darkly, is very much about self-doubt; not being able to trust your memories or your own emotions. How has fear or apprehension affected you off-camera? SM: I have that little voice in my ear every time I’m really challenged creatively that tries to talk me down, tries to talk me out of it. It’s that demon that you have to fight. Any time I’ve done a play, I’m always a wreck the night before the first preview. I think that somehow overcoming that...I don’t know. I would hate to have to jump out of a plane, but that feeling of having done it, and arriving back to earth, would be one of accomplishment. I sort of compare that to going on stage or doing a lead role on a film because it feels indelible. I get really excited by the things that absolutely petrify me, but it’s definitely still a struggle. What about you, Twiggs? T: It’s going forward from the fear and self-doubt that results in a better performance. You occasionally meet people who say, “Oh, I never get nervous,” but they’re usually not very good.
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beauty shots for a magazine she was working at—she said I was way too short to model but that I had an “interesting” face—so she sent me to Leonard’s, a very posh salon in Mayfair. I remember sitting in the chair close to tears because I didn’t want to cut my hair. When Leonard [Lewis] came in, I was too frightened to say anything. Afterwards, the photographer Barry Lategan took my headshots, which turned out to be very beautiful. Leonard put the black-andwhite images up in his salon, and eventually a journalist saw them. Two weeks later my dad opened up the newspaper to a whole center-page-spread that read: “Twiggy: The Face of ’66.” That changed everything.
BECAUSE EVERYBODY USED to PAY SO CLOSE ATTENTION to WHAT I WAS WEARING, I BECAME QUITE self-CONSCIOUS... self -CONSCIOUS... ONCE THIS IS OVER I’m GOING TO NEED to GET the SPARKLE OUT. Sienna, have you had any transformations similar to Twiggy’s moment at Leonard’s that affected you in unexpected but profound ways? SM: I don’t know if there was anything as definitive as that, but for my second film, Alfie, I had a haircut of my own. They cut my hair into a very ‘70s kind of fringe. It was a very bohemian style that went with the very bohemian clothes that I loved to wear at the time. I suppose that became my “look” for quite some time. T: That was definitely the beginning of people following you through your personal style. It was actually very similar to me in the ’60s: everyone wanted to know what you were wearing—who you were wearing—to copy your look. And really, you wear clothes beautifully. The thing is, I didn’t plan it, and neither did you. I don’t think you can plan things like what happened to us. SM: No, you can’t. It has to fit into the zeitgeist at the right moment. JG:
JG: You both successfully transitioned from fashion into film, and have had unforgettable roles throughout the years. After playing so many different types of women, have any roles stayed with you more than others?
T: Well, Sienna’s done so much more than I have, and she’s a bloody good actress. Sometimes—I think especially in the UK—it’s very hard to be accepted as talented if you’re beautiful like Sienna is, don’t you agree? SM: The idea that you can’t possibly be good at more than one thing. T: Yes. Personally, Ken Russell changed my life. He was the hottest director in England when he cast me in The Boy Friend. Without him I would have never tried anything other than modeling. If you have that person that really believes in you, it really does work. But what stayed with me more than any other project was the Broadway show My One and Only, because it was like nothing else I’d ever done before. Filming was scary, but in a way it was also just an extension of modeling. You know one of my favorites that you did, Sienna, was Edie Sedgwick [in Factory Girl]? SM: That role definitely stayed with me. The really flawed people always do because they are more rounded. With Edie, it was easy to understand psychologically why she was the way she was, but it was so fun to play her because she was so magnetic and lived in such an interesting world. Meeting people like Brigid Berlin, who had been at The Factory, and hearing all those stories was something I could do for hours. I didn’t take off the tights or the leotard for a good three months after we finished filming. I didn’t want to shake that feeling. T: I was taken to meet Andy Warhol when I first went to New York in 1967, and he frightened me so much. I was so straight and so square. I mean, I smoked cigarettes, but that was the only kind of “bad” thing that I did. There were boys everywhere, and it was very dimly lit with lots of music. Then this man who had this white face and grey hair, who looked like a walking cadaver, came up to me. I remember almost saying to him, “I don’t like it here, I want to leave!” That was my one and only trip to The Factory, but I did meet Edie Sedgwick! SM: You know what they would say if you got sucked into it: “You can stay but you can never leave.” It was a performance artist space, but [Warhol] designed the environment so that he could watch people just implode and destroy themselves, which is riveting if you’re sadistic. JG: Speaking of flawed characters, Sienna, your new film, Wander Darkly, is very much about self-doubt; not being able to trust your memories or your own emotions. How has fear or apprehension affected you off-camera? SM: I have that little voice in my ear every time I’m really challenged creatively that tries to talk me down, tries to talk me out of it. It’s that demon that you have to fight. Any time I’ve done a play, I’m always a wreck the night before the first preview. I think that somehow overcoming that...I don’t know. I would hate to have to jump out of a plane, but that feeling of having done it, and arriving back to earth, would be one of accomplishment. I sort of compare that to going on stage or doing a lead role on a film because it feels indelible. I get really excited by the things that absolutely petrify me, but it’s definitely still a struggle. What about you, Twiggs? T: It’s going forward from the fear and self-doubt that results in a better performance. You occasionally meet people who say, “Oh, I never get nervous,” but they’re usually not very good.
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Dress MIU MIU VALENTINO Bracelet CARTIER Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE— Jacket CHANEL
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress
Dress MIU MIU VALENTINO Bracelet CARTIER Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE— Jacket CHANEL
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress
The nucleus of all my creativity is that—the feeling of self-doubt. And the fact is, I do get drawn to the darkness, with subject matter, too. It’s strange because I feel like I’m a really light person, but my work isn’t that way. T: It’s nice to be able to explore both sides; I’ve never really had the chance to do darker things but I quite like it. SM: Oh, I’m gonna direct something really dark and cast you. T: I’d love to! You know, now that I’m an old woman, I’d love to do something where I’m not made up, and with a funny old grey wig on. We could play mother and daughter, actually. SM:
JG: The last year has been unlike any other time in history. One unforeseen consequence of the pandemic has been an overall fascination with the past: creatives are revisiting their prior works, designers are returning to classic designs. What do you make of this cultural reintroduction? T: I still get fan mail, and a lot of it is from teenage girls, usually between the ages of 16 and 24, who are obsessed with the ’60s and the fashion, the clothes, the music, and the art. I don’t know why the past resonates so much with young people right now. SM: The ’60s in particular was such an amazing moment culturally; a rebirth that I don’t think can ever be replicated. But as a whole, I think modern culture has been so saturated with information. One of the best parts about this pandemic is that we’ve been forced to slow down, and take stock of how much we are consuming. Designers and fashion houses like Gucci, who I work with a lot, are stripping back their volume of production. People are metaphorically and literally going back into their cupboards to find things to wear again. T: One wonders if there is a higher being that we don’t know about that organized this to say, “Hold on folks, slow down.” JG: In this spirit of returning to days gone by, is there anything from your own pasts that you’d like to reconsider? SM: Meditating is something that I find hard to do these days, but is something I’d like to bring back. Fashion-wise, because everybody used to pay so close attention to what I was wearing, I’ve become quite self-conscious. Now, I literally wear a jumper and jeans every day, and have all these unworn things. Once this is over I’m going to need to get the sparkle out. T: I don’t even wear jeans! I’ve spent the past year in tracksuits. I would love to go back to dressing up. SM: A lot of people Zoom without any pants on, so at least we have that. I do wonder if the end of our pandemic will be like the ’20s; their pandemic ended and suddenly their hair was lopped off and their skirts were around their asses. T: I’d love to just dip into the Roaring ’20s. They all traveled quite a bit, but they did so on ships. And they got dressed up for dinner; it was always black-tie. SM: We should bring that back. Once lockdown is over, I’m coming over. We’re gonna dress up for dinner. T: Oh that’s lovely, we’ll have a black-tie dinner. SM: Or a ’20s dinner at mine and then a black-tie at yours? T: Ok, lovely. You’ve got yourself a deal.
shoes MOLLY GODDARD Rowe CAREN HAIR: Earl Simms CAREN MANICURIST: Jenni Draper PREMIER VIDEO DIRECTOR: Ivan Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sarah Thompson DIGITAL OPERATOR: Bruno Conrad PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Tom Hill, Russell Higton, and Shane Ryan STYLIST ASSISTANT: Benjamin Canares RIGHT—Jacket, sweater, skirt, and MAKEUP: Wendy
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The nucleus of all my creativity is that—the feeling of self-doubt. And the fact is, I do get drawn to the darkness, with subject matter, too. It’s strange because I feel like I’m a really light person, but my work isn’t that way. T: It’s nice to be able to explore both sides; I’ve never really had the chance to do darker things but I quite like it. SM: Oh, I’m gonna direct something really dark and cast you. T: I’d love to! You know, now that I’m an old woman, I’d love to do something where I’m not made up, and with a funny old grey wig on. We could play mother and daughter, actually. SM:
JG: The last year has been unlike any other time in history. One unforeseen consequence of the pandemic has been an overall fascination with the past: creatives are revisiting their prior works, designers are returning to classic designs. What do you make of this cultural reintroduction? T: I still get fan mail, and a lot of it is from teenage girls, usually between the ages of 16 and 24, who are obsessed with the ’60s and the fashion, the clothes, the music, and the art. I don’t know why the past resonates so much with young people right now. SM: The ’60s in particular was such an amazing moment culturally; a rebirth that I don’t think can ever be replicated. But as a whole, I think modern culture has been so saturated with information. One of the best parts about this pandemic is that we’ve been forced to slow down, and take stock of how much we are consuming. Designers and fashion houses like Gucci, who I work with a lot, are stripping back their volume of production. People are metaphorically and literally going back into their cupboards to find things to wear again. T: One wonders if there is a higher being that we don’t know about that organized this to say, “Hold on folks, slow down.” JG: In this spirit of returning to days gone by, is there anything from your own pasts that you’d like to reconsider? SM: Meditating is something that I find hard to do these days, but is something I’d like to bring back. Fashion-wise, because everybody used to pay so close attention to what I was wearing, I’ve become quite self-conscious. Now, I literally wear a jumper and jeans every day, and have all these unworn things. Once this is over I’m going to need to get the sparkle out. T: I don’t even wear jeans! I’ve spent the past year in tracksuits. I would love to go back to dressing up. SM: A lot of people Zoom without any pants on, so at least we have that. I do wonder if the end of our pandemic will be like the ’20s; their pandemic ended and suddenly their hair was lopped off and their skirts were around their asses. T: I’d love to just dip into the Roaring ’20s. They all traveled quite a bit, but they did so on ships. And they got dressed up for dinner; it was always black-tie. SM: We should bring that back. Once lockdown is over, I’m coming over. We’re gonna dress up for dinner. T: Oh that’s lovely, we’ll have a black-tie dinner. SM: Or a ’20s dinner at mine and then a black-tie at yours? T: Ok, lovely. You’ve got yourself a deal.
shoes MOLLY GODDARD Rowe CAREN HAIR: Earl Simms CAREN MANICURIST: Jenni Draper PREMIER VIDEO DIRECTOR: Ivan Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sarah Thompson DIGITAL OPERATOR: Bruno Conrad PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Tom Hill, Russell Higton, and Shane Ryan STYLIST ASSISTANT: Benjamin Canares RIGHT—Jacket, sweater, skirt, and MAKEUP: Wendy
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With a simple yet powerful mantra, Tod’s Creative Director Walter Chiapponi aims to make fashion aspirational again. When Walter Chiapponi enters a room, he creates a vortex. Slender and snappy, he moves gracefully through space as if he doesn’t place his feet on the ground. Hailing from Milan, the designer was named the creative director of Tod’s in October 2019, and made his debut on his native city’s catwalks the following February. It was the first time that his name rose to international prominence, although he has been sailing through the fashion industry alongside its great captains for quite some time. He studied under Alessandro Dell’Acqua at the European Institute of Design, and then worked under the designer at his eponymous line in the late ‘90s. From there he moved on to Blumarine and
By CRISTINA MANFREDI Photography SIMONE BATTISTONI
With a simple yet powerful mantra, Tod’s Creative Director Walter Chiapponi aims to make fashion aspirational again. When Walter Chiapponi enters a room, he creates a vortex. Slender and snappy, he moves gracefully through space as if he doesn’t place his feet on the ground. Hailing from Milan, the designer was named the creative director of Tod’s in October 2019, and made his debut on his native city’s catwalks the following February. It was the first time that his name rose to international prominence, although he has been sailing through the fashion industry alongside its great captains for quite some time. He studied under Alessandro Dell’Acqua at the European Institute of Design, and then worked under the designer at his eponymous line in the late ‘90s. From there he moved on to Blumarine and
By CRISTINA MANFREDI Photography SIMONE BATTISTONI
then assisted Riccardo Tisci during his tenure at Givenchy. Afterward, Chiapponi worked at Valentino with Alessandra Facchinetti, and for Gucci during its Frida Giannini era, along with now Creative Director Alessandro Michele. His journey continued to Miu Miu, and, in 2016, Bottega Veneta, alongside longtime designer Tomas Maier and then new creative head Daniel Lee. Accustomed to working in the shadows, Chiapponi still has a hint of shyness, but it only takes a conversation about style for his eyes to light up and shine. You were tasked with defining a new direction at Tod’s. How would you describe the brand’s DNA today? WALTER CHIAPPONI: The clothes are designed for everyday life— especially for downtime—which makes me very lucky, because I dress people for the moments they are exploring their hobbies and having fun. My job is to move this feeling forward, not to revolutionize it. L’OFFICIEL:
What makes Tod’s unique as a brand? There is a kind of reassurance in what we offer: comfortable clothes with a combination of elegance and modern leisurewear without forcing anything or having an obsession with being trendy. We make timeless pieces to dress and not to disguise people. We want those who wear us to feel at ease, perhaps with new points of view related to shapes, materials, and colors, yet always with an attitude. We aim to broaden our target audience and speak to different people. Tod’s has perhaps been seen as for a more mature wearer, but I am trying to convey the codes of elegance, culture, and classicism to younger people as well. For example, we chose one of the actors in the Netflix series Unorthodox, Aaron Altaras, to be the face of our new campaign. L’O:
WC:
I AM TRYING TO CONVEY the CODES of ELEGANCE, CULTURE, and CLASSICISM TO younger PEOPLE AS WELL.
L’O: What have you learned from your various mentors and colleagues? WC: I was lucky enough to work alongside some sacred fashion masters. Everyone has given me something. I admire Miuccia Prada’s ability to constantly challenge herself, her rebellion against stereotypes of beauty, and her desire to make glamorous what others would never look at twice. Riccardo Tisci guided me toward a more camp, ofthe-moment aesthetic, but he developed it in a maison like Givenchy, whose history was very different. I began my career with Alessandro Dell’Acqua, who, at the time, was an enfant prodige and contested certain fashion canons. It was a very formative experience.
What experience did you draw from 2020? It was a year in which I had to be a true leader, and I realized I knew how to do it. During the many video calls with my collaborators, it was important for me to also see their families in some way. To better understand everyone’s L’O:
WC:
daily life. I got to know their homes, husbands, wives, and children. This interaction between the spheres of private life and work has given me a lot of insight. What should we expect in terms of trends? I’m tired of hearing about comfortable clothing, pajamas, and about clothes to wear at home. All this nonchalance can L’O:
Jacket, sweater, pants, shoes, and bag TOD’S OPPOSITE PAGE—MATILDE: Dress, bag, and shoes TOD’S PREVIOUS PAGE—MATILDE: Dress and shoes TOD’S THIAM: Jacket, shirt, pants, and shoes TOD’S RIGHT—THIAM:
WC:
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then assisted Riccardo Tisci during his tenure at Givenchy. Afterward, Chiapponi worked at Valentino with Alessandra Facchinetti, and for Gucci during its Frida Giannini era, along with now Creative Director Alessandro Michele. His journey continued to Miu Miu, and, in 2016, Bottega Veneta, alongside longtime designer Tomas Maier and then new creative head Daniel Lee. Accustomed to working in the shadows, Chiapponi still has a hint of shyness, but it only takes a conversation about style for his eyes to light up and shine. You were tasked with defining a new direction at Tod’s. How would you describe the brand’s DNA today? WALTER CHIAPPONI: The clothes are designed for everyday life— especially for downtime—which makes me very lucky, because I dress people for the moments they are exploring their hobbies and having fun. My job is to move this feeling forward, not to revolutionize it. L’OFFICIEL:
What makes Tod’s unique as a brand? There is a kind of reassurance in what we offer: comfortable clothes with a combination of elegance and modern leisurewear without forcing anything or having an obsession with being trendy. We make timeless pieces to dress and not to disguise people. We want those who wear us to feel at ease, perhaps with new points of view related to shapes, materials, and colors, yet always with an attitude. We aim to broaden our target audience and speak to different people. Tod’s has perhaps been seen as for a more mature wearer, but I am trying to convey the codes of elegance, culture, and classicism to younger people as well. For example, we chose one of the actors in the Netflix series Unorthodox, Aaron Altaras, to be the face of our new campaign. L’O:
WC:
I AM TRYING TO CONVEY the CODES of ELEGANCE, CULTURE, and CLASSICISM TO younger PEOPLE AS WELL.
L’O: What have you learned from your various mentors and colleagues? WC: I was lucky enough to work alongside some sacred fashion masters. Everyone has given me something. I admire Miuccia Prada’s ability to constantly challenge herself, her rebellion against stereotypes of beauty, and her desire to make glamorous what others would never look at twice. Riccardo Tisci guided me toward a more camp, ofthe-moment aesthetic, but he developed it in a maison like Givenchy, whose history was very different. I began my career with Alessandro Dell’Acqua, who, at the time, was an enfant prodige and contested certain fashion canons. It was a very formative experience.
What experience did you draw from 2020? It was a year in which I had to be a true leader, and I realized I knew how to do it. During the many video calls with my collaborators, it was important for me to also see their families in some way. To better understand everyone’s L’O:
WC:
daily life. I got to know their homes, husbands, wives, and children. This interaction between the spheres of private life and work has given me a lot of insight. What should we expect in terms of trends? I’m tired of hearing about comfortable clothing, pajamas, and about clothes to wear at home. All this nonchalance can L’O:
Jacket, sweater, pants, shoes, and bag TOD’S OPPOSITE PAGE—MATILDE: Dress, bag, and shoes TOD’S PREVIOUS PAGE—MATILDE: Dress and shoes TOD’S THIAM: Jacket, shirt, pants, and shoes TOD’S RIGHT—THIAM:
WC:
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easily become sloppy and, in the long run, can negatively affect us on a psychological level. There are too many tracksuits and too many sneakers. I want to see people who take care of their appearance; who want to be elegant. Fashion is not just a t-shirt with a big logo. Yet many argue that fashion is no longer in fashion. WC: I think I’ve said something similar before, and I regret it because the idea has been misinterpreted. I see less creativity today than when I began in 1996. We had left minimalism behind at the time, and the wave of English designers was rampant. Wherever you turned there was something incredible. It was so much fun. Now, many designers think more like entrepreneurs and have gone too far in making fashion L’O:
approachable. Certain brands have become hyper-popular by showing what can already be seen on the streets, while the attempt to offer the public a dream has been lost. Fashion is not dead, but it has to become more aspirational again. What is your working method? I have a very detail-oriented mindset, and I am extremely tidy, but when creativity comes on I become a bottomless pit. At a certain point I have to stop, otherwise, I risk going on forever. I physically work on things. I cut, sew, take apart, and reassemble the garments. I prefer to manipulate a piece developed by my collaborators, not to destroy it, to bring it as closely as possible to my vision. I don’t draw much; I’d rather seek contact with the object. It’s a method established by the time I spent working with Daniel Lee at Bottega Veneta. For him too, physicality and spontaneity are fundamental. L’O:
WC:
I PREFER TO MANIPULATE A PIECE DEVELOPED by MY collaborators, NOT TO DESTROY IT, TO BRING IT AS CLOSELY AS POSSIBLE to MY VISION. What relationship do you have with your personal wardrobe? I have a huge closet, and I own more than 500 pairs of shoes. Sometimes I buy something already knowing that I won’t wear it because it is too eccentric, but I still buy it for the simple pleasure of owning wonderful objects. My outfits are never extreme, just with a few extravagant details. I like to make those who meet me smile and notice something unexpected. L’O:
WC:
Who has been the most significant person for you? My paternal grandfather was a farmer, and he taught me humility. He didn’t understand what I was doing, yet he always believed in me. At the end of my first show at Tod’s, when they pushed me out to say hello, he was the first person I thought of. I carry his innocence and genuineness in my heart. L’O:
WC:
Jacket, sweater, shorts, shoes, and socks Tod’s MATILDE: Top, skirt, shoes, bag, and socks Tod’s STYLED BY: Giulio Martinelli MODELS: Matilde Rastelli ELITE Thiam Mama IMG HAIR AND MAKEUP: Amy Kourouma CASTING: Laura Stella Motta OPPOSITE PAGE—THIAM:
easily become sloppy and, in the long run, can negatively affect us on a psychological level. There are too many tracksuits and too many sneakers. I want to see people who take care of their appearance; who want to be elegant. Fashion is not just a t-shirt with a big logo. Yet many argue that fashion is no longer in fashion. WC: I think I’ve said something similar before, and I regret it because the idea has been misinterpreted. I see less creativity today than when I began in 1996. We had left minimalism behind at the time, and the wave of English designers was rampant. Wherever you turned there was something incredible. It was so much fun. Now, many designers think more like entrepreneurs and have gone too far in making fashion L’O:
approachable. Certain brands have become hyper-popular by showing what can already be seen on the streets, while the attempt to offer the public a dream has been lost. Fashion is not dead, but it has to become more aspirational again. What is your working method? I have a very detail-oriented mindset, and I am extremely tidy, but when creativity comes on I become a bottomless pit. At a certain point I have to stop, otherwise, I risk going on forever. I physically work on things. I cut, sew, take apart, and reassemble the garments. I prefer to manipulate a piece developed by my collaborators, not to destroy it, to bring it as closely as possible to my vision. I don’t draw much; I’d rather seek contact with the object. It’s a method established by the time I spent working with Daniel Lee at Bottega Veneta. For him too, physicality and spontaneity are fundamental. L’O:
WC:
I PREFER TO MANIPULATE A PIECE DEVELOPED by MY collaborators, NOT TO DESTROY IT, TO BRING IT AS CLOSELY AS POSSIBLE to MY VISION. What relationship do you have with your personal wardrobe? I have a huge closet, and I own more than 500 pairs of shoes. Sometimes I buy something already knowing that I won’t wear it because it is too eccentric, but I still buy it for the simple pleasure of owning wonderful objects. My outfits are never extreme, just with a few extravagant details. I like to make those who meet me smile and notice something unexpected. L’O:
WC:
Who has been the most significant person for you? My paternal grandfather was a farmer, and he taught me humility. He didn’t understand what I was doing, yet he always believed in me. At the end of my first show at Tod’s, when they pushed me out to say hello, he was the first person I thought of. I carry his innocence and genuineness in my heart. L’O:
WC:
Jacket, sweater, shorts, shoes, and socks Tod’s MATILDE: Top, skirt, shoes, bag, and socks Tod’s STYLED BY: Giulio Martinelli MODELS: Matilde Rastelli ELITE Thiam Mama IMG HAIR AND MAKEUP: Amy Kourouma CASTING: Laura Stella Motta OPPOSITE PAGE—THIAM:
PLAY IT AGAIN. These days, the past is worth more than the present. You can hear it as Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan play new versions of their songs: old successes remixed and remastered. Incubated in the flatness of the Internet, where the world is not presented in a chronological order but in a visual and sensory jumble, recent generations do not differentiate between what is old and what is new—what has already been done and what is truly original—as long as the context is right for the moment. That is probably why so many brands have decided to re-edit themselves in recent seasons, updating their topselling classics with an of-the-moment sensibility. Many fashion designers presented the best of their archives’ best for their Spring/Summer 2021 collections, presenting their visions from yesterday in new, modernized ways. A current set of values, like a commitment to sustainability, and a renewed, more serious attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion within gender and racial constructs, have recontextualized older designs and given fresh meaning to previous must-haves. Be it Prada’s black nylon fabric, logomania from Gucci, the timeless bar jacket by Dior, or Chanel’s classic tweed suit, most designers have delivered on demand what people want and expect from them: a reassuring echo of familiarity in a world lost in the unknown. For this issue, we asked our contributors for their own re-editing of the Spring/Summer runway collections, using their individual tastes to re-style their favorite outfits. They chose to show these pieces—many iconic looks and accessories from the brands’ own histories—in a new, intimate light and in a highly personal context. In “Re:Claim,” for example, vintage pieces are deliberately mixed with this season’s looks to demonstrate how in contemporary life on the Internet—and now in fashion—everything from the past and the present can live at the same time, in the same moment.
PLAY IT AGAIN. These days, the past is worth more than the present. You can hear it as Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan play new versions of their songs: old successes remixed and remastered. Incubated in the flatness of the Internet, where the world is not presented in a chronological order but in a visual and sensory jumble, recent generations do not differentiate between what is old and what is new—what has already been done and what is truly original—as long as the context is right for the moment. That is probably why so many brands have decided to re-edit themselves in recent seasons, updating their topselling classics with an of-the-moment sensibility. Many fashion designers presented the best of their archives’ best for their Spring/Summer 2021 collections, presenting their visions from yesterday in new, modernized ways. A current set of values, like a commitment to sustainability, and a renewed, more serious attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion within gender and racial constructs, have recontextualized older designs and given fresh meaning to previous must-haves. Be it Prada’s black nylon fabric, logomania from Gucci, the timeless bar jacket by Dior, or Chanel’s classic tweed suit, most designers have delivered on demand what people want and expect from them: a reassuring echo of familiarity in a world lost in the unknown. For this issue, we asked our contributors for their own re-editing of the Spring/Summer runway collections, using their individual tastes to re-style their favorite outfits. They chose to show these pieces—many iconic looks and accessories from the brands’ own histories—in a new, intimate light and in a highly personal context. In “Re:Claim,” for example, vintage pieces are deliberately mixed with this season’s looks to demonstrate how in contemporary life on the Internet—and now in fashion—everything from the past and the present can live at the same time, in the same moment.
Shake up your personal style with a few of your closet’s beloved classics. Photography GUENDALINA FIORE Styled by VANESSA SEWARD
Shake up your personal style with a few of your closet’s beloved classics. Photography GUENDALINA FIORE Styled by VANESSA SEWARD
Jacket and shirt LE VIF VINTAGE Skirt PRADA Shoes A.P.C. Belt VINTAGE Earrings CARTIER and pants HUSBANDS Shirt and tie SÉBLINE Necklace CHANEL Ring CARTIER Ring DIOR PREVIOUS PAGE—Cardigan CELINE Shirt CHARVET Pants and shoes GUCCI Bag HERMÈS Sunglasses SAINT LAURENT Bow and rings VINTAGE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer
Jacket and shirt LE VIF VINTAGE Skirt PRADA Shoes A.P.C. Belt VINTAGE Earrings CARTIER and pants HUSBANDS Shirt and tie SÉBLINE Necklace CHANEL Ring CARTIER Ring DIOR PREVIOUS PAGE—Cardigan CELINE Shirt CHARVET Pants and shoes GUCCI Bag HERMÈS Sunglasses SAINT LAURENT Bow and rings VINTAGE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer
Jumpsuit VANESSA SEWARD X LA REDOUTE Sweater A.P.C. Shirt SÉBLINE Shoes GUCCI Scarf HERMÈS Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR
Jumpsuit VANESSA SEWARD X LA REDOUTE Sweater A.P.C. Shirt SÉBLINE Shoes GUCCI Scarf HERMÈS Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR
Coat MAX MARA Jacket and pants MIU MIU Bag, bracelet, and ring DIOR Earrings and ring CARTIER OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress, hat, and belt GUCCI Shoes HERMÈS Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR
Coat MAX MARA Jacket and pants MIU MIU Bag, bracelet, and ring DIOR Earrings and ring CARTIER OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress, hat, and belt GUCCI Shoes HERMÈS Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR
Shirt HUSBANDS Pants and belt LOUIS VUITTON Shoes SAINT LAURENT Scarf VINTAGE and sunglasses CHANEL Shirt GUCCI Jeans A.P.C. Belt CELINE Earrings CARTIER
OPPOSITE PAGE— Cardigan
Shirt HUSBANDS Pants and belt LOUIS VUITTON Shoes SAINT LAURENT Scarf VINTAGE and sunglasses CHANEL Shirt GUCCI Jeans A.P.C. Belt CELINE Earrings CARTIER
OPPOSITE PAGE— Cardigan
Jacket SAINT LAURENT Jeans A.P.C. Shoes CELINE Scarf HERMÈS Sunglasses MOSCOT Watch, earrings, and rings CARTIER
Jacket SAINT LAURENT Jeans A.P.C. Shoes CELINE Scarf HERMÈS Sunglasses MOSCOT Watch, earrings, and rings CARTIER
Jacket and pants DIOR Bag CELINE Boots and belt (worn over) VANESSA SEWARD Belt (worn under) VINTAGE Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR OPPOSITE PAGE—Poncho, shirt, and jeans CELINE Shoes REPETTO Watch, earrings, and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR Scarf VINTAGE MODEL: Amandine Pouilly SUPREME HAIR: Yusuke Taniguchi B AGENCY MAKEUP: Giulia Cohen B AGENCY PHOTO ASSISTANT: Francesco Zinno STYLIST ASSISTANT: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx
Jacket and pants DIOR Bag CELINE Boots and belt (worn over) VANESSA SEWARD Belt (worn under) VINTAGE Earrings and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR OPPOSITE PAGE—Poncho, shirt, and jeans CELINE Shoes REPETTO Watch, earrings, and ring CARTIER Ring DIOR Scarf VINTAGE MODEL: Amandine Pouilly SUPREME HAIR: Yusuke Taniguchi B AGENCY MAKEUP: Giulia Cohen B AGENCY PHOTO ASSISTANT: Francesco Zinno STYLIST ASSISTANT: Kenzia Bengel de Vaulx
Call it the new sustainability sustainability:: This season’s most fascinating combinations cleverly mix fresh pieces with classic vintage. Photography JON ERVIN Styled by GABRIELLE MARCECA
Call it the new sustainability sustainability:: This season’s most fascinating combinations cleverly mix fresh pieces with classic vintage. Photography JON ERVIN Styled by GABRIELLE MARCECA
OPPOSITE PAGE—Coat
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Blazer, bra, and hat CELINE Skirt VERSACE FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Pants MICHAEL KORS Shoes GUCCI Scarf HERMÈS (VINTAGE) (worn under) MICHAEL KORS Sweater MOSCHINO FROM JAMES VELORIA VINTAGE Pants GIORGIO ARMANI FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA PREVIOUS PAGE—Vest, shirt, and skirt SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA
OPPOSITE PAGE—Coat
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Blazer, bra, and hat CELINE Skirt VERSACE FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Pants MICHAEL KORS Shoes GUCCI Scarf HERMÈS (VINTAGE) (worn under) MICHAEL KORS Sweater MOSCHINO FROM JAMES VELORIA VINTAGE Pants GIORGIO ARMANI FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA PREVIOUS PAGE—Vest, shirt, and skirt SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA
Dress MIU MIU BOTTEGA VENETA
PREVIOUS PAGE— Dress
Dress MIU MIU BOTTEGA VENETA
PREVIOUS PAGE— Dress
Blazer, shorts, and socks DRIES VAN NOTEN Shirt (over) SAINT LAURENT FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Shirt (under) GUCCI Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA OPPOSITE PAGE— Top and pants CHANEL Shoes LOUIS VUITTON
Blazer, shorts, and socks DRIES VAN NOTEN Shirt (over) SAINT LAURENT FROM NEW YORK VINTAGE Shirt (under) GUCCI Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA OPPOSITE PAGE— Top and pants CHANEL Shoes LOUIS VUITTON
Top, shoes, and belt LOUIS VUITTON Skirt BALENCIAGA FROM JAMES VELORIA VINTAGE Tights STYLIST’S OWN OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress LOEWE Pants CALVIN KLEIN (VINTAGE) Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA Socks GUCCI
Itemtk BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK PREVIOUS PAGE—Itemtk BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK OPPOSITE PAGE—Itemtk
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Top, shoes, and belt LOUIS VUITTON Skirt BALENCIAGA FROM JAMES VELORIA VINTAGE Tights STYLIST’S OWN OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress LOEWE Pants CALVIN KLEIN (VINTAGE) Shoes BOTTEGA VENETA Socks GUCCI
Itemtk BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK PREVIOUS PAGE—Itemtk BRANDTK Itemtk BRANDTK OPPOSITE PAGE—Itemtk
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Coat, vest, top, pants, and shoes PRADA bag BURBERRY MODEL: Charlotte MIDLAND AGENCY HAIR: Adam Szabo FRANK REPS MAKEUP: Kuma STREETERS PHOTO ASSISTANT: Jeremy Hall STYLIST ASSISTANT: Megan Mattson OPPOSITE PAGE— Coat, top, skirt, shoes, hats, and
Coat, vest, top, pants, and shoes PRADA bag BURBERRY MODEL: Charlotte MIDLAND AGENCY HAIR: Adam Szabo FRANK REPS MAKEUP: Kuma STREETERS PHOTO ASSISTANT: Jeremy Hall STYLIST ASSISTANT: Megan Mattson OPPOSITE PAGE— Coat, top, skirt, shoes, hats, and
The season’s must-have handbags find themselves in new contexts. Photography COREY OLSEN Styled by DORA FUNG
The season’s must-have handbags find themselves in new contexts. Photography COREY OLSEN Styled by DORA FUNG
Coussin PM bag LOUIS VUITTON 1955 bucket bag GUCCI PREVIOUS PAGE—Cleo bag PRADA
OPPOSITE PAGE—Horsebit
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Coussin PM bag LOUIS VUITTON 1955 bucket bag GUCCI PREVIOUS PAGE—Cleo bag PRADA
OPPOSITE PAGE—Horsebit
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Mars de Bride bag HERMÈS bag in leather and beads CHANEL PREVIOUS PAGE—Crochet napa triangle bag BOTTEGA VENETA OPPOSITE PAGE—Pink
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Mars de Bride bag HERMÈS bag in leather and beads CHANEL PREVIOUS PAGE—Crochet napa triangle bag BOTTEGA VENETA OPPOSITE PAGE—Pink
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SET DESIGN: Alicia
Cut out bag GIVENCHY Sciberras PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Scott Semler and Iain Emaline SET DESIGN ASSISTANT: Sarah Ballard
SET DESIGN: Alicia
Cut out bag GIVENCHY Sciberras PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Scott Semler and Iain Emaline SET DESIGN ASSISTANT: Sarah Ballard
Spring has sprung sprung.. Bright pastels and whimsical flower patterns are everywhere. Photography ALBERTO MARIA COLOMBO Styled by FABRIZIO FINIZZA
Spring has sprung sprung.. Bright pastels and whimsical flower patterns are everywhere. Photography ALBERTO MARIA COLOMBO Styled by FABRIZIO FINIZZA
ABOVE— Dress
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(worn over) SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Dress (worn under) ACNE STUDIOS Shoes PRADA OPPOSITE PAGE— Jacket, dress, scarf, and bag GUCCI Shoes ROGER VIVIER PREVIOUS PAGE— Dress CHANEL
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ABOVE— Dress
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(worn over) SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Dress (worn under) ACNE STUDIOS Shoes PRADA OPPOSITE PAGE— Jacket, dress, scarf, and bag GUCCI Shoes ROGER VIVIER PREVIOUS PAGE— Dress CHANEL
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Top LOEWE OPPOSITE PAGE— Vest, skirt, bags, and
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bracelets CHANEL
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Top LOEWE OPPOSITE PAGE— Vest, skirt, bags, and
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bracelets CHANEL
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Dress EMILIO PUCCI BLUMARINE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress
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Dress EMILIO PUCCI BLUMARINE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress
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ABOVE—Jacket
TAGLIATORE 0205 Shirt EMILIO PUCCI Pants PATOU Shoes PRADA Bag GIVENCHY Belt MOSCHINO and pants PINKO Shirt EMILIO PUCCI Shoes PRADA Bag ROGER VIVIER
OPPOSITE PAGE—Jacket
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ABOVE—Jacket
TAGLIATORE 0205 Shirt EMILIO PUCCI Pants PATOU Shoes PRADA Bag GIVENCHY Belt MOSCHINO and pants PINKO Shirt EMILIO PUCCI Shoes PRADA Bag ROGER VIVIER
OPPOSITE PAGE—Jacket
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Dress VALENTINO Bracelet VAN CLEEF & ARPELS OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress PRADA MODEL: Yumi Lambert IMG HAIR: Liv Holst WM MANAGEMENT MAKEUP: Riccardo Morandin WM MANAGEMENT NAILS: Carlotta Saettone WM MANAGEMENT CASTING: Laura Stella Motta PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Lorenzo Sampaolesi and Alessio Tirapani STYLIST ASSISTANT: Lucia Fiore
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Dress VALENTINO Bracelet VAN CLEEF & ARPELS OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress PRADA MODEL: Yumi Lambert IMG HAIR: Liv Holst WM MANAGEMENT MAKEUP: Riccardo Morandin WM MANAGEMENT NAILS: Carlotta Saettone WM MANAGEMENT CASTING: Laura Stella Motta PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Lorenzo Sampaolesi and Alessio Tirapani STYLIST ASSISTANT: Lucia Fiore
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As L’OFFICIEL approaches its centennial anniversary this fall, we celebrate the most influential names from the history of the magazine, and the world of fashion itself. We begin with this groundbreaking photographer, who brought an uncompromising female gaze to a male-dominated field. By BY PIPER Mc McDONALD & TORI NERGAARD
As L’OFFICIEL approaches its centennial anniversary this fall, we celebrate the most influential names from the history of the magazine, and the world of fashion itself. We begin with this groundbreaking photographer, who brought an uncompromising female gaze to a male-dominated field. By BY PIPER Mc McDONALD & TORI NERGAARD
L’OFFICIEL into a visual magazine for a mass audience thirsty for the fantasy of couture. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna in 1881, Kallmus would adopt the professional moniker Madame d’Ora for the entirety of her 50-year career. Her interest in photography was first sparked when she worked as an assistant to the son of the Austrian painter Hans Makart. Over time, d’Ora’s talent behind the camera proved exceptional, and in 1905 she became the first woman to be accepted into the Association of Austrian Photographers. After a brief apprenticeship in Berlin, she returned to Vienna in 1907 and, with the financial support of her family, opened her first studio, Atelier d’Ora. As women were denied training in photography at the time, her assistant and collaborator Arthur Benda focused on the technical aspects. Meanwhile, d’Ora set out to accrue clients and define her personal visual style. Thanks to her affluent upbringing, d’Ora was at ease with members of the aristocracy and of the burgeoning art world of the 1920s and ’30s. Her informal style and charming attitude helped capture the individual personalities of her subjects.
Though considered a visual medium to contemporary eyes, the fashion magazine was not always inextricably linked with photography. The early days of L’OFFICIEL were marked mostly by words, as flowery prose described collections alongside technical fashion illustrations, and lengthy sentences full of legal jargon debated industry news and events. It would take several years into the first century of L’OFFICIEL for the publication to develop a visual language of its own: a development that is partially thanks to Dora Kallmus—better known as Madame d’Ora. Much in the way that the fashion magazine began as something technical, so did the medium of fashion photography itself. The early photograph was stiff, sober; it was originally meant to capture the mere likeness of its subject, with little in the way of creative expression. However, as the artistic scene flourished in the early 1900s, cultured creators like d’Ora brought about new approaches to the practice that invited aesthetics to the magazine page. While fashion drawings served their purpose for an industry-focused publication, the iconic female photo director would help transform
Not long after opening her commercial studio in Paris in 1925, d’Ora began a long-term contract with L’OFFICIEL and soon became its predominant purveyor of fashion photographs, lensing garments and accessories from Chanel, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, and more. She counted many of the designers and artists as personal friends. Early in her career, she befriended Madame Agnes, a French milliner and sculptor whose hats were popular from the late 1920s through the ’40s. This relationship was significant to the trajectory of d’Ora’s career, as hats were the most important fashion accessory for women at the time. Beyond fashion photographs created for the magazine, she would also capture many of the cultural and artistic icons of the era, including Colette, Gustav Klimt, Josephine Baker,
allowed women to see themselves on the magazine page as participants in a story, rather than passive objects with little more purpose than to be elegantly dressed for the pleasure of men. In the late 1930s, d’Ora’s name began to disappear from L’OFFICIEL. With Europe on the brink of war, she sold her studio and fled Paris in 1940. She had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1919, but her Jewish heritage forced her to escape to a small town in Vichy, where she hid in a cloister for the remainder of the war. Post-war, d’Ora never returned to fashion photography. Upon her arrival back in Paris, she began a photo project commissioned by the United Nations, in which she photographed survivors of the concentration camps and German women displaced from their homes. Her final project was a series of photographs taken in various slaughterhouses across Paris. In these later years,
Coco Chanel, and many others, often photographing them in couture. In collaboration with d’Ora, L’OFFICIEL began to employ a powerful visual language, and created shapes that reflected the modern art of the day. This partnership laid the foundation that would transform L’OFFICIEL from a trade publication into a fashion, art, and lifestyle magazine that influenced women’s culture. The editorial staff and contributors of L’OFFICIEL were mostly men when d’Ora signed on. While the publication targeted a majority-female audience thanks to its focus on women’s couture, during the interwar period, L’OFFICIEL lacked distinct female voices and perspectives. Through her lens, d’Ora introduced a female sensibility that captured la Parisienne in a way that was familiar to female readers. She presented her sitters as active subjects, engaging with the camera, and ensured their personalities emanated from their images. Through her work with L’OFFICIEL, d’Ora
ABOVE, FROM LEFT —Cover from L’OFFICIEL May 1936; Cover from L’OFFICIEL August 1929; Princess Leila Béderkhan photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1936 OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT— Madame de Pinajeff photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1938; Madame Agnès photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1932; a model photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1937 PREVIOUS PAGE— Self portrait of Dora Kallmus, 1929, courtesy of Ullsten Bild Collection
her photographs took a dark turn, reflecting a life marred by the loss of most of her family, including her sister Anna, during the Holocaust. She died in 1963 at her family’s home in Frohnleiten, Austria. Over the course of her remarkable five-decade career, d’Ora would produce approximately 200,000 photos. Today, all fashion magazines owe her a great debt for her fearless, brilliant chronicling of both the alluring, glamorous side of the culture, as well as its darkness.
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L’OFFICIEL into a visual magazine for a mass audience thirsty for the fantasy of couture. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna in 1881, Kallmus would adopt the professional moniker Madame d’Ora for the entirety of her 50-year career. Her interest in photography was first sparked when she worked as an assistant to the son of the Austrian painter Hans Makart. Over time, d’Ora’s talent behind the camera proved exceptional, and in 1905 she became the first woman to be accepted into the Association of Austrian Photographers. After a brief apprenticeship in Berlin, she returned to Vienna in 1907 and, with the financial support of her family, opened her first studio, Atelier d’Ora. As women were denied training in photography at the time, her assistant and collaborator Arthur Benda focused on the technical aspects. Meanwhile, d’Ora set out to accrue clients and define her personal visual style. Thanks to her affluent upbringing, d’Ora was at ease with members of the aristocracy and of the burgeoning art world of the 1920s and ’30s. Her informal style and charming attitude helped capture the individual personalities of her subjects.
Though considered a visual medium to contemporary eyes, the fashion magazine was not always inextricably linked with photography. The early days of L’OFFICIEL were marked mostly by words, as flowery prose described collections alongside technical fashion illustrations, and lengthy sentences full of legal jargon debated industry news and events. It would take several years into the first century of L’OFFICIEL for the publication to develop a visual language of its own: a development that is partially thanks to Dora Kallmus—better known as Madame d’Ora. Much in the way that the fashion magazine began as something technical, so did the medium of fashion photography itself. The early photograph was stiff, sober; it was originally meant to capture the mere likeness of its subject, with little in the way of creative expression. However, as the artistic scene flourished in the early 1900s, cultured creators like d’Ora brought about new approaches to the practice that invited aesthetics to the magazine page. While fashion drawings served their purpose for an industry-focused publication, the iconic female photo director would help transform
Not long after opening her commercial studio in Paris in 1925, d’Ora began a long-term contract with L’OFFICIEL and soon became its predominant purveyor of fashion photographs, lensing garments and accessories from Chanel, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, and more. She counted many of the designers and artists as personal friends. Early in her career, she befriended Madame Agnes, a French milliner and sculptor whose hats were popular from the late 1920s through the ’40s. This relationship was significant to the trajectory of d’Ora’s career, as hats were the most important fashion accessory for women at the time. Beyond fashion photographs created for the magazine, she would also capture many of the cultural and artistic icons of the era, including Colette, Gustav Klimt, Josephine Baker,
allowed women to see themselves on the magazine page as participants in a story, rather than passive objects with little more purpose than to be elegantly dressed for the pleasure of men. In the late 1930s, d’Ora’s name began to disappear from L’OFFICIEL. With Europe on the brink of war, she sold her studio and fled Paris in 1940. She had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1919, but her Jewish heritage forced her to escape to a small town in Vichy, where she hid in a cloister for the remainder of the war. Post-war, d’Ora never returned to fashion photography. Upon her arrival back in Paris, she began a photo project commissioned by the United Nations, in which she photographed survivors of the concentration camps and German women displaced from their homes. Her final project was a series of photographs taken in various slaughterhouses across Paris. In these later years,
Coco Chanel, and many others, often photographing them in couture. In collaboration with d’Ora, L’OFFICIEL began to employ a powerful visual language, and created shapes that reflected the modern art of the day. This partnership laid the foundation that would transform L’OFFICIEL from a trade publication into a fashion, art, and lifestyle magazine that influenced women’s culture. The editorial staff and contributors of L’OFFICIEL were mostly men when d’Ora signed on. While the publication targeted a majority-female audience thanks to its focus on women’s couture, during the interwar period, L’OFFICIEL lacked distinct female voices and perspectives. Through her lens, d’Ora introduced a female sensibility that captured la Parisienne in a way that was familiar to female readers. She presented her sitters as active subjects, engaging with the camera, and ensured their personalities emanated from their images. Through her work with L’OFFICIEL, d’Ora
ABOVE, FROM LEFT —Cover from L’OFFICIEL May 1936; Cover from L’OFFICIEL August 1929; Princess Leila Béderkhan photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1936 OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT— Madame de Pinajeff photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1938; Madame Agnès photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1932; a model photographed for L’OFFICIEL in 1937 PREVIOUS PAGE— Self portrait of Dora Kallmus, 1929, courtesy of Ullsten Bild Collection
her photographs took a dark turn, reflecting a life marred by the loss of most of her family, including her sister Anna, during the Holocaust. She died in 1963 at her family’s home in Frohnleiten, Austria. Over the course of her remarkable five-decade career, d’Ora would produce approximately 200,000 photos. Today, all fashion magazines owe her a great debt for her fearless, brilliant chronicling of both the alluring, glamorous side of the culture, as well as its darkness.
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Building BLOCKS Combining fashion, the arts, and an infallible intuition, interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch’s latest mission is a furniture line of his own. By NATHALIE NORT Portrait by JULES FAURE
Building BLOCKS Combining fashion, the arts, and an infallible intuition, interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch’s latest mission is a furniture line of his own. By NATHALIE NORT Portrait by JULES FAURE
Nearly 50 young designers and architects work for Pierre Yovanovitch in his Parisian agency, located in an 18thcentury building next to the Grands Boulevards. The headquarters of a global operation, the interior designer’s office is a beehive of creativity; a factory of desire. It is here that ideas take shape for projects that will ultimately live far from their place of origin: Andermatt, Switzerland; London’s Mayfair; or New York, where he just opened another studio. In the 20 years of Yovanovitch’s agency, “collectible design” has enshrined his elegant and cultivated style in an approach that values both craftsmanship and contemporary art, and soon the prominent interior designer will launch his debut line of furniture. Beyond Château de Fabrègues, the French castle in Provence where he experiments with shapes and functions, yes, furniture is indeed Yovanovitch’s next new provocation.
and, of course, I had a lot of fun with him, too. His passing marks the end of a world. He was one of the great visionaries of his time, undoubtedly one of the last. L’O: Why did you branch out into interior design, which you have now practiced for 20 years? PY: I felt that it was too late to be free in the world of fashion, but that I still had time in that of interior design. It started as a game after I bought, spruced up, and sold my first studio, then a second, slightly larger one. Some friends gave me their apartment to design, then the first real client arrived. It’s probably a natural inclination that I’ve had since childhood.
What were the influences that guided your first projects? Knowledge of the decorative arts is often acquired through time. I am self-taught. I started by taking an interest in classic interiors anchored in the French or Italian tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries while retaining the most refined forms. Gradually I looked for more original, stronger L’O: PY:
The DESIGNER WORKS ON FORM, AND the CRAFTSMAN WORKS on FUNCTION. influences, such as Swedish Grace or Vienna Secession. In 2006, the gallery owner Eric Philippe and I exhibited 10 beautiful pieces from Swedish Grace at the Biennale des Antiquaires. The success was immediate. The discovery of this neoclassical movement and the work of Gunnar Asplund, one of its leaders, inspired me. The postmodernist view of a Louis Khan or a Philip Johnson was also important. And then, I had the great chance to cross paths with extraordinary artists like Jessye Norman, Georg Baselitz, Daniel Buren, and Tadashi Kawamata, the latter two being leading artists represented by Kamel Mennour, a gallery for which I have just designed the architecture of its new space on Rue du Pont-de-Lodi. You started your career designing men’s fashion for the late Pierre Cardin. What does his memory mean to you? PIERRE YOVANOVITCH: Imagine what it was like for a young man to work for a sacred giant of a man. He had a form of genius. His extraordinary personality made him endearing. I often referred to him as an “architect of clothing” because of his geometry, mastery of colors, and sense of detail. He had fun doing what he wanted during an exceptional and long career, L’OFFICIEL:
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You chaired Hyères’ Design Parade design jury in 2018. How do you see today’s young creators? PY: Unlike my generation, young people today have access to such a large quantity of information via social networks, Pinterest, or Instagram, that some end up sometimes L’O:
LEFT— Exterior
of Château de Fabrègues, photographed by Jérôme Galland of Château de Fabrègues, photographed by Jérôme Galland
OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—Interiors
Nearly 50 young designers and architects work for Pierre Yovanovitch in his Parisian agency, located in an 18thcentury building next to the Grands Boulevards. The headquarters of a global operation, the interior designer’s office is a beehive of creativity; a factory of desire. It is here that ideas take shape for projects that will ultimately live far from their place of origin: Andermatt, Switzerland; London’s Mayfair; or New York, where he just opened another studio. In the 20 years of Yovanovitch’s agency, “collectible design” has enshrined his elegant and cultivated style in an approach that values both craftsmanship and contemporary art, and soon the prominent interior designer will launch his debut line of furniture. Beyond Château de Fabrègues, the French castle in Provence where he experiments with shapes and functions, yes, furniture is indeed Yovanovitch’s next new provocation.
and, of course, I had a lot of fun with him, too. His passing marks the end of a world. He was one of the great visionaries of his time, undoubtedly one of the last. L’O: Why did you branch out into interior design, which you have now practiced for 20 years? PY: I felt that it was too late to be free in the world of fashion, but that I still had time in that of interior design. It started as a game after I bought, spruced up, and sold my first studio, then a second, slightly larger one. Some friends gave me their apartment to design, then the first real client arrived. It’s probably a natural inclination that I’ve had since childhood.
What were the influences that guided your first projects? Knowledge of the decorative arts is often acquired through time. I am self-taught. I started by taking an interest in classic interiors anchored in the French or Italian tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries while retaining the most refined forms. Gradually I looked for more original, stronger L’O: PY:
The DESIGNER WORKS ON FORM, AND the CRAFTSMAN WORKS on FUNCTION. influences, such as Swedish Grace or Vienna Secession. In 2006, the gallery owner Eric Philippe and I exhibited 10 beautiful pieces from Swedish Grace at the Biennale des Antiquaires. The success was immediate. The discovery of this neoclassical movement and the work of Gunnar Asplund, one of its leaders, inspired me. The postmodernist view of a Louis Khan or a Philip Johnson was also important. And then, I had the great chance to cross paths with extraordinary artists like Jessye Norman, Georg Baselitz, Daniel Buren, and Tadashi Kawamata, the latter two being leading artists represented by Kamel Mennour, a gallery for which I have just designed the architecture of its new space on Rue du Pont-de-Lodi. You started your career designing men’s fashion for the late Pierre Cardin. What does his memory mean to you? PIERRE YOVANOVITCH: Imagine what it was like for a young man to work for a sacred giant of a man. He had a form of genius. His extraordinary personality made him endearing. I often referred to him as an “architect of clothing” because of his geometry, mastery of colors, and sense of detail. He had fun doing what he wanted during an exceptional and long career, L’OFFICIEL:
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You chaired Hyères’ Design Parade design jury in 2018. How do you see today’s young creators? PY: Unlike my generation, young people today have access to such a large quantity of information via social networks, Pinterest, or Instagram, that some end up sometimes L’O:
LEFT— Exterior
of Château de Fabrègues, photographed by Jérôme Galland of Château de Fabrègues, photographed by Jérôme Galland
OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—Interiors
locking themselves in “moods,” or an illusion of innovation. However, the positive point of this plethora of access is that it allows certain characters to emerge, to show something unique, an identity of their own. It is the most assertive characters, those who go to the end of their sincere philosophy, who will succeed. What are the skills that speak to you the most? Those who work first with the material before the form: the cabinetmaker, the ceramicist, the glassmaker. I love going to the workshop because there is this essential dialogue with the craftsman in each object I draw. The constraints often intervene during the realization of the prototype. The imperative of comfort on a seat will change the shape itself. For the American market, for example, where the interiors are larger and the sizes different, it’s necessary to review the structure of an armchair even before converting it into an XXL sofa. In short, the designer works on form, and the craftsman works on function. L’O: PY:
L’O: At your private residence in Provence, Château de Fabrègues, nature, contemporary art, and the decorative arts are in harmony. Is it a showcase of know-how or something in perpetual motion? PY: For me, Fabrègues must be a synthesis, an art of living and, in this sense, will always be an evolving place, like my work elsewhere. I like the somewhat austere domain of being isolated in the middle of 865 acres because it allows me to experiment in complementary fields: architecture, colors, landscape, and agriculture. To talk about influences again, I have a special thought for Claire Tabouret, who created a fresco in the chapel of Fabrègues in 2017. Meeting an artist—whether it is an established figure or a name in the making—often makes me evolve deeply.
I’m INTERESTED IN CREATING a REAL IDENTITY, LIKE a FASHION BRAND, with COLLECTIONS and MOVEMENT. Why did you decide to start making your own furniture? First, to free myself from the emotional commitment imposed by interior design commissions. Secondly, it often takes a long time to complete projects, especially when it evolves into an entire house. It’s exciting but exhausting and most of the time confidential—the work cannot be shown. Designing furniture allows us to reach a wider audience; to open up to Asia, the United States—where we have an office—and the rest of the world. I’m interested in creating a real identity, like a fashion brand, with collections and movement. My team has counted some 800 pieces of furniture designed since the agency’s beginnings–that’s huge. But first we are going to release 75 new pieces: from the fireplace mantel to the wall lamp, each object will be in a limited edition. L’O: PY:
RIGHT—“Simultanément, travaux in situ et en mouvement,” 2020, by Daniel Buren and Philippe Parreno, courtesy of the artists and Kamel Mennour Paris/London OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—“Laura wall lamp,” 2013, “Mr. Oops chair,“ 2017, and “Mrs. Oops chair,” 2017, photographed by Jean-François Jaussaud; Bedroom from LOVE, photographed by Steven Kent Johnson; “MAD Armchair,” 2017, photographed by Jean-François Jaussaud; Dining room from Design Parade Toulon, photographed by Julien Oppenheim
What from your travels has struck you the most? Very recently, Brazil and Benin. I have a soft spot for Brasilia, Le Havre, and Ljubljana, which are all three cities marked by an architect. But if there is one place that struck me in its consistency, it is the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel in Ronchamp, France. Ten years after Le Corbusier, who has since died, Jean Prouvé added a campanile, and in 2011, Renzo Piano rebuilt the gatehouse and the monastery. But both have respected the work without ever consuming it. L’O: PY:
How do you work in this infinitely complicated time? As naturally as possible. That is—by maintaining direct contact, being careful, and not isolating myself in my home. L’O: PY:
147
locking themselves in “moods,” or an illusion of innovation. However, the positive point of this plethora of access is that it allows certain characters to emerge, to show something unique, an identity of their own. It is the most assertive characters, those who go to the end of their sincere philosophy, who will succeed. What are the skills that speak to you the most? Those who work first with the material before the form: the cabinetmaker, the ceramicist, the glassmaker. I love going to the workshop because there is this essential dialogue with the craftsman in each object I draw. The constraints often intervene during the realization of the prototype. The imperative of comfort on a seat will change the shape itself. For the American market, for example, where the interiors are larger and the sizes different, it’s necessary to review the structure of an armchair even before converting it into an XXL sofa. In short, the designer works on form, and the craftsman works on function. L’O: PY:
L’O: At your private residence in Provence, Château de Fabrègues, nature, contemporary art, and the decorative arts are in harmony. Is it a showcase of know-how or something in perpetual motion? PY: For me, Fabrègues must be a synthesis, an art of living and, in this sense, will always be an evolving place, like my work elsewhere. I like the somewhat austere domain of being isolated in the middle of 865 acres because it allows me to experiment in complementary fields: architecture, colors, landscape, and agriculture. To talk about influences again, I have a special thought for Claire Tabouret, who created a fresco in the chapel of Fabrègues in 2017. Meeting an artist—whether it is an established figure or a name in the making—often makes me evolve deeply.
I’m INTERESTED IN CREATING a REAL IDENTITY, LIKE a FASHION BRAND, with COLLECTIONS and MOVEMENT. Why did you decide to start making your own furniture? First, to free myself from the emotional commitment imposed by interior design commissions. Secondly, it often takes a long time to complete projects, especially when it evolves into an entire house. It’s exciting but exhausting and most of the time confidential—the work cannot be shown. Designing furniture allows us to reach a wider audience; to open up to Asia, the United States—where we have an office—and the rest of the world. I’m interested in creating a real identity, like a fashion brand, with collections and movement. My team has counted some 800 pieces of furniture designed since the agency’s beginnings–that’s huge. But first we are going to release 75 new pieces: from the fireplace mantel to the wall lamp, each object will be in a limited edition. L’O: PY:
RIGHT—“Simultanément, travaux in situ et en mouvement,” 2020, by Daniel Buren and Philippe Parreno, courtesy of the artists and Kamel Mennour Paris/London OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT—“Laura wall lamp,” 2013, “Mr. Oops chair,“ 2017, and “Mrs. Oops chair,” 2017, photographed by Jean-François Jaussaud; Bedroom from LOVE, photographed by Steven Kent Johnson; “MAD Armchair,” 2017, photographed by Jean-François Jaussaud; Dining room from Design Parade Toulon, photographed by Julien Oppenheim
What from your travels has struck you the most? Very recently, Brazil and Benin. I have a soft spot for Brasilia, Le Havre, and Ljubljana, which are all three cities marked by an architect. But if there is one place that struck me in its consistency, it is the Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel in Ronchamp, France. Ten years after Le Corbusier, who has since died, Jean Prouvé added a campanile, and in 2011, Renzo Piano rebuilt the gatehouse and the monastery. But both have respected the work without ever consuming it. L’O: PY:
How do you work in this infinitely complicated time? As naturally as possible. That is—by maintaining direct contact, being careful, and not isolating myself in my home. L’O: PY:
147
Whether in puffed sleeves, studs, or lush brocade, draw your inspiration from Slick Woods and claim your space in style. Photography JACQUES BURGA Styled by PAULINA CASTRO
Whether in puffed sleeves, studs, or lush brocade, draw your inspiration from Slick Woods and claim your space in style. Photography JACQUES BURGA Styled by PAULINA CASTRO
and skirt AREA Shoes LOUIS VUITTON Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN Socks FALKE and bra GIVENCHY Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN PREVIOUS PAGE— Coat and skirt ALEXANDER McQUEEN Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN
ABOVE— Blazer
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress
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and skirt AREA Shoes LOUIS VUITTON Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN Socks FALKE and bra GIVENCHY Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN PREVIOUS PAGE— Coat and skirt ALEXANDER McQUEEN Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN
ABOVE— Blazer
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress
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ABOVE— Jacket, sweater, and
pants LOUIS VUITTON Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN shoes MIU MIU Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN Socks FALKE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Jacket, shirt, skirt, and
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ABOVE— Jacket, sweater, and
pants LOUIS VUITTON Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN shoes MIU MIU Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN Socks FALKE
OPPOSITE PAGE—Jacket, shirt, skirt, and
152
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CAEIRO Bra, skirt, and boots DOLCE & GABBANA Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN belt SAINT LAURENT Shoes ALEXANDER McQUEEN Socks FALKE MODEL: Slick Woods HAIR: Sheridan Ward MAKEUP: Bren Robertson PRODUCTION: JBQ STUDIO ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: PASSEPARTOUT4U EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Marcelus Jones BEYOND RELATIONS and Ashley Wyndham PHOTO ASSISTANT: Noah Raymond LOCATION: Patrick O’Neill Creative Los Angeles, Carl Hopgood, and Freehand Hotel Los Angeles
ABOVE— Shirt
OPPOSITE PAGE— Shirt, briefs, earrings, and
155
CAEIRO Bra, skirt, and boots DOLCE & GABBANA Earrings BONHEUR Necklaces, bracelets, and watch SLICK’S OWN belt SAINT LAURENT Shoes ALEXANDER McQUEEN Socks FALKE MODEL: Slick Woods HAIR: Sheridan Ward MAKEUP: Bren Robertson PRODUCTION: JBQ STUDIO ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: PASSEPARTOUT4U EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Marcelus Jones BEYOND RELATIONS and Ashley Wyndham PHOTO ASSISTANT: Noah Raymond LOCATION: Patrick O’Neill Creative Los Angeles, Carl Hopgood, and Freehand Hotel Los Angeles
ABOVE— Shirt
OPPOSITE PAGE— Shirt, briefs, earrings, and
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Spanish artist Amalia Ulman makes the leap to the big screen this winter with her Sundance debut, El Planeta, Planeta, a dark comedy that peers into the heartbreak of eviction. My therapist recently described a certain sect of my family as stuck in an inner drama of excess and deprivation, ricocheting between poles of queasy abundance and harrowing lack. I would describe my family life more as a comedy, but I wrote it down in my notebook anyway. Then, a few days later, I saw Amalia Ulman’s debut film, El Planeta, a self-described “dark comedy about eviction” and, again, I found myself writing down: Excess! Deprivation! It is a film about a mother and
daughter, Maria and Leonor, brilliantly played by Ulman’s mother, Ale Ulman, and Ulman herself, as they navigate unexpected poverty after the death of Leonor’s father. Their financial crisis swells and crests, like a wave—they struggle to afford food, their electricity is turned off, they await their impending eviction—but the pair remain attached to the pleasures of their previous life, running various scams and hijinks to maintain the appearance of their former class position.
By AUDREY WOLLEN Photography ROEG COHEN
Spanish artist Amalia Ulman makes the leap to the big screen this winter with her Sundance debut, El Planeta, Planeta, a dark comedy that peers into the heartbreak of eviction. My therapist recently described a certain sect of my family as stuck in an inner drama of excess and deprivation, ricocheting between poles of queasy abundance and harrowing lack. I would describe my family life more as a comedy, but I wrote it down in my notebook anyway. Then, a few days later, I saw Amalia Ulman’s debut film, El Planeta, a self-described “dark comedy about eviction” and, again, I found myself writing down: Excess! Deprivation! It is a film about a mother and
daughter, Maria and Leonor, brilliantly played by Ulman’s mother, Ale Ulman, and Ulman herself, as they navigate unexpected poverty after the death of Leonor’s father. Their financial crisis swells and crests, like a wave—they struggle to afford food, their electricity is turned off, they await their impending eviction—but the pair remain attached to the pleasures of their previous life, running various scams and hijinks to maintain the appearance of their former class position.
By AUDREY WOLLEN Photography ROEG COHEN
ULMAN SITUATES LEONOR in CURRENT ECONOMIES WHERE influencers MIGHT GET SENT EXPENSIVE CLOTHING from LUXURY BRANDS THAT THEY have TO SELL ON the REALREAL to BUY GROCERIES.
ABOVE—Stills
from La Planeta, 2021
at the family’s center: it is slowly revealed that Leonor is disabled after a bus accident years before, with chronic pain and limited mobility in her legs. Glinting with a bright wit and scrappy intimacy, the film is a portrait of two women whose commitment to fantasy and each other eclipses the impossibilities they inhabit. At times, it feels like their force of wish might actually succeed. Ulman, born in 1989, wrote, directed, produced, and stars in El Planeta, which premiered digitally at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Set in her hometown of Gijón, in Asturias, Spain, and with the casting of her own mother alongside herself, “there are definitely autobiographical aspects in the film, like the disability and the eviction,” says Ulman. Just as the plot draws something from her life, the visual style draws from her work: “The pastries, the 1-Euro store decor, the transitions, etc., are direct references to my artworks.” Prior to this film, Ulman’s artistic practice also presented similar slippages between truth and fiction. She is known particularly for “Excellences & Perfections” (2014), in which Ulman constructed and performed a scripted version of herself on Instagram. In squares, a girl was built, who
Stills courtesy of artist.
Maria clutches her fur coat tightly around her neck, pulls at the handle of her Burberry bag, as if the bag was a door, as if it could open and lead her somewhere. Leonor incessantly orders things online, reads Spring and All by William Carlos Williams under the lights of the hallway, decorates her room with a t-shirt that says, “I Need An Inner Child Abortion.” Ulman situates Leonor in “current economies where influencers might get sent expensive clothing from luxury brands that they have to sell on The RealReal to buy groceries,” a cycle of too much and not enough. Magical thinking is strewn across the surface of their lives; their fridge is empty except for the names of their enemies, written on small strips of frozen paper, flimsy curses. They go to the department store and shop, lit up like the fluorescent rooms they wander through, returning everything in two weeks. They do not have jobs, traditionally speaking. Their small apartment is a shrine to their mysteriously absent cat: crazy cat ladies with no cat to be crazy about; the space is suffused with oddness and grief. They eat feasts of free pastries. They charge fancy restaurant meals to a local politician’s account, pretending Leonor is his girlfriend. Care emerges
embodied various clichés of online femininity and mirrored erotics: a fictional boob job, with dusky shots of her bandaged chest, plates of halved avocados, high ponies and thigh gaps, pastel slogan tees, baroque lingerie, tilted chins. Clearly this is another kind of storytelling, but like so many performances of wealth and girlhood, it was often interpreted as a kind of lie, or scam, as many struggled to distinguish between Ulman the artist and Ulman within the art object. Can we consider the scammer as a kind of author, or artist? When I ask Ulman if she has any favorite real-life scammers, she responds, “The stories about scammers that I find most endearing are those by clumsy criminals, which usually end up badly, because they are too honest.” Leonor is a stylist who can only style herself, unable to fly to jobs that only pay in exposure. This tautological loop of gig economies runs parallel to Maria, as a houseless housewife. The mother of all scams, of course, was always global capitalism. The fashion in the movie includes some of the most articulate outfits I’ve seen recently, cleanly expressing so much about the characters’ joys, precarities, and identifications. “Styling [Maria] was much easier because right wingers in Spain who dress ‘posh’ wear a uniform that hasn’t changed for decades. Leonor’s character was more of a back-and-forth that I was able to construct with the help of Fiona Duncan. I think it was very important to show that Leonor, if she were given the chance (a paid gig instead of mere exposure), could do well in her field,” says Ulman. Leonor is decked out in a roster of young New York designers, like Lou Dallas, Gauntlett Cheng, Veja, Women’s History Museum, and Martina Cox. Maria is almost always in pajamas, cloaked in a blanket to keep warm, with a spa headband in a cartoonish bow. When she leaves the house, she puts on her rich-person disguise: fur, bag, sunglasses.
When I ask about the missing cat, who is mourned so much more deeply than the dead dad, Ulman explains, “El Planeta is a family endeavor, and Holga (the cat) has been a very crucial part of our family structure for the past 15 years… I don’t think it was intentional, but clearly the roles of other women and animals in the film are more relevant than those of men, who are peripheral and only instrumental to their survival.” When I wrote down excess and deprivation, I meant it in a material sense. I was thinking about money. But I realize the film is also about what it means to love too much and not enough, the way care seamlessly flows between people unless it is disrupted, diverted by barriers of class hierarchy, exploitation, and suffering. Otherwise, love could keep moving in circles, around and around, with no goal but heightened focus, like two women walking together, window shopping.
159
ULMAN SITUATES LEONOR in CURRENT ECONOMIES WHERE influencers MIGHT GET SENT EXPENSIVE CLOTHING from LUXURY BRANDS THAT THEY have TO SELL ON the REALREAL to BUY GROCERIES.
ABOVE—Stills
from La Planeta, 2021
at the family’s center: it is slowly revealed that Leonor is disabled after a bus accident years before, with chronic pain and limited mobility in her legs. Glinting with a bright wit and scrappy intimacy, the film is a portrait of two women whose commitment to fantasy and each other eclipses the impossibilities they inhabit. At times, it feels like their force of wish might actually succeed. Ulman, born in 1989, wrote, directed, produced, and stars in El Planeta, which premiered digitally at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Set in her hometown of Gijón, in Asturias, Spain, and with the casting of her own mother alongside herself, “there are definitely autobiographical aspects in the film, like the disability and the eviction,” says Ulman. Just as the plot draws something from her life, the visual style draws from her work: “The pastries, the 1-Euro store decor, the transitions, etc., are direct references to my artworks.” Prior to this film, Ulman’s artistic practice also presented similar slippages between truth and fiction. She is known particularly for “Excellences & Perfections” (2014), in which Ulman constructed and performed a scripted version of herself on Instagram. In squares, a girl was built, who
Stills courtesy of artist.
Maria clutches her fur coat tightly around her neck, pulls at the handle of her Burberry bag, as if the bag was a door, as if it could open and lead her somewhere. Leonor incessantly orders things online, reads Spring and All by William Carlos Williams under the lights of the hallway, decorates her room with a t-shirt that says, “I Need An Inner Child Abortion.” Ulman situates Leonor in “current economies where influencers might get sent expensive clothing from luxury brands that they have to sell on The RealReal to buy groceries,” a cycle of too much and not enough. Magical thinking is strewn across the surface of their lives; their fridge is empty except for the names of their enemies, written on small strips of frozen paper, flimsy curses. They go to the department store and shop, lit up like the fluorescent rooms they wander through, returning everything in two weeks. They do not have jobs, traditionally speaking. Their small apartment is a shrine to their mysteriously absent cat: crazy cat ladies with no cat to be crazy about; the space is suffused with oddness and grief. They eat feasts of free pastries. They charge fancy restaurant meals to a local politician’s account, pretending Leonor is his girlfriend. Care emerges
embodied various clichés of online femininity and mirrored erotics: a fictional boob job, with dusky shots of her bandaged chest, plates of halved avocados, high ponies and thigh gaps, pastel slogan tees, baroque lingerie, tilted chins. Clearly this is another kind of storytelling, but like so many performances of wealth and girlhood, it was often interpreted as a kind of lie, or scam, as many struggled to distinguish between Ulman the artist and Ulman within the art object. Can we consider the scammer as a kind of author, or artist? When I ask Ulman if she has any favorite real-life scammers, she responds, “The stories about scammers that I find most endearing are those by clumsy criminals, which usually end up badly, because they are too honest.” Leonor is a stylist who can only style herself, unable to fly to jobs that only pay in exposure. This tautological loop of gig economies runs parallel to Maria, as a houseless housewife. The mother of all scams, of course, was always global capitalism. The fashion in the movie includes some of the most articulate outfits I’ve seen recently, cleanly expressing so much about the characters’ joys, precarities, and identifications. “Styling [Maria] was much easier because right wingers in Spain who dress ‘posh’ wear a uniform that hasn’t changed for decades. Leonor’s character was more of a back-and-forth that I was able to construct with the help of Fiona Duncan. I think it was very important to show that Leonor, if she were given the chance (a paid gig instead of mere exposure), could do well in her field,” says Ulman. Leonor is decked out in a roster of young New York designers, like Lou Dallas, Gauntlett Cheng, Veja, Women’s History Museum, and Martina Cox. Maria is almost always in pajamas, cloaked in a blanket to keep warm, with a spa headband in a cartoonish bow. When she leaves the house, she puts on her rich-person disguise: fur, bag, sunglasses.
When I ask about the missing cat, who is mourned so much more deeply than the dead dad, Ulman explains, “El Planeta is a family endeavor, and Holga (the cat) has been a very crucial part of our family structure for the past 15 years… I don’t think it was intentional, but clearly the roles of other women and animals in the film are more relevant than those of men, who are peripheral and only instrumental to their survival.” When I wrote down excess and deprivation, I meant it in a material sense. I was thinking about money. But I realize the film is also about what it means to love too much and not enough, the way care seamlessly flows between people unless it is disrupted, diverted by barriers of class hierarchy, exploitation, and suffering. Otherwise, love could keep moving in circles, around and around, with no goal but heightened focus, like two women walking together, window shopping.
159
Over the past century century,, silver has been a bold standard-bearer standardbearer of the new and revolutionary revolutionary.. From Art Deco-inspired evening wear to Sci-Fi futurama, silver has made a splash across the pages of L’OFFICIEL throughout the magazine’s 100-year history, but its cultural significance has evolved, too. During the 1930s, silver meant glamour. While L’OFFICIEL was not yet printing photos in color by 1933, there was no mistaking the high sheen of Alix Barton’s silver gowns, even in stark black and white. By the ‘60s, silver defined the Space Age. Sequined and lamé fabrics made by Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges spoke to the cultural moment, directly visualizing the global thirst for space travel and technology. Nothing
was quite so mod as a gleaming silver mini dress. Through the 1990s, silver screamed celebrity. Metallics that shined as bright as the tabloid icons of the era were inseparable from fashion and Hollywood superstars alike. While the Supers shimmied in their youthful chain-mail Paco Rabanne dresses, silver continued to make a statement into the early aughts when imagined by designers like Versace and Louis Vuitton. In 2021, shades of silver are a metareflection of the youthful spirit and forward-looking yearnings of generations past. —Piper McDonald & Tori Nergaard
Over the past century century,, silver has been a bold standard-bearer standardbearer of the new and revolutionary revolutionary.. From Art Deco-inspired evening wear to Sci-Fi futurama, silver has made a splash across the pages of L’OFFICIEL throughout the magazine’s 100-year history, but its cultural significance has evolved, too. During the 1930s, silver meant glamour. While L’OFFICIEL was not yet printing photos in color by 1933, there was no mistaking the high sheen of Alix Barton’s silver gowns, even in stark black and white. By the ‘60s, silver defined the Space Age. Sequined and lamé fabrics made by Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges spoke to the cultural moment, directly visualizing the global thirst for space travel and technology. Nothing
was quite so mod as a gleaming silver mini dress. Through the 1990s, silver screamed celebrity. Metallics that shined as bright as the tabloid icons of the era were inseparable from fashion and Hollywood superstars alike. While the Supers shimmied in their youthful chain-mail Paco Rabanne dresses, silver continued to make a statement into the early aughts when imagined by designers like Versace and Louis Vuitton. In 2021, shades of silver are a metareflection of the youthful spirit and forward-looking yearnings of generations past. —Piper McDonald & Tori Nergaard