MOD Magazine: Volume 3; Issue 1; THE POWER ISSUE

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contributors Michael Knight, T Patrick Williams, Kia Sterling, Kateryna K. @ Streamline Model Management, Shelli Wright, Cyndi Vellmure, Audrey Brianne, Tara Hunt, Brooke Ritchie @ LA Models - Chadwick Australia, Frank Lohmann, Jens Johan Wiker, Mathilde L. @ Le Management, Swantje Neubohn, Ines Schult, Anne Timper, Madlen Uhlemann, Sina @ M4 Models & MAX @ Modelwerk, Daniela Seeger, Anya Kozyreva, Alyona Gorbunova, Roma Travin , Maya Ovdak @A.B.A Group, Marcelo Cantu, Antonio Von Marrok, Jacqueline Marie, Jacqueline Marie and Roberto Morin, Germán Alemán,

Naomí Gayoso (N.Y.C), Juan Martín, Leyre Sánchez, Alizé B @ 5th Avenue, Olga Zhiltsova, Marina Vargaeva, Anna Shuilova @ Z’S models - Russia, Moscow, Jessie Obialor, Ashante Terry, Melissa Valverde, Charles Harbison, Anna @ RED Models NYC, Linda Tran, Nisha Van Berkel, Rae Boriboun , Jana @ Priscillas Model Management, Evan Robinson, Oltean Ovidiu, Kai Weissenfeld, Melanie Goldmann, Malia Keana, Miriam @ Together Models, Sam Sulam, Phoebe Dawson for MAC @ DGReps, Vanessa Mancos, Anastasia @ LA Models, Edwin J. Lebron, Christian Ramírez, Fernando Álvarez @ Cromo

Models, Luis Nieves & Alejandro Terán @ Element, Sivan Miller, Shahnaz Cola @ Supernova, Caitlin Dobson @ Boss Models, Krystina Woldanowski, Tommy Andrich, schnee|rot, Anna Sparks, Faisal Mohammed, Noor Farouk, Naivasha Johnson, Alisa Marie Hutchinson, Marvis Offor @ Slamm Model Management, Marcus Ezell, Lewina David, Ray C’Mone, Carlton Woodcock @ Factor Women Atlanta, Ben C.K., Tiffany Dawson, Daniel Manzini, Anabelle @ Montage Models, Paul Drozdowski, Konstantin Sorokin, Mark Godar, Trashy Muse, Ekaterina Sadovskaya & Kostya Vesnin @ Avant

Volume 3; Issue 1; Jan/feb 2014

features BEAUTY ESSENTIALS How to create the best winter makeup look.

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Cristian Profico

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The 28-year-old Italian designer chats with MOD about his PLACEBO collection & more!

RUNWAY QUIZ Think you know fashion? Test your knowledge on this season’s top 20 trends with our crossword puzzle.

SYDNEY-DAVIES

41 Illustration by António Soares - www.antoniosoares.tumblr.com

FASHION GUIDE: SHADES OF GRAY Find out how to wear this subtle shade for less! 13 affordable items just for you!

Edit or’sNote

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From Sierra Leone to Surrey, this young designer is ready to take on the world! Read her inspiring story, as written by Julianne Miao.

Looks We Love!

See how some of our favorite celebs wear this season’s hottest trends.

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high SHINE Metallics are all the rage this season. Find out how to get the look for less.

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FAB FINDS Check out some of our cool finds for how to pull off the “elegant edge” look!

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on the cover CREDITS: Photography by: Konstantin Sorokin represented by Trashy Muse, Makeup & Styling: Mark Godar, Art Direction: Trashy Muse, Models: Ekaterina Sadovskaya & Kostya Vesnin @ Avant

I’m so excited to kick off the new year with this POWER issue! It’s a new year and a new beginning for us all. I challenge everyone to be more fearless this year. When we actually apply ourselves & let go of doubt, we can truly accomplish ANYTHING! This issue is a celebration of the power within us all. All it takes is the CONFIDENCE to unlock it. Step outside of your comfort zone and just live a little! Face your fears & get comfortable in your own skin.

I challenge you! Even if it’s something small, like trying on that bold lipstick color you’ve always been afraid to wear DO IT! What’ve you got to lose?!

- Shannon Phelps

mod Spotlight >> design

ied in Florence, I later moved to Milan to work some years. After this experience, I moved on to New York to take a gap year, mainly reflecting upon what I wanted to do with my future. I’m currently attending my last year at Polimoda Institute.

MOD: Were you raised in a creative household?

Cristian: The most creative person of

my family was my grandfather. He was a craft man and he made iron sculputres and objects. My parents’ jobs are a little less creative; my mum is a teacher and my father is a managing director of a school district. But, they both have inspiring hobbies to cultivate from. In fact, my mother wrote some books of poetry and romance.

And my father, when he was younger, had passion for paintings.

MOD: Have you always been interested

destined for greatness MOD Chats with Design Student, Cristian Profico ristian Profico is MOD’s newest ‘one to watch.’ The talented student designer talks about his PLACEBO collection, as well as his life, goals & inspirations.

MOD: Tell us about where you grew

up.

Cristian: My biography so far is quite

eventful. I was born in Colombia and lived there until 5 years of age, but I grew up in Pescara, a city in the middlesouthern part of Italy. Although I stud-

in fashion? What inspired you to become a designer?

Cristian: I always thought that fashion was a way to communicate with people and show who you are. Although I studied interior design before, I decided to change my focus to fashion because I think it was closer to me. It’s a restless world where the time to produce a [fashion] collection is faster than an interior project, so there’s much more movement and satisfactions for my nature.

PLACEBO, Photographed in Milan, by: Szilveszter Mak贸, Model: Gustaf K. @ Urban Managment

PLACEBO, Photographed in Milan, by: Szilveszter Mak贸, Model: Gustaf K. @ Urban Managment

MOD: What designers did you most admire growing up?

Cristian: I amire for industrial design, Franco Albini and Jean Prouvè. For fashion, my mentors are Rei Kawakubo and Martin Margiela.

MOD: How would you describe your design aesthetic?

Cristian: It’s like me. It’s very lunatic.

Changing all the time. It describes my soul in that period, so there isn’t a specific characteristic. But in all of [my designs] I try to always have a mix of everything, including sartorial and innovation pieces.

MOD: Where do you find inspiration for your collections?

Cristian: Everywhere! Even when I sleep, in my dreams.

MOD: Tell us about your thought process when you created the PLACEBO collection.

Cristian: My icon is Alessandro Cagliostro, an adventurer and alchemist from the XVIII Century. He was an extrovert in many novels, but a very elegant gentleman at the same time. He traveled around European courts to sell. From this, I tried to dream or imagine how my icon would have been in the contemporary age.

We know that [a placebo] is a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect. So it’s a distortion of reality. It has been the same for the free masonry. Since it was born, it has distorted the perception of reality. Everybody knows that it exists, but no one has the proof of its existence.

MOD: If you could design for any celebrity, who would be your celebrity muse?

Why? Cristian: I would choose Willem Dafoe. He embodies a contempory man. He looks like an upright person, but at the same time he is very mysterious.

I understood that it would become my destiny.

MOD: What are your goals for next 5 years? Where would you like to see yourself?

Cristian: I would have some work experiences at some companies in Paris or Berlin. And then I would create my own brand.

MOD: If you weren’t a fashion designer, what else would you be doing, career wise?

Cristian: I would love to be a chef. It’s one of the things where I can experiment.

MOD: What stores would you love to

MOD: Tell us a fun fact about yourself.

Cristian: I’m right now looking at my

MOD: What has been the biggest highlight of your fashion career so far, and why?

Cristian: I think when I worked in Dolce&Gabbana, because it was my real first approach at the fashion system and

MOD: What advice would you give to someone like yourself, trying to break into the fashion industry?

Cristian: Be themselves, modest and work hard!

see your designs in, in the future?

Cristian: The first names that I’m thinking of are in Florence - I would love to have [my designs] in Luisa Via Roma. In Milan, I love Corso Como 10 and Antonioli.

family album, in particular a photo of myself at 4yrs old . I had my hair completely blonde. Now I have the opposite, very dark. When I show these pictures to somebody, they think that I colored my hair, but it really just changed with time.

>>behind-the-seams t is 2 AM, and while for most of us, rest has befallen our eyes, sleep has yet to be granted to Euphemiaann Sydney-Davies, designer and founder of the delightfully unique luxury fashion label SYDNEY-DAVIES. To this aspiring young designer, fashion and designing is more than an interest or a hobby; it is a lifestyle. Beginning her own label immediately after graduating university in 2012, Sydney-Davies is nothing short of a fashion devotee. From being a single mother of her four year-old son to a full-time fashion designer, sleeping became a privilege rather than a right to the both dedicated and zealous designer for the past four years.

“I was made for fashion and nothing more,” Sydney-Davies says. “At the risk of sounding cliché, I can confidently say that this is the only career path to ever capture my interest. It is the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last thing when I go to sleep.” A creative spirit since her early years of kindergarten, Sydney-Davies gives credit for her success in the fashion industry to her tenacious confidence and faith in both herself and her work.

Holding no similitudes to current and popular trends, her work is a semblance solely to her personal style and personality. Finding mass trends unattractive, uncreative, and boring, SydneyDavies sets her own trends through her unique and exclusive designs.

Throughout the creative process of designing for SYDNEY-DAVIES, she keeps in mind that “although it is important and vital to be aware of what is going on in the fashion industry and the consumers’ state of mind… this should only be an aid not a restriction.”

Euphemia-ann Sydney-Davies Humble Beginnings and Heartfelt Designs by: Julianne Miao

Reluctant to conform to mainstream aesthetics, her “bubbly, sociably, and friendly nature” resonates throughout her colorful and quirky garments. Though, the nature of her personality and style is not the only thing echoing in her hard-worked designs. Evident in her first two collections, which SYDNEY-DAVIES is composed of so far, is inspiration from her traumatizing childhood during the brutal civil war of her home country, Sierra Leone. The inevitable forlorn and despairing emotions attached to her experience with war were the heart of inspiration for her first collection. The vibrancy of her second collection set the ambiance of her true self after the designs in her first collection served as a creative and therapeutic outlet.

After fleeing Sierra Leone with her mother, Sydney-Davies currently resides in Surrey, United Kingdom. Her personal style no longer holds strong resemblance to her African heritage. With genuineness, she describes herself as not the “typical African woman.” She first took charge of her personal style when she “opted against the typical look for a black woman and shaved [her] hair into a Mohawk.” Thus, this began the flowering of her wardrobe and solidification of the definition of her personal style and true self. “It’s been a fun journey,” she says describing her stages of style evolution.

Nothing close to the stereotype pinned on fashion designers of being pretentious, Sydney-Davies finds serenity in the art of music. Obviously a fine arts-oriented person, she spends her sparse free time with destination-less drives listening to music.

If she seeks a more purposeful way to spend her downtime, you could find her in the kitchen applying her creativity to cooking gourmet meals for her beloved family.

For Sydney-Davies, completing each day is nothing short of a miracle. From juggling her career and her lively son, who sometimes merges her obligations by helping sort fabrics and running circles around her sewing table, she is devoutly grateful for the support her family and her close friends but especially her mother generously gives. “My mother has been my rock, a superwoman to say at the least, and without her, none of this would have been possible at all. She is my only source of constant and unquestioned babysitting for all the countless times I need to be away from home.”

SYDNEY-DAVIES is the result of Euphemia-Ann’s superior credibility, optimistic outlook, and self-understanding. Opened to the “priceless skills in the industry of design and garment construction” through her fulltime internship at her “holy-grail of fashion houses MCQ Alexander McQueen London”, her credibility has led her to great heights in her fashion career including the showing of her launch collection at Africa Fashion Week in New York during July of 2013.

Far from naïve to the merciless and brutal essence of the fashion industry, SydneyDavies sheds light to what it has been

like building her reputation in the world of fashion. “The best advice I was ever given is to be confident and grow a backbone of steel. It is such a cutthroat world we live in and none more than in the fashion industry where the established and influential tend to climb and pull the ladder up after themselves, forgetting where they came from and that they were once in our position…A strong backbone is the only thing that will get you through countless amounts of doors shut in your face, un-replied emails and phone calls.”

In hopes of bringing her success and experience back to her home country of Sierra Leone one day to “educate and help young people in developing and loving their creative talents”, SydneyDavies treads through the stress and sleepless nights with her goals close in mind. There is no doubt that SydneyDavies’ humble background has kept her “appreciation and zest for life” evident in her designs for SYDNEYDAVIES.