T Qatar May June 2013 Issue 19 by Oryx Group of Magazines

Fashion May-June 2013

Good Morning, Matthias Schoenaerts After a breakout role in “Rust and Bone”, Hollywood is waking up to the raw magnetism of this Belgian import. By Tim Murphy. Photographs by Bruce Weber. Styled by Deborah Watson. 76

The Art of the Dealer

Part shrewd salesman, part cultivated European, the gallery owner David Zwirner has built a bluechip empire with a sharp eye and a steady hand. By Randy Kennedy. Portrait by Tina Barney. 84

Modernism Is the Message

The Reincarnation of Seoul

There’s a ravishing purity to fashion’s new minimalism, where a singular graphic line — a triangular neckline, an undulating ruffle — defines the rigor of design. Photographs by Mario Sorrenti. Styled by Jane How.

With a rush of sweeping cultural transformations, the South Korean capital is becoming the fashionable intrigue of the Far East. By Phoebe Eaton. Photographs by Zeng Han. 98

clockwise from top: stefan Ruiz; mario sorrenti; zeng han.

Left: Seoul’s new City Hall building. Top: Joe Namy’s new media art form at Art dubai 2013. Right: Anja Rubik at Amangiri in southern Utah in a Jil Sander top, QR3130, and skirt, QR4115.

Cover: Photograph by Mario Sorrenti. Styled by Jane How. Emporio Armani top, QR1255; armani.com.

T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

Table of Contents

Lookout Sign of the Times

Designer fashion is no longer just for gay men and Europeans. Welcome to the age of satorial enlightenment, in which the average male has shed schlumpiness for style. By Guy Trebay 18 Behind the T 16

This and That

Gianni Agnelli’s custom cars; a global tour of opera houses; trimmer swim trunks; Danh Vo curates his own show; vamped-up Vans. 22

Quality Take Two

Lookout Qatar

Objects

Karen Elson and Buzz Aldrin weigh in on the Strokes’ new album, an Alexander Wang sleeping mask, 16th-century watercolors and more.

Christian Liaigre’s travel desk has become a Louis Vuitton classic; Noor Alfardan talks about her passion for the gems and her brand of jewelry, Noudar; Dignity, duty and pleasure is the creed that the magnificent Diego Della Valle, President of Tod’s’ lives by; Eric Gaskins gets candid about the fashion industry; Emanuela Duca and her fascination for the desert sands in Qatar; and Martin Parr’s photography takes a satirical look at tourists.

Sometimes all it takes to feel transported is a new accessory in an exotic material. Photographs by Lucas Blalock. Styled by Molly Findlay.

29 By the Numbers

Twenty years ago, the architect Peter Marino vaulted onto the style world’s A-list. Today he is riding higher than ever — more often than not on a Harley-Davidson. 30

57 Suzy Says

Right now, covering up seems way sexier and far more modern than baring it all. By Suzy Menkes. 60

Runway Report

With a clever bag and shoe combination, dressing for any destination can be shockingly simple.

clockwise from top: nicholas calcott; lucas blalock; noshe.

Clockwise from above: Diego Della Valle, President of Tod’s; Noudar jewelry blends Arabesque design and gives it a modern twist;Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquière bag, QR3450; Chanel sandals, QR1730; Lanvin necklace, QR5,650; Elizabeth and James bracelet, QR2,530.

26 By Design

These days, when it comes to designing hotels and resorts in outof-the-way places, architects are embracing a kind of eco-modernism. 28

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Table of Contents

Publisher & Editor-In-Chief

Yousuf Jassem Al Darwish Chief Executive

Sandeep Sehgal Executive Vice President

Alpana Roy

Vice President

Ravi Raman

Editorial Editor

Sindhu Nair Chief Fashion Correspondent

Debrina Aliyah

Senior Correspondents

Abigail Mathias Rory Coen Ezdihar Ibrahim Ali

Arena

Correspondent

The Moment

Food Matters

A Picture and a Poem

Document

Part of the beauty of travel, stylistically speaking, is letting go of the restraints of the everyday for a more carefree look. Photographs by Paul Wetherell. Styled by Michael Philouze.

A vibrant group of young, adventurous and international chefs are breaking down barriers and revolutionizing Paris’s age-old Michelinguarded culinary scene. By Alexandra Marshall. Photographs by Céline Clanet.

The sculptor Teresita Fernández ventures outside her usual medium to create an artwork inspired by new verse from Matthew Zapruder.

Taryn Simon mines the New York Public Library Picture Collection.

66 Travel Diary

For the shoe designer Christian Louboutin, the cinema of India has always been a magical, otherworldly, Technicolor fantasy. He heads to the Marrakesh film festival to meet his favorites stars of the screen. 90

104

Sabrina Christensen

art Senior Art Director

Venkat Reddy

Deputy Art Director

Hanan Abu Saiam

Assistant Art Director

Ayush Indrajith

Senior Graphic Designer

Maheshwar Reddy

Photography

Rob Altamirano

Marketing and Sales Senior Manager – Marketing

Zulfikar Jiffry

Assistant Managers – Marketing

Chaturka Karandana Thomas Jose Media Consultants

Hassan Rekkab Lydia Youssef

Marketing Research & Support Executive

Kanwal Baluch

Accountant Pratap Chandran Sr. Distribution Executive Distribution Support

Arjun Timilsina Bhimal Rai Basanta P

Published by Clockwise from top: the bistro Roseval in Paris’s 20th Arrondissement; Christian Louboutin with the 19-year-old ingenue Alia Bhatt; Dries Van Noten shirt, QR2,895, and shorts, QR2,895; Emporio Armani bag, QR5,000. Marie-Hélène de Taillac bracelet, QR36,330.

Oryx Advertising Co WLL

P.O. Box 3272; Doha-Qatar Tel: (+974) 44672139, 44550983, 44671173, 44667584 Fax: (+974) 44550982 Email: tqatar@omsqatar.com website: www.omsqatar.com

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clockwise from top: céline clanet; Safquat Emquat; Paul Wetherell.

Bikram Shrestha

Teresita Fernández Jane How Modernism Is the Message (Page 90) The stylist Jane How

traveled with the photographer Mario Sorrenti to Amangiri, a secluded resort built at the foot of a rock formation in the desert of southern Utah, to shoot the season’s minimalist fashion. The pair have been collaborating together for over a decade.

A Picture and a Poem (Page 74) When the East Coast artist Teresita Fernández first read ‘‘Poem for a Coin’’ by the West Coast poet Matthew Zapruder, what resonated with her most was ‘‘the idea that something intimate and small can serve as a catalyst for the universal,’’ she says. ‘‘In that sense, both the coin and the peephole become like touchstones, one tactile, the other visual, that conjure up a vast landscape of something huge contained within the miniature.’’ Fernández, whose sculptural installations and other works earned her an appointment by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in September 2011, created an original piece for T in response to the verse. She says the work relates to her ‘‘Night Writing’’ series, which explores the night sky’s relationship to the tactile language of Braille and is on view at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.

Between The Sheets Bruce Weber The iconic photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber shot the Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts for the cover story, ‘‘Good Morning, Matthias Schoenaerts’’ (Page 76). ‘‘I’ve been photographing tough guys all my life,’’ Weber says, ‘‘and the way I know if someone is really tough is if he’s got a big heart, just like Matthias.’’ Weber involved everyone on set, including the security guard, in some of the photographs. Weber’s newest book is ‘‘AllAmerican Volume Twelve: A Book of Lessons’’ (teNeues).

On the Web

On his very first trip to Florida, Matthias Schoenaerts cut loose at the Ocean Queen Inn in Hollywood for the cover story, photographed by Bruce Weber. Weber also made a behind- the-scenes video of a shirtless Schoenaerts fielding questions from T’s entertainment director, Lauren Tabach-Bank, for the Web site.

ALL HANDS ON DECK Weber instructed T’s entertainment director, Lauren Tabach-Bank, on Schoenaerts’s left, to look longingly into the actor’s eyes moments before this shot.

Fernández portrait: billy farrell agency; ‘‘night writing (hero and leander),’’ 2011: teresita fernández/Courtesy of lehmann maupin gallery, new york and hong kong, and stpi singapore. amangiri: courtesy of amanresorts.

Behind the T

Sign of the Times

The Rise of the Well-Dressed Man Designer fashion is no longer just for gay men and Europeans. Welcome to the age of sartorial enlightenment, in which the average male has shed schlumpiness for style. By guy trebay

The scene was a Williamsburg restaurant, packed with the usual

with a fondness for natty green blazers. He liked rump-hugging trousers with taut notch-pockets. He wore Brut cologne, silk foulards and white cleats on the field. Unembarrassed in his embrace of fashion, Namath was way out in front of the culture, a sartorial forerunner of all the athletes who have lately morphed from slobs wearing saggers into designer sandwich boards crowding the front rows at Versace shows. He was — if you’ll forgive the use of a lint-covered term from the cultural sock drawer — a metrosexual avant la lettre. Unlike the hippies and gender benders and rocker peacocks who were his near contemporaries, Joe Namath wasn’t toying with masculinity. His liking for nice clothes was no particular ‘‘tell’’ for sexual preference. That he wore coats made from the sheared pelts of expensively farmed rodents did not mean Joe Namath secretly liked men: it meant he liked mink. Looking around the restaurant that night at all the guys wearing scarves knotted just-so or herringbone tweeds from Rag and Bone or Adam Kimmel jumpsuits or shirts produced by the heritage labels

Robert Longo, ‘‘Men trapped in ice’’ (1980). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures.

array of hip beard-farmers. There was a cookie-cutter likeness about the men in the room, an aesthetic Brooklyn lockstep. Everyone seemed to have gotten the same style memo, the one that called for cardigans with granddad shawl collars, for select brands of pricey Japanese denim and for glasses that make you look like you’ve read too much Ayn Rand. About the last name you’d expect to invoke in a room full of young fops in highly considered finery is that of Joe Namath. And yet suddenly I found myself thinking about Broadway Joe. You remember him, of course, the quarterback legend and media gadfly, a self-styled cartoon whose athletic prowess was pretty nearly overshadowed by his randy off-the-field antics. Goofy-handsome and with gull-wing bangs swooping back from his forehead, Joe had woolly pecs, a dense Happy Trail and a wardrobe that called to mind a coal-town Oscar Wilde. He wore shearling and raccoon and posed in pantyhose for a Hanes Beautymist commercial. He was an unabashed narcissist

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Lookout

Sign of the Times

whose revival has evidently become a point of soaring national pride, I realized that Namath may have been slighted by historians of fashion. Maybe he is the liminal figure theoryheads are always rooting around for. Maybe, unacknowledged and in those long-gone days, it was Broadway Joe who began the inexorable march of butch dandies into the mainstream. It seemed pointless to speculate on whether the guys in this room, who clearly had given thought and care to what they had on, looked stylish on account of being gay or straight or American or, uh, French. Style is learned, not genetic. “Chic,” as the Ango-Irish opera designer Patrick Kinmonth once remarked, ‘‘is nothing. But it’s the right nothing.’’ The men in that room had done their homework. They could probably rattle off the names of the rightnothing labels in their sleep. You might, of course, suppose the phenomenon to be New York specific, or limited to the coasts. But a survey of the landscape suggests we may have entered an age of sartorial advancement. At the very least, there has been a course correction. A generation raised on the insult-to-the-eyes that was casual Fridays has suddenly discovered a novel new uniform: the suit. The last person anyone wants to dress like these days is Tim Allen. Thus the frumpy Dockers and the men’s version of mom jeans and the oversize shirts billowing like jibs have been bagged up and shipped to Goodwill. Even dot-com geeks have slowly begun moving away from the hoodies and sneakers, knit-hat-andsweatshirt Smurf look. In Silcon Valley these days, the stealth

There was a time when the notion of a good old boy coveting one of Browne’s shrunken suits — the ones with the high-water pants and jackets barely skimming one’s bottom — would have been more than implausible, a ‘‘Zoolander’’ fantasy. Yet barely a decade ago, when Browne was still catering to a select handful of clients and had no wholesale business, his customer base was already skewing toward in-the-know Wall Street types, said Tom Kalenderian, the executive vice president of Barneys New York. ‘‘You wouldn’t have expected that they were going to buy something so strong,’’ Kalenderian told me. ‘‘But the learning curve is very steep.’’ Such are the effects of the rushing slipstream of information, and of a solipsism so pronounced that our national fixation is with becoming ever better curated versions of ourselves, that leading the average American man to fashion is hardly the struggle it once was. ‘‘The past 15 years have been all about the mainstreaming of style,’’ Michael Hainey, the deputy editor of GQ, told me. ‘‘In the past there were no E! Entertainment shows about what people wore on the red carpet,’’ he added. ‘‘There was no fashion commentary as part of a man’s daily life. With the exception of Joe Namath, most sports stars in the past took a ‘Who cares?’ attitude about dressing.’’ That men do now gave all the lunks of the world permission to exit their man caves and go shopping, to acquire a smattering of knowledge about design and fit and to stop deluding themselves that it’s somehow more manly to look like a bum. ‘‘I’ve been to shows in Milan and sat next to N.B.A. All-Stars like Carmelo Anthony,’’ Dan Peres, the editor in chief of Details, said. ‘‘And when the show is over you can turn to him and say, ‘Hey, Carmelo, what did you think about the gladiator sandals Donatella Versace sent down the runway?’ ’’ Surely it’s a sign of some sort of cultural shift — the kind Broadway Joe might be proud to have set in motion — that, when Peres posed the question to Anthony, the 6-foot-8 Knicks forward responded with polite and knowledgeable interest rather than punching him out.

natty boys In the last few years there has been a dramatic spike in the average American male’s fashion I.Q.

signifier of status is that throwback to the glory days of haberdashery: brightly patterned socks. I asked the experts at the recent men’s-wear shows in Milan how had the change come about. How do you account for the apparent spike in the fashion I.Q. of the average American male? Is it fallout from years of so-called reality TV shows, the ones where anointed gay tastemakers descend on some slob in his mother’s basement and sprinkle him with pixie dust? It can’t be that, really. For one, the gay stereotypes don’t hold up. The guys from the corner of Queer and Gay Streets tended to dress like jokers in square-toed shoes and whiskered jeans and the silly muscle shirts one associates with certain preening news anchors. ‘‘Now, everyone knows everything,’’ Wendell Brown, a senior fashion editor at Esquire, told me recently. Growing up in the 1980s, Brown felt forced to hide his issues of GQ under the bed to avoid detection, not quite ready to come out to his parents as a Perry Ellis fan. ‘‘We are so far beyond that whole metrosexual phase, that ‘Is he gay?’ stigma.’’ Brown knew it had all changed, he said, when a female colleague in his office, an untrendy type whose boyfriend was a former frat boy, asked him if he could hook her fellow up with a suit from Thom Browne.

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clockwise from top left : Tommy ton/Trunk Archive (3); Marcy Swingle/gastro chic.

A generation of men raised on the insult-to-the-eyes that was casual Fridays has discovered a new uniform: the suit. The last person anyone wants to dress like these days is Tim Allen.

Lookout

This and That A Cultural Compendium

illustration by konstantin kakanias

Culturati who’ve had enough of art-fair globe-trotting can now move on to music and dance. London’s Royal Opera House and the Ultimate Travel Company offer privileged access to some of the world’s best operas, ballets and symphonies. Each journey begins in London with a performance and private dinner at the Royal Opera House. Then maybe it’s off to St. Petersburg for

a show at the Mariinsky Ballet followed by a backstage tour led by the company’s director. Past trips have included V.I.P. treatment at the Salzburg Easter Festival in Austria, a visit to ballet schools, lectures, private concerts and a chance to meet virtuosos like the South African tenor Johan Botha. From QR16,893 per person; theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk/roh. ROCKY CASALE

Car Talk Lapo Elkann shares with his late grandfather Gianni Agnelli — the handsome playboy king of Fiat — a love of style and automobiles. As Elkann puts the finishing touches on an exhibit of Agnelli’s favorite custom cars, he recalls his grandfather’s devotion to driving.

Memory lane Clockwise from top left: the 1967 Fiat 125; Gianni Agnelli in 1972; Lapo Elkann with his custommade Ferrari 458 Italia.

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My grandfather didn’t like to be driven — he liked to drive. Ninety percent of the time his chauffeur sat in the passenger seat and just made small talk with him about soccer. In terms of distinction and elegance, my grandfather was always looking to make his own cars more beautiful. My work today is a tribute to him — I make bespoke cars for Ferrari — but he was more understated when it came to aesthetics than I am. Nevertheless he taught me how to appreciate beautiful objects. At the museum are many of his favorite cars — like the baby Bugatti toy car he drove when he was a boy and many of his favorite Fiats, including the 130 station wagon, designed by Pininfarina in 1975, which is almost like a precursor to the sports utility vehicle. It’s a complex moment for Europe, and for the European auto industry. So it seems important to revive and refresh the sense of beauty and excitement he had for cars any way we can. ‘‘Le Auto dell’Avvocato’’ is on view through June 2 at the Museo Nazionale dell’Auto in Turin, Italy.

clockwise from left: Archivio e Centro Storico fiat; © 2013 the andy warhol foundation for the visual arts, inc. / licensed by ars; pierpaolo ferrari, from the book ‘‘lapo, le regole del mio stile’’ (add editore, 2012).

The (Very) Grand Tour

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Family Spectacle

Close Read

Garrett Leight, the son of the Oliver Peoples co-founder Larry Leight, dabbled as a journalist and D.J. before giving in to fate in 2010 and starting his own line of retro optics in Venice, Calif. ‘‘My dad of course is my mentor from a design standpoint,’’ Garrett, 28, says. But while the father takes his inspiration from glamorous 1930s film stars, the son’s frames channel bespectacled rebels like Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski. In an industry where brand names seem to matter more than ever, Leight’s glasses — logo-less and hand-finished — embody understated cool. JEFF OLOIZIA

Kiss and Yell If you prefer your jeans black and your hair messy, Richard Hell may be the most important musician you’ve never heard of. A founding father of the New York punk scene, Hell is often credited with establishing, along with the sound, the style of the movement. In his new memoir, ‘‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’’ (Ecco, $26), he gives a candid, sometimes brutal tour of punk’s gritty early days: he dissects band dynamics, counts notches on his bedpost, relates his disturbing descent into addiction and debunks myths about his famously choppy hair. It’s like a testosterone-fueled ‘‘Just Kids.’’ Below, a few of the book’s juiciest bits. Bad Blood The Ramones ‘‘were popular but were regarded by the core movers as intrinsically minor.’’ Of Blondie: ‘‘Hardly anyone’’ took them seriously. ‘‘They had a bland, occasionally quirky, urban-girl-group style but were primarily an excuse to look at their stunningly pretty singer.’’ On Patti Smith: ‘‘She was more charismatic than me and a better performer,’’ he writes, but she is ‘‘a hypocritical, pandering diva.’’ Sexploits Hell isn’t shy about his sexual conquests — and his epic powers of attraction. He drones on about his relationship with Patty Oldenburg, which began when he was 19 and she was in her mid-30s, and divorcing

Claes. So robust was their sex life that her upstairs neighbor, the painter Larry Rivers, supposedly drilled a hole in his floor to spy. Poseurs When the Sex Pistols formed in London in 1975, their visual identity was largely borrowed from Hell, whose style their manager Malcolm McLaren admired during a brief stint working in America. Hell ‘‘resented the way they failed to acknowledge how much they’d gotten from New York and me . . . I felt almost as if they were my dream, my mental production.’’ But he also acknowledges that the Pistols had something he didn’t. Johnny Rotten, he writes, ‘‘was all energy and extroversion. He galvanized the kids. I was the opposite, a sullen forlorn junkie outcast who just wanted to be left alone, except by admiring girls.’’ JULIA FELSENTHAL

Seats of Power

The Dutch designer Sebastian Brajkovic deconstructs the historical elements of his tables, chairs and lamps while giving them a surreal, extruded quality that is only possible with high-tech machinery. He was barely out of school when pieces from his Lathe furniture series began to appear at design fairs and in the collections of major museums. The furniture, inspired by Brajkovic’s childhood interest in things that turned, like reel-to-reel tape decks, is the subject of an exhibition that opens on March 18 on the European campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design in Lacoste, France. Several of his pieces are available for purchase through the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in London and Paris. Pilar Viladas Home Stretch Sebastian Brajkovic’s Lathe VIII chair is made of patina bronze with embroidered upholstery.

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illustration by Konstantin Kakanias; leight portrait: pascal shirley; brajkovic: courtesy of carpenters workshop gallery.

From top: Oliver Peoples sunglasses, QR1,380; oliverpeoples.com. Garrett Leight California Optical sunglasses, QR1,130; garrettleight.com.

A Trimmer Trunk Between loud surf Jams and ill-fitting board shorts, American guys too often err when it comes to beachside style. Adam Brown, the British designer behind the culty swimwear brand Orlebar Brown, offers a corrective. His classic trunks — trimly tailored with a fixed waist and adjustable side tabs — come in three decreasingly daring lengths: the thigh-exposing Setter, as modeled by Daniel Craig in the most recent Bond flick (here in the new-for-spring Fiorentina print by the late designer David Hicks); the midlength Bulldog, for shyer sorts; and the Dane, a slimmed-down board short that marries Old World prudery with a New World fit. JULIA FELSENTHAL

Now Showing

Born in Vietnam and raised in Denmark, the conceptualist Danh Vo’s rapid rise in the art world can be attributed to his incisive and enigmatic style. His most famous work to date involved ‘‘building’’ a to-scale model of the Statue of Liberty: the hundreds of discrete chunks were never actually assembled into a whole; instead they were scattered around the globe to represent the reach of democracy and American imperialism. Last year, Vo won the Guggenheim’s prestigious Hugo Boss Prize, a biennial award that comes with a solo show at the museum. Continuing his exploration of identity and heritage, Vo has filled his show, which opens this week, with artwork, kitschy Americana (above right) and Oriental knickknacks that belonged to the late painter Martin Wong. ‘‘I consider it a kind of collaboration,’’ he says. ‘‘And I don’t have any problems collaborating with dead people.’’ Another of Vo’s exhibitions, which opens next week at Marian Goodman Gallery, cleverly assembles the personal effects of Robert McNamara, the former secretary of defense. Largely remembered for escalating the American involvement in the Vietnam War, McNamara is a fraught figure for the artist, whose family fled their homeland in a boat when he was 4 years old. But McNamara is also an ideal subject for Vo, who is once again deconstructing a complex symbol of American power. KEVIN McGARRY

Vamped-Up Vans Designers have remade the slip-on in leather, suede and mock croc, turning a skate-park staple into a lazy-man luxury. From far left: Coach, QR648; coach.com. Bottega Veneta, QR2,038; bottegaveneta.com. Common Projects, QR1,339; mrporter.com. Tommy Hilfiger, QR975.

clockwise from top left: sebastian kim; Heinz Peter Knes; brad bridgers. illustration by Konstantin Kakanias.

The Artist as Curator

All prices are indicative

Lookout

light touch Far left: Tommy Hilfiger bag, QR1,449. Tory Burch shoes, QR546. Louis Vuitton ring, QR13,835; Left: Donna Karan New York bag, QR7,263; donnakaran.com. HermĂ¨s shoes, QR4,915; Guess jeans (worn throughout), QR324.

Runway Report

Two for the Road With a clever bag and shoe combination, dressing for any destination can be shockingly simple.

Bright Fun Things Above, from left: Longchamp bag, QR1,601; longchamp.com. Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoes, QR1,620; Bulgari ring, QR3,750. Etro bag, QR10,620; etro.com. Jimmy Choo shoes, QR5,079; Ralph Lauren Collection bag, QR2,366; Roger Vivier shoes, QR2,457; Near right: Burberry Prorsum bag, QR10,904; Stuart Weitzman shoes, QR1,037.

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Manicurist: Kim Chiu for mark edward inc.; models: Elisaveta Stoilova, Amy Poole/parts models.

Photographs by Brea Souders styled by Catherine Newell-Hanson

bold Statements Above: Prada bag, QR7,827; Chanel shoes, QR1,438. Second row, from left: Belstaff bag, QR6,735; belstaff.com. CH Carolina Herrera shoes, QR1,274; Bulgari ring, QR7,463; ChloĂŠ bag, QR4,714; nordstrom.com. Chanel shoes, QR1,729; Cartier bracelet, QR30,765.

All prices are indicative

pattern recognition Above, from left: Valentino Garavani bag, QR12,724; Tabitha Simmons shoes, QR2,530; barneys.com. Isabel Marant bag, QR2,057. Miu Miu shoes, QR2,730; Cartier ring, QR7,918. Salvatore Ferragamo bag, QR14,927. Giuseppe Zanotti Design shoes, QR4,915; Right: Fendi tote, QR4,332, and baguette, QR7,973; Derek Lam shoes, QR1,449. Bulgari ring, QR7,463. Juicy Couture shirt, QR538; juicycouture.com.

Issue 19, 2013

Lookout solid ground Clockwise from left: textured concrete sets the tone at the Hotel Fasano in Punta del Este; a one-room Hermitage at Glencomeragh House in Ireland; the Tierra Patagonia is clad in local wood.

By Design

Stark Luxury Because sometimes sublime scenery and intelligent architecture are far more restorative than liveried butlers or signature cocktails.

Hotel Fasano Las Piedras High above Punta del Este, Uruguay, the Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld designed 32 concrete bungalows with rustic stone bases that seem to nestle naturally into their rocky hillside setting. The austerity of their exteriors contrasts with the warm, Brazilian Modernist vibe of the interiors. Glencomeragh House If it’s a spiritual getaway you seek, consider the wood-sided Hermitages, designed by Kevin Bates and Tom Maher, that are part of the Glencomeragh House, a retreat in County Tipperary, Ireland, owned by the Catholic Church. The minimalist interiors don’t preclude amenities like heated floors, full kitchens and satellite TV. Tierra Patagonia Hotel & Spa On the shores of Lake Sarmiento, near the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, the 40-room Tierra Patagonia is a long, wood-clad sweep of a building that its designers, of Cazu Zegers Arquitectura, liken to ‘‘an ancient fossil of a prehistoric animal,’’ with an aerodynamic shape that withstands the area’s winds. Dar HI The French designer Matali Crasset conceived Dar HI, a resort and spa in the Tunisian desert, as a walled village of what looks like elevated houses. Crasset and her collaborators, the owners Patrick Elouarghi and Philippe Chapelet, describe it as a citadel that rose ‘‘from the sand, dedicated to well-being.’’ Treehotel Designed by Tham & Vigard, the Mirrorcube, a 13-footsquare retreat, is one of six treehouses (four more are planned) at the Treehotel in Sweden. Its exterior allows it to disappear into its pineforest setting. (Infrared film on the mirror ensures that birds can see it.) Inside, six windows frame the views. PILAR VILADAS

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Fasano: fernando guerra; dar hi: Jérôme SPRIET; treehotel: peter lundstrom, wdo.

These days, when it comes to designing hotels and resorts in out-of-the-way places, less is more. Instead of historically inspired villas or clusters of vernacular-style huts or cottages, architects are embracing a kind of eco-modernism, with quietly powerful structures that take their cues — literally — from the landscape. Rather than imposing themselves on their spectacular surroundings, these buildings become part of them, sometimes so much so that it’s hard to tell where the natural stops and the man-made begins.

Above it all The Dar HI (left) overlooks the village of Nefta, in Tunisia; the Treehotel in Sweden includes the Mirrorcube (below) as well as the Birds Nest and the UFO.

Take Two

A dual review of what’s new.

Karen Elson

Buzz Aldrin

Model mom and smoky-voiced chanteuse who has collaborated with everyone from Robert Plant to her ex-husband, Jack White. She is now at work on her second album.

Legendary moonwalker, contestant on ‘‘Dancing With the Stars’’ and author of the forthcoming space manifesto ‘‘Mission to Mars.’’

Gadget Pentax’s rugged, ‘‘adventure-proof’’ WG-3 digital camera (QR1,092).

Music

I have to applaud them for always taking a direction that nobody would think the Strokes would take. Julian Casablancas, when he was a wee lad, used to work at my modeling agency. He was a scrappy little punk kid.

I’ve never had a tan in my life. The only time I ever used a self-tanner before this, I was 15 and I ended up with orange, streaky handprints on my legs for weeks. I am the wrong person for this, but at least it didn’t turn me orange!

It’s really soft, which I love. The eye masks the airlines give you are so scratchy and uncomfortable. I am absolutely terrified of flying — it’s the only time I want sensory deprivation — so this is a godsend.

It’s basically a travel diary of the times, and it’s fascinating, actually — the watercolors were meant to be like photographs, the kind we’d take today if we were traveling to a new place. I feel like such a nerd, but I was really into it.

‘‘Comedown Machine,’’ the new album by the Strokes.

Beauty Product The Face and Body Gradual Tan from La Mer’s new sun-care line, Soleil de la Mer (QR309).

Travel Accessory Alexander Wang leather eye mask (QR345).

Book ‘‘The Art of Travel,’’ a visual account of a Polish adventurer’s 16th-century journey through the Ottoman Empire.

It’s great if you’re not a scuba diver. I dive down to 100 feet rather regularly. This camera is only waterproof to 45 feet, so I wouldn’t take it with me. In space we used a Hasselbad still camera that was quite a bit bigger than this.

I grew up in the period of Frank Sinatra and Karen Carpenter and ‘‘That old black magic has me in its spell.’’ But I did find the combination of rock music and violins interesting. It was relatively pleasant as background music.

I used it for several days and I’m beginning to see a good result. I always liked my complexion as a youth when I was out in the sun. But now I have numerous spots over my body that indicate that too much sun is not a good thing!

The very handsome leather mask that I received was too tight. I’m not sure why one would buy a personal item like this rather than take one of the free ones that you’re given on an airplane.

My interest is almost exclusively in learning from the immediate past how to do things in the future. The technical aspects of my mind are much more drawn to that than journeys in the distant past.

elson: david swanson; aldrin: Buzz Aldrin archives; The STrokes: Michael Tran/Filmmagic/getty images; book: lucas Zarebinski.

For a digital camera, you can feel that it’s built like a brick. I dropped it off a staircase, I dropped it in some water. . . . If it can withstand me and my two children, it can probably withstand anything.

Lookout By the Numbers

Leader of the Pack Twenty years ago, the architect Peter Marino vaulted onto the style world’s A-list with his limestone-clad design for the Barneys New York flagship, helping ignite a mania for luxurious retail environments that endures to this day. Hundreds of boutiques later, for clients like Louis Vuitton and Dior, Marino has nearly doubled his business in the last two years and is riding higher than ever — more often than not on a Harley-Davidson. By David Colman

Best part of his job:

‘‘The opportunity to produce beauty; work with beautiful products, beautiful people, beautiful architecture.’’

OFFICIAL TITLE HELD

33 Number of countries in which PMA has projects

1,000+ Train Insane

Private clients he’ll only give last names of:

Favorite fragrance to wear?

220

Height:

5-foot-9

‘‘PEDRO’’ T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

None, ever.

Weight:

185 pounds Waist:

28 inches

daughter, Isabel

2 billion.

I did Barneys New York in the early 1990s — that was like QR218 million. But QR218 million in 1990 would be like QR546 million today.’’

A name he uses to refer to himself.

on marc jacobs:

‘‘Marc has his ear to the ground, his eyes on the art scene, his head in the clouds, and his heart is fashion. And his tattoo of the Jean Michel Frank sofa makes me crazy.’’

clockwise from top left: manolo yllera; erica berger, getty images.

One

‘‘In today’s money, over

Armani / Coleman / Hill / Rayner / Rothschild Safra / Schwarzman

Number of pounds Marino can bench-press

to Jane Trapnell

Amount of clients’ money he has burned through:

Private clients Marino will name: Bernard Arnault / Laurence Graff / Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent / Gianni and Marella Agnelli

Richard Prince / Anselm Reyle / Tom Sachs / Joel Shapiro / Wolfgang Tillmans / Not Vital / Idris Khan / Anselm Kiefer / Francesco Clemente / Gregor Hildebrandt / Bianca Sforni

1983,

Chevalier de L’ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres, conferred by the French ministry of culture.

Personal Motto

Artists he’s commissioned for projects:

Married

How many projects total in the last 35 years:

whom he considers his Greatest Rival in the Business

Breakthrough Job*

Zaha Hadid

Andy Warhol’s town house

Largest private residence

55,000 square feet

Number of shades of gray in the Christian Dior Avenue Montaigne store

* There is some dispute over this claim. Marino collaborated on the project with Jed Johnson, Warhol’s boyfriend at the time. In recent years, the lawyers for Jed Johnson Associates have sent a letter to Marino demanding that he stop taking credit for the house.

3 Kinds of Leather

clockwise from top: jimmy cohrssen; vincent knapp; manolo yllera; claudio conti; martin mueller.

‘‘For clients in Dallas — very J. R. Ewing. Dallas is hilarious. Everything ‘biggest’ I have ever done was in Dallas.’’

are used to make Marino’s motorcycle outfits. He has summer shirts and pants made out of thin French lambskin, midweight clothes made out of cowhide from Libra Leather in New York and thicker garments made by his tailor out of German horsehide.

Number of skull and vintage armor rings currently wearing

Favorite Boots California patrolman boots or Redwing motorcycle boots.

‘‘Felix is an incredible tailor from the Dominican Republic and he sews nonstop for me. He makes the firm’s curtains and pillows and then goes, ‘Do you want a leather shirt?’ ’’

on karl lagerfeld

Motorcycles Marino owns

Number of years he has worked with Chanel

Number of led lights on glass facade of chanel ginza tower by peter marino

700,000

Number of Motorcycle Accidents One in which someone ran him off the road into a pole and a neardeath experience in Colorado. ‘‘That was like a movie where you wake up a day and a half later and think you made it to Heaven. I was driven off a cliff.’’

‘‘He’s the best educated and most cultured of any of the couturiers I’ve worked for.’’

Biggest pet peeve about the United States:

The so-called English system of measurement — inches, feet, yards, miles. ‘‘Ninety percent of our projects are metric. This is something from the 11th century.’’

Artists represented in PMA office art collection............. 50 Number of Damien Hirst dots counted At PMA HQ .........390 Original Warhols Marino owns.......... 11 Renaissance bronze sculptures in personal collection.............. 37 Pieces of porcelain and pottery in personal collection... 1,000-1,500

Issue 19, 2013

Lookout Qatar

Timeless Precision The Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge, the leading international circuit for vintage and classic sailing craft, is gearing up for the 2013 season. A new host city and event have been added to its ranks. Naples, one of the world’s most extraordinary cities, joins the PCYC’s Mediterranean circuit this year, with its legendary bay providing the backdrop for the 10th edition of “Le Vele d’Epoca a Napoli” from June 26 and 30 this year. The event opens, as per tradition, with the big Antigua regatta in the Caribbean. The long-standing events on both international circuits (Mediterranean and North America) also return, as does Cowes on the Isle of Wight, which is gaining ground with each passing year.

Audemars Piguet Comes to Doha

If the impressive number of visitors and sales figures of the recent 10th Doha Jewelery and Watches Exhibition are anything to go by, appreciation for all bright shiny things has definitely gone to the next level in Qatar. A burgeoning market driven by passionate local partners has made Qatar a very attractive destination, with the latest opening by Swiss manufacture Audemars Piguet at Villaggio Mall. Represented by the Ali Bin Ali Group, the opening reception was attended by the CEO of the brand, Francois-Henry Bennahmias and the Middle East CEO Nicolas Garzouzi. A select group of guests and clients previewed a special edit of Audemars Piguet 2013 novelties brought in specially for the opening of the boutique. In line with the brand’s identity, the boutique is designed to present exclusive offerings in an intimate and cozy setting with dedicated lounge areas, and a selection of watch making books and showcases. The opening of the standalone boutique is one of many in recent months by international luxury brands responding to the positive outlook of the local market. DEBRINA ALIYAH

Color-Branded

Miu Miu revisits feminine elegance through its new shopping bag range characterized by a new and varied color palette. For this project, the bags, available in a wide range of kaleidoscopic hues, are developed in the iconic Madras leather, with a special finish that highlights its resistance while lending an extremely soft feel. The new bag comes in bright colors such as fuoco, larice and turchese, but also in softer hues including rosa, ginestra and clorofilla. Exclusively available in Milan at the via Sant’ Andrea store, in London at the Selfridges and Harrods concessions, and in Paris at the Galeries Lafayette concession.

T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

Travel Solutions Christian Liaigre is pondering on a product for Louis Vuitton. He is thinking about George Adamson, the naturalist behind classic story “Born Free” and his work reintroducing lions into the wild. It inspires him to produce a portable travel desk, one that is light but hardwearing enough to survive trips into the bush. It has adjustable carrying straps and a handle, and comes with a cover to protect it from dust and shocks. Like much of Christian Liaigre’s work, the travel desk has a simple shape and uses natural materials: a maple frame with a “Nomade” leather-covered tabletop. “For a long time I had a project to make a piece of furniture as transportable as the easels that painters took outdoors in the nineteenth century,” says Christian about the concept. Of the juggle between form and function, and which gets precedence, he says: “I thought about George Adamson, an English gentleman adventurer. Function was primordial: it had to be light and hardwearing enough to travel around in a Jeep, but look like Louis Vuitton and be the stuff of dreams for rare-furniture collectors.” The conceptualization was in 1992 and now it is 2013 and Christian Liaigre’s travel desk has become a Louis Vuitton classic, an expression of traditional savoir-faire that speaks of modernity. Louis Vuitton has been synonymous with the art of travel since it was founded in 1854. It is a long-standing spirit of sophistication and unlimited possibilities that is said to be at the heart of Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades series. Stepping outside the rhythm of the seasons, the collection has been growing, mirroring the House’s journey and the new or established designers it meets along the way. The line currently counts 15 travel-inspired objects, a mixture of foldable furniture and travel accessories, all in noble materials and made as unique pieces, limited editions or experimental prototypes. From a hammock to a foldable stool in precious “Nomade” leather, a travel desk to a maracatu, the Objets Nomades pay homage to the House’s special orders of the past, such as the iconic bed-trunk or Stokowski Trunk, and add a defiantly contemporary spirit. SINDHU NAIR

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Lookout Qatar

Maserati Breaks New Ground

The all-new Ghibli made its debut at the recent Shanghai Motor Show. The stunning model marks the first time that the Italian sports, luxury and prestige car maker will have two four-door sedans on sale at the same time. The Ghibli maintains Maseratiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s distinctive C-pillar treatment, which delivers much of the coupe-like stance and carries the classic Saetta Maserati logo, carrying on a tradition dating back to 1963. This model also delivers a sporty design combined with the typical roominess of an executive sedan. The Ghibli will have a more focused, sportier philosophy than its predecessor, the larger Quattroporte. Incidentally, both engines, with their parallel turbochargers, were developed by Maserati Powertrain in partnership with Ferrari Powertrain, and will be built by Ferrari in its world-leading engine construction facility in Maranello.

Made for Doha Fans, From Prada The unremitting attention that Prada devotes to the rarest, most precious materials forms the basis for the creation of the brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new luggage set, made in papaya-colored ostrich leather. The set includes three suitcases in different sizes and a beauty case, handcrafted in compliance with the high-end quality standards that befit any Prada-branded product. The inside of the suitcases, made of the classic Prada jacquard fabric, is enriched by a pocket and two leather straps fastened with buckles. Exclusively in Prada Boutique, opening soon in Villagio Mall, Doha.

T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

Simple Sophistication The willow collection from English luxury brand Mulberry, celebrates timeless leather-craft with its shape, style and detailing. With a strong focus on simplicity, the design evokes the best English craft tradition, with elegant lines and enduring appeal. Mulberry’s history is steeped in craftsmanship and the creation of luxurious bags from the most beautiful leather, and since 1971 it has built a reputation for balancing creativity and modernity with the traditions of leather-craft and manufacture. The new collection will be made exclusively in Mulberry’s British factories, and is named in honor of Mulberry’s second home factory, The Willows, which will open in Somerset in late 2013. Mulberry is dedicated to maintaining and nurturing British production and is one of the few British luxury brands to invest in UK manufacturing and craftsmanship. Since its debut during London Fashion Week in September 2012, the Willow Tote has become a favorite of British supermodel Kate Moss, who carried it during Fashion Week to the launch of Tim Walker’s “Story Teller” exhibition at Somerset House and out and about in London.

Of Horses and Hats Horse racing in Qatar has long been a passion. The Racing and Equestrian Club (REC) was established way back in 1975. Since 2001 the REC has been organising the Qatar International Equestrian Festival (QIEF), which is an annual seven-day event. Patricia Musial, Head of QREC’s International Affairs Unit, says, “The international week becomes the most important meeting of the racing season. With close to 500 guests coming from all over the world and a multitude of spectators, it is clearly a highly-anticipated event.” Fashion at the races is a fun part of major race meetings. According to Musial, “In 2011, we decided to create our ‘Hat Contest’ during the international week and it was a success with 62 participants. Last year we had 82 participants and this year 114. This year, we decided to add to the excitement and added a ‘best dressed lady contest.’” Though hat culture is relatively new to Qatar, Musial says, the show was quite popular. “It was very successful with prominent attendees as HE Dr Sheikha Aisha Bint Faleh Al Thani and Juan Carlos Capelli, Vice President and Head of International Marketing Longines, who presented the prizes to the winners. This year our partners were Lalique, HDC, Nails, Alexandre Zaouri, Glam magazine and La Duree.” ABIGAIL MATHAIS

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Lookout Qatar

For the Fascination of Gems Noor AlFardan is not an unknown personality in her country, thanks to her surname, which immediately associates her with one of the biggest family businesses in Qatar. Being a member of a family immersed in the business of luxury, ranging from automobiles to jewelry and luxury living, and growing up surrounded by all things luxurious, Noor has still chosen the most challenging path that of banking on her vocations, to create her own line. By Sabrina Christensen Photographs Courtesy: Noudar

Top: Henna, white gold and diamond ring. Below: Mint Leaves white gold and diamond earrings.

being a member of the AlFardan family doesn’t make it any easier for Noor.

She says, “My family never expected me to take a back seat or to simply continue the business. My father, in particular, always encouraged me to go into this field knowing how much it interested me. He is still my biggest fan as well as critic. I have yet to release a collection without showing it to him first, as I know he would be very honest, and I work and re-work each piece until I’m certain it would be good enough to put it out in a showcase. “Releasing a collection is always a bit nerve-racking as designing is a form of personal expression, so all you can do really is be yourself, ensure the quality of your final products and hope that people enjoy them.” She is one of the first female Qatari jewelry designers and her brand is already creating a buzz globally. T Qatar spoke to Noor about her inspirations and aspirations for the brand Noudar. When did the interest in designing start? My father has been taking me to jewelry exhibitions and to meetings with jewelers since I

was six years old. It was my favorite part of all our trips together. After every meeting, I would then draw my favorite pieces from the collections we had just seen and alter them in a way that I would think would make them look better when worn. I also developed such a fascination with gemstones that I couldn’t even imagine another path for myself. What is the inspiration behind your collection? My designs are modernized Arabian concepts that can be worn easily in both the East and the West and can be worn to any occasion depending on how daring and creative you are. Every piece in the collection has a relation to my background and heritage. The “Henna” collection consists of double rings connected together with fine henna style patterns and comes in black diamonds and in brown diamonds, the same colors that henna comes in as well. When I was younger, my sisters and I would only like covering two fingers in henna as we thought it was the most elegant way, so that’s how the idea for the double rings began which now exist throughout my collections in lace and garden patterns as well. The “Al Andalus” earrings are designed around a motif that is commonly found and constantly repeated in Islamic architectural patterns. I discovered it while studying art

Top: Kaf white gold and diamond fingerless gloves. Left: Al Andalus white gold and tsavorites earrings. Right: Imperial Lace white gold and diamond ring.

My designs are modernized Arabian concepts that can be worn easily in both the East and the West and can be worn to any occasion depending on how daring and creative you are. history in the American University of Sharjah.

Left: Al Andalus white gold, diamond and sapphire earrings. Right: Henna rose gold and brown diamond ring.

Where do you source the materials used for your jewelry? I buy all the diamonds and precious stones I use in the collection from reputable diamond dealers at Baselworld exhibition. I enjoy the entire week – they have an entire hall dedicated to the most exquisite loose stones you would ever see. It is like candyland for most jewelers and this is where we all tend to buy material. During this time of the year, I also make regular trips to Belgium, where some of the finest diamond dealers that exhibit in Basel have their offices. Is there a particular material you most enjoy working with? I love how diamonds are so strong and durable, and their sparkle is of course

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Lookout Qatar

unlike any other gemstone. There is more use of diamonds than any other gemstone in my collection, in different shapes sizes and colors. I also love the strong saturation of color that emeralds, rubies and sapphires have and so use them quite often as well. Top: Imperial Lace rose gold, ruby and pink sapphire ring. Below: Imperial Lace white gold and diamond ring.

Who is your muse? I began and continue to design keeping the Arab woman in mind; my collection consists mainly of rings and earrings, as these are the only pieces visible when wearing a abaya. I focused on these two items and create strong and fun versions that women could play around with before I even considered adding necklaces to the collection. The lace collection is also made to highlight the elegance of a woman’s hand, especially against a black abaya that includes lace as well. It’s all about focusing on femininity. What kind of person wears your jewelry? Noudar jewelry is all about translating Arabian styles for a Western audience. I make pieces that people from different cultures enjoy wearing within their own communities, but the inspiration is obviously from my own culture, growing up in Qatar and being exposed to traditional Middle Eastern jewelry, customs and styles. I love seeing how people in other parts of the world interpret it. One day a woman approached me in the States and asked me where I got my “diamond gloves” from. She was referring to the “kaf” that I was wearing on my hand. When I explained to her that this piece is actually common in traditional Arabian jewelry she was fascinated. My “fingerless gloves” became very popular after that. Tell us about your experience working with global jewelry designers? I worked with designers at Chopard and they are absolute legends; they have created some of the world’s most iconic pieces. I am also obsessed with Victoire de Castellane, Creative Director of Dior fine jewelry. She creates pure art and has this wonderful imagination that is not easy to incorporate into fine jewelry. Because each piece is so complex and detailed, you notice something different about it every time you look at the same piece. It’s all part of her magic. If you weren't designing jewelry, what would you be doing? I would be working for a jewelry designer, trying to weasel my way in! You recently showcased some pieces at London Fashion Week, how did it feel to show at an international level? It was so much fun mainly because it was the perfect collaboration. Felder Felder have this edgy, rock-n-roll feel which is still feminine, which is what love about them. They used only one earring on each model to create this a-symmetric vibe which looked amazing. Do you have any plans to promote Noudar in Qatar and the Middle East? Qatar is my home, and my focus and priority is always here. I would love to get involved with more events in Doha in the future as its quite fun to promote jewelry in different ways as opposed to basic advertising, and as Qatar continues to grow. I feel like there are now more opportunities to do this.

Top: Al Andalus yellow gold, white and yellow diamond earrings. Left: Enchanted Snakes white gold, diamond and sapphire earrings. Right: Enchanted Snakes rose gold, diamond and ruby earrings.

What are the future plans for Noudar in terms of global scale, and have you thought about expanding into other accessories? I would love to expand into other markets when the timing is right. Its always interesting to see how people from different cultures interpret certain styles. In terms of branching out into products, I believe you should always focus on what you do best and only venture into new things once you have perfected and stabilized your core lines. The brand is still growing and so anything could be possible in the future but I'm currently too swamped with evolving my current core lines to consider branching into completely different products. Noudar jewels are currently stocked at Alfardan Jewellery stores in Qatar and at Frost in Bond street, London.

Tod’s Diego Della Valle Talks ‘Dignita, Dovere e Divertimento’ “Dignity, duty and pleasure” is the creed that the magnificent Diego Della Valle lives by. The president of leather accessories brand Tod’s speaks exclusively to T Emirates about all things Italian and what “the good life” really means. By Priyanka Pradhan

Photographs Courtesy: Tod’s

Lookout Qatar TOD'S motto: It's all about craftsmanship, quality and keeping to the commitment of "Made in Italy" at Tod's.

“A good plate of spaghetti, tomato and basil with a glass of chilled white wine” may sound very precise, but that’s how one of Italy’s most intriguing billionaires describes his ideal evening. For a man known as much for his flamboyant 52-foot cruiser ‘Marlin’ (a luxury yacht that once belonged to John F. Kennedy) as he is for pledging a whopping $33 million towards conservation of the Roman Colosseum, Diego Della Valle is a surprisingly simple family man. Despite the exacting, almost military, discipline he’s known for, as well as his several homes and Ferraris, his helicopter and even a floating residence, he insists that his philosophy is very simple-just like the reason for selecting the name ‘Tod’s’. In 1978, when he and his brother first created the brand, originally called ‘J.P.Tod’, the market was soon abuzz with the ubiquitous new ‘Gommino’ moccasins suddenly being seen on everyone from movie stars to royalty. “Who’s J.P Tod?” people asked, and various stories floated about, including one that suggested Della Valle had pulled the name at random from a Boston phone book. He smiles as he reveals the answer. “I believe that all the stories you are talking about are the real ones! ‘Tod’s’ is a fantasy name, perfect for what I was looking at – an old English sound that can be easily pronounced the same way in many different languages.” As simple as that! At Tod’s, he developed a strategy for a more laid-back and casual ‘American weekend’ style, rather than the uptight and formal ‘Sunday best’ dressing that was the norm in Europe at the time. In the 80’s he played a prominent role within the company, but it wasn’t until October 2000 that Diego Della Valle became President and CEO of Tod’s SpA, the new group he founded. The surge in Tod’s coffers from 2000 to 2013 led to his being named in the Forbes Billionaires List (March 2013), boasting a personal net worth of QR5.64 billion, and emerging among the 20 richest people in Italy this year. But it’s not just his wealth that has earned him fame and recognition in Italy and beyond. Diego Della Valle is heavily invested in the ‘Made in Italy’ pedigree, as he believes it’s more than just a label. It is this belief that led him to pledge a substantial portion of his wealth to the restoration of the iconic Roman Colosseum and to buy the legendary but ailing Italian fashion house Elsa Schiaparelli in order to breathe new life into it. Moreover, he rescued Italy’s Fiorentina soccer team from bankruptcy in 2002, and even launched a new high-speed train service for the public, called Italo, in collaboration with Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the chairman of Ferrari. “I love my country and I am driven by support for ‘Made in Italy’. Therefore any time I have or I had in the past to contribute to supporting Italy’s image, credibility and its cultural image, it has been both a great honor and a duty for me. All these involvements, born from a civil conviction of participation, affirm the belief that investing in ‘Made in Italy’, its skills, traditions and culture, makes the country more competitive, to create more opportunities for people who work there and who love its history and traditions,” he says. In Italy, the Tod’s factory still sees craftsmen making each product by hand, using up to 35 pieces of leather and more than 100 steps in the process. At a time when luxury houses are turning towards more cost-

T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

effective countries for their manufacturing, given the turbulent economic currents in Europe, Diego Della Valle deliberately walks in another direction. He explains: “At the end of the day, I truly believe that it is exactly the other way round. ‘Made in Italy’ is what makes the difference nowadays. Abroad, manufacturers based mainly in the informal economy don’t pay attention to quality at all. Tod’s is rooted in the highest quality of leathers and craftsmanship, and ‘Made in Italy’ guarantees its full respect. Our clients, loyal to our brand, want timeless luxurious products of the best quality. I believe this fully repays a more expensive production base in Italy.” However, the cash cow for Tod’s is not his home country, Italy, but Asia and the Middle East, he says. “I would say the Far East – China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan are our major markets – but the Middle East is one of our top priorities. We consider the Arab clientele one of the most refined anywhere in the world, and we always try to work on special activities, as they love exclusivity. Consumers here have the power of money, but they are very refined at the same time, and they always look at special products created specifically for their region and customized for them. They appreciate high quality and their tastes are evidently influenced by their cultural reality,” he comments. Speaking of cultures, Diego Della Valle is an avid traveler and has had the privilege of visiting most countries in the world in his private jet, which

Tod’s is rooted in the highest quality of leathers and craftsmanship, and ‘Made in Italy’ guarantees its full respect. proudly bears his dictum ‘Dignita, Dovere e Divertimento’. He says: “I am a globetrotter, but mainly for business. I travel for short periods of time and when I am abroad I am in constant meetings; I don’t have much spare time for sightseeing. And when I travel for vacations, there are two destinations that I deeply desire – Capri, my second home, and the Greek islands, Folegandros above all. My family and friends on my boat... and just sunshine!” “As for the Middle East, I love Dubai, which I know pretty well. I find it inspiring; it changes so quickly, and every time I come I always find new ideas to steal!” he adds. The soles of his own shoes may be well worn from his hectic travel schedule and decades of running the multimillion-lira company, but Della Valle is not ready to retire just yet. He says: “To be frank with you, I have not thought about it yet. So far, I basically try to keep on going working as I am currently doing, but at the same time I’m trying to find some time to spend with my family and friends. I think it is really important spending some good time with the family, while simultaneously working hard.” He’s currently overseeing the business side of Tod’s while the creative side is handled by the recently-appointed creative director, Alessandra Facchinetti. “But I always keep an eye on our products as well,” he says. “Alessandra is a very talented woman. Her passion for detail and her dedication to the research of materials and manufacturing allow a sophisticated luxury craftsmanship and make her perfect for Tod’s, which has always been very attentive to quality.” Della Valle’s vision for Tod’s is grand but realistic, as are his ambitions for Italy. Whether it’s the renovation of a local school in his hometown in the Marche region or funding a Rome film studio, he believes in giving back to his country by sharing his largesse. This, combined with his razor-sharp business acumen, commitment and love for Italy, continues to paint a largerthan-life portrait of the patriotic billionaire. Something tells us that some buono spaghetti bolognese also has much to do with it.

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Lookout Qatar

Urban Chaos: Trotro Station by Ablade Glover, represented by Nubuke Foundation, part of the Marker project at Art Dubai 2013

A Cocktail of Art The UAE seems to be the epicenter of all things art after the success of the seventh edition of Art Dubai. By SINDHU NAIR

T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

BOXED IN ART: (above left clockwise) The Miraculous Lives of This and That, installation by Huma Mulji,HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rasheed Al Maktoum enjoys art with Antonia Carver, Joe Namy’s dance and musical show, a bird’s eye view of a section of galleries at Art Dubai 2013.

The sun was on a setting path and an earthy ochre hue was slowly spreading over the Dubai sky – the perfect backdrop for the evening’s entertainment at the seventh edition of Art Dubai held from March 20-23, at Madinat Jumeirah. Though the entertainment in itself was not as spectacular as the backdrop, the virtuosity in concept made it distinctive and bestowed a perspective on the one-of-a-kind contemporary art fair of the region. Emiratis danced to the beat of traditional percussions, with a street-style version of hip hop taking center stage. Sporting sneakers, ball caps and a cheeky attitude, the hip hoppers tried to better their predecessor’s acrobatic display. The young acrobats juxtaposed the barefoot, thobeclad Emiratis, singing and dancing in their effortless style, all keeping in tune to the same rhythm. Standing around and watching this fusion of dance and music were the media and the cosmopolitan group of art-lovers on the grounds of the ultra-luxurious Madinat Jumeirah, intent on capturing the mix of cultures while trying to decipher the art and soul of this melee. The performance was a commissioned project by Joe Namy, who is currently researching traditional song and dance. He says that the traditional songs were once used for ritual healing and is unique to

the UAE. Namy and eleven other artists were commissioned to create site-specific works for Art Dubai Projects 2013, to create new works that engaged audiences and interacted with the fair. Namy’s performance, drew upon the parallels between these ritual dances and their rhythmic connections to contemporary electronic music. Namy says that this dance form is more celebratory. “One person steps in the middle, tags someone on the other side and they come in. The dance isn't actually native to the UAE,” he says, “and this is one of the reasons I like it. It comes from Africa via Oman and through the trade routes.” This aspect of the dance fascinated Namy because “so much of Dubai is actually imported.” And that in essence personifies the essence of Art Dubai. While the fair was without doubt UAE-centric, it weaved together the flavors of the region, intersecting it with offerings from around the globe in its quest to be identified along with international art majors. And it more than succeeded. Art Dubai, Fair Director, Antonia Carver stressed the “intentional global aspect of the fair” when she said, “Art Dubai’s 2013 edition underscored its importance as a fair of discovery with a diverse roster of 75 galleries from 30 countries including a curated introduction to varied art scenes across West Africa. For the mere size of it, we are the most global of all art fairs. “What has been really exciting this year is that not only has the number of local visitors gone up, (by local I mean visitors from the whole of the GCC) but also more international and institutional visitors, major museums’ directors, curators from Beijing, Singapore, London, New York and Delhi and this is a positive development for the fair.” An estimated $45 million worth of artworks were exhibited at Art Dubai over the course of the four-day fair. Though contacted, the Art Dubai organizers could not give the total value of the

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Lookout Qatar

BEYOND ART: (From far left, clockwise): Art Installation by Chris Burden, Curved bridge; Bisi Silva leading the Marker Tour, HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum and Antonia Craver, glimpses of the Art Dubai galleries

artwork sold during the fair, as non-disclosure was part of deals between the galleries and buyers. But Carver said, “Strong sales – including major acquisitions by collectors and visiting museum groups – were reported at Pilar Corrias (London), Nubuke Foundation (Accra), Athr Gallery (Jeddah) Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde (Dubai) and Galerie Rodolphe Janssen (Brussels).” Art Dubai 2013 also featured the largest notfor-profit program in the fair's history, with over 40 artists participating in Art Dubai Projects – including residencies, commissions of which Namy’s was one, performances, screenings, as well as dXb store, an initiative that supports UAE-based designers. Carver and the team seem to have made a tremendous effort to make it a global fair that is inclusive of local artists and artisans. Another global inclusive gesture by Art Dubai is its Marker project, a curated section of

concept stands that focuses each year on a particular theme or geography. While last year Marker put its spotlight on the Indonesian art scene, this year the focus was on West Africa. Lagos-based curator Bisi Silva selected work from galleries and art spaces located in that region and the program was curated around the theme of ‘cities in transition’, with a focus on the work of dynamic, independent organizations and artists dealing with specific identities and localities. Silva talked about the curating process and how she began the difficult process of representing a continent with 54 countries and over 100 languages. “I decided that instead of focusing on the whole continent, I would focus on a region – West Africa – and use the theme of migration, urban development and the impact of cityscape on our life,” she said. D Galleries, one of the Marker projects of Art Dubai 2012, is part of the gallery representation

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this year. Esti Nurjadin, the owner of this gallery shared her Art Dubai impressions. “There was a lot of interest in our presentation last year so we felt it prudent to come back this year. However, this year has not been so exciting for us and we haven't had any deals yet (on the second day of the show). But apart from purchases, networking is another aspect that helps us,” said Nurjadin. Media for change Carver can also see a broadening, not just in terms of geographic reach but also in terms of the media that the artists' used. “We see artists working on films, video, threedimensional videos, new media, more than just traditional painting and drawings. We see more of such projects in the non-commercial programming such as the Art Dubai Projects, where we commissioned artists to come up with projects that drew audiences to react to the fair in a humorous way. These projects represent Dubai and its unique flavor,” she says.

Take your pick: (from left, clockwise): Ehsan Ul Haq’s ‘History Lessons’, Mohammed Kazem’s Windows 20112012, Antonia Carver with Murtaza Vali.

One such example Carver gave to explain the “witty, non-conforming range of projects” was Ehsan Ul Haq’s ‘History Lessons’. A series of sculptures that depict a herd of life-sized donkeys, referencing terracotta warriors from the Qin dynasty. This sculpture blended in with the fair’s site in a subtle display of humor. The work comments on ideas of force and control, and dwells on the mindless activity of the group as it zealously follows power without critique, a typical “following the herd” practice. Commenting on the fabric of the fair and the distribution of the various galleries, Carver deciphers a new pattern that is encouraging for local and regional artists. “While the basic dissection of the fair is kept the same, a third of it is represented by the Middle East, a third by Europe and a third is given to the Americas and Asia. But what is interesting to see is that the over the seven years of the fair, more and more artists from the region, who have earlier been represented by their local galleries, are now being represented by international galleries. Many of the international galleries visit such art fairs not only to sell but also to get a pulse of the art scene, to pick new and emerging talent and that is happening here too. So that is another positive development for the region and for the artists from the region,” she said. Carver has lived in the country for over 12 years and is witness to the changing art scene of the country. “I think it is one of the greatest unsung stories of the Gulf. When the fair started in 2006, there were just a tiny handful of galleries, and now we have over 40 in Dubai, while the city itself has become the center for contemporary arts. What’s also great to see is the development and ecologies throughout the Gulf, the major museums in Doha, galleries in Dubai, museums coming up in Abu Dhabi and the Biennale in

Sharjah. So an international visitor who comes down to see Art Dubai is taken to all four centers and they get to see how these cities work together and by working together how they create a multi-faceted and mature art market,” says Carver about the changing dynamics. Going by Christie’s sale in March the art scene seems to be going into a lull. But Carver disagrees. “You need to look at the volume of sales too as Christie’s focused on younger, new collectors and emerging artists this year, which could be the reason for the low sales figures.” “The gallery scene is completely different,” she continues,“No galleries have closed, even with the economic downturn and more galleries are opening in Dubai, one from Tunisia (Al Masah Gallery) and another one from Damascus (Atassi Gallery) opening this year. “So Dubai is doing what it always does, providing a hub, a refuge for galleries and business.” Carver classifies Art Dubai as a fair of discovery that aims for high quality – a very diverse fair where you discover artist and art movements that you have never seen anywhere before alongside the best galleries from Europe and America. Another art critic, Evrim Altug from Turkey, who was in Dubai for the first time, was quite impressed with the offerings and felt that Art Dubai’s advantages were essential.

“It is a real time education, in the contemporary global culture and art for four days, with interaction with art experts, global suppliers, international art press and institutional and individual followers,” he said. Between 2012 and 2013, there has been a 90% return by galleries (present in 2012) for space, with around 20-23 new galleries applying, according to Carver. Though some art experts mentioned a decline in the number of Indian Galleries too at the fair what was lacking in numbers was made up by the maturity and high quality of those represented.What was encouraging was that like Middle Eastern artists numerous Indian artists were being represented by international galleries. As the world is increasingly becoming global, art seems to play a major role in encompassing classifications, breaking borders and understanding age-old concepts. So much so that art seems to have transcended imaginary limits to include everything creative, questioning its very definition, if it had one. Personally, even with the wonderful multimedia presentations that wowed the onlookers, my favorite was an array of charcoal representations of Dubai and the memories it evokes by UAE’s own artist Mohammed Kazeem.

Issue 19, 2013

Lookout Qatar

Two models are seen from the Costume Institute exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, during "Alexander McQueen; Savage Beauty" press preview May 2, 2011, in New York. The exhibition celebrates the late Mr McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. "Savage Beauty" featured approximately 100 ensembles and 70 accessories from Mr. McQueen's prolific 19-year career. By Paola MESSANA

Back to the Future In the crazy world of fashion, there is a gargantuan appetite for fashion-focused exhibitions right now and they have proved hugely popular. TQatar explores the work of fashion designers and couturiers reaping the benefits of being recognized as art. By Alexandra Kohut-Cole

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A collection of corsets with paintings by Edouard Manet (left, center and rear) and Aguste Renoir (rear) in the exhibition "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity" February 19, 2013 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. AFP PHOTO/Stan HONDA

Breaking all records as the most-visited show ever, organized by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2011, was “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” which celebrated the exceptional contribution to fashion by the late designer. The show ran a week longer than planned and had the Met’s biggest grossing opening day ever. The following year, the retrospective 20 Years of Christian Louboutin broke records at the Design Museum in London averaging 910 daily visitors – the highest ever for the museum. In the wake of the 40th anniversary of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album, the exhibition David Bowie Is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, his first-ever retrospective, broke records before even launching, by selling 26,000 tickets, the highest ever in advance bookings for the museum. Featuring a feast of fashion and music that still influences today, and sponsored by fashion house Gucci, iconic pieces are displayed such as the Kansai Yamamoto-designed Ziggy Stardust bodysuit from 1971 and the McQueen-designed Union Jack coat of 1997 for the Earthlings album cover. His then wife, Angie Bowie told US Vogue, “It was July 1973...The concept was the beginning of glam rock.... shiny velour bomber jackets with Stirling Cooper trousers in blue, pink, and gold.... platform boots and makeup.”

Talking of glam rock, the Tate in Liverpool is showing “Glam! The Performance of Style” until May and happily delving into the genealogy of the 1971-75 movement explored in all its glorious mirror balls and strobe and stage lighting to a soundtrack of Bowie via fashion spreads and a focus on the most famous fashion outlet at the time, Barbara Hulanicki's Biba in High Street Kensington. Noddy Holder from the band Slade remembers to the Guardian, “Look at Lady Gaga and Paloma Faith, they’re glam rock all over again.” That was the prelude to punk on which The Met is hosting “PUNK: Chaos to Couture,” until August this year. Vivienne Westwood, the pioneer of punk with Malcolm McLaren, obviously features, so do her “disciples” McQueen, Galliano and Gaultier. Punk’s influence on ready-to-wear and even haute couture is explored via original garments from the seventies until now. In their heyday, the theatricals of designers such as McQueen and Galliano unfailingly held their fashion audiences enthralled at their shows. Putting such clothes in an exhibition draws a wider public who can engage with the pieces, learn their references and history and appreciate the craftsmanship and detail involved. In the same vein, Gaultier will bring the “Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier:

A Union Jack coat designed by Alexander McQueen and worn by musician David Bowie is displayed at the "David Bowie is" exhibition at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum in central London on March 20, 2013. Running March 23 to August 11. AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal

Issue 19, 2013

Two models are seen from the Costume Institute exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, during "Alexander McQueen; Savage Beauty" press preview May 2, 2011, in New York. AFP PHOTO / Paola MESSANA

American pop star Madonna displays the outfit, designed by French Jean-Paul Gaultier as she leaves the Cannes Festival Palace after the screening of her movie “in Bed with Madonna”, 13 May 1991 in Cannes.

From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk” exhibition to London’s Barbican in April 2014. Madonna's conical corsets from the 1990 Blonde Ambition tour and those worn by Kylie Minogue and Dita Von Teese will be among more than 140 couture and readyto-wear pieces. “Maybe future hope does, in fact, lie with exhibitions,” fashion historian Colin McDowell writes in The Business of Fashion. “Despite The “Tokyo-Pop” bodysuit worn by musician and actor David Bowie exaggerated claims for its on the “Aladdin Sane” tour is importance, the fact is that displayed at the “David Bowie is” exhibition at the Victoria and fashion itself is of little Albert (V&A) museum in central interest to most women in the London on March 20, 2013. PHOTO/Leon Neal world and hardly exists as a concept at all for most men.” The notoriously closed world of fashion is opening up through digitisation, live streaming of shows and talented fashion bloggers. Exhibitions go a step further in debunking fashion’s myth. “Valentino: Master of Couture,” this March at Somerset House in London enabled visitors to walk the catwalk in front of an audience of Valentino-clad mannequins but more importantly witness the master’s craft of couture gown detail dating from the Fifties. Marking the house’s 60th anniversary last year Chloe Attitudes held at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, unearthed its archive to display dresses by the

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house's nine designers, Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo among them. “Paris Haute Couture showing at the Musee Galliera, Paris until July is for the first time ever exhibiting a hundred haute couture pieces by such design luminaries as Poiret, Lanvin, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Gres, Lacroix, Alaia, to name a few. The retrospective is supported by Swarovski whose crystals adorned many a Worth creation in 1900. Is this new obsession a money-spinning marketing tool? Christian Dior CEO Sidney Toledano told Vogue: “Customers look for more today, they want to hear about the brand history - they need to understand more.” “Dior: 60 years of Parisian Chic,” which ran until April was a homage to Monsieur Dior. The pop-up exhibition at Harrods, which cashed in over GBP 100,000 on its first day, featured a giant dolls house, furniture made from Dior fragrance bottles and a journey through the history of the brand via vintage outfits worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Diana and Audrey Hepburn. “It’s very different from cheap marketing sponsorship which goes against art,” says JeanLouis Froment, art director at Chanel. He has just finished curating Chanel’s Le Train Bleu exhibition held in March in Guangzhou following showings in Beijing and Shanghai. Culture Chanel No.5 then shows until June at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris exploring the legend of the fragrance that was launched 92 years ago. These ran hot on the heels of the “Chanel Little Black Jacket” exhibition that was explored by Karl Lagerfeld and stylist extraordinaire Carine Roitfeld at the Saatchi Gallery in Autumn 2012. Not to be outdone, following showings in Tokyo, New York, Taipei and Hong Kong, Georgio Armani celebrated the fifth anniversary of opening Armani/Ginza Tower in Tokyo with his exhibition Eccentrico. He wanted to “pay tribute to my love of Japanese culture and aesthetics, which have often inspired me in my work.” But an exhibition at the Met until the end of May explores the inextricable links between fashion and art with Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity. This vital relationship between fashion and art is highlighted from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, when Paris was the style capital of the world, off the peg clothes were conceived and there was a proliferation of fashion magazines. As the Met puts it, “those at the forefront of the avant-garde-from Manet, Monet, and Renoir to Baudelaire, MallarmÈ, and Zolaturned a fresh eye to contemporary dress, embracing la mode as the harbinger of la modernite.” The question is, are catwalk shows and advertising campaigns no longer enough for fashion houses to keep customers and gain new ones? Impressionist painter Edouard Manet has the last word when he said in1881, “the latest fashion is absolutely necessary for a painting. It’s what matters most.” He was famously the only impressionist painter to use black in his paintings – fashion's most enduring shade.

Lookout Qatar

Eric Gaskins is painfully shy. Despite having spent a

How Fashion Lost Its Way The Jekyll and Hyde of the fashion world were in Doha last month, guesting at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQ) annual fashion show. Nice-guy American designer Eric Gaskins, a.k.a. catty blogger Fluff Chance, tells TQatar what he really thinks of the fashion industry. BY SINDHU NAIR Photographs Courtesy : VCUQ and Robert Altamirano

couple of decades in the fashion industry, and having dressed celebrities like Salma Hayek, Natalie Portman, Sharon Stone and Kim Cattrall, this unassuming New York-based fashion designer is almost the antithesis of the egocentric fashion designers we normally encounter. The “gracious” “good designer”, as the New York Times has called him, was the guest designer at VCUQ’s Fourteenth Annual Fashion Show, “Fingerprint”, hosted by Salam at The Gate Mall. After the models had walked his designs, he made a fleeting appearance on the runway to acknowledge the audience’s appreciation, though it seemed like a big effort for him, and if you’d blinked you would have missed him. But there was nothing apologetic about his collections; the designs were a celebration of womanhood, with the fabric caressing the curves, and the flow and fall defining the contours of the women they adorned. And, as with his designs, there is more to Eric than meets the eye. On the one hand, he is one of the most pleasant, easy-to-like personalities I have met, but delve a bit deeper and you find his alter ego, his blogging persona, the suave, cuttingly honest critic of the fashion world who goes by the pseudonym Fluff Chance (@emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com). So who is the real Eric Gaskins – the reticent designer, or the outspoken creator of the Emperor’s Old Clothes blog? His immediate response is: the designer. But after a pause, he changes course and says: “I am both those people. I am a fashion designer, but I am also a fashion critic. As a responsible fashion designer you have to be self-critical; it is about doing the best possible work. Only you know what your best work is. If you work like that, then it’s not difficult to be critical of other people’s work. You can tell whether someone is truly engaged in what they are doing or whether it’s a game of public relations and appealing to the press.” So where did the “gracious” designer tag come from? “I think that’s because I am not arrogant on the outside, though I may feel a bit on the inside. I feel being selfish isn’t productive,” he says. Interestingly, Eric’s first employer, Hubert de Givenchy, with whom he completed his first year of apprenticeship in Paris, was a “complete and total gentleman. I never saw him being rude to anyone. He was the kindest, most respectful person I have ever met in fashion. “I just realized, from that experience, that I could be myself; I did not have to be a monster to get my work done. People have to be appreciated to be able to give their best; all the more so in the fashion industry, where teamwork is essential.” After more than a year of anonymous criticism through his blog, which he himself describes as a “cold-blooded, no-holdsbarred, unapologetic take on the glamorous underbelly of fashion”, Eric went public through the New York Times in 2009 and revealed Fluff Chance’s true identity. How did the

Issue 19, 2013

Top: Eric with students and Head of Fashion at VCUQ, Sandra Wilkins. Middle: Eric’s brief appearance at the Fashion Show "Fingerprint". below: Eric's collection on the ramp

industry react to this exposè? “I was really nervous, as I was talking about all these people whom I saw every day. I was worried that I would suddenly be an outcast in the industry. But surprisingly, there was no backlash. People spoke very positively about the blog, and many even told me that I wrote what was in their minds, and that they appreciated my honesty and courage,” he says. “I didn’t set out to do it, it just happened,” Eric explains about his role in the blogosphere. “It started out as a joke, then it got very pointed, and then I started enjoying myself, and it was a way of letting off steam.” A sort of Jekyll and Hyde act? He laughingly admits: “Yes, in a way. People didn’t believe it was me, because they thought that I was such a “nice guy” What started out as “getting back at the industry” for its “catty” nature later became a vocation, and people started inviting Eric for fashion shows hoping he’d bring Fluff Chance along with him to give his “fearless, unbiased opinion” about the collection and what was going on around him. “I think Fluff Chance has a much greater audience [than Eric Gaskins],” he says, weighing the popularity of his two creative personas. So what does he think about the new era of bloggers and photobloggers? Are they really part of a “circus of fashion”, as Suzy Menkes has famously portrayed them? Donning his Fluff Chance hat, he says: “That is an elitist statement. Suzy has been trashing bloggers, and I think she feels seriously threatened [by them]. She is right in some ways, but the bloggers getting all the attention are the people who are being bought and sold by companies to write what they are supposed to write. They are in it to be photographed, for the attention, to get freebies, just like the fashion editors.” He even goes so far as to say that bloggers and fashion editors alike are all in the same game, just with different titles, and that although “fashion editors” use the term “bloggers” in a derogatory sense, they themselves are just as corrupt. “How else would you explain the closets filled with luxury brands, when obviously they are not making that much?” he adds, to underline his point. He feels it is not right that fashion editors like Suzy Menkes who feel threatened by the new

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breed should classify all bloggers as “wannabes” or “idiots who have no knowledge of fashion”. “You are good at what you are doing, so why be threatened by the bloggers? There is room for competition. People who want to read Suzy Menkes and her opinions will do so even if there are others around.” That brings us to the importance of selfpromotion in this hypocritical industry where one has to promote one’s work so much. “I didn’t realize how important it was to relentlessly put my name and face out there,” he says. “I came from a place where your work was supposed to speak for itself.” Now, he laments, it is all about talk and very much less about work. “I have become better known as a blogger than as a designer, though I am still not comfortable using one to promote the other.” And this in a way explains why he shies away from the media and didn’t have much of a relationship with them even in his heyday (though his sensual gowns have appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair). “I am not thrilled with magazines like Vogue, as they have made fashion so elite and so separate from what most people’s lives are and what most people can afford. In earlier times you would look at a magazine to see what was new that you could get; now you look at what’s new that you could never get,” he says, adding laughingly, “unless, of course, you are a Qatari.” The fashion industry is known for being hypocritical, but lately it has outdone itself, feels Eric. “It is of course built on the “new”, so it is about “more”, but now it is at the expense of the population, in the sense that they can only watch it, without any active participation except maybe to go to places like H&M to get watered-down versions of clothes that do not last.” “Fashion used to be about style,” he laments, “but now it is just about products, stuff.” Style used to be identifiable; you would know whether something was by Christian Lacroix or was a Calvin Klein, but now, without the label you would not be able to identify it. That is not what fashion means to Eric. “Fashion should be a portal to style. It should be about a cult, about women who lived and died for Balenciaga, or for Christian Dior. Women and men could be who they wanted to be with the help of the clothes,” he says. It is this passion that originally inspired Eric and pushed him to find his own voice among the medley of voices, to make his designs more about the style than about being just a product. The whole point of creation, for Eric, is to make women feel attractive, confident and sensuous, and, at the core, to be honest to oneself. “You cannot force something on someone; it has to be honest and thus in a way very critical,” he says. “The blog is pure criticism. But it is not just harsh things that I say in the blog; it is also about how I feel about being me, how I interact with others,

Designers who have inspired Eric Ralph Rucci

“He is by far the most creative and exceptional designer that America has seen. He is certainly in the top five best designers in the world. He is like my God.” Valentino

“I like what’s happening at Valentino, especially since Qatar has bought a stake in it. It still carries forward the classical designs with a modern feeling.” John Galliano

“Despite all the disgrace he has brought on himself, I still believe he is the most extraordinary designer alive today. What he has brought to Dior is unbelievable.” Alexander McQueen

“I love the work at McQueen. It is more costume [than just fashion], and no one does work like theirs.” Mark Jacobs

“I have a real love-hate relationship with Marc Jacobs, but his designs are getting more interesting. Some collections are really good. You cannot deny that.” Alexander Wang

“I think there is something interesting about Alexander Wang. I was not so sure about him being shown as the new designer at Balenciaga, but I was positively and pleasantly surprised with his first collection for them. He is one to watch out for.” Prada

“The designs are very interesting, beautifully made, very identifiable. Fashion with a sense of humor. It doesn’t take itself very seriously, but it is very serious. The menswear is fantastic. The clothes make you feel they are made for you.” Young and new designers

“There are so many, and they are treated like gods.” His most treasured possessions

“My tote bag, my brown Hermes watch (it matches my skin color), my shoes (the famous ones that feel like second skin), my collection of oud (which I love to collect).” Eric’s take on Qatar

“It is exciting, interesting and very different from New York and the West. It is refreshing. I enjoy the culture, mostly the difference in cultures. It forces you to broaden your perspective about the world. Most of us living in the US assume that we live in a vacuum, and so do the people who live here. But being a bigger country, we Americans, sadly, assume that the world begins and ends with us. You have to come to these countries to realize that there is a world with a much richer past outside. “I like Qatar because it is so creative. I see the most amazing buildings, sort of New York in a way but much more aesthetic, each building different from the rest.”

about people who inspire me.” Hoping to enlist Eric in my drive against today’s rampant consumerism, I ask him about the need for “new” collections from the fashion brands every season. Eric preens his fashion-designing feathers, and defends his profession by saying: “Fashion and clothes are essentials, and good designers are like doctors who give people what they need to survive and feel better, and what makes them feel special.” Explaining the connect we all seem to feel toward good design, he talks about a “wonderful” pair of shoes he saw in a window display when he was visiting Switzerland for Christmas. “I knew at that instant that I had to have them,” he confides. “I knew at that instant when I saw them that when I wore the (semi-custom-made) shoes I would be the happiest person. That’s the fashion thing; it makes you feel solid, it makes me feel I stand straighter...” Eric’s was one of the many small businesses to succumb to the recession in the US, forcing him to close shop in 2009, after which he just designed for select clients. How have 2012 and 2013 been for him? “I have very quietly and slowly started doing something. Being a guest designer here [in Doha] is a challenge. I made something new for the collection, interspersing it with some special designs from my older collections.” The recession was a tough period when he was truly discouraged, he says. “I was really frustrated by the economy. It was a shock after putting in so many years in the industry to have the rug pulled from under me. I wasn’t financed, didn’t have a big house supporting me, or a sound partner. It was very expensive to be making luxury clothes – the fabric is expensive, the workmanship costly. I decided that if I couldn’t do it as I always did, following my fashion instincts with passion, and since I didn’t want to sacrifice the quality of my work, it was better to take a break.” That’s when the New York Times article appeared about his Fluff Chance blog persona, and the resulting acclaim convinced him to pick up his pen and continue writing as his alter ego. “They (the New York Times) gave me a gigantic audience. Normally I would have 300 people looking at my site, and the day my article was published it went up to 30,000 views. It didn’t stay that way, but the response was much more after that.” The designer thus went on to become more of a critic of the fashion industry than actively contributing to it. But lately he has been missing the “creative” side of his career, and he is now slowly getting back into the scene. “I have been supplying only to private clients, who just won’t let me rest,” he beams. The show at VCUQ was almost like a springboard for Eric to relaunch his career. He is waiting for feedback and hoping for some solid partnerships to support his creations. “The Qatar Luxury Group needs someone like me,” he smiles.

Issue 19, 2013

Lookout Qatar

Inspirations From Sand In pursuing the endless sands of Qatar, jewelry designer Emanuela Duca has found that deserts symbolize purity and limitless possibilities.

By DEBRINA ALIYAH Photography Courtesy : Emanuela Duca

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IMPRESSIONS: Emanuela’s tryst with the sands of Qatar. (right): Her SS2013 collection of award-winning jewelry was revealed in W Doha Hotel & Residences’ Living Room. Emanuela’s designs are inspired by the marriage of movement and sculpture.

Come Spring 2014, the sands of Qatar may find

itself in the showrooms of New York's finest retailers. A long way from home, but this unique inspiration was made possible when jewelry designer Emanuela Duca decided to bring back a little bit of the desert adventure to the Big Apple with her. The sand will be used as a play of texture on her upcoming design pieces, drawing inspiration from the parallel lines that connect the sand and the sea. The Inland Sea is reminiscent of her work, she says, and, her approach towards design is about focusing on the lines of the pieces she creates, just like the infinite division of the desert and the ocean. Born in Rome, Emanuela moved to New York to pursue her passion in jewelry design. In a very honest conversation, she is quick to count the ways in which Rome is not ready to accept a strongwilled woman like her who is looking to start her own brand. “Italy, on a whole, is still rather conservative when it comes to jewelry design. They like the traditional molds, and only now, are they slowly accepting new ideas.” In New York, she was welcomed with open arms and the city provided the kind of environment that excites her. “It is like the world meets in this fastpaced city. I found what I was looking for, the balance between old and new.” And Emanuela knew she was definitely in the right place, when she got accepted into the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Incubator Program for 2013/14. “When I first moved to NY, I felt like a fish out of water – that's an Italian proverb. I did not have a sense of belonging and I felt like I needed to choose between Rome and NY. But after a while, I realized that I didn't need to choose, and that I could have the best of both worlds! We do live in a globalized world, after all.” In the next two years, Emanuela

will be working in a special studio space together with the rest of the incubator designers with plentiful resources to help her kick-start her label. For her first ever trip to the Middle East, Emanuela chose Qatar and arrived with an open mind to see what the region had to offer. The trip, part of the CFDA’s partnership with the W Hotels group, was organized to give the designers a chance to draw inspirations from W Hotel destinations. “I didn't know what to expect, but I was really surprised to see a city that is progressing so quickly. Everything is under construction and things are not nearly finished. I walked on a pavement and then it just ended halfway! But it is truly amazing to be here at this moment, and to be able to observe a world-class city in the making.” W Doha tailored the trip and Emanuela set off on her adventure to the desert, riding on camels and dune-bashing, shopping in the souks and taking in the magnificent sights of the Museum of Islamic Arts. “I love the mystery of the women in abayas. When they walk past, I can smell their perfumes and catch glimpses of their shoes and makeup. I feel like there is so much personality underneath the cloak, and wish I could know more. On the other hand, I do wonder if this is what they really want. It made me think of the role of women in Italy and how similar yet different we all are in finding individuality.” The new perspectives will form the mood board of Duca's next collection, and hopes that she will then have a presence in the Middle East. Her work is centered on the use of sterling silver with precious and semi-precious gemstones. “America has a high appreciation for silver, especially black silver and perhaps it will slowly grow in popularity in the Middle East, too.”

Issue 19, 2013

Lookout Qatar

World-renowned photographer Martin

Down-time Defines Us Martin Parr’s photographic exhibition at Katara takes a satirical look at the leisure pursuits of the Western world. By Annalise Frank

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Parr is used to being mobbed at his gallery openings. But the British artist found that on the commencement of his first-ever exhibition in Qatar, he was “very pleasantly left alone.” “It’s a young country for art and photography," he explains. “And I’m very happy to be part of the learning process.” Parr's photos, which take a satirical, colorful look at tourists around the world, are being displayed in a collection called “Made in the UK” as part of the Qatar UK Year of Culture 2013. As one gazes around the expansive, white room that houses Parr's photos in Doha, it’s obvious that he has traveled the world a few times over. On one wall, several tourists grin hugely from the green grass in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, posing for photos as they pretend to hold the tower up. On another wall, a woman in an old city square aims to take her own photo while five pigeons land on her shoulders and arms. The photos capture a reality of travel that not many people think about when they're booking a trip: the tourists’ behavior itself. “My basic theme is leisure pursuits of the western world, and I do that all over the place,” he says. Leisure fascinates Parr. He says he sees down-time as the way people “define” themselves,

Martin Parr takes visitors through his exhibition showcased at Katara

and that curiosity has manifested itself in his recent work. He sees his art as entertainment, but if viewers pay close enough attention, they’ll also be able to see the underlying social issues his photos address – the world’s increasing demand for consumption and the divide between developed countries and others looking to catch up. “His work is notorious for being reflective of everyday situations,” says Darwish Saleh Al Shibany, Director of Marketing and International Affairs for Katara. “He attends festivals, parties, dinners and takes photographs which become part of particular projects, which may be based on British schools, beaches, luxury living, etc. His photographs capture the true essence of British culture.” Though the art world is just getting started in Doha, Al-Shibany says Katara has seen hundreds of visitors walk through Parr’s exhibition. He hopes the cultural collaboration will both educate and entertain visitors. The Qatar UK 2013 initiative chose Martin Parr as one of three exhibitors from Magnum Photos, a well-known photographic cooperative group. “They just asked me to be a part of (it), which I was very happy to do,” Parr says. “I’ve never been

My basic theme is leisure pursuits of the Western world, and I do that all over the place.

here. The opportunity to have a substantial show is not one you throw away.” Shibany says Katara chose Parr not just because of his reputation, but also because his photographs capture "unexpected" aspects of British culture. Parr composes shots that depict real life, not staged beauty. After the British artist accepted the 2013 Year of Culture’s offer, the next step was to choose which of his works would be featured in Katara’s art center. Parr organizes his artwork by the different projects he has accomplished, each focusing on a unique aspect of tourism or culture. Examples include “Luxury,” “Small World,” “Life’s a Beach” and locations like “Japan” and “Macchu Picchu.” Instead of showcasing one project, Katara chose photos spanning his different collections. Shibany says they focused on qualities like “fresh” and “vibrant,” which were prevalent in Parr's photos. “They asked me for suggestions, so we came up with this series of photos,” Parr says. “We had to take a few out because they showed - especially on the beach project - too little clothes. I’m very laid back. I understand here there are different issues. There are plenty of other things you can show, so it was no problem.” During his time in Doha for his art opening, Parr also taught a five-day workshop for professional photographers and enthusiasts. The group visited essential tourist locales like Souq Waqif and Villaggio Mall. “I’m just saying to people: ‘Get out there and photograph,’” he says. “Some of them are a bit shy with using a camera, so we have to build their confidence. “One of the issues they have is developing an audience for art, and as you know Qatar eventually wants to be a knowledge base rather than an oil base...so this is all part of their investment in a different future. So I’m just a very small part of that ongoing program.” The show runs from March 17 to May 18, 10 am to 10 pm, in Katara Gallery 1, Building 18.

Issue 19, 2013

Objects

The Spirit of Adventure Sometimes all it takes to feel transported is a new accessory in an exotic material. Photographs by LUCAS BLALOCK styled by molly findlay

GRAY MATTER Clockwise from top: Todâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bag, QR19,387; tods.com. Burberry scarf, QR1,274; burberry.com. Etro earrings, QR2,592; etro.com. Salvatore Ferragamo sandals, QR3,458. Brunello Cucinelli bag, QR11,031. Ray-Ban sunglasses, QR400; lenscrafters.com.

Issue 19, 2013

Quality

Objects

All prices are indicative

PINK LADIES Clockwise from bottom left: Emporio Armani bag, QR3,440; armani .com. Devi Kroell bag, QR28,760. ChloĂŠ sunglasses, QR1,400; chloe. com. Michael Kors bag, QR2,895. HermĂ¨s necklace, QR4,000; hermes. com.

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FRINGE BENEFITS Clockwise from top: Ralph Lauren Collection bag, QR3,622; ralphlauren collection.com. Sergio Rossi necklace, QR8,465. Zoraide shoes, QR 3,167; shoescribe .com. Christian Louboutin shoes, QR5,443; christian louboutin.com; Bottega Veneta bag, QR24,211; bottegaveneta.com.

Issue 19, 2013

Quality

prim and proper With its wavy fabrics and layers of lace, Valentino’s spring ready-to-wear collection proved that demure need not mean dull.

Suzy Says

A Modest Proposal Right now, covering up seems way sexier and far more modern than baring it all. By suzy menkes

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of the Italian woman has wavered between a Madonna and a whore. The first look is about innocence, sweetness and femininity; the other a full-on, sexed-up vision, as seen in scoopbust, skintight clothes, amply displayed on television by the ‘‘protégées’’ of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister. But out of Italy has come a fashion miracle: a look that suddenly puts ‘‘la moda da puttana’’ (‘‘hooker chic’’) right out of vogue. The new protagonist is Valentino and its design duo, whose modest capes, long-sleeved, calf-length dresses and general gentility has wiped out a decade of slut style on the runways. The cover-up clothes, undulating across the body, revealing flesh only as a lacecovered shadow from the high neck to the wrist, come from Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, who worked for nearly 10 years in the shadow of Valentino Garavani before budding and flowering on their own. The word that best describes their clothes is so ancient and out of fashion that it requires a good dust off: modesty. Yet this is not a sackcloth-and-ashes denial of sexuality but rather a fresh take on the female factor. The modern woman is not prudish about her body. She just may not want to put her erogenous zones on display. There has always been an eroticism attached to what is behind the veil — not least in Italian art. To grasp the significance of Valentino’s fragile and elegant clothes, the clock has to be turned back to the 1990s. That was when Tom Ford was dishing up smoldering sex at Gucci and John Galliano was showing visible bras and underpants on the runway. The on-view lingerie seemed unlikely to succeed, since Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier had all been there before with bras on parade. But when Galliano did the look with a glint of wit and not a hint of vulgarity, who could have imagined that colorful bras flaunted under sheer tops were about to become an enduring trend? In fact, transparency is the leitmotif of an entire generation. It has been charming, worn as light layers of fine fabrics; elegant, with the embrace of lace; and slutty, as a sexed-up outfit when flashing flesh has been the purpose. Revealing the body beautiful has become a fashion cliché. Even those yawn-inducing strapless dresses for the red carpet are designed for exposure — not to mention the

top left: Gorunway. all other images: CAtwalkPictures.

From movies to fashion, the stereotype

There is a sweet poetry in clothes that are womanly without being sexually provocative.

A lot of designers have swapped daring for decency: there is Guillaume Henry at Carven in Paris, whose mix-and-match separates suggest a youthful simplicity. The entire aesthetic of American designers of Asian descent tends toward politeness and gentility. That could be a coincidence, but Derek Lam and Phillip Lim are just two examples of designers from whom a pared-down simplicity is key. Similarly, the influx of Belgian and Japanese designers who came to show in Paris in the early 1990s seemed to temper the traditional seductiveness and frivolity of Parisian designs. As the big-name French houses continue to take on designers of other nationalities, fashion gets the streamlined look of Phoebe Philo at Céline and the architectural attitude of Raf Simons at Dior. Europe, divided between gray north and sunny Mediterranean south, is under different geographical influences and those have often shown up in Italy. The yin and yang between designers with opposing points of view goes back to Gianni Versace’s bravura against Giorgio Armani’s discretion; Prada’s ugly aesthetic facing off with a sexy Gucci; and more recently Valentino challenging Dolce & Gabbana’s hot Sicilian style. Is grace really going to win against in-yourface fashion? The truth is that it takes a certain courage and conviction to try simple, covered-up clothes. Whereas baring it all looks increasingly like yesterday’s trend.

Issue 19, 2013

gorunway

comfort zone Discreet dressing combines a flowy silhouette and a silky feel. Above: Louis Vuitton. Right: Céline.

side slits offering a show of leg, Angelina Jolie-style. The return of purity in fashion does not have to be about covering up — although that may well be part of the equation. It is more about bringing a new sensibility to a wardrobe: graceful court shoes and medium-heeled boots taking over from club-sandwich-style soles. (Those platform shoes were, of course, popularized in the 16th century and worn by Venetian prostitutes to elevate themselves above the crowd.) Sexuality has often been part of dressing the female and the male. (Think of courtiers’ doublets and skintight hose, or the strategically placed Scottish sporran.) But rarely has there been much reasoning behind the rules. Legend has it, for example, that prudish Victorians were so shocked by exposure that they would drape the bare wooden legs of their pianos. However, the rationale for covering up legs for centuries did not often extend to the bosom — daintily displayed, as in the Jane Austen era. This new modest style is often as much about fabric as cut: Céline’s sleek, sloppy satin pants or the long, slim, pleated and silken columns from the Belgian designer Veronique Branquinho. Most especially there is the innocent elegance of the Row. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who are the Row designers, have caught the essence of the look by using fine fabrics from cashmere to silk, allowing the body to undulate beneath the gentle cover-ups. Texture and quality add to the deceptive simplicity of their beautifully made pieces. In every way, the Olsen twins, exposed to the trappings of Hollywood almost from birth, seem to understand the current feel for discretion. There is a sweet poetry in clothes that are womanly without being sexually provocative. But if the purpose of clothing from Adam and Eve onward has been linked to the idea of attracting the opposite sex, does it really make sense to take sex out of the fashion equation? Perhaps the question should be asked the other way around: is covering up the body the death of sensuality? The answer, surely, is no!

The Moment

Wanderlust in Repose Part of the beauty of travel, stylistically speaking, is letting go of the restraints of the everyday for a more carefree look. Photographs by paul wetherell styled by michael philouze

A Belted Trench Bouchra Jarrar coat, QR13,288; Bergdorf Goodman. Cartier ring, QR28,827; cartier.com. Smythson diary, QR200 smythson.com.

Issue 19, 2013

Arena

The Moment

Loose, Slouchy Pants DKNY shirt,855; bloomingdales .com. Sportmax pants, 2,730. Alejandro Ingelmo sneaker, QR1,183. The Row sunglasses, QR1,529; lindafarrow.com. Cartier ring, QR7,918. Smythson camera case, QR764.

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All prices are indicative

A Pot of Blush to Dab On Eyes and Lips Ralph Lauren Collection shirt QR3,633 ralphlaurencollection. com. Yves Saint Laurent CrĂ¨me de Blush,QR 138 yslbeautyus.com.

Issue 19, 2013

Arena

Food Matters

The Liberation of Paris A vibrant group of young, adventurous and international chefs are breaking down barriers and revolutionizing the city’s age-old Michelin-guarded culinary scene. By ALEXandra MARSHALL Photograph by CéLINE CLANET

France is already on its fifth republic — it’s no stranger to revolution. But the country’s dining has always been stubbornly resistant to change. At least until recently. The ‘‘bistronomy’’ trend of the last decade, which made high art out of humble French food, has broken through the totalitarianism of haute cuisine and its Michelinstarred palaces. Now in France like everywhere else, cooking shows and social networking have turned food into a bona fide pop culture. And an EasyJet-fueled mobility has given young French gastronauts the freedom to sample more exotic cuisines than their parents could have ever imagined. As the restaurant scene here gets more and more diverse, the city has begun to attract ambitious chefs, many of them foreigners. They are drawn in not only by Paris’s great culinary heritage but also by low startup costs here compared to, say, Los Angeles or New York. ‘‘A friend asked me why we didn’t open up in London, but we could never pull this off there,’’ says Michael Greenwold, the 28-year-old Anglo-American co-chef of Roseval, who opened his gently priced bistro in the 20th Arrondissement for under 200,000 euros. Yes, Roseval is tiny — the whole kitchen could fit in a closet — but little restaurants of a similar stripe seem to be popping up in Paris every month. Meet the young chefs who are changing the meaning of French food. 70

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Terroirs d’Avenir Foodies have seen Terroirs d’Avenir’s name on menus all over town since 2009, when the startup slow-food broker began supplying heavy hitters like Yannick Alléno at Le Meurice and Pascal Barbot at L’Astrance. Begun by Alexandre Drouard and Samuel Nahon, the company made a name for itself by delivering line-caught fish, rare-breed meat and heirloom vegetables directly to

Cornering the Marché Alexandre Drouard and Samuel Nahon of Terroirs d’Avenir, the slowfood brokers supplying many of Paris’s hot new indie bistros.

Birds of paradise Heritagebreed chickens from Terroirs d’Avenir.

restaurants. This was big news in France, where most chefs source directly from Rungis, the increasingly industrialized central market near Orly airport that spans about a square mile. Now Terroirs’ clients include this new generation of indie bistros that are strict and showy about the traceability and seasonality of their ingredients. Drouard and Nahon recently moved their base of operations from Drouard’s teenage bedroom in his parents’ house to a retail grocery on a tiny side street in the Second Arrondissement, allowing anyone to stock up on locally grown Peruvian oca and rare Kintoa pork from the Bigorre region. ‘‘The best quality food in France has traditionally been reserved for only the most elite,’’ Drouard says. Not anymore. .

Pierre Sang in Oberkampf

CéLINE CLANET

east meets ouest Pierre Sang Boyer fuses his Korean and French backgrounds with dishes like pork shoulder with pink daikon (above) and pork belly with kimchi tapioca.

Pierre Sang Boyer may have made his name as a finalist in France’s 2011 ‘‘Top Chef,’’ but his résumé — including Michelin-starred spots in London and Lyon — was rather impressive even before a friend signed him up for the television show. Boyer was adopted from South Korea at age 7 and raised by a food-obsessed French family in the Auvergne region; his search for his roots in Seoul (he worked at a French restaurant there, where he met his wife) inspired his new restaurant. At Pierre Sang in Oberkampf, the 33-year-old chef mixes Asian ingredients and preparations with traditional French comfort food. On a given day, you might have an andouillette tempura with perch sashimi and béarnaise sauce; or pigeon ravioli au jus with cabbage, pickled onions and preserved-lemon oil. Boyer presides over the place from his open kitchen, which is not so much a monument to ego as a way for him to speak easily with his clientele. ‘‘Did you like it?’’ he often calls out to departing diners. ‘‘Will you come back soon?’’ They all say yes, which is no small achievement considering this is a no-reservations (there’s not even a phone) restaurant — as rare in Paris as the chef’s friendly manner. 55 Rue Oberkampf. Issue 19, 2013

Arena

Food Matters Bones A bustling bar, exposed-everything D.I.Y. décor, a Big Green Egg barbecue in the kitchen and the Pogues on the soundtrack: at Bones you’d think you were anywhere but Paris. The food at James Henry’s market-driven, fixedmenu bistro is light yet somehow as assertive as the atmosphere, with grill marks, spikes of acid, and offal making frequent appearances. (There were rumors of an all-heart menu for Valentine’s Day this year though that never came to pass.) A self-taught cook and erstwhile surfer born in Canberra, Australia, Henry, 30, was only supposed to stay in town for a year. But after finishing an eight-month stint at the American chef Daniel Rose’s wildly popular Spring, he took a temporary gig at the scruffy wine bar Au Passage, which turned him into a local star. Bones, which opened in the 11th Arrondissement in January, has had cool kids lining up since its first week for raw fish and house-made charcuterie at the bar and a no-choice menu in the dining area. Think a crudo of scallop with sea urchin and horseradish snow; or a dessert of goat’s milk fromage blanc with orange granita and a dab of dehydrated black olive. ‘‘I’m still amazed that I’m in Paris,’’ Henry says. ‘‘I came here with like $1,000 in my account. I don’t have much more now,’’ he adds with a laugh, ‘‘but I’ve got a restaurant.’’ 43 Rue Godefroy Cavaignac.

CéLINE CLANET

Reclamation station Bones’s D.I.Y. décor fits in with the bold cooking of its Aussie chef, James Henry. Below: scallop and crab with shaved cauliflower, herbs and romesco sauce.

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Tour de force Michael Greenwold and Simone Tondo worked in Paris’s best fusion bistros before opening Roseval last year. There’s now a monthlong wait to try their delicate dishes like monkfish with roasted sunchoke purée (below).

Roseval

British colony Popular for its brunch, Le Bal serves up simple, seasonal English food like grilled sardines with foraged purslane. Below: Le Bal’s chefs, Anna Trattles and Alice Quillet.

The French never used to take their culinary cues from their much-maligned cousins across the Channel, but ‘‘les rosbifs’’ started to get some respect with the arrival of Rose Bakery in Paris in 2002. Now two Rose alums, Anna Trattles, 35, and Alice Quillet, 32, are raising the Anglo stakes with Le Bal Café near the Place de Clichy. ‘‘We couldn’t find a good brunch in Paris,’’ says Quillet, who engineered, with Trattles, Le Bal’s Saturday and Sunday afternoon menus, which soon became a local craze. They feature rotating à la carte classics like beef and Guinness pies, coronation chicken and banana bread. Tables are easier to get during weekday lunch and dinner, which feature impeccably (and locally) sourced, let-yourhair-down neo-English dishes, like pan-seared hake with flageolets, butter-soaked grilled cabbage, and new-to-theFrench desserts like sticky toffee pudding. ‘‘Sometimes we wonder if the locals are put off by a menu with so much English in it,’’ Trattles says, ‘‘but there’s no translation for what we’re doing.’’ Ten Belles, a second cafe by the pair, just off the Canal Saint-Martin, opened last fall, serving soup, sandwiches and the only proper chocolate chip cookie in town.

CéLINE CLANET

Le Bal Café

Diversity is the norm at Roseval, which was founded by the Anglo-American Michael Greenwold and the Sardinian Simone Tondo; the wine list, tightly edited and innovative, is overseen by a Colombian woman, Erika Biswell. Most diverse is the food — drawn from the vast encyclopedia of ingredients and flavors that Greenwold and Tondo culled from their days at other fashionable fusion bistros in Paris like Le Chateaubriand (Basque), Rino (neo-Italian) and La Gazzetta (Scandinavian). Every dish on their four-course set menu is a juxtaposition and a surprise, which explains the monthlong wait for a table. It’s light, naturalist food, often eaten with a spoon. (They love a bouillon. ‘‘Cream is for pastries,’’ Greenwold says.) Except for the occasional pasta, it’s basically borderless, too. A foamy cauliflower soup with hazelnut bread crumbs gets a shot of sea urchin. Wild duck might be paired with microsize mussels. There are as many edible flowers in dishes as there are on the tables. Food this fine might seem out of place in the working-class 20th Arrondissement, but ‘‘it’s not really the neighborhood that brings in the clientele,’’ Tondo says. ‘‘We follow the market,’’ Greenwold says. ‘‘We just decide every day what we want to eat and go from there.’’

Issue 19, 2013

Travel Diary

A Mad Romance

I WAS BORN IN PARIS in the mid-1960s, and by the time I was 12 I had started going to the movies by myself. Most of the movies of that period never appealed to me. I didn’t like the ‘‘naturalism,’’ the sad or the ‘‘down-to-earth’’ characters. What I wanted from film was fantasy, dreams, funny situations, extravagant décor — and beautiful women. If the sets were not gorgeous, at least the actresses had to be! I favored films from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, and cared about only a few Western directors: Luis Buñuel, for his sense of surrealism and madness, and Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti, whose appeal requires no explanation. Nothing compared to my romance with Indian cinema, which remains passionate to this day. I loved these magical movies, which combined great acting with exhilarating soundtracks that stuck in my head 74

for weeks. At school, I talked so much about actors like Hema Malini and Dilip Kumar that my classmates considered me an alien. I have so many memories: going to the cinémathèque as a teen to greet the fabulous director Satyajit Ray; crying along with ‘‘Devi,’’ one of the most fantastic Bengali movies; taking a trip to Chennai to visit some of the movie studios; and a bit later, trying

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to imitate Shah Rukh Khan dancing. Bollywood celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2012. When Melita Toscan du Plantier, the director of the Marrakesh film festival, told me that the festival would be paying homage to Indian cinema, I immediately booked a room at La Mamounia hotel for the event, held this past December. I knew it was not to be missed.

Bollywood Express Christian Louboutin meets his childhood idol, the Indian starlet Sridevi, in Morocco.

Poster by Shaun Severi.

The Scene

The Marrakesh film festival is small enough to still feel personal. The actors are able to relax and enjoy the sights, the sounds and — since this is Morocco — some truly delicious food. This year the festival was dominated by the Bollywood celebration, and the amount of glamour generated by all those beauties in saris was intense. I was star-struck, but I was also on a mission, working on a portfolio of Bollywood stars with the help of my photographer friend Ali Mahdavi. We saw movies and traipsed down

Clockwise from top left: christian Louboutin; Safquat Emquat; Christian Louboutin (2).

Magic carpet ride Priyanka Chopra is cheered during the closing ceremony. Right: Louboutin on the red carpet with the 19-year-old ingenue Alia Bhatt.

red carpets that reminded me of the Cannes Film Festival before it began to look like a military bunker. The actors were like students on a class trip, staying up late, laughing and dancing. This is of course the spirit of Bollywood — dancing on- and off-screen. Isabelle Huppert chatted with the Indian Visconti, Karan Johar. Monica Bellucci, dressed in a long shahtoosh, blended in perfectly with the crowd. Apart from Brazilian mines, or Miss Taylor’s house, I had never seen so many precious stones in one room!

A riot of color Sari-clad actresses were decked out in spectacular jewels and peacock

feathers (a good luck charm in India). Left: the arrival of the mega-watt star Shah Rukh Khan.

Issue 19, 2013

Hot in here Above: spontaneous dance circles erupt around the Bollywood dancer Malaika Arora Khan. Right: a screening of ‘‘Student of the Year,’’ a college comedy with the breakout heartthrob Sidharth Malhotra.

cinema society Above: Bollywood’s James Dean, Hrithik Roshan, at dinner with his wife, Suzanne. Right: the team behind ‘‘Student of the Year’’ — Boman Irani, Karan Johar, Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt.

make a wish Left: the actor Arjun Rampal celebrates his 40th birthday at the festival.

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Bollywood stars are versatile; they not only act, but each one has the dance skills of John Travolta in ‘‘Saturday Night Fever.’’ The actor Hrithik Roshan, who was at the festival promoting his recent film ‘‘Agneepath,’’ is like James Dean, but with the body language of Elvis. The superstar Shah Rukh Khan is something like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt combined. It’s difficult to describe his magnetic presence; everyone turns toward him when he enters the room. The actress Malaika Arora Khan reminds me of the Hindu deity Parvati: one is inscribed in limestone, the other on film, but both are clearly goddesses.

all images: Christian Louboutin.

The Stars

Lucky stars Left: Louboutin directs the French-Indian actress Kalki Koechlin and her screen partner Abhay Deol on Louboutin’s photo set. Far left: Safquat Emquat, a photographer and Bollywood body double, with the Indian film icon Amitabh Bachchan.

From ‘‘Devi’’ to ‘‘Mother India,’’ Christian Louboutin shares his 10 favorite Bollywood films. At tmagazine.com.

My Fantasy Comes True My job is designing shoes. It’s work that happens behind the scenes, as they say, and that suits me just fine because in general I am a shy person. But sometimes I have these extroverted outbursts. Being in the presence of Amitabh Bachchan, the godfather of Bollywood, and one of the most stylish men on earth, was not going to help me remain at ease — I am such a big fan of his. But I kept it together thanks to his impeccable manners, until I met Sridevi. Now in her late 40s, she was once known as the Shirley Temple of India. She first

appeared on screen at age 4; 19 years later she was in a movie dancing wildly like a snake. She carried herself — forgive my gushing — as the queen that she is, like Elizabeth Taylor entering Rome as Cleopatra. Ali, my photographer friend, forced me to take Mrs. Sridevi in my arms. She seemed amused by my strange behavior, but I was a little freaked out, holding my idol. She probably could never have imagined that she represented such a big chapter of my fantasy life as a child. Or that this was a moment I would never forget. Issue 19, 2013

Clockwsise from top left: christian Louboutin; Safquat Emquat; Guillaume de Santos (3).

Camera-ready Right: Sridevi’s makeup team kept her looking like a diva. Below left: everyone wants to kiss the Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan, including Louboutin’s assistant, MarieLaure Gimeno. Bottom right: in the middle of Louboutin’s photo shoot, the actor Arju n Rampal and his wife, the supermodel Mehr Jesia, play vampire and victim.

Arena A Picture and a Poem

The World in a Grain of Sand Or a coin, or a keyhole. The sculptor Teresita Fernández ventures outside her usual medium to create a drawing inspired by new verse from Matthew Zapruder.

Poem for a Coin strange coin I would call bronze on what feels like earth’s last morning I stand in the kitchen just holding your slight warmth in my palm trying now to remember from what country I removed you maybe Slovenia or terrible Spain you clink against the gold I wear on the finger known as ring on one side a number on the other some famous candelabra a solemn crowd once a year along the main avenue carried to celebrate Night the considerate guest that while we are sleeping quietly takes its clouds and departs or a shield that long ago protected a prince from an arrow so he could become the cruel organizer whose roads to this day we still unthinking travel strange coin I am asking whose hands without marveling held you on their way though you know you cannot answer some mornings I wander out below the sun scare some crows grab a spade and make a hole place some seeds or a whole plant my wife tells me what to do she is holding an orange can full of clear miraculous water her dark hair her white skin after a funeral I have seen loved ones ritually pound dirt with shovels to make the rectangular hole flat and ready for the stone we can return to each time to place some object that attracts our eye for some reason we cannot explain to wish the souls we don’t know if we believe in to nowhere safe journey just in case wherever they are they will know they are thought of and remembered Teresita Fernández, ‘‘Keyhole (Landscape),’’ 2013

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Matthew Zapruder

Good Morning, Matthias Schoenaerts

Clockwise from top left: Oberto Gili; daniel riera; bruce weber.

After a breakout role in ‘Rust and Bone,’ Hollywood is waking up to the raw magnetism of this Belgian import.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRUCE WEBER STYLED BY DEBORAH WATSON TEXT BY TIM MURPHY

IT MUST FEEL A BIT SURREAL to find yourself, in the tradition of once-unknown European actors like Javier Bardem and Jean Dujardin, suddenly an American sensation. Just ask Matthias Schoenaerts, whose breakthrough came last fall in the French arthouse hit ‘‘Rust and Bone,’’ in which he plays Ali, a single father and mixed-martial-arts fighter who falls into a careless romance with Stéphanie, played by a deglamorized Marion Cotillard, who has recently become a double amputee after being maimed by one of the whales she trained at a SeaWorld-type park on the Côte d’Azur. Schoenaerts’s performance, suffused with a clumsy gentleness that recalls Ryan Gosling’s breakout role in ‘‘Half Nelson,’’ has earned him critical raves and media infatuation. One day he’s a working actor living in Belgium, finding time to go to the gym; the next he’s a Hollywood man of the moment, with

MEN’S FASHION ISSUE

Matthias Schoenaerts hanging out, eating and fishing at the Ocean Queen Inn in Hollywood, Fla. John Varvatos T-shirt, $158; johnvarvatos.com. Polo Ralph Lauren jeans, $98; ralphlauren.com.

a string of movies on the docket. ‘‘It’s been exciting, but at some point it drives me nuts,’’ Schoenaerts says. Indeed, he feels that his quiet life in Antwerp — where he lives with his girlfriend, a law student and model — is slipping away. ‘‘I haven’t been here a lot this year,’’ he says. ‘‘Next year I want to do two projects and not more. Four or five a year starts feeling like a grab-the-money-andrun show.’’ Before ‘‘Rust and Bone,’’ Schoenaerts was busy promoting ‘‘Bullhead,’’ a drama in both French and Limburgish (a dialect of the DutchBelgian-German border) and a 2012 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. In it, he plays another nonverbal lug, a cow farmer addicted to steroids and hormones similar to the ones with which he injects his cattle. For both roles, Schoenaerts bulked up from his usual 198 pounds to as much as 230 pounds,

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Good Morning, Matthias Schoenaerts After a breakout role in ‘Rust and Bone,’ Hollywood is waking up to the raw magnetism of this Belgian import. PhotographS by bruce weber STYLED BY deborah watson TEXT BY tim Murphy

It must feel a bit surreal to find

Matthias Schoenaerts hanging out in and around the Ocean Queen Inn in Hollywood, Fla. John Varvatos T-shirt, QR575; johnvarvatos .com. Polo Ralph Lauren jeans, QR356; ralphlauren.com.

yourself, in the tradition of once-unknown European actors like Javier Bardem and Jean Dujardin, suddenly an American sensation. Just ask Matthias Schoenaerts, who starred last fall in the French art-house hit ‘‘Rust and Bone,’’ in which he plays Ali, a single father and mixed-martial-arts fighter who falls into a careless romance with Stéphanie, played by a deglamorized Marion Cotillard, who has recently become a double amputee after being maimed by one of the whales she trained at a SeaWorld-type park on the Côte d’Azur. Schoenaerts’s performance, suffused with a clumsy gentleness that recalls Ryan Gosling’s career-changing role in ‘‘Half Nelson,’’ has earned him critical raves and media infatuation.

One day he’s a working actor living in Belgium, finding time to go to the gym; the next he’s a Hollywood man of the moment, with a string of movies on the docket. ‘‘It’s been exciting, but at some point it drives me nuts,’’ Schoenaerts says. Indeed, he feels that his quiet life in Antwerp — where he lives with his girlfriend, a law student and model — is slipping away. ‘‘I haven’t been here a lot this year,’’ he says. ‘‘Next year I want to do two projects and not more. Four or five a year starts feeling like a grab-the-money-andrun show.’’ Before ‘‘Rust and Bone,’’ Schoenaerts was busy promoting ‘‘Bullhead,’’ a drama in both French and Limburgish (a dialect of the DutchBelgian-German border) and a 2012 Oscar

Issue 19, 2013

Louis Vuitton jacket, QR8,264; louisvuitton.com. John Varvatos henley, QR611.

nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. In it, he plays another nonverbal lug, a cow farmer addicted to steroids and hormones similar to the ones with which he injects his cattle. For both roles, Schoenaerts bulked up from his usual 198 pounds to as much as 230 pounds, with intense weightlifting and copious amounts of fast food. ‘‘Ali should look like he could’ve been an athlete once but he got a belly,’’ he says of his ‘‘Rust and Bone’’ character. ‘‘Now I’m slimming back down and getting back to my sports schedule.’’ In fact, sports — namely soccer — were his salvation growing up. He was raised alternately by his grandmother in Brussels and his mother in Antwerp; his mother never married his father, the Belgian actor Julien Schoenaerts, who died

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Issue 19, 2013

Bottega Veneta sweaterâ&#x2030; QR6,44; bottegaveneta.com. Polo Ralph Lauren jeans, QR356.

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The thought of playing a charming, goodlooking guy gives him the goose bumps, and not in a good way.

six years ago, and Matthias speaks very little about his family history. ‘‘It’s complicated,’’ is all he’ll say. ‘‘But when I was playing soccer, everything was fine.’’ Then along came another passion: street art. Online there is a video clip of a teenage Schoenaerts and some buddies getting apprehended by two cops while doing a graffiti mural in Antwerp. ‘‘We didn’t run when we saw them, we just kept painting!’’ he says with a laugh. A decade ago, his love of graffiti even led him briefly to New York, where he painted with the Bronx group TATS CRU. His father’s career hadn’t held much interest at that point. He enrolled in film school in the late 1990s but was kicked out after a year. ‘‘I was lazy back then,’’ he says. Eventually he

Issue 19, 2013

John Varvatos T-shirt, QR575. Opposite: Olatz pajama bottoms, QR9,939 (for set); olatz .com. John Varvatos henley, QR611. Hair by Zaiya Latt at Bryan Bantry Agency. Grooming by Regine Thorre at 1+1 mgmt. Prop stylist: Dimitri Levas. See Bruce Weber’s video interview of Matthias Schoenaerts at tmagazine.com.

Sports were Schoenaerts’s salvation growing up in Belgium. ‘It’s complicated,’ is all he’ll say of his upbringing. ‘But when I was playing soccer, everything was fine.’ 86

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came around, making a name for himself in ‘‘Loft,’’ a 2008 Belgian thriller about five buddies who share a loft for trysting purposes — then turn on each other in paranoia when a dead woman is found there. He stars in the American remake, due this year, with James Marsden, Wentworth Miller and Eric Stonestreet, of the TV show ‘‘Modern Family.’’ It is his first English-language film, and others will soon follow, including ‘‘A Little Chaos,’’ with Kate Winslet, and ‘‘Suite Française,’’ with Michelle Williams, both due next year. Later this fall he’ll appear in ‘‘Blood Ties,’’ a crime thriller set in 1970s New York, in a supporting role in a cast that includes Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis and Cotillard; Guillaume Canet, Cotillard’s

boyfriend, directed the movie. One offshoot of working with a dialect coach on the film is that Schoenaerts speaks English with a ‘‘GoodFellas’’ twang. ‘‘My so-called neutral American accent now seems to be a New York accent,’’ he says. That may come in handy as he inevitably spends more time stateside. But he says that as much as he likes small doses of America’s manic energy, he’s determined to stay rooted in Belgium. He also swears he won’t do a romcom. The thought of playing ‘‘just a charming, good-looking guy gives me goose bumps,’’ he says, and he doesn’t mean it in a good way. ‘‘Then again,’’ he adds, giving away a bit of his newfound Hollywood savvy, ‘‘if it’s a good screenplay . . . yeah, why not?’’

Issue 19, 2013

Tailor: Lynn Rossi for Lars Nord. Production coordinator: Dawn Boller. fashion assistant: Alexa Lanza. Photo assistants: Michael Murphy, Joseph DiGiovanna, Christopher Domurat, Jeff Tautrim, John Knapp.

The A�t Of The Deale� Part shrewd salesman, part cultivated European, the gallery owner David Zwirner has built a blue-chip empire with a sharp eye and a steady hand. By randy KENNEDY Portrait by tina barney

The gallery owner David Zwirner reached for his iPhone,

flipped on a flashlight app and aimed a spectral beam down a darkened corridor in front of us, littered with construction debris. Leading the way to a heavy door, he pushed it open to the nighttime air and we walked out onto a rooftop five stories above the kingdom of Chelsea, the most concentrated parcel of contemporary art power anywhere in the world. To the north lay the principalities of Gladstone, Cooper and Gagosian. And to the south sat the gallery that Zwirner himself has built over the last two decades into one of the most formidable in the business. Standing with his hands on his hips — less like a captain of industry than a boy expectantly sizing up a playground — he looked out over the buildings below. ‘‘So here you can get a sense of where we are,’’ he said. You could, in more ways than one. Less than two years ago, this building we were walking on — a minimalist concrete-and-teak colossus designed to one of the highest environmental standards by Zwirner’s fellow German Annabelle Selldorf — wasn’t here. An old garage, one of the few sizable chunks of real estate still available in prime Chelsea, stood on the site, on West 20th Street. Zwirner bought it, and instead of converting it as most dealers do in the lowslung neighborhood, he decided to level it and build a new gallery from the ground up, complete with a green roof, adding tens of thousands of feet of new exhibition space to the 30,000 he had already amassed one block over, on West 19th Street. As this was under way, he was also opening his first European outpost, a renovated Georgian town house in the heart of Mayfair in London. And he was making news with staccato regularity in expansionism of another sort, lining up new shows by heavyweight artists, most

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pointedly a few — Jeff Koons, Richard Serra and Yayoi Kusama — who have been represented for years by Larry Gagosian, the most powerful dealer in the business. (Koons and Serra are still officially on Gagosian’s roster; Kusama has switched teams.) After 20 years of steady, at times commercially ferocious, drive, this recent burst of empire building has seemed to presage a reordering of the New York art-world firmament, Zwirner’s ascension not just to the ranks of the most successful galleries — Pace, Acquavella, Hauser & Wirth, Matthew Marks, Marian Goodman — but into contention for the throne of Gagosian himself. Zwirner is not the sort to shy away from chest thumping. But in an art world where bigger has become the definition of better over the last decade, he insists that building an international conglomerate — Gagosian has a dozen galleries in eight cities around the world and is about to open a restaurant; Pace has seven galleries, including one in Beijing — is not his idea of success or fun. And really shouldn’t be anyone else’s, either, he adds flatly. ‘‘I do not plan and do not need to have galleries all over the world,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s silly.’’ Zwirner, 48, has been this kind of odd amalgam in the gallery business for a long time now. He is cast partly from the Leo Castelli mold — the cultivated European in New York, with a great eye and a love of art over money, a role he was all but groomed for. His father, Rudolf, now retired, was a pioneering Cologne dealer who showed Minimalist and Conceptual art before it was easy to do so, even in Europe. Zwirner grew up around Richters and Polkes, and after a youthful detour into the music business (first as an aspiring jazz drummer, later as an A&R man for a Hamburg record label) he ‘‘got over the Oedipal hump,’’ as he says, and went into the business, in a space on Greene Street in SoHo that was,

by today’s standards, little more than a coat closet. (‘‘The front desk was David’s desk back then,’’ remembered Diana Thater, the Los Angeles film and video artist who was one of the gallery’s first recruits.) But unlike Castelli and many of Zwirner’s fellow dealers who even now speak about the money side of things with a whiff of mortification, Zwirner seems to revel in the machinations of the deal. And he is often remarkably frank about the harsh realities of the trade, to the point of being impolitic. At Art Basel Miami Beach

in December, he drew some unflattering attention after praising the billionaire collector Steven A. Cohen, whose hedge fund is under intense federal scrutiny for insider trading. ‘‘I’m rooting for him. I wish he were here right now,’’ Zwirner has said, expressing a common sentiment in the high-end-gallery world but a sentiment few are willing to state so plainly at the moment about Cohen, one of the most aggressive collectors in the business and one who has made a lot of galleries happy when it comes time to balance the books. Several weeks later, talking to me about an agreement between

Issue 19, 2013

A serious man David Zwirner in front of a Neo Rauch painting in his East Village town house.

Alice Neel, ‘‘Hartley,’’ 1978.

Lisa Yuskavage, ‘‘Chrissy,’’ 2009.

Chris Ofili, untitled, 2006.

Adel Abdessemed, ‘‘Mappemonde,’’ 2011.

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All artworks: courtesy of the artists and David Zwirner, New York/London.

‘I do not plan and do not need to have galleries all over the world. It’s silly.’

Kusama: Courtesy of david zwirner, victoria miro gallery, ota fine arts and yayoi kusama studio inc.

Yayoi Kusama, ‘‘Dwelling of Stars,’’ 2012.

him and the much smaller Maccarone gallery to share representation of the sought-after sculptor Carol Bove, Zwirner said, shrugging: ‘‘Of course we could always steal an artist from a smaller gallery, but why do that when you can have a collaboration that will work?’’ Tom Eccles, who runs the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and has a hand in numerous art projects in New York, said of Zwirner: ‘‘He’s not just a pure hard-nosed businessman, though he is pretty hard. I would not want to cross him in a deal.’’ In person, Zwirner — whose graying hair belies the fact that he’s still in his 40s — does not come off as a rapacious capitalist. After so many years in New York his German accent has softened, with only scraps of Strangelovian diction left. (‘‘We go to de car now, yes?’’) He is given to jackets and slightly dad-type jeans instead of flashy suits, and though he makes his way around town mostly in a chauffeured Lexus hybrid, he also commutes to work on his bike. In conversation, he can be incredibly charming, with dry wit and deft comic timing. Michael Hort, a collector who along with his wife, Susan, has bought consistently from Zwirner since he opened, recalled a toast he once made at a dinner for Zwirner. ‘‘I got up and said, ‘You know, Susan and I are always absolutely sure we get the best piece out of every show. But the amazing thing is that there are 10 other people here in this room who feel exactly the same way.’ ’’ Zwirner began his gallery with some very risky artists, commercially. One early show involved Paul McCarthy, whose difficult work — scatalogical and sexual and darkly political, hilarious and terrifying at the same time — was still mostly a West Coast cult phenomenon. He also discovered, through McCarthy, Jason Rhoades, the manic Los Angeles installation artist whose equally difficult work Zwirner embraced perhaps as only a more

Raymond Pettibon, ‘‘No Title (She Must Know . . .),’’ 2010.

rarefied European gallerist could in the early 1990s. Rhoades’s accidental death at 41, in 2006, devastated Zwirner. If the gallery has since moved heavily into painting and other more safely bankable territory — it seems to be slowly cornering the market in the highly sought-after estates of Minimalist masters like Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, whose pieces have become both canonical and highly lucrative — it still has an idiosyncratic roster, with great oddballs like R. Crumb and Raymond Pettibon alongside institutional darlings like Stan Douglas and Francis Alÿs. On a February afternoon when a blizzard was said to be singing in, I met Zwirner in the new 20th Street space, still under construction, just after the installation of a series of exquisite late Judd aluminum boxes, which would be the only works occupying one cavernous sky-lighted gallery. Pacing around the space he said he was worried that critical opinion might condemn such opulent Manhattan space as mere vanity, a white-cube declaration of his financial prowess. ‘‘I don’t mind everyone knocking the money, complaining about how much money there is — that goes with the territory,’’ he said. ‘‘But what they don’t understand is that work like this’’ — he swept his hand toward the Judd, which looked like an altarpiece in a postmodern cathedral — ‘‘has to have space like this to be shown the right way and you have to have money to be able to provide it.’’ The night of the party for the opening of the space, things almost went uncharacteristically awry for such a tightly run ship. The building, delayed after Zwirner’s 19th Street space suffered serious damage in Hurricane Sandy, was finally readied for the powerful crowd — under the K’s were Koons and the billionaire Henry Kravis — only hours before the party, and the heat wasn’t working yet. It was colder inside than out. But Zwirner seemed not even to notice

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Dan Flavin, ‘‘Untitled (to Janet and Allen),’’ 1966-71.

Luc Tuymans, ‘‘Orchid,’’ 1998.

flavin: photograph by Stephan Wyckoff, STephen Flavin/ARS.

as he raced around the galleries coatless, showing off the Judd and three rooms of Dan Flavin light pieces that created a sunset-onMars glow throughout the space. At a dinner later, he spoke without a microphone and at probably too great a length about the specific virtues of the Judd and the Flavins, losing much of the crowd of 250. But then he ended the speech — it being Valentine’s Day — with a moving accolade to his wife, Monica, and his son and two daughters, drawing a raucous round of applause. Thater — who, like almost all of the artists he recruited in his early years, is still with him — said that Zwirner’s relationship with his artists verges on the familial, complete with dysfunction. ‘‘I’m probably one of the least profitable artists in the gallery, but he never thought to stop supporting me. Even when David and I have had a real falling out, he’s stayed loyal to me and I’ve stayed loyal to him. And we’ve had some big fights.’’ She added: ‘‘He’s never told me to make a painting or a sculpture or a photograph just to make money. He understands that I do what I do.’’ Stan Douglas, the Vancouver photo, film and video artist, whose work was in the second exhibition Zwirner held on Greene Street, said: ‘‘In the beginning we only had a verbal agreement and a handshake, and that’s still what we have now.’’ One of the fruits of the kind of success Zwirner has achieved, he said, is that after years of relentless focus on growing the gallery and building one of the most powerful secondary-market businesses in the art world, he is now able to spend more time again thinking about the art. ‘‘He’s always been clear about it being a business and he’s always been a kind of anxious guy,’’ Douglas said. ‘‘But now he can disengage a little bit more from that because he’s been able to delegate pretty well.’’ Zwirner employs 100 people and runs the gallery with a handful of partners, most of whom are women and most of whom have been with him since the early years. (The longtime Chelsea dealer Christopher D’Amelio recently shuttered his own gallery and joined as the newest partner.) ‘‘I really have to like an artist and the whole gang has to like an artist if we’re going to take someone on,’’ he said. ‘‘Whether the work sells is secondary. I mean, it’s lovely if it sells and we need it to sell, but the first thing, whether anybody believes it or not, is not the money.’’ As it is for most large galleries, the financial rudder is secondarymarket sales — older works by his artists or other gold-plated modernist or contemporary masters — a business where Zwirner has become an important player, bringing him into competition not only with the biggest dealmakers but also with the major auction houses. ‘‘It can be kind of a bummer sometimes,’’ he said. ‘‘There are those times when you get the calls where somebody says, ‘I’ve got this piece by one of your artists and you’ve got 48 hours to make a decision or I’ll put it at auction. That’s no fun. But a lot of the time it’s fun.’’ And he said he does not see the kind of fun that the high end of the art world is having right now — almost as frothy as things felt before the crash in 2007 — ending any time soon. ‘‘I really feel like we have the wind at our backs right now. All of what’s said about the 1 percent, there’s no way that’s changing,’’ he said, of the concentration of wealth that is driving — some say slowly ruining — the art world. ‘‘I’m not saying it’s good by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not going away. The question is what you do with it.’’ And what about Gagosian? I asked. Do you ever wish, maybe, that he’d go away? He smiled and, uncharacteristically, declined to take the bait, even for a laugh. Later, though, as if the thought was working on him, he stopped me and said, ‘‘You have to remember, you know, Gagosian is almost 20 years older than I am. I’m a spring chicken.’’

Gordon Matta-Clark, detail from ‘‘Conical Intersect,’’ 1975.

Unlike his fellow dealers who speak about the money side of things with a whiff of mortification, Zwirner seems to revel in the machinations of the deal.

Judd: Courtesy of Judd Foundation/VAGA. photograph by tim nighswander/imaging4Art.

A 2006 installation by Jason Rhoades.

Donald Judd, ‘‘Untitled (Menziken 89-10),’’ 1989. Marlene Dumas, ‘‘The Sleep of Reason,’’ 2009.

Issue 19, 2013

Lanvin dress, QR7,645. Balenciaga by Nicolas GhesquiĂ¨re shoes (worn throughout), QR7,827. Opposite: Jil Sander top, 3,131 and skirt, QR473; neimanmarcus.com.

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Modernism Is The Message

There’s a ravishing purity to fashion’s new minimalism, where a singular graphic line — a triangular neckline, an undulating ruffle — defines the rigor of design.

Photographs by mario sorrenti styled by jane how

Stella McCartney dress, QR8,173. Opposite: Calvin Klein Collection dress, QR45,855.

Versace jacket, QR10,176. Fleet Ilya belt, QR2,268; fleetilya.com. Opposite: Gucci top, QR25,846.

fashion assistants: lucy bower, eliza conlon. equipment: dan perrone at root eq. manicure: amangiri spa.

Balenciaga by Nicolas GhesquiĂ¨re top, QR5,588 and skirt, QR41,688. Opposite: Dior dress, QR21,481. Model: Anja Rubik/ Next. Makeup by Hannah Murray for Topshop Makeup. Hair by Recine for Rodin by Recine Luxury Hair Oil.

THE REINCARNA

Bright lights, big city Traffic clogs the streets of Gangnam, as seen from the Park Hyatt Seoul. Top right: the recently completed Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park, designed by Zaha Hadid.

ATION OF SEOUL WITH A RUSH OF SWEEPING CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS, THE SOUTH KOREAN CAPITAL IS BECOMING THE FASHIONABLE INTRIGUE OF THE FAR EAST. by PHOEBE EATON Photographs by zeng han

t is the new can’t-miss building in the heart of Seoul. Like the bandages on a plastic-surgery patient, the last of the protective fencing has been peeled away to reveal the capital’s latest architectural creation. City Hall, a vintage vestige of South Korea’s ruthless onetime colonial overlord Japan, has been restored. Over a cold stone shoulder, as formidable as the all-powerful mayor who works within, now rises a tsunami of glass and steel, the future poised to obliterate the past in the next 60 seconds. It took four years and five months to build. This is the new face of Seoul. ‘‘Pali! Pali!’’ everybody likes to say. Faster! Faster! South Korea has been sprinting down the road to recovery since the end of the Korean War. As fast as PSY’s ‘‘Gangnam Style’’ anthem, mocking Seoul’s Ferrari-and-furs nouveaux riches, galloped to the top of the Western music charts this year, the city has emerged as one of the most hip (and most underrated) cultural capitals in the world. Cruise-line-proportioned flagships, architecturally bombastic headquarters, museums celebrating traditional houses to handbags, haute and hot restaurants are all competing for the attention of its 10 million increasingly affluent residents. Koreans have the reputation for being nose-to-thegrindstone, study-smarties. But looking around Seoul today, one can only conclude they’re ready to enjoy

themselves. It’s no longer the city voted least favorite layover in the Far East. Let everyone rabbit on about how places like Shanghai are The Future: Seoul residents are smarter dressers; its restaurants feel more fussed over, more daring; and after an early force-feed of education, everyone’s creative, individualist side is emerging. South Korea never just apes the West but puts its own topspin on music, fashion, food, technology. Apple may have won its patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung, but Samsung’s Galaxy S III is neck and neck with the iPhone 5 in stores, early to the notion that people wanted smartphones with bigger screens. Samsung has overtaken Sony as the world’s biggest maker of TVs. ‘‘Apple takes forever to develop a jewel of a phone, but Samsung, they just throw it out there. Bam-bam-bam!,’’ says the architect Euhlo Suh. ‘‘People don’t like this feature? Let’s make another one. Bam-bam-bam!’’ That’s just the hardware. Content has arrived, too. The cultural wave rolling from these shores already has a name — hallyu — literally, the Korean Wave, coined by awestruck Chinese who were the first to acknowledge Korea’s revised profile in Asia. Its ‘‘K-pop’’ music and television shows have been embraced with such a Pacific Basin bear hug that money from these sectors alone buoys South Korea’s economy by $4.5 billion a year. This year, Korean directors transitioned from Hallyuwood to Hollywood, and will open their first English-language films, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicole Kidman.

he Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, which opened in 2004, is Seoul’s bigger, badder Whitney Museum, and a hard-won National Museum of Contemporary Art will make its debut later this year. (Like many of Seoul’s prestige projects, the Leeum was designed by Western architects and was hardly issue-free: Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel and Mario Botta were each commissioned for a site that shrunk after the economic crisis in the late 1990s — witness this trio of buildings now existing in near collision with each other.) The worldliness announces itself on every street corner: a constellation of starchitect-designed headquarters is aligning in the night sky. Here a Rem Koolhaas. There a Daniel Libeskind. Perhaps not so impressive a feat as a city like Shanghai, but Seoul is well on its way, even if the candelabra of new buildings are in many instances snuffed every night by 10 p.m., as the economy-minded socialist government has encouraged. Until now, South Korea has never really registered as a culture — or as a country — save in news reports about threats from the North, forever lumped together with places like Taiwan as an emerging industrial powerhouse. Seoul is run by a tight group of family-owned conglomerates (Samsung, Doosan, LG, et al.) called the chaebol, with every line of business in their tentacle grip. Now these families’ third-generation sons and daughters, in their 30s and 40s, are leading Seoul through the most radical upgrade of its 1,350-year history. They’ve come of age during South Korea’s growth with all the attached benefits: virtually every one of them educated abroad (America, mainly), fluent in foreign languages, buzzing with international connections. The most graphic sign of the city’s transformation is perhaps the string of fashion flagships docked on the main drag of Gangnam’s Cheongdam-dong: Louis

‘Apple takes forever to develop a jewel of a phone, but Samsung, they just throw it out there. Bam-bam-bam! People don’t like this feature? Let’s make another one. Bam-bam-bam!’ Vuitton, Hermès, Tory Burch, Prada, Gucci. It all reads very Rodeo Drive — that is, if there weren’t already a street named Rodeo Drive in Gangnam’s Apgujeong. The endgame for these companies has been to plant a flag early, establish the brand as quickly as possible. This explains what Dean & DeLuca is doing in the basement of Gangnam’s Shinsegae department store flogging French chocolates and muesli, why Jamie Oliver is taking meetings with the ‘‘global lifestyle company’’ CJ Foodville and why Tory Burch entered a partnership with Samsung Chiel. ‘‘If Samsung hadn’t approached us, we probably would have approached them,’’ says Burch, whose orange-lacquer flagship and 23 shop-in-shops enjoy double-digit sales growth yearly. Forty years ago, Gangnam (‘‘south of the river’’) was farmland. Today, after hyper-development and redevelopment that made numerous property owners mega-millionaires overnight, rabid consumerism runs free. The wives of Gangnam crowd into the months-old Gourmet 494 in the basement of the Galleria mall. To call this a food court would be an act of libel. The hottest restaurants in Seoul have branches here, like Pizzeria D’Buzza and Vatos Urban Tacos, the latter of which began with funds its California-born founding partner, Kenneth Park, raised on Kickstarter. The menu is an East-West border mix with kimchi carnitas fries, galbi short-rib tacos, peach makgeolitas made with Korea’s fermented rice wine makgeolli, and funny pictograms display the source of each meat, required by law ever since a 2008 controversy when beef from the United States was allowed back into Korea. At Gourmet 494, customers are learning to care more and pay more for groceries. Elderly ladies wearing stewardess-y pillbox hats sell gift sets of grapefruit-size

icing on the cake Above: quirky cakes at the Menagerie, located in the high-end retailer SSG Food Market. Below: a life-size sculpture of Rick Owens stands in the window of the designer’s store in Dosan Park.

leisure class Clockwise from above: a pair of cafes, Tasting Room and Glamorous Penguin, sit across from each other in ultra-hip Hannam-dong; a sleep pod in Chaum Life Center; the stylist Raymond Chae in his newly opened boutique, MIK 24/7.

apples and pears. Tins of Spam packed with Andalucian olive oil run counter to such other dainty offerings as the ‘‘brioches haricots rouges.’’ After the Korean War, the American base in town offloaded Spam onto the hapless starving natives who developed a taste for it. Now it is a tradition to give Spam as a thank-you to parents. Blocks away, at a satellite outpost of the cult Italian fashion emporium 10 Corso Como, Faye Lee gives her order to the waiter. Lee, who introduced Milan’s exoticskins brand Colombo to South Korea, is outfitted in the local uniform: fur vest, leggings and wedge heels. Bought out by Samsung in 2011, she drives a yellow Ferrari 458 Italia. Upstairs at the store, where Thom Browne shirts hang next to Mercury-winged Azzedine Alaia boots, an employee tails shoppers closely — too closely. The same occurs at the Rick Owens store in Dosan Park, where a Facsimile Rick in the window resembles a Dothraki horse lord from ‘‘Game of Thrones,’’ a wind machine buffeting his hair. In Seoul, the designer clothes may have arrived but the service has yet to follow. Koreans are as obsessed with image and aging as Westerners, and plastic surgery borders on national pastime. Having a ‘‘small face’’ is the ultimate, and the procedure of the moment is a very painful double-jaw overhaul. Also: hair implants for women to fortify a moderately thinning hairline. Koreans are decidedly more adventurous on the road to perfection. At Gangnam’s Enzyme Health Spa, women soak in fermenting rice bran up to their necks to lose weight. Then there’s the Dr. Fish pedicure, where for $2, carp will

nibble dry skin from feet, like a thousand points of electroshock. Opening the wallet wider, for $170,000, locals can join Chaum, a Kubrickian anti-aging center in the Pie’n Polus building that will bank your endlessly renewable stem cells for the day stem-cell therapies become viable in Seoul.

estaurant bills can feel similarly ludicrous too, as if price alone can elevate the mediocre. At Elbon the Table, this translates to gold leaf on foie gras, steak served with five colored salts, wasabi ice-cream powder steaming from a liquid-nitrogen application. Innovation feels fresher at Okitchen, where the servers are all chefs in their 20s rotating nights in the kitchen and sending out Jeju horse carpaccio and Gorgonzola ice cream. At Goo STK, customers can call ahead to reserve their dry-aged steaks, and the kitchen stays open until 1 a.m., an exception in a city where most restaurants take their last reservation at 8 p.m. Why? To make way for the drinking that will go on afterward: in Asia, it is Korea that hits the bottle hardest, another reason you always hear people comparing the Koreans with the Irish. Jinro’s branded soju, a drink much like vodka, is the world’s bestselling alcohol you’ve never heard of. Speakeasy Mortar looks like it might be a sauna from the outside. Instead in this swank whiskey bar, the anomalous American vice chairman of the Doosan corporation has four men out on a hoesik, a traditional roundelay of after-work drinks. Today, one of them won

retail therapy Above: the everchanging, LED-lit facade of Galleria Department Store. Below: young people wait for a traffic light on one of Seoul’s busy streets.

an award. After a last belt of Guatemalan sipping rum, the boss is off. His team bows deeply at the waist as he vanishes into his chauffeured car.

L Seoul’s worldliness announces itself on every street corner: Here a Rem Koolhaas. There a Daniel Libeskind.

NEW WAVE Above: the curvature of Seoul’s new City Hall building hangs ominously over the original 1926 structure. Left: 10 Corso Como, an outpost of the Milanbased concept store in Cheongdam-dong.

ee Bul, Seoul’s biggest contemporary artist in residence, wears an apron as she bustles around her embassy-area studio. On the wall is a wearable Sigmund the Sea Monster sculpture reconstructed for her recent Mori Art Museum retrospective in Tokyo. Only three Korean artists have a truly international profile and an international market commensurate with that reputation: Bul, Doh-ho Suh (who mainly resides in London) and the longtime Japan resident Lee Ufan. Though the chaebol are major collectors — particularly the wives, sisters and daughters-in-law who collectively run six Korean art museums — they mainly indulge a taste for secondary-market Western art. ‘‘Go to MoMA in New York. Three of the biggest corporate sponsors are Samsung, Hanjin and Hyundai Card,’’ says Bul’s husband, James B. Lee, who represents his wife and is a consulting partner at Seoul’s leading PKM gallery. Every major museum swings through Seoul with its trustees and directors with the goal of forging future institutional partnerships. Still, international collectors are not coming, which means fewer galleries, which hurts younger local artists. ‘‘I still think Korea is very isolated,’’ Lee admits. It’s difficult to tell who’s stockpiling what because of increased secrecy: South Korea doesn’t impose any taxes on transactions of art property, and artwork is exempt from transfer and inheritance taxes, too. Which makes it an ideal form of currency for some chaebol, and a way to launder money and make bribes. A number of prominent executives have found themselves accused and convicted of tax evasion, most famously Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of Samsung. Last year, the chairman and an executive at Orion Group were convicted of using embezzled funds to buy art and were sent to jail. Architecture is more the vehicle for flaunting a company’s success publicly. But too often, local business owners are consumed with creating spectacular shapes beribboned with LEDs and little else. A client can cheap out. The guts of a building are often forgotten as the zany facade takes precedence. The residents like to hate a lot of what’s going up. Seoul remains the destination for ‘‘the Cloud’’ in Daniel Libeskind’s Yongsan International Business District, which has drawn criticism for its remarkable similarity to the smoke-wreathed ruins of the Twin Towers. Some of the other starchitects are perceived to be phoning it in. The local architect Eulho Suh compares it to American movie stars quietly shooting dopey commercials in Asia for astronomical sums. Politics can also interfere. Zaha Hadid’s mercury-lobed Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park was supposed to be a cultural complex. When the mayor who championed so many of these projects felt obliged to resign in a force play over a school-lunch referendum, his socialist replacement made a point of denouncing a number of building projects, wrenching funds. The building boom became a touchstone issue for the have-nots demonstrating in front of City Hall and citing North Korea as a model society, untainted by all this Americanism, all this mindless showing off. It is now the year of the snake, and anything born the year of the snake is strong, sheds its skin and is reborn. Rumor has it when the bandages come off, Hadid’s building will be a shopping mall.

The Original Search Engine in the days before google, librarians at the New York Public Library hand clipped hundreds of thousands of photos and illustrations from magazines and books to create over 12,000 different files for its Picture Collection. Visitors could search for images of, say, rat catching or handshaking. It was here that Diego Rivera sought inspiration for his monumental murals and Andy Warhol borrowed advertising images, occasionally not returning them, for his art. The photographer Taryn Simon, whose work focuses on cataloging (contraband items seized by airport customs officials, bloodlines of Bosnian genocide victims), has been archiving the collection as part of a series now on view at the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. The contents of the folder ‘‘Beards & Mustaches,’’ shown here, is one of her favorites. maura egan

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T Qatar: The New York Times Style Magazine

‘‘Folder: Beards & Mustaches, The Picture Collection’’: courtesy OF taryn simon.

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