Nudie Jeans
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nudie jeans
Photography Jan von Holleben
Words David Hellqvist
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calvin klein collection
V&A chair TOMAS ALONSO
Socks PANTHERELLA, Zip boots ADIEU
paul smith burberry prorsum
Phillips chair GLASS HILL
Stone Cold
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Photography Moos-Tang
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Motorcross boots ALPINESTARS
How to define luxury is a topic constantly discussed by premium fashion houses and their customers; it isn’t enough to just hike up prices in order to be considered luxurious. In the case of Stone Island, the emphasis has always been on functionality. “I think luxury is about feeling spoilt, wearing something special, beautiful, comfortable and functional – it’s a kind of fulfilment. That’s real luxury to me,” says Carlo Rivetti, creative director of Italian high-tech innovators Stone Island. “Research, experimentation and treatments on materials applied to innovative and functional designs define Stone Island,” he adds. “We’ve achieved an incredible ability to master garment dyeing through the continuous tests carried out in our colour laboratory for over 30 years.” In 2012, the Bologna-based brand celebrated three decades in business. The company was founded in the early 1980s by Massimo Osti, the man behind other technical staple brands like CP Company and Boneville. Osti’s presence is still felt in the building. “Yes, the imprinting he defined is still very strong in the brand’s DNA. Walking in the archive, I easily see this,” explains Rivetti. Port was given access to the archives for this shoot, digging deep into the brand’s history to highlight its relevance today. “My perception is that men wearing Stone Island feel like they’re part of a club. The removable badge on the left arm makes pieces recognisable and iconic,” says Rivetti. “I also think that our
Styling David St John-James
Words David Hellqvist
fans understand the functionality and research in fabric and treatments. Stone Island does the job; it protects; it keeps you warm, but it also looks good!” Stone Island is definitely ‘luxury’, but is it ‘fashion’? “Our approach is closer to industrial design than fashion, starting from the way our garments are conceived as design items, in which functionality and research are fundamental. We do not belong to technical outerwear, or activewear, or fashion. We design and use our technical knowhow to make everyday clothing that looks good and performs if needed.” It’s this loose definition of the brand that sets it free; it’s not pigeonholed and stays away from traditional high-end fashion platforms, such as the infamous industry ‘fashion weeks’, and yet can still be found in the same shops as Milanese luxury brands. Its achievements are down to Rivetti’s level-headed approach to brand-building: “Success to me is to achieve something special every season and to carry on the integrity of the brand.” Looking forward, in order to ensure another 30 years of quality menswear, the family business needs to be replenished. “Yes, that’s why my sons and my daughter entered the company!” But in the end it’s just an honest love of the creative process that drives the company forward. “I’m excited by the material research, the dye and treatment tests, the design and construction aspects, choosing the colour palette,” Rivetti sums it up. “This is magic to me.”
Impregnated cotton canvas jacket with special pigmented resin in contrasting colours and cotton canvas shorts SPRING SUMMER 1983
Opposite: Cotton canvas hooded cape with thick matte PVC coating and metal eyelets AUTUMN WINTER 1983
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PVC cotton rubber effect jacket and trousers with moulded rubber patches SPRING SUMMER 1988
Opposite: Translucent trilobate nylon hooded jacket with PVC glazed effect coating and glazed silk light visor, overalls SPRING SUMMER 1987
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Photography Cedric Buchet
Styling David St. John-James
Words Courtney Rubin
Magnetic, enigmatic, inimitable: few actors bridge complex creative integrity and superstar box office appeal like this Puerto Rican maverick. Playing an array of characters, from revolutionaries to supervillains – a rich canvas of artistic, cinematic and literary influences inspire Hollywood’s most interesting bad boy…
benicio del toro
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benicio del toro
Moore cotton twill blouson BELSTAFF, Patterned cotton shirt ANN DEMEULEMEESTER (worn throughout) from Selfridges
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Alice wears macro ribbed knit top and skirt LOUIS VUITTON
Talla wears grafton leather shirt with suede shoulder patch RALPH LAUREN PURPLE LABEL
Talla wears G9 corduroy jacket BARACUTA Striped polo shirt JIL SANDER Trousers LOEWE
Teo wears patterned suit HUGO BOSS Velvet jacket FILA
Photography Wilcox & Johansson
Styling David St John-James
Renaissance Man
Ig Wilkinson is part filmmaker, tailor, hat maker, skater and spectacle designer. As an artist and creator, Ig embodies the free-spirited nature of the 1950s Soho art scene, the era that inspired Dunhill’s Autumn Winter 2015 collection
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Words Cecil Balmond OBE
Photography JoĂŤl Tettamanti
Architect Cecil Balmond explains how Sri Lanka’s Heritance Kandalama hotel encapsulates the legacy of his compatriot Geoffrey Bawa, whose modernist ideals were tailored to suit the tropical climate
alessandro mendini
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alessandro mendini Atelier Mendini is filled with colourful products and prototypes, including the Amuleto lamp in the foreground and the plastic K2 Loveseat for A Lot Of Brasil on the left.
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Words Graham Robb
Photography Tobias Harvey
Additional Research George Upton
World-renowned novelist and poet Victor Hugo was an outspoken political voice who sought exile from France after becoming a prominent critic of Napoleon III. Eventually settling in Guernsey, he used his exhaustive creative energy to breathtaking effect on his beloved home
Hauteville House, Saint Peter Port, Guernsey as viewed from the back garden. Victor Hugo bought the building in May 1856 after the success of his volume of poetry, Les Contemplations, and lived here for 14 years while in exile from France.
Cotton and linen jumper BERLUTI , Silk botanical print shirt DUNHILL, T-shirt worn throughout CALVIN KLEIN
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The entrance hall sets the tone of the house. A gothic portal inspired by cathedral architecture declares ‘Victor Hugo Nostre-Dame de Paris’, referencing Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of NotreDame and evokes a cover created by Célestin Nanteuil for the book in 1832. Opposite: The hall gives onto a corridor lined with a Sèvres porcelain service presented to Hugo by the king in 1825 for his ode ‘The Coronation of Charles X’, and a collection of tin-glazed pottery that continues onto the ceiling, exhibiting Hugo’s eclectic approach to interior design.
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The gloom of the hall leads through double doors to the light of the dining room. Opposite: The tapestries room is dominated by an elaborate wooden fireplace, a ‘monument’ designed in part by Hugo. Sculptures of Saint Paul and Saint John, joined by the names of great writers, philosophers, politicians and religious figures, frame a convex mirror in which the Hugo family would have been reflected while sitting at the table for coffee.
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victor hugo This page and opposite top: The staircase leads up two floors, covered by a skylight Hugo decorated with paintings of birds and flowers. The light filters down and is reflected in the mirrors, illuminating tapestries covering the walls. Opposite bottom: In the blue salon sits a bronze incense burner given to Hugo by French writer Alexandre Dumas.
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n the winter of 1847, on a tour of Paris, Charles Dickens stumbled across one of the hidden marvels of that ‘wicked’ but ‘wonderfully attractive’ city in a quiet corner of the Place Royale (now Place des Vosges). Under the slate grey roof of a Renaissance house towering over the squalor of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the world’s most famous living writer seemed to inhabit a different time and place. Victor Hugo, the author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, poet, playwright and politician, turned out to have a genius for interior design: A most extraordinary place, looking like an old curiosity shop, or the Property Room of some gloomy vast old Theatre. I was much struck by Hugo himself, who looks like a Genius, as he certainly is. […] His wife is a handsome woman with flashing black eyes, who looks as if she might poison his breakfast any morning when the humour seized her. There is also a ditto daughter of fifteen or sixteen, with ditto eyes, and hardly any drapery above the waist, whom I should suspect of carrying a sharp poignard in her stays but for her not
“This incredible house is as close as anyone can come to inhabiting the mind of a genius, to experiencing its exhilarating insanity, and living to tell the tale.” appearing to wear any. Sitting among old armour, and old tapestry, and old coffers, and grim old chairs and tables, and old Canopies of state from old places, and old golden lions going to play at skittles with ponderous old golden balls, they made a most romantic show, and looked like a chapter out of one of his own books.
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our years later, after opposing the coup d’état which brought Napoleon III to power, Victor Hugo escaped from Paris disguised as a worker, carrying with him in a waterproof bag the manuscript that would become Les Misérables. He found asylum in the Channel Islands, from where he communicated with his international audience by means of carrier pigeons, hollow busts of Napoleon III, letters stuffed into women’s underwear and balloons made from pages of his own banned books. In 1855, he was expelled from Jersey as a dangerous agitator, but Guernsey, which had retained a degree of constitutional independence, welcomed him as a hero. He was to live there for 15 years, embarrassing the British government with his vociferous support for 215
victor hugo
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victor hugo
Top: From the bed of the oak gallery rises a stepped section, engraved ‘Nox Mors Lux’ (‘Night Death Light’) and topped with a two-sided skull sculpted from ivory. Once the pommel of a walking stick, Hugo opted to install this memento mori at the head of his bed. Bottom: Hugo’s cousin, who lived as a nun in Tulle, southwest France, created this model and sent it to him in order to convey the size of her convent bedroom. Opposite: The oak gallery, running the length of the garden side of the house, forms the master bedroom and study, which are divided by twin columns representing sadness and joy. The tall candelabra in the workroom, called the ‘Tree of Fire’, was designed by Hugo and is illustrated with images of the saints. As with the rest of the room, the candelabra’s elaborate carved oak took four years to complete.
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The red salon was the liveliest and most ostentatious room of the house. Four gilded portetorchères lead the eye to the reflection of the ornate candelabra and, when the double doors are open, the blue salon behind it. The room is lined with tapestries and silks from Europe and the Far East. Often after dinner, the family would retire here to listen to Hugo tell stories.
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Words Kyle Chayka, Mukunda Angulo
Photography Stefan Ruiz
Producer Megan Delaney
Confined for years inside their New York apartment by a domineering father, the Angulo brothers spent a remarkable childhood building props and recreating films to better understand the outside world. Here Mukunda Angulo gives Port a firsthand account of life at home for him and his six siblings, now stars of Crystal Moselle’s documentary The Wolfpack