Elitsa stefanova single pages

magazine

The september issue

How to look great this fall

+12

must-buys in fashion & design

design a sense of space

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the

September 2013 I Socalmag.com

Table OF CONTENTS SEPTEMBER ISSUE

6 17

AGENDA

FOOD

DRINK

PORTRAIT

DESIGN

15 FALL MUST-BUYS

COVER STORY

JONATHAN MEYERS

This September,

SWAG

13

VAMPIRE

magazine is bringing together

fashion influencers, digital innovators and L.A. locals for the first

magazine.

SEPTEMBER Los angeles For more information visit www.socalmag.com

SoCal September 2013 I 3

pr om o tion

socalinsights.com onlineaccess

events

exclusive offers

At your fingertips.

4I

SoCal September 2013

magazine editor-in-Chief Mr Hillier

Letter from the editor

executive editor Mr Hillier editorial director ared Hohlt editor-at-Large Carl Swanson Managing editor Ann Clarke

FEATURES deputy editor David Haskell Robin Raisfeld

So call it LA love!

Art/Productions design director Thomas Alberty Culture editor Lane Brown Strategist editor Ashlea Halpern Senior editors Christopher Bonanos, Rebecca Milzoff, Raha Naddaf, Carl Rosen, Genevieve Smith, Alexis Swerdloff

FASHION Fashion director Amy Larocca Staff editor Patti Greco Shopping editor Jessica Silvester

PHOTO Photography director Jody Quon

I am so trilled to welcome you at SoCal magazine’ premiere issue!

The magazine where you can discover the latest art, style, music and food trends emerging from LA streets.

Through vibrant photo-spreads and comprehensive scoops, SoCal showcases the uniquesness of LA. Our team is a combination of independent, confident millenials who are inspired to research and bring out the hottest trends. We believe in creativity, innovation and diversity. We are always searching for aventure. This makes our team unique.

I believe you will enjoy our premier September issue!

Faithfully yours,

The

independent

Food editors Robert Patronite,

LA magazine!

SoCal September 2013 I 5

Agenda food / drinks / travel / lifstyle

Chocoholics unite How many of you adore chocolate cupcakes?

Dark chocolate cupcakes with a thick dark chocolate frosting on top and sprinkled with chocolate chips.

The cupcakes are not overly sweet – they are deep and intense.

Pure chocolate.

And a lot of it!

Soft, moist, tender, intensely fudgy, chocoholic-heaven!

Pure, unadultered, inexplicable, out-of-this-world love for chocolate.

SoCal September 2013 I 7

A Agenda

Drinks

Iced coffee is our lives. Iced coffee is a complicated thing, and there are many different approaches.

One would think that one could merely pour brewed coffee into a

Ic ed C offee Addiction

glass full of ice and call it a day…but we find that method extremely flawed. A method of preparing such drinks is to make a small quantity of strong, hot espresso, dissolving the required sweetener/ flavorings in the hot liquid and then pouring this directly into a cup of ice cold milk. Iced coffee may be served already chilled, or poured hot over ice.

Iced coffee may have cubes, but the Autumn-friendly quencher is anything but square nowadays.

The drink: Iced Mocha Red Eye The mix: MUD coffee with Mojo Espresso and a shot of chocolate

8I

SoCal September 2013

Not every addiction is a bad one.

Oh no, no, no.

This is a good addiction.

A Agenda

portrait

Foreign Exchange

Tanita Enderes does it the artsy way The outstanding 22-year-old FIDM exchange student reveals her passion for art and Travel.

By Elitsa Stefanova

Q &A How did you decide to become an artist?

When I started studying art in college I realized that I responded to the physicality of making work. The resistance of the materials allowed me to focus on specific themes and concerns for a longer time and allowed for an expressive gravitas that other art forms did not. I have never really considered doing anything else .

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?

Try everything. Which,

interestingly, is the same advice that you might give someone if you were trying to drive them crazy.

10 I SoCal September 2013

If I were to follow you around to see art in Milan, which places would we go? What would we see?

Assuming that I could bend time and space, we would spend the day hitting all the big and small city museums across north Italy. They hold such fantastic assortments of art, history, artifacts, local oddities, civic records, donated collections. All of it cheek by jowl in a completely unfiltered way, with terrific interactions and cross references. Some of the most engaging exhibits around, with enthusiastic staffs- many of whom volunteer just for the love of the museum.

A Agenda

5th foor

Window Dressing Themed windows make brilliant vignettes on FIDM’s 5th floor.

By Dagmar Winston Photographs by Kyle Swinehart

EACH SEMESTER at fashIon school, FIDM, located in downtown

Los Angeles, the 5th floor is host to a variety of window displays created by the Visual Communication students.

Each semester they are given a theme and told to run with it. The results, quite often, are spectacular. This semester’s theme is nature and instructor Katherine LoPresti instructed students to build their window displays with “as much organic materials as possible.”

12 I SoCal September 2013

SWAG Labels inspired by chemistry formulas

by Hacao

Old-school rugby ball

by Eden park

IPAD cover

by Yuruliku

Suitness Dinner

by Henrik Vibskov

Pistacio bowl

by Poltrona Frau Base Station

by Hacao

Luggage bag

by Hugo Boss 14 I SoCal September 2013

Artichoke Pendant Shade

by Zipper8Lighting Desk Top Bag

by Yuruliku

Leather + Metal chair Animal USB

by Poltrona Frau

by Hacao

Mixtape Table Feff Skierka SoCal September 2013 I 15

-

ART FASHION MUSIC LA EVENTS FOOD + DRINK -

SoCal magazine’ premiere issue!

The independent LA magazine!

Discover the latest art, style, music and food trends emerging from LA streets.

Through vibrant photo-spreads and comprehensive scoops, SoCal showcases the uniquesness of LA.

For more information visit www.socalmag.com

16 I SoCal September 2013

September

The

issue

There is something about me physically which makes me look just a little bit

dangerous

18 I SoCal September 2013

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the America’s original

Interview by Patricia Danaher Photographed by Jonathon Hession

W

hen Dubliner Bram Stoker sat down to write his horror classic Dracula he could have been channelling actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Everyone working on the set of the upcoming NBC/Sky series of the same name, which airs later this year, says the Cork native was born to play the role.

It’s the whiff of danger around Rhys Meyers that makes him the perfect seductive vampire.

Speaking to me on the Budapest set of the new series, he’s inclined to agree.

He said: “I have to make him diabolical and erotic at the same time and let it pass between these two things so that it’s a balance between, ‘Oh my God, I’m really repulsed by this but I can’t stop watching.’”

Vampires have been everywhere in recent years, from True Blood to the Twilight phenomenon, but Rhys Meyers does a compelling and terrifying Dracula like you’ve never seen before.

He told me: “There’s something about me physically which makes me look a little dangerous. I have too much of the serpent in me to play someone erstwhile.

“I don’t get offered that many sweet parts because directors have this idea that I always want to be incredibly serious and that’s not necessarily the case.

“Parts like August Rush and Bend It Like Beckham are sadly

few and far between.

“I wouldn’t exactly call myself Twilight material! I’m nearly 36 and a bit older than most people think I am.

It’s hard to believe how much Rhys Meyers has packed into those years.

He’s made more than 30 movies, won a Golden Globe for playing Elvis in Diamond Goldmine and was nominated for another for his unforgettable portrayal of King Henry XIII on The Tudors.

He is represented by the Ennis-born uberagent Hylda Queally, who has clients like Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard on her books.

This is Jonathan’s first television show since those five years spent filming The Tudors in Co Wicklow.

He likes moving between film and television, likes being in Europe and is very happy to be working with two Irish actresses on Dracula.

Victoria Smurfit plays a seductive vampire killer, Lady Jane, and Katie McGrath, who worked with Jonathan on The Tudors, plays Lucy Westenra.

Jonathan said: “Katie is an angel who I’ve known for a long time and I’m incredibly fond of her. She’s very grounded and very well educated.

“Victoria has this incredible elegance that’s very different to Katie and she’s very, very powerful. It’s a pleasure to work with

SoCal September 2013 I 19

Jonathan playing

dracula women like that. They keep me in line.”

He was in a long-term relationship with heiress Reena Hammer for over eight years, but they split in 2012.

He now lives with Australian model Victoria Keon-Cohen in London.

He’s also reportedly been off the booze for a few years now after a series of embarrassing and very public incidents.

Everyone talks of how calm and focused he is on Dracula and how much he brings to the part.

He said of the filming: “I don’t get much time to go out really. I try to go home to London once a month, but I live very quietly here in Budapest. Some trips to restaurants with people are always nice.

“Hungarian is a very difficult language and mine is non-existent. There’s a charm in trying to communicate with people by not using a language. You have to search a little bit harder.”

Music has been a great passion of his for many years and he confesses that he thinks actors are really frustrated musicians.

His father John O’Keeffe is a musician, as are his three brothers, who are in a band called Suzy’s Field.

He said: “It’s a strange thing to say but music allows you to smell things and I think that’s really important.

“Being from a family of musicians, I, of course, love to play music — but I’m not allowed to play with my brothers because I’m not good enough! “‘You’re an actor,’ they say, ‘go act like you can sing, go act like you can play guitar!’ If I was in a fantasy band, I suppose my

20 I SoCal September 2013

ego would say that I would definitely have to be the lead singer.

“Robert Plant would definitely be there. I’d probably have Keith Moon on drums… Django Reinhardt.

“The backing singers would be Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s qawwali party. I would do a few duets with Sade, Billie Holiday and Aretha. Cole Porter would write our music.”

A rich fantasy life indeed, and why not given the range of dark roles he plays?

With all the versions of Dracula there have been, from Bela Lugosi to Gary Oldman, I wondered how terrifying it was to undertake such an iconic role?

Jonathan revealed: “Gary Oldman was pretty spectacular because he brought romance as well as horror and he balanced the pain with the monster. I am not afraid of not being as good as somebody else and I am not afraid of being better than somebody else.

“I think I’m old enough now not to be intimidated by those who have come before me.”

“Success has very little to do with me — beyond my performance and paying attention to what is happening on set. Success will be decided by the people who view it.”

“We are working very hard to make it as erotic, as entertaining and as provocative as we can possibly make it, so that people can enjoy it.

“I’ve taken my part of my interpretation of Dracula from the book, part of it from the history of Vlad Tepes himself and partly from my own personal experiences, both the good and the bad.”

SoCal September 2013 I 21

22 I SoCal September 2013

“The hardest part about acting is realizing it doesn’t matter.”

Confidentially from the

dracula movie set

When Dubliner Bram Stoker sat down to write his horror classic Dracula he could have been channelling actor Jonathan

It Like Beckham are sadly few and far between.

“I wouldn’t exactly call myself Twilight material! I’m nearly

Rhys Meyers. Everyone working on the set of the upcoming NBC/

36 and a bit older than most people think I am.. It’s hard to

Sky series of the same name, which airs later this year, says the

believe how much Rhys Meyers has packed into those years.

Cork native was born to play the role.

It’s the whiff of danger around Rhys Meyers that makes him

He’s made more than 30 movies, won a Golden Globe for playing Elvis in Diamond Goldmine and was nominated for

the perfect seductive vampire. Speaking to me on the Budapest

another for his unforgettable portrayal of King Henry XIII on

set of the new series, he’s inclined to agree.

The Tudors He is represented by the Ennis-born uberagent

He said: “I have to make him diabolical and erotic at the same time and let it pass between these two things so that it’s a balance between, ‘Oh my God, I’m really repulsed by this but I can’t stop watching.’”

Vampires have been everywhere in recent years, from True Blood to the Twilight phenomenon, but Rhys Meyers does a compelling and terrifying Dracula like you’ve never seen before.

He told me: “There’s something about me physically which makes me look a little dangerous. I have too much of the serpent in me to play someone erstwhile.

“I don’t get offered that many sweet parts because directors have this idea that I always want to be incredibly serious and that’s not necessarily the case. “Parts like August Rush and Bend

Hylda Queally, who has clients like Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard on her books.

Victoria Smurfit plays a seductive vampire killer, Lady Jane, and Katie McGrath, who worked with Jonathan on The Tudors, plays Lucy Westenra.

Jonathan said: “Katie is an angel who I’ve known for a long time and I’m incredibly fond of her. She’s very grounded and very well educated.

“Victoria has this incredible elegance that’s very different to Katie and she’s very, very powerful. It’s a pleasure to work with women like that. They keep me in line.”

He was in a long-term relationship with heiress Reena Hammer for over eight years, but they split in 2012.

SoCal September 2013 I 23

A Sense of Space Photographer Julius Schulman’s photography spread California Mid-century modern around the world. Carefully composed and artfully lighted, his images promoted not only new approaches to home design but also the ideal of idyllic California living — a sunny, suburban lifestyle played out in sleek, spacious, low-slung homes featuring ample glass, pools and patios.

By Peter Gossell Photographs by Julius Schulman SoCal September 2013 I 25

Even if you’re confused by the fork in the driveway, which slopes up to the Edenic apex of Laurel Canyon, or don’t recognize architect Raphael Soriano’s mid-century design landmark, you can’t miss Julius Shulman’s place. It’s the one with the eight-foot-high banner bearing his name—an advertisement for his 2005 Getty Museum exhibition “Modernity and the Metropolis”— hanging before the door to the studio adjoining the house.

As displays of ego go, it’s hard to beat. Yet the voice calling out from behind it is friendly, even eager—“Come on in!” And drawing back the banner, one finds, not a monument, but a man: behind an appealingly messy desk, wearing blue suspenders and specs with lenses as big as Ring Dings, and offering a smile of roguish beatitude.

You’d smile, too. At 96, Shulman is the best known architectural photographer in the world, and one of the genre’s most influential figures. Between 1936, when a fateful meeting with architect Richard Neutra began his career, and his semi-retirement half a century later, he used his instinctive compositional elegance and hairtrigger command of light to document more than 6,500 projects, creating images that defined many of the masterworks of 20th-century architecture. Most notably, Shulman’s focus on the residential modernism of Los Angeles, which included photographing 18 of the 26 Case Study Houses commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine between 1945 and 1967, resulted in a series of lyrical tableaux that invested the high-water moment of postwar American optimism with an arresting, oddly innocent glamour. Add to this the uncountable volumes and journals featuring his pictures, and unending requests for reprints, and you have an artist whose talent, timing, ubiquity, and sheer staying power have buried the competition—in some cases, literally.

Shulman’s decision to call it quits in 1986 was motivated less by age than a distaste for postmodern architecture. But, he insists, “it wasn’t quite retiring,” citing the ensuing decade and a half of lectures, occasional assignments, and work on books. Then, in 2000, Shulman was introduced to a German photographer named Juergen Nogai, who was in L.A. from Bremen on assignment. The men hit it off immediately, and began partnering on work motivated by the maestro’s brandname status. “A lot of people, they think, It’d be great to have our house photographed by Julius Shulman,” says Nogai. “We did a lot of jobs like that at first. Then, suddenly, people figured out, Julius is working again.”

“I realized that I was embarking on another chapter of my life,” Shulman says, the pleasure evident in his timesoftened voice. “We’ve done many assignments”—Nogai puts the number at around 70—“and they all came out

beautifully. People are always very cooperative,” he adds.

“They spend days knowing I’m coming. Everything is clean and fresh. I don’t have to raise a finger.” As regards the division of labor, the 54-year-old Nogai says tactfully, “The more active is me because of the age. Julius is finding the perspectives, and I’m setting up the lights, and fine-tuning the image in the camera.” While Shulman acknowledges their equal partnership, and declares Nogai’s lighting abilities to be unequaled, his assessment is more succinct: “I make the compositions. There’s only one Shulman.”

“The subject is the power of photography,” Shulman explains. “I have thousands of slides, and Juergen and I have assembled them into almost 20 different lectures.

And not just about architecture—I have pictures of cats and dogs, fashion pictures, flower photographs. I use them to do a lot of preaching to the students, to give them something to do with their lives, and keep them from dropping out of school.”

It all adds up to a very full schedule, which Shulman handles largely by himself—“My daughter comes once a week from Santa Barbara and takes care of my business affairs, and does my shopping”—and with remarkable ease for a near-centenarian. Picking up the oversized calendar on which he records his appointments, Shulman walks me through a typical seven days: “Thom Mayne— we had lunch with him. Long Beach, AIA meeting. People were here for a meeting about my photography at the Getty [which houses his archive]. High school students, a lecture. Silver Lake, the Neutra house, they’re opening part of the lake frontage, I’m going to see that. USC, a lecture.

Then an assignment, the Griffith Observatory—we’ve already started that one.”

Yet rather than seeming overtaxed, Shulman fairly exudes well-being. Like many elderly people with nothing left to prove, and who remain in demand both for their talents and as figures of veneration (think of George Burns), Shulman takes things very easy: He knows what his employers and admirers want, is happy to provide it, and accepts the resulting reaffirmation of his legend with a mix of playfully rampant immodesty and heartfelt gratitude.

As the man himself puts it, “The world’s my onion.”

Given the fun Shulman’s having being Shulman, one might expect the work to suffer. But his passion for picturemaking remains undiminished. “I was surprised at how engaged Julius was,” admits the Chicago auction-house mogul Richard Wright, who hired Shulman to photograph Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 prior to selling it last year. “He did 12 shots in two days, which is a lot. And he really nailed them.” Of this famous precision, says the writer Howard Rodman, whose John Lautner–designed

SoCal September 2013 I 27

home Shulman photographed in 2002: “There’s a story about Steve McQueen, where a producer was trying to get him to sign on to a movie. The producer said, ‘Look how much you change from the beginning to the end.’ And McQueen said, ‘I don’t want to be the guy who learns. I want to be the guy who knows.’ And Shulman struck me as the guy who knows.”

This becomes evident as, picking up the transparencies from his two most recent assignments, he delivers an impromptu master class. “We relate to the position of the sun every minute of the day,” Shulman begins, holding an exterior of a 1910 Craftsman-style house in Oakland, by Bernard Maybeck, to the lamp atop his desk. “So when the sun moves around, we’re ready for our picture. I have to be as specific as a sports photographer—even a little faster,” he says, nodding at the image, in which light spills through a latticework overhang and patterns a façade. If I’m not ready for that moment, I lose the day.” He does not, however, need to observe the light prior to photographing: “I was a Boy Scout—I know where the sun is every month of the year. And I never use a meter.”

Shulman is equally proud of his own lighting abilities.

“I’ll show you something fascinating,” he says, holding up two exteriors of a new modernist home, designed for a family named Abidi, by architect James Tyler. In the first, the inside of the house is dark, resulting in a handsome, somewhat lifeless image. In the second, it’s been lit in a way that seems a natural balance of indoor and outdoor illumination, yet expresses the structure’s relationship to its site and showcases the architecture’s transparency. “The house is transfigured,” Shulman explains.

“I have four Ts. Transcend is, I go beyond what the architect himself has seen. Transfigure—glamorize, dramatize with lighting, time of day. Translate—there are times, when you’re working with a man like Neutra, who wanted everything the way he wanted it—‘Put the camera here.’ And after he left, I’d put it back where I wanted it, and he wouldn’t know the difference—I translated.

And fourth, I transform the composition with furniture movement.”

To illustrate the latter, Shulman shows me an interior of the Abidi house that looks out from the living room, through a long glass wall, to the grounds. “Almost every one of my photographs has a diagonal leading you into the picture,” he says. Taking a notecard and pen, he draws a line from the lower left corner to the upper right, then a second perpendicular line from the lower right corner to the first line. Circling the intersection, he explains, “That’s the point of what we call ‘dynamic symmetry.’” When he holds up the photo again, I see that the line formed by the

28 I SoCal September 2013

bottom of the glass wall—dividing inside from outside— roughly mirrors the diagonal he’s drawn. Shulman then indicates the second, perpendicular line created by the furniture arrangement. “My assistants moved [the coffee table] there, to complete the line. When the owner saw the Polaroid, she said to her husband, ‘Why don’t we do that all the time?’”

Shulman’s remark references one of his signature gambits: what he calls “dressing the set,” not only by moving furniture but by adding everyday objects and accessories. “I think he was trying to portray the lifestyle people might have had if they’d lived in those houses,” suggests the Los Angeles–based architectural photographer Tim Street-Porter. “He was doing—with a totally positive use of the words—advertising or propagandist photographs for the cause.” This impulse culminated in Shulman’s introduction of people into his pictures—commonplace today, but virtually unique 50 years ago. “Those photographs—with young, attractive people having breakfast in glass rooms beside carports with two-tone cars—were remarkable in the history of architectural photography,” Street-Porter says. “He took that to a wonderfully high level.”

Surprisingly, Shulman underplays this aspect of his oeuvre. The idea, he explains, is simply to “induce a feeling of occupancy. For example, in the Abidi house, I put some wineglasses and bottles on the counter, which would indicate that people are coming for dinner.

Then there are times I’ll select two or three people—the owner of a house, or the children—and put them to work.

Sometimes it’s called for.”

“Are you pleased with these photographs?” I ask as he sets them aside. “I’m pleased with all my work,” he says cheerfully.

“I tell people in my lectures, ‘If I were modest, I wouldn’t talk about how great I am.’” Yet when I ask how he developed his eye, Shulman’s expression turns philosophical. “Sometimes Juergen walks ahead of me, and he’ll look for a composition. And invariably, he doesn’t see what I see. Architects don’t see what I see. It’s Godgiven,” he says, using the Yiddish word for an act of kindness—“a mitzvah.”

“Most people whose houses I photographed didn’t use their sliding doors,” Shulman says, crossing the living room toward his own glass sliders. “Because flies and lizards would come in; there were strong winds. So I told Soriano I wanted a transition—a screened-in enclosure in front of the living room, kitchen, and bedroom to make an indoor/outdoor room.” Shulman opens the door leading to an exterior dining area. A bird trills loudly. “That’s a wren,” he says, and steps out. “Beautiful.”

L

Last

Insights

Nuts Nuts include plenty of heart-healthy monosaturated fats and low levels of saturated fats. Some research suggests that people who eat nuts two or more times a week are less likely to be affected by heart disease than those who don’t. Stuck in a peanut butter rut? Add some pecans to your salad, bring raw almonds to work for a quick snack, or make homemade granola with walnuts.

STRAWBERRIES Strawberries pack a ton of serotonin-inducing natural sugars, plus a single cup of the fruit boasts 160 percent of your day’s vitamin C. A German study found that vitamin C helped clear out cortisol, the hormone responsible for stress-related symptoms like high blood pressure and hazy thinking.

6 best foods for your health

Blueberries

Well-known as a disease-fighting food, blueberries contain anthocyanins, the antioxidant which gives this fruit its dark blue color. With plenty of fiber, vitamin C, potassium and other nutrients, these tiny berries have a lot to offer. If plain berries aren’t your bag, try mixing some into your whole-grain cereal, tossing them into a fruit salad or whipping up some delicious healthy pancakes. Not a fan of blueberries? Many other berries are packed with anti-inflammatories, so feel free to stock up on raspberries, blackberries and cranberries instead.

Green mint tea Turns out one of the best “foods” for your heart is actually a drink. A steaming cup of green tea is chockfull of good-for-you catechins and flavonols. Some studies have shown that people who drink 12 or more ounces of tea a day are half as likely to have a heart attack as non-tea drinkers.

30 I SoCal September 2013

Dark chocolate Need an excuse to break off a piece of that tempting chocolate bar? Researchers have found that eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate has a blood-thinning effect, which can help your heart health and reduce inflammation. But this doesn’t mean you should give in to every chocoholic urge. For maximum health benefits, just limit yourself to one ounce a day, and remember to look for labels with 70 percent or more cocoa content.

Beans Legumes deserve their good reputation: they’re low in fat, high in fiber, and help improve cholesterol levels. Some studies indicate that just half a cup of cooked pinto beans every day helps lower your cholesterol. Not too shabby. Look for the more colorful beans (red and purple) because they usually contain extra flavonoids, the chemicals that act as antioxidants and can protect against heart disease.

SoCal September 2013 I 31