Soul LANA
DEL REY
talks inspiration & her new album
RICHARD AVEDON portrait of an artist
Art, culture, & wanderlust for the bohemian soul!
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Our top four organic L.A. based restaurants and juicing for the soul!
NOURISH
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Soul
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MARVEL Soul uncovers FIDM’s 5th Floor window displays!
Our top five playlist tracks and favorite packing essentials for your Big Sur summer roadtrip.
l! u o s n a i m e h o b he t r o f t s u l r e d an w & , e r u t l u c , t Ar
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Lana Del Rey talks her new album, songwriting, and making her life a work of art.
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Inspiration from the life and work of renowned photographer, Richard Avedon.
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Soul Publisher/Editor-In-Chief: Hugette Montesinos hugette@soul.com Fashion Editor: Cristina Horta Copy Editor: Christa Hester Marketing Director: Stacy Thomson Public Relations: Jainiz Sanchez Social Media Director: Autumn K. Tyler Assistant Beauty Editor: John James Muller Web/IT Director: Bryan Switalski Photographers: Josh Williams Brian Ziff Amanda Elkins Daniela Voicescu Dallas Nagata White Jessica Wertheim Writers: Jenina Singh Melanie Garcia Nicki Garcia Jessica Hoffman Beverly Garcia Suanny Garcia Sophia Salzberg Meghan Koski Amanda Stevens Nina Boutsikaris Gina Stornetta Brandon Tanimoto Natasha Marie Leite Interns: Janell Borrero Jennifer Avilez Kona Kai Wilson Leah Austin Tia Smith
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Editor’s Letter My Dearest Soulful Readers, Like no other, Soul Magazine is intended to touch the heart and soul of every young woman. By offering an array of articles and features full of REAL LIFE situations, awareness and advice for female-relevant interests, art of all forms, music and fashion, we hope to motivate and inspire the modern woman who must juggle the diversities and challenges of life, with style. We hope to also help build the role models of today’s society by offering tips on ways to get involved in the community and make this world a better place. With Soul Magazine, every young woman can be heard, through her heart-felt words of wisdom, or through the medium of art. The painters, illustrators, poets, songwriters, photographers and other artists will have the opportunity to showcase their talents and passions as a true expression of themselves in a publication that is for them and supports their innovative spirits. With that said, Disfunkshion is the magazine that motivates young women to proudly be themselves in this identity seeking society. Speak your mind & follow your heart.
Your forever friend,
Carrie Caitlin
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INTERSECT MARVEL. VENTURE. OUR TOP 4 ORGANIC EATS Soul’s four favorite Los Angeles-based organic, health-conscious restaurants.
We love juicing! DAILY DOSE CAFE, DOWNTOWN LA Artisanal food & beverages to satisfy the mind, body, and soul.
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CAFE GRATITUDE, VENICE BEACH 100% organic vegan, specializing in gourmet, vegan cuisines.
JUICING IS THE HOTTEST DETOX TREND OF 2014
URTH CAFFE, SANTA MONICA
America’s first exclusively organic coffea and tea.
EVO KITCHEN, WEST HOLLYWOOD
An eco-friendly space for vegan foodies, meat lovers, and gluten-free fans alike. Summer 2014
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INTERSECT NOURISH. VENTURE. Fifth Floor Displays
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A TRUE REFLECTION OF THE HOLLYWOOD ATMOSPHERE
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INTERSECT NOURISH. MARVEL. S
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let’s take a ROADTRIP
OUR TOP 5 ROADTRIP TRACKS Add these top tracks to your ultimate roadtrip playlist, roll your windows down, and cruise!
DIANA CAMERA
1. VACATIONER - “GOOD AS NEW”
Urban Outfitters $89
Escapist dream-pop peppered with heartfelt lyrics and genuine emotion.
2. LUCIUS - “UNTIL WE GET THERE”
An evocative mix of indie-pop and pedal steel-infused Americana.
3. HEY OCEAN! - “I AM A HEART”
BEACH BLANKET
A fusion of playfully punked-up party-pop and thoughtful, lyric-driven power ballads.
Anthropologie $218
RAY BAN AVIATORS Ray Ban $129
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SOUL’S GUIDE TO: ROADTRIP ESSENTIALS
4. ANDREW MCMAHON “SYNESTHESIA”
A soulful blend of electro-indie pop.
5. JOHNNY CASH & BOB DYLAN “GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY” One word: Classic.
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a L del y e R On her new album, imagination, and making her life a work of art. By: Marvin Scott Jarrett
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W
here I’m at now...calls for a cigarette,” Lana Del Rey decides with a laugh, drawing a Pall Mall from a pack and lighting it. Casually dressed in faded jean shorts, a chambray shirt, and brown loafers, her dark auburn hair piled on top of her head and held with a clip, the sad-core soul singer of “Video Games” fame might pass for the prettiest girl from high school--the one everyone assumed was aloof but who was probably just shy, the one who, yep, Facebook confirms it, is still pretty--were it not for a pair of lush, red carpet-ready lashes casting shadows across her cheeks with each blink. Geographically speaking, she’s at the midcentury home in the Hollywood Hills that she’s rented for the past year, lounging on a mod patio chair on the circular back deck that overlooks a glinting turquoise pool, a back canyon to the Sunset Strip, another hill, and, on less smoggy days, the Pacific Ocean. Her lease is up at the end of the week, and just inside, her belongings are half-packed for an impending move across town to a historic house she recently bought. Professionally, Del Rey, 27, is at a bit of an in-between place as well. More than 20 months have passed since the release of her breakthrough album, Born to Die, almost 12 since her follow-up EP Paradise, and yet the amount of bandwidth devoted to the baroque-pop star continues to balloon. She’s served as a muse for Mulberry and modeled for H&M. The day of our interview, Cedric Gervais’s dance remix of “Summertime Sadness,” a song not originally intended for formal release, shot up the Billboard charts to No. 6. She’s been traveling, and heard the track for the first time yesterday on her way to pick up groceries. “It’s very dance-y,” she says, almost in disbelief. “I love to dance--just never thought I would to my music.”
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rofessionally, Del Rey, 27, is at a bit of an in-between place as well. More than 20 months have passed since the release of her breakthrough album, Born to Die, almost 12 since her follow-up EP Paradise, and yet the amount of bandwidth devoted to the baroque-pop star continues to balloon. She’s served as a muse for Mulberry and modeled for H&M. The day of our interview, Cedric Gervais’s dance remix of “Summertime Sadness,” a song not originally intended for formal release, shot up the Billboard charts to No. 6. She’s been traveling, and heard the track for the first time yesterday on her way to pick up groceries. “It’s very dance-y,” she says, almost in disbelief. “I love to dance--just never thought I would to my music.” Her second-best-selling single in the U.S., “Young and Beautiful,” off this year’s The Great Gatsby soundtrack, just might be her most captivating to date, made for a film that complements her vintage aesthetic but, ironically, the one best suited to pure listening, lights off, tears streaming. This fall, the singer stars in a film of her own, Tropico, a short directed by Anthony Mandler. Meanwhile, demos from her hacked email accounts continue to surface online, including at least one she’d slated for her next full-length, tentatively scheduled for 2014.
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It’s no wonder she’s decided to chill out for a while and reboot. “Right now, I’m doing family and thinking about what I want to be doing,” she says. “I’m enjoying living easily, planting trees, things like that.” Del Rey’s gaze shifts to the window of a bedroom she shares with Barrie-James O’Neill, frontman of the Glaswegian alt-folk band Kassidy, and her boyfriend of a little more than two years. The two met after O’Neill’s manager sent him “Video Games” with the description: “Your future ex-wife.” He called asking to meet her, and they’ve been together ever since. The Pall Malls are his. “I’m just a little copycat,” she quips. “Plus, I don’t like to buy my own because I’m not a real smoker, you know?” She smiles, whispering that O’Neill and her younger brother, Charlie Grant, are inside, sleeping. “So if you see two six-foot-five, half-naked giants emerge, that is who they are.” It’s almost a mystery in itself how Del Rey has managed to remain an enigma. The think-piece police have been out in full force, screen-grabbing her digital bread crumbs in an attempt to connect the dots between a blonde, open-mic-circuit singer named Lizzy Grant and the pin-curled indie pinup-turned-Interscope buzz act who barreled to stardom after a much-discussed Saturday Night Live performance.
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G
oogle listed her in the top five performing artist searches of 2012, but the reviews for Born to Die were mixed, a response that matched the dichotomy of Del Rey’s persona--a mishmash of Priscilla and Ann-Margret, Jackie and Marilyn, Valencia-filtered to hazy perfection. Whether you were a critic, a member of the record-buying public, or Brian Williams, you had an opinion on her music. And you were also buying it: five million albums to date, 8.5 million singles. Almost two years later, the discourse appears to be shifting heavily in her favor--even some of the early critics have come around to acknowledge that Born to Die is unquestionably interesting and quite possibly a classic. With anticipation for her next album growing stronger by the minute, it may be time to ask: Has Lana Del Rey successfully transitioned from the most polarizing figure in popular music to the closest thing our contemporary culture has to an American icon? “Let’s go inside,” she says. As predicted, two giants emerge, though fully clothed. O’Neill wears a white T-shirt and Dark Side of the Moonthemed pajama pants, her brother: shorts and a tee. Del Rey jokes with them before giving a tour of the home under the watchful eye of a large pop-art rendering of Jackie Kennedy (a black-and-white photograph of Marilyn Monroe is wedged in the bottom right corner of the frame). She points to the pictures of Kurt Cobain and the Virgin Mary lining the baby grand’s music rack. It’s clear the singer has a thing for icons, but she says it’s a coincidence that her lifelong heroes happen to be the most famous people in the world. “I just thought Elvis was the most handsome person I had ever seen,” she says. “I thought I was the only one who knew.” Del Rey lifts a chandelier out of a box. “I picked this up in Australia--once all of its crystals are back on, it’s going to be great,” she says. Her decor plan for the new house: “the ‘70s in the South of France, lots of rattan, blue and gold, bamboo, and long curtains.” Del Rey is looking forward to the move--and not only for the house’s original wood detailing and natural light. “The neighborhood is really quiet,” she says. “The thing about being up here is that people can follow you; it’s harder to just be.” This article appeared originally in Nylon magazine.
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D R A H C I
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N O D E V A
Portrait of an Artist Fahey Klein presents a major retrospective of the photographers work. by: Kelly Smith
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“ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ACCUURATE. NONE OF THEM IS THE TRUTH.”
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hat do Jean Genet, Jimmy Durante, Brigitte Bardot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacques Cousteau, Andy Warhol, and Lena Horne have in common? They were a few of the many personalities caught on film by photographer Richard Avedon. For more than fifty years, Richard Avedon’s portraits have filled the pages of the country’s finest magazines. His stark imagery and brilliant insight into his subjects’ characters has made him one of the premier American portrait photographers. Born in New York in 1923, Richard Avedon dropped out of high school and joined the Merchant Marine’s photographic section. Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Within two years he had been “found” by an art director at Harper’s Bazaar and was producing work for them as well as Vogue, Look, and a number of other magazines. During the early years, Avedon made his living primarily through work in advertising. His real passion, however, was the portrait and its ability to express the essence of its subject. As Avedon’s notoriety grew, so did the opportunities to meet and photograph celebrities from a broad range of disciplines. Avedon’s ability to present personal views of public figures, who were otherwise distant and inaccessible, was immediately recognized by the public and the celebrities themselves. Many sought out Avedon for their most public images. His artistic style brought a sense of sophistication and authority to the portraits. More than anything, it is Avedon’s ability to set his subjects at ease that helps him create true, intimate, and lasting photographs.
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hroughout his career Avedon has maintained a unique style all his own. Famous for their minimalism, Avedon portraits are often well lit and in front of white backdrops. When printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline of the film in which the image was framed. Within the minimalism of his empty studio, Avedon’s subjects move freely, and it is this movement which brings a sense of spontaneity to the images. Often containing only a portion of the person being photographed, the images seem intimate in their imperfection. While many photographers are interested in either catching a moment in time or preparing a formal image, Avedon has found a way to do both. Beyond his work in the magazine industry, Avedon has collaborated on a number of books of portraits. In 1959 he worked with Truman Capote on a book that documented some of the most famous and important people of the century. Observations included images of Buster Keaton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pablo Picasso, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mae West. Around this same time he began a series of images of patients in mental hospitals. Replacing the controlled environment of the studio with that of the hospital he was able to recreate the genius of his other portraits with non-celebrities. The brutal reality of the lives of the insane was a bold contrast to his other work. Years later he would again drift from his celebrity portraits with a series of studio images of drifters, carnival workers, and working class Americans. Throughout the 1960s Avedon continued to work for Harper’s Bazaar and in 1974 he collaborated with James Baldwin on the book Nothing Personal. Having met in New York in 1943, Baldwin and Avedon were friends and collaborators for more than thirty years. For all of the 1970s and 1980s Avedon continued working for Vogue magazine, where he would take some of the most famous portraits of the decades. In 1992 he became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker, and two years later the Whitney Museum brought together fifty years of his work in the retrospective, “Richard Avedon: Evidence”. He was voted one of the ten greatest photographers in the world by Popular Photography magazine, and in 1989 received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London. Today, his pictures continue to bring us a closer, more intimate view of the great and the famous. Avedon died on October 1st, 2004.
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