STATUS Magazine feat. David Lachapelle

TIMES ARE A-CHANGIN’ FOR

DAVID LACHAPELLE

TIM BARBER

CAPTURES NEW YORK’S VICES THE CAMERA SUTRA OF

JOLIJN SNIJDERS MICHEL GONDRY HELMS THE GREEN HORNET

+ NOEL CLARKE HELLOGOODBYE LIL JON THE MORNING BENDERS RA RA RIOT THE WALKMEN YOON & BLOGGERS WEARING KHAKI HOLIDAY ACCENTS: FROM RED BAGS TO SAFARI HEELS

GERARD ESTADELLA TEACHES US HOW TO SHOOT IT

STATUS MESSAGE

Last Supper (2003) © DAVID LACHAPELLE, Courtesy of Fred Torres Collaborations

OH, SNAP! I

t’s always some important date in the calendar that makes you look back where you used to be in life. For us, it’s birthdays and new years. We have grown so much in 2010, both in size and experience. Our team has doubled, which really shows how small we were before, and now resembles a family. We have contacted, interviewed, and written about people, places, and events from around the world (all from the comforts of our laptops). We have outgrown our cozy little office and recently made the big leap to a more “grown up” space. Now, we are wrapping 2010 with our second Photo Issue which gave us the chance to stalk photographers we love!

David LaChapelle has been teasing us with his hyper-color photographs capturing the famous and infamous. If you’ve seen his surreal work (which I imagine everyone has), you can’t help but stare, study it, and be in awe. So to quench our curiosity for the cover photo (umm… hello, Michael Jackson!), we had to ask David, “How did you do that?” But he leaves the details out and credits it to the mystery and magic of the photoshoot.

All photography isn’t fantasy, so we wanted to include shutterbugs that look at life as it is. Jolijn Snijders keeps it real as she captures her subjects honestly and without the gloss of digital manipulation. Meanwhile, Tim Barber gets into the nitty-gritty of life and lets the subtleties in his photographs tell the story.

We’re also lucky to feature another visionary but on the motion picture tip. Michel Gondry has toyed with our minds with his film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But now, he has stepped away from the mind games and has gotten physical. With this, I mean his new film The Green Hornet which is packed with comedy and lots of action.

This year, we’ve faced 4 a.m. Skype interviews, planning shoots halfway around the world, and getting past the gatekeepers to the amazing people we want to feature. I hope we were able to give you a little bit of inspiration, imagination, and vision with each and every issue. It’s the end of the year but full of new beginnings. I’m excited for the new year and next interview.

Editor in Chief

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status Oh, Snap!

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

BRANDS........................................19 PLACES........................................22 SUBCULTURE....................................23 BEATS.........................................24 SCREEN........................................25 INK...........................................26 TECH PACK.....................................27 FACE PAINT....................................28 ABOUT FACE....................................29 STYLE ID......................................31 BRICK & MORTAR................................32 GO SEE........................................34 SWAG..........................................37 SNEAKERS......................................38 TEES..........................................40 DENIM.........................................41 KEYCHAINS & EYEWEAR...........................42 BAGS..........................................43 SWEATERS......................................44 DRESSES.......................................45 JEANS.........................................46 HEELS & WATCHES...............................47

54

60

Stonerokk

COOL KIDS DON’T DIE...........................48 DAVID URBANKE.................................50 SASHA RAINBOW.................................50 AUDIE UMALI...................................51 CYNTHIA ROSE..................................51

“Walk Among Us” by DINA GADIA

IMOGEN MORRIS CLARKE..........................52

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62

photo Diary by GERMINAL ROAUX

Tomato in STATUSPHERE

72

Marina and the Diamonds by JOLIJN SNIJDERS

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status Oh, Snap!

DECEMBER 2010 - JANUARY 2011

RA RA RIOT....................................53 DJ RUCKUS.....................................54 STONEROKK.....................................54 THE WALKMEN...................................55 HELLOGOODBYE..................................56 THE MORNING BENDERS...........................56 LIL JON.......................................57

JIMMY FONTAINE................................59 DINA GADIA....................................60 YOON..........................................60 KT AULETA.....................................61 EYOLA.........................................62 BEN GREENMAN..................................63 NOEL CLARKE...................................63 DAVID LACHAPELLE..............................64 JOLIJN SNIJDERS...............................72 TIM BARBER....................................76 MICHEL GONDRY.................................80 CHANEL SOHO DINNER............................85 SHOOT TO KILL ROXY............................86 YO UNIQLO.....................................86 NIGHT CLUB SEX CITY...........................87 SUPERKLASSE @ ENCORE..........................87 NYFW Seven & A. Wang Party....................88 NYFW ZAC POSEN PARTY..........................88 SOIREE @ REPUBLIQ.............................89 CRAZY SEXY COOL...............................89 STATUS NIGHTLIFE ISSUE RELEASE PARTY..........90 HYDE IN HOLLYWOOD.............................90

statusMAGONLINE.COM

JASON JEAN....................................94 TERRY RICHARDSON’S HEAVENLY STUDIO............100

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HELLOGOODBYE

JIMMY FONTAINE

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LIL JON

56 Blogsphere Be on the pulse of fashion, music, and urban lifestyles that tickle our fancy through our community of bloggers worldwide.

Go See Look to the streets for your fashion inspiration. From Manila to New York, we spot the most stylish kids trotting the globe.

FEATURES NEW! Bringing you outtakes and more of our original interviews.

Because we can’t get enough of all the awesome out there.

Night Vision Your personal pass to pool parties, barbecues, festivals, and other events. Now let’s party!

Photo Diary A photo is worth a thousand words, so we decided to find out what these talented photographers have to say.

Digital Magazine Get STATUS at a click of your finger. You can browse the full digital format magazine at the comfort of your computer.

DOWNLOADS Stay on top of the game with STATUS-approved mixtapes and wallpapers. All free!

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THE MORNING BENDERS

“

F

or me…it’s Michael [Jackson],” our cover artist—master of hypersaturated and issue-charged celebrity portraits, pioneer of digital manipulation— David LaChapelle insists about this photo, The Beatification: I’ll never let you part for you’re always in my heart(2009).

He continues, “The very key people who were involved in the photograph knew it was a very, very complicated way to photograph…but I can’t get into details [of] how they were made because I made promises.” He can be a little cryptic about it, but one thing is certain: it’s perfect for this photo issue.

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CONTRIBUTORS

CHRISTINE BRAGANZA

GERARD ESTADELLA

GIANO D. DIONISIO

NICK ST. JAMES

All Christine wants for Christmas is for girls to realize that tights are not pants.

She doesn’t remember if she was wearing either in this picture, but she does recall that it was during a shoot she styled for our previous Art Issue. This time, she plays writer, capturing photographer KT Auleta’s (61) inner wild child.

A scene circuit fixture, Gerard likes to document and DJ for all yesterday’s, today’s, and tomorrow’s parties.

He shares his frisky, celeb-studded photos in our Night Vision (85) and on his site, icanteachyouhowtodoit. com. In case you’re wondering, Gerard can also “teach you how to make the best sushi in the hood.”

STATUS’ youngest, Gio was just baptized with his ninja name, D-SIÓN. He talks in acronyms and loves to be photographed in beads, scarves, and boots.

Although he didn’t need to be a ninja to stalk hellogoodbye (56), he had to wear a bowtie.

See how he shows some skin in his textual confession about photographer Jolijn Snijders (72).

STATUS neighbor and first Art Director Nick shies away from pictures of himself; he’s more comfortable behind the lens. Having photographed some of K-pop’s biggest names, he’s now on the prowl for girl group So Nyeo Shi Dae. In the meantime, he adds Lil Jon (57), shot with his trusty analog cam in under five minutes, to his portfolio.

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Rosario Herrera ART DIRECTOR: Nicole Bianca Po CREATIVE MEDIA DIRECTOR: Patrick L. Jamora ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Nante Santamaria FEATURES EDITOR: Kristine Dabbay MARKETING DIRECTOR: Jon Herrera ASSOCIATE MARKETING DIRECTOR: Mesh Villanueva JUNIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Jerdan Buenaventura, Jon Tuason GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Patrick Diokno, Soleil Ignacio, Darwin Manibog “Film Forever!”—ironically taken with iPhone’s Hipstamatic app.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Giano D. Dionisio, Reena Mesias, Loris Peña INTERNS: Rich Caramat, Edi Chan CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Christine Braganza, Liza Constantino, Paolo Cruz, Toff de Venecia, Nabil Elderkin, Don Jaucian, Tippy Kintanar, Amanda Lopez, Joseph F. Nacino, Carina Santos CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Barry Ambrosio, KT Auleta, Life Balibalos, Tim Barber, Kevin Bautista, Jonathan Caballa, Asger Carlsen, The Cobrasnake, Matthew Coleman, Linda Cooper, Carlos Creencia, Elvis Di Fazio, Brian Dowling, Gerard Estadella, Brandon Ferlin, Jimmy Fontaine, Doron Gild, Pieter van Hattem, Jon Herrera, Dorothy Hong, Gil Inoue, Jason Jean, Gabor Klima, Nick Knight, David LaChapelle, Stevyn Llewellyn, Claire Martin, Ming Han Chung, Miguel Miranda, Lemi Palermo, Geordy Pearson, Jenni Porkka, Germinal Roaux, Nuk Romualdez, Paolo Ruiz, Nante Santamaria, Jolijn Snijders, Nick St. James, Linn Heidi Stokkedal, Melvin Sun, David Urbanke, Kristiina Wilson SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS: Jenny Gapan, Rich Rama, Verbal

STATUSMAGONLINE.COM CONTRIBUTING BLOGGERS: Rich Caramat, Kristine Dabbay, Giano D. Dionisio, Reena Mesias, Loris Peña CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Mari Barroso, Kevin Bautista, Lisa Butler, Patrick Dayot, Drew Echberg, Katrina Encanto, Julian Loh, Hagen Madrigal, Reena Mesias, Chris Moody, Alexander Nevolin, Kaz Onozawa, Lemi Palermo, Rosina Photography, Sao Salinda, Melvin Sun 16 - statusmagonline.com

What’s your STATUS? Email us.

EDITORIAL editorial@statusmagonline.com ADVERTISING advertise@statusmagonline.com MARKETING marketing@statusmagonline.com INTERNSHIP intern@statusmagonline.com GENERAL INQUIRIES info@statusmagonline.com Read our digital version STATUSMAGONLINE.COM/DIGITAL-MAGAZINE Follow us twitter.com/statusmagazine STATUS is published by Whiz Kids Publishing. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

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BRANDS / PLACES / SUBCULTURE / BEATS /

SCREEN / INK

OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2010

cult leaders P

arisian duo NOUS SOMMES (Fr. “we”) immortalizes some of fashion and music’s most celebrated personalities via their eyecatching pendants. Whether it’s silver or black, these miniature Karl Lagerfeld, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, and even Lady Gaga pendants dangling from your neck show your devotion. Say “Oui!” to “we,” and pay your respects.

noussommesblog.blogspot.com

SUGAR C

RUSH

OPPERWHEAT’s Brave New World Spring 2011 collection will take you higher than expected with its printed suits and colorful tops. Named after Aldous Huxley’s futuristic novel, this line’s tailored harem pants and bright tees made by cousins Ben and Lee Copperwheat will advance your style by leagues, the same way the novel did.

WOODN’T IT BE NICE? I

magine wearing wayfarers handcrafted from Mandrone wood and furnished with Carl Zeiss lenses. That is the definition of SHWOOD. Its designs incorporate rusty cabinet hinges and rare, sometimes polarized, lenses giving them an overall authentic structure. Who said going green only applies to food? It’s right in front of your eyes.

shwoodshop.com

copperwheat.usa

G.I. JANE A

lso known as Ms. Sniper, she shoots military chic straight in the bullseye with TOMATO’s pre-holiday collection. Utilitarian wear is her favorite uniform because it gives her the excuse to march to parties with a risqué attitude.

Enlist your style with the colors brown, khaki, and green for a sure tactical advantage.

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TIME WARP N

o one knows if Chaz Matses, creator of VICIOUS HISTORY, aced his history class, but his tee line shows he’s quite fond of the subject. His designers incorporate a bloody Marie Antoinette and a harassed Napoleon Bonaparte materialized in linework portraits.

It’s too early to say that this line is bound to make history, but it definitely has killer tees.

vicioushistory.com

LOOKIN R

FLY

ecycling has never been as sweet as LITTLEFLY’s creations. Pages from used books are processed and then bejeweled to create glossy rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings that are far from easy to replicate. A closer look on the surface will let you see lines from novels and, true enough, wearing them is indeed a novel idea.

C

littlefly.co.uk

SOCK STAR

alifornia-based STANCE executes a perfect 360 flip with its line of multicolored action-sport socks made with combed cotton, elastic archbands, mesh vents, and selfadjusting welt cuffs that are great for either skating or just scoring a fashion statement.

You might as well roll up your jeans or start wearing shorts just to rock your socks.

stance.com

GOING

BONKERS MENTAL makes people go crazy with the brand’s twisted take on urban fashion. Some of their favorite medications are slanted necklines, insect prints, scattered hardware, and zigzag cuts. Once you’ve been treated, you’ll keep your sanity and feel stylishly sensible in your deliriously suave clothes. Don’t forget your razor blade necklace!

DRESS CODE

B

ritish gentleman A. Sauvage outfits the sleek and sophisticated in his line of trad menswear, THIS IS NOT A SUIT, a modern guy’s guide to ensemble etiquette.

Setting the standards for the winter season, Sauvage augments Savileworthy tailoring with mohair evening coats, flannel country blazers, pleated corduroys, and knitted wool ties.

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PICTURE

PERFECT S

trike a pose with Australian brand SHAKUHACHI’s newest collection including maxi floral skirts, cropped corsets, and wide leg jumpsuits for that boho look. With Jessie White’s approach to free-style design, the ladies are ready to let loose.

shakuhachi.net.au

TOUGH RIDE

FITTING

S

toked Inc. stashes badass apparel from the more badass Freestyle Motocross team, METAL MULISHA. From its tees and fleece hoodies to boardshorts and swimwear, this line is for extreme sports men (and women!) who do the best kiss of death in town.

But for those who just want to plop some rebel flavor to their wardrobes, Metal Mulisha makes it easy with their trademark military-helmeted skull and punk look.

DOUBLETS N

ot only do KAI-AAKMANN’s utilitarian pieces keep a timeless appeal; its loose shapes and neutral palette with contrasting shots of red also give couples a light bulb moment. Now, they can set themselves apart by going for matching trench coats, parachute parkas, or printed raglan sweatshirts, and give those couple tee makers a run for their money.

metalmulisha.com

kai-aakmann.com

VOLT IN

D

apper men everywhere must be rejoicing over the arrival of shoe design newcomer MAKOTO TAGUCHI. He makes footwear in slightly pinched leather with bumps, nubs, and perforations, but the most remarkable pairs are the lace-up derbies that transform into classic work boots, taking his work from just innovative to sensational.

showtime.arts.ac.uk/makototaguchi

FUTURAMA W

ith his array of high-octane, out-ofthis-galaxy glamour that can only be described as Star Trek meets Where the Wild Things Are, it’s no wonder BRIAN LICHTENBERG is the designer of choice for power pop girls Katy Perry and Beyoncé. To unleash your inner pop diva, go for his hologram bodysuits, fur boots, webbed lace stockings, and shimmery hoodies.

brianlichtenberg.com

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/PLACES

RESTAURANT

ORIENTAL BUZZ T

ravel no further because internationally known CRYSTAL JADE LA MIAN XIAO LONG BAO has finally opened in Manila to offer authentic Chinese cuisine. This award-winning restaurant serves the hand-pulled noodles La Mian and the steamed pork dumpling Xiao Long Bao. It also prides itself for having a vegetarian menu and a culinary taste that draws inspiration from Cantonese dining and Western boutique cafes.

But don’t worry because no VISA is necessary; you only need one quick reservation for this food trip.

crystaljade.com

HOTEL

VAINGLORIOUS BASTARDS W

alk victoriously through the quilted velveteen double doors, past the chrome pillars, and into VANITY—Las Vegas’ newest hotspot located at the Hard Rock Hotel. Its marble bars, linen tapestry, onyx catwalk, and infused pearl, bronze, and gold embellishments redefine what upscale clubbing is all about. A centerpiece cyclone chandelier lit up by 20,000 crystals even hangs at the venue’s heart to pump life into the crowd.

The antique mirrors are a reminder that this place, as its name suggests, is all about you. Whether indulging at a VIP booth or thrashing on the sunken dance floor, you’ll feel that you’re the center of attention, especially the ladies whose comfort rooms are bedecked parlors with an attendance of hair stylists, manicurists, makeup artists, and full-length three-way mirrors. Here, vanity ain’t a sin; it’s a lifestyle!

vanitylv.com

BAR

STAR TREATMENT S

tep into the veranda of LA’s W Hollywood hotel, and you’ll find STATION HOLLYWOOD, a lounge bar amid swaying palm trees and glowing city lights. The decks are accented with silver ottomans, Sonokeling wood tables, and curvy couches fit for Ari Gold. Their berry smoothies, muddled fruit cocktails, hallmarked California wines, and sparkling martinis are great for a pre-Hyde pick-me-up. If you see flashes before your eyes from all the VIP service, don’t panic; it’s probably just the paparazzi.

stationhollywood.com

F OOD

JACK FROSTING

Make room in your stockings for SWEET PATTI CAKES’ jolly delights.

sweetpatticakes.com

OOEY GOOEY PEANUT BUTTER Creamy peanut butter cupcake sprinkled with chocolate chips.

Photos by Barry Ambrosio

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LOTSA LEMON Buttery cupcake filled with zesty lemon flavor.

BANANA BLISS Made with fresh bananas and a sweet cream cheese whip.

/ S U B C U LT U R E

WHISTLE FOR PEACE

I

or the guys behind the online photography magazine I LOVE THAT PHOTO, there is no right or wrong way to look at things.

Serving as a pool for displaying works of universal amateurs, getting-there snappers, and professional photographers, this curated online gallery may lack photos that follow the rules of composition and exposure, but it’s exactly the unique, varied interpretations and aesthetics behind them that’s worth the feature.

While each shutterbug’s thought is caught on subjects

like graffiti, stacks of logs, an empty street, or a blurry image of a woman holding a fruit, they also get to explain what photography is to them in the short interview accompanying their work. And aren’t you just curious to know their own introspections?

Browse the magazine, and find yourself uttering “I love that photo” several times.

You won’t even be able to resist borrowing some to adorn your computer screens. REENA MESIAS

Photo by Gabor Klima

F

fallingwhistles.com

n Marti aire

by Cl Photo

SHOOT-AND-DUMP

cause fronting as an accessory line. Whistle-wearers include Beyoncé, Gwyneth Paltrow, will.i.am, Chad Michael Murray, and Jessica Biel.

Besides 100% of their sales supporting children in Congo, Falling Whistles creates a coalition of peace advocates who speak not through words but by looking extra sharp with bling on. TIPPY KINTANAR

Photo by Linn Heidi Stokkedal

t all started with Sean Carasso’s journal entry about the plight of Congo children fighting in the world’s deadliest war. Sent as an email to family and friends back home in the US, it turned viral, rapidly raising awareness as Carasso returned home with a burning advocacy.

FALLING WHISTLES, named

after a line in Carasso’s email that read “With falling whistles, their only choice is to feign death or face it.” is a global

ilovethatphoto.net

Photo by Jonathan Caballa

w Coleman Photo by Matthe

CHATTERBOX

Blogger collective New Slang’s GRADE SCHOOL FOR YUPPIES is a unique venue for those tired of Skype chats and Facebook feeds.

Every event is a new social pow-wow with former, current, and wannabe rockers (in their own right) who share experiences based on prompts that range from metrophilia to decade-you-grew-up-in nostalgia. Get your gab on! GIANO D. DIONISIO

new-slang.com/grade-school-for-yuppies

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MUSIC REVIEWS

DJ RUCKUS

causeruckus.com Ricky L ft. MCK – “Born Again (Balearic Soul Party Mix)” This song has the sexiest pounding drum pattern. I love ethnic and Latin house more than any other style of dance or electronic music because the warmth of organic instruments are still present with an electronic or dance tempo.

Taio Cruz – “Dynamite” I really appreciate how Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco are making pop dance music part of mainstream American music.

It’s not quite house, but I think it’s a step towards getting the American consumer to appreciate house. This is some of their best work.

Thom Yorke – “Black Swan” This song makes me feel amazing when my day is starting. His vocal tone, the bass line, and drums are hypnotic. I listen to it when I’m running at home in LA. Rick Ross – “Blowin’ Money Fast (B.M.F.)” I lived in Atlanta for a few years while I was learning to produce with Dallas Austin. Since then, I’ve always had a place in my heart for Down South hip-hop. This is the hottest Southern record now.

It just goes off in the club!

Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP– “We No Speak Americano” This song has remarkably broad appeal. There really are few other dance records like it right now. All over the world, I play this song for people of all ages, and the reaction is always crazy.

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YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS yourimaginarymusic.com

Kevin Barnes of OF MONTREAL ofmontreal.net

The xx – “Heart Skipped a Beat” Humid and ominous, sensual yet sad, this is the band’s common favorite.

It’s a break-up song that segues smoothly to the make-up sex.

The SA-RA Creative Partners – “Love Czars” ‘Cause it sounds like Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra if they were born a few decades later and got into slicing beats.

The Pixies – “Hey” If we are going to get a life sentence and spend eternity listening to this, we will choose not to be pardoned. We are chained.

Popsicle – “Histrionics” Eric thought this song was written by the mid90s Rivermaya with Rico Blanco testing the waters with his newfound penchant for the divine Swedish accent. But nope, it is from a Swedish indie band.

God bless Popsicle.

Phoenix – “Long Distance Call” We admit to have first heard it from The Camerawalls when they covered it.

It sure was love at first note.

The Postal Service – “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” “And I am finally seeing why I was the one worth leaving.” Now, what else can we cry about if not that line?

Sadness is downplayed yet obvious. Gibbard is God.

Sly and the Family Stone – “Somebody’s Watching You” ‘Cause it’s funky, sexy, clever, and clean.

black for mojo.

Parliament – “Ride On” ‘Cause it teaches us exactly how to train our house cats to turn their teeth Stevie Wonder – “Superwoman” ‘Cause he is an impossibility and oh so glorious.

Outkast – “Player’s Ball” ‘Cause they are the second coming.

ON THE SPOT

LISTEN UP, EARTHLINGS W

hile Gaijin means “nonJapanese” or “alien,” it is also a band composed of the multiracial mix of Jesse Grinter (vocals and guitars), Shinji Tanaka (drums), and Raimund Marasigan (bass). They aren’t giving too much thought about music accessibility. “We just play what we like and hope it turns out well. It’s just rock and roll, not rocket science,” Raimund says.

The way Jesse puts it, their music is the “sound of deafening silence…a beautiful and dangerously cacophonous stew of emotional treble and irrational bass influenced by life, music, film, food, and Dr. Wayne Coyne.”

He met Raimund at SaGuijo in 2008 where they bonded over similar music tastes. Jesse sessioned for an album that Raimund produced in a studio owned by Shinji. The three jammed, and before long, the trio recorded their album welcome back earthlings influenced by The Clash, The Flaming Lips, The White Stripes, Wilco, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan.

These self-confessed “aliens” are challenged by something “not unique to the band as [any] musician/artist takes a certain amount of illogical discipline and insanity,” Jesse says. But their minor glitches are actually what makes them relatable. A mere propaganda?

All Raimund could say is that Jesse has “plans of conquering the universe, so prepare for a takeover soon.” RICH CARAMAT

LISTEN UP

FOLK TALES Iron & Wine returns with Kiss Each Other Clean showing that Sam Beam is beyond the soundtrack fame of Garden State’s “Such Great Heights” and Twilight’s “Flightless Bird, American Mouth.” Expect this follow up for The Shepherd’s Dog (2007) to offer more refined laments besides ditties that made Sam a cut above the rest from his folk contemporaries. So cozy up with his pillowy tunes, and pile it up with some Nick Drake and Sufjan Stevens for a warm music camp this season.

/SCREEN

MOVIE REVIEWS

PL AYBACK

William EGGLESTON IN THE REAL WORLD (2002)

B

efore Juergen Teller, Nan Goldin, Larry Clark, and Sofia Coppola, there was William Eggleston, the man who elevated color photography to the realm of fine art.

In the documentary William Eggleston in the Real World, Michael Almereyda

narrates how Eggleston shook the foundations of classic photography by innovating composition, saturating prints with color via dye transfer printing (a method previously exclusive to commercial photography), and shooting things usually left out of the frame. In Eggleston’s photos, household clutter, a light bulb on a red ceiling, and a dirty old windbreaker on an unpainted wall are telling.

Almereyda tries to milk some navel-gazing from the painfully laconic photographer as the man shoots in and around town or hangs out with family and friends. Eggleston responds, “Whatever it is with photography, it’s impossible to follow up with words.”

Voicing over “What William Eggleston’s photos tell us is that ‘Everything is worth looking at,’” Almereyda insightfully sums up all the things that the photographer would not verbalize. As the photographer would capture his own innocuous subjects, Almereyda tells us in this documentary: mundanity is also a cultural legacy.

AMANDA LOPEZ

CINEMANTICS

THE GREEN HORNET (January 2011) B

eing Michel Gondry’s first big budget film when he is known for his independent masterpieces like The Science of Sleep, The Green Hornet is bound to be different from today’s superhero flicks. It’s refreshing, second, because it’s a comedy. And third, it’s exciting because it has Seth Rogen growing as a screenwriter and portraying a debonair media magnate with his slimmer physique to match rising Asian actor Jay Chou’s martial art chops.

The two play the role of Britt Reid and Kato to form The Green Hornet— motivated to end the city’s criminal underworld ruled by Chudnofsky. Cameron Diaz, meanwhile, plays Britt’s sexy secretary, Lenore Case.

But beyond its girls, guns, and guts formula—the movie succeeds in injecting humor to its supposedly tragic premise.

Like every other superhero with a personal issue, Britt is consumed by his vision fueled by the loss of a father. This is why he shifts from being a playboy

AS THE PHOTOGRAPHER WOULD CAPTURE HIS OWN INNOCUOUS SUBJECTS, [THE FILM] TELLS US… MUNDANITY IS ALSO A CULTURAL LEGACY

to being a crime fighter. This kind of conversion may not be as in Gondry’s other films, but The Green Hornet still makes the viewer dream of a better world, only through kicks and quips. KRISTINE DABBAY

THE GREEN HORNET STILL MAKES THE VIEWER DREAM OF A BETTER WORLD, ONLY THROUGH KICKS AND QUIPS

DIRECTOR’S CUT

BOUNCING CATS (2010)

PROJECT UGANDA IS ABOUT UNITING AND EMPOWERING THE KIDS OF UGANDA WITH HIP-HOP/B-BOYING AS THE TOOL

From shooting portraits and videos for the likes of Kid Cudi, John Legend, Rihanna, and Kanye, NABIL ELDERKIN is debuting as a film director with his documentary, Bouncing Cats. The movie translates Nabil’s love for backlit profile shots, slow shutter speeds, and smoky environments into high-contrast cinematography that’s been lauded at film festivals including Urbanworld, Newport Beach, and BendFilm.

I didn’t go from photographer to filmmaker. I would like to be both organically, but the film Bouncing Cats is something I pitched to Red Bull Media House after a trip to Uganda with international development organization, Oxfam, whose main goal is to eliminate global poverty.

There was no preparation process. It just happened after a first main trip, about five followup trips, and lots of watching, listening, and rewatching.

Uganda really had an impact on me, and I met Abramz Tekya, the main character in the documentary, on the first trip. What he was doing

with the children was very inspiring and something I felt I would like to capture and share with others.

I have a bit of history working in breakdance and hip-hop music in general. Project Uganda is about uniting and empowering the kids of Uganda with hip-hop/b-boying as the tool. There is a lot of sacrifice and hard work from their members to sustain the classes and to travel to spread the energy, and hopefully, the film can shed some light on their situation and empower others in some way.

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BOOK REVIEWS

READING GROUP

McSWEENEY’S QUARTERLY CONCERN ISSUE 36 Edited by Dave Eggers

M

cSweeney’s has been publishing works by Stephen King, Michael Chabon, David Foster Wallace, and Joyce Carol Oates.

But besides having the best writers—including, of course, its founder, Dave Eggers—it has been known for exceeding people’s expectations.

It’s always a surprise to find out how their next issue will be. For example, its Issue 33 included a newspaper and two magazines with contributions from Nicholson Baker and Salman Rushdie. Issue 28 had eight volumes in a board tray with narratives from Daniel Alarcón and Brian Evenson.

Coming in a 275-cubicinch full-color head-crate, the

hardcover version of Issue 36 is no exception. Gems inside include the 100-page annotated fragment of Michael Chabon’s lost novel as well as new stories by John Brandon and Colm Tóibín. It also has Jack Pendarvis’ “Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree” and a play by Wajahat Ali. The McSweeney promise: “It will fit on your shelf, it is compatible with most hats, and the stuff inside is wonderful…” It is this humor and verve that makes McSweeney’s a success. Just don’t let the dopey packaging fool you; it’s a treasure chest for indie literary fulfillment. JOSEPH F. NACINO

“IT WILL FIT ON YOUR SHELF, IT IS COMPATIBLE WITH MOST HATS, AND THE STUFF INSIDE IS WONDERFUL…”

PICTURE BOOK

BEN JONES: MEN’S GROUP BLACK MATH Edited by Dan Nadel

I

n Ben Jones’ world, life’s madness is blown into violent Day-Glo colors. His works have been available in paintings (he’s one-third of the kooky art collective Paper Rad), music videos (like M.I.A’s “Boyz” and Beck’s “Gameboy Homeboy”), TV shows (he worked in Nickelodeon’s deliriously trippy Yo Gabba Gabba) and even in furniture (ladders, blocks, and benches resembling 8-bit pixel art).

He owes all of this to a handy waterproof notebook since most of his ideas come while he is in the shower.

In the latest collection of his works, Ben Jones: Men’s Group Black Math, Jones takes inspiration from ordinary stuff like Saturday

morning cartoons and 80s video games. Featuring Jones’ take on contemporary male consciousness, the book is bound in dark blue denim and explores the concepts of masculinity through strong line sculptures, paintings, picture storytelling, and digital creations. Accompanying these are selected texts from Jones’ admired men including writer Keith McCulloch, artists Peter Saul and Joe Bradley, and gallerist Phil Grauer.

Men’s Group Black Math offers Jones’ signature neonlit world, geometric spaces, and frazzled animated characters that always make for an interesting foray into the recesses of normalcy in everyday things, manly or not. DON JAUCIAN

AN INTERESTING FORAY INTO THE RECESSES OF NORMALCY IN EVERYDAY THINGS, MANLY OR NOT

O ne - S ittin g s

YOU MIGHT BE A ZOMBIE AND OTHER BAD NEWS: SHOCKING BUT UTTERLY TRUE FACTS

By Cracked.com

S

upposing zombies are just fictitious monstrous creatures, one should be secure with a lack of shotgun and axewielding skills, but this book’s selection of obscure facts might just convince you otherwise.

In You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News, the cranks of Cracked.com put together an anthology of little known findings that

can cause mass hysteria and paranoia to those daring enough to pick it up. For one thing, it exposes the truth that behind the cute and cuddly reputation of dolphins, they’re highly violent sexcapading animals.

Not that humans are exempt from the horror. Do you know that a certain brain parasite present in 50% of human beings may or may not turn us all into the walking

dead? Maybe it’s time to follow Zombieland rules.

It does, however, report some success stories. For instance, there’s Francis Crick’s discovery of DNA while high on LSD and Freud’s theories driven by cocaine dependency. Shocking?

Heck, yeah. Bogus? Not quite.

Still, the adage holds: Let the buyer beware. LIZA CONSTANTINO

AN ANTHOLOGY OF LITTLE KNOWN FINDINGS THAT CAN CAUSE MASS HYSTERIA AND PARANOIA

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tech pack NIKON COOLPIX • 12.1 megapixels • 5x wide-angle zoom Nikkor lens • Built-in video projector • 30 frames per second VGA video SRP: $350

HASSELBLAD H4D-31 FERRARI • 31 megapixels • 80mm lens • Exclusive Ferrari design up to glass casing • Only 499 units available SRP: $13,579

HOCUS-FOCUS Nowadays, there are more ways than one, two, or 3D to capture a moment.

FUJI FINEPIX REAL 3D W3 • 3x optical zoom Fujinon lens • Interchangeable 2D/3D/twopicture functions • JPEG/MPO/AVI/3D-AVI compatible SRP: $500

SONY CYBERSHOT TX9 LOOXCIE • 320x240 VGA resolution camera • Real-time recording syncs with smartphone • Connects wirelessly via apps • Functions as mobile Bluetooth headset

• 12.2 megapixels • 4x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens • Intelligent 3D sweep panorama • 30 frames per second AVCHD/MP4 video • Comes in gold, black, and red SRP: $399

SRP: $199

statusmagonline.com - 27

face paint

MAC Prep+Prime Skin Brightening Serum, $40

OPI Black Onyx, $5.97

Bare Escentuals Essential Brow Color, $11

Manic Panic Raven™ Lipstick, $10.80

Murad Hybrids™ Skin Perfecting Primer Matte Finish, $35

Make Up For Ever HD Kabuki Brush, $39

Smashbox Eye Shadow, $16

Color me BAD What tough girls are made of.

Smashbox Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder, $59

Estée Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Eye Pencil, $19

YSL Everlong Lengthening Mascara, $30 Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette, $24

NARS Eyelash Curler, $20

Stila Smudge Pot, $20

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Smashbox Eye Shadow, $16

about face SATIN-SMOOTH L’OCCITANE ALMOND SUPPLE SKIN OIL restores the skin’s elasticity, so it is very ideal for preventing stretch marks.

EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN

TO THE SHOWERS Fluffy and creamy, LUSH ALMOND AND COCONUT SMOOTHIE is not a drink.

It’s a soap enriched with vitamin E which protects skin cells from celldamaging free radicals.

Smells like vanilla, too!

SOFTER SIDE

Dry and rough skin won’t stand a chance with JURLIQUE ALMOND CARRIER OIL. Also great for aromatherapy and massage, this sweet almond oil provides instant relief for muscle pains.

beauty bite

E S A C T U N

We’re not ashamed to admit that we’re crazy… crazy for these almond-infused products.

NO GREASE Other than orange oil, BURT’S BEES CITRUS FACIAL SCRUB also has finely ground almonds and almond oil that gently exfoliate and moisturize without the greasy feel.

Photo from Diesel Black Gold

There’s a reason why KIEHL’S ULTRA FACIAL MOISTURIZER has been a favorite since the 70’s. It has SPF15, it’s easily absorbed by skin, and it has almond oil which makes for an excellent moisturizer.

Expert

Advice

Not recommended for those with nut allergies. Seriously.

THE JING MONIS SALON PROPAGANDA THE JING MONIS SALON PROPAGANDA seem like other high-end salons in Manila, but it has one thing the others don’t: a business lounge service. Tucked in a narrow corridor in Greenbelt 1’s third floor, the salon’s patrons―socialites, on-thego working girls, models, and celebrities―never felt so posh.

There is so much more than just the mishmash of tropical greenery, striped floors, and bright orange

furniture that actualize a modern Mediterranean feel.

Hairstylist and makeup artist Jing Monis usually assesses your concern himself.

Otherwise, only when he’s traveling or on location shoots, his very accommodating staff that, by the way, serves champagne and hors d’oeuvres, does not disappoint.

Since getting beautified by products like Schwarzkopf, Kérastese, and

L’oréal can take a whole lot of time, sometimes, a glass of sparkling wine dosn’t work; that’s why they partnered with HP to provide not just WiFi but also mini laptops that you can use. A trip to this sophisticated salon is really more than just another appointment on the calendar. +632-893-4098 +63917-830-6515

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style id

CRéME DE LA

CRéme

Stay on top by wearing khaki blazers, tailored pants, or dresses. This substitute to black will surely get you off from camouflaging with that sea of dark staples.

Ebba Zingmark Sleeveless longtop from Vero Moda Katrina Jume DIY Jeans from Dad

Kookie Buhain Trousers

by Vanilla Label

Cholo Burayag Jeans from Zara

Rosanna Aranaz Shorts from Pink Manila

Flåvia Desgranges van der Linden Blazer from Damyller Felipe Ornell Jacket from Damyller

statusmagonline.com - 31

brick and mortar MOB.F, BANGKOK 4th floor, Siam Center, 979 Rama 1 Rd., Patumwan, Bangkok, Thailand 10330 +66 (0)2.6581115 mob-f.com

T

here’s a thin line between daring and rebellious, a line which MOB.F skirts regularly. Taking up an entire 1,000 square meter floor in the Siam Center, this multi-brand shop is a hefty outlet for veteran and young Thai designers who create a wardrobe that only the gutty can dare to pull off.

Think: shirts with trouser details from designer Seksarit Thanaprasittikul of The Alchemists, silicone statement necklaces from Curated, and colorful patterned bow ties from Paul B. All 42 designers are rebels with a cause: to seduce those who have original taste levels.

And not only does Mob.F store limited pieces you can’t find anywhere else. It also has its way to act all almighty. Owning a list of every designer who wants to get in its gates, they carefully filter out who gets to enter.

With their high requirements for their brands’ concepts, designer profiles, product quality, and marketability, together we can say “In Mob We Trust.”

RUNWAY, SAIGON Ho Chi Minh Vincom Centre, 70-72 Le Thanh Ton Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Saigon, Vietnam +84 8 3993 9988

S

aigon residents and tourists no longer have to swing by ice cream stores or air-conditioned malls to cool off and avoid Vietnam’s scorching 25-30°C weather.

They can now wind up at RUNWAY, Saigon’s first major concept and upscale store which resembles an ice cave.

Designed by Massimiliano Locatelli, the store is filled with full-length mirrors, printed dining wares and jars, a couch with a waterfall canvas and, of course, high-end brands like Marc Jacobs, Antonio Berardi, Viktor&Rolf, and Hussein Chalayan to name a few.

The neutral and jewel-colored clothes and accessories tucked in shelves and hung on suspended racks are begging to be touched and tried on upon entering. But the prime spot is a cocoon-shaped VIP lounge fully clad in 12,899 stainless steel scales outside and paper roses inside. Certainly trumping most retailers anywhere in the city, this is one runway that’s sure to steal all shows.

NOT JUST A LABEL

I

t’s a showroom for emerging fashion designers introducing their profiles and collections.

It is NOT JUST A LABEL selling the freshest fashion creations globally. This shop is regularly headed by celebrity fashion figures like Lady Gaga, Amanda

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Lepore, and Lara Stone who select the items up for sale. If you’re part of the discerning fashion bunch who wants to know what tomorrow’s designs look like, this shop is for you.

shop.notjustalabel.com

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go see Be a gift by wrapping yourself with this season’s merriest style. Yup, everyday is a holiday!

Photographed by Jon Herrera & Nuk Romualdez

Denim Polo Statement Necklace Khaki Blazer

Crochet Cardigan Studded Sneakers

Maxi Dress

Harem Pants

Leather Belt

Denim Cut-offs

Oversized HandBag

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New York

Los Angeles

Las Vegas

Singapore

Tokyo

Manila

New York Los Angeles

Colored Skinny Jeans Blazer Black Chain Necklace Vintage Tee

High-waisted Shorts Ripped Jeans Rolled-up Sleeves

Combat Boots

Newsboy Hat

Sequined Dress

Structured Dress

ngeles Las Vegas Singapore

Clogs

Tokyo New York

Los Angeles

Las Vegas

Singapore

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SWAG december 2010 - january 2011

wardrobe wonderland

Deck the malls, and shop for Winter’s ultimate must-give items. All wrapped and ribboned are denim jackets, printed jeans, ruffled dresses, and oversized sweaters. So boys and girls, behave!

Product photography by Miguel Miranda

CK [P8,250]

Levi’s [P2,599]

Topman [P3,195]

CK [P8,250]

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sneakers

Photo by Jon Herrera

Zoo York Skol Wgrd [P3,890]

LAS VEGAS, 2010

Element Omahigh [P5,150] 38 - statusmagonline.com

Marc Ecko Lenox [P3,890]

Nike Sweet Classic Leather [P3,495]

Element Mike B. [P5,200]

Element Omahigh [P5,150]

Marithé et François Girbaud Argente [P1,850]

Macbeth Eliot [P3,795]

Fred Perry Vintage Tennis Canvas [P3,698]

5CM [P4,799]

Converse Athletic [P4,550]

The Ramp [P1,680]

Puma Sky Hi [P7,190]

KICK OUT Sneaks that are too cool for any school.

Puma

Dr. Clyde Mashup [P5,430]

Royal Elastics Brother Basil [P4,750]

Vans Authentic [P3,298]

Vans Zapato Del Barco [P3,298]

Marithé et François Girbaud Externe [P1,990]

Nike Sweet Ace 83 [P2,595]

Acupuncture AP371-19 [P6,200]

Puma First Round Vulc Pixel Jack [P4,550]

Cushe Standard [P3,799]

Royal Elastics Benjiro II [P4,400]

Sebago Lighthouse [P11,990]

Fred Perry Coxson Herringbone [P4,198]

statusmagonline.com - 39

tees

tee

FACTORY Run this town in these shirts.

Topman [P995]

Billabong [P1,950] Mental [P599]

Photo by Jon Herrera

Red Herring [P1,550]

Diesel [P2,650]

7 For All Mankind [P3,998]

Bleach [P995]

Armani Exchange [P2,450]

CPS [P995] Volcom [P1,095] 40 - statusmagonline.com

Dissizit [P1,840]

LAS VEGAS, 2010

CPS [P3,595]

denim

Folded and Hung [P1,099]

DEEP BLUE Sink or swim in this pool of dark jeans.

Armani Exchange [P7,950]

Mental [P2,499]

Photo by Ming Han Chung

7 for all Mankind [P12,499]

DUCKIE BROWN, F/W 2010 statusmagonline.com - 41

KEYC H A I N S & e y e w e a r

hang loose

Mental [P399]

Keychains that you should fancy dangling.

Billabong [P500] Vans [P398]

AC+632 [P390]

Stussy [P276]

Mental [P199]

Volcom [P395]

Diesel [P2,950]

Fred Perry [P2,998] AX [P1,950]

Toy Machine [P300]

FRAME Hands up! Flash your frames on.

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AC+632 [P980]

Folded & Hung [P399]

BAGS

BLOODY

MARY

Photo by Ming Han Chung

Concoct the perfect outfit with red bags.

Anne Klein [P2,950]

ANNA SUI F/W 2010

DKNY [P11,500]

Trilogy [P3,398]

Product photography by Paulo Ruiz

Micheal Kors [P6,950]

Topshop [P2,795]

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sw e a t e r s

Forever 21 [P915] Forever 21 [P1,175]

Forever 21 [P915]

FUZZY

RELATIONSHIP Photo by Ming Han Chung

Time to cuddle in your oversized sweater.

Debenhams [P2,750]

3.1 PHILLIP LIM F/W 2010

Warehouse [P2,845]

Forever 21 [P915]

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Topshop [P 3,345]

RU F F LEs

DANCING

QUEEN It takes two or more ruffled dresses to tango.

Foerever 21 [P1,178]

Red Herring [P2,750]

Warehouse [P3,595]

Olivia and Fifth [P4,500] Photo by Brian Dowling

Forever 21 [P1,428.50]

LEIFSDOTTIR F/W 2010

Topshop [P3,595]

Armani Exchange [P7,950]

statusmagonline.com - 45

JE A N S

Twistedmind [P4,690]

CPS [P2,195]

Topshop [P3,495]

Ralph Lauren [P36,500]

THUNDER SHOW

Photo by Jon Herrera

Dark Side Clothing [P1,935]

Sprint toward printed jeans.

LAS VEGAS, 2010 46 - statusmagonline.com

h e e l s & W A TC H E S

CAT FIGHT

The heels are alive with animal prints.

Emilio Pucci [P65,620]

Stella McCartney [P31,688]

Charles and Keith [P 2,399]

Steve Madden [P6,450]

Photo by Ming Han Chung

Fendi [P65,212]

Charles and Keith [P2,199]

CUSTO BARCELONA F/W 2010

Topshop [P6,525]

GOLD DIGGER Watch yourself.

Tommy Hilfiger [P 7,350]

Tommy Hilfiger [P 8,550]

Juicy Couture [P 14,950]

Anne Klein [P 4,250]

statusmagonline.com - 47

PHOTO DIARY

COOL KIDS DON’T DIE

GERMINAL ROAUX

BY BY GERMINAL ROAUX

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germinalroaux.com statusmagonline.com - 49

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

SHUTTER SQUAD At ease! With these guys behind the lens, makeup chair, clothing racks, and drawing board, everything becomes picture perfect.

DAVID URBANKE How do you come up with a shoot?

I create my own concepts, find the model, find the rest of my team, choose the location, and set up the time. Of course, everybody has input, and it’s a collaborative effort.

What makes a good photo?

Feeling, beauty, and composition… Even though fashion matters to me, I love to make a person feel a certain way by looking at my images.

What is it like being a photographer at 16?

[You] stand out by being young. Unfortunately, there are people who assume you can’t be experienced. It’s great that younger people are getting into the industry; everyone should be involved.

Dream collaboration:

Lindsey Wixson! Even before she got famous, I [have been] a fan.

davidurbanke.com

SASHA RAINBOW How did you start styling?

I studied fashion design then went on to work as a fashion design assistant where I met photographer Thomas Kerr. We worked together shooting the label… It satisfied my impulsive drive to create on-the-spot.

Define your style aesthetic.

I am very interested in science fiction and the idea of “the perfect woman” the fashion industry seems to obsess over. In order to fulfill this, it seems necessary to forego earthly restraints and look to space.

Favorite trend:

I abhor trends! They are the demise of quality.

sasharainbow.com 50 - statusmagonline.com

AUDIE UMALI What is your role at photoshoots?

I come up with the visual direction and concept of a shoot and collaborate with other artists to help realize that vision.

How do you come up with those visions?

A great idea can pop up anywhere, at any point in time. When it does, it can become a bit of an obsessive, all-consuming process. Ask any of my producers; I drive them crazy!

Favorite photographer:

Nick Knight. He’s an incredible talent and visionary. On top of that, he’s one of the nicest guys in the business. His work cannot be emulated; he’s one of a kind.

What have you observed behind-the-scenes that a regular viewer doesn’t realize?

It takes a village to create a great picture.

audieumali.com

CYNTHIA ROSE Why did you choose editorials over TV/movie makeup?

Fashion seems to be my calling [because] you really get more chances to artistically express yourself. Ultimately, isn’t that what we all want?

Favorite people to work with:

When you work with a group of talented friends that bring great ideas to the table and trust you to knock it out of the park without micromanaging, there’s really nothing better.

Dream collaboration:

Gwen Stefani. The makeup in No Doubt videos was an influence on me when I was dreaming of this career in Hawaii… I read that Gwen said that if her music career never took off, she’d have become a makeup artist… I was in a rock band for years before moving to NYC, so I feel a kinship with her on that.

cynrose.com

statusmagonline.com - 51

M U S E

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M A E S T R O

Pomp & Circumstance Classical string caprices back RA RA RIOT’s studied tunes, but it doesn’t take a conservatory scholar to appreciate their poetic pop in The Orchard.

By Giano D. Dionisio Photographed by Doron Gild

R

a Ra Riot’s newest album, The Orchard, will transport anyone to greener pastures with vines creeping over limestone walls, rows of flowering myrtle, tangerine and peach trees, surrounding lawn gnomes rocking out on their orchestral instruments. But vocalist Wes Miles, guitarist Milo Bonacci, bassist Mathieu Santos, cellist Alexandra Lawn, violinist Rebecca Zeller, and drummer Gabriel Duquette look more like preppy band geeks than botanists, or lawn gnomes for that matter.

The group formed during their undergraduate years in Syracuse University. “When we were all still in college, the band was very young and fresh.

It was purely a hobby for us...

In some ways, that was the most exciting time for us. It was a very pure form of expression.

We were simply making music that we were excited about,” reminisces Milo. “As soon as

you start writing and playing music professionally, something changes.”

Since graduation, the band went through a lot including the passing of their former drummer, John Ryan Pike.

After months on the road, the group moved into a farmhouse, surrounded by fruit orchards, where they focused on writing their next record. “It was an opportunity for us to take a step back and focus on the creative side of things for a while,” Milo recounts.

Compared to the band’s debut, The Rhumb Line, the new tracks are more stripped down, with less manicured hooks and lyrics. String arrangements are still the root of their sound, but there’s extra attention to jazzy melodies, a bit of bluegrass perhaps.

While Alexandra rasps out a ballad in “You and I Know,” Wes’ singing is matched with

mounting drumlines and gliding violin riffs on “Massachusetts.”

Ra Ra Riot stands out as a solid unit, like a book club, school board, study group, or gardeners’ circle, all working together to make the grade.

Milo shrugs, “The group dynamics is constantly shifting, and we’ve all learned how to give each other space... There haven’t ever been any major fights...it’s usually just about where to eat, what to do with our time off, that sort of thing.”

The release of The Orchard has given them fresh material to fuel their upcoming gigs. “We’re all eager to get back out there and focus on the shows,” says Milo. “We now have enough [songs] to change up the set list nightly...to keep it from getting stale.”

The album brands them as sophomores now, more than just literally. Their growth is measurable in more resonant cello

spiccatos and pseudo-celebrity appearances. They were spotted at a Rugby Ralph Lauren store in New York with lights, cameras, and some shopping action. The press repeatedly reference Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend, which they’re now sick of according to Milo’s snap response. “I have a hard time understanding how or why people draw those comparisons… I think it’s like trying to compare cats and dogs.”

While their youth grants a license to be more carefree, Ra Ra Riot appears aware of themselves. As sophs, they’ve established their presence and been given the right to snort at newbies; they dream brighter and bigger than jaded seniors and are poised to rule soon, ready to take over the real world—bed of roses, thorn bushes, and all.

rarariot.com

”I have a hard time understanding how or why people draw those [ comparisons to [ Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend ] .” statusmagonline.com - 53

MAESTRO

F RTUNE DELUXE Jet-setting and champagne-drinking DJ RUCKUS knows how to make the ladies swoon. Armed with his ability to fuse hip-hop, reggae, house, funk, and innuendo, he isn’t called Mr. Electric Sex for nothing.

By Loris Peña

I

“

think my dream gig is to do a show like Tiesto’s with the tilting stage, the contortionist, violinist, and all that,” shares DJ Ruckus who has luck on his side these days. Playing for Kanye West and Alicia Keys, clients like Prada, Calvin Klein, Virgin, and going on tour with Rev Run of Run DMC, he feels that 2010 is his year: “My birthday this year [is] 10/10/2010, so maybe things are in the stars for me.”

Always keeping an eye on his back, Ruckus didn’t always have it good. “I was 14 and then 17 when [my parents] died.” That changed his attitude towards life

forever. But despite the hard times, he says “When it comes to life’s hardships…it [didn’t] destroy me.” This explains why losing his passport in St. Tropez last summer wasn’t such a big deal; instead, he flew to Paris and listened to funny stories with Lionel Richie and his cousin, Lenny Kravitz.

Having just released his album Electric Sex and being known for co-producing Janet Jackson’s “Sexhibition,” he has distilled his trade formula— creating a mood “so you can make someone feel sexual with a song, when it’s done correctly.”

causeruckus.com

THE

ROKKMACHINE From LA to Vegas, DJ STONEROKK mouths off on what it takes to be a Captain of Industry.

By Paolo Cruz

M

ichael Stone, a.k.a.

StoneRokk, is stone-cold busy.

He goes as far as describing his work ethic as “Unrelenting… unfaltering…[and] merciless.”

When he isn’t spinning records at clubs like the exclusive Green Door or Les Deux, he’s with fellow LA resident Graham Funke as the DJ duo Captains of Industry, geared to restore the “celebrity DJ” from its lightweight reputation.

Of course, it isn’t all work and no play. Known for hitting up clubs in full boating regalia with Graham, he’s currently keeping himself busy with sailing lessons. The fascination with all things nautical even carries over into his music which revamps genres like rock and funk while borrowing tricks from veteran DJs of the 90s. “Graham and I did a

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song with Lil Jon,” he shares.

“It’s a parody of LMFAO’s ‘Shots’ called ‘Yachts.’”

But StoneRokk takes his commitment to playing quality music seriously. “It’s really difficult for a jock starting out now to experience DJing in its purest form,” he states emphatically, adding “Fame, money, pussy (and sometimes cock) have almost completely replaced any genuine impetus in becoming a DJ.” Those may be tough words, but they come from somebody with the experience to back it up. What would this globetrotter like to achieve next? He says, “I really would like to get to Asia more and take over as Editor in Chief for STATUS Magazine. A boy can dream!”

myspace.com/StoneRokk

"Fame, money, pussy (and sometimes cock)

have almost completely replaced any genuine impetus in becoming a DJ."

MAESTRO

“We don’t want to be sad. I mean, we’re sad enough…”

KINGS OF PAIN­­ If you’re “blue blooded,” and by that we simply mean you’re feelin’ the blues, don’t worry. THE WALKMEN’s latest album, Lisbon, proves that if there’s no pain, there’s no glory.

By Kristine Dabbay

N

ot even a thousand elegies can give justice to the way Joni Mitchell poured her soul in Blue or the way Kurt Cobain’s emotional brittleness tore hearts in MTV Unplugged before he pulled the trigger. Even if we are not for wallowing, we got to admit that many seminal records elicit a jump-off-a-cliff urgency. This plaintive tone makes us jump off with The Walkmen’s Lisbon, but more so, it is the cue for a leap of faith.

Band members Hamilton Leithauser (vocals, guitar), Paul Maroon (guitar, piano), Walter Martin (organ bass), Pete Bauer (organ, bass), and Matt Barrick (drums) are no strangers to this feeling. “We don’t want to be sad. I mean, we’re sad enough…” Hamilton shares. It’s been two days that the band has been driving through the Arizona desert. Hamilton is stuck with “Pete and Jack (their sound guy), crying and bitching all day on the back bench behind,” which allowed “for a reflective

meditation on how bleak things are.”

Pitchfork describes their music as “wounded, anxious songs…with such unearthly richguy assurance.” Pete reacts, “Well, they have a lot of power, right? So I think they might have the power to crush us... it’s great that isn’t currently happening.” He continues with the same vigor, explaining how their lives have changed from Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.

“We all got married. There’s a lot of kids now, and it’s great!” he says.

This growth makes them relate to John, the character in John’s Journey, a novel they’re working on. A line in the excerpt they sent goes “He did not know where he was going but he knew it was a lot farther north.”Just the same, this band has come a long way from their Washington roots. Hamilton is wont to doing “anything down-and-out with some semblance of humor...at least we get a kick out of it.”

So enough about depression. Their new songs like “Juvenile” and “Stranded” jangle with Hamilton’s impassioned yells, backed up by the sparse instrumentation, showing that their gloom is more than lonesomeness. It’s about bravado.

It’s Rory Gilmore saying she’s not into The Smiths because it’s not her angst. It’s Tony Stonem talking about his animus—his spirit, courage, passion, and most of all, wrath. It is the band singing “You’re one of us/ or one of them!”

The band, too, is no longer the same with their prejudices. No longer bearded and hung-over like Pete who got escorted by a lady to a shelter for the homeless in 2009, they are tailored literally in their suits for the message that it’s okay to have biases. They’re all about exposing their misery out of the dark. They need to do it to survive. It’s like vendetta— this music—it almost runs in the blood.

~ BYE, SAD PHASE ~ The Walkmen tells us how to endure the blues.

Stay in bed as long as possible.

Go to the stereo, and put on whatever piece of music you f i nd most sentimental.

Find some old family photos, and try to start crying.

Head to the bar, and mix up a very spicy but relatively weak Bloody Mary.

Try to find professional sports or a Julia Roberts or a Hugh Grant flick on TV. Try to do a lap or two around the local jogging track before heading back for a long, rewarding shower and delivery Thai food.

marcata.net/walkmen

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MAESTRO

HANGING FIVE Long Beach natives and power pop geeks HELLOGOODBYE went to Asia this fall to play their surf and sand symphonies, but the wave they rode was more massive than they’d imagined.

"Twitter is our new record label!"

By Giano D. Dionisio Photographed by Paolo Ruiz

H

ellogoodbye—Forrest Kline on vox, Joseph Marro on keys, Andy Richards on guitars, Travis Head on bass, and Mike Nelison on drums—are serial charmers on the verge of being complete flirts.

While their last album, Zombies!

Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, was released in 2006, fans have continued to stalk them all over the internet and to gigs like Coachella and SXSW, even to the hotels they stayed at, or maybe that’s just us.

Their newest album, Would It Kill You?, boasts summery songs like “Coppertone,” and runaway hit “When We First Met.” The rest of the tracks, Forrest describes as having “a lot of orchestral instruments... all wrapped in a pop package.”

“There’s the Katy Perry pop, then there’s traditional Beach Boys and Beatles pop. We identify more with the Beach Boys,” he clarifies. Mike and Andy argue that they are “rock and roll,” but consensus is that their music brightens up dreary days.

They’ve been touring all continents, managing everything themselves. Forrest exclaims, “Twitter is our new record label! Kids would contact promoters...and that’s how we book the shows.” “It’s far more rewarding,” says Joseph. The proof: a crowd too packed to dive into, gallons of sweat, and huge goofy grins on everyone (including the fivesome) during the concert. Complete wipeout!

hellogoodbye.net

In football, you can bend it like Beckham; but in music, you can bend time with THE MORNING BENDERS.

By Kristine Dabbay Photo by Pieter van Hatten

T

he Morning Benders’ Big Echo amplifies the reverb of past decades that kindled their The Beach Boys and The Shins influences, but frontman Chris Chu says, “You may hear a song that makes you feel nostalgic, but nostalgic for what? It’s most likely written by someone you don’t know, about an experience you never experienced…it’s the reinterpretation that makes it feel new.”

Chris, together with guitarist and keyboardist Jon Chu, drummer Julian Harmon, and bassist Tim Or, did a smooth “Outlaw Blues” cover for Subterranean Homesick Blues: A Tribute to Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, a contrast to Dylan’s sand-and-glue harmonies.

Even if some records got “spotty” 56 - statusmagonline.com

after the 70s, “The good part is that there is more music than ever, and it’s becoming easier to access…” he says.

“When I realized how much I loved playing music, there was no reason not to go and perform that music,” he continues. That’s apparent in the band’s live session for “Virgins.” It may not be a stadium concert that can surpass Super Bowl, but its intimacy can kick even stronger than any ball game. Take it from Chris who once described himself as a shy pianoplaying kid who found the courage to perform. “The artistic part is all fun and games,” he says.

Though “the challenge is always economical,” the band never fails to score and cover all the bases.

themorningbenders.com

MAESTRO

LIL JON may be known for tweeting in all caps, making the ladies “Get Low,” and getting the homies take those “shots, shots, shots.” But after a crunk night out, he takes a few steps back and appreciates the good life.

By Loris Peña Photographed by Nick St. James

Y

ou’ve seen this man before.

Dreadlocks, grills, and shades. Lil Jon, born Jonathan Mortimer Smith, is famous for his distinct way of saying “Yeah!”, “What?”, and “Okay!”

We’re talking about the dude who popularized the crunk phenomenon a few years back. Minus his pimp cup, he lands in Asia and sits down for a one–on-one action with yours truly.

Fresh from the VMA’s where he spanked Chelsea Handler backstage, he laughs and tells us “It was fun doing it cause I [was] really slapping the shit

out of her ass.” Lil Jon might as well be ready for future nominations given his new album Crunk Rock. Having taken three years to produce it, he shares that it’s such a “release” to have people finally hear the album. With his favorite track, “Outta Your Mind,” he goes back to his DJ roots. He says “I’m a party DJ; I just want to make people lose their mind and wild out and do stuff that they don’t normally do...”

Energetic and high on life, Lil Jon surprises people that he is “not crunk all the

time.” He says “I’m real quiet and laid-back when I’m home.”

Lil Jon likes to lie on the couch and watch TV or go to the movies with his wife and his son. He actually prefers to stay low-key and not create a scene. If you do see him tired at the airport, it’s best that you say hello than scream “Yeah!” because Lil Jon says, “You don’t have to scream at me cause I don’t want to be screaming all the time.”

Aside from touring, producing, and collaborating with the likes of Steve Aoki, Flo Rida, and Pitbull, he keeps

himself busy with his energy drink CRUNK!!! and his Little Jonathan Winery. His advice in juggling a career and a profitable business is “to be focused. Pay attention to everything.”

He tells us, “When you leave the club, go eat and drink a lot of water” to get rid of a bad hangover. And for everyone still confused on what crunk really is, Lil Jon explains it’s “whatever you feel like doing.

[It’s] all about energy and wildin’. Whatever you feel like, if you wanna jump [up] and down… that’s crunk.”

liljononline.com

CRUNK UNIvERSITY

Learn the big ways of Lil Jon.

Pimp Cup

ShaDes

“I’m starting to bring it back. When I used to have it, I had to put it in a case with cushion. I got to get used to carrying it again [in] the club.”

“[I have] as far as 100 shades. The thing with sunglasses [is that it] can make anybody look like a star. So you gotta rock sunglasses to look like a superstar.”

Grills

“I have like 20 of them. I coordinate [them] with my outfits. I got platinum, rose gold, gold, and gold with no diamonds. All of them are very distinct.

I got fangs on mine. I had fangs in 2003. Before vampires were cool, I was [already] doing it.”

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MAESTRO

ad 2?

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Portrait by Geordy Pearson

New York-based photographer JIMMY FONTAINE gets rhetorical about the Big Apple and everything black and white.

By Toff de Venecia Photos courtesy of Jimmy Fontaine

I

t’s the crest of the fall season, and Jimmy Fontaine is enjoying some downtime in good ol’ NYC. “Coffee, some errands, maybe walk around a bit, get some lunch, spend time with my girlfriend and watch some Friday Night Lights or Seinfeld…not that exciting,” he says. On the contrary, the guy, whose work has been featured in glossies such as Nylon Guys, SPIN, and Complex, lives one hell of an exciting life.

“I was told once that my work has a cinematic and intimate feel to it,” shares the New York-based photographer who will be having an upcoming solo exhibition at the COMUNE gallery in Costa Mesa, California this coming February. “That was a great compliment, and I feel that it accurately describes how I strive for my images to come across.”

Jimmy is known for using color side by side with black and white photography, bravely depicting a curdling sense of romanticism in both his subjects and the environment that they revolve in. “I see things better in black and white,” he shares, adding, “I feel like it brings out an intimacy in both the subject and setting that can sometimes be lost in color.” When possible, he pairs the two to give the viewer a visceral feeling of closeness to the photo he is looking at.

“It’s very clear, when looking at an image, what kind of chemistry there was between the subject and the photographer,” shares Jimmy who grew up surrounded by talented people like designer Charlotte Ronson, stylist Karen Levitt, and multi-instrumentalist Nick Cave. “I think it varies

with different situations,” he says when asked of his expectations about each subject that he captures.

“When you’re shooting a model, you’re shooting a professional, so you expect them to perform and take the appropriate direction.

When shooting a portrait, celebrity, or musician, you try your best to make them comfortable which, in turn, will draw out the best parts of their personality.”

This is where the photographer’s artistic mettle, according to Jimmy, is taken into account. He shares, “I think as you grow professionally, you not only become more refined in a technical sense, but you become more confident and comfortable around your subject.” A photographer is able to shatter the walls that make a subject seem disingenuous or livid and then crystallize some form of artistic rapport. Only then is the inner light of the subject truly able to shine.

Evidently, Jimmy’s quality of work takes a qualitative leap into the past in both his use of visuals and understanding of culture. “I have an appreciation for an older era,” he shares. “I feel like when you see an Audrey Hepburn film, for instance, there is such an overwhelming amount of elegance and subtle beauty.” As with many films and images from that period, fashion and people, according to Jimmy, were portrayed with such ardor, mystique, and simplicity.

He ends, “I think it’s possible to make the same amount of impact these days without shoving things in people’s faces or trying too hard to transform someone into something else.” Jimmy just draws inspiration from past sensibilities and marries it with today’s modernistic sense of aestheticism, and he is able to tender a palpable sense of romantic disposition through his work. After all, he says, “The most simple lighting, styling, movements, and framing can create the most powerful and touching images.”

M A S T E R M I N D

jimmyfontaine.com

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MASTERMIND

THE PERKS OF BEING A WILD FLOWER Painter DINA GADIA is minority in today’s art world full of dreary conceptualists; that’s why she titled her blog whatever happened to all the fun in the world.

Story and portrait by Nante Santamaria Artwork courtesy of Dina Gadia

W

hen I work, I just enjoy [because] life is too serious already,” Dina Gadia tells me while talking about her B-movie inspirations like Erotic Nights of the Living Dead. Usually culled pop art, her paintings and collages feel very 70s, but she tells me, “When I see a picture, I cut it, and then I combine it with others later on regardless of [the] period.”

When Dina juxtaposes these visuals, the results are not only new objects or creatures but a new time.

Histories clash, and monsters are created. For example, flower-headed humans are dragging a bawling little girl in her latest solo, ContraAffair. She explains, “The flower may seem tame, then it turns out to be not that way.”

“In collage,” she continues, “you really disregard copyright…” So when she’s painting a poster detail, she does her own treatment. “I don’t claim them as mine; I credit them as influences,” she justifies.

It’s the same way Dina treats the city. “If I’m [back home

in the suburb], I’m probably just painting the sea.”

But today, she’s playing some “The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, but not punk like Arcade Fire” when I arrive in her bare apartment. “How do you feel about the insular art scene here?” I ask. “It seems like I just got lucky,” she says.

“If I’m [back home in the suburb], I’m probably just painting the sea.”

dinagadia.blogspot.com

FRESHLY BAKED

Having more than one job—DJ, stylist, PR for BBC/ICE CREAM, designer for Ambush Design—YOON eats more than what people think one can chew, but she leaves nothing half-baked.

By Loris Peña Photos courtesy of Yoon

L

ike her label’s POW rings, Yoon hits us up faster than riding the Shinkansen. She makes accessories for AMBUSH with her husband, Verbal, but this comes with caution. “Because I spend so much time with him...I need some break here and there!” Yoon laughs.

She started graphic design for magazines and different brands in 2002, but before all of that, she was just an ordinary Boston schoolgirl. “Moving to Japan definitely set me from certain rules [in] fashion,” Yoon shares. “Major cultural clash in Tokyo!” That’s why her dressing philosophy is “Anything goes!”

She tells us, “It’s all [about] how you feel that day, so if I feel [a] little tired, I put on something sexy, so my attitude can change.” With help from Ghesquire’s design for Balenciaga, Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garçons, and Vivienne Westwood’s vintage pieces mixed with some KTZ, Topshop, and Cassette Playa, she becomes a live prey for street style photographers wherever she goes.

Busy on collaborations, Yoon says, “I believe everything is connected one way or the other, so when these 60 - statusmagonline.com

opportunities came to me, I took on it.” In fact, she’s ready to take on anything. “I never turn off my antenna because whatever or whoever I see could become part of my inspiration later,” she says, advising, “Be curious [about] everything; otherwise, your brain will age.”

ambushdesign.com Yoon chillin’ with Kanye West

MASTERMIND

the

post-process When KT AULETA was growing up, she was her “parents’ worst nightmare,” but this fashion photographer and filmmaker shows how her mischievous past gave way to a future filled with trips abroad and a feature project with a Hollywood producer.

By Christine Braganza Photos courtesy of KT Auleta

I

magine what it is like growing up in the small town of Oswego, New York and having the visions of a future fashion photographer and filmmaker inside you. At 13, KT was sneaking out in the middle of the night to drink in her friend’s basement. She and her friend were also privy to “borrowing” her friend’s dad’s car and driving out into the country, accidentally knocking down mailboxes in the process. Somehow, she has managed to get away with her little escapades.

These exploits eventually served as raw material for her dive into filmmaking.

Her first short film, Runaround (2009), is a coming-of-age narrative leading her to shoot fashion films that have appeared in Style.com and Vmagazine.com. Interestingly enough, the script was shelved for 6 years.

It took a serious car accident for KT to get started with production. “I decided [that] if I had died, my only regret would be that I hadn’t made the film,” she asserts. She eventually shot the whole film in four days at her hometown about a year after the accident.

Fast forward to the present, she’s not only a filmmaker but also a fashion photographer for Vogue, i-D, and V Magazine just to name a few, having gone from China to Paris for onlocation shoots and couture shows.

“When I was young, [I wanted to be] a dancer, then to be in a band when I was a teenager, and then to be an artist when I was in college—I just wasn’t sure what kind,” KT recounts. But despite that, “New York was always a dream,” she adds. After moving to New York, KT found herself missing the open country air. “Sometimes, I wanted to smell the grass of a field, and it would make me cry,” she says. “Slowly, I figured out you could have the same silence in industrial areas; so I would ride my bike through abandoned parts of Brooklyn and watch nature take over these old buildings with weeds and vines.”

It’s exactly through the way that she sees things, like nature taking over buildings, that make her images come to life.

KT’s shots are never a secondhand retelling

of a story. “Sometimes, still images I take continue to resonate with me like I haven’t finished the experience. I didn’t take it as far as I wanted to in that moment—sometimes, it’s because the story is about something else, and we just needed to move on.” A huge amount of the beauty of her work comes from the cinematic feel and vivid colors that add to the subjects’ beauty and depth that come into play with each photograph. She lets the natural setting shine through.

All of her work as a photographer had to collide at some point, and that came through filmmaking. And although she’s already working on a feature project with a Hollywood producer whose name she wouldn’t yet disclose, she hasn’t taken for granted the source of where all these came from. “I think working in photography for those years really gave me the confidence and connections to put it all together,” she says, showing us how all can pay off and bring about a vision that’s become so distinct to KT Auleta.

ktauleta.com

“sometimes, still IMAGES I TAKE CONTINUE TO RESONATE WITH ME LIKE I HAVEN’T FINISHED THE EXPERIENCE.”

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Trend-Stopping By overriding the concept of seasonal collections, EYOLA sits on top of another fashion revolution. “The one reason why I do not believe in following trends,” she says, “is because it doesn’t make sense to me why people want to wear matching uniforms.”

By Reena Mesias Photographed by Linda Cooper Hair and Makeup by Fiona Tanner and Matthew Francis

T

“[ Interning underAlexander McQueen] showed me

that the reality of the fasthion industry is opposite to what the media portrays.”

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he first thing you need to know about this London-based designer who has made it to Vogue Italia’s talents is that, while others only notice how she gets inspiration from the Victorian era, she is also equally fascinated by the 16th century fashion and Renaissance art. Second is that she’s the type of fashion designer who doesn’t always tune in to Fashion Week. During those overloaded events, she may have just been out doing yoga or taking a long country walk.

“Growing up, I loved anything creative,” Eyola shares how fashion has always been the obvious choice when she was younger. “I particularly enjoyed creating characters and stories,” she adds. It’s as if she directs her own revival of Oscar Wilde plays or designs for fashion pioneers like Paul Poiret, Charles Worth, and Elsa Schiaparelli in her dramatic and regal ruffled jackets, tiered and hooped skirts, as well as metallic corsets that are conservative in color but elaborate in craftsmanship. “I developed a desire to go back to the roots of haute couture,” she says. “My creative process definitely includes collecting details in garments and clothing from past eras, moulding them into something modern and wearable.”

Eyola’s experience go way back to her internship under Alexander McQueen.

Working for him made Eyola aware that her profession is not all red carpets and tables at Paris’ finest bars. “It showed me that the reality of the fashion industry is opposite to what the media portrays,” she explains.

“But all the hard work didn’t pull me off.”

Sure, a piece from Eyola may form an image of a McQueen creation, but Eyola already had that approach even before her stay with the legend. “I chose to apply for McQueen because the concept of the brand and designs—doing something different and out of the box—was along the same wavelength of what I had in mind for Eyola,” she says.

But while McQueen is in love with costume history, Eyola breaks away from escapist influences with her pieces that can be easily transformed into ready-to-wear.

It is, however, the compulsion not to follow the masses that was the biggest lesson she learned from McQueen. This continuously unfurls in collections that do not follow the four seasons; she instead releases new items every two months. Each style is either a one-off or has a maximum of eight pieces. “[It’s just like revisiting] the Victorian era when clothing was more personal to the wearer,” she says as she expounds on the concept behind her Octette scheme. “I’ve seen so many...people come up to compliment what you’re wearing only to add that they saw it on the shelves of x shop at x price.”

With such retreat from conformity, Eyola is definitely one of the few who are championing a new frontier in design, a world where no two girls would be caught wearing the same dress. But how ironic if trendstopper Eyola eventually trend-spots a style inspired by her own. With her keen focus on structure, drama, and frivolity, that won’t be surprising.

eyola.com

MASTERMIND

BEN GREENMAN spills what professors aren’t so good in teaching. Course requirements include “impatience, imposture, and impropriety.”

By Kristine Dabbay Photographed by Dorothy Hong

J

.D. Salinger was called “the worst English student” by one of his professors. But look at what he’s done. Fictionist Ben Greenman knows that “if you don’t have…a little bit of subversion in your personality, you’re unlikely to discover anything new.”

The desire to “overturn the apple cart” first starts in asking “Why try to develop answers to questions that people may or may not be asking? Why cultivate a stubborn belief in your own talent?” he ponders.

This McSweeney’s writer and The New Yorker editor, who’s fresh from releasing his short story anthology, What He’s Poised to Do, is setting new parameters.

“Everything falls under a broader umbrella of Making Language Describe And Illuminate Human Events…” he adds.

Admittedly, he recounts that “there’s a lot of rejection.

Initially, it’s near total,” but that’s why “you have to claw your way up the side of the tower…”

With his new book, Celebrity Chekhov, he merges

classical literature with celebrity culture. Though he doesn’t care if Gossip Girl’s Dan Humphrey should get another story published in The New Yorker, he thinks Snoopy should. “Sure. He has been disappointed for years and, in fairness to him, it was a

dark and stormy night.”

Digest that, whatever way you like. “Haitian earthquake and BP oil spill” aside, Ben is happy in his “tiny little corner”—capturing on paper what usually falls between the lines.

bengreenman.com

ROLEPLAYING

Doctor Who alum NOEL CLARKE wasn’t getting the roles he wanted. So he decided to also become a writer and a director—roles he’s good at; he doesn’t even need to “act” the part.

“

By Carina Santos Photo from BAFTA Awards

L

“

ife, for me, is the same.”

It’s hard to believe these words coming from Noel Clarke who juggles being a BAFTA Rising Star, writer of criticallyacclaimed British drama, Kidulthood, and director of its sequel, Adulthood.

“I’ve lots of different ideas in mind, in all capacities,” he says why he decided to expand his acting career to directing and writing.

But being this “triple threat” wasn’t as easy as it seems.

“There was no real support in the beginning. It was just me writing so that I didn’t go mad waiting for people to give me work,” Clarke recounts.

But it didn’t take long until he succeeded. The secret?

Don’t believe that if one door shuts, another opens. “If one door closes, figure out how you are going to get through it, over it, under it. And if that does not work, then go through a window,” Noel advises.

True to form, as a man of action with a creative slant, Noel has a lot of other ideas up his sleeve but doesn’t waste any time talking. “I just want to make them happen,” he says.

And while others presume that a good idea isn’t enough and that good execution is everything, Noel cuts through the hyperbole and just throws in a good mix of both.

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Archangel Micheal: And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer (2009) 64 - statusmagonline.com

NS G URAT I O Tran sF I

“Our own salvation,” pop photographer DAVID LACHAPELLE says, “can be found from…artists because they have something to give us.” Today, he speaks beyond the materiality of his hyperreal celebrity portraits and articulates this new art-making chapter in the middle of a Hawaiian rainforest.

By Nante Santamaria Photos © David LaChapelle Courtesy of Fred Torres Collaborations

David LaChapelle’s land, a giant blow-up burger trumps a stiletto-clad model, a young Angelina Jolie crouches with a black sheep, and Paris Hilton wears a bikini printed with “EAT THE RICH.” The objective: that his photographs be understood by everyone “whether it’s a small, young person, from one not in the art world, from one in the art world, [or] someone older.” But recently, this has changed.

First, this hasn’t been attempted in a purely gallery context. Second, after he made the dance documentary Rize in 2005, critics noted a more pronounced social commentary in David’s works. In The Rape of Africa, Naomi Campbell reigns in a soap box-walled shanty. Recollections in America shows a 4th of July photo album inconspicuously ‘shopped to awry effect with guns, booze, and sex. As the flood in Deluge, the world is ending it seems.

“Now that I’m not working for magazines… it’s very clear,” he refers to these more serious themes.

To reach this man known for his glitzy renderings of Madonna holding the Sacred Heart, of Courtney Love as The Pietà’s Virgin Mary, and of Jesus as a homeboy breaking bread in the hood, I had to dial the number of a cabin in the

H E A V Y H I T T E R

middle of a rainforest on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I say hello and apologize for a couple of failed attempts to connect. With the patience of an experienced man, one who has maybe mellowed down a bit, he greets back warmly.

The sound waves carrying his voice arrive with buzz and discordant echo.

He has just mounted a solo, Post Modern Pop Photography, at Tel Aviv Museum of Art and is yet to open another show at Spain’s Leyendecker Gallery this December, to be followed by one more in Germany early next year. Past all the raucous of his magazine days, his sked remains tight.

I ask him to speak slower at times to which he so considerately obliges. “Well, I’ve traveled a lot in my life because of photography,” says David whose first contract was with Condé Nast Traveler magazine. He stuck his camera out under any weather with them for 10 years and continued to fly across the globe in the succeeding years of doing glam portraiture for countless other magazines.

Today, I barely spent my questions. He just knew what to say—“it’s sort of a last stop for me,” he says referring to his location in Maui, Hawaii— and I listen to a guru reciting proverbs to his student.

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HEAVY HITTER

A CABI N OF ONE’S OWN

MYT H I CA L H E RO

I’ve known New York City very well, but that was a city, and I’ve always dreamed of living in a cabin in the woods, by the water… in the middle of the rainforest… Every time I come home here, I get to see…the certain place that I like to swim [in]…the certain trail that looks beautiful in the morning… In this new chapter in my life, I really had the desire to become intimate with this land…and it just also happens to be the most beautiful place that I’ve ever been [to] in terms of natural beauty… I really love cheese and, being a vegetarian, I grow all the food, and we have honeybees and goats and chickens and eggs… I wanna die here when the time comes.

Well, in instances after taking this picture, people would ask me about photographing Michael [Jackson], and I never answered because I felt that…too many people were talking about him… I didn’t wanna be part of that dialogue… I think it’s better that people don’t know every detail about everything because it takes away some of the magic, and magic is something that Michael felt very strongly about. Michael had commissioned a lot of painters to paint him in heroic paintings. They’re in the manner of Renaissance, old master paintings…him surrounded by cherubs, of him with a sword—sort of Excalibur and as knight… He had never…had a photographer to work on something.

Eminem in Hip Hop Immortals (2002)

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HEAVY HITTER

L E NS R EP ORT E R The pictures that I’ve done throughout the years—Lil Kim with Louis Vuitton [logos on her body], Amanda [Lepore] snorting diamonds… or [an] Alexander McQueen dress in a pile of garbage, consumerism, plastic surgery, decadence, greed—a lot of these themes are what was going on in America, the choices that the masses was making—fast food, obesity. They are these themes that are always coming back in my work.

“ Critics usually call me

overheated, and I’d rather be overheated than cool. There’s many cool contemporary art.

They’re very cool. Cool doesn’t last. Cool turns cold…”

Britney Spears: Street Scene in New York (2002)

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HEAVY HITTER

Madonna in Rolling Stone (1998)

“And I want people to comprehend that, to me, it’s not their failure if [my ideas are] not… understandable…”

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HEAVY HITTER

Jeff Koons: Sandwich (2001)

DR EAMS C OM E TRU E

P OP MANI F E S T O

Color, to me, was more accurate depiction… Black and white, to me, felt nostalgic for an earlier time…and I felt…I was contemporary…

Way before there was…digital manipulation, I was manipulating colors in the darkroom…and playing with things that were very surreal and magical. So that always interested me in photography—creating these situations and these tableaus and then photographing them from my imagination and then…they are true. People would be surprised how little Photoshop I do. That’s why I filmed several of my bigger shoots—the making of Deluge or the cover of the book with Courtney Love [Heaven to Hell]. I filmed [them] because I wanted people to see that it’s there; it’s not an illustration.

...art for the art world that’s about the art world—I detest this kind of art. I think it’s for the ghetto. The fashion world’s a ghetto. I mean the art world is a ghetto. The sports world’s a ghetto. The world of finance is a ghetto… People have their stars and their heroes, and they’re so insulated. I’m much more interested in a world… I’m using…the visual vocabulary of the fashion magazines, of the celebrity portrait. I’m still utilizing all the things I learned working for Andy Warhol…and I’m using that idea I learned a lot during so much advertising—how to sell something. Now, I’m selling my ideas. And I want people to comprehend that, to me, it’s not their failure if [my ideas are] not…understandable…

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HEAVY HITTER

“

From Recollections in America (2006) 70 - statusmagonline.com

HEAVY HITTER

from the \poets, from the playwrights, from the the politicians and the newscasters…”

From Recollections in America (2006)

HOT T HAN C O LD

R E D E M PT ION S ONG

I want my pictures to have a very, very clear idea from the first drawing that I make to the finished picture. I want it to be understood… Critics usually call me overheated, and I’d rather be overheated than cool. There’s many cool contemporary art. They’re very cool. Cool doesn’t last.

Cool turns cold… It’s a very challenging idea to photograph notions of life after death or that there’s more to the world than the material plane or that there’s a paradise being within you. We live in such a scary time, and even though some of the subjects I deal with [are] about this…I don’t want it to frighten… The way I look at it is we have to accept things.

I think that there is so much to be learned from artists…

They can sometimes bring into focus the confusion that we’re living in. Every artist at one point was a contemporary artist, and he was depicting the world from his experience… Art history is history. The contemporary art today is a reflection of the world that we live in.

Even someone like Michael Jackson was an artist that was depicting our times… I think the answers are gonna come from the artists—from the poets, from the playwrights, from the songwriters and the singers, and visual artists, and not the politicians and the newscasters…

CH I LD'S PLAY This child in [my] photographs represents supreme knowledge… I don’t mean that we have to lose our internet or that we have to lose our reason or act like babies...

Picasso strived to paint in his life more like a child— there’s no editing, it’s direct right side of the brain activity that is automatic… There’s also something to be said about retaining our childlike qualities, of seeing the good in the world, and trust, and joy…and taking pleasure in simple things, and being present—when you’re eating and drinking…you’re being there—or time to create or play as a child would play in a sandbox…

SHO OT T H E MO ON I’m just working on myself, first as human being, then as an artist… After all these years of experience, I can make things look the way I want them to… I’m always aiming for the sublime, which is like trying to reach the moon, but you have to reach for the moon and make your goals very high. I’ve never been about material things like money… or name or status. My goal has always been for my pictures to give something to the world and not take something… And especially in this dark time, the artist has a choice. He can create ugly and confusion, or he can create or attempt to create clarity and beauty even when talking about subjects thought of as difficult. We can always use beauty as a means to communicate and…it’s more subversive to do that. My goal is to become better doing that.

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Camera

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By Giano D. Dionisio Photos courtesy of Jolijn Snijders

As far as photography in this day and age goes, I♥Fake’s creative director JOLIJN SNIJDERS’ images are the equivalent of raw negatives in the digital world. Awash in natural light, with no trace of healing brushes or warp tools, that’s how she makes love with her camera. She does it with teenage models up against white walls, at friends’ apartments, in cheap hotels, or on the streets.

Sutra HEAVY HITTER

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tenacious

enough to shoot entire layouts in polaroids, Jolijn Snijders is confident in her ability to satisfy without the need for any enhancements. The minimalist aesthetic she employs has grown so in vogue that it’s become a model for SLR-clad tweens trying to break into fashion photography. However, Jolijn doesn’t share their goal; she’s less Elle Girl—ironically her first workplace—and more pulp tabloid. Actually, she’s one of the perpetrators of online zine I♥Fake, indie authority on the youth’s most obscure fancies.

“I don’t have holidays right now. Matter of fact, I didn’t have holidays all year,” she sighs. Working herself to the ground to get I♥Fake to take off, Jolijn juggles deadlines, photoshoots, and nights out in her hometown of Amsterdam. “When I’m not traveling or shooting, I spend a lot of time online researching,” tweeting in all caps, managing four (or some)

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sites, and getting in touch with what she calls “the word and image vomit spit pile that is known as the [world wide web].”

Her deadpan delivery can be offputting, though I realize that she owes a lot of her success to that same mess. “Everyone has an internet connection, but question is, ‘Who’s creative?’ It’s a matter of taste, dude. You have to separate your shit from your good shit,” she advises.

Unsurprisingly, Jolijn has a whole sleeve of tricks and maneuvers to segregate. So far, so good, the girl is on track, doing spreads for the likes of Dazed & Confused, Vogue Hommes Japan, and Nylon. With her career going climactic, she stays unfazed, just enjoying the ride.

LIKING IT ROUGH Jolijn’s low-maintenance, highcharisma images owe their moxie to the photographer’s penchant for gangly, tattooed burnouts who wear more layers of personality than they do actual clothes.

She first encountered model Cole

Mohr over a drunken shoutfest— coincidentally, a night before they met for a pictorial. Suffice it to say, their friendship grew over half-naked dancing around the studio, cigarette breaks, and birthday wishes. Describing the kinship with her subjects, Jolijn tells me, “We like the same stuff such as smoking joints, going to the shooting range, and listening to HOT 97. Wasted youth forever!”

Her approach to shoots is character-driven, and besides punk rock threads, the photog’s props include disarming candor and twisted humor. “I collect human skulls. If I’m in a really good mood, I love to set sail and find me some pieces of pink Hubba Bubba gum,” she says. Though Jolijn talks through her teeth with her tongue in her cheek, she has no qualms about herself.

Shaped by a love for cinema of the David Lynch, Larry Clark, Jean-Luc Godard, and David Cronenberg variety, Jolijn contorts into different personas, most recently a raving Bonnie Parker. She amuses herself with the bloody, particularly Oliver

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“

Stone’s Natural Born Killers.

The movie strikes something in her, and a gentle prying elicits a telling narrative from the brunette.

“It’s a fucked up love story I always wanted to be a part of,” begins Jolijn. “I met someone who reminded me of it…and [we] fell in filthy love. We named each other Mickey and Mallory.

It was all sin, lust, and misery from then on. Running away from reality, our steel guns reloaded, we set on getting lost in an insane road trip, causing as much terror and disaster as possible.

It was intense, short-lived, and ended abruptly, resulting in chaos, disgust, and too many substances. I got the initials MM tattooed on my arm as a permanent reminder.” She concludes, “It changed my life forever.”

THE FULL FRONTAL Despite her success in the industry, Jolijn tries to detach herself from the superficial frivolity. She dresses herself in thrifted garments, often

ripped, cropped, and a size too big or small. For her, fashion is about the fun and games she plays with her models and the artistic expression achieved through clothing. It’s as fresh as a spritz of Miss Dior Cherie when a photographer cares more about the person wearing designer duds. Her most attractive quality is a joie de vivre sprinkled with a brutish je ne sais quoi that clearly brings all the punks to the yard.

Not unlike Vivienne Westwood to Sid Vicious, Jolijn feeds off the grit of Eurotrash landscape, littered with Rizlas and empty liquor bottles that fuel her brain juices and materialize in fashion editorials. When asked, she quickly dismisses sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll as “not cool but very necessary to function.” I start to wonder how “functional” she is for the interview, but the palpable warmth she exudes is reassuring.

Jolijn has the dark eyes of experience, the same sprightly step as her subjects,

and a flaming passion for her work. Unafraid of a challenge, she explores the limits of her medium. She describes her vision as “real love, real youth, real hate. Non-fiction: that’s what I’m about.” Her recent venture is film, posting short clips of her photoshoot antics, and making viral videos for I♥Fake.

I propose the possibility of a feature-length movie, and she smirks, “I’d love it if I could cast Will Ferrell to play myself.”

WOMAN ON TOP Also around the corner for Jolijn is LADS, an upcoming magazine that focuses on the new menswear revolution and the alternative subculture of skinny English boys. The project incites my interest, but Jolijn is too preoccupied with her primary endeavor. She says, “I’m putting all my energy in launching the first printed issue of I♥Fake. I don’t really have much time right now for anything else.” Yet in between the rapid creativity,

she finds a few minutes to write at night, to watch reruns of Californication, and to entertain my questions. I should’ve asked her how she does it.

Maybe it’s her attitude.

“It’s all just a matter of balls to walls, baby!” exclaims Jolijn, summing up her outlook towards work, photography, relationships, and life in general. It’s rare to come across a strong individual who isn’t a stiff. The best part is that Jolijn is perfectly happy carpe diem-ing her ass off, blithe and unconcerned.

Perhaps everyone would be getting more action, more satisfaction, following her example.

Though this lady doesn’t strike me as spiritual, she seems to preach through practice, and her photos concur.

They throw all caution to the wind, break from the neverending cycle, and achieve supreme enlightenment—nirvana, moksha, whatever you wanna call it.

ilovefake.com

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New York-based photographer TIM BARBER manages to find the appropriate intersection of personal aesthetics and commercial work, disregards exhibit hours and space constraints in his online photo gallery, TinyVices.com, and prints the series he wants the way he wants.

By Nante Santamaria Photos courtesy of Tim Barber

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To shoot

from the hip and to extol the virtues of the raw and the gritty—this wouldn’t have grown to be a pervasive aesthetics even on today’s supposed glossies if not for the photographic philosophy championed by this bunch bred in the spirit of punk, harbored in the graffiti-laden walls of Lower East Side, and nurtured on the pages of Vice Magazine.

At the helm of it is 31-year-old Tim Barber, creator of the influential online gallery TinyVices.com, supporter of emerging photographers, and heir to the likes of Nan Goldin and Larry Clark. Knowing he has exhibited with his predecessors Wolfgang Tillmans and Juergen Teller this year, I ask how he’s doing in the growing up department. “I’m not sure I’m fully an adult yet. [I] still feel pretty young most of the

time,” he replies. “I’m in no hurry to grow up…”

This sounds like a Peter Pan wish, but this youth has to stay if people want more exciting work and daring curatorial choices from him in the future. Tim’s energy, after all, is based in adolescent spontaneity, lack of censorship, and innocent vigor. Today, he still seeks shelter in China Town, the same area that took him in since a handful of years back.

Before that, young Timothy harnessed his darkroom skills in Vancouver, and even earlier, he was a full-time snowboarder at the mountains of Northern Vermont. “I worked really shitty jobs—as a janitor for a while and in a deli and a skate shop… I was already really into photography, but I wanted to take a break…between high school and college,” Tim recalls. Even today, his photos manifest a closeness to nature—when he lets snow fall over Opening Ceremony

impresarios Humberto Leon and Carol Lim or when his thengirlfriend surveys the concrete New York landscape on top of a building.

Inseparable

from these subjects are city experiences.

No matter how posed, they belong to this larger creative milieu that Tim belongs to. Most of them are artists too as shown in the New York Creatives 2010 series he shot for Eyescream Magazine. There’s buzzed mixed media artists Nate Lowman and Dan Colen; the latter just had a much talked-about solo at Gagosian Gallery. And then, of course, there’s the celebrated photographer Ryan McGinley from whom he inherited his previous job as photo editor of Vice. “… after I finished school and moved to New York, [McGinley] had moved on to other things, so I took his place at the magazine. It was a great opportunity for me, a perfect introduction to New York

and the creative world here,” Tim confirms.

Before getting inducted into this scene, he has already been doing photography since high school. And faithful to this beginning, he has kept the same film process and only added color to his initial black and white works. “I started shooting black and white because that’s what they taught in school—developing and printing all your own film,” he says. And it’s not an issue.

He is an occasional digital photographer, too. One can look at his work for Nike featuring NYC Bridge Runners to understand Tim’s deftness in his medium’s nuances. Through his lens, the city regains its breadth, and runners become residents of this large concrete space, its metal support casting soft shadows on them.

No need for his Yashika T4 or Contax T2, not all the time. The best camera, he’d say, is the one in his hand

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“I worked really shitty jobs-as a janitor for a while and in a deli and a skate shop...”

at the moment. This immediate, obsessive-with-the-moment, manicagainst-loss belief is foundational in picking the works and artists for his online gallery TinyVices.com where art happens at the crux of the artists’ lives and their attempt to create things. He may not have affirmed this directly when he said “I don’t have a set criteria for the work I show on TinyVices.com,” but certainly, he says “I look for things that surprise me more than anything else.” What is surprising, evidently, is that the faces of these artists aren’t effaced in their work. Their eyes and their frames indicate experience and presence.

As opposed

to conceptual art, narrative is still a basis for Tim. In fact, it is the capital for him and these artists he patronize. When Kenneth Capello shows a series of skateboarding photos of adolescent boys, some of them moving in pictures that could be animated when stitched together, he indicates himself observing closely just as he had shot countless skate photos for various brands and magazines.

“There is so much redundancy in photography—so many copycats…”

Tim adds, so what can make one stand out other than experience itself? It can’t be faked. What Jason Nocito, for example, showed in Loads, the Aperture Foundation book which Tim published, is precisely this: the magazine photographer in a real life filled with a jelly donut, wood grains, and other banalities. Tim sets it straight: “Every aspect of photography is essentially editing.” The art is manifest in the choices one makes—what to show, what to show it with, what to 78 - statusmagonline.com

obscure, what to eliminate, avoid, or repeat.

On the other hand, Tim’s commercial work gains the same intimate documentary quality. Look at what he did for Stella McCartney’s Adidas collections and lingerie lookbooks.

The result: less posing, more action, less gloss, and more character. “There is a huge difference,” Tim says about his personal projects and commercial ones, but the visuals show otherwise.

“Commercial work is always about showing a product,” he adds, but Tim manages to add something more innately him to it. This model, for instance, wearing lacy indigo knickers and sheer crimson stockings, holds a cat (Tim loves them) while sitting on a window ledge and looks back like she’s caught in an intimate moment. This is the same nearness one will feel in his portraits.

They’re like Raymond Carver stories, leaving a gap for readers to fill in. “He tells very rich stories in a very minimal style,” Tim says about his author of choice. “I love subtlety.” You’ll see it on Ed Droste’s face illuminated by a lamp beside a window. It is before Chloë Sevigny’s wind-blown flaxen tresses.

Last November in Aaron Bondaroff’s OHWOW Gallery in Miami, Tim presented his first major solo exhibition, Untitled Photographs.

What to call them—a refusal to name, an insistence to remain anonymous and fleeting? And “…that’s what photography is all about—problem solving, navigating, finding your line.”

Here—with his visual poetry fogged by smoke or ever so gently flooded with light, Tim has defined his generation’s photographic conundrum more than enough.

tim-barber.com

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Photo courtesy of Raffi Adlan

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playboy and publishing mogul Britt Reid dreams of freeing the world from theft, murder, corruption, and anything that deserves capital punishment.

His vigilante operation follows the death of his father and is made possible by his tech-savvy and Kung Fu-hustling wingman Kato. Together, they fight crime under the guise of The Green Hornet.

In my universe though, I have an interview with screenwriter/ film, commercial, and music video director Michel Gondry. To calm myself, I review a line from his movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that says “I loved you on this day. I love this memory.” Just the same, there I am, pen in hand, eyes on the wall, imagining myself at 2011, loving the memory I’m just about to make.

He illuminates these streams of consciousness by saying, “There’s a reality that you share when you’re awake and when you’re in the world, but there is personal perception…

I guess you make a combination between your observation and your perception, and then you answer that through experience in dreams or in memory that are completely remodeled through your emotions or what’s going on in your life…”

Michel likes to capture the motions instead of placing life in a tableau. Born in Versailles, he recounts, “I’ve done photography when I was a kid. It sort of kills the memory of a certain time because the memory becomes an artifact. With the photo, you don’t remember... the in-between [which] makes it abstract.” Thus, he pursued animation.

Name it: Daft Punk, Radiohead, Paul McCartney—he’s worked with all of them. And who can forget his Björk music videos like “Human Behavior”? “I learned to combine ideas and not feel that I was losing myself in the collaborations. With Björk…I said I was not compromising,” Michel says. This attitude surfaced when he played as a drummer for Oui Oui and their leader “had very precise ideas” for their videos. The same situation manifested when he worked at a calendar company that inspired his movie The Science of Sleep. “I couldn’t stand my job anymore, so I sort of got fired on purpose… I took a job as an artist for this lady who was so unpleasant that I quit. I decided from that day on, I will only work for myself.”

He gravitated toward the surreal through stop motion animation and bullet time technique among his other tricks. He doesn’t believe in the symbolism of dreams though and doesn’t need hallucinogens to capture the deeper levels of consciousness. “I never do anything to enhance creativity. I just need to have my mind as clear as possible. It’s already very tormented… I don’t see any need to alter my brain,” he says.

Take that from Michel who directed and penned, together with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, the thought-tampering plot of the Academy award-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. “It feels unreal at that time when I won it. I wanted to win back…my ex-girlfriend… so I thought it would help, but it didn’t. The impression is the memory of realizing there was no hope to get her back, so that counted more than the event itself... Of course, it’s a reward, but I think making it as a movie is the ultimate reward,” he shares.

The Green Hornet (2011) stills courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment

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HEAVY HITTER Besides, there’s no such thing as the rest is history. “…It’s about timing.

I have many ideas that were rejected. Sometimes, they’re just in the corner of my mind, and a lot of times, I’m asked to do a project and…the idea I didn’t complete fits. It’s very important to use problems to be more creative…” Michel says. There’s no need to be too conceptual either because “you can’t predict everything…when you have an idea, and you hope it’s good; you can’t give up in the middle of the process. It’s all in the execution. Once the idea exists in your mind, you want it to exist in the real world, so you’d have to work hard to make it happen,” he says.

Now pulling the strings on a macro level, Michel adds that “working in a big studio [for The Green Hornet] makes you think of the audience more” especially if you’re working with Seth Rogen who “was very involved in the creative process” and Jay Chou who they regard as the Steve McQueen of Asia.

Instead of chronicling thought displacements as seen in Stéphane’s preference to dream than confront reality in The Science of Sleep or Clementine’s attempt to erase her memories in Eternal Sunshine, Michel has reached a tipping point where reality attempts to achieve the dream of a peaceful world, and multilayered memories become the active catalyst to produce it.

The best dreams are, after all, experienced awake and aware. But of course, “You could give a more dreamy quality to the reality of a moment or give more reality to a memory of a dream. I think it’s a constant discussion between reality and imagination,” he says.

These concepts are a challenge to swallow in one

gulp. It might even give you a brain freeze. But isn’t that the beauty of his work—to swallow overlapping frequencies, to embrace the ramshackle of the simultaneous and the random, to be comfortable with déjà vu?

It’s not surprising that he is fond of thought intersections because, as a boy, he lived on the edge, literally between the forest and the city. In his free time, he likes checking “the real meaning of words.” He admits to be more entertained by science than fiction, but he likes Russian novels, saying “I can’t believe how perfect they are compared to a lot of French and American literature. I’m trying to adapt [one] into a movie. I’m [also] doing an animation on linguistics.”

Whether animating makeshift hands flaring out of his nostrils to solve a Rubik’s cube or maximizing an art residence in M.I.T., this computer programmer’s son has a knack for problem-solving that might as well qualify him as a scientist instead of artist. But what is science anyway compared to Michel’s context of possibility?

He proves that not everything can be taken into forgetting. Maybe it’s his syndrome to always look back.

When I ask him what he’ll do if the whole world is dropping dead in five minutes, he says “I will spy on my ex-girlfriend.” Call it mental, heartbreaking, mindopening, or world-shattering.

But when the world is asleep or aspiring for picture-perfect memories, Michel saves the day not by crime-fighting but by snapping straight into our synapses.

michelgondry.com

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Where to find stuff in this magazine BRANDS 101 FASHION SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City 5CM SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City 7 FOR ALL MANKIND Greenbelt 5, Makati City AC + 630 Greenbelt 5, Makati City ACUPUNCTURE Urban Athletics, Greenbelt 3, Makati City ANNE KLEIN Shangri-La Plaza, Mandaluyong City ALDO ACCESORIES Bonifacio High Street, The Fort, Taguig City ARMANI EXCHANGE Power Plant Mall, Makati City BILLABONG Stoked Inc., Power Plant Mall, Makati City BLEACH CATASTROPHE Greenbelt 5, Makati City CHARLES & KEITH Bonifacio High Street, The Fort, Taguig City CONVERSE Urban Athletics, Greenbelt 3, Makati City CPS Bonifacio High Street, The Fort, Taguig City CUSHE Urban Athletics, Greenbelt 3, Makati City DARK SIDE CLOTHING darksideclothing.com DC SHOES Eastwood Citywalk, Quezon City DEBENHAMS Shangri-La Plaza, Mandaluyong City DIESEL Power Plant Mall, Makati City DKNY Greenbelt 5, Makati City DISSIZIT Trilogy Boutique, 110 Alvion Center, Rada St., Legaspi Village, Makati City 328-1071 ELECTRIC Stoked Inc., Power Plant Mall, Makati City ELEMENT Stoked Inc., Power Plant Mall, Makati City EMILIO PUCCI net-a-porter.com FENDI net-a-porter.com FRED PERRY Greenbelt 5, Makati City FOLDED AND HUNG SM Mall of Asia, Pasay City FOREVER 21 SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City

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Toby’s, Olympic Village, American Rag, Athlete’s Foot, Sports Warehouse VOLCOM Aloha Boardsports, Power Plant Mall, Makati City WAREHOUSE Power Plant Mall, Makati City ZOO YORK Urban Athletics, Greenbelt 3, Makati City ARTISTs Barry Ambrosio (Photographer) barryambrsio@mac.com Rosanna Aranaz (Blogger) littlemissdressup.com Life Balibalos (Photographer) litrato.tumblr.com Tim Barber (Photographer) tim-barber.com Kevin Bautista (Photographer) backtothepicture.tumblr.com Kookie Buhain (Blogger) chictopia.com/deathbyplatforms Jonathan Caballa (Photographer) cabsphotography.wordpress.com Asger Carlsen (Photographer) margecasey.com/asgercarlsen The Cobrasnake (Photographer) thecobrasnake.com Matthew Coleman (Photographer) matthew-coleman.co.uk Linda Cooper (Photographer) lindacooper.deviantart.com Caloy Creencia (Photographer) caloy119photos.multiply.com Flavia Desgranges van der Linden (Blogger) fashioncoolture.com.br Elvis Di Fazio (Photographer) elvisdifaziopeople.blogspot.com Nicky Digital (Photographer) nickydigital.com Brian Dowling (Photographer) runwaynewswire.com Gerard Estadella (Photographer) icanteachyouhowtodoit.com Brandon Ferlin (Photographer) bybrando.com/blog Jimmy Fontaine (Photographer) jimmyfontaine.com Mattew Francis (Make-up Artist) matthewfrancis.info Doron Gild (Photographer) dorongild.com Peter van Hattem (Photographer) pmvhphoto.com Jon Herrera (Photographer) statusmagonline.com Dorothy Hong (Photographer) dothong.com

Gil Inoue (Photographer) coletivo.org/gilinoue Jason Jean (Photographer) citizencouture.com Katrina Jume (Blogger) thisisnofashionblog.wordpress.com Gabor Klima (Photographer) flickr.com/gaborklima Nick Knight (Photographer) nickknight.com David LaChapelle (Photographer) lachapellestudio.com Stevyn Llewellyn (Photographer) modernglossy.com Claire Martin (Photographer) clairemartinphotography.com Ming Han Chung (Photographer) runwaynewswire.com Miguel Miranda (Photographer) miguelmiranda420@yahoo.com Lyka Orhel (Photographer) thesdaproject.blogspot.com Felipe Ornell (Blogger) fashioncoolture.com.br Lemi Palermo (Photographer) lhemiepalermo.tumblr.com Geordy Pearson (Photographer) geordypearson.com Jenni Porkka (Photographer) cargocollective.com/jenni Germinal Roaux (Photographer) germinalroaux.com Nuk Romualdez (Photographer) nuknuk.multiply.com Paolo Ruiz (Photographer) paoloruiz.com Nante Santamaria (Photographer) behance.net/nansan Jolijn Snijders (Photographer) ilovefake.com Nick St. James (Photographer) flickr.com/photos/buckswope Linn Heidi Stokkedal (Photographer) linnheidi.com Melvin Sun (Photographer) melvinsun@gmail.com Fionna Tanner (Make-up Artist) ftmakeup.co.uk David Urbanke (Photographer) davidurbanke.com Kristiina Wilson (Photographer) kristiinawilson.com Ebba Zingmark (Blogger) ebbasfoton.blogg.se PHOTO STUDIO Triptych Studios G/F Sarmiento Condominium, 177 Yakal St., San Antonio Village, Makati City miguelmiranda42@yahoo.com

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: FILM CAMERA

My father enjoyed taking family portraits when I was younger. He passed over his Nikon FM film camera body to me, and it’s been my treasure since then.

But because of the cost in developing films these days, I only use it for special occasions.

FASHION MAGAZINES

As a photographer who constantly seeks ideas and inspirations, browsing through and collecting fashion magazines is a must. My favorites are international publications such as Vogue Paris.

CITIZEN COUTURE

Jason Jean of CITIZEN COUTURE, who has photographed stylish strangers and celebrities like Leigh Lezark and Olivia Palermo, has blurred the lines between fashion, travel, and photojournalism. He may have been diagnosed with juvenile glaucoma, but when he globe-trots to scout for style, he’s armed and ready with his camera and a clear-cut sight.

BICYCLE

It helps me get around Manhattan a lot faster and cheaper than public transportation. It’s also my workout when I participate in bike tours.

citizencouture.com

wallet

The Jack Spade wallet is slim and still stores all my essential cards.

business card holder

FOOTWEAR

The Tiffany’s business card holder was a very thoughtful gift from a friend when I started his website.

I’ve grown very fond of boots.

For formal events, I like to keep my appearance simple yet sophisticated. For everything else, I love my limited edition Converse by John Varvatos.

Although my studded ankle Converse is completely worn out, I find [that] it has more character than when it was new.

To fight the bitter winter cold, I wear my python skin hi-top Converse.

NOTEPAD

My Moleskine notepad is for random notes and sketches.

CUSTOM SHIRTS

All men should own a few custom-fitted dandy shirts. My cousin introduced me to Lord Willy’s, a small Nolita store owned by British expats Alex and Betty Wilcox.

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