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KILLER FASHION ELLE FANNING

IN COACH 1941 PHOTOGRAPHED BY STEVEN KLEIN STYLED BY PATTI WILSON

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The philosopher René Girard argued that desire, as seen in fiction, is triangular: it does not only go in a straight line, from subject to object, it is also “mediated” by a force connected to each. The desire to be stylish is, for example, mediated by that abstract force: the fashion world.

Fashion’s standards both instill the desire in the subject to be considered beautiful and invent the most contemporary beauty. This is one reason why movies about fashion are often of the psychological thriller genre. To explain the idea of fashion is to define a psychology. And much in the same way sci-fi stories must create their own worlds in order to describe a mentality, a film about fashion must depict extremes in order to illustrate desire.

Our cover story is on the surreal horror film The Neon Demon, which, according to director Nicolas Winding Refn, takes cues from the camp classics Suspiria, Valley of the Dolls, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, stories that revolve around an impossible ideal of beauty. In the first, a Dario Argento-directed slasher, a coven of witches curses a ballet academy. In the last, a Russ Meyer-directed softcore romp, psychedelic sleaze interrupts any kind of Hollywood success the main characters seek. (Read more about the original Valley of the Dolls in our essay on author Jacqueline Susann.)

In The Neon Demon, as well, one can easily see the influences of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, each about a striking woman who mourns the loss of a fashionable life. But it is from films like Berry Gordy’s Mahogany—a rags-to-high fashion story in which a wannabe designer becomes an in-demand model (with tragic consequences)—or Irvin Kershner’s Eyes of Laura Mars—in which a fashion photographer specializes in staged violence (with tragic consequences)—that we can trace the tradition of truly killer fashion-themed films. In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s German film, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, too, the popular designer Petra fixates on brutality, noting that she is surrounded by tragödie.

The impossible ideal—that hovering silhouette, the mediator of the desire to be en vogue—is, in these films, as frightening a villain as the fiends, murderers, and drug addictions that also haunt our fair heroines. Fashion is necessarily a world of extremes. Why are so many fictional films about it, like Refn’s take on the modeling world (set in relentless Los Angeles, of all places), tragedies and thrillers? Perhaps because, like with dystopian future landscapes, only when the stakes are raised this high can the full effect of change—in other words, fashion— be felt. NATASHA STAGG

From top: Diana Ross in Mahogany (1975, Everett Collection), Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars (1978, Columbia Pictures/ Everett Collection), Margit Carstensen in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972, Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/ Everett Collection) VMAGAZINE.coM 29

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ON THE COVER : ELLE FANNING WEARS DRESS COACH 1941 ON LIPS ROUGE DIOR IN 844 TRAFALGAR

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editor’s letter

letter

We here at V always have our eyes firmly set on the future.

While summer is a time for sun-drenched getaways and sultry nights, we’re already casting our gaze toward Fall in anticipation of an exciting new season of fashion. And though we’re not quite ready to say goodbye to the glory days of summer, we hope you’ll join us in welcoming the promises of Fall.

Fashion, as well we know, can be a fickle mistress.

Sometimes, she can even be downright devilish. All too easily, what is innovative one day becomes decidedly outré the next. Such macabre musings may seem a touch dramatique, but when you consider our cover feature, starring the diabolically beautiful trio of Elle Fanning, Abbey Lee, and Bella Heathcote, who star in Nicolas Winding Refn’s psychological thriller, The Neon Demon, they’re decidedly apt. For his latest film, Refn—who directed the neo-noir infused automotive thriller Drive—weaves together a dark tale of youth and obsession in which beauty and the quest for its preservation take on truly murderous dimensions. It’s one part Valley of the Dolls, one part American Psycho. And who better than photographer Steven Klein and stylist Patti Wilson to create a wickedly playful take on fashion’s grittier side that is sure to give new meaning to “killer fashion”? Indeed, as Fanning notes in her interview with writer Kevin McGarry, “Beauty can be your demise.”

If by now you’re getting the chills, we’ve got you covered. Bruce Weber and Deborah Watson heat things up with a roundup of the Fall season’s best shearling coats, conjuring a vision of youth and beauty—starring the likes of androgyne Erika Linder and actress–model Dree Hemingway—that’s sure to get temperatures rising.

Meanwhile, hewing closer to Edith Head’s maxim that “Some people need sequins, others don’t,” photographer Brett Lloyd creates a tableau of restrained looks, at once insouciant and eminently sophisticated, for a story that plays with volume and fit.

Of course, Head may have had it completely wrong about “all that glitters.” On the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Valley of the Dolls, writer Nell Beram offers a clear-eyed look at the life of its storied author, Jacqueline Susann. Starting from the query, “What’s a feminist to do with you?,” Beram details Susann’s personal travails— including a mastectomy in 1962—as well as her acumen for self-promotion, arguing for a new interpretation of Susann’s legacy as the first “branded author.”

Speaking of strong female brands, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumely sit down for an intimate portrait with photographer Sølve Sundsbø and chat with writer Jack Sunnucks about the release of the forthcoming Absolutely Fabulous movie. Reflecting upon the often brash humor and fashion world satire that came to define the show, Saunders notes that, in today’s politically correct climate, “You can’t be rude about stuff anymore.”

Meanwhile, Richard Stark, founder of the clothing and jewelry line Chrome Hearts, may beg to differ. Taking us on a tour of his sprawling Hollywood workshop, Stark is quick to offer his own opinions on the fashion world, which are anything but silver-tongued.

This wouldn’t be V if we didn’t spotlight the next generation of the best and brightest. Writer Whitney Mallett profiles six of today’s freshest faces, including Grace Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep, and Selah Marley, whose musical ambitions follow in the footsteps of her mother, Lauryn Hill.

Finally, music and fashion are two things that we love here at V, and when they come together, it’s often the stuff of legends. Prince was one of those artists whose talents as a musician were embodied in the singularity of his sense of style. With his passing earlier this year, we lost an icon and an inspiration, an innovator whose commitment to being himself will serve as a role model for generations to come. Photographers Inez & Vinoodh shot Prince for the cover of V84 and for this issue, they reflect on the 48 hours they got to spend with him. As one half of the duo, Inez van Lamsweerde, recalls, Prince “wasn’t so much concentrated on himself and his stuff. He was about performing with others and being with other people.”

If anybody could have been said to slay fashion, the Prince of Purple was most definitely the victor. MR. V

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CONTENTS

THIS ISSUE

38 PRINCE With the passing of the legendary musician, photographers Inez & Vinoodh reflect upon their 48 hours spent capturing the Purple One for our pages.

42 JACQUELINE SUSANN The fabled author of Valley of the Dolls would have celebrated the novel’s reissue this summer, but as Nell Beram reveals, its history wasn’t all sparkle, Neely.

44 ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS The duo behind television’s most infamous fashion world send-up discuss their long-awaited big-screen debut.

46 STARK CONTRAST A peek inside the Chrome Hearts workshop shows that, for its founders, the silver bullet for success is sticking to your guns.

48 A SHURA THING British musician Shura gets surprisingly real about her forthcoming debut album, Nothing’s Real.

50 CUBA LIBRE Our man in Havana, actor Alex Pettyfer, documents Chanel’s historic Cruise collection show in the famed capital. ¡Viva #CocoCuba!

52 V NEWS From Jane Eyre to Rihanna, this summer is full of big news from some of the baddest gals in history.

54 THE SCOOP These fur handbags are the cream of the crop— and will please even the sweetest tooth.

56 V GIRLS For the latest in our series, we’ve gathered together a group of musicians, artists, and actors sure to leave you wanting more.

62 SEASONS CHANGE It’s all hands on deck as we take the helm and test the waters for the coming season’s lifesaving trends.

72 KILLING IT BY STEVEN KLEIN The stars of The Neon Demon—Elle Fanning, Abbey Lee, and Bella Heathcote—slay in Fall’s most deadly fashion.

Styled by Patti Wilson 84 WOLVES IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING BY BRUCE WEBER With temperatures set to drop, bundle up in shearling coats for a story that will get you hot under the collar.

Styled by Deborah Watson

108 STATE OF THE ART BY BRETT LLOYD Playing with proportion and popular textiles in unexpected ways points to a modern vision for Fall fashion.

Styled by Jay Massacret

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n o w w o n wn v m a g a z i n e e c o m UnSeenwimageS

Discover extra content from this issue’s killer cover story with Elle Fanning, Abbey Lee, and Bella Heathcote, photographed

by Steven Klein.

eXcLUSivew eXcLUSive ive ininTeR inTeRviewS Rview viewS

Learn more about the subjects in this issue with online only conversations, like one with Erika Linder from Bruce Weber’s Fall coat wrap-up.

BeHininDwDw BeHinDw THTHe THew Scene ceneS SceneS

Ever wonder how a V shoot comes together? Log on and grab your all access pass with bonus video content from Brett Lloyd’s Fall extravaganza.

VMAGAZINE.coM 36

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prince

Following the tragic passing of music’s reigning prince, Inez & Vinoodh remember their time spent with royalty.

VMAGAZINE.COM 38

“In the beginning, he was a little shy,” Inez van Lamsweerde recalls of her meeting with Prince. Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin—who, together, make up the photography duo, Inez & Vinoodh—were in Las Vegas to shoot Prince for the cover of V’s 2013 Fall Preview issue, V84.

With the musician in the middle of a concert series at the Hard Rock Café, the photographers were only granted a small window of time to shoot him. “Basically, we set up a gray seamless in the kitchen of the green room backstage,” van Lamsweerde remembers, “which was incredibly small and with a very low ceiling.” In between sets, Prince would rush backstage to his fitting room, change his costume and hair and, before going back on stage, pose to be photographed.

The pace was frenetic and Prince was involved with every last detail of the shoot. On the first day, Inez & Vinoodh returned from a crew lunch to find that they were temporarily barred from the fitting room. “We were told by his people that he wasn’t ready for us to come in.” Curious, the photographers waited outside. “When we were finally let back in, it turned out he had gone through all the clothes and created all these outfits. He had done the styling by himself.” Just before beginning the first session, Prince stepped in front of the seamless and described the feel he wanted to go for that day. “He said, ‘You know, I’m really interested in Hendrix and all that.’”

No more than five pictures in, Prince asked the photographers if he could see what had been shot. “Normally, that’s a nerve-wracking situation for us to immediately have to share the photos with the subject,” van Lamsweerde confesses, “but I showed it to him and he looked at the back of my camera and said, ‘Delete, delete, delete. That’s the picture. Delete the rest.’ Out of the five images that I shot, he chose one from just looking at the small images on the back of the camera and that ended up being the cover for V.” (The image opposite is an outtake, released for the first time in this issue.)

As the shoot continued, Prince eventually opened up to the photography crew camped out in his green room.

“He got more and more excited as the day kept going, as he saw what we were doing and liked it.” And Prince’s enthusiasm wasn’t limited to the images that the duo took of him. During the day, when Prince wasn’t performing, Inez & Vinoodh shot his all-female backup band. “He was extremely supportive of the girls in the band,” recalls van Lamsweerde. When asked what music he was listening to, “he said, ‘I don’t really listen to anyone today. I’d much rather listen to my band 3RDEYEGIRL, the girls, play their stuff. They’re so talented. That’s what’s so inspiring to me.’

You meet so many people, and some are just solely focused on their life, but some are genuinely interested in anyone around them. That was the case with Prince.”

And while the experience of being around someone whose music and style are larger than life was unforgettable, it was the very human interactions with the late musician that remain most poignant for them.

“He wore these beautiful little boots with high heels,” van Lamsweerde says. At one point in between shoots, Prince sat “next to me on the couch, taking the boots off to try on [another pair] that Donatella Versace had specifically made for him. I just remember looking at his satin boot just laying there on the ground thinking, Wow, I’m looking at Prince’s boot. It was so epic. He has small feet and the heel is this high ’80s heel. I was like, Look at that.

There’s that boot. He’s got his thing, it’s sort of male and female erotic at the same time. Sexy. It seems so impossible that he could even pass away, let alone so young. It made me feel very, very sad but also extremely proud that we had the chance to make these iconic images of him.

His whole incredible career is inspiring, in terms of fashion, in terms of image-making, in terms of video-making, and of course the music. But just visually, his vision was so big for everyone in my generation. It was just such a treat to have been able to record that ourselves and in our way.” JOSEPH AKEL

PHOTOGRAPHY inEz & vinOOdH FASHiOn MELAniE WARd PRINCE WEARS CLOTHING ANd NECkLACE HIS OWN

Grooming Amber Rose Lighting director Jodokus Driessen Digital technician Brian Anderson Production Brenda Brown (The Collective Shift) On-set production Lisa Grezo (GE Projects) Studio producer Jeff Lepine Studio manager Marc Kroop Retouching Stereohorse

heroes

PRINCE AND 3RDEYEGIRL PERFORMING AT THE JOINT AT HARD ROCK HOTEL & CASINO, LAS VEGAS, 2013.

heroes

Jac uelinee SuSann

Fifty years later, it’s hard to imagine the world before Valley of the Dolls, but what the sensational novel exposed didn’t initially go down easy.

Oh, Jacqueline Susann. What’s a feminist to do with you?

Nora Ephron didn’t see you as a friend to the women’s movement in 1969 when she described your work as “firstrate kitsch” in the New York Times, although she admitted that when Valley of the Dolls came out in 1966, she couldn’t put it down. Gloria Steinem, reviewing Valley in the New York Herald Tribune, didn’t focus on its aspiring female characters. To her, Valley was “for the reader who has put away comic books but isn’t yet ready for editorials in The Daily News.” Susann retaliated verbally and allegedly threatened to punch Steinem should their paths cross.

(A fan of Valley can be forgiven if this catfight-scented exchange conjures up the novel’s most famous scene, involving two divas, a wig, and a toilet.)

Before Susann became a best-selling author, she was a highly driven, yet failed, New York actress and an uncelebrated playwright who had known more than her share of heartache. Her son, Guy, born in 1946, was autistic and lived in an institution. In 1962, she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer. Overdue for some good fortune, Susann, who had been raised casually Jewish, made a deal with God: if he would give her just 10 more years on earth, she would become a successful writer. Susann somewhat realized her ambition with Every Night, Josephine!, a droll 1963 valentine to her poodle. The plaudits for Josephine emboldened her to try her hand at a novel—which is not to say a work of pure fiction.

Rereleased by Grove Press this summer in sync with the novel’s fiftieth anniversary, Valley follows three working

women across two decades as they navigate midcentury Manhattan’s show business and social scenes. It’s Sex and the City (inconceivable without Valley) starring one Charlotte and two Samanthas. Conversations revolve around their must-haves—money to survive, a certain job, a specific mink, a particular man—and whether life is worth living without love, beauty, or talent. It’s a world of late nights at restaurants and clubs, of booze and cigarettes, and, eventually, dolls—Susann’s term for the barbiturates that she increasingly saw thrown back in her circle and in Hollywood. (She threw some dolls back, too.)

In the press, there was much conjecture regarding the models for Susann’s self-medicating strivers. She used every muscle to fan the flames of speculation, but she was firm about her intentions. In Ephron’s piece, Susann is quoted as saying, “I am a thematic writer. In other words, I pick a theme and then the characters fall into place.

With ‘Valley,’ I never sat down and said, ‘I’m going to write about a prototype of Judy Garland or Ethel Merman.’” If the reader happened to picture Merman’s wig in Garland’s hand, all the better.

With its frank depictions of recreational drug use, an abortion pursued, and enjoyable non-missionary sex, the book caused a scandal—with a vertical line through the S. Valley’s scads of sales were abetted by Susann and husband/press agent Irving Mansfield’s marketing efforts, which borrowed from something they knew well: the acting world’s star-making machinery. Over the years, Susann did ads, TV and public appearances, and book launch parties.

She and Mansfield essentially invented the modern author tour. The writer Michael Korda, who edited Susann’s second novel, The Love Machine, told Charlie Rose in 1995 that, before Jackie, “people weren’t so much interested in selling books as they were in publishing them...Selling books was regarded as slightly distasteful.”

Operating out of her Central Park South apartment, Susann was always camera ready with a bouffant, wearing Courrèges or Emilio Pucci. (Her friend Rex Reed apparently called the latter her “banana split nightmares.”)

Lisa Bishop, whose mother married Irving Mansfield after Susann’s death, told me, “She made herself the first branded author, that’s for sure. In style, in fashion, in her specific voice, her wit.” The original self-branded woman would have been all over social media. Whitney Robinson, Bishop’s nephew and another steward of the Susann estate, says, “There’s no doubt that after getting dressed up completely in her wigs and her pancake

makeup and her false eyelashes, she would’ve taken the If Susann in fact only saw dollar signs, it would be hard best selfie of anybody in the business.” to explain why she stormed director Mark Robson after Susann was the first author to take three consecutive an early screening of the movie version of Valley, calling it number one spots on the New York Times Best Seller list, “a piece of shit.” She knew the film would only move more with Valley, The Love Machine, and Once Is Not Enough. units, yet she was protective of her work. As Lisa Bishop All three novels were later adapted into films. Her suc- says, the movie “diverges so much from the book that I cesses led many to conclude that the prize on which she don’t think it really speaks through her genuine voice.” had her eye was money; David Frost said that she typed Susann does make a cameo in the film, playing a reporter, “on a cash register.” There were also green-eyed per- which makes sense. Whitney Robinson sees the novel as sonal attacks, as when Truman Capote said that Susann Susann “reporting, really, on the front lines of what she’s seeing…real, flawed people and not products of PR and the looked like “a truck driver in drag” on Johnny Carson.

(Capote later apologized—to truck drivers.) Capote had studio system.” As Bishop puts it, “The genius of Jackie hit Susann where she hurt: the public didn’t know about was that she really just pulled back the curtain and showed the mastectomy. Nor did they know about Guy’s institu- [Hollywood] for what it was.” tionalization. If Susann and Mansfield were running for The film stars a prim Barbara Parkins as blue-blooded the money train, it was largely to ensure that there would Anne, an eye-meltingly beautiful Sharon Tate as glossy be enough of the stuff to pay for their son’s needs after Jennifer (rumored to be molded on the tragic actress they were gone.

Carole Landis, Susann’s friend), and, as Neely, Patty Duke, whose performance as a Garland-ish, weight-battling, pill-popping singer didn’t just invite parody; it was indistinguishable from it. Then there’s the middle-aged, borderline washed-up Broadway star Helen Lawson—the Ethel Merman surrogate. (Susann and Merman had been friends, too.) The role, played by Susan Hayward, originally went to Garland herself, who was famously fired a month into shooting for, well, being Judy Garland (read: Neely).

If the book wasn’t a B novel, then the decidedly B movie

Truman Capote said that Susann looked like “a truck driver in drag” on Johnny Carson.

(Capote later apologized —to truck drivers.)

ABOVE: COVER OF thE 2016 REissuE RiGht: BARBARA PARkins And jACquElinE susAnn in thE 1967 Film BAsEd On thE BOOk

Clockwise from left: Courtesy the Jacqueline Susann Archive Collection; Courtesy Grove; Courtesy the Jacqueline Susann Archive Collection; Courtesy PhotoMedia

confirmed highbrow types’ suspicions about Susann’s work. Although the movie made money, she feared that it would hurt her carefully cultivated brand, and it did— until it didn’t.

Having kept her cancer’s return private, Susann died in 1974, at age 56. She got two more years than the 10 she’d prayed for after her first diagnosis, but it wasn’t long enough to allow her to see what became of the movie version of Valley. Today there’s a Rocky Horror Picture Show–like devotion to it, mainly because it’s so howlingly overboard that it’s a theatrical marvel. The film has a mammoth gay following in part because, as Robinson points out, “Jackie was the first author to write gay people into her novels in a really palpable way.” True, they’re called “fags” and “dykes,” but at least they’re at the party. Susann was indefatigably loyal to her fans, and it’s easy to imagine her posing for photos with drag queens before sitting back and enjoying the film, maybe even reciting the lines along with the audience: “Sparkle, Neely, sparkle.” Patty Duke made her peace with the movie before her death this past March. Surely Susann would have been able to by then as well.

As for her novels, any work that begets a publishing gold mine, like that of Danielle Steel or Jackie Collins, requires reevaluation. While Susann didn’t march for the freshly hatched feminist cause of her day, she probably wouldn’t have threatened to punch the professors who have taught Valley in women’s literature courses. Which brings us back to that needling question: what’s a feminist to do with you, Jackie?

In his recent piece for the Nation online, “Jacqueline Susann’s Queer Feminism,” Tim Murphy writes, “Ultimately, Valley of the Dolls can probably not be called a feminist book. A certain female vitality and optimism that animates the beginning of the book devolves into familiar midcentury tropes by its end.” Come now, aren’t Anne, Jennifer, and Neely’s fates Susann’s indictment of the midcentury male animal? Thinking about Susann and her motives, I kept returning to another Steinem quote: “A movement is only people moving.” If, instead of marching with feminists, Jackie was walking to the bank, so be it. Nell Beram

valley of the dolls 50th aNNiversary editioN is availaBle from grove press july 4, 2016 VMAGAZINE.COM VmAGAZinE.COm 4431

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley are back as fashion’s biggest nightmare, this time on the big screen—the better to offend us with, sweetie darling.

Makeup and hair (Joanna Lumley) Gia Mills Makeup (Jennifer Saunders) Kenny Campbell (Premier Hair and Makeup) Hair (Jennifer Saunders) Lisa Eastwood (Premier Hair and Makeup) Manicure Marian Newman (Streeters) Digital technician Anna Hendry Production Sally Dawson and Paula Ekenger Photo assistants Simon McGuigan and Sam Hendel Styling assistant Ashlee Hill

Fashion people aren’t famed for having a sense of humor the current vogue for relaunching on Netflix. “Honestly, about their personal lives, which makes the success of I’ve got this feeling [Ab Fab] could be done. I don’t think Absolutely Fabulous in haute circles something of an there’s any juice left.” We’ve heard it from her before. But enigma. The cult series, which has been on and off our this time, the threat is partly due to the changing comedic TV screens since 1992, stars Jennifer Saunders as Edina climate. “You can’t be rude about stuff anymore,” says Monsoon, an overweight and morally challenged PR agent, Saunders. “Everyone’s so fucking sensitive about everyand Joanna Lumley as Patsy Stone, an alcoholic fashion thing now.” While saying this, she inspects the on set editor—and Eddy’s best (and only) friend. The first, des- breakfast, doing the perfect sniveling Edina Monsoon perate to be loved in a lurid Lacroix wardrobe, destroys voice, eyes wide and palms up. “Oh, I’m so sorry I offended everything she touches, from her client relationships to her you. I’ve offended a croissant. I was croissant-ist. And family, while supporting Patsy’s drug-addled life. Frankly, they’ve got their own Facebook page, croissants now.

The Devil Wears Prada doesn’t come close to Ab Fab’s I’ve offended some food.” mean-spirited depiction of fashion professionals. So, how Actually, the best thing about the show was just how exactly did they get some of the biggest fashion stars, like wildly offensive it was, with its frank depictions of abuse, alcoholism, and fashion tokenism (punctuated by Edina’s Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, and Jean Paul Gaultier, to star in the long-awaited film version? enduring tagline, “Sweetie darling”). Despite this, or per“They don’t think it’s about them,” Saunders, 58, intones haps because of it, when rewatching the series, it’s striking dryly. “They think it’s about other people in the business.” that the universe they created is almost entirely populated All the hysterical observations in Ab Fab are her own, as by women and LGBT people. This idea gives the creators she wrote the original sketch (cowritten by Dawn French), pause. “We tried very hard,” says Saunders, “but [gay peothe show that developed from it, and now the film. Out ple] refused to be offended—and I admire them for that. of character, Saunders and Lumley are in fact very chic, Thank God you’re hanging on in there.” Lumley takes a more by the way, a million miles away from their stumbling serious tone. “You go back and pick through it, the amount creations. “Remember: it’s extreme, we’re cartoons,” says of gay references and ease with which it’s been put into Lumley, 70. “Wearing excessively ill-chosen clothes by the story, without it being dragged along like a great log high quality, top labels, always two or three sizes too of plot. It’s really normal that one of [Edina’s] ex-husbands now lives with his young boyfriend. It’s completely normal small, that [Edina] put together with hectic abandon. that [Edina] wants Saffy [Edina’s long-suffering daughter] And [Patsy], just a succubus who clings on,” at which point, both erupt into gales of laughter. to be a lesbian or that Serge [Edina’s long lost son] is gay and living in New York. It’s completely normal that Patsy Ab Fab wasn’t supposed to run (in spurts) for over 20 years. “You don’t ever think like that when you’re starting,” is transgender.” says Saunders. “You do a series, then hope you’ll do a Without intending to, Ab Fab blazed a trail, one that has second.” Despite this, there have been six sporadic series only recently been picked up by tragicomedies like Orange (or to Americans, seasons) and almost annual follow-up Is the New Black. They even got gay married long before specials, all of them hilarious. “And we’ve scarcely aged at it was legal. Whoopi Goldberg herself officiated Edina all,” shouts Lumley. This statement, something her char- and Patsy’s wedding. As they consider whether—horror of acter would say between her teeth, unleashes another horrors—Ab Fab might have actually made a difference, the duo perk up. In 2002, they were due to receive an wave of giggling. The two seem to have just as close of a bond as their characters—albeit rather less medicated. award for their contributions to LGBT culture during Pride “Honestly, it’s so shocking when we see early pictures,” in New York. “We went in with the idea that it was going says Saunders of the start of their friendship. “Look how to be this great camp affair,” says Saunders. They showed juicy we were,” she moans. “Almost filled with juice. It was up in full Edina and Patsy drag, Saunders wearing a huge like, our lips, juice everywhere, and shine,” as they both Philip Treacy Stetson wrapped with the Stars and Stripes desperately massage their faces, cackling wildly. and Lumley in her character’s signature beehive.

The premise of the film is simple. Saunders’s first “I was afraid they wouldn’t know who we were,” justifies thought was, “Edina Monsoon killing Kate Moss is a funny Lumley. As the ceremony rumbled on, they realized it was idea. The one thing she wants, she kills.” From there the a much more sober setting, replete with piano solos and film grew, simply and brilliantly. “The first thing was, Edina memorials to people who had died of AIDS complications. kills Kate Moss. Funny. And then: where shall we do it? “And proper speeches,” wails Lumley. “You didn’t just go up The South of France sounds rather lovely.” Cut to Edina and say, ‘Cheers, thanks a lot,’” which was of course what and Patsy, by now the most hated women in Britain, hiding they’d planned to do, using Patsy’s favorite catchphrase. at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat on the Riviera, mainlin- Saunders is completely hysterical by this point. ing “Bolly.”

“Whoopi Goldberg came on to give our award, and we While filming, Instagram was blanketed with shots went, Oh no, we’ve totally misjudged this whole thing. At which point, as more people were crying and our moment of Moss, cigarette in mouth and champagne flute in hand, emerging from the Thames. “She was great,” says was arriving, Joanna leaned over to me and said, ‘I think we Saunders of working with the Super, “because she’s been a should’ve made a speech.’” But it was too late. In true Ab model—to her, she was being treated terribly nicely, offered Fab fashion, they ascended the stage, as bewildered as their cups of tea and blankets. She said, ‘Ooh, if this was a [fash- characters, and said, “Cheers, thanks a lot.” Jack SunnuckS ion] shoot, none of this would happen; they’d just say, “Why are you shivering? Get on with it!”’ She’s absolutely brilliant.” PhotograPhy Sølve SundSbø faShion tom guinneSS If this feels like the end of Edina and Patsy’s vodkaFROM LEFT: LUMLEY WEARS ShiRT boSS RiNG hER OWN SAUNDERS WEARS DRESS Stella mccartney fueled journey, then perhaps it is. Saunders isn’t convinced she’ll add more seasons or specials to the series, despite AbSOLUTELY FAbULOUS: ThE MOviE iS iN ThEATERS jULY 22, 2016

heroes

“Edina Monsoon killing Kate Moss is a funny idea.

The one thing she wants, she kills.” —Jennifer Saunders VMAGAZINE.COM VMAGAZINE.coM 44 53

STARK CONTRAST

Richard Stark’s Chrome Hearts isn’t just a silver-studded brand, it’s a star-studded lifestyle.

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Hair Eric Gabriel using Oribe (The Rex Agency) Makeup Julianne Kaye using M.A.C Cosmetics Photo assistant Jason Willheim Stylist assistant Natalie Derhy

On the floor of the Chrome Hearts factory, “fashion” is a dirty word. Founder Richard Stark’s face crinkles in disgust at the mention of “luxury,” despite the brand’s usual recipe of fine leather and sculpted metal. “Nowadays, everybody’s fucking luxury,” he sneers. “I don’t use the word…I just try to use amazing materials, craftsmanship, attention to detail, precious metals, precious gems, all that kind of shit. I guess you can call it whatever you want.”

Stark has been at the factory since dawn—he usually rises at 4 am. “I’m going to take you on a tour,” he says, pressing an espresso into my hand. We walk through a metal casting shop, a leather cutting room, a polishing department, the special projects sector.

The factory unfolds, each workshop opening up like another tool on a Swiss Army knife.

Here is the woodworking department, where two men are making a table. There’s a furniture upholstery area and a separate sewing chamber. As we amble, Stark points out the various and sundry items that they make, each more absurd: leather jackets embroidered with their signature cross, a white leather tuffet, an alligator fanny pack, an 8-foot leather dinosaur with a zipper penis, a silver-embellished toilet plunger, a studded wallet heavy enough to be a deterrent. Stark, pretending to fight off an imaginary would-be assailant, jokes, “This wallet is called Birth Control, because, ‘I said no!’”

Before I know it, we’ve spent two hours exploring the campus, which covers some three city blocks in the middle of Hollywood. The Chrome Hearts story began in the late 1980s when Stark—until that point a high-end carpenter—was offered a job making costumes for the Troma slasher Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, costarring a girlfriend of one of the Sex Pistols. Stark nicked the working title for the film during the casting call, Chrome Hearts, set up shop in the middle of Skid Row, and soon Sex Pistol Steve Jones started bugging him for custom-made gear. Word of mouth spread to other rockers, like Lenny Kravitz, the Cult, Heart, and Mötley Crüe, but catering to stars was never a part of any marketing plan. “From the beginning, I planned to be a 150-year-old company and in order to do that, the only way I knew how to do it—because I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing; I thought I did—was to just start doing it,” he says.

Another of his first clients was Laurie Lynn, an art director who ordered a collection of swimsuits. They fell in love, got married, and she joined the company as a partner.

In 1992, they famously didn’t return a call from the CFDA informing Stark he’d won the Accessories Designer of the Year award. A Vogue editor eventually called him up and cursed him out. “That’s a fucking funny story,” Stark says, pulling the trophy from a shelf. “Flip to, they’re telling me all about it and that I could choose somebody that could present the award. The CFDA people kept asking me who it is, and I’m like, ‘Listen man, you’re going to love who it is. If you don’t believe me, have a backup.’ So, it’s a week away, and I’m fitting stuff on Cher, and she’s like, ‘I don’t understand something. This is a major awards ceremony. It’s New York State Theater, red carpets, televised. It’s the fucking Academy Awards of fashion. I don’t understand why no one’s contacted me.’

I’m like, ‘I haven’t told them you’re doing it.’ She’s like, ‘Are you fucking nuts, Rich? You can’t do that!’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t know. Sorry.’”

Stark now acknowledges how huge the win was to jumpstart the company. Soon, Rei Kawakubo came calling and broke the brand in Japan. Today, the company has stores all over the world. It is particularly big in South Korea. Stark points out a large photograph of K-pop star G-Dragon, taken by Laurie Lynn, adorning prime wall space. Music has always been a big part of the brand. Aside from friendships with Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses, Chrome Hearts has a licensing deal with the Rolling Stones that is “on a different level than anything they’ve ever done,” says Stark, pointing out a $40,000 diamond and gold belt buckle featuring the lips logo. Interestingly, he’s never met Mick Jagger.

“I have a relationship with a million bands, but not the Rolling Stones. I don’t know why. When Steven Tyler saw the belt buckle, he said, ‘Man, what do those guys think?’

I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never met them.’ He said, ‘What? I’d suck your cock in a Macy’s window if you fucking made me this.’ That’s an exact quote.”

Lately, Stark has been setting up rock shows in his upstairs office. Slash, Sebastian Bach, and Melt-Banana have all played. “Back when I started, all these musicians would come in, pick up a guitar, and be like, ‘What do you think of this song? I just wrote it,’” Stark recalls. “One day, I was like, ‘I want to capture some of those moments.’ So, we capture every minute, from the moment they get to the parking lot. It’s for the archives.

Maybe there’ll be a Chrome Hearts television network one day.”

The Starks’ 23-year-old daughter, Jesse Jo, is a musician herself, with an EP to her credit. She’s been designing for the company for years. As for their 12-year-old twins, “The girl is super creative,” says Richard. “The boy, if you ask him, he says, ‘I’m running the family business.’ So hopefully it’ll carry on. What will the next generation be, when I’m gone? I don’t know. I would imagine a lot of it would be the same, but there’ll be new ways of thinking about things. I’d like it to be around forever.” maxwell williams

PHOTOGRaPHY lauRie lYnn sTaRk fasHiOn maRjan malakPOuR jewelry and accessories cHROme HeaRTs from left: richard stark wears clothing and boots cHROme HeaRTs matt digiacomo wears t-shirt his own pants cHROme HeaRTs sneakers cHROme HeaRTs x cOnveRse jesse jo stark wears jumpsuit fRame denim top GivencHY bY RiccaRdO Tisci boots cHROme HeaRTs joe foti wears clothing and boots cHROme HeaRTs mayumi foti wears jacket and shirt cHROme HeaRTs jeans fRame denim shoes junYa waTanabe laurie lynn stark wears jumpsuit Galvan bra her own shoes sainT lauRenT bY Hedi slimane steve jones wears shirt cHROme HeaRTs jeans and boots his own duff mckagan wears jacket balmain vest, tank, jeans, boots cHROme HeaRTs VMAGAZINE.COM 44 57 vmagaZine.com

aashuraaahING

The breakout British singer and musician talks her long-awaited debut album and its surprising inspiration.

“Where are you, Shura?”

These are the first audible words on Nothing’s Real, the debut album from British singer, songwriter, and producer Aleksandra Lilah Denton—better known as Shura.

A sample of home footage from when she was a child, the question is posed by her father, introducing the record on a hazy, synth-laden track called “(i)” that sets an intimate and intriguing tone for the music that follows. Tackling the dense and often pretentious subject of time, it’s a complex body of work—one that can only be fully understood after delving into the artist’s own history.

Epitomizing what is now being referred to as “bedroom pop,” Shura began her experimentation with music at the

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age of 13 with no formal training, working out of her home in Manchester. “I didn’t really want anyone to know that I wanted to write music or make songs because, in a way, I didn’t necessarily know if I wanted to do it for a profession,” she recalls. “I wanted to do it to express myself. As I grew in confidence, I was able to come out and say that I’m a musician.”

For Shura, this declaration came in the form of 2014’s “Touch”—a track she wrote after returning from a six-month post-graduate trip during which she found herself in the Amazon Rainforest. After being rejected by numerous labels, she decided to release the song herself, along with a self-directed video that immediately went viral (it’s now at over 26 million views). A dreamy blend of ’80s synth pop and ’90s R&B with a production level that’s years ahead of its time, the song is nothing short of mesmerizing. In the video, we see couples of varying ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations embracing and being pulled apart from one another. It’s a simple yet fitting concept, considering the song was written about heartbreak.

“It was three years—my first grown-up relationship. After she moved out, it was this big hole in my life. Eventually, we reconnected as friends, but if you have that chemistry with someone, it’s always there. So, then we were in this romantic friendship, and we had to break up again. We’re friends now, of course. I guess there are just different stages of endings, aren’t there? You need to reprogram the way you react when you see them, and that takes time.

The funny thing is, when the song was finished, I asked her to do the original artwork for it. It all came full circle, the design having been done by the girl who inspired the song. For me, that was the full stop at the end of it. I was like, Okay, it’s definitely done now, I can move on. This song now belongs to everyone that’s listening to it; it’s no longer mine.”

Following the popularity of “Touch,” Shura experienced unprecedented anxiety about living up to the expectations set by a newfound Internet fanbase. She passed up offers from “virtually every label,” taking her time to “ignore the noise” and focus on writing more music before eventually signing with Interscope/Polydor (owned by Universal). As fate would have it, it was out of these events—the relationship that inspired “Touch,” and the subsequent pressure resulting from its success—that her first album was born.

“Nothing’s Real is about my first-ever panic attack, which I had about four months after getting my record deal. But it’s also about when my partner broke up with me, and we were reminiscing about our past relationship and she said, ‘It’s not real. The past doesn’t exist because it’s already happened, and the future doesn’t exist because we haven’t experienced it yet—and the present, you just have to live in it.’ So, it’s about the concept of time. The record has me as a child, me as a teenager, and me as a grown-up from all of these family recordings. I wanted to merge the past, the present, and the future by putting moments of my life on a record.”

It was an idea that she got, in part, after watching Christopher Nolan’s 2014 science-fiction film Interstellar with her former partner. In the film, a man embarks on a journey that inadvertently reconnects him with the past and the daughter he left behind. In fact, it’s this movie that Shura refers to in her song “2Shy” when she says, “Let’s go find a corner we can go and sit in / And talk about that film instead of us.” The concept of reaching into the past in order to preserve the future was one that stuck with her.

“After that, I started watching these old family videos.

I was crying, looking into my past. I had no memory of the experiences, and yet I remembered them, but only because I was watching them as if they were a film. And that’s what life is, isn’t it? It’s a film. We have a window into the universe—a tiny, tiny window. And when we die, the movie’s over. I wanted to put these things into the record, partly to make it me, and partly so that my family would exist somewhere forever. One day we will die, but there’s this physical and musical creation where we will all be.

Maybe no one will care about that except me, but I kind of made the record for me. If other people like it, that’s so cool. But I made it for myself.” William Defebaugh

“That’s what life is, isn’t it? It’s a film. We have a window into the universe—a tiny, tiny window.”

PhOTOgRaPhY Sam hiSCOX faShiON ViNCeNT leVY OPPOSITE: Shura wEarS clOThIng PleaTS PleaSe iSSeY miYaKe JEwElrY hEr Own ThIS PagE: clOThIng hEr Own nOThIng’S rEal IS avaIlablE frOm POlYdOr JulY 8, 2016 VMAGAZINE.COM vmagaZInE.cOm 44 97

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CUBA LIBRE

Actor Alex Pettyfer takes us inside Chanel’s historic Havana Resort show.

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In a 1965 article that appeared in the Atlantic, Ernest Hemingway, in his characteristically sparse manner, remarked, “I live in Cuba because I love Cuba.” Indeed, the Nobel Prize-winning author was matter-of-fact about his decision to call the village of San Francisco de Paula, just outside of Havana, his home. As a fan of Hemingway, I’ve always been fascinated by Cuba, Havana in particular.

It has been a point on the map that calls to me, though I’ve never had the chance to visit. Naturally, then, when I received my invitation from Karl Lagerfeld to attend his Resort collection show in Havana, the chance to finally visit the storied city was a dream come true.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Chanel’s shows are always such gorgeous spectacles, a feast not only for the eyes, but for all the senses. How, I wondered, will Karl bring his vision to life in a city so grand, and yet so untouched? And just as important, I was curious to see how the world of the fashion jet set, many of whom had likely never been to Cuba themselves, would find the experience. Would they, as Hemingway did, love it without question?

On the night of Chanel’s show, we drove through Havana’s historic quarter as we made our way to the Paseo del Prado, a broad, tree-lined thoroughfare separating the old part of the city from the newer Centro Habana.

Riding in one of the ubiquitous classic cars for which the city has become iconic, I was stunned by the scene unfolding before me: the warm sultry winds, the sounds of salsa emanating from back-alley clubs, the smell of sea salt in the air. It struck me then that Karl had intended for the evening’s guests to experience the city in such a manner—Havana was as much a part of the show that night as the fashion I was about to see.

To be sure, Havana is experiencing a resurgence on the world stage. After President Obama’s historic détente with the Castro regime, it seems that everyone is flocking to the island. In the last several months, the Rolling Stones have performed, new hotels are opening up everywhere, and on the night of the show, an American cruise ship was seen docking in the city’s harbor. As we snaked our way through the narrow cobblestone streets, I wondered how this influx of interest might change the Havana that Hemingway had fallen in love with. When I spoke with several residents of the city earlier that day, reactions were positive. During a tour of Hemingway’s home, known as Finca Vigía, or “lookout house,” my guide noted that, for him, the changing relations “will help growth.”

That night, as I sat and watched Karl’s show, with models gliding down the Prado, some wearing fedoras while others smoked fat cigars, I couldn’t help but think that Hemingway would have loved the spectacle. Indeed, while Karl’s fashion stole the night, Havana was undoubtedly front and center. ALEX PETTYFER

PHOTOGRAPHY ALEX PETTYFER

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1. FOR CHANEL’S 2017 RESORT SHOW, KARL LAGERFELD CHOSE THE STORIED CITY OF HAVANA AS ITS BACKDROP 2. THE SHOW’S AFTER PARTY AT THE PLAZA DE LA CATEDRAL 3. A CLASSIC CAR DRIVING DOWN THE MALECÓN, HAVANA’S WATERFRONT PROMENADE 4. LAGERFELD DIRECTING A RUN-THROUGH BEFORE THE SHOW 5. ONE OF SEVERAL OUTDOOR PERFORMANCES AFTER THE SHOW’S CONCLUSION 6. LAGERFELD AND HUDSON KROENIG WALKING DOWN THE PASEO DEL PRADO, WHICH SERVED AS A RUNWAY FOR THE COLLECTION 7. RAFAEL SAN JUAN’S SCULPTURE ON THE MALECÓN 8. TILDA SWINTON SPOTTED SALSA DANCING 9. GISELE BÜNDCHEN SEEN ON THE PASEO DEL PRADO 10. HAVANA’S FORMER CAPITAL, EL CAPITOLIO 11. INSPIRED BY CUBAN STYLE, LOOKS INCLUDED CLASSIC FEDORAS 12. CRUISING THE STREETS OF “LA HABANA VIEJA” 13. AFTER THE SHOW, SALSA PERFORMERS FLOODED THE PRADO 14. BRAD AND HUDSON KROENIG WALKING IN THE SHOW 15. CLASSIC CARS PARKED ALONG THE PRADO 16. LAGERFELD DANCING WITH SANDY BRANT VMAGAZINE.COM 5 1

vnews newwretrospective newwsoLosHow sooLowsHow ow To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë, New York’s Morgan Library & Museum is set to exhibit a curated collection of the British author’s ephemera, including a rare first edition of the writer’s iconic novel, Jane Eyre. Curated by Christine Nelson, the exhibition is certain to be as much of a sensation today for Brontë devotees as Jane Eyre was when it was first published in 1847.

Such were the conventions levied upon women at the time that, when first published, Jane Eyre appeared to readers under Brontë’s pseudonym, Currer Bell.

The three Brontë sisters—Charlotte, along with Emily (who penned Wuthering Heights) and Anne (author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)—produced a prodigious literary oeuvre, rarely venturing far from the village of Haworth. However, far from succumbing to the period’s social mores, Charlotte was quick to criticize them, using her own experiences to shape the narratives of her protagonists. With Jane Eyre, historians point to Brontë’s childhood spent attending the Clergy Daughters’ School—where two of her siblings, Maria and Elizabeth, died—as the inspiration for the fictitious Lowood School, to which the young Jane Eyre was banished. Similarly, Brontë’s employment as a governess is believed to have provided the background for Eyre’s occupation as a tutor at Thornfield Manor, the novel’s central place of action and home to her romantic interest, Edward Rochester.

And while the novel’s unconventional plot line, at turns epically romantic and eerily thrilling, captivated readers, it was the frank style Brontë afforded into Eyre’s psyche that still resonates today. That insight, matched by Brontë’s keen sense of pointed dialogue, combines to form a character that stands out vividly from other female characters of the age. As becomes apparent during an exchange with Rochester, Eyre is capable of holding her own. Having learned of Rochester’s plans to marry another, Eyre asserts her desire to be anything but his mistress. “I am no bird,” proclaims Eyre, “and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will.” JOSEPH AKEL

“Charlotte Brontë: an Independent WIll” runs septemBer 9, 2016 through January 2, 2017 at the morgan lIBrary & museum In neW york CIty

Joan Semmel paints bodies—writhing, straining, contorted bodies—in states of erotic or self-investigative engagement. Some are lustful, locked in the tensile thrall of sexual acts. Others are at rest, loose, and lounging about. All are viewed from a curious vantage point with an unstinting eye given to fits of self-scrutiny and contemplation.

Semmel has painted this way since the early 1970s, when she started showing in downtown New York. She lives and works now in the same loft she did back then, on Spring Street in a SoHo district that, at the time she moved there, lacked for streetlights and stores of more or less every kind. Instead, there were working factories, including a pipe cleaner factory on the floor above that would thrum all day and quiet down at night. “They used to bring us pipe cleaners,” Semmel says, “and my kids would make little sculptures.”

Her first solo exhibition in New York, in 1973, was a few blocks away, in a space she rented on her own to show work that galleries couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take on.

The paintings in her early “Erotic Series” were closecropped, wide-angle looks at couples in the grips of sexual congress, painted with slightly hallucinogenic, surreal washes of color that were inhuman and extremely human at once. After that, her view grew only more gimleteyed and intense, with a considered interest in nakedness and sometimes tender, sometimes awkward states of embrace. Soon after her first show, Semmel began paintings inspired by her own photographic self-portraits, a voyeuristic doubling, implicating both Semmel and the painting’s viewer. At stake was a mix of frankness rare to the painting of sexual subject matters and, just as significant, a desire to show scenes of this sort with a woman—herself—as more than a passive actor or an object of desire.

“I felt like I was speaking, in a way, for women,” Semmel says, “and I wanted to find what it was that would charge a woman visually.” The source of that charge would be formally different: “Guys turn the lights on and we turn them off,” Semmel says. But more important, the aspiration ran counter to centuries of tradition, a feminist opposition to art history and its conventional use of the nude. Early in her career, Semmel edited a collection of writings titled Through the Object’s Eye: Sexual Imagery in Women’s Art. It was never published in its original state, but remains a watershed moment in the emergence of feminist art. So does her powerful work Mythologies and Me, a 1976 painting that set a self-portrait of her torso between parodies of a Penthouse pin-up girl on one side and a mock Willem de Kooning “woman” on the other.

Semmel’s identification with feminism has remained a constant throughout her career, both in her own work and collectively. She is reportedly an original member of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of female artists who continue to don gorilla masks and make a mockery of male-dominated art conventions. However, when asked about the group, she replies, “They’re anonymous. I don’t know who they are.” Her 1975 painting, Touch, which depicts her hand creeping towards her vagina while a male torso lies (aroused? exhausted? oblivious?) beside her, now hangs prominently in a probing portrait show

at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It’s an instructive example of a change in portrait painting, says Whitney chief curator Scott Rothkopf, wherein Semmel showed that “it was no longer about a male artist objectifying a female body, but her saying, ‘Look, this is me, in bed, alive to these kinds of pleasures and also in control of my own representation.’”

More recently, Semmel has made a new body of work, on show September through October at her Chelsea gallery, Alexander Gray Associates, home to artists including Harmony Hammond, Coco Fusco, Hassan Sharif, and Lorraine O’Grady. Among her current interests are aspects of bodies, including her own, as they age. “The only bodies one sees are young,” says Semmel, “and there are a lot of old people who would like to feel like they’re human still, that they still have flesh.”

Her depictions of flesh continue to be rendered as intensely as ever: closeup, flush with the sense of strangeness and liberation of seeing a body, any body, on its own terms. Semmel’s points of observation remain her own, pointedly. “When I started using myself [as a subject], part of the idea was to project the idea of the woman as she sees and feels—and experiences—herself,” she says. “For a long time I wouldn’t even use a mirror because I wanted the body to be seen the way I see it, not as a reflection.”

Andy BAttAgLiA “Joan semmel” runs septemBer 7 through oCtoBer 15, 2016 at aleXander gray assoCIates In neW york CIty

New bookS

New SHADeS 1. iCons, gus van sant ($45, aCtes sud/CinématHèque Française)

Clockwise from top right: Courtesy Dior; Courtesy Stuart Weitzman; Yayoi Kusama: INFINITY-COSMOS, 2007. Pigment marker on canvas, 51 x 63 in; Charlotte Brontë, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, London: Aylott and Jones, 1846, First and Second issue of the first edition, The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography Graham S Haber; Joan Semmel, Embrace, 2016, Oil on canvas, 72 x 60 in, Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York, © 2016 Joan Semmel/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Gus Van Sant, Polaroids, 1983-1999 © Gus Van Sant

Published to coincide with a major retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, Icons brings together never-before-seen imagery, including film stills, original artwork, and production sketches that have accumulated over the course of legendary director Gus Van Sant’s prolific career. Among the images included, an intimate polaroid of the late actor River Phoenix, taken while filming My Own Private Idaho, along with candid photographs of Van Sant on the set of his Kurt Cobain–reminiscent film, Last Days, underscore the auteur’s longstanding connection to some of contemporary culture’s most mythical and tragic figures. Accompanied by several essays that contextualize Van Sant’s cinematic oeuvre, in addition to interviews with the director himself, the publication offers a unique insight into the films that have come to define a generation.

2. Hans CHristian andersen & YaYoi Kusama: tHe LittLe mermaid: a FairY taLe oF inFinitY and Love Forever, YaYoi Kusama, edited

bY LærKe rYdaL Jørgensen, marie Laurberg, miCHaeL JuuL HoLm ($45, Louisiana museum oF modern art) Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama brings her singular vision to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, “The Little Mermaid,” with this richly illustrated edition, featuring the intricate drawings synonymous with the visually dynamic, richly textured style for which Kusama has become known. Paired with Andersen’s original text, Kusama’s undulating abstract imagery, dotted with images of fish, aquatic plant life, and swirling schools of wide-eyed human heads, is evocative of the rolling ebb and flow of the ocean’s currents. For Kusama, whose artistic output spans over 50 years, this edition is yet another instance of her fantastical visions come to life. While true to Andersen’s tale, Kusama’s imagery is sure to entertain both children and adults. Ja

Fashion’s favorite musical bad girl, Rihanna, has once again teamed up with storied Parisian label Dior, this time to release a line of sleek, futuristic sunglasses.

Having already appeared in the house’s “Secret Garden IV” video campaign—which included a nocturnal scene of the singer strutting down the fabled Hall of Mirrors in a silver sequined gown—the collaboration between the two seemed a natural fit. And with the debut of her Fenty x Puma line earlier this year (which the singer described as “the Addams Family went to the gym”), Rihanna’s next design creation was sure to embody the edgy, often-dark aesthetic that has come to define her style.

In the case of her current collaboration with Dior, the special collection of sunglasses will come in a variety of metalized color frames with lenses tinted an electric hue of purple. While minimal in design, the striking choice of colors and materials is sure to have heads turning. Ja

rihanna for dior eyewear in silver ($840, dior boutiques)

New bRIDAL NewbRIDAL RIDAL

Prince Charming, as we know, discovered true love when Cinderella donned the now fabled glass slipper. Ever since then, women’s shoes have played a symbolic and, all too often, portentous role in some of our most popular love stories (from Annie Banks’s white sneakers in Father of the Bride, to Jennifer Lopez’s snapped Gucci pump heel in The Wedding Planner).

Leave it, then, to leading women’s footwear designer Stuart Weitzman to unveil (pun intended) an expanded line of bridal-themed silhouettes, comprised of 10 key styles sure to please even the most discerning of bridezillas. With a selection that includes the line’s popular

“Nudist” sandal in several heel heights and decorative options, ranging from satin to Swarovski sapphire crystals, the pairing of Weitzman and bridal design is a match made in heaven.

And just to make sure any future prince’s Cinderella doesn’t slip away, Weitzman is offering a personalized embroidery service, inscribing both the wedding date and the bride-to-be’s new name into the sock lining of any of the line’s bridal designs. Ja

stuart weitzman bridal collection ($2,200-$2,900, stuartweitzman.com) VMAGAZINE.COM vmaGazine.com 5513

HIT

GET THE SCOOP

This fall, treat yourself to a fur bag in neapolitan or rocky road.

PHOTOGRAPHY JASON PIETRA FASHION JULIAN ANTETOMASO

Manicure Ami Vega using Dior Vernis (Marek & Associates) Prop stylist Chelsea Maruskin (Art Department) Hand model Sue Yan (Parts Models) Retouching Becci Manson (The Post Office NYC)

opposite, FRoM top: MARC JACOBS FRAMeD FUR BAG (pRiCe UpoN ReQUest, MARCJACoBs.CoM) VERSACE MiNK FUR DV1 VisoNe CHAiN BAG ($10,125, VeRsACe.CoM) FENDI MiNK FUR AND NAppA LeAtHeR BY tHe WAY BAG (pRiCe UpoN ReQUest, FeNDi.CoM)

tHis pAGe, FRoM top: ALEXANDER WANG ReX MiNi FUR BAG ($895, ALeXANDeRWANG.CoM) SALVATORE FERRAGAMO MiNK FUR GANCio BRACeLet HANDBAG ($2,250, FeRRAGAMo.CoM) ALEXANDER McQUEEN sURReAL MiNK FUR CLUtCH (pRiCe UpoN ReQUest, ALeXANDeRMCQUeeN.CoM) VMAGAZINE.COM VMAGAZiNe.CoM 55 53

V GIRLS PhOTOgRAPhy JeFF BARK FAShiOn lAnA JAy lAcKey TeXT WhiTney mAlleTT

Soko

The mononymous triple threat plays, among other parts, a muse to modern dance.

“I’d put all of my instruments in storage,” says Soko, the the turn-of-the-century modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller, Bordeaux-born, L.A.-based singer-songwriter. “The two in which Lily-Rose Depp plays rival Isadora Duncan, and movies I did, I fucking devoted my entire life to.” When Soko The Stopover, about soldiers in Afghanistan. talks, words tumble out of her with a violent excitement, the “I get so involved in films that my personal life starts resemsentences punctuated by expletives made more charming bling what I’m shooting,” admits Soko, as her girlfriend at by the French accent familiar from her breathy songs. You the time of this shoot, Kristen Stewart, lounges on a nearby may have heard her music, even if the name doesn’t register. couch. “When I did that movie where I was a soldier, my exThe daringly sentimental “We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow” girlfriend came with me to Greece—where we shot—and we zoomed onto the Billboard Hot 100 two years ago (though were in a hotel room together for two months. I became OCD, it was originally released in 2012) when it soundtracked the the way you are when you’re in the army and you have all viral video, “First Kiss.” Arguably a covert piece of branded these rules and shit. I was telling her, ‘We need to clean right content, it featured Soko sharing a kiss with a woman she’d now!’ When I do a movie, I don’t know who I am anymore.” never met, one of 10 stranger couples. Last year, Soko For The Dancer, Soko went to grueling lengths to put out her second full-length album, My Dreams Dictate inhabit the icon known for inventing the Serpentine Dance.

My Reality, featuring quirky collaborations with Ariel Pink. “I danced, like, seven hours a day.” She learned to dance in Already a César Award nominee in her home country the dark on a three-meter-high platform, twirling a dress for her role in In the Beginning and a featured voice in made from 34 panels of silk. “Some mornings I would wake Spike Jonze’s Her, Soko is starring in two new films that up and straight up not be able to walk. I’d be like, ‘I’m so sorry. premiered at Cannes this year: The Dancer, a drama about I can’t do it. I’m sick. I hate this movie. I can’t stand myself.’”

VMAGAZINE.COM vmagaZine.com 56 54

Director Stéphanie Di Giusto decided to write a movie for Soko upon meeting her, says the actress. “For five years, she wouldn’t tell me what it was about. When I finally read it, I was like, Fuck. It’s a role any actress would love to play, because of the nuances. It shines a light on the struggle of the female artist in 1900.”

Soko has since returned to the States. “It’s good to be in L.A. right now,” she says. “All the millennial kids want to do everything and be gender fluid and love everyone.” She’s already partway through making another album, which she describes as “goofy and light, but still punk and New Wave-influenced.” She adds, “It’s really important for me to make sure, while I’m writing these songs, that I’m reflecting exactly where my head is at. If I die, this is what I want to be remembered by: my thoughts and feelings.”

Jacket givenchy By RiccARDO TiSci PRe-FaLL ’16 t-shiRt vintage FRom ByROneSQUe eaRRing chROme heARTS skiRt, tights, neckLaces, Rings soko’s own

GRaceeGummeR

The Hollywood-raised television star channels a famous friend in her latest role.

“I remember her being so funny and bossy,” recalls actress Grace Gummer about the late Nora Ephron. She’s giving life to the legendary writer on the small screen later this year as part of the new series Good Girls Revolt, a period piece about women in 1960s newsrooms. “She was so ahead of her time,” says Gummer of Ephron’s impatience with how women were credited for their journalistic work at the time.

Gummer is Meryl Streep’s daughter. Streep was good friends with Ephron—both are icons of the modern romantic comedy. Ephron, for example, wrote the screenplay for Heartburn (1986), which starred Streep opposite Jack Nicholson. Although Ephron worked in a number of other mediums, her film work in the ’80s and ’90s speaks to a certain era of medium-budget films that don’t really exist anymore. Gummer’s burgeoning career, however, is exemplary of the more recent changes that have wrought the industry, wherein TV has become the space for the sort of storytelling we used to expect from the cinema.

these women,” she says. “They live these double lives, Gummer’s résumé thus far is a laundry list of high brow television experiments: Aaron Sorkin’s HBO show The which is so much of what the show is about. I am still trying Newsroom; the third and fourth seasons of FX’s American to wrap my head around it. You wouldn’t think they were Horror Story (aka “Coven” and “Freak Show”); the Halle agents. One of them has a bunch of tattoos and a nose Berry drama, Extant; HBO’s Anita Hill movie, Confirmation; ring. The craziest thing is that, underneath it all, they’re and now Good Girls Revolt, produced by Amazon, and wearing their guns.” the second season of the acclaimed Mr. Robot, initially Mr. Robot tells the story of a group of hacktivists who released on multiple streaming platforms before USA strive to erase debt by taking down the fictional E Corp.

Network picked it up.

Gummer says that playing “Dom” is the hardest job she’s Although the actress is usually blonde, she’s taken on had so far, and that she’s up to the challenge. “I feel like copper tresses for the new Mr. Robot role, a New Jersey I’m telepathically reading her from [show creator Sam FBI agent named Dominique DiPierro. “There’s some- Esmail’s] mind. It’s cool.” The show, on the other hand, thing about being a redhead that is very definitive,” says “speaks to everybody’s paranoia,” says Gummer. “More Gummer. The look does differentiate her from her famous than any other show, it’s about what’s happening in the blonde mother. But, she adds, “I’ve noticed that, walking world right now—internet hacking, the one percent, and starting a revolution.” down the street, people notice me more.”

After landing the role, Gummer met with real FBI agents for the purposes of research. “I went to their field offices Jacket and pants gucci shirt SAiNT LAuRENT BY HEDi SLiMANE downtown to visit their cyber crime division and met with earring cHRoME HEARTS pin stYList’s OWn gLOve MAX MARA

oyinda

Her sultry sound is more Sailor Moon than soul, says the cult-followed musician.

“I had to sit my dad down and be like, ‘This is how it’s going to go. I will show you I can do this,’” says the 24-year-old singer and producer of sultry electronic pop, Oyinda. Her parents were initially resistant to her musical aspirations, but, she says, “My first show was Lollapalooza, so they just shut up after that.”

Since Oyinda broke onto the scene with that performance two years ago, she’s been dubbed a “best-kept secret” by Rolling Stone and had tracks premiered by The FadeR and Billboard. While Oyinda’s early successes speak to her skills as a vocalist and songwriter, her parents’ initial skepticism is a pretty common firstgeneration experience. Her mother and father fled Nigeria due to political instability in the region during the ’90s.

As a result, the family moved around a lot. Oyinda was born in Washington D.C., but grew up in London.

“Immigrant parents want you to do something like music as a hobby,” she says. “My parents always wanted me to study more.” So she returned stateside to study in

New York, before coming to terms with her desire to pursue music seriously. About three years ago, Oyinda started working on the four moody tracks that became her first EP, Before the Fall.

“I like to play with the idea of restraint a lot,” Oyinda notes. It’s true, she has retained a great degree of control over her sound and image, producing music using Logic, Ableton, and GarageBand, and directing some of her own videos, all in black and white. Still, some things stay outside her grip, like the press dubbing her first record a mix of R&B and soul.

“I pulled from Radiohead for my song, ‘Rush Of You.’ It’s not soul. That’s a completely different genre,” explains Oyinda. “Being a black woman, that sort of thing is just the name of the game—until things are less about race.”

While her mom did play Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston at home when Oyinda was growing up, she cites anime as a more developmental inspiration to her early love of music. “I’d sing along to the Pokémon and Sailor

Moon theme songs,” she recalls, adding that she’s still a huge fangirl. As for what her mom was listening to, a young Oyinda was less impressed. “When it’s your mom belting in the car, you’re like, ‘Please stop,’” she remembers. “My mom always jokes, ‘God gave you a good voice because he was sick of me singing.’”

Oyinda’s second EP, Restless Minds, just came out this past June. Since starting the record label Blood & Honey to put out this project and her previous one, she has plans to release other artists’ music in the future, maybe starting with some projects her band members Low Noon and Canteen Killa are a part of. “They help me out so much,” Oyinda notes. “It’s just the best having my best friends in my band.”

JACKET dior CORSET AGENT ProVoCATEUr PANTS CAlViN klEiN CollECTioN SHOES GiUSEPPE ZANoTTi dESiGN EARRING BEN-AMUN PINS CHroME HEArTS CHAINS STYLIST’S OWN RINGS OYINDA’S OWN

selahhmarley

Even R&B/reggae royalty and Calvin Klein campaign stars have to finish high school.

“People look at me, for example, and think I have this perfect lavish life, that it’s lit all the time, when that’s not true at all,” says Selah Marley, the daughter of Lauryn Hill and granddaughter of Bob Marley. At 17, she’s turning heads as a model, as well as an intuitive and opinionated young woman, perhaps no surprise considering her lineage. On Twitter, you can find Marley sharing links about the minimum wage and Egyptian history, while revealing her more personal struggles—like the pressures of having the Fugees singer, someone who helped define the ’90s as we know it, as a mother.

“I think that opening up on Twitter helps people see that there are things that I deal with that they can relate to,” the teen reasons. “Maybe it’s not exactly the same as having a famous mom, but maybe their dad puts pressure on them to be a doctor and they don’t want to be a doctor.” She notes that when she posts, mentoring is not what she has in mind: “I just get caught up in the heat of the moment and go on a rant real quick. I have all

these emotions in me and it’s going to kill me if I don’t say anything.”

Marley’s lately been vocal about cultural appropriation.

“Especially black girls, in this day and age, our aesthetic and culture is getting taken and used all over the place.

It’s like, Go ahead and have your big butt and your big lips, but at least give recognition where it’s due.” She notes the media’s recent infatuation with Kim Kardashian’s braids and Kylie Jenner’s claim to have “started” wigs.

“Like Beyoncé hasn’t been around wearing wigs since the early 2000s?”

Maybe the stars explain this emerging star best. “I really am a full-blown Scorpio,” Marley says. “Whenever I look things up about my sign, it’s like, Check, check, check: thoughtful, detailed, moody, stubborn, prideful, emotional…” She regularly checks the Astrology Zone app from Susan Miller and sites specifically dedicated to her sign like ScorpioLand. “It’s a hobby,” she says.

The high school Marley attends in New Jersey is only

about half an hour away from Manhattan, where she frequently books modeling work. In the fall, she’ll be moving to the city to attend NYU. “I’m excited,” she effuses, “not exactly for New York—I’m just excited for the freedom of living on my own.”

In addition to continuing her modeling career—for example, she’s in Calvin Klein’s newest highly publicized campaign—Marley has ambitions to make music. She bares her insecurities frankly. “I work on songs quite often, but I don’t know what it is—part of me can’t fully commit, part of me is held back by what other people will think of me and the shoes I have to fill.” At least, she confirms, it isn’t a question of if, but when. “I’ll just have to take my time.

Music is my ultimate passion in life. You will definitely hear something from me, I just don’t know when.”

tank calvin klein BRa aGenT PROvOcaTeUR JEanS Re/DOne Hat cHRiSTian DaDa EaRRInG Ben-aMUn GlovES MOScHinO

deseeescobar

For an artist who identifies as an all-time outsider, reality is the mother of invention.

“I always stick close to the #slaysian brand. I try to incorporate it into everything I do,” says 27-year-old DeSe Escobar, a rising star in the art world. “The term ‘slay’ comes from beauty culture and glam culture—slaying means killing it.”

She dreamt up the pun with stylist Kyle Luu and underground pop performer K Rizz. “And we’re all Asian,” the Filipina artist adds. “I love wordplay.” The #slaysian squad exudes Snapchat glamour, referencing Kim and Kylie’s clan with their strappy sandals and contour-affecting makeup. #KardAsian is another hashtag they’ve popularized.

“I’m obsessed with the Kardashians and the girls from Love & Hip Hop and Basketball Wives,” says Escobar. “I look up to those kinds of women, but I’m outside of that world.” Pasadena-born Escobar is a proud trans woman and a fixture of New York’s queer nightlife scene. “I’m an outsider of this mainstream culture, but I love to borrow little pieces from it. Right now, I’ve been using a lot of makeup culture in my work. I did a series contouring the faces of different presidents on the dollar bills.”

Escobar’s video and performance art looks to shared cultural icons, who are in constant conversation with the youth via the internet. Here, the macro meets micro, spawning subcultures at a frenetic pace and making room for self-invented celebrities, like Miss DeSe. Escobar’s recent projects include a cooking show tentatively titled Miss DeSe Iron Chef, a collaboration with DIS magazine. “I want to keep making videos inspired by reality TV,” she says. “After Iron Chef, I want to do Miss DeSe: Ghost Hunter.”

This past spring, she performed at MoMA PS1 as part of a series curated by the artist Stewart Uoo. For it, Escobar translated another hashtag she invented, #serenitypost, into a multimedia experience, combining a slideshow of tranquil images with a live oil massage. She collaborated with musician Princess Nokia, who covered the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ song, “Maps.”

Before becoming an artist, Escobar spent a few years designing for different companies, and although she found

herself disillusioned working in the fashion industry, her skills at cultivating aesthetics and communicating through a style vocabulary are ever present in everything she does.

“I am obsessed with Prada,” Escobar gushes, dressed in it head-to-toe, as per her request for this shoot. “I hope one day to be the first trans brand ambassador of Miu Miu or Prada, or eventually collaborate with them through my art somehow.”

In the meantime, Escobar throws a monthly party with another self-invented pop artist, Lauren Devine, called Thotlandia. “I love bringing people together,” she says.

The parties are a breeding ground for underground music and alt fashion—the looks on the dance floor are always ahead of what’s on the runway. Although Escobar is just getting started, a night at Thotlandia makes clear that her playful take on high style has already made a huge impact on New York.

CLOTHING AND SHOES prada GLOVE (WORN IN HAIR) LaCraSIa GLOVES

Makeup Lisa Houghton (Tim Howard Management) Hair Shingo Shibata (The Wall Group) Photo assistant Chris White and Michael Casker Stylist assistant Kindall Almond Makeup assistant Arisa Kawamura Location Hudson Studios Catering Guy & Gallard

sadaffhhhhfnava

The noise musician and nightlife master is bringing uncharted territory to the club.

Her most recent single, “Stillness,” which premiered at Anthology Film Archives, but the last time I’d seen it, “I resist when people ask me, ‘What does that mean?’ I don’t think an artist should have to explain what some- on Pitchfork this year, echoes another concern of Nava’s someone had uploaded the whole thing onto YouTube, and thing means,” says Sadaf H. Nava. The New York-based I watched it as a 16-year-old,” she says. “I owe so much work: anxiety. Spoken word lyrics, jumbled crashes and artist navigates a wide variety of mediums while produc- screeches, reggaeton beats, and jungle drums suggest a to the Internet, like being able to watch rare-ish movies ing a solo music project. “I don’t like things that are easily like that when I was a teenager.” strung out state, easy to relate to in this era of digital noise. understood or pinned down.”

“I think anxiety today may come from the fact that we can Nava has a recent habit of adding the suffix “-ish” onto Whether she’s DJing deep dancehall cuts at the be traced so easily,” says Nava. “Surveillance makes me the end of adjectives. “You can kind of add it to anything,” Guggenheim gala pre-party or yelping into a microphone anxious.” But even if the panopticon of cookies and filtered she says. “Stupid-ish, cool-ish, strong-ish, bland-ish. I think tangled in industrial chains at a Chinatown art gallery, search results unnerve her, online tracking has also been that, along with being the anxiety generation, we are the Nava’s work is rooted in experimentation and improvisation. a tool for finding the global sampling of pop music that -ish generation; -ish is an in-between, it has to do with taking “Because things aren’t really planned out, hidden desires shows up in Nava’s DJ sets and the music she produces. references from everywhere, and identity-wise I really relate and recurring themes come out,” she explains. Constraint, “Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of rocolera music to it, too. I think most first-generation immigrants relate to she says, is one thread woven through many of her perfor- from Ecuador. I really don’t even know how I find these feeling in-between, like you don’t belong to either culture.” mances. She’ll often bind limbs with elastic bands or blan- things. They aren’t the sort of tracks that pop up in the Nava plans to call her first album, due out later this ket herself in fake hair. “Maybe it has something to do with suggested videos sidebar on YouTube for the average year, ISH. “In all capitals, an assertive -ish,” she notes, “I’m being Middle Eastern, or being a woman in general, but I person—but I listen to a lot of South American music,” embracing my own ish-ness.” think this relates to the idea of performance as therapy,” she explains. Nava has received a cinematic education notes the 27-year-old, who was born in Iran and grew up online as well. “I just rewatched one of my favorite films, JACKET coach 1941 T-SHIRT vInTAgE fRom BYRoNESQUE largely in Canada. “I must be working through something.” Bernardo Bertolucci’s Luna. I saw a really beautiful print EARRIng BEN-amUN

TRENDS

SEASONS CHANGE As the tides of Fall fashion roll in, trends are imminent: the top designers have floated sailor-inspired looks, along with materials made for mermaids.

PHOTOGRAPHY MEL BLES FASHION CELESTINE COONEY

Sailor Made KATIE WEARS JACKET GUESS PANTS LANVIN HAT PRADA HANNAH WEARS JACKET GIORGIO ARMANI PANTS CARVEN

Diaphanous Dress Code HAYETT WEARS CLOTHING RODARTE KATIE WEARS DRESS ROBERTO CAVALLI BRIEFS HER OWN

Oil Slickers HANNAH WEARS COAT MAX MARA KATIE WEARS SWEATER AND SKIRT CHANEL COAT(AROUND WAIST) MAX MARA

Cold Shoulders HAYETT WEARS DRESS SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE KATIE WEARS DRESS CHRISTOPHER KANE

PuΩer Fish KATIE WEARS COAT STELLA MCCARTNEY COAT (UNDERNEATH) CARVEN COAT ( UNDERNEATH) RAG & BONE SHORTS AMERICAN APPAREL HAT PRADA

Some Velvet Morning HANNAH WEARS DRESS PREEN KATIE WEARS DRESS FENDI HAYETT WEARS CAPE GIORGIO ARMANI

Makeup Janeen Witherspoon Hair Chi Wong (Management+Artists) Models Katie Moore (Trump), Hayett McCarthy (IMG), Hannah Bennett (IMG) Digital technician Luke Bennett Production Carmel Dione Reeves (D+V Management) Photo assistants Edward Barrett-Bourmier and David Gilbey Stylist assistant Alexandra Bickerdike Makeup assistant Natalie Wright Hair assistant Silvio Hauke Retouching Phoenix Bespoke

Collars of the Sea

HAYETT WEARS COAT OFF-WHITE SHIRT CÉLINE KATIE WEARS CLOTHING PRADA

Step into the decadent world of Fall 2016 fashion, 72 starting with the stars of The Neon Demon—Elle Fanning, Abbey Lee, and Bella Heathcote—glammed and glittered to the max in a Nicolas Winding Refninfluenced cover story by Steven Klein and Patti Wilson.

84 Next, the shearling coats found on Bruce Weber and Deborah Watson’s new guard, including the breathtaking Erika Linder and Dree Hemingway, speak volumes about this Fall’s obsession with cocooning.

108 And take in the Renaissance-style luxe layering trend, as seen on the models to watch right now: a story Brett Lloyd and Jay Massacret tailored—and laced up—to perfection.

As the following pages will surely prove, Fall 2016 marks the return of the romantic gesture.

PREVIEW

KIL INGIT

This summer, Elle Fanning, Bella Heathcote, and Abbey Lee star as ruthless models in the most talked-about film to come out of Cannes. Along with The Neon Demon’s notorious director, Nicolas Winding Refn, they discuss the mutual attraction between horror and fashion.

Photography Steven Klein Fashion Patti Wilson Text Kevin McGarry

ELLE WEARS DRESS PREEN BRA MAISON CLOSE BRIEFS GOOSEBERRY ON EYELASHES DIORSHOW WATERPROOF IN 258 AZURE BLUE VMAGAZINE.COM 7 3

ABBEY LEE WEARS DRESS MARC JACOBS BRIEFS LONELY HEARTS EARRINGS (THROUGHOUT) HER OWN ON CHEEKS DIORBLUSH IN 986 STAR FUCHSIA

“ In a weird way, I kind of idolized her when I was young because I loved fashion. She had to teach me how to do the walk.”

—Elle Fanning on Abbey Lee

“I don’t think she even thinks about who she is as a person. It’s just a matter of, How does this make me feel? How can I feel better?”

—Bella Heathcote on her character, Gigi

BELLA WEARS CLOTHING PREEN

ELLE WEARS DRESS COACH 1941 ON LIPS ROUGE DIOR IN 844 TRAFALGAR

ELLE WEARS DRESS PREEN BRA MAISON CLOSE BRIEFS GOOSEBERRY ON EYELASHES DIORSHOW WATERPROOF IN 258 AZURE BLUE

hat’s it feel like—you walk into a room, it’s like in the middle of winter, and you’re the sun?” About halfway through Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, in theaters now, real-life model Abbey Lee poses this question to Elle Fanning. A relative mainstay from the cutthroat underbelly of the Los Angeles modeling world, Abbey Lee’s Sarah is clearly threatened by Fanning’s Jesse, a nubile new recruit. After only one casting, the younger model is receiving the Aphrodite treatment from the fashion industry. In response to Sarah’s desperation, Jesse musters a mimetic reply, more menacing than confident: “It’s everything.” With this line, the hoary twenty-something is eviscerated by her teenage replacement. It’s these impassive moments—hollowed out and flattened, save for their hyperstylized cruelty—in which Refn’s new opus strikes its most cutting tone.

The Danish director is a notorious outsider. In fact, The Neon Demon is his first film properly produced within the Hollywood studio system. His last two directing credits, Drive and Only God Forgives, fashioned heartthrob Ryan Gosling as a Byronic hero railing against glowing, grisly visions of L.A. and Bangkok, respectively. His latest effort delves even further into the shadows of the former hub, and from the seedy buzz of neon to the fizz of flash bulbs, there are plenty of lights guiding the way. At its core, though, the movie is pitch black. While watching Demon, one wonders if its auteur even likes this city, or if his is a fascination born from disgust.

“I don’t like Los Angeles,” Refn tells me over the phone from Copenhagen, “I love Los Angeles. And I don’t drive a car, so I’ve really got to love it.”

Maybe his love of genres cooked up in Hollywood comes across more unequivocally. While Drive was hailed as a neo-noir, Demon has been called a psychological thriller, and even “horror.” “I’ve always wanted to do a teenage horror movie,” Refn says, “but possibly without the horror. I think there’s a 16-yearold girl in every man. I’d always wanted to fantasize what it’d be like to be a beautiful girl. Innocence—and virginity—is a great analysis of genre. And then moving into the big city, it’s always very frightening, especially when it’s L.A., because L.A. is such a mysterious place.

It’s like the moon in some ways; it’s unearthly.” What’s perhaps unique to Refn’s latest vision is the vacuum he’s created around these feelings. Unlike many similarly themed films, plot plays a smaller role than atmosphere. “Italian music from the ’70s” and the 1961 film Night Tide, about a murderess convinced she is a mermaid, were inspirations.

The axiom of Refn’s Demon world is that the most beautiful girl of all is Jesse, a 16-year-old orphan taught to pose as 19, navigating treacherous waters unaccompanied. I met 18-year-old Fanning on a cold day in May at a brunch spot in the West Village that had come recommended by her friend Sofia Coppola (who directed Fanning in her 2010 film, Somewhere). In an embroidered bomber jacket, fishnets, and a Prada backpack the size of an iPhone 6 Plus, she was sweetly composed and surprisingly grown-up, while exuding the effortless, trendy sparkle of the recent high school graduate that she is. It’s hard to imagine that her own assimilation into Hollywood at such a young age was anything as sordid as her character’s.

“I was born in Georgia. My sister [Dakota Fanning] started first, so she went out with my mom to test it out,” the younger Fanning sister recalls. “Me and my dad stayed behind. Then my sister got all this stuff and was doing movies and we were like, I guess we have to move to L.A. We just stayed. That’s my home. I mean, I was so young. I’m a California girl.” Elle famously played the younger version of her sister in 2001’s I Am Sam, at two. For her role in that film, Dakota became the youngest actor to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, at eight. Elle has now been nominated for just about every Young, Teen, or Breakout award out there, and with Demon, she’s won high praise for her performance from even those critics who can’t stomach the film itself.

Fanning’s on-screen nemeses are, coincidentally, both Australian by birth, Angeleno by trade (and they’re both 29). Abbey Lee Kershaw dropped her last name professionally when she became an in-demand model, rising in the fashion ranks—but in New York and Europe rather than Downtown L.A. and the Valley. She recently made a sideways entrance into Hollywood, breaking out in 2015’s Best Picture-nominated Mad Max: Fury Road. For her part, Heathcote has gone from Australian soap star to dark comic Hollywood hot commodity thanks to films like 2012’s Dark Shadows and this year’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

“Every girl I know has one girl in L.A. who you bump into and she will always do everything she can to destabilize you or undermine you or get the power in the circumstance,” says Heathcote. Her Demon character, “Gigi’s kind of like that.

She’s a bit of a bitch, but it’s born out of a place of insecurity.” Indeed, Gigi refers to “plastics” (surgery) as just good grooming, citing ear pinning as a necessity for wearing a ponytail. “She doesn’t like the way she looks. I don’t think she even thinks about who she is as a person, it’s just a matter of, How does this make me feel?

How can I feel better?”

While Heathcote is friendly to the point of perky, Gigi, somewhat resembling an evil version of her famed blonde namefellow, Hadid, is none too welcoming when she meets Jesse at a party. Neither is Sarah, who spits out the staccato line to Gigi, “Who is she fucking, or who could she fuck? How high could she climb?”

“In a weird way,” Fanning explains, “I kind of idolized [Abbey Lee] when I was young because I loved fashion. She had to teach me how to do the walk for the casting scene. I thought she was just walking, and she was like, ‘No, there’re rules to it. You can’t move your arms. Lean back. Make your legs look longer.’ It’s so intense.”

The scene Fanning refers to is particularly wrenching, channeling the pain of Italian art star Vanessa Beecroft’s tableaux of stripped women planted in heels for hours on end. The girls line up in their underwear to be graded and degraded by an apathetic casting director and a pompous designer, whose cold hearts melt when they first see innocent Jesse move towards them. A fashion show scene—the film’s dramatic climax, complete with slow, kaleidoscopic zooms and Refn’s signature neon-colored lighting—is quick to folow. Throughout the film, the girls’ ambiguous successes and diminishing returns are visceral. Apparently, relentless expectations made it into the filming process, too. “Nic’s style of working is really challenging, I think in a positive way,” Abbey Lee explains. “Anything about your character can change at any time.

Nic has a real obsession with stillness and being able to convey a message in a much more simple way. He takes a really dramatic scene and knocks it back to just saying the lines. I would say the same line over and over, maybe 30 times.”

This film, like most of Refn’s, was shot in chronological order. “It was insane,” Fanning squeals. “I had never done that before. Things changed all the time. Even the ending is different than what the script was.” Refn describes it as a forced creative free fall. “I, most of the time, base my decisions on instinct,” he says. “There’s something very satisfying about that, both because it’s frightening and because creativity is fueled by fear.”

While the fashion world—albeit a demented Ventura Boulevard version of it—is front and center here, Refn maintains that the film is much more universal. “I think that it’s not so much the modeling world in L.A., it’s what L.A. represents,” says Refn. “In terms of authenticity, the modeling world is very much surrounded by New York or Paris. But Hollywood is the theme of everything. Even though various industries have been detained, whether it’s music or fashion or painting, everything leads back to Los Angeles. It’s the one thing everyone has in common. It beams out as a digital link to the rest of the world. The idea was more like: Where would the wizard be if this were The Wizard of Oz? Well, the wizard would be in Los Angeles, of course.”

Like a modern-day Dorothy, with an entourage of predators rather than goodnatured friends, Jesse traipses down a path towards an empire of smoke and mirrors.

Demon is a parable about an appearance-obsessed industry in an industry-obsessed society. “We realized, as we were filming, who the Neon Demon was,” says Fanning.

“I thought it was L.A. or the models, but actually it’s kind of...me. But it’s also beauty.

Beauty can be your demise. And this is so prevalent now because of social media and apps that make you look a certain way. People really care about the way they look—all the time.”

Refn imagines beauty as potently sinister, describing three trajectories: “One is, it’s like the most secure stock you can invest in—it’s always gonna go up,” he bullet points. “Secondly, the longevity of how we define beauty continues to shrink, shrink, shrink.” And, most disturbingly, “Thirdly, the age of how we define beauty continues to become younger and younger. So, what’s gonna happen when these three, let’s say, speeding trains collide, or pass each other in the incorrect order?”

His answer is the film itself, followed by another question: “What’s gonna happen if beauty becomes insanity?”

THE NEON DEMON IS IN THEATERS NOW

ELLE WEARS DRESS EDWARD MEADHAM FOR SOPHIA WEBSTER SHOES SOPHIA WEBSTER ON LIPS ROUGE DIOR IN 844 TRAFALGAR

ABBEY LEE WEARS CLOTHING GUCCI SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN RING AND EARRING ELLAGEM ON LIPS ROUGE DIOR IN 775 DARLING

BELLA WEARS COAT BURBERRY DRESS ASHISH SHOES AND BAG SOPHIA WEBSTER GLOVES GASPAR GLOVES ON LIPS ROUGE DIOR IN 766 ROSE HARPERS

“ We realized, as we were filming, who the Neon Demon was. I thought it was L.A. or the models, but actually it’s kind of...me. But it’s also beauty. Beauty can be your demise.”

—Elle Fanning

ELLE WEARS CORSET JIVOMIR DOMOUSTCHIEV BRA AND BRIEFS VEX SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN MAKEUP KABUKI USING DIOR COSMETICS HAIR GARREN USING R+CO (GARREN NEW YORK) MANICURE HONEY (EXPOSURE NY) SET DESIGN ANDREA STANLEY (STREETERS) PRODUCTION CAROLINE STRIDFELDT AND NATALIE PFISTER (LOLA PRODUCTION) DIGITAL TECHNICIAN TADAAKI SHIBUYA PHOTO ASSISTANTS ALEX LOCKETT, MARK LUCKASAVAGE, TIM SHIN, WILLY WARD, ADAM KANINOWSKI STYLIST ASSISTANT TAYLOR KIM MAKEUP ASSISTANT YUMI KAIZUKA HAIR ASSISTANT JERROD ROBERTS SET DESIGN ASSISTANTS COLIN LYTTON AND DEVIN RUTZ PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS RACHEL KOBER AND WILLIAM KANNAR LOCATION ROOT NYC

CHARLIE k. WEARS COAT COACH 1941

WOLVES A vision that is decidedly ahead of the pack heats things up with this Fall’s favorite: shearling.

IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING Photography Bruce Weber Fashion Deborah Watson

VMAGAZINE.COM 85

GIOVANNI WEARS cOAT BURBERRY

ERIKA WEARS coAT DIESEL BLACK GOLD JUMPSUIT CHLOÉ RIng (ThRoUghoUT) hER oWn gIoVAnnI WEARS SWIMSUIT SPEEDO

ERIKA AND DREE WEAR DREssEs VERA WANG BODYsUITs RYAN ROCHE CHARLIE K. WEARs COAT COACH 1941 HAT ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA

ERIKA WEARS COAT COACH 1941 JACKET AND SCARF BAJA EAST DREE WEARS COAT COACH 1941 T-SHIRT VINTAGE

CHARLIE k. WEARS T-SHIRT ANDREA MARY MARSHALL SkIRT vERA wANg ERIkA WEARS VEST MICHAEL KORS T-SHIRT ANDREA MARY MARSHALL SHORTS vERA wANg CAPE MICHAEL KORS CROWN TOME

CHARLIE k. WEARS COAT COACH 1941

ERIKA WEARS COAT RALPH LAUREN LONG JOHNS VINTAGE NECKLACE AND BRIEFS HER OWN

ERIKA WEARS COAT PROENZA SCHOULER SHIRT AND HAT VINTAGE PANTS VERA WANG

this spread: MirO Wears COat, paNts, sUspeNders GREG LAUREN JerseY aNd braCelet his OWN

THIS SPREAD: GIOVANNI AND CHARLIE M. WEAR JACKET AND VEST LEVI’S

MIRO WEARS ShEARlIng greg lauren SWIMSUIT SPeeDO

JULES WEARS COAT RALPH LAUREN ShiRT BOGLIOLI

CHARLIE M. WEARS COAT BURBERRY HAT thE EldER statEsman

JULES WEARS COAT BAJA EAST SHIRT VINTAGE HAT ThE EldEr STATESmAn

BENNETT, josEph, julEs WEAR sWEATERs VERSACE shoRTs viNTAgE

THIS SPREAD: GIOVANNI WEARS COAT FENDI NECKLACE HIS OWN MAKEuP REGINE THORRE HAIR GERALD DECOCK uSING ORIbE HAIR CARE Models erika linder (next ManageMent), dree HeMingway (dna Models), CHarlie kennedy (ViVien’s Models), gioVanni BonaMy, MiroslaV CeCH, CHarlie MattHews (soul artist ManageMent), Bennett Jonas, JosepH greenstein, Jules Horn (Front ManageMent) set design diMitri leVas produCtion little Bear inC. on set produCer dawn Boller pHoto assistants CHris doMurat, JeFF tautriM, ryan MiCHael petrus, roBerto patella stylist assistant Carolin sHin tailor saBrina CaulField set design assistant red produCtion assistants Boris MCnertney, ron giBBs, daVe Begley, CHad arrogante speCial tHanks C. Madeleine’s MiaMi

AMELIA WEARS CLOTHING PRADA

stateeofffetheeaRt Old world volume and restraint combine with modern materials for Fall’s instant classics.

Photography Brett Lloyd Fashion Jay Massacret

JAY WEARS CLOTHING LOUIS VUITTON JEWELRY (THROUGHOUT) HER OWN VMAGAZINE.COM 109

JULIA WEARS JACKET AND SHIRT GUCCI PANTS VINTAGE EARRING (THROUGHOUT) HER OWN GLOVES GASPAR GLOVES

JAMILLA WEARS CLOTHING CÉLINE BELT (WORN AROUND NECK) VINTAGE GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES

MARLAND WEARS COAT AND BAG COACH 1941 SHIRT TOME PANTS ROSIE ASSOULIN GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES

AMELIA WEARS JACKET, SHIRT, SKIRT BALENCIAGA CORSET PRADA SOCKS FALKE bOOTS JULIEN DAVID GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES

JULIA WEARS SWEATER DIOR CORSET PRADA PANTS CARHARTT GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES TYLER WEARS TANK T BY ALEXANDER WANG T-SHIRT, PANTS, BELT HIS OWN

JAMILLA WEARS SHIRT SALVATORE FERRAGAMO SHIRT (UNDERNEATH) TOME PANTS ROSIE ASSOULIN BAG BALENCIAGA GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES

AMELIA WEARS TOP AND BAG PROENZA SCHOULER SHIRT TOME PANTS VINTAGE MAkEuP kANAkO TAkASE (TIM HOWARD MANAGEMENT) HAIR MARkI SHkRELI (TIM HOWARD MANAGEMENT) Models AMeliA RAMi (TRuMp), JAy WRighT (NexT), JAMillA hoogeNbooM (WoMeN MANAgeMeNT), JuliA CuMMiNg (MARilyN), MARlANd bACkus (NeW yoRk Model MANgeMeNT), TyleR blue goldeN (Re:quesT) MANiCuRe TRACylee (TiM hoWARd MANAgeMeNT) seT desigN JuliA WAgNeR phoTo AssisTANTs Alex AusTiN ANd RiChARd luoNg sTylisT AssisTANTs oliviA kozloWski ANd RAyMoNd gee MAkeup AssisTANTs kuMA ANd MeguMi oNishi hAiR AssisTANT FRANCis CATANese loCATioN RooT NyC ReTouChiNg TouCh digiTAl

JAY WEARS SHIRT AND TOP TOME PANTS COURRÈGES GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES BAG PROENZA SCHOULER

MARLAND WEARS COAT AND BAG CHANEL SWEATER MOSES GAUNTLETT CHENG ShiRT TOME SOCKS FALKE BOOTS JULIEN DAVID GLOVE GASPAR GLOVES

JAY WEARS TOP FENDI PANTS VINTAGE MARLAND WEARS VEST AND DRESS PACO RABANNE SHIRT TOME TYLER WEARS TOP KIM SHUI PANTS PROENZA SCHOULER RING HIS OWN

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