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Contributors
EDITOR-IN CHIEF Catherine Torlop CREATIVE DIRECTOR Catherine Torlop FASHION & BEAUTY ASSISTANT Leah Eynon CONTRIBUTORS Danielle Jones GUsto Jane McEntegart Julia Kasper Leah Eynon Megan Dunn Nicole Tiernan Sara Lopez Suzanne Labarre PUBLISHER Harcourt Publishers ltd.
Ware decorated typeface is designed by Stefan Claudius All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the publisher. The views expressed in Ware are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the publisher.
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Content 18 Favourite Things
49 100 Abandoned
85 Versace Sofa
The best ways to spend the next 3 months
Eerie but beautiful photography
The Designer furniture to brighten up any home
20 Apple of my Eye
57 Gyspy & the Cat
86 The Teenagers
Photoshoot by up and coming photographer Eleanor Hardwick
The Australian duo set to be the sound of the Summer
Dorian Dumont answers our questions
31 Up! Up & Away
58 L’amour Fou
89 Cola Delight
The National Geographic world record that will blow you away
The moving film about the late Yves Saint Laurent
Diet Coke mixed with fashion
32 Cnocession
61 Week in Photos
90 Holly Farrell
duo GUsto create funeral typography
Our guest shows us how they’ve spent their week
The unique and talented artist answers our questions
34 We Are Handsome
64 Beauty Queen
97 terri
An interview with the fabulous swimwear brand
With a smile that never fails...
A hotly tipped indie film for 2011
39 Guerra De La Paz
77 Quite Cute
98 Age of the Dinosaur
Material art!
MAC’s new SS collection
The exciting new exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum
40 Hannah Davies
Houses
78 Story Vases
The beautiful illustrator answers our questions
Zulu women tell their story through art
44 On Trend
80 Sofia Coppola
What to wear for SS11
The gorgeous director talks family, film and fun
100 Love Scene
save the best scene until last...
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Welcome to the very first issue of Ware! Every three months we will show you some of our favourite new things from fashion, design, music and film and hope to excite you with amazing people, pictures and product. This Summer, fashion is set to brighten up our moods with bold colours and ditsy florals, so we want our magazine to do the same thing. We’ve got bright 8ft balloons to blow you away on page 31, material flower sculptures by artistic duo Guerra de la Paz on page 39 and with the amazing weather we’re having who better to speak to than the Australian swimwear brand We are Handsome (page 34). Above all, Ware aims to be a visually strong magazine that you’ll flick through time and time again and fall head over heels in love with. So with this, go to page 20 to see our Apple of my Eye editorial by the amazingly talented young photographer Eleanor Hardwick and page 49 to see the captivating images by Kevin Bauman titled 100 Abandoned Houses. Enjoy Catherine Torlop Editor-in-chief
Image courtesy of James Smith
Image courtesy of Les Jumeaux de Legume
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THIS SUMMER WE’LL MOSTLY BE... 3
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1.Wearing the new Ray-Ban Clubmasters 2. Decorating our rooms with the amazing iphone pillows from Etsy (iconpillows.etsy. com) 3. Wishing we were a Smurfette like Katy Perry (Smurf 3D is in cinemas July 29th) 4.Eating Twister lollies 5. Loving Death Cab for Cutie’s eagerly awaited new album Codes and Keys (out May 31st) 6. Decorating cupcakes with anything edible 7. Wearing camero necklaces of our favourite films. (Flamingocupcake.etsy.com) 8. Dip-Dying our Hair in every pastel shade we can think of 9. Praying for a sunny long weekend at Glastonbury festival (www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk) 10. Mixing florals with lace for girly summer style like Erdem SS11 19
Photography by Eleanor Hardwick Models Justine Boomer and Jenny Chalmer of Elite
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Dress vintage, Shoes Topshop Boutique, Necklace Kara Ross 21
Dress Chloe Shoes Topshop Necklace as Belt Anna Lou of London Bracelets H&M
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Dress worn as vest H&M, Tutu vintage, Necklace Anna Lou of London
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Dress Rare Shoes Prada 24
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Jenny: Dress Chloe, Shoes Prada. Justine: Dress Strawberry Kats, Shoes Topshop 26
Bolero Topshop
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Jenny: Dress vintage Necklace Kara Ross Justine: Dress Topshop Shoes Prada
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Dress Monsoon, Tutu vintage, Shoes Topshop Boutique
Justine: Dress Topshop, Shoes Prada. Jenny: Dress vintage, Necklace Kara Ross
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UP! Up and Away
Animated movies are full of imagination, colour and crazy ideas that aren’t even possible in real life. However, sometimes the out-there ideas we see on the big screen aren’t so impossible. A team from National Geographic recently set out to bring one of the most magical moments from Pixar’s ‘Up’ to life. This was, of course, when 78-year-old retiree Carl Frederickson’s house takes off into the air aided by the help of hundreds of helium balloons. By rigging a 16-foot by 16-foot, 18-foot tall house with 300 8-foot coloured weather balloons, they managed to successfully break the record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted.
Launched from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, the house flew for roughly one hour and reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet. The experiment was part of a new series called “How Hard Can it Be?” which
is set to air on the National Geographic Channel in the Autumn. See more images at www.nationalgeographic.co.uk 33
Cnocession A sample of funeral typography from Castillon-la-Bataille, France
Who said typeography was dead?
brasses.
Artistic duo Fanny Garcia & Jack Usine (GUsto) have created Cnocession, a sample of funeral typography from Castillon-laBataille (France) which combines typography and photography. Images taken from the cemetery of Castillon-la-Bataille were used to create the typography. It is made up of handpicked inscriptions extracted from headstones and memorial
The result is a patchwork of graphic shapes, gravestone architectures and floral wreaths and decorations, exposing local habits and knowledge. The beautiful colours that adorne the gravestones allow the typeography to remain feminine and not become morbid like the connotations that a cemetery can portray.
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Cnocession bears witness to the relationship between people and rememberance, giving birth to the old-fashioned component of classical publishing: the.initial. See more of GUsto’s work at www. gusto.fr
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We Are Handsome
Julia Kasper interviews the Australian swimwear brand
Australian cult swimwear brand We are Handsome have been brightening up our beaches since 2009 with their ultra vivid prints capturing imaginative scenes of exotic animals, American legends and glorified landscapes grabbing our attention in the hunt for the ultimate summer swimsuit. Swimwear designer and one half of the duo, Indhra Chagoury, answers some of my questions:
There’s not one particular inspiration, in fact quite the opposite. We are inspired by everything. Colour plays a bold part and it’s about how each image makes us feel. As you look at each print we hope that you can see the beauty that mesmerizes us. Each of the designs from our collection is designed to make the wearer feel as if they’ve seen it before. We haven’t used any iconic imagery as such but a lot of people FEEL as if they’ve seen an image before, like an old friend who’s name you can’t remember. How did the partnership between yourself (Indhra Chagoury) and Jeremy Somers begin and what are your backgrounds? We have actually been friends for years but have each been concentrating on our own individual businesses. 36
My swimwear label, Oscar & Elvis, and Jeremy’s graphic design tshirt business, People Like Us. We Are Handsome, now, seems like a natural progression. With examples such as The Hollywood, The Los Angeles and The Miami is the American landscape and culture a continuing key source of inspiration for you? American culture is so varied and rich. For us, wanting to have recognizable imagery in the pieces, the USA is a good place to start. The names of these places conjure up images to so many different people, it enables us to reach a whole range of viewers. Of course, when we were creating the images we don’t think about this stuff, it usually just happens. The new range has more international locales in it and with so many beautiful places in the world, international images will always be a part of our range. What is it that makes each piece ‘handmade’, limited and so special? Each print is pieced together from a range of different images. Jeremy is meticulous with these and the results speak for themselves. We don’t plan to over saturate the market with them or sell through extremely mainstream commercial stores. With the help of our agents, we are hand picking stores that represent who we are. The best thing though, is that they are 100% Australian from design to manufacture.
You described the process of printing these designs as a ‘tedi ous process to say the least’. What are your views on the art of handmade production within the fashion industry? I guess the most tedious thing about it is playing the waiting game. The pieces have to be precision printed, cut and sewn. Even a centimeter can off set the way an image looks and send us back to the beginning of the process. We r eally want to strive to make our wearers FEEL like they’re wearing something special. In todays industry handmade products are few and far between, and we feel there’s a real appreciation for
something that’s made with love and care, not just a machine in some dank, dark factory. I adore the prints, they seem to pop away from the fabric, so much so that a friend described the visuals as ‘almost 3 Dimensional’, how do you produce these ultra-real images? After we concept something we’ll find source imagery and inspiration for the piece. Most of our stuff is stitched together from stock photography and stuff we shoot, and we’ll put the image together roughly on a small scale first to make sure the composition works and
then make sure our colours are what we want and that it’s something that fits within the collection, both with subject matter and style. If we’re happy then we’ll go about creating the final image which can take days or longer. Making a whole bunch of different photos look like they are part of the same image takes a lot of time but in the end they’re so worth it :) We can’t wait to see what you have planned for the coming season; any plans to extend the collection? Many, plans. But if we tell you now, we may have to silence you forever!
As a cult brand in Australia, how do you feel the brand can translate to the colder seaside climates of Brighton Pier and Blackpool Beach here in the UK? While our pieces (or at least , our first collection) is swimwear, we’ve found that many girls are wearing the pieces as a top or bodysuit along with jeans, shorts or skirts.In colder climates the pieces are being worn as fashion for going out and for parties. Some of our markets include Russia, Poland and believe it or not - Iceland! How do you see the different ‘beach cultures’ in the UK and Australia and 37
do you design collections with this in mind? Our collections are designed in view of a certain mindset, not so much a place or climate. As mentioned, our pieces aren’t meant just for the beach, nor for one climate or one type of girl. The collection is full of designs that appeal to confident, outgoing and fun women, no matter where they are in the world. How and where they wear the pieces is up to them and we’re so happy for everyone to make it their own. Is there any advice you can give to young designers who are looking to set up their own label? While it’s not easy and takes A LOT of work, you just have to go ahead and do it. You’ll never get anywhere by just talking about doing it. Looking at your collection inspires memories of vacations and summer holidays…What is your favourite destination in the world at the moment? Both of us are HUGE fans of our own city. Sydney has a magic to it that a lot of other cities don’t have. We love spending time here, at the beach, on the harbour, in the bush & mountains... As kids, almost all of our vacations were 38
Aussie beach side holidays and we keep those memories and destinations close to us at all times. And Finally, if you could design a swimsuit, for a famous icon or particular public figure, (past or present) who would it be and what image would you print onto the suit? Zooey Deschanel is definitely on our list along with M.I.A., Florence Welch and
Charlotte Gainsbourg. All beautiful, aspirational females. The image would have to be something that reflects a secret piece of their personality, even an alter ego. WeAreHandsome swimsuits are available from www. wearehandsome.com
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Guerra de la Paz
Magenta Flower 2008
Bonsai, 2006 The work of Guerra de la Paz, the two artist team of Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz, is based on a combination of traditional disciplines and experimentation with dimension and the use of unconventional materials. It is inspirited by an essential familiarity with the ready-made and the archeological qualities that found objects posses. The result encapsulates an energy that reveals underlying meanings and depicts the significance of mass-produced refuse on our society.
Indradhanush, 2009 Relying exclusively on materials that part of our everyday lives, they create work with a universal message. Using recycled objects as their medium and the guidance of the unrelenting amounts of information that fuel today’s mass consciousness
and its subversive parallels, Guerra de la Paz explores ways to reinvent historic themes and classic icons while commenting on contemporary culture. Visit www.guerradelapaz.com 41
The award winning Illustrator talks to Ware
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Hannah Davies has been creating her amazingly beautiful illustrations since graduating in 2009. Her fine-detail Surface Pattern Designs are inspired by her love of nature and her unique illustrations won her a place in the UK’s biggest graduate design show, New Designers in London last year. At the exhibition she was the winner of the One Year On award. She has gone on to design for Mathew Williamson, Debenhams and Pineapple to name just a few. Here she takes time out to answer a few of our questions:
I’ve always enjoyed art since being a little girl, I stared entering art competitions in primary school and won lots. I then went to study art in comprehensive school and ended up doing ta degree in Surface design. I entered lots of competition at this time. One competition was New Designers, this was what brought my first major clients and commissions in!
I have have always wanted to be an illustrator since I was a little girl. I was never very good at academic
subjects so my teachers always pushed me to do more art based subjects so i chose to study fine art, design and technology and photography for my A levels in college. Its been a life long dream!! Now i’m so glad that I have the opportunity to do something I really enjoy in life!
The way I would describe my work is that it is full of imaginative detail and and surface design!!The colours are always very bold. All the imagery I produce is very decorative and detailed, full of pattern and colour. 43
and red! I am inspired by all the nature that’s around us every day; flowers, plants, insects and birds!! I love all the vibrant colours and unusual detail. I love the idea of capturing detail that’s not really seen by people everyday and bringing that to life.
My favourite piece at the moment is my bright and bold owl 9on the next page) I took inspiration from folk art. As you can see from looking at it, I am a bit obsessed with the colour turquoise at the moment, I think it works really well with the bright pink 44
I havn’t been doing this for very long so I have so many goals for the future. I would love to have my own brand and to bring my own stationery out onto the market with all my own designs! There is so much i want to do. I just feel so lucky to be doing what I really enjoy!
Yes, I would really like to introduce my designs into interiors.I have created quite a few things like pillows
and scarves using my digital prints on fabrics already, but I would love to upholster lots of different vintage chairs!
In my spare time i love going to the beach, especially the Gower Peninsular, its so inspiring and relaxing. i also love listening to music, particularly zero 7, Sia and the XX. I do try and visit as many galleries as i can and i love spening lots of time camping with friends. Visit Hannah’s website www.hannah-designs.co.uk to see more of her beautiful illustrations.
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The key SS11 trends to be wearing over the next 3 months
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This Summer goes bright with designers Nina Ricci, Jil Sander and Fendi mixing clashing colours on the catwalk to create an exciting new twist on the block colours of last season. Mixing pinks with oranges, and blues with greens makes a bold statement for Spring/Summer and there’s room for experimenting with pastels, neons, jewel tones and primary colours to chose from. This Season will be full of colour to brighten up our wardrobes and our moods.
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1. marc by marc jacobs £395 2. River Island £34.99 3. River Island £24.99 4. Topshop £40 5. MiuMiu £175 6.Chloe £345 7. Carvela £140 47
Sheer & Lace
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Sheer fabrics and delicate lace create romantic shapes that make a beautiful alternate to other trends this Summer. Although lace has been a continuing trend, this season sees a progression with the lace having more of a vintage feel and more intriquite detail.... More beautiful. Erdem, Dolce & Gabanna and Charles Anastase were among the designers who graced the runway with sheer maxskirts and vintage lace dresses. Gorgeous tones of black, nude and red make this trend feminine yet edgy. A must for Summer. 2
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1. Topshop £45 2. Lover £285 3. Rosamosario £3504. Topshop £85 5. River Island £24.99 48
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British florals graced the catwalk this season with ditsy prints and pastel shades mixed with a splash of bright colour. Think garden party meets Chelsea flower show. Dolce & Gabanna did it best teaming garments with floral headscarfs, ‘picnic check’ bags and welly style boots. They also teamed florals with Snow White tee’s to add a modern and quirky touch. 2
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1. Topshop £40 2. River Island £49.99 3.Jukopop.com £24.99 4. Topshop £32 5. Mulberry £195 6. Alice & Olivia £540 7. D&G £350 49
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Kevin Bauman’s unique photography of abandoned houses in Detriot, US
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Gyspy & the Cat Australian duo tipped to be the new sound of 2011
With summer approaching and the winter blues long gone, listeners are looking for that sound to lift the mood and to set the background music to their summer memories, well ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to this year’s summer soundtrack Gypsy & the Cat. Time to Wander is an upbeat track with vocals to accompany it, with influences from the likes of Fleetwood Mac to Daft Punk evidently being heard, there nothing that you can’t like. Whether you’re chilling at home or stuck in your car in the mid morning traffic, this track will sure lift
your mood instantly. Gypsy & the Cat are going from strength to strength since starting out in their garage just over a year ago in Melbourne and with the band already been topped as one of the 20 bands to watch by NME the sky’s the limit for this tranquil duo. Gypsy & the Cat have evidently done the impossible with Time to Wander, by capturing the sun and the uplifting summer atmosphere -something you would associate with Australia, into one track which can be listened to by all. They are currently on tour in their homeland of Australia but i’m
sure they will be gracing a few UK festivals this year. Time to Wonder is relased June 20th 59
L’amour Fou A moving documentary showing us the life of the late Yves Saint Laurent
The public life of Yves Saint Laurent was an extravagant spectacle, as a design prodigy and then the grand coutourier of a fashion empire, he influenced fifty years of style and was an icon to millions -- but few are familiar with the private life of the legend. L ‘Amour Fou presents Pierre Berge, the man with which YSL 60
shared four decades of his life,who reflects on the equally extravagant history of their personal relationship. Framed around the 2009 auction of the priceless, elaborate art collection we are given look at the life of a mythic personality, whose personal life matched his public for elegance, decadence and passion.
Winner of the International Critics Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival and an official selection of the TriBeCa and San Francisco Film Festivals, L ‘Amour Fou is now being released in selected UK cinemas in June.
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Week in Photos Seona Taylor- Bell, booker at Elite Model London, shows us her week in photos
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...with painted nails and a smile that never fails.... Words by Megan Dunn
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headscarf by Vivienne Westwood. Tee-shirt by Alice & Olivia. Skirt by Topshop
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But underneath is a world of lies, behind the curtain this princess cries. So let her take the stage in good graces and fake smiles. Hiding under her make-up all of her heartbroken trials.
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Playsuit by Topshop
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Dress by Rare Ring by Yves Saint Laurent Mirror Stlyist’s own Lipstick - Show Orchid by MAC
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Quite Cute The new MAC SS11 collection
M.A.C. Cosmetics has recently launched its Spring 2011 Quite Cute collection for all uber-girly make-up lovers. M.A.C. interprets their version of cute as “the girliest kind of international glam possible, a style ride that combines postage-stampsized puppies with pixie swizzle-stick fashion and butterfly kisses for cute boys and even cuter shoes!” Quite Cute includes limited edition lipsticks, blushes “with tthe sweet heart baked right into it,” nail lacquers, plushglasses, lip pencils and
eyeshadows in a pastel, “cupcake icing” color palette, and extends to “vintage romance, an ATM card with Hello Kitty on it – and a way of life that says “yes!” to everything adorable!… If it shines, shimmers and pops it’s completely, contagiously, cute!” With bright colours and names like Candy Yum-Yum, Play Time Intense, Ice Cream Cake, Boycrazy, and Goody Goody Gum Drop, every girl needs a piece of the Quite Cute collection.
Prices range from £9 - £33. Quite Cute is available now from all MAC stores and maccosmetics.co.uk 79
Story Vases Front’s intriquite vases tell untold stories of South Africans making them
The Swedish collective Front Design helps women in rural South Africa tell their stories to the rest of the world, using beaded typography. Front Design, an all-girl Swedish threesome (and former foursome), has unveiled a moving new project that throws the spotlight on poor South African women by literally beading their narratives onto vases. Think of it as the craft equivalent of Story Corps. The Story Vases, which debuted at the Milan furniture fair last month tell the tales of five women who live in rural, post-apartheid South Africa. The women -- Beauty Ndlovu, Thokozani Sibisi, Kishwepi Sitole, Tholiwe Sitole, and Lobolile Ximba -- shared their personal stories with Front, touching on everything from love and business to death and the impact of HIV on their lives in the remote reaches of KwaZulu-Natal. Then they worked with the designers to select which passages to feature. Here is thokaozani sibisi’s story: ‘my dream was to get married, have four children and to have a good 80
house, a beautiful house with a veranda. My house is not as beautiful as I wanted it. I am married but it’s now how I thought because my husband does not work, so I do not have a veranda.’ The women, all members of a beadcraft col-lective, did the beadwork themselves. According to Front, “Bead craft is an important part of Zulu tradition, not only as a means of expression, but also
of communication and telling stories.” The vision for the collaboration by editions in craft was to develop a new pro duct together by sharing techniques and exchanging ideas and is an ongoing series, each piece available in a limited edition produced. For other collaborations visit www.editionsincraft.com
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The award-winning director and screen writer talks to Danielle Jones about her latest release, her family and the Chateau Marmont
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The most recent pictures I had seen of Coppola had been taken at the Venice Film Festival a few weeks earlier, when she was in full red-carpet finery to collect the Golden Lion for Best Film for her latest movie, Somewhere. Her style is distinctive and much admired. She never looks like she’s trying too hard – the laidback Californian in her – while always looking chic and pulled together in a very French way. She devoured European style magazines such as the Face and French Vogue in her teens, she later tells me, and when she was 15 and 16 she spent her summers in Paris, working as an intern at Chanel. She may have had a privileged upbringing, but she expressed her interest in fashion by working in it, not just shopping for it. ‘There was a really strong work ethic in our family,’ she says. ‘It’s really important to my dad, and I’m glad that he did that.’ Even dressed down, she stands out. She’s tiny – 5ft 3in – and steps in out of the rain with dark hair scraped back in a ponytail, her face free of make-up, wearing black jeans and layers of white T-shirts under a luxuriously thick, blue knitted jumper. Growing up, Sofia was the only girl in the Coppola clan, surrounded by two older brothers and a host of cousins that included the actors Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman (who plays Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette). ‘They would all come and stay with us, and it was fun being the only girl,’ she says. ‘That’s why I like being on the film sets with all the camera guys: it’s familiar! The idea of sisters is mysterious to me, some kind of complicated relationship that I don’t know about. So having two little girls is fun. I hope they’re close. At first Romy was annoyed [about Cosima’s arrival], but now she’s really into being a big sister.’ Having children has changed her views on work. She plans to take more time between projects now, and it’s no coincidence that Somewhere was a relatively small production. ‘It was a six-week shoot, where Marie Antoinette was six months,’ she explains. ‘With kids, there’s no way I could manage that now. And I can’t stay up all night writing any more. I have to be more organised, and it takes longer to write in all the chaos. I once had this idea that I needed to be in a quiet room to write, but I’ve learnt to do it with kids running around.’
Photo by Yoshio Sato – © 2003 Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.
Coppola has often said that her films tend to be working out her own issues, even if she realises only in retrospect. With Somewhere, she says she was thinking about becoming a parent when writing the screenplay, so what little plot there is inevitably concerns that. Set in Los Angeles (with a brief spell in Milan), it maps out a territory somewhere between the contemporary American tele vision series Entourage and Fellini’s 1960 classic La Dolce Vita, revolving around a jaded film star and divorced father (Stephen Dorff) whose life shifts when he is forced to spend some real time with his 11-year-old daughter (luminously played by Dakota Fanning’s younger sister, Elle). Her father may be an acclaimed director, but Sofia herself didn’t grow up in Hollywood. The family home was the chateau of their successful vineyard in northern California, or on the location of whatever film he was shooting at the
time. When she was four, the family decamped to the Philippines for two years for Apocalypse Now. When she was 12, they lived in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York for a year while her father made The Cotton Club. It wasn’t until Sofia was in her twenties and enrolled at art school that she actually lived in LA, and it was later still that she began to see the place clearly enough to write about it. After Romy was born Coppola took a year off in Paris, although she still managed to fit in a few creative projects: she directed a television commercial for Miss Dior’s Cherie fragrance, and designed a chic capsule collection of shoes and bags for Louis Vuitton, the luxury label overseen by her friend Marc Jacobs. In between she took the baby to the park, and began thinking about making a film about LA. ‘In Paris you kind of avoid all the tabloids and celebrity gossip,’ she says. ‘Once in a while 83
Official film poster for Somewhere (2010)
a friend would visit and they would bring a trashy tabloid from home, and they look just so exaggerated. So this character popped into my head, but I was interested in that whole kind of world from being at a distance from it. If Lost in Translation was a celebration of Tokyo, revelling in the sheer strangeness of its neon streets to casual Western visitors, Somewhere is more ambivalent about LA. Coppola never lived in Japan, she points out; she only visited to promote Milkfed, the cult fashion label she co-owned in the 1990s. ‘I had a real affection for that place. Whereas LA… I like it there, but it’s strange. It’s not like anywhere else, and the whole city revolves around showbusiness.’ Her character Johnny Marco is a successful actor, but a man adrift in a sea of superficiality. He goes back to the room where he lives at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood and finds parties in full swing, women in his bed, and he medicates his boredom with drink, cigarettes and pills. Occasionally the disembodied voice of his assistant 84
over the phone calls him to a press junket for his latest film, a kitsch TV awards ceremony in Italy, or an appointment with the special effects department of his next film, but none of it really engages him. He is surrounded by people but isolated, disconnected. For Coppolla, Place is always important to her films, and although she gets fine performances from Dorff and Fanning, the film’s other star is the Chateau itself. ‘I get into that, into the place,’ she agrees. ‘There’s not much of a plot. It’s more about the characters and the atmosphere.’ A reproduction Loire chateau in the lower Hollywood Hills just off Sunset Strip, the Chateau Marmont was originally built as an apartment complex in 1929, with kitchens that encourage long-term occupation and earthquake-proof walls that are also soundproof – so that what goes on inside the rooms stays inside the rooms. The design of the entrance and the underground car-park with lifts leading directly to the rooms means that famous
faces can come and go discreetly, and when it opened as a hotel in 1931 it immediately became a haven for Hollywood stars. As Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, once advised his young actors, ‘If you must get into trouble, do it at the Marmont.’ Greta Garbo went to be alone there, Jean Harlow had her honeymoon there (managing to sleep with her lover Clark Gable as well as her new husband). In the 1950s Howard Hughes would use binoculars to spy on starlets at the pool from his lair in the largest penthouse, and Bungalow 2 was the scene of the first read-through of Rebel Without a Cause. From Alice Cooper playing nude football to Led Zeppelin riding motorbikes through the halls, the Marmont has seen it all. The Blues Brothers star John Belushi checked out for good after overdosing in Bungalow 3 in 1982, at the age of 33. After this the hotel went into decline, becoming ever more tattered and seedy – although still loved by regulars such as the photographer Helmut Newton, who lived and worked there four months a year. When the hotelier André Balazs took it over in 1990, it was refurbished, but without losing its louche yet homely atmosphere, and has continued to be the place in LA to party discreetly. She has vague memories of it from her childhood, and remembers Romulo Laki – a Chateau employee of some 30 years’ standing who is known as ‘the singing waiter’ – performing Elvis Presley’s Teddy Bear to her in the lobby. In the film, he does the same for Marco’s daughter, Cleo. ‘But most of my memories are from my twenties, when I was at college in LA, and me and my friends would go there to hang out,’ she says. ‘The parking guy, who’s been there for 20 years, would open the gates so we could use the swimming-pool. It was just a fun place to go and people-watch, have a drink or something.’ It was her long relationship with the hotel, with Balazs and with the general manager, Philip Pavel, that enabled her to take over the entire fifth floor for three weeks to film Marco’s life in Room 59. Dorff himself lived in the hotel for four or five months in 1996, and had his 21st birthday party there. For the duration of the shoot he moved into number 69, directly above his character’s room, and kept Coppola up to date with the hotel gossip.
While she’s writing a new script, she listens to music – Bryan Ferry was a favourite for Somewhere – and starts to collect images, which she puts into little books for her crew to use for reference before shooting. Bruce Weber’s Hollywood portraits were important for this film – she later emails me a picture of the actor Matt Dillon, seemingly just waking up in bed, that was in her mood book. But the biggest influence was Helmut Newton. ‘The Chateau has that kind of decadent side that I’ve always felt from his photographs,’ she says. ‘There’s a scene towards the end of the movie, where a topless girl is getting a haircut, that’s taken from one of his photos.’ In another scene, Marco leaves the hotel in his Ferrari, passing another car that has just ploughed into a wall – a reference to Newton’s death at the hotel. In 2004 his car accelerated out of the car-park and smashed straight into a wall. He was 83, and is assumed to have had a heart attack at the wheel. ‘I was there, that day,’ Coppola says. ‘I talked to him that morning. I’m glad I met him, even though it was at the last possible moment, and I told him how much I liked his work.’ Coppola is a keen collector of photography, and says the Newton print she owns is one of her more prized possessions, along with a portrait of Kurt Cobain by Juergen Teller and several works by Lee Friedlander, Tina Barney and Bill Owens, whose photographs of suburbia were referenced in The Virgin Suicides. ‘I wanted to take photos, but I wasn’t very good at it,’ she says. In her twenties, her pictures were published in magazines such as Allure and Interview. They weren’t bad, but nor were they exceptional. ‘I was just frustrated that I couldn’t take photos as well as the photographers I liked. I thought I’d be good, because I’ve got a good eye. But I guess that doesn’t translate. Although it taught me a lot about how to make films.’ It is, of course, the family business. Her mother, Eleanor, has won awards for her
behind-the-scenes documentaries about films made by her husband (including Hearts of Darkness, about the making of Apocalypse Now). Sofia’s eldest brother, Gian-Carlo, had been working with their father for six years when he was killed in a motorboat accident in 1986, aged 22. Her other brother, Roman, has also made a film but prefers to focus on music videos and advertising, although he served as second-unit director on Sofia’s first three films, and helped with the production of Somewhere. ‘He’s someone I always show my script to, early on,’ she says. ‘He lives in LA, so he was able to help me put this film together and protect it – he helped me keep it the way I wanted it to be, which was small. It cost around $7 million, which is more than I wanted, but to me it was important that the Milan section was shot in Milan. I try to keep the budget as small as possible so that I can work creatively, because otherwise you have to listen to the money people.’ Sofia Coppola is so lowkey, so quiet and modest in the way she presents herself, that it is easy to forget how exceptional she is. When she was nominated for an Academy Award for Lost in Translation in 2004, she was the first American female – and one of only three women ever – to be nominated as a director (she won the Oscar for writing the screenplay). Similarly, when she won the Golden Lion for Somewhere she was only the fourth woman to collect the award since it was first given out in 1949. ‘There’s so many more [female directors] than when I started,’ she says. ‘That’s encouraging. Maybe it’s because it’s such an all-encompassing job, and if you have a family, it’s harder to do. But there are female surgeons. And there’s plenty of women working in the film business.’
When she collected the award – from her one-time boyfriend Quentin Tar antino – she thanked her father ‘for teaching me’. But I’m curious about the influence of her mother, who, aside from her documentaries, has published two insightful volumes of notes taken from her diaries. She would read us things about ourselves when we were kids, so I was aware she was writing them, but I don’t think I thought much about it,’ Coppola says. ‘Now I see how I get that side from her. She’s not showbusiness at all, she always looked at it from a distance. She’s not one for being the centre of attention: she likes to be quiet and on the side. I don’t ever yell on the set, and people wonder why, when my dad is so loud. But I get my demeanour from my mom. She’s great at observing those strange, funny, telling little details.’ Sofia Coppola is not big on words. She was friendly and open throughout our meeting, and it was only later that I realised how little detail she had given in answer to my questions. Her scripts are notably minimal: ‘To me, there’s so much that’s not expressed by words, and you can tell so much by a little glance, or a gesture.’ I’m looking forward to seeing what she makes of middle age in her films, although with her fine skin and tiny, almost adolescent frame, she doesn’t look like a 39-year-old. ‘I’ve enjoyed my late thirties,’ she says. ‘Now, I go back and forth between being fine about being 40 next year – and feeling that I’ll have to start acting like a grownup. I always felt that sucks.’ She pauses, noticing one of her telling details, and laughs. ‘And hey, I’m about to enter my forties and I still say, “That sucks”!’ Somewhere is released this Month on DVD and Blue-ray
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Versace Sofa The exciting new interiors by the designer brand
Versace has continued their exciting step into interiors with a new sofa concept, the Bubble Sofa.Whether it’s their unusual bubble shape or their vibrant, inspiring color palette, these cool polyurethane foam sofas come with the choice of fabric or leather upholstery, each as lush and plush as it looks. Like its clothing collections, Versace
is taking furniture one step beyond. And talk about “dressed to impress” – your living room will turn heads with this chic Versace Bubble Sofa strutting its stuff. These cool polyurethane foam sofas can take your living room from
ultra-contemporary minimalism to retro-modern funk with a simple change of color and material. Like sitting on a cloud, these soft sofas will become an instant hotseat seat in your home. 87
The Teenagers Leah Eynon interviews one-third of the synthpop band French trio The Teenagers have been gracing our ipods since 2005 with their fun filled lyrics and infectious melodies. With the band busy working on the follow up to their debut album Reality Check, Lead guitarist Dorian Dumont took time to answer some of my questions: What was it that made you decide to sign to an english music label rather than french? When we started the band, Quentin was already living in London, so when we signed a deal with an English record label, we decided to join him in London; it seemed easier for everything. Your sound is quite unique with your guitar-driven synth-pop beats and talky vocals, were you influenced by any specific bands when you first started? I started composing songs on my computer with the idea of doing some kind of The Strokes-type songs with electronic beats and synths. I don’t think we sound like The Strokes at all, but this was an idea when I started to write songs for The Teenagers. It’s a mix of indie rock and mainstream pop music. So I guess it came naturally. Are you sticking with your sound for the new album? or are you taking influences from other genre’s that you like? i think it would be wierd because we all have very different taste in music, and I think what we do with The Teenagers is really in between everything we like. I 88
like heavy metal but I don’t wanna make that type of song at all, and I never really tried. Quentin is more a pop music listener and I think you can feel it in our music. But The Teenagers is a project and we want to keep it like it is for now. The new music we are writing at the moment is different but it’s still The Teenagers. We are evolving, I believe, in a very good way. What was it like to make the leap from self-releasing a few of your songs on MySpace to signing with Merok and XL? Did either company try to censor or change what you wrote or played? It was amazing! We just wrote a few songs for our friends and created a funny MySpace profile, and then we found a deal before we even started to play gigs. It was good to work with these labels and none of them asked us to ever change anything. We had full freedom to record what we wanted, and to sound how it sounds. What was your level of involvement in Reality Check? Did you compose all of the music and play guitar(s) and synths? Is Quentin the main lyricist or do you all pitch in? Yeah, it’s like that. I mainly take care of the music writing and record guitars and synths. And Quentin is the main lyricist. We all talk about everything together but songs always start like that It looks like you’re also a back-up vocalist when you play live and you sing
on Reality Check, is your new album going in the same direction? Yeah, the three of us sang a lot on Reality Check, it was fun so we’ve kind of kept our recording the same way. You toured extensively in 2008 to promote Reality Check, hitting 25 countries on your musical journey. Is that time period just a blur to you now or do certain parts of it stand out in your memory? I think it’s 35 countries! I would need to check though, and YES, it is completely blurry… I remember bits, but it just seems so far away. I will always remember the first time we played at Reading Festival in England. We were on at 11am, I think, and we were so
stressed that no one will show up.Ten minutes before we went on, I looked at the stage and there were like 100 people in a 2500 capacity tent… I was freaking out, but when we arrived on stage, it was full. And it was my dream to play this festival. Coachella is a good memory too… Well, there are so many good memories… Living on tour is the funniest thing that has ever happened to me – good times, and it’s great to get to see so many places and meet so many different people. There are some spoken word and singtalking female vocals on Reality Check and you’ve had a female keyboardist at gigs. Who is she and is she a permanent member of the band?
No, we have musicians on tour with us all the time but they are not in the band. On the album, the girl is called Sarah; she’s my BFF.
remixes that are requested by those bands or do you just do that for fun? Yeah, most of them are requests by bands/labels.
How is the music-writing going for your next album? Will it be along the same sonic lines as Reality Check? It’s hard to say ‘cause I’m in the middle of it. It will sound different. We wrote a lot of songs now, maybe 15, and we are going to produce them now. It takes a lot of time, but we want it to be good, so we have to work. :)
And finally, What else is up for The Teenagers in 2011? Do you have any gigs in the works? Not yet. We have to finish our record before we start touring again. So we are just touring France with Two Door Cinema Club, and it’s great ‘cause we never really toured France… Which is really weird and unexpected, but true.
The Teengers has done a lot of remixes of other bands’ songs like Air, Goldfrapp, Vampire Weekend, Phoenix, and Au Revoir Simone. Are these official
www.theteenagers.net
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Cola Delight Karl Lagerfeld collaborates with Diet Coke for the second time.
Diet Coke takes another stylish step into fashion this Spring by announcing its second fashion collaboration with international creative genius, Karl Lagerfeld. The world-renowned designer will create not one but three new and exclusive designs for the iconic Diet Coke aluminium bottle. The ‘Diet Coke Limited Edition Collection by Karl Lagerfeld’ is totally irresistible and is set to become the perfect accessory for style conscious women everywhere. Using the light and playful elements of his
identifiable trade-mark style, such as graphic cuts, a contrasting black and white palette and clean lines broken with colour or detailing — Karl Lagerfeld has created a bold, contemporary yet instantly recognisable collection. Referring to his first design for CocaCola light in 2010, Karl Lagerfeld said, “I love this bottle but it’s time for a new one. Actually I want to do three bottles.” He also added, “I loved what we did last year but I will love 2011 even more. I’m delighted
about this collaboration.” All three designs feature Karl Lagerfeld’s famous and instantly recognisable silhouette — the designs are also numbered (1,2,3) which makes these beautiful bottles truly ‘must have’ collectibles. The bottles will be available individually or as a set in an exclusive stylish prism-shaped Collector’s Box created by the designer.
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The unique and talented artist talks to Ware about her paintings, her future goals and her spare time
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Cookbooks, 2009
All images courtesy of Holly Farrell
Holly Farrell is a Canadian Born artist who’s paintings are beautifully intricate and make everyday objects appear less ordinary. Holly took time out of painting her latest piece to answer some of my questions: I read that you didn’t start painting until your later twenties, how did you decide to start then? Had you painted in the past? In the late eighties I was working with children who had special needs (developmental and psycological). I began painting in my spare time as a way to relieve the stress which resulted from my work. It was really just a hobby at that point - painting flowers and designs on wood, metal, papier mache’. In no way was I thinking it could be anything more
than a way to relax. After a time my husband suggested I try to work on canvas. My first paintings were pretty rough - very unschooled. I liked primitive folk painting, mostly because it allowed me to paint without really having any experience to back it up. These first paintings were accepted into a juried art exhibition here in Toronto where I made my first sales. I continued with my painting for a bit but felt dissatisfied with my technique. I really felt I had to take a few steps back and re-learn how to draw - art had been my strongest subject throughout my childhood but it had never occurred to me to try to make a career of it. Because it came easy to me I didn’t think it was anything special. No-one ever encouraged me to pursue art beyond high school which reinforced
the idea that I wasn’t skilled enough to go any futher. Can you describe your work? I have a hard time describing my work, mainly because it seems to fit some where inbetween the ‘folk realm’ and realism. I do not see myself as a realist though people often refer to my work in that way. Because I’m self-taught and because of my technique, I don’t think, if you ever saw my work in person, that I would qualify as a realist. I am not interested in being exact as it doesn’t really express what I’m seeing and what I’m feeling when I’m painting something. I work on board, there are many layers of acrylic, I sand every layer with fine sandpaper, I varnish, then work in oil, varnish, then work in acrylics again, 93
Fire King Mugs, 2010 then finish in varnish. It’s all a very inexact (is that a word?) and I like to think the process brings out the history of the subject, that some sense of it’s past is reflected through the paint, through me, through the viewer. What is it about simple objects around the house that inspires you to paint them? When I decided I needed to learn how to draw again, I began by sketching the things I had in my own apartment - chairs, teacups, cutlery, bowls - the things that were part of my day to day life. Once I had completed a drawing I would then transfer it to a board and work on it as a painting. I needed to keep it simple at the time in order figure 94
out how I was going to work it. And it was this simplicity that seemed to feel right to me in the end. I liked to keep the background quiet, either the subject sitting on a surface or up against a plain wall. I think that this kept the focus on the subject which in turn, for me, began to exude it’s own character - it became more a portrait to me than a still life. I guess I also impressed my own memories on the subject, seeing as how they were things that were handed down to me from my family. Your work is so perfect in detail, does it take you forever to finish one painting? It does take me a long time to complete a painting. I typically, over a three to four week period, I work on three paint-
ings at a time as there are three stages to my process. This allows me to go from one painting to another which keeps me fresh. I spend a lot of time in one position, leaning into my board. I don’t mind it, find it almost meditative, so it’s turned out to be a good thing for me. I am fairly chaotic in every other aspect of my life so my painting keeps me grounded. What goals do you have regarding your career? As far as goals are concerned, I really don’t like think too far ahead. Of course I would like to continue to be able to make a living with my painting and I would like to allocate some time to stretch a bit. Painting portraits of
Cot, 1998
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Apothecary Bottles, 2007
people is my latest stretch and I think it has helped me creatively. For this next while it would be nice to divide my time between portraits of domestic objects and portraits of people - my process is so slow that it’s impossible to think beyond that. What is your favourite piece? It’s difficult to pick any specific painting. Often I choose paintings that are recently completed. If I were to choose an early painting (from way, way back in the 90’s), I would choose a painting of an old cot with a bubblegum pink background and a painted wood floor it was an odd painting but I really loved it. Something a bit later would be my first large panel of juice cups. It was nice to see one piece cover a lot 96
of space - I don’t paint large, and the panels afforded me this opportunity. This inspired my Fire King Mug paintings which are in the same format. And presently I am working on a portrait of ‘Kate’ which is turning out to be an absolute favourite. She hasn’t seen it yet so I am unable to show it to you - but maybe by the time this is printed it will be on my website. Are you working on anything new at the moment? This past year I began to paint portraits of people which is something I have always wanted to do. I finally got up the nerve last summer and painted ‘Antonin’, a friend and neighbour. I tried not to get too worked up about it - it’s another kind of stress dealing with a
Antonin, 2010
Skaters, 1993
One of Holly’s earlier paintings
sitter’s expectations, though I realize I can’t worry about that too much. People choose you as a painter because they like your style of painting and relate to you as a person. I look at my portraits in the same way as I do my still life. I’m looking to get a sense of ‘this persons’ history, to catch some quiet but defining moment - to allow them the opportunityto see how other’s view them. It’s not the same as looking in a mirror. Something uncomfortable happens when one is sitting for a portrait - the sitter is always consious of how they are presenting themselves. I have to wait a long time before something of who I think they are peeks through. I work from photographs and take around 400 to 600 in one or two sittings. My process is so slow that I could never
expect anyone to sit for me and I am always self-concious when I paint so I don’t like distraction. With Still Life I don’t have to worry about the ‘subject’ and how long it has to sit on my table. The most stressful aspect of Portraiture is presenting the finished painting to the sitter as it’s the first time they have anything to do with the painting beyond the initial photography. I find their level of trust in this extremely flattering. No-one has tried to direct me in any way - yet! And finally, when you’re not painting, what do you like to spend your time doing? When I’m not painting I love to read - I know, another solitary activity. When I do walk out the door I am driven to shows that are most active in the sum-
mer. I am trying to make an effort to get out there and be more social. The worst and best thing about painting is the solitude. I used to get out more but I have to say that it’s not been much of a sacrifice. Painting is where I feel most myself - it defines me where nothing else in my life does. It’s good to have some success with what I do and be happy doing it. What else could one ask for? To see more of Holly’s work visit www.hollyfarrell.com
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terri New indie film from the producers of Blue Valentine and Half Nelson
“Its charms feel somewhat calculated, but this reflective tale of outsider solitude has enough humour and poignancy to win admirers.” John C. Reilly tones down his usual antics to take on the quirky new film “Terri,” a comedy about an obese, picked on teenager and the unlikely
friendship he develops with his high school principal. Reilly, starring as the principal, is an unenthusiastic administrator beset by marriage problems; Jacob Wysocki is a beleaguered, overweight student with problems at home and nonexistent self-esteem.
Sent to the office by a teacher concerned about his tardiness and frequent wearing of pajamas, the two confide in one another and maybe even learn something. terri will be released in selected cinemas from July 1st 99
Age of the Dinosaur The exciting new exhibition at the Natural History Museum
T.rex’s footprint
London’s Natural History Museum is sure to bring out the geek in you this summer with their new exhibition, Age of the Dinosaur. The animatronic dinosaurs are lifelike enough, but the exhibition also brings to life their natural habitat, so visitors get immersed in Jurassic and Cretaceous environments along with weird and wonderful now extinct plants and animals. As well as the animatronics, Age of the Dinosaur has CGI (computer generated images) film, stunning 100
images, interactive stations, and amazing specimens, including real fossil dinosaur bones, to help visitors explore a world of more than 65 million years ago. Well-preserved fossil of an Rhamphorhynchus, a flying reptile, or pterosaur. And keep hold of your ticket as there is a NaturePlus barcode on it that lets you continue your dinosaur and fossil exploration back home on your computer. Catch sight of animals nestling in the
Huge half scull replicas
rocks or behind trees and come face to face with animatronic dino saurs as you explore these mysterious places. Combining stunning imagery with amazing specimens and interactives, Age of the Dinosaur will take visitors on a journey through millions of years to life on Earth with the gargantuan reptiles. The Exhibition is at the museum until September 11th 2011
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End Scene We dedicate our final page to our favourite scenes in film
Vada: (After they kiss) Say something, it’s too quiet. Thomas J. Sennett: Umm, Ummmmm... Vada: Just hurry. Thomas J. Sennett: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America... Vada, Thomas J. Sennett: ...And to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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