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CONTENTS TRENDS 63 VO G U E H O M M A N I A Variations on a theme of black. BY
Jérôme Hanover, Olivier Nicklaus and Gildas Stewart Antoine Harinthe S T Y L I N G Roberto Piu
PHOTO GR APHS
BY
110 S H A D O W A N D L I G H T
112 B AC K T O B L AC K
Revolutionary cosmetics with dark, mystical formulas coax the light out of the shade.
Nuances of ebony recapture olfactory elegance.
Mélanie Defouilloy
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Giacomo Valois
114 LIL B U CK, T HE JO OK OF MEMPH IS
BY
Mélanie Nauche
M AG A Z I N E
Giacomo Valois
118 A N O D E T O B L AC K
Writer Simon Liberati explores his close ties with a colour long spurned by the fashion industry.
His breathtakingly agile improvisations have shaken up the world of dance. A meeting with the Little Prince of Memphis.
BY
Simon Liberati
126 B R A D P I T T, MODERN MOGUL
Sabrina Champenois P H O T O G R A P H S Jacob Sutton
I N T E RV I E W B Y
Hollywood’s most bankable star has become the champion of American independent film–makers, setting up his own production company.
120 S O U L S E A RC H I N G Patti Smith discusses her immersion into the world of Rimbaud’s Abyssinia. I N T E RV I E W B Y
PHOTO GR APH
BY
Stephan Crasneanscki
Laurent Rigoulet Inez &Vinoodh
PHOTO GR APHS
162
MIUCCIA PRADA UNFILTERED The luxury goods industry, society, art, success… An exclusive conversation with one of the most powerful voices in fashion, who’s determined not to do as everybody else does. I N T E RV I E W B Y
Angelo Flaccavento P H O T O G R A P H S Willy Vanderperre S T Y L I N G Olivier Rizzo
220 GOD,
198 AND BLACK BECOMES HIM
ALIVE AND WELL
Record–beating Latin crooner Julio Iglesias is still very much an artist left out in the cold. His rehabilitation starts with Vogue Hommes.
Pierre Soulages turns 100 at Christmas. A look back at the career of the outrenoir painter and the world’s most sought–after contemporary French artist.
P O RT R A I T
GUE ST
Anne Judith Helmut Newton
BY
Hervé Gauville P H O T O G R A P H S Harry Gruyaert BY
50
EDITO
55
38
C U LT O B J E C T
60
L’instrument du temps des explorateurs urbains. Design intégré, dimensions optimales, confort au porter et finitions soignées inscrivent la BR 05 dans un style et un usage résolument urbains. Instrument de caractère, empreint de force et d’élégance, la BR 05 est le nouveau bijou masculin Bell & Ross.
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Blouson Townsman – Mouton extase cognac, laine blanche mÊrinos
G U E ST VO GUE HOMME S
Frank and Cartier–Bresson always worked in black and white. I think that’s the same for you, isn’t it? D U A N E M I C H A L S No, much of my commercial work is in colour, the advertising photos I took sometimes to make a living. I use black and white in my personal work. But I’m not running down my commercial photos. I took just as much care with them. I’m not a snob (he laughs). I’m curious about everything, I find everything fascinating… VO GUE HOMME S
Duchamp, Balthus, Truffaut, Johnny Cash… your portraits are famous. Did you have the same curiosity, the same enthusiasm when you were taking photos of them? D U A N E M I C H A L S Not at all. When I had to take those portraits, I was focused on my work. By that I mean finding the light I wanted. It’s all in the light. It’s with light that you bring the interiority into the description. For example, I’m gay, and my way of taking a photo of a naked man will be marked by that. That moment between him and me will only exist through the presence of the camera. It’s up to me to catch the poetry of the moment, the desire that exists in that moment. VO GUE HOMME S
You’ve never really been part of the gay movement, or belonged to certain groups in New York? D U A N E M I C H A L S That’s what they say. No doubt because I always kept my distance from Mapplethorpe and Warhol. Mapplethorpe always seemed to me to be a sort of “proDuane Michals, who is contributing to Vogue Hommes for the fessional gay”. As a homosexual, I don’t want to be reprefirst time, is 87. It’s hard to be believe, as this mischievous bundle sented by his images, which I find kitsch. of energy, talking to us from New York, still has an incredible freshness and vitality. For certain observers, he is one of the VO GUE HOMME S great conceptual minds of the 20th century. His photographic But you’ve taken photos of Warhol several times? series, or sequences, covered in words and poems, let the light One of your portraits of him was devour the subject, and raise the question of man in the face of described in Roland Barthes’s book time passing, like no other. Barthes, Foucault and Bellour held Camera Lucida. him in high esteem. For others, he was an incredible portraitist, D U A N E M I C H A L S We both come from Pittsburgh. I had who refused to set up a studio and worked like an amateur. There known him for a long time. His lies didn’t work with me. was a portrait of Johnny Cash, for example, in which the singer His conversation was quite boring. I remember having was inside, in the shadow of a bedroom and Michals outside on photographed him with his mother at the Factory while the terrace. He had shut the bay window between them. Cash’s all his friends got high and laid. He was there, an observer. face can be seen in the shadows and at the same time as part of With his mother not far away. That says it all. the photographer’s silhouette. Each of Duane Michals’ photos VO GUE HOMME S is striking in its intelligence. Who impressed you among the people you’ve met? VO GUE HOMME S D U A N E M I C H A L S Many painters, which isn’t by chance: De Have you always wanted to be a photographer? Chirico, Magritte and Balthus. I have a very vivid memD U A N E M I C H A L S No, as I child I used to draw. Then I studied to ory of my session with Balthus. He was with Setsuko, his become a graphic artist. It was while I was on holiday in Russia, wife. I asked him to turn the mirror round, the one in in 1958, that I really discovered photography. I was there just front of which he got his models to pose. It was his turn as a tourist with my first camera. But there were two elements to become my model. that are essential to my love of photography: adventure and the unknown. VO GUE HOMME S Who would you have liked to photograph? VO GUE HOMME S D U A N E M I C H A L S Borges. But I would have been too overHow was photography considered back then? whelmed (he laughs)… D U A N E M I C H A L S There were no photo galleries, and books on photography were rare. It was considered a minor art. The masI N T E RV I E W B Y ters were rare too: Henri Cartier–Bresson, Robert Frank, Paul Philippe AZOURY Strand and Ansel Adams among them.
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DUANE MICHAL S
DUANE MICHALS
VO GUE HOMMES
E
DI TO
Punk at Comme des Garçons, romantic at Homme Dior, oversized at Raf Simons, ultra–stylised at Prada, coolly new wave at Celine by Hedi Slimane… black forged its way onto the catwalks to become the ultimate character trait for winter. This is the first time Vogue Hommes has built an entire issue around a trend: no easy task when that trend is black. A symbol of modern elegance and a chromatic obsession for fashion’s great reformers, from Chanel to Balenciaga, Saint Laurent and the maverick Japanese designers of the 1980s (Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo), it seemed we had exhausted black’s every possibility. And so the challenge facing Vogue Hommes is to take this most fundamental of colours into new territory. Another country. That country could be the “ultra–black” imagined by Pierre Soulages. A landscape beyond black. Ask this master of abstract expressionism — France’s most famous living artist who has made black his “thing” — “Why black?” and he answers laconically, “Because”. For Soulages, who will celebrate his 100th birthday at Christmas, black is self–evident. It is light.
The series by Duane Michals, one of the great contemporary conceptual photographers, brings further proof. Confronted with an anarchy of words, an angry streak of bright red, vivid yellow or Klein blue, still it triumphs. Black absorbs everything else. Since the dawn of time, we have projected our fantasies onto a screen of black. It is shot through with meaning and paradoxes. It is the effigy of darkness, fecundity, conscience, authority and discipline, but also of mourning, mystery, conviction and rebellion. It is the undisputed symbol of chic. A word that Miuccia Prada admits to reassessing in her exclusive interview with Vogue Hommes. What does black mean to this prodigious, instinctively unconventional designer? “A reset, the need to put a full stop to things, the desire to draw a line and, more widely, refuse a historical moment.” Black is, categorically, the banner of the times.
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Olivier LALANNE
WWW.STONEISLAND.COM PARIS _ 316 RUE ST. HONORÈ _ 01 42 60 38 04
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C U LT O B J E C T
BY
Jérôme HANOVER PHOTO GR APH
Giacomo VALOIS “After so many colours and combinations, this time I wanted an absolute monochrome,” says Pierre Hardy, creative director for Hermès footwear and jewellery collections, of the watch to be revealed at the SeptemYou could sum up this story in three emoji: a horse, an apple ber keynote event. Black swift leather, black face, black and a watch. Or is it a case of opposites attract? On the right, hands and shading on the dial to indicate passing time. Hermès, a saddle–maker established in an age when horses A black so black that for the first time ever, the colour of were everywhere that built its legend on their disappearance; the case itself is specific to Hermès. “Black like silence”, on the left, Apple, a personal computer manufacturer estab- adds Hardy — who this year celebrates the twentieth lished in an age when personal computers didn’t exist that anniversary of his own brand. “The synthesis of all colbuilt its fortune on their omnipresence. Two major shifts in ours. Black like a secret, a mystery that hides and reveals civilisation and two contrasting approaches that are, per- the advanced technology that translates the passage of haps, characteristic of the companies in question: luxury à time into light and shadow. The signature of ultimate la française and the American way of life. elegance, discreet and enduring.” Orange really is the We could talk about the quest for excellence and intel- new black. V O G U E H O M M E S ligent design. We could allude to shared values, but the most fascinating thing about this collaboration is that two worlds that could not be more different come together on your wrist to let you know you have an appointment. The partnership goes back to the very first Apple Watches, after Pierre–Alexis Dumas, Hermès artistic director, met Jonathan Ive, Apple’s legendary design chief. As early as 2015, Hermès was adapting its straps for the Apple Watch — a reminder of how the firm started out on its horological adventures in 1912, when it made a leather pouch that could strap a pocket watch to the wrist. And, of course, releases digital versions of its own dials (Cape Cod, Clipper, etc.). Each collection gets its new strap, with the possibility to update the faces — in addition to those proposed by Apple, of course.
BLACK MAGIC
Hermès Apple Watch, Series 5, sidereal black steel case, black swift calfskin simple tour strap, out in September.
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Self–portrait in London, 2019.
www.birkenstock.com
Tradition since 1774.
Jack Davison — photographer, wearing his black leather Boston purchased in 2017.
MSGM.IT
VO GUE HOMMES
VOGUE HOMMANIA
Variation on a theme of black…
PHOTO GR APHS
Antoine HARINTHE ST YLING
Roberto PIU
EVENING PERFECT
Wool and silk tuxedo, cotton shirt, silk bow tie and cummerbund G I O RG I O A R M A N I
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VO G U E H O M M A N I A
ALL
NIGHTER Silk lurex shirt, wool gabardine trousers and leather belt with embossed stingray motif S A I N T L A U R E N T BY
A N T H O N Y VA C C A R E L L O Chain A RT H U S B E RT R A N D
Opposite page, from top to bottom and left to right: Acetate sunglasses
TOM FORD EYEWEAR Cotton pyjama top
C H A RV E T Signet ring @ D A RY ’ S Acetate sunglasses, wool jacket and gold–plated ring
BOT TEGA V E N E TA Silk shirt
LUD OVIC DE SAINT SERNIN SPRING– SUMMER 2020 Acetate sunglasses and wool jacket
C E L I N E BY HEDI SLIMANE Cotton tank top
JEAN COLONNA Acetate sunglasses, grainy leather jacket and wool turtleneck
BALENCIAGA
VO GUE HOMMES
THE DAY
AFTER
The ideal choice for keeping tired eyes out of sight. 67
VO G U E H O M M A N I A
HEAD
STRONG
From top to bottom and left to right: Nylon hat and mohair cardigan
PR ADA Rings
D I N H VA N Felt hat and wool jacket
AMI ALEXANDRE M AT I U S S I SPRING– SUMMER 2020 Wool sweater
DRIES VA N N O T E N Shearling hat and wool jacket
LOUIS VUIT TON Lambskin hat and wool jacket
LOEWE Cotton tank top
INTIMISSIMI
Yes to hats in all shapes and sizes. 68
VO G U E H O M M A N I A
IT BAG “Baguette” selleria leather bag, wool jacket and trousers F E N D I Chain A RT H U S B E RT R A N D
VO GUE HOMMES
BOOT CAMP
From top to bottom and left to right: Leather ankle boots and wool and silk trousers G U C C I Leather ankle boots
TOM FORD Cashmere sweater
R A L P H L AU R E N PURPLE L ABEL Wool trousers D R I E S VA N N O T E N Signet ring @ D A RY ’ S Leather ankle boots RO C H A S Wool and silk tuxedo B R I O N I ID bracelet
D AV I D Y U R M A N Leather boots PA C I O T T I 4 U S Wool trousers
C E L I N E BY H E D I S L I M A N E
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VO G U E H O M M A N I A
IMMACULATE
CREATION
From top to bottom and left to right: Leather trainers
AMI ALEXANDRE M AT T I U S S I Cotton jeans
ACNE STUDIOS Grainy leather trainers and wool trousers
LOUIS VUIT TON Leather trainers and cotton trousers
VA L E N T I N O Leather trainers
P I E R R E H A R DY SPRING– SUMMER 2020 Wool gabardine trousers
RO C H A S In all images: Cotton socks
ADIDA S
Trainers, in dominant white give black a kickstart. 72
VO G U E H O M M A N I A
NUANCED Black gives new shades of meaning to watches.
BY
Jérôme HANOVER SELECTION
Émilie ZONINO
Pierre Soulages taught us that, in painting, black is light. In watchmaking, it is matter. Black is never simply black. It is the black of a high–performance carbon composite, transposed in 2013 from racing yachts to the cases of Richard Mille watches. Filaments two to three times finer than a human hair are woven then heated under high pressure to produce a laminated, grainy black like growth rings in a tree. It is the matt black of rubber whose ribbed texture echoes the striated finish of steel on the BR05, the new urban watch collection from Bell & Ross. At Cartier, it’s the steel itself that is black. Coated with non–crystallised carbon, it flirts with the many nuances of a textured black calfskin strap and the also black dial: all this despite its name, Ballon Bleu. Then there is the black composite strap of the Patek Philippe Aquanaut, designed to withstand ultra–violet rays and thus retain its full intensity and depth. Its pattern spills onto the wrist from the painted brass dial. Painted black, of course. V O G U E H O M M E S
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Ballon Bleu de Cartier in carbon and steel
C A RT I E R Cotton shirt
R A L P H L AU R E N PURPLE L ABEL Aquanaut, large model in steel, mechanical automatic movement
PAT E K P H I L I P P E Wool tuxedo jacket
D R I E S VA N N O T E N BR05 Black Steel, mechanical automatic movement
B E L L & RO S S Cashmere sweater
KUJTEN RM037 in carbon, automatic skeleton movement
RICHARD MILLE Cashmere sweater
R A L P H L AU R E N PURPLE L ABEL
Stylist’s assistant
FR ANCESCA RICCARDI Groomer
T E R RY S A X O N Nails
T Y P H A I N E K E R S UA L
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VO G U E H O M M A N I A
A BIOGRAPHY OF BLACK
A sartorial history black from Antiquity the present day. BY
of to
Olivier NICKLAUS
I N T H E B E G I N N I N G, T H E C O L O U R O F L A B O U R
1419
Obtained through calcination, from Antiquity through to the Middle Ages, black was symbolic of labour. White was reserved for prayer and red for battle.
THE COLOUR OF MOURNING
Black clothing became more widespread in the late Middle Ages after the powerful Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, wore black as a sign of mourning for his father, John the Fearless, assassinated in 1419. Immediately, the prince’s subjects and courtesans began to imitate this new style of dress. Philip’s influence spread as far as other European courts: Charles V of Spain wore black his entire life.
1670 –1789 B L AC K N O M O R E
1860
A symbol of power, integrity and dignity at the beginning of the Ancien Régime, during the Age of Enlightenment, black was eclipsed by bright colours or, alternatively, pastel shades. The more extravagant members of the nobility paraded in vivid hues and ostentatious jewels.
THE TUXED O
In 1860, Edward VII, Prince of Wales, asked his tailor to make him a dark evening coat and trousers which he could wear to his gentleman’s club without fear that ash from his cigar might leave a mark. The dinner jacket, or tuxedo, was born. Away from such rarefied settings, black was worn in the sooty, smoke–filled streets of post–Industrial Revolution England — again, because it doesn’t show dirt. Not everyone approved of black’s rising popularity. In 1891, Oscar Wilde lamented “the black uniform that is worn in our times, a gloomy, drab and depressing colour lacking any beauty whatsoever”.
1926 THE LBD
The First World War left countless women in mourning. It also contributed to their emancipation: women had taken an active role in society, standing in for the men sent off to fight, and this was reflected in the 1920s flapper style. Coco Chanel sensed the mood and, in 1926, imagined her famous little black dress. A simple sheath cut from lightweight fabric, its colour — too dark! — and length — too short! — were nothing short of scandalous. The couturier Paul Poiret even went as far as to accuse Gabrielle Chanel of inventing “impoverished luxury”.
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CALIBRE RM 37-01 KIWI
BOUTIQUES RICHARD MILLE PARIS 8e MONACO 17 avenue Matignon Allée François Blanc +33 (0) 1 40 15 10 00 +377 97 77 56 14
www.richardmille.com
VO G U E H O M M A N I A
1954 T H E S Y M B O L O F YO U T H
When Marlon Brando donned a black leather jacket and rode into town as The Wild One in Laszlo Benedek’s 1954 film, he became the poster boy for youthful rebellion, fuelled by the combined influence of motorbikes and rock ’n’ roll. For Elvis, the Rolling Stones and, later, Jim Morrison and the Doors, leather could only be black.
1981 JA PA N E S E D E S I G N E R S
1978 –1986
In 1981, Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler sent models down the Paris catwalks in oversized shoulder pads and eye–popping colours. That same year, Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto stunned the fashion world with their first collections by showing nothing but black. Frayed, deconstructed, distressed black, but black all the same. Kawakubo, who only ever appears in public in head–to–toe black, had her show branded “Hiroshima chic” by the press. The anti–fashion backlash, with black at its core, had begun.
N E W WAV E
Joy Division, New Order and the aptly–named Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: by the late 1970s new wave ruled the airwaves, injecting a heavy dose of synthesisers and drum machines into post–punk. Visage sang “Fade to Grey” and we did, adopting a uniform of anonymous, neutral black. Bands came and went but black remained, from Depeche Mode to The Cure. Hair was spiked, crimped and jet black, as worn by Cure frontman Robert Smith or Siouxsie (and the Banshees).
1990 THE BELGIANS ARE HERE
2000 THE SYMBOL OF MODERN MAN
Influenced by Hedi Slimane and Raf Simons, adolescents draped their frail, pale frames in dark leather jackets, skinny jeans and thin, coal–black neckties. What walked the runway reappeared in music, with revelations such as The Strokes or Franz Ferdinand. Bankers ditched their misshapen navy suits and contrived to squeeze themselves into something tiny and black from Dior Homme. Including the Kaiser of fashion himself, Karl Lagerfeld, who in these pages confessed, “It’s because I wanted to wear Hedi’s suits that I went on such a drastic diet.” — 42 kilos lighter, all the same. V O G U E H O M M E S
Come the 1990s, the Japanese weren’t the only ones dealing in black. A group of young designers known as the Antwerp Six were also in on the game. Two in particular. One, blonde Ann Demeulemeester, rapidly asserted a pro–Rimbaud stylistic bend shared with Patti Smith. The other, swerving the media spotlight, was Martin Margiela who, after a stint with the relentlessly colourful Jean–Paul Gaultier, painted everything white or else took refuge in black. Later, the Paris–based American designer Rick Owens would carry on this same anti–fashion movement — but with Gothic leanings.
“There is not one single black but many blacks.” Y V E S S A I N T L AU R E N T
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VO G U E H O M M A N I A
At just 19, Spanish model Fernando Lindez is the latest attraction at the runway shows.
I N T E RV I E W B Y
Gildas STEWART VO GUE HOMME S
What’s your sports routine? FERNANDO LINDEZ
I like to keep it as diverse as possible. I go to the gym three times a week to attend kickboxing classes, I play soccer with friends, and go snowboarding in winter. My greatest passion is golf. I’ve taken part in competitions ever since I was a child and now I try to play at least once a week. VO GUE HOMME S
What do you always carry in your travel bag? FERNANDO LINDEZ
I choose my clothes depending on where I’m going, my workout clothes, my headphones because I always listen to music, magazines, and maybe a book if it’s going to be a long trip.
THE FACE
VO GUE HOMME S
One metre eighty–seven, an elegantly sculpted physique, almond eyes and brown curls, which would have been Pasolini’s ruin, Fernando Lindez is the season’s “feline”. Catwalks, photo shoots, adverts… have all fallen under the spell of the young Spaniard, who is following in the footsteps of his eminent fellow countrymen Jon Kortajarena and Andres Velencoso.
In what way do you feel Spanish? I’m very attached to my family and friends. I love spending time with them, especially in the summer in Southern Spain, and enjoy Spanish food. I’m a huge fan of football, which is our national sport.
VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror?
A few words about your family?
FERNANDO LINDEZ
FERNANDO LINDEZ
I see a 19–year–old boy who stays the same, with the same There are six of us at home: my parents, my three sisters friends and hobbies, but aware of how lucky he is and of the and me. I’m the second oldest child. We live in Madrid, my mother’s from there and my father’s from Andalugreat challenges ahead. sia. Also, we spend most of the summer in Andalusia. My VO GUE HOMME S father’s a lawyer and my mother’s a retired civil servant. You opened the last Versace Autumn/Winter show. VO GUE HOMME S How would you describe the experience? FERNANDO LINDEZ What does the colour black mean to you? The Versace show was my first big runway experience. It’s soFERNANDO LINDEZ mething I’ll never forget. I was lucky enough to meet Dona- Black is the colour of endless possibilities. It’s really tella Versace. I was a little nervous, but she’s so easy going and versatile, sporty but also elegant. It’s definitely my fafriendly. She makes you feel comfortable and natural. vourite colour. V O G U E H O M M E S
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A A RÓ N S E R R A N O
FERNANDO LINDEZ
“The BR05 marks the evolution of Bell & Ross’s characteristic radical square shape towards an urban aesthetic that fuses performance with modernity,” explains Bruno Belamich, creative director and co–founder of the brand.
VO G U E H O M M E S P RO M O T I O N
A fighter plane in the city
Bell & Ross takes root in a radical square shape that originates in the military rigour of cockpit instruments: a finely honed, minimalist design dictated by the need for precision and legibility. A watch for professionals facing extreme conditions whose every detail is defined by functionality. This is the bedrock for a collection of uncompromising form watches that build their identity on a proudly virile design, strongbox–like cases boasting rugged proportions, and the now iconic signature of a round dial in a square case. The new BR05 is unmistakably Bell & Ross. It represents these same expectations of performance and instinctively fits the brand aesthetic. Here, though, function gives rise to a pure design object: a watch whose proportions have been softened and tamed for city life. The vision of a masculine ideal deployed across an entire collection.
www.bellross.com
VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS
“Art is the shortest route man to man” THE ATELIER PHOTO GR APHS
Eddy WREY ST YLING
Giovanni Dario LAUDICINA
Wool puffer jacket and turtleneck
COLMAR Oversized cotton trousers
MONCLER 8 PA L M A N G E L S Satin silk scarf
C H A RV E T
VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS
Patinated calfskin peacoat and cashmere round neck sweater H E R M È S Leather waist apron W I T L O F T
Pure linen shirt M A S S I M O D U T T I Wool wide pleat trousers and silk cummerbund G I V E N C H Y
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Wool coat and turtleneck A M E R I C A N V I N TA G E Cotton shirt G I V E N C H Y
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PARKER VAN NOORD PHOTOGRAPHED BY JUERGEN TELLER
VO GUE HOMMES
Left:
TRENDS
Cotton trousers C P C O M PA N Y Right:
Cotton shirt T H E RO W
Shoes B I R K E N S T O C K
Leather jacket L E V I ’ S
Leather apron O L D E R PA R I S
Silk scarf C H A RV E T
Left: Right:
Nylon overalls and oversize cotton shirt Y – 3
Cotton tank top and nylon drawstring trousers Y – 3
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Wool shirt B O G G I
Cashmere turtleneck E R M E N E G I L D O Z E G N A
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Apron, stylist’s own
VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS
Left: Wool sweater with pocket C P C O M PA N Y Right: Wool sweater C P C O M PA N Y
VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS
Leather jacket PA C I O T T I 4 U S Wool sweater S A N D RO
Waxed Double Decker jacket, cotton polo shirt and jeans G A N T Leather ankle boots A N N D E M E U L E M E E S T E R
Cotton apron R I D S O N & R I D S O N
Stylist’s assistants E Z R A T E I K L I M L O H and P R E S C I L L I A G R A H Make–up W I L L I A M B A RT E L
Casting A A M O
Set design H A RU N A O G ATAW
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Hair L O U I S G H E W Y
VO GUE HOMMES
Left: Wool sweater S T O N E I S L A N D Right: Wool turtleneck C O L M A R
TRENDS
Cotton shirt W O OYO U N G M I
Leather apron O L D E R PA R I S
Ceramics AT E L I E R B A P T I S T E & J A I N A
Le French Flair www.eden-park.com
VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS Leather jacket
SER APHIN Wool trousers and leather waders
LOEWE Leather belt
ANN DEMEULEMEE STER Necklace, stylist’s own
WEAR IT WITH PRIDE PHOTO GR APHS
Leon MARK ST YLING
Gro CURTIS
Black is a powerful symbol, the colour of dissidence, resistance, and the window to the soul.
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VO GUE HOMMES
Wool jacket and trousers with leather detailing
LES HOMMES Double cotton cap
R AF SIMONS Leather belt
RO K I T Leather ankle boots
L E W I S L E AT H E R Belt with metal chains and chokers, stylist’s own
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TRENDS
Wool jacket I S A B E L M A R A N T Brass necklace and drop earring C O L L E C T I O N H O M M E , D I O R Cotton tank top, stylist’s own
Necklace and earring, model’s own
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VO GUE HOMMES
Wool coat
W O OYO U N G M I Cotton shirt
MA SSIMO DUT TI Leather trousers
ANN DEMEULEMEE STER Leather choker
U N D E RG RO U N D Leather belt
L E W I S L E AT H E R Vintage belt (worn as an armband) @ B E YO N D R E T RO Metal necklace
K A P I TA L Tank top, silver chain and necklace, stylist’s own
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TRENDS
TRENDS
Matt nylon coat, lacquered nylon jacket and technical fabric leggings 6 M O N C L E R 1 0 1 7 A LY X 9 S M Belt H A I D E R A C K E R M A N N
Brass necklace C O L L E C T I O N H O M M E , D I O R
Rings S A I N T L A U R E N T BY A N T H O N Y VA C C A R E L L O Metal bracelet G I V E N C H Y
Thin metal necklace and earrings, model’s own
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VO GUE HOMMES
Nylon jacket S T O N E I S L A N D
Leather trousers A N N D E M E U L E M E E S T E R
Brass necklace and drop earring C O L L E C T I O N H O M M E , D I O R Rings and chain bracelet S A I N T L A U R E N T BY A N T H O N Y VA C C A R E L L O Metal bracelet G I V E N C H Y
Thin metal necklace and earrings, model’s own
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VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS Shearling jacket
JACOB COHEN Wool jacket
MSGM Necklaces, stylist’s own Earring, model’s own
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VO GUE HOMMES
TRENDS
Waxed lambskin bomber jacket PA R A J U M P E R S Wool and nylon coat worn as a skirt, and wool trousers D R I E S VA N N O T E N Leather belt and metal bracelet G I V E N C H Y Chain bracelet and rings S A I N T L A U R E N T BY A N T H O N Y VA C C A R E L L O Thin metal necklace and earrings, model’s own
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VO GUE HOMMES
Cotton jacket
E D E N PA R K Nylon trousers
Y–3 Cotton sweatshirt
UBIQUITUOUS Leather belt
L E W I S L E AT H E R Leather and metal choker (worn as an armband)
U N D E RG RO U N D Bell scarf
ANN DEMEULEMEE STER Leather belt with chains, stylist’s own
Stylist’s assistant
AU R É L I E MASON–PEREZ Hair
ALEXANDER S O LT E R M A N N and PAW E L SOLIS Make–up
VA S S I L I S THEOTOKIS Production
GAIA GENE STON
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TRENDS
G RO O M I N G
VO GUE HOMMES
A selection of revolutionary cosmetics with dark, mystical formulas that coax the light out of the shade. BY
Mélanie DEFOUILLOY PHOTO GR APH
Giacomo VALOIS
SHADOW AND LIGHT SKIN B O OST
EBONY SP ONGE
It takes no more than ten minutes for a thick layer of this mask–cream to smooth away the lines that appear after a long day of dehydration. The secret? An extract of black rose and Padina Pavonica alga, which illuminates the complexion.
Rub a Konjac sponge over a “morning after” face to remove dead cells, lighten your complexion and prepare your skin for a new day.
Black Rose Cream Mask, Sisley, €118.
Konjac sponge with bamboo charcoal, Oh My Cream!, €12.
K E N Z A N S C U L P B RU S H
Each Prebiotic + Probiotic capsule contains 15 billion pre + probiotics to counter all the intestinal imbalances that always show on your face.
Use the Kenzan Scalp Brush to brush and massage the scalp and revive the microcirculation of the whole area and wake up sleepy hair bulbs.
Prebiotic + Probiotic, The Nue Co, $85.
Kenzan Scalp Brush, Uka, €29.
C L E A N S I N G F RO M W I T H I N
ONYX PEBBLE A CLOUD OF WELL–BEING
The height of chic? Chanel has added to its ne plus ultra line and created a rejuvenating, lift formula for your hands.
Containing lactic ferments and anti–bacterial probiotics, this mist rebalances the skin after shaving, to prevent inflammation and early ageing.
Le Lift Hand Cream, Chanel, €63.
Molecular Saviour Probiotics Mist, Allies of Skin, €66.
D A R K VA N I L L A
A S BR ACING A S SE A AIR
Colonia, the crystal–clear cologne signature of the Italian perfume house, Acqua di Parma, reveals a new and mysterious facet of vanilla. Transparent when combined with bergamot, it becomes dark when blended with cedar wood.
Because the fresh effect of this Moringa oil gel full of Vitamin C is as invigorating as a trip out to sea at dawn.
Vaniglia, Acqua di Parma, €205.
S O OT Y DE TOX
A creamy bamboo charcoal paste that traps toxins, impurities and pollution particles, which take their toll on your skin. Black Radiance Face Mask, Nüssa, €59.
Marine Face Wash, Aman, $65.
BL ACK ALGAE SAP
The revitalising power of the black algae sap in the original Le Soin Noir Crème is now available in a new evanescent formula, which, of course, leaves no trace of pigment or oily film on the face. Le Soin Noir Light Cream, Givenchy, €375.
NIGHT VISION
This mask is indispensable for long–haul flights, to wake up refreshed and rested. The gentle silky texture ensures that the skin is crease–free. Slipsilk Sleep Mask, Slip, €48.
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VO GUE HOMMES
BY
F R AG R A N C E
O B S C U R E M E M O RY
Mélanie NAUCHE
“What I wanted to do was to create a perfume that would evoke the complex, very personal emotion of a first ’slow’ with a loved one,” says Ben Gorham talking about the new Byredo. He has successfully taken up the challenge with a blend of incense, cognac, patchouli and geranium, as powerful as the laws of attraction.
PHOTO GR APH
Giacomo VALOIS
BACK TO BLACK ANIMAL MAGNE TISM
Slow Dance, Byredo, 50 ml, €120.
As if he were venturing deeper into the depths of a forest, François Demachy has taken the cursors of Sauvage up a notch. The perfumer has added a zest of juicy mandarin to the freshness of bergamot, and stepped up the woody notes with an animal accord of leather and the enveloping essence of sandalwood.
S T O R M Y WAT E R S
While lavender is most often used for its sunny side, Tom Ford’s lavender has been created around three different forms of lavender, (hybrid lavender, fine lavender and lavender absolute), and blended with wild tonka bean and the raw effect of benzoin, and is decidedly stormy.
Sauvage, Le Parfum, Dior, 60 ml, €99.
Lavender Extrême, Private Blend Collection, Tom Ford, 50 ml, €270.
BL ACK & WHITE NIGHT FR AGR ANCE S
Designed to reflect the duality of the male identity, L’Homme Prada is a subtle “half–tone” fragrance. On one side, there are the fresh neroli and violet facets, and on the other the depth of patchouli and amber. A clever contrast that is echoed in the opaque black Saffiano that covers one side of the bottle, while the other is translucent.
Loyal to the accords of La Nuit de l’Homme, the formula of this eau de parfum is enhanced with a monochrome trio of sandalwood, essence of patchouli and leather notes. The result is a sillage that is even sweeter and more magnetic than the original.
L’Homme Prada, 100 ml, €109.
La Nuit de l’Homme La Nouvelle Eau de Parfum, 60 ml, €77.
OUT OF DARKNE SS
“The devil’s bed is, of course, where he rests, but above all it is what lies dormant in every one of us, our innermost regret.” A certain sinful feeling inspired Serge Lutens to produce the perfume house’s first oud accord (with a rose, rockrose and musk base), which smoulders like embers. La Couche du Diable, Collection Noire, 50 ml, €120.
C H I A RO S C U RO
It is perhaps because it is infused with a molecule that has been long neglected that Rose &Cuir is so mysterious: “When geranium is the light, quinoline, or leather abstraction, is the dark,” says Jean–Claude Ellena, who has reproduced to perfection the protective feel you get from a Perfecto biker’s jacket. Rose & Cuir, Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, 50 ml, €165.
More than a marketing concept, dark notes do actually exist in perfumery. “This affects what we usually hear about perfume, more often than not reduced to fabric names,” says perfumer Jean–Claude Ellena. Yes, there are dark notes, just as there are dark and light sounds, colours and words. Patchouli, incense, tonka beans and vanilla have the colour and aroma of black, and contribute to the woody sillages, heady Orientals and leather.
Nowadays, the objective of these fragrances is twofold: to recapture elegant olfactory codes, and instil self–confidence through distinguished notes, like a second skin that makes us stronger in the face of adversity. Ben Gorham, who created Byredo, confirms: “To my mind, it’s more than a trend. I notice that men are increasingly looking for unique, powerful fragrances, quite simply to assert their personality with the trail.”
Fragrances with nuances of ebony, to be worn like armour and recapture olfactory elegance. 113
VO GUE HOMMES
LIL BUCK
For almost a decade, he has fused street dance with classical ballet in stunningly poetic, liquid– like improvisations. An encounter with Lil Buck, the Little Prince of Memphis whose street–to–stardom story is the subject of a new documentary. I N T E RV I E W
Sabrina CHAMPENOIS PHOTO GR APHS
Jacob SUTTON
VO GUE HOMME S
What is jookin? LIL BUCK
It’s a street dance with a lot of fluid, gliding movements, rhythmic upper body and intricate footwork. It’s groove with an aggressive attitude because the story you’re telling, your story, comes out of some of the toughest neighbourhoods. Jookin is graceful and sophisticated, but it’s also primitive and tribal. Now, thanks to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, it’s everywhere. There are jookin dancers in Africa, Russia, Japan, China, even Iceland. I also met some in Paris, last night. What began as an underground style has spread all over the world. VO GUE HOMME S
How did you get your stage name? LIL BUCK
Lil is short for little. I started jookin when I was 12 and I was small for my age. Buck comes from buckin, which is the most explosive style of jookin. It has the most exaggerated, spectacular movements. I was always trying these crazy moves and the name stuck.
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T RU N K A RC H I V E / P H O T O S E N S O
It began when film–maker Spike Jonze posted a video on YouTube in 2011. In it, renowned cellist Yo–Yo Ma plays The Swan from Camille Saint–Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, accompanied, at times grazed by an unknown black dancer — a young man in typical hip–hop garb of high–tops and baseball cap who mixes Michael Jackson–style gliding movements with spins en pointe, wrist rolls and ronds de jambe in a seamless fusion of street dance and classical ballet. The result is astounding in its grace, fluidity, musicality and poetry. The world marvelled at Charles “Lil Buck” Riley, from Memphis, Tennessee. He was 23 at the time, and had been dancing for ten years already. One of eight siblings growing up in a poor household, he came to dance through jookin, a style invented in Memphis, before training in classical ballet. Since then, he has been inundated with requests to recreate these suspended moments, from Madonna (he danced with her at the Super Bowl half–time show and on her MDNA World Tour in 2012) to the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, composer Philip Glass, artist JR, the New York City Ballet and Cirque du Soleil. Nothing short of miraculous, this rise to fame had to have its own documentary. Directed by Louis Wallecan, Lil Buck: Real Swan (premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April), was projected as part of the Champs–Élysées Festival in Paris, and gave us a chance to meet the Little Prince of Memphis: passionate, determined, inspiring.
LIL BUCK, THE JOOK OF MEMPHIS
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VO GUE HOMMES
LIL BUCK
VO GUE HOMME S
There’s a spontaneity, a uniqueness in each of your performances. How much is choreographed and how much is improvised? LIL BUCK
The Swan with Yo–Yo Ma was totally improvised. So was part of the choreography at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. I’d immersed myself in the music and I knew how long I had from entering the building to reaching the last painting, a Picasso. When I train, I stick mostly to choreographies, but not when VO GUE HOMME S I perform. It’s important to leave room for spontaneity, for You’re only 31. sincerity, whatever inspires me at that instant. The strength What’s it like, at your age, and beauty of my dancing resides in those unique moments seeing your life that come only from improvisation. I’ve been performing The portrayed on–screen? Swan for years now and it’s really never the same. The more LIL BUCK time passes and, unlike so many others, the less afraid I am It’s surreal and amazing all at the same time. It makes to bare myself and show my vulnerable side. It’s what I tell my me want to go on doing what I’m doing even more instudents: “Let yourself go! Live the moment!”. tensely. It’s an emotive thing for me to watch a film that shows my life, my family, Memphis… It’s like I’m a cat, like I’ve already had more than one life. VO GUE HOMME S
Do you ever go back to Memphis? LIL BUCK
I left Memphis when I was 20 for Los Angeles, where I still live, but yes, I do go back. It means a lot to me. Every year I put on a show with students from the New Ballet Ensemble, where I trained. I want them to remember me and think of me as an inspiration. There aren’t that many positive role models in Memphis. People associate the city either with BB King and Elvis, or barbecue joints. Anyone with talent thinks the only way they can make it is as a rapper or a basketball player. VO GUE HOMME S
Opportunities are harder to come by when you’re poor and black. LIL BUCK
T RU N K A RC H I V E / P H O T O S E N S O
Absolutely. When you belong to a minority, and Memphis is a majority of minorities, you soon come up against a wall. It’s a rough diamond of a city, brimming with talented people who have no means to express themselves, so a lot of them do what they have to just to survive, whether that’s selling drugs or prostitution. I was saved because I saw these guys gliding across the sidewalk and got it into my head to copy them. Thinking about it still sends shivers down my spine. Back then, there were no social media, no way of showing the world what you did. That’s why I always pay tribute to these guys. They were the pioneers. At the same time, I tell the new generation, the ones growing up in an age where a 14–year–old can become a celebrity overnight, that they have to work and work. Right now, with my manager, we have a project to open the Memphis Jookin Arts Academy within the next two to three years, where we can teach the discipline that changed my life.
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“The strength and beauty of my dancing resides in those unique moments that come only from improvisation.” VO GUE HOMME S
What next, now that you’ve achieved your goal of becoming a great dancer? LIL BUCK
Film! I want to make movies, first as an actor then why not as a director. I’m already making and producing shorts. Now I intend to focus on acting in the same way I focused on dance. For me, acting isn’t just playing a part; it’s becoming that person, which is something I already do as a dancer. I’ve had a couple of roles, in Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and in Her by Spike Jonze. And I’m in Emperor that comes out next year. It’s about the abolitionist John Brown and I play a slave. Right now, I’m working on a fiction film with Jon Boogz. He and I co–founded M.A.I. (Movement Art Is), an organisation that uses movement artistry to bring about change in the world.
VO GUE HOMME S
You put your body into some crazy positions — the way you bend your ankles, for example. How are you, physically? LIL BUCK
You have to pay attention and stay focused. When you’re young, you can dance as much as you like and not think twice about it. Now I have a coach and a stricter routine that includes weights and a lot of stretching. I do an hour’s warm–up before dancing, which I never used to. But I still feel young. As long as I can still roll myself into a ball, it’s all good! Lil Buck: Real Swan is released in France in October.
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S I M O N L I B E R AT I
AN ODE TO BLACK BY
Simon LIBERATI
J A M I E M O RG A N
RUE DE S ARCHIVE S
G E T T Y I M AG E S
A L L R I G H T S R E S E RV E D
It’s a Jamie Morgan photo. The portrait of a little boy called Felix, who appears in a Madonna video, filmed by Mondino. Felix was the mascot of the Buffalo Collective, a group of Londoners — a cross between bodyguard and stylism, black men, Indian jewellery, leather skirts and accessories from westerns — set up around the stylist Ray Petri circa 1984. He associated black with innocence and a delightful pout. Thirty–five years on, I would gladly choose him as a symbol of male elegance in black. As a child, Ray Petri must have loved Zorro, like all the kids at the time. My neighbour across the hall put me off him completely. It was 1965, the first time that the French state TV channel, ORTF, broadcast the series starring Guy Williams. The parents of this chubby– cheeked boy had given him the whole Zorro outfit for Christmas, the hat, the mask, the cape and a plastic foil. He was only missing the whip and the black suit. Under the cape, he wore short trousers and red slippers. Looking at his bare flesh and the red slippers, I missed out on dressing in black throughout my childhood, teenage years and most of my youth. All the aristocratic charm and Swann–like side of Zorro, his discretion, and the Olympian mystery in which he shrouded his nightly expeditions was spoilt by my neighbour and his horrid outfit.
The neighbour moved out and I forgot about Zorro. I began to read, and this unpunished vice took me to the distant shores of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The emotion created by the Black Spot remains intact, the little piece of fabric that Blind Pew slips into the hand of the drunken captain at the beginning of the book. For me, black became the enviable colour of the bad guy, the pirate’s flag, the lost soldier, the outlaw, and my great love, Messala in Ben Hur, the masochistic centurion covered in body hair and leather, who ends up being dragged through the dust. It was impossible to play Messala. Even my swimsuits at the time were colourful and I didn’t have the right colour shoes. In a child’s wardrobe in the 1960s, everything was brown, navy blue or white. And as no major death had affected my family, I never got to wear the little crepe armband that I envied when it was worn by my friends at school, in the same way as I was fascinated by the aesthetics of the large canopies decorated with silver initials that I saw hanging above the carriage entrances in the neighbourhood for first–class funerals. Black was not a common colour in the 1960s and 1970s. It was reserved for Spanish portraits in the Louvre, mourning, the clergy and evening dress. I was born at the time of the Vatican II Council, which saw the disappearance of Latin, cornets and cassocks. My ecclesiastical acquaintances — the chaplain, the priest at Saint–Sulpice — wore simple suits in cheap cloth. With the exception of my godfather, Abbot Cognet, a specialist in Jansenism, who wore the cassock, the cape and the round hat, I never met an elegant priest. And yet, black appealed to me, especially since I had caught a few scenes of The Wild One with Marlon Brando in 1970 on TV in a hotel in the Tarn. I had the impression I had dreamed it. It was impossible to watch the work of Laszlo Benedek again. YouTube and even VHS cassettes didn’t exist then. I would have to wait until 1977 for Kenneth Anger.
Long spurned by the fashion world, the colour black was revived in the 80s, influenced by Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Ray Petri. Writer Simon Liberati explores his close ties with this polysemic colour, the symbol of elegance, mystery and darkness. 119
used to the colour that the Impressionists loathed. You get used to black like you get used to ankle boots. Irrevocably. Another souvenir from those years was a shirt, also designed by Helmut Lang, in black nylon edged with white piping. It was part of the “vinyl” collection, and not mass–produced. It was unique and I use it as a keepsake to wear after bathing. This fetish will, I hope, go with me from one swimming pool to the next, and to the grave. As will the biker’s jacket in faded black leather (ah! well–worn black leather!) lined with torn green cotton and decorated with a large safety pin that Helmut had found at a flea market in Vienna and put on show in Paris, in the Sernam depot at the Porte d’Aubervilliers which no longer exists. In one show, like Saint–Loup in Proust’s In Remembrance of Things Past and Cocteau in real life, he had literally rushed out from the wings and jumped from chair to chair to offer his coat to Anna Wintour, who was complaining of being in a draught. In the early 1990s, the world of serious people was overwhelmed by Yohji’s costumes for Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde staged by Heiner Müller at Bayreuth. Darth Vader goes to the Opera. This is the beginning of a great love story between the distinguished psychoanalyst, a cultured man with a bit of a paunch, and destructured black. This was way before the advent of slim jeans, Tom Ford, Hedi Slimane and slim–fitting garments. I must admit that, until recently, I didn’t know anything about the Scottish stylist Ray Petri and the Buffalo Collective (photographers Jamie Morgan, Jean– Baptiste Mondino and models Talisa Soto, Naomi Campbell and Howard Napper). If I heard his name at the time, it wasn’t ingrained in my memory. The black man dressed in black remained associated with the idea I had of the Black Panthers and certain ska groups. The stylist, who died of AIDS in 1989, and the Buffalo Collective were unknown to me, except for covers of The Face and Neneh Cherry albums. The influence of the Buffalos on fashion would nonetheless prove to be a lasting one. You only have to think of Jean–Paul Gaultier or Alexander McQueen’s Harlem dandies collections in the early 2000s. The mix of bad boys, Jamaican culture, leather skirts and American Indians… In the same vein, I remember being struck by an Annie Leibovitz photo: Will Smith in Wild Wild West getting his black thoroughbred to rear up for the cover story of Vanity Fair in July 1999. That was before Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained. At the last Cannes Film Festival, the midnight screening of Lux Aeterna, Gaspar Noé’s mockumentary, the fourth avatar of the Self Series initiated by Anthony Vaccarello, Olivier Zahm and I noticed that Paul Hameline looked good in black. His ghostly blondness stood out like an elegant phantom in the ghastly decor of the Festival Palace. Whether it’s cowboy black or vampire white, when worn well, black remains the righter of wrongs of prevailing bad taste. V O G U E H O M M E S
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There were still the rare appearances of Vince Taylor in variety shows and Kirk Douglas in The War Wagon. And a western, unique in its style, seen by miracle on television, The Outlaw (1943) by Howard Hughes, with Jane Russell in the hay and Jack Buetel, an extraordinary young trendy with sadistic leanings, the best Billy The Kid in film history, who voluptuously lets Doc Holliday pierce his ears with his revolver. Howard Hughes’s fetishism had left me speechless. At the time, I didn’t know that The Outlaw was filmed at the Spahn ranch, where Charles Manson, my idol at the time (1971–1972), had settled his Family. The Spahn ranch burnt down in 1970. All that was left were the blackened ruins, the soot black that I so love and that I was to use later as a wash when I was a painter. Rock ’n’ roll and then pop music had no shortage of men in black. Apart from Johnny Cash, I remember the Beatles as a group dressed in black. Especially John Lennon, in his youth as a rocker in his Perfecto leather jacket, at the time of the Fab Four (in suits, unlike the Rolling Stones), but also just before the group broke up, in a last series of portraits. Paul, Ringo, George and John seemed to be dressed in mourning for their joint adventure and their utopias. They look so despairing, and John, in black attire from head to toe, including his outlaw’s hat, looked like the exact negative of the man in white crossing the road on the cover of Abbey Road. These remarkable portraits are the work of Linda McCartney, one of the two women who buried the Beatles, the second being Yoko Ono (always dressed in black, too). Just before Linda became part of Paul’s life, there was Nico, another woman in black. The Factory, Ondine, the Velvet Underground and Warhol before Valerie Solanas all wore black. Many years later, at the Olympic cinema run by Frédéric Mitterrand at the time, I saw Vinyl with Gerard Malanga brandishing Zorro’s whip. The vinyl was paired with a dash of leather that the punks would later wear, as would Bob Dylan, another of Edie Sedgwick’s loves … That said, Bob Dylan’s black was a bit dusty, with ankle boots and Peckinpah–style dust coat. Then, after the punks, we had a long wait. Black made its comeback in the mid–1980s, in the fashion world and Japan. Under the influence of Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo and, hot on their heels, the Belgians in Antwerp. I remember Ann Demeulemeester’s fabulous black wool outfits. My first black coat, in figure–hugging cashmere, was a gift from the young Austrian designer, Helmut Lang, around 1993, at a time when I was sharing the life and tastes of publicist Michèle Montagne. I remember that I wore my hair long, had a three–day beard and that my curls slicked with one of Kiehl’s lotions reminded me of peyos. The first time I tried on the coat — which I still have to this day — I said to Michèle: “I’m not sure, I look like a rabbi”. The body has to get
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Patti Smith has always been a great admirer of Arthur Rimbaud. Artist Stephan Crasneanscki, founder of the Soundwalk Collective, has tailored a concept album for the singer based on the poet’s mysterious travels in Abyssinia. The new album one of the season’s magical highlights. A joint interview. SOUL SEARCHING
STEPHAN CR A SNE ANSCKI
Before we discuss our project, I’d like to know what the colour black — the theme of this issue of Vogue Hommes evokes for you? PAT T I S M I T H
STEPHAN CR A SNE ANSCKI
For this album, Mummer Love, I focused on the most obscure period of Rimbaud, the African period. After leaving France and what he called the “western stagnation”, Rimbaud found himself in Harrar, Ethiopia, an epicentre of Sufism in Africa. Sufi music is about reaching an ecstatic state. Once in that state, you have access to the unknown. Once there, you obtain connections to other levels of yourself and consciousness. PAT T I S M I T H
To me, it’s one of the most beautiful things about being alive, having this consciousness that can reach out and go there, that’s where we channel from. It’s all energy. Those poets are all dead of course. I go to visit their tombs and I know they’re dead, but their energy — radio waves and brain waves, all of these things go there, that’s what the pool is: it’s the liquid energy of everything. STEPHAN CR A SNE ANSCKI
Yes, this is how I feel about the connection I found between Rimbaud’s poetry and Sufism. On the album, hearing your voice with the voices of the Sufi singers; it’s like a resurrection of Rimbaud. You and the Sufis sing together in very different languages yet it is the same song, the same energy. This is a perfect example of the manifestation of this “universal language”.
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The first thought is always Rimbaud’s declaration in his poem “Vowels”. A Black. Endlessly contemplating his choice. It evokes the poet, the outsider, it evokes freedom. Dancing to “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones as a teenager, smelling a revolution. Nina Simone’s “Black Swan”. Patty Waters haunting version of “Black is the Colour”. Listening to Deep Purple’s “Black Night” loud on a car radio. Amy Winehouse’s dark, defiant “Back to Black”. In poetry I think of Sylvia Plath’s voice as she reads “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”: “Its black feathers so shine/As to seize my senses… She speaks of it as a “brief respite from the fear of total neutrality.” The nausea of mediocrity. The hope of something higher, a profusion of images becoming a poem. Black is the absorption of all and all is contained within it. In Art there is the radical Black Square painted in 1915 by Kazmir Malevich, A work that anticipated pure abstraction. Black is the colour of the painter soul of Mark Rothko. One can hardly think of black in art without thinking of the artist who mastered it. Black is what my father wore. Old black pants a black sweatshirt, evoking a sense of the Bohemian post–war intellectual. There is Baudelaire’s cravat. There is the terrifying black panther of Jacques Toureur’s Cat People. There is the romantic sense of the poet’s uniform. When I was young it was an aesthetic choice as well as A feeling one is bound in the colour of poets and artists. Strong independent females. The black turtlenecks of Juliet Greco and Joan Baez. The black dress of Edith Piaf. The black slip of Jeanne Moreau.
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“The energy of Rimbaud’s last poems is still reverberating. It can’t be silenced.”
PAT T I S M I T H
Yes. In the Tower of Babel story, everyone speaks the same language. They had the miracle of telepathy. They could do anything. They are building this tower and they can raise stone, the unification of their minds is so powerful. The will of that man, the energy. If we, the living, send out radio and energy waves, the energy of those last poems is still reverberating. It can’t be silenced, because we understand that this work and the artists are not dead, they find life when we are recording them. We don’t go into the studio and say: “Well, we’re going to make collages out of this work, we’re going to fragment it, we’re going to cut it up.” We don’t say anything. We always go into the studio, well at least I do, thinking I’m going to read this as it stands. I’m gonna read Rimbaud as he wrote it down. But once we are there, when I’m marching with the sonic elements you have prepared — which come from the mountains and the earth — it draws out of me the life, the still living energy of the work. STEPHAN CR A SNE ANSCKI
When I’m travelling, I’m trying to hear the hidden sounds that hold a memory — a sonic, earthy sound that embeds existence. I know that when it will be heard in context, it reveals its true nature. PAT T I S M I T H
You know that movie from Peter Brook, Meetings With Remarkable Men? In the beginning of the movie, the father takes his son to the mountain, and all the men are there with their sons and they have a competition on who can make the mountains speak. They all have to use the voice and the one who can make the mountain almost shake and reverberate and create the echo (which is the mountain speaking) wins the sheep. In a certain way that’s what I feel it is like: we’re presented with the mountain as the material, it’s in the poetry of Artaud, Daumal and Rimbaud. In performing it, it’s the same type of thing. I can simply read the poems quietly, or have someone do it in French, and we have the poem and fine, it’s perfect. It might not reverberate anything. But in staying open and being free to assault, or be assaulted, that way there is a reverberation in each case. Not necessarily in every case, but in at least one Rimbaud and maybe more, the mountain actually speaks. STEPHAN CR A SNE ANSCKI
This is how we composed those tracks, for example in Mummer Love, in your poem for Rimbaud, you are delivering those lines to him, they are coming from different moments in your life from different parts of you: from the passion of a lover, to the care of a mother, and everything in between. It’s interesting because that is what love is all about, being all of this in one person. V O G U E H O M M E S Mummer Love (Bella Union) is out in October.
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BR AD PIT T
Brad Pitt must have had tremendous fun playing the two–bit actor and stunt man going nowhere, who looks on impassively and stoically as his career passes him by, in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. His amusing, laid–back portrayal of a Big Lebowski let loose behind the scenes in Hollywood could have won him a prize at the latest Cannes Film Festival, but it wouldn’t have affected his life. With only a few years to go until he turns 60, the Oklahoma poster boy has developed a certain remove from his public image. Today, he is far less interested in playing the actor and quenching his thirst for fame. He spends most of his time away from the Hollywood
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set, in his sculptor’s studio on a hillside looking down over Sunset Boulevard, in a villa where Jimi Hendrix composed, by the waterfalls that keep his garden cool. He also takes breaks in France, strolling through the vineyards of the Château de Miraval, where Pink Floyd and The Cure recorded, and where he produces a wine that has been voted “the world’s best rosé”. You can also run into him in New Orleans, where he has bought an estate, and probably spends time on one of his favourite activities: watching the films that his agents scout out at cinéma d’auteur festivals and send him by the dozen.
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INEZ & VINOODH
The eternal blond playboy, Brad Pitt is ageing so well that he has never seemed as cool as he does today. Aside from his parts in the latest Tarantino and the forthcoming James Gray, the star has quietly become a leading backer of independent cinema in Hollywood, at a time when blockbusters still rule the roost. 126
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Even though his fame prevents him from going to the cinemas he loved as a teenager, the actor is a committed film–lover in this inward–looking community. He has never forgotten that films opened a door for him and changed his life. Films were a way for him to escape from the ultra–conservative and devout Evangelist community he grew up in, and he has got it into
his head to help independent film at a time when American auteurs don’t know which way to turn. “Films really had an effect on me when I was a child,” he says. “ They gave me new perspectives, helped me to think and guided me in my life. It’s perhaps idealistic, but I’d like to think that a film I’ve helped to make can change the life of a kid somewhere in deepest America.”
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the unexpected winner in 2016. And, in 2011, he received the Golden Palm for Malick’s The Tree of Life. Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, has often told the story of how his encounter with the actor at a festival opened up radically new horizons for him. In 2013, Jenkins was hosting a conference in Telluride (Colorado) with Steve McQueen, the first black director to win an Oscar, when he was introduced to Brad Pitt. At that time, Jenkins had directed only one film, which had been well received but not widely distributed (Medicine For Melancholy). There was little interest in his project to adapt a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. The actor listened to Jenkins’s speech at the conference and invited him to dinner, impressed by his insight. He wasted no time in producing the young director from Miami’s film himself and in sharing this enthusiasm with his Plan B associates. “Brad encouraged us to develop our curiosity,” Jeremy Kleiner, one of the managers of Plan B told the IndieWire website. “He encourages us to discover films from all over the place, to understand what drives the director and what he or she is trying to say. That may seem self– evident, but it’s essential to our job, to see where our curiosity takes us. This philosophy has enabled us to meet some incredible people. And Brad’s help is very precious. He is very open–minded and terribly passionate.” When US star talk show host In recent years, the star of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Oprah Winfrey asked him one day why he was committed has become a major player in the American film industry, a to fighting the inertia of the times, he replied: “When I guardian angel of cinéma d’auteur and a close ally of direc- was a kid, my mother would come to tuck me in at night tors — their travelling companion and most fervent cham- and I would ask her: Why is the world unjust? She anpion. Other stars have gone down the same road, including swered: ‘Yes, it is unjust, but that means you have more George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio, who get involved responsibilities’. It’s as simple as that.” Like many of his in production to aid this fragile profession. But Brad Pitt’s peers, Pitt could have taken advantage of his celebrity to commitment is on a completely different scale. Since the early focus entirely on himself and making his own movies. 2000s, through his production company, Plan B, he has become Yet he says he feels that he has the soul of a builder rather the most discreet, and the staunchest of “the last tycoons”. He than of a director. If he had the time and the talent, he has backed Terrence Malick, Bennett Miller, Steve McQueen, would devote himself to his passion for architecture: Barry Jenkins, Bong Joon–ho, Ava DuVernay, and James Gray, “I would like to build more than anything”, he told Into name but a few, helping them to make their films, many of terview magazine. “And then delight in the pleasure of which would never have been released without him. Staying walking around my own creation. I would be far more out of the spotlight has already earned him two Oscars as a pro- excited about that than being a director, which would ducer, one for 12 Years a Slave in 2013, the other for Moonlight, drive me nuts because of the perfectionism it requires.
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New driving forces are needed in Hollywood. Brad Pitt is one of them. Nothing stands in his way.
BR AD PIT T
Producing is what suits me best and means that I can for runaway slaves. An American journalist recently asked: enable films to exist that no one would otherwise see.” “Is Brad Pitt the most ‘woke’ white?”, using the word coined That’s good news for American directors. The studios to describe a person who takes an active stand for the Black are panic–stricken about cinemas emptying, and the cause. A “brother”, perhaps. A powerhouse, most definitely. But uncertain outlook. They are obsessed with franchises a cool one. In Hollywood decision–making circles, he is, withand have stopped taking risks. New driving forces are out a shadow of a doubt, the coolest of them all. V O G U E H O M M E S needed. And Brad Pitt is one of them. He lets nothing Ad Astra by James Gray is released on 2 October. stand in his way. And he has the power at his fingertips. He recently joined forces with Annapurna, the company belonging to wealthy heiress Megan Ellison, who is investing her fortune to keep a number of key independent film directors afloat, names such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Kathryn Bigelow, Wong Kar–wai and Alejandro González Iñárritu, president of the 2019 Cannes jury. In the early 2000s, Brad Pitt founded the company with his then partner, Jennifer Aniston, to develop projects that would help their acting careers. He learnt to distance himself from his public image and focus on the projects that came his way and over time to develop an editorial line. “Brad isn’t obsessed with the short term,” says Dede Gardner, the producer he asked to head Plan B. “He doesn’t fixate on the figures when the films are released. He wants to produce films that withstand the test of time and find their way into film libraries. He believes that films can sometimes take years before achieving recognition. When we produced Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart [about the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan] and Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, two box–office flops, he told me: “I couldn’t be more proud. These films have their place in history.” Pitt will go down in history for a few great films, but also for helping Black American film directors finally find their place in Hollywood. He backed Steve McQueen in his film on slavery, and Ava DuVernay for Selma, her film on Martin Luther King. He continues to follow Barry Jenkins’s career closely. Jenkins is now going to direct a series based on Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead’s novel about the secret network set up
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Wool and waxed cloth coat
MAISON M A RG I E L A A RT I S A N A L On all pages: Knitted wool hat
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Double–layer wool blend jacket, and wool trousers
B U R B E R RY Wool trousers
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BOT TEGA V E N E TA High–waisted wool and satin trousers
GUCCI Leather beret
MAISON M A RG I E L A A RT I S A N A L Wool waistcoat and trousers
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Wool sailor’s jacket
L ANVIN Leather beret
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Wool crepe jacket
G I O RG I O ARMANI Jersey wool trousers
EMPORIO ARMANI Wool crepe jacket and leather belt
G I O RG I O ARMANI Wool trousers
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From left to right: Wool coat and wool and mohair trousers
COLLECTION HOMME, DIOR Cashmere coat
COLLECTION HOMME, DIOR Wool and mohair trousers
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Wool and leather jacket, and cotton denim jeans
C E L I N E BY HEDI SLIMANE Leather belt
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Cashmere coat, and wool canvas trousers
HERMÈS Leather belt
G I O RG I O A R M A N I Cotton trench coat with charms
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Stylist’s assistants N I C C O L O
TORELLI, ALINE MIA K AE STLI, LOUISE P OLLET and E M M A N U E L L E BA STIAENSSEN Hair
ANTHONY TURNER Make–up
K AT H I N K A GERNANT Nails
LY N N D E M E Y E R Production
ISABELLE VERREYKE @ MINDB OX Special thanks to
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Alasdair McLELLAN ST YLING
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FLORIAN WIT TE Embroidered sequin shirt and silk tie S A I N T L A U R E N T
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JO–ANN FURNISS Woolcoat and technical fabric dress C O M M E D E S G A RÇ O N S H O M M E P L U S Leather gloves PA U L A RO WA N Pearl and crystal necklaces and bracelets, and crystal brooch @ A C A D E M Y C O S T U M E S and @ C O S T U M E S T U D I O
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ASA ANDREW Wool and silk tuxedo jacket J . W. A N D E R S O N S P R I N G – S U M M E R 2 0 2 0
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N I A L L WA L K E R Wool and cashmere turtleneck and wool trousers T O M F O R D Patent leather derbies C H R I S T I A N L O U B O U T I N
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M A U R E E N PA L E Y Wool blazer C E L I N E BY H E D I S L I M A N E
Sunglasses C U T L E R A N D G RO S S
Cotton T–shirt and necklace, model’s own
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SUNNY SUITS Vinyl coat B A L E N C I A G A Tank watch C A RT I E R
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M A RC E L KO RU S I E W I C Z Deerskin coat S A LVAT O R E F E R R A G A M O
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S A R A F LY N N Cashmere coat and turtleneck R A L P H L A U R E N P U R P L E L A B E L
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G E O RG E O W E N Simil leather jacket and shorts, leather shoes M A I S O N M A RG I E L A Mesh flower earcuff L O E W E S P R I N G – S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 Silk ribbon @ N AT I O N T H E AT R E Cashmere mittens J O H N S T O N S O F E L G I N
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L AU R E N C E K L E I N K N EC H T Wool and silk tuxedo L O E W E
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B R E I A N VA I K S A A R Wool flannel suit H E R M È S Silk shirt L O E W E S P R I N G – S U M M E R 2 0 2 0
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“If everybody’s not a beauty, then nobody is …” A N DY WA R H O L
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N ATA S H A A R N O L D , S H A U N KO N G , TESS PISANI, L AU R E N P E R R I N, H A N N A H RYA N and JA SVEEN MANKU Hair
ANTHONY TURNER Make–up
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PEBBLES AIKENS Casting
MADELEINE ØSTLIE Props
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JEREMY DELLER Cashmere hoodie G I O RG I O A R M A N I Cotton T–shirt S U N S P E L
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MIUCCIA PRADA UNFILTERED I N T E RV I E W B Y
Angelo FLACCAVENTO P H O T O G R A P H S Willy VANDERPERRE ST YLING
Olivier RIZZO VO GUE HOMME S
Fashion is not only about clothes, even though it all starts and The refusal of a rather garrulous ends with them. Nobody knows this better than Miuccia Prada. moment in history? Mrs Prada — as she is known, not without a certain reverence, MIUCCIA PR ADA Exactly, a black of opposition. in her company — still calls herself a fashion designer, even if other terms would also apply fittingly to her. A provocateur, VO GUE HOMME S absolutely. A thinker, in a certain sense. Above all, an accurate On the other hand, the black you used in and watchful observer of what is going on around her, within and without the world of fashion. The fruit of all this conjecmale fashion came in two styles: on the one hand, ture are clear–cut visions of male and female clothing and the functional sportswear at the beginning unique programme of the Prada Foundation, the institution of Prada Men, and, on the other, the dark suit, that has been invigorating Milan’s cultural life since 2015, and almost out of Men In Black. MIUCCIA PR ADA even more. The concrete and the imaginary are intricately interwoven in the world of Prada by Mrs Prada herself, who is at I consider black mainly as a reset, but I don’t have many once frivolous and abstract, a contradiction that nevertheless philosophical views on it. It’s precise, certainly, and makes sense. In this rare interview, she lays herself bare, in sometimes puts a full stop to things. a winding path starting with the colour black and leading to VO GUE HOMME S the state of fashion today, which she reads with mocking and Do you periodically find the need to reset? sometimes painful lucidity. MIUCCIA PR ADA
Yes, absolutely. It’s the black of when someone says “Let’s do a fashion show completely in black” and this never happens. It’s the desire to cancel out, the need to draw a line.
VO GUE HOMME S
Let’s start with black, the colour used in fashion, but not only. Although black is part of the Prada vocabulary, it isn’t associated either totally or immediately with it. What do you think?
VO GUE HOMME S
When do these reset moments occur? MIUCCIA PR ADA That’s correct. However, in the past, especially in the early days, Do you feel them coming on or do they just happen? MIUCCIA PR ADA we were considered a black brand, which is odd. Perhaps it was because of nylon, which actually came not only in black. I feel them coming on. I have no idea whether or not I rarely use pure black, because I really love colours. It’s true others share this feeling. Perhaps rather than saying, that, when we first became successful, black was a very im- “Let’s do black”, I say, “Let’s do poor”. My creative freedom comes from doing “poor”. portant colour, a departure. VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
What does black mean to you, for men and for women? It can come in a large variety of shades: Italian black is the colour of mourning, French black is associated with the little black dress, Japanese black is more abstract. What interests you?
What’s your idea of “poor”? MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
I’ve never thought about it. I don’t have a particular feeling either for or against it, so it depends. For example, I don’t particularly like aggressive, sexy black. When I created my black lace, I was thinking about moments in a woman’s life, of mourning. On the other hand, during the 80s, it conveyed a strong sense of change.
Unassuming, not ostentatious, not with a flashy brand, not trendy fashion. One of the things I’m most interested in at the moment is this spasmodic quest to sell products at any cost, often depriving them of their very identity. As if the product, instead of being the starting point, were the culmination of a complex media construction, of a make–up operation, as if everything else were more important than the product itself. This is the situation I’m in right now, and I’m looking into how I can work differently and win in my own way.
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“My husband and I don’t wake up with the idea of making money.”
VO GUE HOMME S
Today, using culture is chic, and the same goes for art. You were the first, but also the most silent. Do you occasionally feel cheated? MIUCCIA PR ADA
To be honest, I find it a little irritating. VO GUE HOMME S
What is Prada really, today? VO GUE HOMME S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
How do you manage to win in your own way these days, when there’s such strong pressure from outside for everyone to play according to the same rules?
I don’t know what we are: I live my life, I don’t analyse myself. I always ask others because they have a critical, outsider’s view: some people give fantastic definitions of Prada. Nevertheless, they’re simplifications; Prada is complexity. It’s movement, MIUCCIA PR ADA change; and all this has to be sold, of course, and communiIt’s actually not easy; it’s the problem facing intellec- cated. But communication in fashion has never been a subject tuals in general. Winning attractively and stopping that I’ve felt particularly passionate about. there is easy, whereas being attractive while having some vague content is difficult. And then, of course, VO GUE HOMME S people are disinterested. Young people, the so–called Elitism has a negative connotation, nowadays. millennials, are treated as people to sell to. Things are Yet, Prada is a language of the elite, the highly educated, often labelled politically correct, even when this is not in which one is able to play with the notions actually the case. of poverty, shoddiness, bad taste, the contrary of the traditional formula, turning it on its head. VO GUE HOMME S But elite is the opposite of inclusion, the mantra of The present–day scenario is difficult to navigate, our time. MIUCCIA PR ADA complex, for those creating fashion and Inclusion makes sense, but we mustn’t forget we are a so–called doing anything else, for that matter. Getting a luxury brand, and speaking of democracy while selling expenmessage across is an obstacle course, up against sive products is a very delicate subject. This is the crux of the the limits set by the new censors. matter: in trying to send a message, you can lose sight of the This is not an intelligent era, is it? MIUCCIA PR ADA fundamental issue, or who you are, you lose the authenticity That isn’t true, but sometimes it’s as though intelligence in your work, and everything becomes a sham. and culture had become old–fashioned. VO GUE HOMME S
How on earth are people convinced, even by fake messages?
VO GUE HOMME S
How do you manage to face the present while attempting to maintain your position?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
It’s tiring, because a company has a duty and responsibility to be productive. Profit has never been our priority — my husband and I always say we didn’t wake up one morning with the idea of making money. Now and again, when things aren’t going so well, we pull ourselves together and try to take the necessary action. The fact is that, today, everything is demanded of fashion: clothes come last; whether it’s culture, or fake culture, as long as it’s entertainment, that’s enough. If you want to have any influence at all, participate or have your say, that’s difficult. You have to fight in a world that uses tools you don’t want to use. And yet, I’m interested in exchanging opinions, I don’t want to criticise others on principle, I want to try and understand if I can succeed in doing things my way.
Probably because the most banal ideas hit home the fastest; you see the same thing in politics. VO GUE HOMME S
But they’re simple, almost simplistic. MIUCCIA PR ADA
We’re living in a time of extreme simplification. The question of morality is rarely posed. I’m very critical of young people who are not interested in politics; I try to explain to them that this lack of interest is wrong, because political decisions directly affect you and your life.
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VO GUE HOMME S
But you’ve always said something else with fashion, far beyond the clothes themselves. Is this still possible? MIUCCIA PR ADA
M I U C C I A P R A DA
“I have always made men look softer and women stronger.”
I try to do so, and I created the Foundation so as to have a variety of means of expression. For example, we are trying to create an exhibition on science, on the brain, along with leading neuroscientists and philosophers. We’ve only just begun work on it. The scientists are enthusiastic because they are also faced with problems of communication. The neurosciences are a field that encompasses all the contemporary issues raised: artificial intelligence, robots, ageing, Alzheimer’s and morality. If these questions are treated in too facile a manner, they could become boring, whereas they can be handled in a scientific manner. I try to support projects and ideas which I believe are useful. And then, I have to move ahead and do my job as a designer, as I’ve always done, trying to put my ideas across by making clothes. Fashion shows are, in fact, reflections on our time. I start with an idea, then the entertainment aspect of fashion comes into play. You begin with firm principles and then, partly because fashion is a passion and a job, partly because you get carried away, which is not a good thing, you often go beyond these principles. I can’t say whether this is good or bad. A fashion show is definitely an entertaining moment, which I find interesting even when I get carried far away from my initial inspiration.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Not until I had children, and then my life changed. VO GUE HOMME S
What do you think of today’s men and women, how they are and how they define themselves? There is a lot of talk about barriers coming down, but sometimes this seems more like a topic that is easy to put on the agenda, without really understanding what it’s about. MIUCCIA PR ADA
I agree with you, and I’m absolutely open to all forms of personal freedom. However, I think that, in today’s world, the sense of difference is still very strong. VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
Yet, over the years, you have played in a very powerful, provocative manner with the notions of what is beautiful and what is not, with good and bad taste.
Do you like recklessness in fashion?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Yes, absolutely. The frivolous side of fashion is something for positive moments, whereas, on the other hand, I generally love fashion because it plays an important role in defining a person. Also, the outside world asks you to comment on the most serious problems of the day through fashion itself, which is not easy and probably not even part of its function.
Yes, because, even in fashion, some stereotypes die hard. You can see this on the red carpet, where the vision of female beauty is highly standardised; in creating new, beautiful clothes it isn’t easy to avoid the beauty clichés, because clothes are supposed to look good on you. So, what is this beauty that every one of us is looking for?
VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
Does the world today scare you?
Do you realise that the world of Prada is sometimes difficult to approach, that it can be unappealing?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
It worries me.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Certainly, but this is not intentional.
VO GUE HOMME S
What, in particular? MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
Politics, the lack of freedom, the problem of culture, which seems to be becoming a dirty word.
The other thing that is just as obvious is the uneasy balance between extreme rigour and impulsive frivolity. Is this due to a conflict between two personalities?
VO GUE HOMME S
Why, in your opinion, does culture frighten people?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Do you have a strong maternal instinct?
Less so.
No, it’s due to two personalities co–existing. What’s more, women are privileged, as they can have multiple MIUCCIA PR ADA Because culture unmasks falsehood. If you’re ignorant, you identities. They can play a variety of cards and be a lady, believe whatever you’re told, if you’re educated, you don’t let a tomboy, a schoolteacher, a liar. yourself be misled and you’re capable of analysing and judgVO GUE HOMME S ing for yourself. Are men not allowed to do this?
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VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
What’s your idea of what a man is? In the world of Prada, women are powerful, whereas men give the impression of still being schoolboys, as if they were frozen in a state halfway between childhood and adulthood. It’s as if they were still holding their pack of schoolbooks under their arms, as though they were still at a formative age.
But isn’t this a form of preventive censorship? MIUCCIA PR ADA
Probably, but this is my problem at the moment: too much fashion for men, but also for women, is to some degree fake, and worse still, isn’t chic — a word whose meaning I’ve reassessed over time.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
Personally, I have had completely opposing tastes as far as men Do you like the term “elegance”? are concerned; theoretically, I’m not attracted to a particular MIUCCIA PR ADA type of man. Certainly the scholastic aspect, the idea of order I like the term figo, which unfortunately is translated as in my work, are important to me, which is why I like uniforms. “cool”, a word I don’t want to use, because it’s too banal. To some extent it’s because they hide everything, because you don’t know who’s behind the uniform. And it’s also the idea VO GUE HOMME S of hard work as a personal commitment. What do you notice about a man, when you meet him? MIUCCIA PR ADA
In general, I’m struck by people who are particularly well–dressed, but, generally speaking, I’m not interested in how people are dressed, and that’s a fact.
VO GUE HOMME S
Is your vision of the relationship between men and women a dialogue? A parallel? MIUCCIA PR ADA
I’ve always thought that, to set off a creative process, I need to think of the woman. In some way, I have always made men look softer and women stronger. This is a work in progress, because now men are starting to free themselves, even though a man who dresses too fashionably isn’t entirely credible.
Are there any male figures who have impressed you by their style and stay in your imagination one way or another?
VO GUE HOMME S
Many, but no one in particular. I’m attracted by a certain way of being, both in men and women. I’m struck by the exceptions.
What you propose on the runway is a public statement, but when you see someone on the street dressed from head to toe as if they were in a fashion show, what do you think?
VO GUE HOMME S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
Is working in fashion instinctive for you?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
I don’t like it much.
It is. I begin with “no”, with everything I don’t want to do, and then I start working with what’s left. Since I was a little girl, my instinct has always been to do the opposite of what others are doing. It’s still that way now: I look for the niches, the uncharted territories.
VO GUE HOMME S
Is it as if your idea had been undermined, reduced almost to a formula, a cliché? MIUCCIA PR ADA
This isn’t a minor problem, especially where men’s fashion is VO GUE HOMME S concerned. On the one hand, I would like to be free to go even Do you use Instagram? Legend has it that further, on the other, however, the people I like don’t dress you’re on it anonymously, to spy. like this. This is the real contradiction of fashion, particuMIUCCIA PR ADA larly male fashion. That’s right. I look at what we’re doing, and others, too. Someone once told me that I take care of everything at VO GUE HOMME S Prada, except for what others see of us. Prada is certainHow do you get beyond this dilemma? ly a company in which the product takes centre stage. MIUCCIA PR ADA I want to do my job and do it well. I decided to get inCreating less fashion, offering a more authentic image, even volved in this because, if I want to live in today’s world, in fashion shows. I can’t afford not to know.
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Don’t you find that the dominance of this media is turning virtual reality? PR ADA
tool is the greatest revolution of the past few years. Its effects may or may not be positive, but it has changed everything. The other problem is that today’s society is
VO GUE HOMMES
“I’ve always done the opposite of what others are doing.”
very difficult to read. What can you do? There are thousands of languages, thousands of countries, thousands of cultures, all part of the same scenario. It isn’t easy to understand. Today there’s widespread poverty, widespread unhappiness, widespread unemployment. Society has changed radically and if you don’t update the means by which you read the world, it becomes impossible to find a solution. I still need a teacher to help me understand: everyone tells me the idea of a teacher is old–fashioned, even though I don’t believe that. I was speaking with the artist Ryan Trecartin about this, and he said that the first pill that will be placed inside the human body will be the cell phone, and very soon, too.
VO GUE HOMME S
Even this is part of a solid but ageing culture, don’t you think? Because the message influencers pass on to others is “show yourself ”, not “work”. MIUCCIA PR ADA
Definitely. But what I’m interested in is the training period. My life is as it is because I saw films, I read books, I understood others, I copied them. I learnt about life by living it.
VO GUE HOMME S
We’re on the verge of creating cyborgs. MIUCCIA PR ADA
This is exactly what I want to investigate in the show I mentioned.
VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
When did you start using the language of fashion about yourself?
In that sense, it’s really surprising to see how art anticipates life, because everything we’ve read or seen in science–fiction novels and films is actually happening.
Fairly early, to escape from my mother. I’d take up my hems in the lift, on the stairs: make–up, miniskirt and off I’d go.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
In movies, in particular. In Japan, they seem to have millions and millions of robots ready to take care of the elderly, which is the real problem: the world is ageing.
You still seem to enjoy this today, mixing new Prada and old Prada on yourself.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
That’s right. And then there’s the game I play with the collections: making for Prada what I’d make for Miu Miu and vice versa.
VO GUE HOMME S
Are you still interested in fashion, or are you more interested in the work you’re doing with art in the Foundation?
Is there a special time when you like to work?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA
VO GUE HOMME S
I’m more interested in fashion on principle and because, When we smile, we know we’ve done something interesting. all things considered, it’s more difficult. I like fashion Until there’s a smile on our faces, we still need to continue working. I’m only having fun when I realise that I’m doing because it anchors you in reality. something meaningful. VO GUE HOMME S
Are you afraid of being judged by those who look at your work?
VO GUE HOMME S
Are there ever times when you don’t feel entirely satisfied when the show is about to start and you still have to say, “The show must go on?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Very much so. I’m affected by criticism founded in truth, not by gratuitous attacks. When someone writes meaningful things, I’m interested, and it couldn’t be otherwise: you’re there, you’re exposing yourself in public. Fashion shows will perhaps be outdated one day, but they’re still the most effective system. You have a deadline to meet, a public to face. VO GUE HOMME S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Honestly, no. I’m more sure about some collections, less sure about others, but dissatisfied with everything, never. I always say to myself that if a collection is ugly, it’s my fault, I wasn’t able to create what I wanted to. And then, there are collections that I like, regardless. In that case, criticism quickly takes second place, because if I like it, that’s enough. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to criticism when I feel critical, too.
Do people ever stop you in the street? How do you react?
VO GUE HOMME S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
I find it intimidating, but I try to be kind. A few days ago, I was stopped by a fashion student and I advised him to study and work as hard as possible.
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Where do you think you are in your personal development? At the height of your maturity, of your style? Every creative artist has his or her life cycle.
VO GUE HOMMES
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VO GUE HOMME S
I pretend I’m growing old, but, to tell the truth, I don’t feel as if I am. I want to behave as if I am, think as if I am, but I still feel the same.
In your view, what stops people from growing old? MIUCCIA PR ADA
Perhaps telling stories, talking about people, about lives. VO GUE HOMME S
The beautiful thing about fashion is that it’s a sort of antidote to ageing, it’s one of the few industries, which constantly require renewing one’s personal point of view.
VO GUE HOMME S
Yet Godard has aged far less than Antonioni. People still watch My Life to Live today. MIUCCIA PR ADA
MIUCCIA PR ADA Godard is one of the directors who shaped my way of seeing That’s true. You see, we began by speaking ill of fash- things. ion and we’ve ended up speaking well of it. In the end, fashion is an area of great freedom. People like it beVO GUE HOMME S cause it’s full of life. How do remakes come to be almost anastatic reconstructions, VO GUE HOMME S like When Attitudes Become Form But today, in Venice? MIUCCIA PR ADA there’s this obsession to sell. Remaking comes from fashion. I’m proud to have given what MIUCCIA PR ADA The use of anything to commercial ends. We all have to I learned from working in fashion to the Foundation, bework, we all have to sell, but things always need to be cause I believe that it can be of use: there is an openness, a balanced. Even a company that has to sell must have a vivacity and velocity in fashion that is sometimes lacking in the art world. point of view, believe in something. VO GUE HOMME S
VO GUE HOMME S
Is modernity one of your values, or needn’t it be taken into account?
Given the prevailing culture and your position, do you feel it your moral duty to do something about problems such as diversity and integration?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Modernity is what it is. I have no idea what is modern MIUCCIA PR ADA or what is vintage, or fake avant–garde or real avant– Yes, absolutely. But I have to act cautiously, because, at the garde. But fashion cannot create real change if society same time, I create luxury products. I reserve the right to itself doesn’t change. The miniskirt was born because have my own ideas and filter them. of women’s lib, in the 20s they got rid of corsets, the VO GUE HOMME S hippies dreamed of a free world. If nothing happens, it’s hard for anything to happen in fashion. Fashion is Are you frustrated by the idea that you aren’t credible both a reflection and a part of it, but it doesn’t predict just because you’re a fashion designer? MIUCCIA PR ADA the future. No, because I understand it perfectly. I think everyone has the right to have ideas, even those who belong to a world of VO GUE HOMME S Leo Longanesi maintained that one is modern only privilege. In private, that’s not a problem; in public, however, it can be. once in a lifetime. But in fashion, that once has to be repeated ad infinitum, because it’s about VO GUE HOMME S the relevance of a brand or a product. Being modern Does this point to a tension between means capturing time at a particular moment, but privilege and commitment? then, to stay afloat, you have to continue to be modern, MIUCCIA PR ADA but can this be done if you have a certain look My whole life has been based on this contradiction. Imagine, and are thus unable to keep up with the times? MIUCCIA PR ADA I, as a left–wing feminist moving within certain circles, deThat’s a good question. cided to become a fashion designer: this was obviously a true passion. There couldn’t have been a less suitable proVO GUE HOMME S fession at the time. I realised the value of my work thanks to With no answer? MIUCCIA PR ADA
That depends on people, in other fields as well. For example, in the movies, there are directors who stay modern throughout their career, others are so at a particular time, some age, some don’t.
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the recognition and appreciation of many people I admire. There is a subtle feeling of superiority towards the world of fashion that I have never completely understood. Because it’s a job for women? Because fashion seems too frivolous? Because it touches on personal, intimate topics? A little of all these things? VO GUE HOMME S
M I U C C I A P R A DA
“Modernity is making clothes people would like to wear.”
Do you consider fashion as a language that interests people, or has this interest shifted to other areas?
VO GUE HOMME S
What’s more, the product seems to be the last thing people are interested in, even though it’s the product that keeps the cycle going.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Fashion always seems to be of great interest, even if I’ve recently found myself thinking that this interest has, to some extent, waned.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
In fact, now and then I say to myself that the truly revolutionary move would be to put the commercial side of fashion onto the catwalk, that’s what people really want and buy, the truth. Modernity, for me, would consist in making things that people would like to wear, things that make complete sense. This is the topic I’m concerned with at the moment.
VO GUE HOMME S
It’s a bit as if fashion has been over–exploited and the bubble has burst, so we’re now at a time when the dust is settling. MIUCCIA PR ADA
Possibly, yes. VO GUE HOMME S
How important is it to be relevant? How can one be relevant?
VO GUE HOMME S
As a hypervisual and pop language, fashion attracts singers, actors, stars. Yet, as a language of personal representation, it seems to have become an ongoing stage production, with a discourse about style that has lost its authenticity. It would be more interesting to explore everyday life in fashion. The “I do it for me” aspect. Don’t you agree?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Only history can say. We all want to be relevant: you do something, you do it because you believe in it, and then, of course, if you’re recognised, you’re even happier. VO GUE HOMME S
Is there a risk that success can remove you to some degree from reality, locking you away in an ivory tower?
MIUCCIA PR ADA
The more modest aspect, certainly the more personal one. I’ve tried a few times, but in the end I really manage to do very little, and then I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid of the public, because, in fact, you do have to infuse a little imagination into your work, so automatically things become inflated and showy. Perfect simplicity is extremely difficult. It’s often easier to be creative than to restrict and synthesise.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
Certainly. However, I’m constantly being checked on, so there’s no room for celebration. At home, there’s no myth of the fashion designer. My sons are critical and my husband even more so, so I’m always under scrutiny. VO GUE HOMME S
Will you ever give up, or have you ever thought of doing so?
VO GUE HOMME S
And today, there’s the pressure to be creative in a flamboyant way.
MIUCCIA PR ADA
I think I’ll stop working when I understand that I can’t do it anymore, or realise that I’m worse than the others, or if I have to. For the time being, I still enjoy it very much. V O G U E H O M M E S
MIUCCIA PR ADA
That’s a problem. VO GUE HOMME S
Is this a pressure that you feel? MIUCCIA PR ADA
Very much so. Entertainment seems to take precedence over everything else. The show is certainly only interesting when it reflects an idea. Exaggerated forms of representation, exacerbated, with no worthwhile content, simply to go against the mainstream, that isn’t compelling.
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On 24 December, Pierre Soulages will be 100. An exhibition at the Louvre pays tribute to this irrepressible advocate of “ultra–black” monochromes, blocks of darkness in daylight that the art market vies and pays dizzying prices for. We take a look at his extraordinary career. AND BLACK BECOMES HIM BY
Hervé GAUVILLE PHOTO GR APHS
Harry GRUYAERT How much is Soulages worth? Just under a year ago, one of his paintings, Peinture 186 × 143 cm, 23 December 1959, went for $11 million in auction at Christie’s in New York, the highest price ever reached by a living French artist. But on 11 May 2010, at the same auction house, a Flag by Jasper Johns went for over $28 million. More than twice as much. In 2013, again in New York, but this time at Sotheby’s, a painting by the German artist Gerhard Richter sold for over $37 million, three times more than the French painter. These figures are not intended to establish a hierarchy of the value of the artists, but rather to reflect the state of the market. They are nonetheless revealing as to the economic, social and symbolic status of the man considered to be the most French of the great artists. To what does he owe the epithet? Or, in other words, what is the true value of Pierre Soulages? Other more subtle, less obvious factors contribute to painting his official portrait, beginning with his family origins. National tradition is fond of provincial childhoods with a bucolic air. Go to Rodez, to number 4, rue Combarel. There, you will see a little two–storey building with closed shutters. It was here on 24 December 1919 that Soulages was born. The Soulages museum is less than a five–minute walk away. There
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you will find a man whose works have been shown in the leading museums worldwide, and who, after his extensive travels, has returned, like Ulysses, to his birthplace. There is an air of homecoming, which has enhanced that feeling of his belonging to a region. Pierre Soulages is to Rodez what the philosopher Michel Serres was to Agen, two celebrities of exceptional longevity, both international and at the same time “local”. Then there are the historical circumstances. In 1938, he left the Aveyron region for the capital, then, despite passing the entrance exam to the Beaux–Arts school, he went back home again, disgusted by the school’s academic leaning, but fascinated by the Picassos and Cézannes he discovered at the Louvre. After the war, he tried his luck again in Paris, which, this time, met with success and his first–ever exhibition in 1947. Several factors worked in his favour. As a young artist, he entered a circle that was living out the last days of the Paris School, which although increasingly vague in its intent, was still very much alive — and still impervious to the impending American tidal wave. In choosing to become part of the abstract art movement, he benefited from the foremost vector of artistic movements. By the end of the 1940s, Jean–Michel Atlan, Georges Mathieu and Hans Hartung, whose work was sometimes referred to as lyrical abstraction, were riding high. With his exhibition at the Salon des Surindépendants, Soulages seemed to join the movement. His work caught the intention of Hartung, who helped launch his career by introducing him to gallery owner Lydia Conti.
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The influence of certain galleries should not be underestimated. They enabled — and continue to do so — certain of their young protégés not only to be put in touch with major collectors, but, above all, to gain access to the international art market. It is no coincidence that Soulages’s interests are now handled by the Emmanuel Perrotin gallery, which establishes or upholds the reputation of leading artists. A combination of circumstances paved the way for the young French artist, who, just after the war, would conquer the art world despite the growing dominance of the American market. For, despite not finding favour with the New York critics, who swore only by Clement Greenberg, the master of abstract expressionism, Soulages soon gained a foothold in the US, with the MoMA opening its doors to him. From the very beginning of his career, the speed with which he was recognised outside France at first earned him the reputation as something of a maverick. And yet, although his approach flirted with the aesthetics of informal art, it would rapidly stand apart. He thus found himself in phase with the turmoil of the groups that had formed, while at the same time following a path very much his own. In the first instance, his use of walnut staining as an artistic practice associated his work with a humbler, more artisanal tradition. Until 1949, he was fond of this medium, which requires a house painter’s brush rather than the more noble artist’s variety. What was to become his iconic status is partly the result of his recourse to the techniques of a more working–class trade, works, whereas in reality he was already playing with light combined with his family history. Observers thought and shadow in a risky dialectic between the white paper, and, they could see signs or ideograms in his early graphic not the black — which had yet to become his “thing” — but a dark walnut stain brown. A rudimentary technique like brushing and the use of an inexpensive dye ordinarily for wood did nothing to stem the ambition of a man who still didn’t know exactly where he was going but felt that he would reach a “beyond” that wasn’t yet dubbed outrenoir. In fact, during the following decade, he returned to tradition by showing a preference for oil painting. He abandoned paper white, preferring a background of coloured canvas. He sought out chromatic contrasts, countering colours with one another. And then a twofold decision would turn this rather conventional phase in his work on its head. Firstly, he would cover the colours with black, then scrape away parts of the black so that the hidden colours would show through. Painting, unpainting, coating then scraping: creation was a form of penitence. And then black gradually began take possession. At this stage, it wasn’t black as a colour nor even as light that attracted attention, but rather an effect of density. The black he used was not yet omnipotent, but above all a substance that called out for a certain type of perception.
In Soulages’s canvases, the eye projects its own film.
Soulages’s atelier doesn’t
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contain any of the clutter normally associated with an artist’s studio.
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There was no need to look for meaning or signs or even a message. When Soulages talks about his art, he doesn’t mention theory, he is always very straightforward, which is something to be relished with a master of abstraction. The stories he tells sometimes lead this friendly, talkative giant towards anecdotes of his youth, which only appear to take him away from his real concerns. In November 1986, I had invited him to “blacken” a page of the French daily Libération with four large black, horizontal stripes. On that occasion, I met him in his studio in Paris. His wife Colette, who was also dressed in black that day, was attentive without intervening. What was immediately striking was the relative bareness of the walls. The emptiness was far more noticeable than the presence of his paintings. There were no paintings hung like trophies, and none of the clutter one normally associates with the inside of an artist’s studio. Pierre Soulages was then sixty–six and had impressive, yet tranquil energy. His height impressed me too: he wasn’t far off two metres. But more than anything else, his voice and his inexhaustible eloquence had taken me from his thoughts on painting, to an informed analysis of the state of art at the time, via his insistent praise of the Rodez rugby team. This was when I learnt that I was not only talking to a master of painting, but also to a former rugby man, who still had a hint of nostalgia. Thirty–three years on, he paints with the same indefatigable passion, although it is more often than not in his studio in Sète.
Soulages’s paintings are not windows on to the world but quickly become a surface on to which the spectator viewers can project. How can you resist the appeal of his monochromes, of the world of nightly dreams? Whereas a film is projected on to a cinema screen, in Soulages work, the eye projects its own film onto the canvas. But don’t be misled: just any black rectangle will not do. If that were so, the painter could churn out his works à la Dalí signing blank sheets of paper one after the other. There were numerous failed attempts, which he destroyed, and the birth of a new work could be slow, for it wasn’t only a question of substance, but also of format. The polyptychs attached by cables between the floor and ceiling command an almost solemn approach. Matisse’s lesson springs to mind: “One square centimetre of blue is not as blue as one square metre of the same blue”. That is as true for Yves Klein and his International Klein Blue (IKB) as it is for Soulages. The chromatic scale was attributed early on: Klein blue, Veronese green, Van Gogh yellow. Or the red of the hands in the Pech Merle grotto; the discovery of cave art had left its mark on the schoolboy he was then. Strictly speaking, black doesn’t interest Soulages. It is neither a colour nor an invention, nor a trademark. Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt and Richard Serra shared his fondness for black. His friend Rothko painted Black Paintings and, well before him, Goya decorated the walls of his Quinta del Sordo with his famous pinturas negras. There was no question of treating black as a commercial product, as Anish Kapoor did when he purchased the exclusive rights to Vantablack, a black substance that has an extremely high absorption capacity. Soulages is beyond all that; he has been “ultra–black” for forty years, a neologism he coined to say that black is purely and simply light. In relative terms, it’s the same sort of experience that the artist James Turrell attempted when he built his House of Light in Japan, a three–dimensional version of Soulages’s mono–pigment surfaces. As it is above all a question of light, there is no contradiction between his versions of the black painting, on the one hand, and his assembling of stained–glass windows in Saint–Foy de Conques Abbey on the other. There, the strips — not rays — of sun penetrate the shadows of the abbey as the striations of the paintings open on to the promise of a world beyond. V O G U E H O M M E S Hommage à Soulages at the Louvre Museum (Paris) from 11 December 2019 to 9 March 2020.
Pierre Soulages coined the term “ultra–black” to say that black is purely
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and simply light.
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JULIO IGLESIAS
T H E H E L M U T N E W T O N E S TAT E / M A C O N O C H I E P H O T O G R A P H Y
GOD, ALIVE AND WELL
He is the mythical prototype of the Latin Lover. Burnished Havana brown skin, and a velvet voice, Julio Iglesias has been an enigma in the Hall of Fame for close to half a century. The Spanish singer, on stage this autumn, has never been blessed with the compassion or recognition of the music industry’s great and good. Time is now healing that scandal. BY
Anne JUDITH P O RT R A I T
Helmut NEWTON
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When you cheat death by a whisker, you’ve got nothing to lose.
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dry cleaning flourished? Is it his blinding smile, which made him the most relaxed man in the world, combined with a slight Latin irony for that smidgen of distance or a je–ne–sais–quoi of don’t–give–a–damn of the gravity– defying golden boy? His mouth–to–mouth kisses generously bestowed on any woman who comes near, and even on Frank Sinatra, in front of the cameras? His sideways glances? His candour? (Julio Iglesias is one of those all–too–rare people with the courtesy never to dodge a delicate question with a flick of the tail.) Fashion has its reasons which fashion itself ignores but, in an unmistakable sign of the times this year, the organisers of the most out–there parties at this year’s Cannes Film Festival chose to fill the dance floors with young doppelgangers of the handsome Latin Lover, and to fire up the night with some of his greatest languid, stellar hits. Julio Iglesias is affable in all circumstances. He uses the familiar tu form with journalists, asks if they are comfortable, calls them chouchou (“pet”), whisks them off in his private jet to visit his pads in Marbella — a private chapel on an immense estate featuring several swimming pools and a collection of golf courses — in Miami, on his own private island of Indian Creek, or else in the most chic resort of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. And when one of his swimming pools gets over–heated, rather than just lowering the Velvet. Velvet eyes, velvet voice, velvet barnet, velvet chest, vel- thermostat as most of us ordinary mortals would, he vet loafers, velvet toes: everything is 100 per cent pure velvet has tonnes of ice cubes poured into it, against an azure with Julio Iglesias, the Spanish conquistador who has sold backdrop of buzzing helicopters, there to keep him safe no fewer than 300 million albums and recorded 78 to date — reminiscent of the riots in Los Angeles. For almost 40 in 14 languages, including Japanese (because the important years, his life was a battlefield where day after day he thing is to grasp the timbre of a language, not necessarily to strove both to convert new territories to Iglesiasmania speak it well if you want to pierce the hearts of a swooning and, as an instant consequence of his fame, to protect audience). At 75 and after a career spanning half a century, himself from the deluge of his mostly female infatuatJulio Iglesias, who has never claimed to be cool, but “popular” ed fans, from the hundreds of paparazzi who trooped to his fingertips, is on the point (very much against his will) after him, whatever he did, from people wanting autoof emerging as an inspiring fashion icon. “He’s cult”, says an graphs, who all transformed his slightest outing into expert in emerging trends, who recently saw an ultra–sophis- an odyssey. While excess and the lack of spatio–temticated New York socialite in a penthouse listening to the vinyl poral markers are a common trait of the international of “Por el amor de una mujer”. She herself places the Spanish jet–set, Julio Iglesias does have one quality unique to crooner on her own playlist between Velvet Underground and him, which runs counter to his standing as the most French rappers PNL. popular singer in the world, namely lucidity. He has What is it about him? His slicked down hairstyle? His an aptitude not to lie nor to lie to himself, even if that style, reminiscent of the proverbial Riviera and the joy of living means not looking good. Rewind to 1998, with multiple without borders or limits on yachts sparkling with precious statements to the quality press: “I don’t think I will leave woods and chrome on an ocean of vintage champagne? His a mark on the future of song.” Or, “When I started out waisted black jackets worn over white shirts that tell us that I used to bleat. I piled it on. Now I sing.” Or go back to the years have been kind to him and middle–age spread has 1997: “In musical terms, I have my limits. But fewer than passed him by? The impeccable crease in his trousers, which before.” In reality, during those years, Julio’s populartakes us back to the 70s in a trice, a time when the art of faultless ity was such that he could do no wrong, provided that he had no expectations that the rock music critics or pop pundits would garland him with praise. When asked for the secret of his longevity over so many decades, his answer was simply “I work my butt off ”. That is not far from the truth, but there’s more to it than that. You do not conquer a whole planet alone, even when you proclaim: “I have hundreds of women but I’m missing the one and only.”
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For many years, Julio the star had something of an Achilles heel. His childhood was not the stuff of legend. He was born in Madrid, silver spoon firmly in mouth, during the Franco era, and into a wealthy, problem–free family. There might be no love lost between his parents, but they both adored their little boy. As legend has it, even before he was born, in the midst of WWII, on 23 September 1943, his father, a prominent gynaecologist, already heard him warbling in his mother Rosario de la Cueva’s womb. His grandfather was one of Franco’s generals, a fact that would be used against his grandson once he was famous. The young Julio attended a prestigious Roman Catholic school, where he was an average student but nevertheless managed, ironically, to get himself thrown out of a choir. He was first a star on the soccer pitch, a sport that rapidly became more than a distraction: it was a passion. In fact, by the time he was 20, the drop–dead gorgeous Julio, who was already breaking hearts like a true athletic Lothario, was already a star, as goalkeeper for Real Madrid. His future was already mapped out: the young man who had no truck with half measures, knew he would be a champion soccer player or bust. But why, oh, why, did this handsome, infinitely ambitious young man who loved to party not realise that he was too drunk to drive one catastrophic night when, at the wheel with a group of
Born into a grand bourgeois Spanish family, well–to–do and problem–free (with his father, above), Julio Iglesias was initially destined to be a professional football player, until a car accident forced him to change his plans. After graduating in law, he began his singing career in the late 60s. His first number was also his first hit. Throughout the 80s, he went from strength to strength, and rose to international stardom.
The ever elegant Julio Iglesias drove the crowds wild, idolised by his — mostly female — fans. Close to the Spanish royal family (above left), and a friend of Grace Kelly (above right, centre), he was one of the most sought–after celebrities of the time.
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friends, he caused an accident that could have been fatal? At just 21, Julio Iglesias was rushed to hospital and when he came to, he discovered that none of his limbs would obey him. His spinal cord was damaged, and he was paralysed. For almost a year, he was confined to a wheelchair. The young man was lost and spiralled into a deep depression. To restore a taste for life and as a form of therapy to help Julio exercise his fingers and will–power, his nurse, Eladio Magdaleno, had the genius idea of stimulating his patient by giving him a guitar. A miracle. Julio learned a few chords, began to compose, bringing him new–found pleasure and self–confidence, and he began to sing. A new gift was revealed that would almost certainly have remained buried, pure potential, had he not suffered that terrible accident. The patient nursed a life–long debt towards his friend and one–time nurse. For Julio, this incredible re–birth has always seemed like a gift from heaven. “God tested me in that absolute suffering to give me everything I have today”, he says. When you cheat death by a whisker like that, you have nothing to lose and you are ready for anything. The crooner’s energy and iron determination, that would lead him to chase international fame rather than staying within the confines of a purely Spanish audience, even at the cost of his marriage and family life, may well derive from that founding drama, where death came to give him the fatal kiss, but then changed its mind and refused to take him. His parents, however, still hoped he would embrace a career in diplomacy, a latter–day Lazarus excluded from sport but raring for other feats. They sent him to Cambridge, where he perfected not
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his English, but his French, thanks to a French student he fell in love with. And he sang. For his friends and in the pubs frequented by the other students. He sang without even thinking he was a singer, but simply because he was happy, a survivor, and a person transformed, so to speak. Without quite knowing how, he found himself at the opening gala for the Eurovision Song Contest in London. At the hotel, he bumped into the future duettist winners, predicted that they would win the competition and decided right there and then to jump in. The year was 1968. Franco would die a few years later and young people were dreaming of changing the world. But Julio, who wasn’t exactly the poster boy for revolutionary youth, was thinking about his own personal success. That year, he was on a roll: he was awarded his law degree, (pleasing his parents like a good boy) and won the prize for best song and best interpretation at the Benidorm International Song Festival with “La vida sigue igual”, his first great hit, whose title (“Life Goes On the Same”) smacks of the autobiographical. From then on, he single–mindedly sought to extricate himself from Spain, which he now felt was too small for him, despite his shaky English, which required a regiment of teachers so that he could aim to settle in the US as the spiritual son of Frank Sinatra. His record label had the good idea to have him record his hit “Gwendolyne”, placed fourth in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1970, in several languages. You can see him in the scopitones (the ancestor of the video clip) immensely long legs, white slacks, fooling around with a football on a soccer pitch before segueing into the song. He stands straight as a die, touching his stomach with one hand as if to reassure himself that his body is not in a thousand pieces. He always says that these virtually systematic gestures when he is facing an audience are follow–ups to his car accident. They help him to keep his balance and not to pass out. Although Julio Iglesias was advancing in the hall of fame with giant steps, his body never forgot that it was nearly stopped for ever. In the early 1970s, everything began to gather speed. Although he had yet to conquer America, the well– born scion was now part of the international jet–set. He was happy, madly in love with the Filipino Isabel Preysler (today the live–in partner of Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, after marrying the former Spanish minister of Finance, the Socialist Miguel Boyer) whom he married in January 1971 in Toledo. Together they travelled the length and breadth of South America. While Julio went from concert to concert, she kept an eye on him, never leaving his side and taking care of everything. Julio uttered a few unfortunate soundbites: “Faithfulness is a vaccine”, “She and I are for life”. The man who venerated Isabel all his life was not loath to show an interest in his female admirers, who stuck to him wherever he went, triggering claustrophobia
“I have a great doctor: the stage. Not feeling too great: quick, back on stage. Depression: back on stage.”
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attacks when they crowded into a passageway, making extracting him as dangerous as a birthing gone wrong, when they charged into a lift where he thought he had found a safe haven. Julio Iglesias and the fans are like a remake of Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances. In the meantime, the leading fans of Julio are crowned heads. The Little Prince sang for Princess Grace of Monaco, for Prince Karim Aga Khan. He never stopped switching between continents, although he hated flying. His first daughter, Chaveli, was born in 1971 and two years later, her baby brother Enrique, who also became a singing sensation in his own right. Henceforth, a small army of agents were discussing the best strategy for propelling their protégé before an American audience. An article published in Vanity Fair in 1990 claimed that this PR function employed between 50 and 80 agents and press officers and cost some $700,000 a month!
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In 1975, his second son was born. While he was present at the birth, as he had been twice before, he had no more time for his family, seeing his children only every two or three months, between tours. Latin America was first in line to experience Iglesiasmania. In Mexico, things got really crazy. Each of his concerts called for no fewer than 16 costume changes, despite the somewhat austere staging, because the hurricane of fans tore them to shreds to take their precious trophies home, bits of fabric worn by the near–divine sex symbol. With his hits “Manuela” in 1975, “El Amor” in 1976, the newValentino was ubiquitous and abolished distances. The 1980s were his crowning achievement, even though he was still persona non grata in the US: he took on a “small” apartment in Miami, and the Roger&Cowan PR agency (David Bowie, Paul McCartney) continued to look after his interests. In 1984, he cut his first US disc as he became the muse of Coca Cola, perhaps the biggest feather in his cap so far. In 1988, he performed alongside Stevie Wonder, and his instantly recognisable crooner’s voice swamped that of the King of Soul, who is reported to have said “I’ll sing with you when you learn how to sing.” He became a much–valued guest of the great and the good on all sides, including Brezhnev, Reagan and Mitterrand. Those were also the years when the celebrity mags spotlighted his affairs with other, equally jet–lagged stars, from Sydne Rome, to Brooke Shields, Bianca Jagger, Diana Ross — whom he duetted with — and Priscilla Presley. He owned several houses scattered around the world, but no “home”, he sang, except for his private jet — a Dassault Falcon. Was he happy? He claimed that his heart was there for the taking, and wanted to marry and have more children. He also boasted increasingly about his sexual prowess, saying, as far back as 1972, that he had bedded more than 3,000 partners. His world tours never stopped. In Spain, right from the outset, he was a popular yet divisive figure due to his family’s past support for Franco. One painful event that he is loath to talk about was ETA’s kidnapping of his father, an ordeal that lasted nearly three weeks. Right or wrong, Julio Iglesias symbolised the right and the determined nationalism in the war against the Basque separatists. Moreover, he threw his weight behind the right–wing José Maria Aznar, who was to serve two terms as the kingdom’s Prime Minister. In France, at the height of his huge success Julio steered clear of controversy. Those who hated him killed the sound from the very first chords, yet he was still the darling of popular radio producers. The earliest sign of rehabilitation was in the serious French daily Le Monde, under the headline “The Loneliness of a Prince”, which as early as 1988 announced that he had “changed for the better”. The article went on: “While he now sings for the whole world, it is on the big stage, basking in the recognition of the lords of this style, the USA.” This was the period when he abandoned the cheap castanets to work on the breadth of his voice.
G E T T Y I M AG E S
But his first encounter with the USA was a disaster: consumed by his desire to please and be friendly, Julio Iglesias committed a faux pas that had cataclysmic consequences. Singing at a Miami venue called Club Montmartre for an audience of Cuban émigrés, he had the unfortunate idea of telling them that he would be delighted to perform in Cuba, for their compatriots, triggering a diplomatic storm. He had no idea that he was telling them in effect that he supported the Castro regime. The club exploded, with audience members throwing their glasses at him. That set the US media to thinking he was nothing less than a puppet of Communism and Marxist collectivisation. He was banned from the radio waves, received death threats, and bombs were defused. He had to abandon the idea of performing in New Jersey due to fears of an attack.
ALAMY
Julio Iglesias and his fans are like a remake of Buster Keaton’s Seven Chances.
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Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at €850 million, generating substantial receipts even recently from the sale of his albums but also from his stock market and real estate investments and even from cosmetics deals, such as that with the Only Julio fragrance. His magnificent pad on Indian Creek, the island of billionaires near Miami, on a four–hectare plot crammed with works by Botero and hidden from view behind no less luxurious stands of palm trees, is one of his ports of call, only rarely leaving it these days, the 75 year–old seeking to avoid the media and sightseers. He has announced that his 2015 studio album Mexico, would be his last. He has officially retired and yet, from Boston to Atlantic City, not to mention London (where he is to appear on 28 October this year), he nevertheless continues to perform. He has confided on several occasions, and especially to French daily Libération, that “I think I will die on stage, to rapturous applause. Singers have an advantage over other artistes: the presence of an audience. I have a great doctor: the stage. Not feeling too great: quick, back on stage. Depression: back on stage. Nothing can get to me.” If Julio Iglesias has lasted so long as the epitome of the languid macho male, it is no doubt because of the sheer grit of the young man who saw himself buried alive at a time when the world should have been his oyster. He defied death and kitsch with the same daring, a carefully blow–waved and lacquered phoenix, inundating the decades with the liquid gold of his voice, saturated with rum–and–coconut glucose. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be but, in his romantic palace, the ghostly melody loops on endless repeat: “I haven’t changed”. V O G U E H O M M E S The 50th Anniversary, 28 October, Royal Albert Hall (London).
Julio Iglesias played the field — he claims to have slept with three thousand women in the 70s. Twice married and (officially) the father of eight children, Iglesias’s love life was tumultuous: Sydne Rome (above), Priscilla Presley (top right), Bianca Jagger and Brooke Shields (below) were just three of his many partners. He was also a close friend of Ursula Andress (top left), and Diana Ross (opposite page), with whom he is said to have had an affair.
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THE WINTER OF EDEN DOCUMENTED BY CRAIG MCDEAN GIVENCHY.COM