Pablo Arroyo for MFF
“Stylish, sensual and mediterranean”: these 3 words basically represent the core of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s ideal man definition. Celebrating 20 years of menswear, 20 Dolce & Gabbana boys hit last MFF double cover shot by our talent Pablo Arroyo, also featuring many portraits inside the magazine.
By Elisa Lusso – Photo by Pablo Arroyo, courtesy of MFF
Zegna Centennial / Shanghai
Ermenegildo Zegna’s centennial glamorously arrived with the star-studded opening of its first Global Concept Store in Shanghai. To mark the momentous occasion, the venerable men’s fashion house-cum-lifestyle heavyweight unveiled its absolutely sumptuous new core collection alongside this season’s swaggering Z Zegna collection. And as the figurative cherry on the lavish cake, Roisin Murphy dressed in scarlet was front and center (and sultry as ever) at the festivities that followed.
The product of the prolific architect Peter Marino (who’s been deservedly tagged with the epithet “architect of luxury” and is responsible for fantastical flagships for Dior, Chanel, Barney’s and others), the space’s 726 square meters are nothing less than a monolithic metaphor for Zegna’s impressive presence in China. Operating in the country since 1991, the company has been key in the evolution of China’s taste for luxury and is a cornerstone of its ever more sophisticated fashion culture. The new store’s prime location, adjacent to Xintiandi, among the elite menagerie of lifestyle businesses on Hua Hai Road, makes it truly the crown jewel among the brand’s more than 75 other stores in the country. Complete with an exclusive private shopping space for the biggest of its bigwig customers, as well as an “archetypal gentlemen’s lounge” decked out adroitly in Zebrano and bronze, the space is intended to evoke the austere and warm Italian masculinity synonymous with the brand.
Still, architecturally and spiritually, the space’s signature lies in its symbolic and textural homage to the brand’s renowned home in Triviero. As first and foremost a purveyor of finely detailed sartorial pieces, ultra high-quality textiles are to Zegna what Italy itself is to fashion: inextricable. It’s fitting, therefore, that the most complete expression yet of the brand takes its inspiration in large part from its almost sacred reverence for detail: playful touches hinting fancifully at meticulous tailoring and sumptuous fabrics abound in the store, from the lighted exterior’s ambient pinstripes to marble “selvedges” to several instances of seemingly loom-woven metal. Like their handmade suits, there’s rigorous perfectionism at work in everything Zegna does.
Cheers, Zegna. We warmly wish you another prosperous century.
By Tag Christof – images courtesy of Ermenegildo Zegna.
¡Viva España!
Sun, beach, sand and water are doing the apparel job in this sensual editorial for V Spain shot by Xevi Muntané, in which our sight is delighted through this top selection of Spanish boys: Andrés Velencoso, Jon Kortajarena, Oriol Elcacho, Antonio Navas, Miguel Iglesias, Joan Pedrola, Haydem y Raul Guerra, River Viperi and the actor Quim Salazar.
The stylistic part of the shooting – curated by our volcanic Ana Murillas – was even more challenging, cause it required to emphasize on uncovering rather than covering these charming sculpured bodies. She enriched the hot scenery by adding true Spanish elements such as fans and banderillas – the latter are used to pierce the bull during La Corrida – and the result it’s definetly a candy for our eyes. Innit?
By Elisa Lusso – image by Xevi Muntané courtesy of V Magazine Spain
The Marcelo Burlon New World
Everybody has already seen THE BOYS! a video shot during the last men show season in Milano!
Now it’s time to show you the editorial shot by our friend Matteo Montanari and styled by a member of the – 2DM family – Marcelo Burlon! The amazing cast was provide by Barbara Nicoli and her partner Leila.
Photographed by Matteo Montanari @ Atomo Management
Casting Directors: Barbara Nicoli & Leila @ Troublemanagement
Styling Marcelo Burlon + Elia Quadri @ 2DM.it
Lettering: Federico Donelli
Grooming: Marco Braca @ Close Up
Assistents Stylist: Alberto Brasola Barina, Giulia Centofante
Assistents Photographer: Raffaele Grosso + Marco Zanin
Digital Retouching: Upstudiomilano.com
Thanks to Circus Studios and Marco De Giorgi
–
by 2DM bureau – images courtesy of Matteo Montanari
Guest Interview n° 17: Cameron Smith
You’ve been living in NY, LA, Paris and now London, but where are you from?
I’m Australifornian, but don’t hold it against me.
You probably didn’t like school very much as you left it at the age of 15. If you could turn back time, would you take the same decision?
Yes, I don’t regret it at all. I left home and got a job working at a web design company. This is definitely the internet era, so to get paid to learn and practice designing websites was kind of a perfect education.
Are you still a wasted kid?
I smoke crack for breakfast, but no. That’s kind a weird question.
What was the passage from skateboarding to photography?
They were both childish acts of rebellion. My parents didn’t let me skateboard and I never got given a camera, so I bought a skateboard when I was 14 and and kept it at my friends house and then started doing photography after I left home. Haha, being strict backfired for my parents.
Is there anything you have learned from the street?
Don’t get high on your own supply.
Which was the first shooting you’ve ever done?
I took snapshots and photos of my friends skating and wanted to be a photojournalist for ages, but decided to try out doing a ‘shoot’ with a model I knew named Tania. We drove down to this really beautiful granite quarry, which is right on the waterfront and has waves crashing on it and climbed on the rocks and took lots of photos and it was all really pretty and fun. Then, on the way back I followed a cop car down a side street and found a guy that had been stabbed with a huge kitchen knife in an act of random racial hatred and was bleeding to death, with the knife still stuck in his back. I shot a picture which was used in the national newspapers, but it made me realize that there’s something fucked up about rabidly trying to find scenes of violence and disaster, and then just taking a photo instead of helping. It was an epic day. I think I chose to be a fashion photographer that day.
Did videos and film making come naturally after photography for you?
Filmmaking and photography are the same thing fundamentally and they certainly serve the same purpose, which is to express and inspire and relate things. Obviously in film there’s sound and movement but fundamentally it’s the same. You can say more and fuck up easier in film, which is exciting.
Are you a blog addicted?
No, I od’d on blogs ages ago.
You publish The Interzine online, which is a place where you collect and store interesting contents from the web on art, music, fashion and culture. What was your first thought about it? “The only website you need”?
It was a really simple idea, to mash up all of the best blogs together. So you can go and look at www.theinterzine.com and see whats going on and whats cool. There was nothing like it at the time so I just made it in a couple days. Later, I heard that Jefferson Hack loved it, and then about 6 months later, he made ‘another reader’ and then pop magazine did their own version of it.
I think designing websites is fucking amazing in that you can use code to take an idea, and manifest it into something useful or fun or commercial and share it with the whole world. It’s magic I think. Like I love the story about the 17 year old russian kid that created chatroullette in 2 days and its the biggest thing on the internet this year. Magic. At the same time its disgusting how people are constantly connected to their machines. Get out and look at the world people! Burn your computers!
In your blogs you like to tell some of your private madness by taking pics. What connects all the shots?
I don’t try to force any connection, but it’s always me and my camera and the way I interact with people so there is natural continuity.
What kind of books do you read? Is there any literary inspiration in your pictures?
I like reading fiction. I like science fiction and fucked-up stuff a lot . I just got into listening to audiobooks because I feel like I’m already overusing my eyes and it lets me multitask, which is sad but everything is so frenetic and jacked these days because of the way are brains are conditioned by the internet. Otherwise it can take me ages to finish a book and I’m usually reading 3 at a time. The new yorkers fiction podcast is great.
( http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction ).
How much art is important in your way of living? In which ways does it affect you?
I love that art can inspire us and that it really has no function. It is an positive sign that humans have souls.
Do you see any possible evolutions in photography? Not only in the way it can be displayed, rather more in the way it will be acknowledged by people?
Yes, the way that digital photography and the internet made photography more accessible really is changing everything. I think its great, it means that photography is becoming better, and there are more beautiful images being made, and generally, it is raising the standard of photography in magazines. About 5 years ago one of the first editorials I shot was based on my blog. The editor, Isaac Lock, emailed me and was like, “I love your blog, how its so fresh and intimate and immediate. Lets do a shoot based on it”. It was new then, but now I’m a little tired of it. Like I feel that the whole snapshot, intimate type of photography has no value, whereas 30 odd years ago it was completely shocking and momentous that, for example, Nan Goldin would exhibit nude pictures of her husband and intimate photos of her tranny friends. It meant something then, but now it doesn’t.
What are your days like?
I live in the 18th arrondisement of Paris at the moment. I’ve been shooting or editing everyday, and partying every night. Paris is SOOOO fun! It’s summer now and its stays light until about 10:30pm here so I’m usually up really late and the noise of the street wakes me up early in the morning so I don’t really get much sleep ever.
What’s the first thing you think when you wake up?
I’m usually thinking about my dreams and what they’re saying to me. They’ve usually really vivid because my sleep is usually pretty irregular. This is really mundane, but if you want to know, last night in a dream, Nicola Formichetti told me “make a less jacked website and you’ll start making serious bucks”. Man, kinda weird to have Nicola in a dream but I appreciate the feedback.
What do you think you will be doing in the next 3 days? 3 months? 3 years? Not telling.
By Elisa Lusso – all images courtesy of Cemeron Smith
Fit & Brevi Racconti are waiting for you!
The attentions and the aims of many companies and institutions here in Milan, recently seem to point at strengthening new creative talents. Tonight should be busy, starting from Fit Fashion Show 2010 supported by PoliMilano, until “Brevi Racconti”, a collective photo ehxibition at Circus Studios.
Curated and promoted by Andrea Concina /Numérique.
By Elisa Lusso
Tiffany Godoy / The Reality Show
Gothic Cholita Geisha Tiffany Godoy – author of ‘Style Deficit Disorder’ and ‘Japanese Goth’ – presents her latest project as editor-in-chief next to Tomoyuki Yonezu in the art direction, “The Reality Show”.
A new fashion book that mixes the fantasies of runway fashion with the real style of Japan’s street fashion stars.
A fashion portrait of street style, a blog in a book, that’s a mise-en-scene of everyday life.
Guest Music Selectors:
Limi Yamamoto & Lyoki
Leo Candycane (Fancy Him)
Mademoiselle Yulia
Olivier Schawalder x very special supermodel guest
Romain (from paris)
@ Le Baron de Paris, Tokio. June 30th (Wed) Open 21:00
WWW.LEBARON.JP
“Get up close. Get Personal, Get real, The reality show…”
–
By Dodi Espinosa
Kilimanjaro Magazine: The Box Issue
Kilimanjaro, the indefinable, iconoclastic and always original art/culture/fashion/film publication has just unwrapped its 10th edition, affectionately christened “About Now.”
The magazine’s large and liquid format, a virtually unconstrained playground of a canvas for its experimental designers, is used as an opportune conduit in this issue to usher in a ‘looser approach.’ Drawing on the vulgarity and fleeting nature of the traditional newsstand tabloid, the result is a refracted, gorgeously transmogrified vision of the ephemeral now & new. Filtered through the sensationalism, disposability and, ostensibly, the bigotry of this most hyperbolic and transitory of mediums, the serious discourse and usual creativity of this issue’s contents are amplified through stark parallax.
Look for a collaborations with Cyprien Gaillard and discussions the likes of Bruce Sterling, Tatiana Trouvé, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Beatrix Ruf, Isaac Julien, Polly Morgan and others.
By Tag Christof – pictures courtesy of Kilimanjaro
Dead Meat – Pitti 2010
Dead Meat & Wonder Room [Wonder Room is a multi-disciplinary project conceived and curated by 2DM]
finally stated their collaboration on a new idea called Wonder-Tees, as you can easily guess, creating an unique line of T-Shirts to be launched the next Autumn. For this reason, we’re proudly presenting you the designer’s manifesto to get a little bit more inside their Weltanschauung, know more on how it translates on their clothing aesthetics and of course, properly enjoy this video.
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.947925&w=630&h=496&fv=]
“Dead Meat is a Communication Project and a factory, founded by Giovanni Battista de Pol and composed by 10 fantastic creatures. Clothing is the communication vehicle, promoting a “critical thinking” is the intent. Dead Meat owes much to William Burroughs, Kurt Cobain, David Foster Wallace…
The new Spring Summer line is inspired on a futurist theme. Technically, the collection is based on four colors: white, black, gray and orange. Through each color we investigate a different social being. White is the color for reason, faith and power. Black represents irrationality and instinct. Gray is the color for culture, doubt and relativism. Finally orange, which is the color for action, efficiency and physical strenght. The rest is explained through the language.
Dead Meat will be presented at Pitti Immagine Uomo, as usual, inside the Fortezza Da Basso, stand Touch.
For this upcoming edition Dead Meat is also among the finalists of Who Is On Next, a special competition created with the collaboration of L’Uomo Vogue and Alta Roma, the entire collection will be exhibited at Limonaia Garden of Villa Vittoria – Florence.”
Text intro by Elisa Lusso – manifesto by Silvia Bergomi – video courtesy of Dead Meat
Ubuntu Collection
“I am because we are” is the subtitle of the Ubuntu Collection, a project by The Inoue Brothers, which decided to collaborate with Gazelle and Créol Brothers for this 100% African collection. The well known knitwear brand have always been searching to further their endeavors in creating relations in communities where craftmanship and cultural heritage are rich.
We are the first to receive this exclusive sneak-preview of the entirely IPhone shooting done in the heart of Zaire few days ago. As the photographer Xander Ferreira says – together with Nick Matthews inside Gazelle, an Afro-futurism theatre/music duo – this is pure guerrilla style and the crew happened to fly in and out the country in the president’s private jet!
Ubuntu provided eco friendly organic hemp material as canvases: the result is a collection of printed and beaded T-shirts, where the final garment is produced through an uncompromising process commissioning local artisans and seamstresses around Capetown.
Last but not least, don’t forget that each item comes with a unique beaded USB key containing backstage pictures, portraits of people from Khayelitsha and a short film by The Inoue Brothers & Gazelle, who also provided for an exclusive music track.
By Elisa Lusso – Photography: Xander Ferreira – Ad: Gazelle and The Inoue Brothers – Starring: Kuku Agami
