Juergen Teller talks to Filep Motwary

Self-portrait as Santa Claus © Juergen Teller

I first met Juergen Teller at a lunch at Café Marly in Paris in 2004. He had recently shot Charlotte Rampling for the new issue of POP magazine, and five minutes later, in walked Miss Rampling herself. I had not met her before, but I did not think to introduce myself: I felt I already knew her, from Teller’s intimate, opulent photographs. That was just before Steidl published his book Louis XV, another collaboration between Teller and Rampling. We met once more to talk flash, flesh and feeling. Continue reading “Juergen Teller talks to Filep Motwary”

Texas Is The Reason

Photography by Socrates Mitsios

Josh T. Pearson looks a lot like Jesus, if Jesus came from Texas. He is a tall, broad-shouldered, magnificently bearded, twill-and-cowboy-boot-rocking dead ringer for the Son of God. Some years ago, he was the singer in a band called Lift to Experience. They released just one record – The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, a terrifying, glorious augury of death, destruction, exodus and apocalypse – and promptly suffered death and destruction of their own before melting back into the Texan desert. Continue reading “Texas Is The Reason”

Lucas Ossendrijver: L’etranger

Photography by Vassilis Karidis

Lanvin shows are a joy. Everything this venerable French house – pardon, maison – puts its stamp on, from the set to the music to the catering (not to mention the clothes), seems conceived to convey a sense of happiness, frivolity and legeresse, with an unmistakably French quirkiness. A few seasons ago, it served framboise and cassis macaroons – oh, those hyper-calorific, Technicolorful, Marie Antoinette, cream-filled meringues from paradise that generate the eternal stampede of super-sized tourists outside the Ladurée shops on rues Royale and Bonaparte – that were exactly the same shade of pink and purple as the clothes unleashed on the catwalk a few minutes later. Another season, the theme was the circus: sweets and drinks were served from a striped tent. Yet another season, it was cheesy disco and mirror balls – at 10am! PartiaI as I am to macaroons (indeed, to the French pâtisserie in its entirety), I confess that what gives me the greatest joy at each and every Lanvin show is the finale. Men’s shows are the best. Here you have creative director Alber Elbaz alongside designer Lucas Ossendrijver, together on the catwalk, taking the bow. You should see: they are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Where Elbaz is round, short and clad in a Chaplinesque, all-black ensemble of floppy jacket and rolled-up trousers, Ossendrijver is tall and lanky, all jeans, unpressed shirts and skinny jackets. Both shy and a tad goofy, they’re as far from the designer-as-Hollywood-star à la Tom Ford as can possibly be: a breath of fresh air. “Me and Alber, we are totally complementary,” says the softly-spoken Ossendrijver. “We are both similar and different. Work-wise, we function together perfectly: we talk a lot at each and every step of the collection’s development, but we need not be together all of the time. In fact, we don’t even share a workspace. We can see each other from the window – Alber’s studio is right across the street from mine”. Continue reading “Lucas Ossendrijver: L’etranger”