The word “Phytophilia” has now been adopted by some in the sexology field to refer to those who have a fetishist or paraphilic interest in plants (i.e., individuals who derive sexual pleasure and sexual arousal from flora). It is an extension of dendrophilia, which is literally a love of trees. Both of these may involve actual sexual contact with trees and plants and their veneration as phallic symbols. Continue reading “Dendrophilia”
When Alessandro Michele was appointed Creative Director of Gucci in 2015, the fabled Florentine house seemed to have fallen into a sluggish trance. Michele’s immediate antecedents had allowed
Gucci to lapse into the “good-taste” bad habits of drooping houses: they devoted their energies to resuscitating heritage loafers from the archive and putting out collections of perfectly unobjectionable peacoat-friendly ensembles in bourgeois tennis-club pastels. It had been years since Tom Ford’s tenure electrified Gucci with a depraved iteration of deviant Hollywood glamour. Continue reading “Time Tourist: Alessandro Michele’s Immortal New Gucci”
The Kostis Enigma
Rebetiko, plural rebetika (Greek: ρεμπέτικο, ρεμπέτικα respectively), is a term used today to refer to originally disparate kinds of urban Greek folk music which have come to be grouped together since the so-called rebetika revival, which started in the 1960s and developed further from the early 1970s onwards. The word rebetiko is an adjectival form derived from the Greek word rebetis (Greek: ρεμπέτης), a word nowadays construed to signify a person who embodies aspects of character, dress, behaviour, morals and ethics associated with a particular Greek subculture. It is closely related, but not identical in meaning, to the words mangas (Greek: μάγκας) and mortis (Greek: μόρτης) but its etymology remains the subject of dispute and uncertainty. Rebetika, an often raw and uncompromising music, was simply not allowed into Greek recording studios in its genuine forms until about 1931. Continue reading “Kostis Bezos, a Greek Chameleon”
Dapper Dan 08 is coming out soon featuring, among others, AA Bronson, Aldo Maria Camillo, Consuelo Castiglioni, Simon Costin, Maxine Doyle, Pat Murano and Herbert Huncke. More soon…
A personal tailor is the height of luxury, for one reason: freedom. Having garments adjusted according to one’s desires sets one free from the hassle of trends that come and go—shoulders that inflate or deflate, hemlines that rise and fall, trousers that get narrower and narrower. (Lest you think this applies only to womenswear, consider how dramatically the shape of the tailored jacket has morphed since Mr Slimane arrived at Dior, or how ridiculously trousers have shortened thanks to Mr Browne.) Personally, I can’t stand it. Maybe it’s a matter of grumpy severity, or the result of a militaristic upbringing, or simple laziness. Whatever the reason, I have a fondness for the perfect stillness of the uniform, and a tailor can help you get one that really works. It is a fantasy—an old-world one, with heavy SM traits. A tailor makes you the master of your own wardrobe and I like being in control. Continue reading “Mr Matsushita And Me”
François Halard graciously agrees to an early-morning interview over the phone from New York. The French-born, continent-straddling photographer has been one of the world’s most highly regarded interior and architectural photographers practically since his teens, and his collaborative résumé is a roll call of legendary American and European artists, editors, fashion designers and art directors. The critic Vincent Huguet’s description of Halard’s work needs no translation: he photographs “en liberté, avec gourmandise, mais aussi avec une forme d’urgence, de nécessité”. Continue reading “François Halard talks to Filep Motwary”
The self-proclaimed “multimedia magazine in a box”, Aspen, lasted just 10 issues, released over seven years, from 1965 to 1971. It was founded by Phyllis Johnson, former editor of Women’s Wear Daily and Advertising Age, and although it was a niche publication at the time, it is now recognised as a seminal event in publishing, with a list of contributors that reads like a sale catalogue for Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary. The archetype of multimedia expression and experience that it established is played out today in the tactile sensuality of Visionaire, the arch exclusivity of Egoiste and the whimsical intellectualism of McSweeny’s. Continue reading “The Medium Is The Massage”
“My entire body of work should and can best be perceived by observing all of the garments that are presented each season,” the Japanese designer Junya Watanabe says. One of contemporary fashion’s most inventive minds, Watanabe is also one of the shyest. Pas mal: in the era of the fashion designer as tabloid megastar, such a rigorous focus on the clothes alone is admirable. Not that Watanabe inclines to the polemic; he is simply polite and reserved to the point of cryptic silence. Continue reading “Sarrasine: Junya Watanabe and the Death of the Author”
