Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 35 - Art/Spring 2023 i L'OFFICIEL USA

Before they were ruling over House Mormont at the tender age of 11 or surviving the apocalypse with Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey was just a kid in Nottingham who loved to act. Now, at 19 years old, they’re the star of what’s already being referred to as one of the biggest shows of 2023. Despite their age, Ramsey seems to have cracked the code on having a career that appeals to even the hardest-to-please of audiences. Maybe it was their epic death as Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones; witty toe-to-toe repartee with Andrew Scott as Catherine Called Birdy’s sharp-tongued titular lead; or their latest role in The Last of Us as Ellie, a foul-mouthed 14-year-old desperate to get her hands on a gun. Or, maybe it’s the fact that,…

Salone del Mobile, the largest design fair in the world, would stretch for miles if laid end to end. But that wouldn’t even account for half of what constitutes Milan Design Week when it roars through the ancient canal city that Mussolini paved in his haste. Like an annual rainstorm that shakes the city, Design Week seems to seep into all of Milan’s hidden corners. It is in these verdant tucked-away spots that one finds a wealth of transformed boutiques, artistic interventions, group showcases, and top-notch gallery shows. And while these activations are technically all part of the same phenomenon, it is impossible to find a central index for all that is on offer, as many of them are independent initiatives. That’s the beauty of Milan as an axis of…

There has been much written on capturing the effortlessness of the “French Girl.” As the founders of Destree, Géraldine Guyot and Laetitia Lumbroso are helping women around the globe achieve the elusive style. Logging onto our Zoom call, the duo are wearing chunky gold baubles that reflect the sensibility of Destree—unique but distinctly wearable, with a Parisian sensibility. Art—both contemporary and classic—has long served as the central inspiration for Guyot, who studied Contemporary Arts at Central Saint Martins and has headed up the creative side of Destree since its founding in 2016. “I come from a family of art collectors and grew up in a very creative environment,” she says. It’s reflected in her own designs, but also in the ways that she has chosen to collaborate with creatives across…

This past January, Doja Cat sat front row at the Schiaparelli Spring 2023 Couture show with her skin—from head to toe—covered in tens of thousands of red crystals. The result was magnetic. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her, even though she was sitting next to fashion legend (and Elsa Schiaparelli’s granddaughter) Marisa Berenson, and near Kylie Jenner, who was wearing a realistic faux lion’s head on her gown. In that moment, Doja Cat transformed from mere pop star into a bonafide fashion superstar. Not content to rest on her Schiaparelli look, at the Viktor & Rolf show two days later, the singer’s beauty look consisted of unconventionally worn false eyelashes, which formed eyebrows, a mustache, and a soul patch. It was a wink to those who had suggested…

Hair: It’s something that everyone has in some way, shape, or form. From body hair to facial hair to hair hair, it remains a crucial part of identity. Just as clothing and accessories trends speak to different classes, subcultures, or generations, what’s on our heads (and bodies) can be just as telling. As explored in the latest Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibition, Des Cheveux et Des Poils (“Hair and Hairs”), hairstyles, color, and a lack of hair have all played silently potent roles in society for centuries. From coiffeur Léonard Autier’s laboriously elaborate poufs for Marie Antoinette, to the world’s first celebrity hairdresser Monsieur Antoine and the garçonne cuts of the Roaring ‘20s, to the politically charged Afros of the ‘70s, hair was and remains a form of social capital…

Over the course of 30 years and 25 performances, Vanessa Beecroft has built a solid international reputation. Born in Genoa, Italy, later moving to Brooklyn and then Los Angeles, Beecroft has presented her works in some of the biggest galleries and museums around the world, from the Venice Biennale to the Guggenheim Museum, as well as the Gagosian Gallery in London and Los Angeles. She also directed Kanye West’s Runaway video, and has since frequently collaborated with the rapper and designer. While she’s known for her performances, Beecroft also practices photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture. When asked about the key moments of her career, Beecroft responds: “The move to the United States, the renunciation of bourgeois life, the battle I continue to fight to not conform to the system in…

Sometime last fall, Sara Cwynar was deep in what she dryly implies is a frequent pastime: perusing obscure image archives. Browsing The Met’s online catalogs in search of World War II–era costumes, the artist happened to notice a group of photos depicting mannequin-like fashion dolls, staged individually on a plain studio backdrop, dressed in miniaturized versions of decadent formal attire. The collection, shot in the 1950s, ostensibly chronicles French fashion history. “But the outfits have nothing to do with anything 95 percent of people would have ever worn,” Cwynar notes of the dolls’ aristocratic garb. She was charmed by the marvelously odd characteristics of the series, and deliberately lingered on this archival detour. While the doll images hovered in open windows on her desktop, Cwynar casually began scanning the avant-garde…

Parisian architect and designer Laura Gonzalez travels to all corners of the world on ambitious projects that span the gamut—hotels in Rome and Spain, a concept store in New York, and luxury boutiques in Tokyo and Hawaii—all done up in her maximalist style. “Each project is a new story to tell. Above all, I always love redoing mythic places,” she says. Born in Paris, Gonzalez grew up near Cannes, in the south of France. Her father was a hotel and restaurant owner, and she was immersed in the world of hospitality. “My father’s office was lined with cashmere prints. Every room in the house was very busy and maximalist, with inspiration from North Africa, particularly Algeria, where my father was born,” says the architect. “As an only child, my parents…

In 1989, L’OFFICIEL released its 752nd issue, the very first to be devoted entirely to art and exploring its lasting connection with fashion. The Marseillais sculptor César Baldaccini, known mononymously as César, was invited to create a completely original objet for the cover. Celebrated for his work using metallic compression—including a nipple-shaped sculpture currently housed at Maison Azzedine Alaïa—the result was “Cube journaux. Titre L’Officiel.” A trompe l’oeil, cube-shaped sculpture, it is only 90 x 100 x 10 centimeters and is made of more than one hundred covers of L’OFFICIEL, which had been gifted to the artist for the project. In an interview for the issue, César opened with a bold statement: “Fashion is a spectacle. Fashion is a painting.” Counting couturiers like Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, and Paco Rabanne…