The UK’s only black tie music festival, Henley Festival, returns for its 42nd year, this week. LUX has a look

Mud, sweat and beers. That’s what one associates with music festivals. Well one hopes that there’ll be sun, a friend or two and some good music to make your voice worth losing back at the work the next day. (‘Been off ill, have you?’, one hears the boss ask. ‘Yes, yes’ one surreptitiously croaks. ‘Not at Glastonbury?’ ‘No, no; just a cold…’) Not, however, at Henley Festival…

Henley Festival features not only music, but art, comedy and what it calls the ‘Roving Troupe’, groups of roaming entertainers of various sorts.

The town, renowned across Britain for the home of the Royal Regatta, has been pulsing to the UK’s only black tie music and arts festival. The dress code reads somberly that if you are spotted in casual attire, you’ll be ‘refused entry to the event.’ One pictures security guards in morning suits rather than fluorescent jackets. 

Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, England, is home to the Henley Royal Regatta, first held in 1839 as a local festival but now an internationally renowned competition.

Henley, in line with its dress code, ensures that both art and gastronomy are focuses of equal measure to the music, which itself proves to be strong and eclectic.

In the past, Henley Festival has featured Jess Glenn alongside the Heritage Orchestra, Melanie C alongside Goldie, and the Pet Shop Boys as well as Chaka Khan. This year, the lineup has procured artists from across the pop, classical, world music, and jazz settings, from Nicole Scherzinger to Dave Stewart’s Eurythmics Songbook, to Trevor Nelson, Gladys Knight and Sam Ryder. Oh, and a minor addition – the semi final of the Euros will be shown as part of the festival this year, on July 10th.

KATYA, winner of the Rising Star Initiative, rose to fame with her debut single, ‘I’ll Take Your Number’, featured on Spotify’s Fresh Finds UK & IE playlist.

2022 saw the 40 year anniversary for Henley Festival, and marked the founding of RISE – a platform lifting up emerging young musicians, comedians and visual artists. This, as Jo Bausor, CEO of Henley Festival, contents, is ‘rapidly becoming the beating heart of Henley Festival and is at the core of everything we do.” And this year, one will find the inaugural Westcoast RISING Star Award – awarded to multi-instrumentalist KATYA, who has impressed the UK’s largest festival, Glastonbury, as well as BBC Radio 1, for her electronic beats, jazz overtones and soundscapes.

The range of dining and drinking options spans from riverside fine-dining to grazing, to various bars across the site.

It’s no surprise that a music festival in Henley – the second most expensive market town in England for property – has opted for black tie. But what is surprising is how radical it seems that, despite the obvious discomfort of mud, sweat and beer, no other festival in the UK has gone for the comfort and sophistication of bow ties, velvet and Veuve Clicquot. For now.

See More:

henley-festival.co.uk

CMG Orchestra in Hollywood performing a piece composed by AIVA. Photo by Lance Bachelder

AIVA AI is an AI music composer which allows people to create their own personalised life  soundtracks. Here, LUX speaks to its founder, Pierre Barreau, about the future of AI and its impact on the music industry

LUX: Can you give us some background about your company and why you founded it?
Pierre Barreau: AIVA is a company I started almost seven years ago with my co-founder, whom I met at university. We were both musicians and engineers, and there was a natural inclination to start this company with a focus in both fields. The premise we started with was that, while music is an insanely rewarding thing to do and create, it also requires a lot of time, money, and tools. We believe more people out there should be able to create music and would enjoy it, but they don’t have the time or resources.

Our idea was to bring music creation to the masses: we want to help people who are complete amateurs or be able to create music with technology, as well as assisting professional musicians who may just want an assistant to suggest ideas when they have writer’s block, or need a guiding hand to in their creative process.

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LUX: You have both a creative and scientific background, from your filmmaking experience to your studies in computer science and engineering. When did you realise it was possible to marry these two fields?
PB: When you do any sizable project, it becomes very obvious that a good director or composer is one who is well-versed in technology. As a film director, you need to deal with camera software to edit the video you are shooting, you need to deal with lighting. For music creation, it is a bit more nuanced; of course, you can write music with pen and paper, but some of the most prolific music creators these days use their laptops to create music or synthesisers to create music digitally.

You open yourself up to the realm of possibilities if you consider technology as a creative partner when creating music. There is sort of no way, in my opinion, you can be an effective composer or director if you completely shut off technology.

Pierre Barreau

LUX: How would you respond to claims that AI is going to devalue the work of human beings, especially in the creative industries where job security is an issue?
PB: It is an important question; whenever you have a technology that raises the bar for what people are able to do in terms of creating music, it can be a bit scary. But what I would say is that historically there have been other technical advances that have brought music-making to the masses, and these have not reduced human creativity. In fact, they have supercharged it.

When the synthesiser was created, people were very scared that it was going to replace acoustic instruments and that it was going to lead to this world of digital, horrible sounding music. Instead, what it created was a world where we have new genres of music like hip-hop and electronic music. Another example is the invention of the digital audio workstation. It allowed people from their bedrooms to become producers so they didn’t need to hire expensive studios to record their music.

LUX: Can you tell us about your vision to create a personalised life-soundtrack for every person?
PB: I think the interesting thing is using AI to do what we can’t do as humans right now. One such thing is this idea of personalised soundtracks; let’s say you are going running and you want music tailored to your own performance or to stimulate you for the extra mile. Then imagine an AI that could compose what you need based on your own rhythm.

I think that would be a hugely powerful thing to have for very different industries, in this case, running, video games, and interactive content that have a lot of diversity in the gameplay and the stories that they tell, but the music tends to stay the same. Just being able to generate the music as the player moves through the game and the experience, and help them create their own story, can enhance the experience they are having.

LUX: Do you ever think this tool could ever be a danger to society? Could people use it as a means to cause damage?
PB: I don’t think I am worried about the directly manipulative aspects of AI, specifically in music. There could be a lot more said in other domains, like the audio, text and visual domains.

CMG Orchestra in Hollywood performing a piece composed by AIVA. Photo by Lance Bachelder

I think one potential challenge that could be very real is giving powerful tools to those whose intentions are just to flood the market and devalue music by humans. But I think that, fundamentally, human music operates on a completely different set of parameters. We go to concerts not to see a computer performing music but a performer dances, has a show and tells us about their own personal life story through their lyrics. People connect to stars because of their own personal drama and the story surrounding them. I think for that reason, It is more about the economic side, not about manipulation, despite what many depictions of AI would have you think.

LUX: Do you think we could ever get to a point where AI could compose a piece of musical genius, or would they always need human input to do this?
PB: In my opinion, whether we call someone a genius tends to be determined by two things. Firstly, the personal; some people will argue certain composers are geniuses, whilst others will argue totally the opposite. It depends on taste. Secondly, there is hindsight, like how we celebrate composers of the past who weren’t appreciated in their time. I think one of the reasons for that is because, in order to create something which is truly genius, you have to be ahead of your time. It won’t be appreciated immediately, but people will learn.

I think with AI , the aim is to create something humans appreciate now – that’s kind of the point. I am not sure anyone will be able to connect to something that an AI creates that we can’t appreciate now. That is also part of the reason why I am hopeful there will still be human creativity, because we can really only connect to something that pushes the boundaries if it is created by humans, if there is a story behind it. Otherwise, it may be devoid of meaning. But as far as creating something that is exceptionally good in terms of quality, I think AI can definitely do this.

CMG Orchestra in Hollywood performing a piece composed by AIVA. Photo by Lance Bachelder

LUX: How do you imagine an amateur would use your service, and how is this different to the way a professional musician might use it?
PB: For amateurs, the AI will help them to create a composition. Maybe they will modify the composition to better fit what they have in mind, or swap an instrument, add a little bit of musical effects, or switch a few notes here and there. But fundamentally, they will be equal partners, with the AI as writers.
Professionals may use more in-depth features like providing their own musical material instead of letting the AI generate compositions based on that. In general, Making a more in-depth modification of the material is usually the difference between the two.

LUX: Will AI be able to create experimental music like the kind that has never been heard before, or would it always be taken from what’s already existed?
PB: It is very possible to do something that does not exist. But again, we go back to this idea of being able to appreciate what pushes the boundaries, and I think it is harder for humans to appreciate something that is truly out there if it is created by a machine. Whereas, if it is created by humans, it is easier to find a way to connect to the story behind it, which leads you to appreciate this novel idea. Whilst it is functionally possible to do it, I don’t think it creates as much value as when a human does it.

Read more: Deutsche Bank’s global innovators meet in Silicon Valley

LUX: Do you think musicians today are welcoming this kind of innovation, or do you anticipate any backlash to this? What responses have you received so far?
PB: Both. Some people are extremely enthusiastic, even some professional composers that see it as an extension of their own abilities, as a tool. And then there are some people who are completely against it. Looking back at previous technological innovations, it is pretty much the same as before. There tends to be a change of opinion when people try it. Once they begin to try the software, they quickly realise it is just a tool. But when you just talk about AI music on a high-level, conceptual basis, people might be more inclined to fill in the blanks and think the technology is something that it actually isn’t, or does something that it actually can’t do. And so, for that reason, the feedback tends to be quite positive when people tend to use the product themselves instead of discussing high-level concepts.

Find out more: aiva.ai

All photos courtesy of AIVA AI

Shezad Dawood, Night in the Garden of Love, 2023. VR environment, duration variable, produced by UBIK Productions, co-commissioned by WIELS, Brussels and Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. Courtesy of UBIK Productions

British artist Shezad Dawood is presenting his latest exhibition ‘Night in the Garden of Love’ at WIELS in Brussels this May. Commissioned by WIELS and the Aga Khan Museum, this exhibition marks Dawood’s largest presentation of new work since 2019 and his first solo exhibition in Belgium

Shezad Dawood is known for his experimentation across numerous different disciplines and exploration of different cultures. Inspired by the works of musician Yusef Lateef, ‘Night in the Garden of Love’ showcases a captivating blend of music, drawings, virtual reality experiences, painted textiles, algorithmic plants, costume-sculptures, and live choreography.

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He first came across Lateef’s music in his youth, and later became fascinated by his abstract drawings which often feature dreamlike landscapes and strange but beautiful life forms inspired by music pieces. Dawood’s latest exhibition, however, is based on Lateef’s novella, from which it takes its title.

Shezad Dawood, Night in the Garden of Love, 2023. Performance rehearsal, Choreographer and Dancer, Wan-Lun Yu. Costume by Ahluwalia. Image by Miranda Sharp. Courtesy of UBIK Productions

Lateef pioneered a methodology he called Autophysiopsychic music, which he defined as “music from one’s physical, mental and spiritual self”. Like Dawood, he integrated cultures and traditions from across the world into his artwork and experimented across many different mediums. The exhibition serves as a dialogue between Dawood’s practice and Lateef’s, and through it, Dawood aims to create a metaphysical and virtual space, leveraging technology to imagine new forms of togetherness while also addressing the climate crisis.

Installation view ‘Shezad Dawood, Night in the Garden of Love’, WIELS, Brussels, 2023 © We Document Art

On wide variety of mediums featured in the show, Dawood told LUX: “It took me almost 8 years to bring this project to fruition, and one of the key aspects for me was the set of correspondences and echoes between Lateef’s music, his drawings and his writing practices, which I began to see as one expansive score.

Installation view ‘Shezad Dawood, Night in the Garden of Love’, WIELS, Brussels, 2023 © We Document Art

This allowed me to build the show as an iterative score, where each element leads to the next and informs and amplifies it, like stars in a constellation.

Read more: Vik Muniz’s Mixed-Media Reflection on Perception and Materiality

When I paint I often think of colour in terms of a palette of sound and music, and then elements from my paintings informed the digital seedbanks, as I derived the base designs for each algorithmically generated plant from my paintings, that were in turn responding to Lateef’s original drawings, which also feature in the show.”

‘Night in the Garden of Love’ is running until Sunday 13th August at WEILS in Belgium

Fausto Puglisi, Creative Director of Roberto Cavalli

Fausto Puglisi, Creative Director of Roberto Cavalli, has revitalised the Italian fashion house, which found high-octane fame in the 2000s, turning it into a hot-ticket brand for Gen-Z. Puglisi talks to LUX about glamour, passion and reimagining Cavalli for a more inclusive age

LUX: You have always had strong links to the Roberto Cavalli brand. What made you join it fully in 2020?
Fausto Puglisi: Roberto Cavalli is a brand I am totally comfortable with. It has always been a brand linked to women’s freedom, to seduction. The seduction that Roberto Cavalli represents today for women is not to please anyone but herself. It is, above all, linked to freedom, empowerment and dynamism. The Cavalli woman is sexy and glamorous- she owns her own body. I love seeing my Cavalli far away from any ideas of misogyny, closure and armouring. These do not reflect my woman, who is free and always advocates for freedom.

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LUX: Roberto Cavalli has a particular place in fashion history in dressing music stars. Is this a legacy you with to continue?
FP: Everything began with music in my career. My biggest supporters have always been music stars and I will continue to support them with Roberto Cavalli. The brand represents a continuous bond with music and so it will remain in the future. It comes to me spontaneously and naturally.

Sketch for a custom-made pieces by Roberto Cavalli, with Puglisi’s comments for Jennifer Lopez in 2022

LUX: How is Cavalli best worn- as a prize piece or as a full outfit?
FP: Cavalli can be both a full outfit and a prize piece. I think of different women and aesthetics when I imagine the pieces I develop for my collections. I am thinking of women who could wear a Cavalli total look, but also of those who could be defined as “not for Cavalli”, but who would be able to wear a beautiful pair of Roberto Cavalli trousers – perhaps combined with vintage knitwear pieces for their parents, or even a Cavalli biker jacket with a splendid skirt by another famous brand.

LUX: What are your favourite pieces from the SS23 collection>?
FP: I love all of them. In particular, the slip dresses in the Wild Leda print, which I wanted to name in honour of Cavalli’s wild heritage. Also from the new collection I love all the flat folds on the clothes that recall old Hollywood, a sort of Babylon in Puglisi Sauce.

LUX: Any print you are particularly fond of?
FP: I love the Wild Leda print. Roberto Cavalli started out as a painter, and, as he transitioned into fashion, he continued to design his prints by looking at art and historical paintings, and interpreting them in his own way. Wild Leda is a celebration of beauty as a female superpower. It is a celebration of spontaneous sensuality, of pleasure in nature, à la Cavalli.

An image from the Roberto Cavalli SS23 campaign

LUX: Who are the ultimate Cavalli women to you today?
FP: For sure, I would say J.LO, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.

LUX: Do you feel that the Y2K trend has been good for the brand?
FP: Absolutely. The kids who grew up with Roberto Cavalli are now about 25 years old and experience the brand as a beautiful memory linked to Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé of the early 2000s and Jennifer Lopez. There is certainly a very strong bond between the new generations and that of Roberto Cavalli in the early 2000s.

LUX: How do you feel about revisiting iconic eras, such as the 2000s, through clothes?
FP: I love it. I was living in the US in the early 2000s when Roberto Cavalli was the big superbrand. First I live in NY, then I moved to LA. Roberto Cavalli was Hollywood, the maximum glamour possible. It was blaring music, a supercar that races tirelessly.

Sketch for a custom-made pieces by Roberto Cavalli, with Puglisi’s comments for Taylor Swift in 2023

LUX: What are your thoughts on consumerism in fashion?
FP: I believe in everything that is done with the heart and with passion. Therefore, I do not believe in unbridled consumerism for its own sake.

Read more: Donatella Versace Interview: Doing It Her Way

LUX: Do you like the idea of passing clothes down from generation to generation?
FP: I believe in quality and emotion. Fashion must convey an emotion, so it is right that if a garment is beautiful, well made and able to excite and last over time, it can be worn through various generations. Our latest collection has an example of this in the kaftan, which recalls the famous ones worn by Marta Marzotto. The piece was reworked and adapted to modern times. It represents an ideal, inclusive piece that can be worn by one woman, and then reworn by her daughter or granddaughter who uses it to go dancing in Ibiza. The cuts and shapes of the dress change slightly with the times, but the attitude is the same.

Find out more: robertocavalli.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Joel Isaac Black, a.k.a. Hazy Pockets, is the curator of the legendary playlist for Zermatt’s eco-chic hotel CERVO. In the panoramic terrace and restaurant of the hotel, which is decked out entirely in vintage market finds including a well-travelled camper van, guests and visitors will hear tunes from Benin to Bolivia. Isabella Sanai speaks to Black and photographs him in his adoptive hometown of Berlin.

LUX: When did your interest in music begin?
Joe Isaac Black: My father is a fantastic blues guitar and harmonica player, his organic sounds permeated every moment in my childhood home. Some of my very earliest memories include positioning a small stool in front of a quite temperamental vinyl record player, stepping up and learning to balance coins for weighting on the tone-arm, and dropping the needle on a remarkably diverse collection of records. Hearing the dusty crackle of the needle in the groove, and sprinting to the sofa to perform an improvised dance routine in my underwear was where the lifelong musical love affair started. I suppose I am still reliving this moment to this day.

Bazaar restaurant at Hotel Cervo Zermatt

LUX: You describe seeing music in 3D spaces/shapes – what does that mean?
JIB: I would describe it more as my ability to project myself into hypothetical sonic spaces, to really “hear” and “feel” what it might be like to be in a certain room with certain music or sounds. I can often slip into my own imagination, and have a very powerful and tangible gut feeling of what needs to fill these spaces.

LUX: You mentioned you were first drawn as a child to the geometry of percussion. How did your affinity with rhythm evolve into music curation?
JIB: This can be understood in a bit more of a dry and scientific manner. I am a drummer, DJ, and dancer, all pastimes that at their best have an inherent coordination and swing to them. Symmetry, repetition, the quiet spaces in between … This rhythm is an essential human energy, a level or mood that affects every individual in a room whether they know it or not.

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The architecture, dimensions, and materials of a space reflect the sounds and music, and are factors in that basic rhythm. Curating music is an imperfect attempt to match that geometry with a beat that makes everything feel just its proper place.

LUX: What do you think makes a DJ successful?
JIB: The right song at the right time is the most powerful tool in the universe. Knowledgeable channeling of shared moods meaning more right songs at the right time helps with the success. I sound like a grumpy gate-keeper, but a deep understanding of music genres, strains, traditions, and histories allows one to make those choices. Also, personality, character, and presence sell the songs, but in the end, it’s elemental synchronicities lining up that make a DJ magic and thus memorable and hopefully building momentum to a crude definition of success.

Along the Rummelsburger Bucht, a few minutes walk from Black’s first studio

LUX: Do you feel your music taste is influenced by your surroundings?
JIB: Absolutely. I am a compulsive integrator, imitator, absorbing everything around me and consciously or subconsciously mixing this up with all of my older instincts.

LUX: You mentioned your involvement with Allah Las. What do you think of this rebirth we’re seeing of psychedelic rock?
JIB: I was close with them from their infancy as a band as we were colleagues at the record store. The boys are just sweet and genuine west coast surfer golden children. Rock and psychedelic are slippery words these days. Kids are becoming more genuinely open-minded, factually-driven, and informed about altered states and beneficial psychedelic experiences, and thus they really need the right soundtrack. Set and setting. The bold experimentation and indelicate purity of 60s rock psychedelia and guitar music must be very very appealing to kids coming of age in an era of digital overload.

LUX: Are there any new projects on the horizon?
JIB: I am dedicated to launching my agency, Wild Mountain Honey, a unique address for sourcing and building immersive music experiences and collaborations for the finest luxury hotels, restaurants, and unique clients world-wide. It’s really an exciting culmination of my music curation and event-building activities, a highly-refined expression of all of my network and skills, a chance to work with incredible talent from live music, to DJs, to culinary stars, and create unforgettable magic moments.

Read more: Henry Lohmeyer on the impact of words and photography

My work with my home base, True Blue Music Berlin continues to provide thrilling soundtrack, sound-design, and studio production undertakings…and as the germans would say, I am a ‘Rampensau’, a shameless slave to the stage, so my live band Tegel Boys will release new music and tour, while my true love, my endless DJ voyage continues as Hazy Pockets.

LUX: What advice would you give to young creatives?
JIB: Own your talents and flaws, and refine and shape those into a form that is irresistible to your patrons and clients and still fulfilling. Unhitch the trailer of ‘giving a f*ck’ what peers, competitors, or critics think of you and your work. Repeat it. The show must go on!

Find out more:

www.wild-mountain-honey.org

www.instagram.com/hazypockets

Photography: @sheherazade_photography

Olivier Krug. Image by Jenny Zarins

Olivier Krug, sixth generation director of the Krug champagne house, sits down for a tasting with a musical difference with LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai

Olivier Krug is smiling on a Zoom screen, standing behind a row of bottles in his office in Reims, Champagne. He has just been speaking about his family’s long-standing passion for music, which he has recently combined with the day job, making some of the world’s most celebrated champagnes at the eponymous Krug champagne house, in an initiative called Krug Echoes.

For Krug Echoes, the champagne house, now owned by luxury behemoth LVMH, has commissioned a series of musicians to create music to match its different, sublime champagnes.

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Olivier says the idea was inspired by an executive at the company who went to a tasting of gourmet chocolate. Each different chocolate was accompanied by a different piece of music, and while they tasted very different, at the end it was revealed that the tasters had been eating the same chocolate each time: the music had triggered such different emotions that the participants’ perception of taste had altered for each.

The science of how emotion and mood, catalysed by music, affects taste is real but in its infancy: meanwhile Olivier Krug has stolen a march on it with the Krug Echoes initiative.

Below, Olivier explains his family’s long association with music; underneath which LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai, who tasted the champagnes and experienced the music over Zoom with Olivier Krug, gives his tasting notes.

Image by Jenny Zarins

“When I joined Krug 30 years ago I sat in front my dad, and I was expecting to have the 9 AM legendary glass of Krug that people get when they join the company. I did get it, and then I was expecting my dad to start a very technical explanation of this job. He said, “You know, Olivier, my job is very similar to the role of a conductor.”

I said, “What conductor dad, are you playing music, or making champagne?”

He said, “I am creating champagne, but my job is very similar to the role of the conductor,” and I said “Why?” and he said, “My job, my mission, every year is to recreate a music that was invented by Joseph Krug, your great-great-great grandfather, in the 1840s. He wanted to create a type of champagne, and type of music, that did not exist. A champagne that would not rely on waiting for a good generation of musicians, but would offer the fullest music of champagne every single year.”

Read more: Parisian jewellers GOOSSENS opens its first London boutique

Great champagnes rely on great years, this is why most of the great champagnes have a vintage, there is a stamp on the label telling you: “This comes from 2002, therefore, it is good.” You know nothing about the story of 2002, but you trust it is the better champagne. But we do not have a good year every year, and so in other years you have to deal with a quality which is more uneven.

That was not satisfying at all for my great-great-great grandfather, who had already spent, as a young German immigrant, ten years in a big champagne house, and despite the fact he had a good job, despite the fact he was married to someone from the family, and despite the fact he was 42 years old (which was old in the 1840s), he decided to leave to create his dream: a champagne that would offer, every year, the fullest expression, the fullest music of champagne.

Olivier Krug with a portrait of his great-great-great grandfather Joseph Krug. Image by Jenny Zarins

So how can you do that? Of course, every year is different. You have good years and less good years. Sometimes, you have two or three good years in a row, and despite the fact they are good they don’t look the same at all. It’s the same as when you take the top 20 musicians of the five best music schools in the country; you will have a year when you have 18 violins, but the following year the generation of violinists will be very poor, and instead, you will have drummers and flautists.

But for me, as a conductor, I want to be in a position, every year, to sit in my orchestra and see all these instruments. I want them to be individually, if not the best, then the purest, the most intense character in their field. If I have to wait every year to have a good generation of musicians, I will have a year led by violin, and the next year will be led by other instruments and the following year will be forgotten, because no one is good enough alone on stage.

Read more: Tiqui Atencio on the value of collecting art

But if I could put myself in a position to put aside the extra musicians that I have, the year where they will not be offered to me, I will able to call them back, and ask them back into the orchestra. For example, the year where I have 18 violinists, I don’t need 18 violins in my orchestra, I only need six or eight or four so I will call the lead violin, and I will ask the other one to be a spare, and probably next year, I will call back one or two or three of them, and ask them to play in the orchestra, because the next year will not be about violins.

So every year, whatever the quality of the year, I will be in a position to find the musicians that I need to play everything. And the example of this is Krug Grande Cuvée, this is the music analogy that my dad made at the beginning.

Music has always been strongly present in my family. At the beginning of the 20th century, my great grandfather had a Salle Domestique, a room which was entirely dedicated to his friends or family members who were playing an instrument, and since that room is next to the cellar, I believe that the good people were deserving of a good glass of champagne at the end of the recital, or even before, who knows. We’ve always been very used to music.”

The Krug Echoes Tasting with Olivier Krug

Tasting notes by Darius Sanai

Krug Clos du Mesnil 2006

This is a blanc de blancs champagne (100% chardonnay) but it has as much in common with a common-or-garden blanc de blancs as a Dior couture gown has with a fast fashion frock. There are so many layers to this, like a gastronomic experience in a glass: it combines a streak of freshness with a deep cluster of honeyed buttered croissant and the aroma of cycling through Fontainebleau forest in October, with a drop of Sorrento lemon. It’s fashionable to liken complex Chardonnay-based champagnes to aged white Burgundy wine but this is something else entirely, even more complex.

I first had the Clos du Mesnil while sitting in the Clos du Mesnil smoking a Partagas D4 in the early 2000s and this is the perfect Havana cigar champagne; perhaps to be accompanied by some agnelotti al tartufo with a little taleggio. Mixing cultures, why not.

Krug Echoes music match  Krug Clos du Mesnil 2006 by Ozark Henry – Meteor’s path

Krug 2006

Highly concentrated, tightly packed, layer on layer of flavours and richesse. The Krug house wasn’t (quite) around when Louis XIV had his audiences at Versailles but this is the kind of champagne I can imagine being served to the Sun King while he feasted on partridge, his audience watching on. Chamber music would work nicely, although the Krug Echoes choice is more original.

Krug Echoes music match: Krug 2006 by Kris Bowers

Krug Grande Cuvée 162ème Edition

Grande Cuvée is the orchestral composition Olivier was referring to in his fascinating musical history of the family. For me, if it were a symphony, it would be Beethoven’s Ninth, or perhaps a Mahler. It has drama, different levels of notes, and it is endless – in the best possible way. This is a champagne you keep tasting even after you have finished it. The Krug Echoes music choice is far more digestible than a Mahler symphony, of course.

Krug Echoes music match: Krug Grande Cuvée 162^ème Edition by Ozark Henry

The champagnes for this tasting were provided to LUX by Krug: krug.com/playlist/krug-echoes

Still from Within, directed and choreographed by Benjamin Millepied with music by Thomas Roussel. Photograph by Melissa Roldan

To celebrate the launch of their latest timepiece, Richard Mille invited choreographer Benjamin Millepied and composer Thomas Roussel to create a short film incorporating original dance and music. Here, Abigail Hodges takes a closer look at the performance and watch design

RM72-01

The Richard Mille 72-01 Lifestyle In-House Chronograph is the brand’s first flyback chronograph made entirely in-house, and through its design it aims to weave together tradition and modernity – a concept which is also at the heart of WITHIN, a short film created by Benjamin Millepied and Thomas Roussel, set in the desert landscape of southern California.

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The film brings together the physical wonder of a ballet performance and the powerful sound of orchestral music to celebrate the precise art of watchmaking and Richard Mille’s bold, contemporary design aesthetic.

Both images: stills from Within. Photography by Melissa Roldan

While Millepied’s choreography – performed by two dancers – reflects how classical structure and form may be artistically reinvented, Thomas Roussel’s composition blends orchestral and electronic elements to create a dramatic, vibrant soundtrack which was performed by the 50 musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded at St. Luke’s Church in London.

Read more: Philanthropist Keith Breslauer on combining business & charity

The watch itself aligns with Richard Mille’s avant-garde approach to time-keeping and design (the watch face, for example, features only the numbers three, eight and eleven), but it is also one of the brand’s subtler and more elegant models. Worn on the wrists of both dancers in the film, it pairs perfectly with their formal costumes and the stark, dramatic landscape.

Watch the film below:

For more information visit: richardmille.com

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour at Château de Chantilly outside Paris. Photograph by Gavin Elder

Filmmaker Gavin Elder has created films for the likes David Lynch, Mark Ronson, Duran Duran, ACDC and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Here, he speaks to Paige Nelson about his career highlights, the challenges of shooting in a Roman amphitheatre and capturing the atmosphere of live music on video

1. Did always want to work in the film industry?

I picked up my Dad’s Super 8 camera when I was ten years old. The unique Super 8 sound, and the tactile feel of film running through the camera lit something inside me.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

2. Who have been the most interesting people to work with so far?

Working with David Gilmour has been an absolute high point. I remember the very first day we started filming at Bray Studios, he was rehearsing with the other members of Pink Floyd [Rick Wright and Nick Mason], and someone shouted, ‘Let’s do C Numb!’ They launched into ‘Comfortably Numb’, and the hairs on the back of my neck jumped up.

Fans at an ACDC concert in Buenos Aires. Photograph by Gavin Elder

3. How do you create the atmosphere of a concert in a film?

This varies from artist to artist, but I think the most important element is for the performer to be relaxed enough with the process of filming that they focus on the music and their performance. My role is to then select camera positions and capture the show without being obtrusive. The musical highlights, subtle glances and infectious smiles between band members together with the audience create the magic.

Read more: Chopard’s Caroline Scheufele on versatile jewellery design

4. Is there any person you would drop everything to do a documentary on?

Don’t they say you should never meet your heroes? Working with David Lynch on a project for Dom Pérignon was extraordinary; he had such a great sense of humour and incredible focus while working. I remember the laughter, and a great sense of team work.

In 2011, Elder created a short film capturing behind-the-scenes footage of David Lynch (above)  shooting Dom Pérignon’s new campaign. Photograph by Gavin Elder.

5. Are there any artists who have inspired your works?

I think street art as much as fine art has influenced my approach. I’ve made films with Faile, Shepard Fairey and street artist Ludo. Giles Walker made a phenomenal piece titled The Last Supper which I documented. I travel extensively and different cities around the world contribute to the vitality and energy in my work.

6. What are biggest challenges of any project, and how has the pandemic affected the film industry?

When we filmed Live At Pompeii all the equipment had to be hauled by hand down a specially built road to the edge of the Roman amphitheatre – a logistical challenge, which the local Italians rose to. During the show, a rogue drone flew dangerously low over the audience and a laser team tried to disable the drone’s camera with a focused laser beam. The drone footage has never surfaced so perhaps they were successful.

The pandemic has been devastating [for the film industry]! Numerous projects have been cancelled, although some work has started to trickle back now. There have been some interesting online concerts and new approaches to entertaining fans, but it’s difficult to replicate the live feel, the bass in your chest, the shared experience, the intensity.

Follow Gavin Elder on Instagram: @gavin_elder

Abdullah Ibrahim by Lex van Rossen

Abdullah Ibrahim was discovered by Duke Ellington, fought against apartheid, and played at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. The South African jazz legend speaks to LUX from his Cape Town home about his hopes and dreams

My favourite view…

The stars in the night sky over the green Kalahari.

The best place to listen to jazz…

Where your chosen jazz musicians are playing.

Where you’ll find the coolest new bands…

In the place you least expect.

The only thing I’ll queue up for is…

A masterclass with a master.

Most overrated tourist spot…

The beach.

Most undiscovered tourist spot…

The unlisted one you discover.

What I love about Cape Town…

The flowers and animals.

My favourite smell…

Musk.

I feel most at one with nature in…

The desert, hills and rivers.

The best local dish…

The traditional dish prepared at home.

My favourite memory is…

The next one.

What I think of the youngest generation…

I was once like them.

If I live to be 200 I would like to see…

If that bird at daybreak still sings the same song.

My proudest achievement is…

Realising and accepting that the process of learning is boundless.

My greatest fear is…

Becoming complacent and lapsing into a comfort zone.

My biggest regret is…

Not doing enough to seek for knowledge.

Find out more: abdullahibrahim.co.za

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

Warwick Acoustics’ flagship headphone system, the APERIO, promises the ultimate listening experience. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics

British company Warwick Acoustics has developed a reputation for innovating and producing innovative audio technology. Their flagship headphone system, the APERIO, takes both sound quality and product design to the next level with a 24 karat gold hand-finished limited edition. Here, LUX discovers how the ultimate listening experience is achieved

Numerous studies have shown that listening to music can positively impact your mood, well-being, sleep quality and cognitive ability, reduce stress, and even ease physical pain, but is there such thing as a perfect listening experience?

‘Sound is definitely a subjective experience and what is considered ‘perfect’ for one person may not be for another,’ says Martin Roberts Director of the Headphone Business Unit at UK-based audio technology company Warwick Acoustics Ltd., whose products are designed to achieve an exceptionally high level of sound clarity. Their recently unveiled flagship headphone system, the APERIO (named after the Latin word meaning to uncover or reveal), follows the company’s Sonoma Model One (M1) electrostatic headphone system, and is the result of three years of extensive sound exploration and technical development carried out in their Warwickshire workshops.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

‘Simply put: the APERIO is designed to reproduce audio content as pristinely and accurately as possible – revealing the details and complexities in the original recording without colouration or alteration,’ explains Roberts. A review in Hi-Fi News claims that the system possesses the ability ‘to deliver rare insights into your music.’ Whilst this level of sound quality is naturally more geared towards professionals in the music industry, the company hopes the product will also appeal to music-loving high-net-worth individuals as a high-functioning collectible item.

Each APERIO is assembled by hand in the company’s Warwickshire workshops. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics

In terms of design, the company believes in American architect Louis Henry Sullivan’s ethos that ‘form follows function’, and aspire to create products that have a timeless appeal.

Read more: Why it’s important for banks to incentivise sustainability

The standard version of the APERIO, for example, is understated in sleek black with soft sheepskin leather and stylish detailing such as the curved metal patterning of the headphone grilles, which visually evokes undulating sound waves.

The APERIO standard version. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

The limited-edition Gold APERIO is more flashy, crafted from 24 karat gold (including the headphone grilles, hardware and Amplifier front panel) in England’s historic jewellery quarter in Birmingham. Limited to 100 units globally, the system is now available to buy in the UK exclusively from Harrods in Knightsbridge, London.

It’s not just the design that has been upgraded, however, the Gold system also utilises the highest grade Balanced-Drive HPEL Transducer (the component that determines the quality of sound reproduction) innovated by Warwick Acoustics to guarantee outstanding performance. That level of quality doesn’t come cheaply though; the Gold model retails at a cool £30,000/US$35,000 whilst the standard version is priced at £20,000/US$24,000.

The Gold Aperio is limited to 100 units, available in the UK exclusively at Harrods, London. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

But how exactly is audio performance or sound quality measured? Each APERIO undergoes rigorous testing, including at least three human listening tests, before the product is released from the company’s Warwickshire facility. ‘The APERIO is about listening to music as if you were there,’ says Roberts. ‘I remember when I visited a very famous recording studio in Los Angeles and a mastering engineer listened to a remastered recording by the great Frank Sinatra… He listened intently to the same track several times then just sat back and said, “Wow.”  When I asked him how his experience was he said, “Amazing, I have literally listened to that Sinatra track a thousand times and this is the first time I have ever heard him smacking his lips in the pauses between verses of the song…Simply astonishing detail”.’

Read more: Artist Yayoi Kusama’s designs for Veuve Clicquot

Warwick Acoustics’ anechoic chamber where the headphones are tested. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

Attention to detail is at the heart of Warwick Acoustics’ engineering philosophy. The whole system is designed to work harmoniously together, rather than piecing together disparate components and technologies. In many ways, it’s a similar process to the development of a supercar or ultra-high-performance watch, and ultimately, that’s what you’re paying for: the experience. Listening to music is, after all, a process of immersion, of gradually getting closer to the sound, of being slowly transported into another place, self, or way of being.

For more information visit: warwickacoustics.com/headphones, or contact [email protected]

Ruth B. photographed during making of her video for the single ‘Dirty Nikes’, 2020. Image by Gabriel LN.

Is Canadian singer-songwriter Ruth B. the new Tracy Chapman? She has a soulful voice, thoughtful and concerned lyrics, and a growing wave of followers around the world. She also has some of the most creative videos around. Oh, and she speaks fluent Amharic. LUX speaks to her about the music business, social media, BLM and whether playing the piano matters

Ruth B. is a musician very much of her generation. Born Ruth Berhe in 1995 in Edmonton, Alberta – her parents had emigrated from Ethiopia to Canada – she started posting short videos on the now defunct Vine platform in 2013. One of these fragments of a song gained thousands of likes and eventually became her bestselling single ‘Lost Boy’, which in turn has received over 500 million plays on Spotify alone. That song features on her album Safe Haven, released in 2017 on the Columbia label.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

This kind of rapid rise in the music industry is one that has been made especially possible by social media. But it has also been made possible by Ruth B.’s own skills as a singer and keyboard player – her warm, soulful voice and subtle piano style have won her fans across the generational divides – and by her dedication to her art and her ambition to have artistic control over her songs and videos.

Like most musicians, Ruth B.’s career has been put on hold during lockdown brought about by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, but it hasn’t stopped her working entirely as she continues to write songs at her home in Edmonton, where she was living when LUX spoke with her.

LUX: When did you start being interested in music. Was it when you were very young?
Ruth B.: I think for me music was always a really prominent part of my life. I just naturally gravitated towards it. I loved singing; my mum sang a lot around the house. I just really loved to make noises with my voice or make sounds with pots and pans, or whatever it was.

LUX: And were your parents musical? Did they encourage you down that route?
Ruth B.: My mother sang in a choir. No-one was particularly musical, but my whole family appreciates music, and they were always very supportive of me, and put me in piano lessons.

Image by Gabriel LN.

LUX: You’re a very contemporary singer, but there’s something very classical in the way you play piano and sing. Are you aware of this?
Ruth B.: I don’t know if I’m aware of this, I just think that’s the type of music I love listening to and love making. When you start to get more into the music world you get to know what kind of production you want, but I’m aware that I want to keep it organic and stripped back.

LUX: When you were young, playing around with music, did you think you would end up as a global star? Was it an ambition of yours?
Ruth B.: I kind of always hoped I’d end up in music. I didn’t know in what capacity or what that meant, but I certainly knew that music was going to become the focal point of my life.

Read more: Prince Robert de Luxembourg on wine, gastronomy & storytelling

LUX: Do you feel that you have succeeded? Or are you on the path to other things?
Ruth B.: Yeah, I’m always working towards different goals. I’ve definitely had successes… I think in the beginning I was always super critical and hard on myself, but now I think it’s important to celebrate wins and the good things that happen. But I think I still have a long way to go, and there are still things I want to accomplish.

LUX: Like what?
Ruth B.: One goal that I always tell people about is to put out an album that I write, produce, engineer, all by myself. I’ve done the writing, and the production a bit, but all the other stuff I’m still learning. So that’s my biggest goal, to put an album that’s just, you know, completely me.

LUX: Are you releasing an album or some more songs this year?
Ruth B.: Yes, I brought out a new single this summer, and we shot the video for it it in my hometown. And an album towards the end of this year or the beginning of next. It’s been in the works for the past three years now.

LUX: Your videos are very dreamlike and artistic. Do they come from your ideas, or is there someone else who directs them?
Ruth B.: For most of my music videos have been made by different directors, but I’m pretty heavily involved in everything I do. So, I write up my ideas for the video of a song and send it out to three or four producers, and whoever’s vision matches mine is who I’ll go with. I’ve been lucky to work with some really talented people.

LUX: Some of the ideas in your videos are quite surreal, aren’t they?
Ruth B.: They really are. I like to focus on the little details and surprises here and there. I’ve always been into fantastical and magical stuff since childhood, so it’s seeped its way into the videos for my songs.

A still from Ruth B.’s ‘Lost Boy’ music video.

LUX: How important are the videos?
Ruth B.: They’re very important. A visual alignment with what you’re hearing is important, especially for a lot of people, and it can sometimes make or break a song. I’ve had songs in the past where we’ve shot an entire video and spent three days and a lot of money on a video, and it just doesn’t work, so we end up not using it.

LUX: Looking on, it seems you’re just doing what you love, and that’s it. But is it difficult?
Ruth B.: Yeah, it is, like any job. But with music it’s hard because sometimes people forget that just because you love music, it doesn’t mean you’re like this super outgoing, big personality. For me, that was the hardest part – getting used to being at the forefront of things. Even being on stage at the beginning was super hard, because growing up I was pretty introverted, but I think over time I’ve got used to it and grown a love for it. It comes with its hardship. You pretty much give your whole life to touring. But I think at the end of the day, if you really love it, then it is worth it.

Read more: Penélope Cruz on designing jewellery for Swarovski

LUX: And what are the biggest challenges?
Ruth B.: I think for me it’s the being away from home and family. Being from Edmonton, Alberta, I spent a lot of the early years, at 18 and 19, away from home. That was difficult – just always being on and ready to go. Shows can be really tiring, and that whole thing of being on stage for an hour or two every night can be hard, but again, you’re doing the thing you really love, so in the back of your head, you’re thinking this is amazing, regardless of how tired you are.

LUX: Do you find it difficult being a young black woman in music?
Ruth B.: Yeah. Being a young black woman in general is difficult in our world, but in music I’ve definitely faced some adversities, but it’s kind of always been that way. It’s not new. It’s stuff I’ve faced in workplaces before now, or in school. It’s certainly there, which is unfortunate.

LUX: Do you think things are changing with Black Lives Matter and recent developments?
Ruth B.: It’s inspiring to see people talking about it and it being at the forefront of a lot of conversations. That inspires change, and with the people I work with, talking about how we can change the industry for black people.

LUX: Do you experience any ageism as well?
Ruth B.: Yes. I think in the beginning I had a hard time with it, because I would always be like this 18 or 19-year-old girl walking into a room of older, usually white men, and it can be a little bit… ergh. But I think for me, at least in my experience, the older I got the more confident I became in my ideas, and more married to the idea of executing things in the way that I wanted them done. Over time I’ve grown a thick skin.

LUX: Thinking about ‘If I Have a Son’, did you write that as a reaction to BLM?
Ruth B.: Yeah, I wrote that after everything happened with George Floyd. I mean, those feelings were always there, but I never thought to put them in a song, just because I never thought I’d get that honest or deep in my music. But when you’re faced with such a hard pill to swallow all you can do is try to channel it, so for me that’s always been music. It’s my go-to therapy, just writing out everything I’m feeling in response to what’s going on.

The singer on set for ‘Dirty Nikes’ 2020. Image by Gabriel LN.

LUX: Do you have a good idea about who your fans and listeners are? Is there a single type?
Ruth B.: You know, I don’t think it’s one type of person, because at my shows it’s such a diverse mix of people. That’s like my favourite part, you have little kids and older people and different races and backgrounds. It’s really nice.

LUX: Do you have plans to direct movies or anything beyond pure music making?
Ruth B.: I’ve always been really interested in a lot of stuff. I love to read; I love to write. Eventually, one day, I would like to write a book. I don’t know what kind; it’s always been on my bucket list.

Read more: American artist Rashid Johnson on searching for autonomy

LUX: What kind of books do you like reading?
Ruth B.: Growing up, it was very much fantasy, magic, dragons. As I got older, I got to like mystery. I like poetry, that’s where my heart is now. It goes hand-in-hand with music.

LUX: What poets are you reading?
Ruth B.: I read a lot of Maya Angelou, I love Robert Frost. I also really love Pablo Neruda. I think for me it just helps with my song writing, and garnering inspiration for that. Poetry is really just music without melody, so it’s inspiring when I’m trying to write my own music.

LUX: Do you see yourself as a businesswoman? Is making money a goal or just what happens?
Ruth B.: As you get older you start to think more about business, and you get more on top of your stuff. It’s never been that important to me, but I have my friends and family who tell me I need to keep on top of that. So, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to become more business oriented. In the end, though, the main priority is making music, and I’m happy to be where that can be my main focus, just creating art.

LUX: You came to prominence through Vine. How important is social media?
Ruth B.: It’s really important. And I say that mostly because I’m from a tiny little city in Canada that not a lot of people know about. It’s such a great tool just to get your voice out there in real quick time to spread the word fast. You know, ‘Lost Boy’ started off as a six-second Vine and if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

LUX: Has your use of social media changed?
Ruth B.: I’m not as active now as I once was. I don’t plan things out as I used to. In the beginning I would post a cover or some kind of lyric every day. It’s really important when you’re trying to get your foot out. Now I use it to tease music, when I’m about to put something out. Or I’ll tweet lyrics, and I won’t tell people that they’re lyrics, over a few months, and then the song will come out and people will say, “Oh, I remember when you tweeted this ages ago”.

Read more: Designer Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar on bringing dream worlds to life

LUX: I guess you’ve been at home in lockdown like the rest of us. What’s that been like?
Ruth B.: It’s been a challenge, for sure. There’s been some good things, spending time with friends and family. Returning to my roots, and being in my bedroom just writing and with my keyboard. I’ve been so lucky to work with different producers and writers all over the world, but now it’s back to the very beginning, in my room.

LUX: Outside of lockdown, what is a normal day for you?
Ruth B.: A normal day for me… I was living in New York and I would probably spend somewhere between nine and twelve hours in the studio, and then come home, eat dinner, go to bed. And it’s probably my favourite part about all this, being locked in to create music and getting to do that every day.

Ruth B. in the studio. Image by Marc Offenbach

LUX: You once said that you weren’t a big party person, but do you still feel like you have to be on the scene to keep up your image?
Ruth B.: Erm, no. I think you can be whoever you are, whoever you want to be. It’s easy, when you’re young, to get caught up in who you should be and what you should want to do, but I’m 25 now, and I have a good idea of who I am, and where I’m going… I’m still figuring it out, but I’m OK with being who I am, and with the fact that I don’t like to go out. I do, from time to time, but it’s not my thing, and that’s OK. There are people who are the same as you and who can be your clique or group. The older you get, the more you’re just like, “Hey, I’m me”.

LUX: Looking forward 10 or 15 years, what would you like to have done by then?
Ruth B.: I guess by then I just want to have made music that means something to me. With everything going on over the past few months, with ‘If I Have a Son’, it’s really inspired me to use my voice and my platform to do good, and to talk about things that actually matter. I just hope I will have done that in some sort of way, and stuck true to who I am. That’s the most important thing to me.

Read more: Get to know the marine biologist pioneering coral conservation

LUX: The reflective and spiritual nature of your songs remind me of Tracy Chapman.
Ruth B.: Well, thank you, that’s so kind. I love Tracy Chapman. That means a lot. I’m a very spiritual person, and very into what I love (which is music), and if people feel that, that’s always a really good feeling for me, so thank you.

LUX: How have you managed to stay grounded as your career has exploded?
Ruth B.: In the beginning it was a lot to handle, because you’re whisked away from home and it’s not like you can call up your friends like you used to. It’s a whole new life. For me the hardest thing was just feeling misunderstood, even by friends and family. You know, as much as they wanted to, they just couldn’t really understand what was going on in my life. They could be there and support me, but I couldn’t go to my best friend and say, “What do I do here?”, because she just didn’t get it. But I’m so thankful to them for keeping me grounded. I think it’s just about keeping those people close to you, and keeping those things the same, because it’s not easy staying yourself when the whole world is changing around you. I think if you make it a priority to not lose yourself in all of it, it’s doable.

LUX: You’ve said that you’re filming a video in your hometown soon. Why is that?
Ruth B.: Mainly because I’ve been isolating at home with my family. I didn’t go to New York when all this started, so I’ve just been in Alberta with my family. To be honest, I’ve always wanted to shoot something at home. I think it’ll be cool for people to see where I’m from and where a lot of these songs have come from.

LUX: How do you write a song? Does it come to you quickly, or does it take months?
Ruth B.: It’s become very abstract. When I started writing two years ago, there was a method to everything. I’d sit at the keyboard, and have a lyric, and I’d write around that. Now it’s all over the place, and I prefer it that way. I could be having a conversation with a friend, and something they say could stick out, and I grab my phone and write a note. Lately I’ve been into coming up with new melodies and writing around that. Life inspires me, really, so whatever feelings I’m feeling – happy, sad, mad, in love, heartbroken – that’s the main focus.

Find out more: ruthbofficial.com

This article features in the Autumn Issue, which will be published later this month.

Tom Dixon’s Fat chairs, Beat pendant lights and Tube table. Image by Peer Lindgreen.

Millie Walton speaks to four design leaders – Bentley’s Stefan Sielaff, Gaggenau’s Sven Baacke, Tom Dixon and Cristina Celestino – about innovation, sustainability and the evolution of their industries

TOM DIXON
British designer and founder of the Tom Dixon design studio

Tom Dixon

“After trying art college for six months, I broke a leg in a motorcycle accident and gave up education in favour of a career as a bass guitarist in a disco band. After another fortuitous motorcycle accident, I was unable to join the band on tour. I discovered welding and, driven by my enthusiasm for making functional forms in metal, I began a series of radical experiments in shape and material. There is a freedom in music that I transferred to design.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

“I rarely think of the final shape of an object or the surface before I start. I’m always thinking of the material possibilities, the potential of the factory and the structure of the object, which means that I’m a vertebrate designer rather than an invertebrate! I’m obsessed with how you make things and what they are made of. My style is reductionist and constructivist, meaning I try to make things as simple as possible.

“It’s hard to not be overwhelmed by outside influences. It’s important to develop your own design personality. I avoid looking at design and look at art, industry, cooking, science and nature.

“A designer has to work on the edge of their comfort zone, to use new processes or materials or shapes or new functions to create something new. They have to be in the present.”

tomdixon.net

The Back Home furniture collection designed by Cristina Celestino for Fendi Casa. Image by Omar Sartor

CRISTINA CELESTINO
Architect and designer, founder of Attico Design

Cristina Celestino

“When I design a product, a chair or a lamp, I start by thinking not only about the single item, but also about the whole mood, and where it could be settled within an interior. I pay a lot of attention to the proportions and scale. For me, there is not much difference between designing an interior or a piece of furniture; in the end they must both have strong personality and power. Details are always what matter most. Every last finish, all the colours and fabrics, must be perfect and work together. What’s important is the coherence of the story that you are telling.

Read more: Gaggenau is bringing global attention to regional artisans

“The way we approach design and, in particular, architecture should be definitely changed by the theme of sustainability. Nature should be protected and valued like an infrastructure that is always ready to help us when needed. In the furniture and interior design fields, I work with sustainability at different scales. It is not enough to use the ‘right’ or eco-friendly materials if they are not related to the design or to the success of a project.

“Sustainability should be part of all logistic and manufacturing processes, not just about the final product itself. This is why I pay careful attention to the materials I use, from their sourcing to the geographic location of suppliers and the manufacturing techniques.”

cristinacelestino.com

The 2020 redesign of the Bentley Bentayga. Courtesy of Bentley Motors.

STEFAN SIELAFF
Director of design at Bentley Motors

Stefan Sielaff

“Our customers expect a luxury product, manufactured with integrity. They want a unique, timeless piece of art that they will feel happy with for many years; an object that does not age from an aesthetic point of view so that it can be passed on to their daughters or sons. Bentleys are a fusion of the best. The sporting aspect of Bentley models is historically in our genetic code, but we don’t design, engineer and manufacture sports supercars in the common sense. The power in our Bentleys is not for showing off, it is discreet and sophisticated.

Read more: Looking back on 125 years of Swarovski and into a new era

“Very often the source of inspiration comes when we are in a team setting and sparks a whole series of design concepts, not only with me, but with the whole design team. This works like a chain reaction. If the idea is really good, there is a natural flow in the team.

“Car design will change dramatically in the next 10 years, as the car industry itself will also change. There will be new and completely different challenges from a technical as well as social acceptance point of view. The mind-set will change especially for luxury cars just as it will in the luxury industry as a whole. Sustainability is a key factor already within the Bentley brand, and it will continue to be crucial to the driver and passenger experience.”

bentleymotors.com

Gaggenau’s 200 Series combi-steam oven. Image by BJP Photography Ltd

SVEN BAACKE
Head of design at Gaggenau

Sven Baacke

“In my opinion, there is no such thing as timeless design because design is always in the context of people and the time in which it is bought and made. I call Gaggenau’s design approach traditional avant-garde. The brand has a heritage of over 300 years, but on the other hand, it has always been looking to the future and doing things that other people thought would never sell. Balancing these two things is in the DNA of Gaggenau, but what we have done in the past two years is to think about the traditional and the avant-garde in the extreme. One extreme could be that in the future there is no kitchen at all.

Read more: How Andermatt Swiss Alps is drawing a new generation of visitors

“We have been thinking about megacities where space is a luxury and about the future of housing more generally. What does it mean when luxury comes in a nutshell? What is compact luxury living? What will happen if the whole kitchen becomes even more invisible when not in use? What happens if people don’t go to work anymore, but work from home?

“The other major question is: can luxury be digital or is it always analogue? At the end of the day, I believe that the kitchen is still and always will be the heart of the home. We will still gather around a fireplace even if it’s a digital one in the future.”

gaggenau.com

This article features in the Autumn 2020 Issue, hitting newsstands in October.

Erdem Moralioglu by Tom Mannion

Erdem Moralıoğlu’s flagship store is in Mayfair, but the heart of this designer to the stars is in hip east London, where he lives and has his studio. He gives LUX a pre-lockdown tour of his home patch

My favourite view…

The view from the restaurant at the top of the National Portrait Gallery

The most romantic spot for dinner…

St John on Commercial Street

The best spot to read a book…

The London Library

The best place to take a selfie…

No selfies!

Where you’ll hear the coolest music…

The Glory in Dalston

The only coffee I’ll queue for…

Violet on Wilton Way (they also do the best cinnamon bun in the world)

The perfect spot not in a travel guide…

The stacks at The London Library – I could spend hours getting lost in all the books

A tourist destination that’s worth the hype…

The Turbine Hall at Tate Modern

The best spot for some people-watching…

Broadway Market on a Saturday

The taste that reminds me of my childhood…

Mangal 2 on Stoke Newington Road, which is my favourite Turkish restaurant in London

My favourite museum/gallery…

The Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum or anything at Maureen Paley

The shop I never want to leave…

My shop in Mayfair. I spend a lot of time there and many of my clients say it feels like home

The best place to soak up some nature…

In the pool at London Fields Lido in winter

The perfect weekend brunch…

Allpress Espresso on Dalston Lane

I’m prepared to make a detour for…

The National Portrait Gallery

I’m at home in….

Hackney

View the designer’s collections: erdem.com

This story was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

Shirin Neshat at home in New York City

Shirin Neshat’s devastatingly striking art combines dream, reality and an undercurrent of anger and sadness. As a major retrospective of her work is held in Los Angeles, Millie Walton meets the artist at the launch of her collaboration with celebrated Italian winemaker Ornellaia, famous for its artist labels

Portrait photography of Shirin Neshat at home in New York by Maryam Eisler

Iranian-born filmmaker and artist Shirin Neshat sits demurely drinking a cup of coffee in the palatial breakfast room at Baglioni Hotel Luna in Venice. It’s the morning after the Sotheby’s auction at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection which saw the sale of limited-edition bottles of 2016 Ornellaia wine with Neshat’s label artwork. A total of $312,000 was raised, with all profits going to the Mind’s Eye programme, which was conceived by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to help blind people experience art through the use of other senses.

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The success of Neshat’s collaboration, following that of William Kentridge’s in 2018, was well deserving of late-night celebrations, but the artist is composed and alert, her jet-black hair scraped tightly back from her face, and her dark eyes lined with black kohl. It’s a look that would seem somewhat severe or even theatrical on most, but Neshat wears it with authenticity, grace and a sense of homeliness. She pulls up another chair close to hers so that I can hear what she’s saying over the clamour of the breakfast buffet and tells me that she’s been ordering coffee to her room each morning and is worried that Ornellaia will have to foot the bill. Given the sum raised last night along with Neshat’s status as the world’s most important and widely recognised contemporary Iranian artist, it’s hard not to laugh, but she speaks softly and sincerely, taking time to consider each of her answers and apologising when yet another admirer interrupts for an autograph. She has a lot of fans it seems, yet her politically engaged work continues to generate debate. She admits, “Some people dislike what I do. There are a lot of people who hate my work in Iran, but still it is discussed, so I think I’m relevant.”

Here and above: stills from Neshat’s video Rapture (1999)

Neshat was born in the city of Qazvin, north-west of Tehran, but left for California at the age of 17 to finish her schooling. Her training as an artist began with her undergraduate and masters degrees in fine art at the University of California, Berkeley. However, she abandoned art-making and moved from Los Angeles to New York in the early 1980s. It was a decade later, through photography first and then film, that she found her artistic vision. She has now been working as an artist for more than 30 years and has won numerous international awards, including the Golden Lion at the 1999 edition of the Venice Biennale for her powerful short film Turbluent, which explores gender roles and social restrictions in Iranian culture. The film plays out on two screens: one shows a male performer singing a love song by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi to a large audience of men, whilst on the other screen, a veiled woman waits in an empty auditorium, her back turned to the camera. When the man’s performance finishes, the woman begins a wordless song of guttural cries, mournful melodies, panting and animalistic screeching. This film was not only significant in establishing Neshat’s career, but also in paving the way for her succeeding works, which all, in one way or another, deal with the restrictions of female experience. Though embedded in narratives of conflict, Neshat’s work offers a sense of hope in which women find freedom through art in all its various guises.

Neshat’s designs for Ornellaia’s ‘La Tensione’ bottle label

Neshat with Ornellaia’s estate director Axel Heinz

Given these preoccupations, the artist’s decision to collaborate with Tuscan winemaker Ornellaia is somewhat baffling. “In our culture, wine is a way not to escape, but to transcend reality and so [drinking wine] is a sacred, spiritual act,” says Neshat. “But in general, I feel like an occasional step out of your own milieu is actually very positive. For one thing, it puts your work in front of a new audience, but also, for me, [commercial work] is an attractive way of financing my projects. I make work that takes me six years and I make zero money so I think that any patronage that finances your practice and gives you the freedom to do your work is great.” Her series of images for Ornellaia, interpreting the theme ‘La Tensione’ which gives this vintage its name, depict white hands inscribed with Persian script, luminous against a black background. The use of hands, along with literature and monochromatic shades are all typical of Neshat’s aesthetic and imbue the work with a haunting, dreamlike quality. “I’m very interested in the subtlety of body postures and how they can reveal emotion, especially coming from the Islamic tradition and how provocative and problematic the body can be,” she says. “There’s a certain universality about hand gestures.” She places one palm against her chest: “This, for example, could be love”.

Ibrahim (Patriots) from The Book of Kings series (2012) by Shirin Neshat

The work is reminiscent of Neshat’s first series of black-and-white photographs, entitled Women of Allah (1993–97), which was created following the artist’s return to Iran in 1990, her first visit following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. When Neshat arrived back in Iran, it was in the wake of dramatic cultural changes. Women of Allah not only marked the rebirth of her making art, but also her engagement with the country’s political landscape – an engagement which led to her current state of exile. The series focuses on female martyrdom, showing veiled women holding weapons, their faces, hands and feet again inscribed with Farsi poetry, highlighting the revolutionary Iranians’ dual identities as both Persians and radical Islamists, as well as the tension between devotion and violence.

Read more: Introducing the next generation of filmmakers at Frieze LA

Her practice continues to be preoccupied with contrasts, highlighted by the minimalism of black and white, but also with conflict. “There are plenty of artists whose making of art is an aesthetic exercise, which is important because it has intellectual and artistic values of the highest level,” she explains. “But for artists born to a country like Iran, the relationship to art is personal in a way that it cannot be separated from daily realities. I don’t think we have the emotional capability of distancing ourselves from these issues, and it is an incredibly fulfilling process when you make work that is politically conscious. It also means that you have a relationship with an audience that is larger than the [usual] art audience because people are able to identify with the subject matter.”

Despite Neshat’s acute political engagement, her work has a sense of timelessness achieved by incorporating literature and music as well as elements of the surreal. “Music is very existential,” she says. “It sort of neutralizes a political reality, but it also contains all these cultural references and has a strong physical impact. Powerful music affects your heart.” This is perhaps most apparent in Turbulent, which was inspired by a young blind woman who Neshat saw singing on the streets of Istanbul. Many of her works have involved collaborations with composers and musicians as well as writers and cinematographers. “It’s an essential part of my work to collaborate, especially with people who know me and my work well,” she says. “I’m doing a lot of work in media that I never studied. It’s been really interesting to surround myself with people who have the expertise.”

The artist in her studio

Neshat’s artistic ‘family’ is international, but she has gravitated towards other Iranians in New York: “I am sitting on the outside [of Iranian culture], others are by choice and others not; either way, we’re naturally drawn to each other and spend a lot of time helping each other. I do feel integrated in American culture as far as the artwork goes, but I can also see the limitations of not being Western, when your practice is considered to be a little bit outside the box.” Reflecting this duality, Neshat curated ‘A Bridge Between You and Everything’, an exhibition of Iranian women artists held at the High Line Nine Galleries in New York in November 2019.

Raven Brewer-Beltz (2019) by Shirin Neshat

Neshat has called New York her home for many years, but her latest project, Land of Dreams, is the first time that she has directly turned her artistic attention towards the US. The project explores her experiences of being an immigrant, focusing on an Iranian woman who collects dreams that portray American people and takes them back to an Iranian colony for analysis. The project is now being shown for the first time as part of Neshat’s major retrospective ‘I Will Greet the Sun Again’ at The Broad in LA, and one wonders at the colony’s interpretations. “It’s kind of an absurd comedy,” she laughs, “but it was also [about] how to tackle a very important political subject – the antagonism between the two cultures as well as the corruption on both sides – through a human surrealism so that it escapes absolute realism. I want it to be timely, but I don’t want it to have no value in a hundred years’ time.” Are these surreal imaginings ever drawn from Neshat’s own dreams? “Yes, I try to write down my dreams every time I wake up. I like how ephemeral dreams are. My work is like the story that comes after.”

‘Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again’ is on show at The Broad, Los Angeles until 16 February 2020: thebroad.org.

Shirin Neshat ‘Land of Dreams’ opens at the Goodman Gallery in London on 20 February and will run until 28 March 2020. For more information visit: goodman-gallery.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

Commissions by Audemars Piguet include Ryoji Ikeda’s Data-Verse (2019)

Olivia Giuntini is brand director at family-owned Swiss watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet, known for its thoughtful artistic collaborations. LUX travels to meet her at their HQ high in the Jura mountains to talk about art, fish and why women don’t just want diamonds

Olivia Giuntini

LUX: So many brands are partnering with artists now. What makes you different?
Olivia Giuntini: We always want to push boundaries and pursue our own path with a free spirit. When we meet artists, we definitely see who has this spirit and who has not. For example, Ryoji Ikeda was not part of the plan historically, but we met him a few years ago. Some discussions happened and we finally met again two years ago and that’s the moment when he proposed his three-part audio-visual installation Data-Verse [the first part of which was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2019], and, we said, “Yes this is the right moment to do it”. But Ryoji is an artist unlike any other. He is a musician and composer, and he is also somebody who uses open data that is accessible to anybody. This accords with what struck me when I first met him – his work is dedicated to making sure that people don’t use their brains first so much as their emotions. He is a kind of free spirit, which is something that definitely links us. It’s about sharing common values. Jana Winderen is another example. She came here and made music from the sounds of our village of Le Brassus. She always wants to raise the awareness of sustainability, so she went onto the lake here to record those fish that nobody can hear and composed music from that.

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LUX: Did you have any idea what the artist was going to do when you first spoke?
Olivia Giuntini: Composing music from the sounds of Le Brassus certainly wasn’t the brief. Not at all. We met her and she came back and said what she wanted to do. So we found a fisherman who was
prepared to spend hours on the lake with her so she could make the recordings.

LUX: Audemars is a fascinating family-owned company. Your chairwoman Jasmine Audemars, for example, was a campaigning journalist and edited the Journal de Genève.
Olivia Giuntini: We have really interesting discussions on the board. Of course, we still have to keep on building a future for Audemars Piguet that stays true to the founder’s vision. What Jasmine said to François-Henry [Bennahmias, the company’s CEO] when he was appointed seven years ago was, “I would like more people to know more about who we are. I would like people to respect us as we are.” And that’s what we need to do with this brand beyond the selling of watches and the crafting of amazing gardes-temps.

LUX: And are you looking to strengthen your relations with your existing collectors?
Olivia Giuntini: It’s funny, because if you talked to Michael Friedman, who is our head of complication, he will tell you there are no collectors in the world. But I agree with you – we do have collectors and we want to strengthen the relationship with them. We want to open other minds, too, such as women’s – I’m sure we’re not on their radar.

Dan Holdsworth’s Continuous Topography (2016) was also commissioned by Audemars Piguet

Read more: Tailor to A-listers Nigel Curtiss on designing identity

LUX: Why is that?
Olivia Giuntini: Because everything has been done instinctively within AP and, apart from Jasmine,
this has been driven by men. The fact that I’m here today and that we want to recruit more women into top management is because we believe that we need to have a different angle. We sell 30 per cent of our collection to women. But it’s not just a question of figures; it’s about being more visible to women who don’t know us because we’ve been a kind of masculine brand.

The new Frosted Gold Philosophique watch from the Millenary collection

LUX: Have watches always been considered male and a bit geeky?
Olivia Giuntini: Watches designed for women have been more like jewellery. And I’m constantly saying to men: don’t think that women are always looking only for diamonds. It’s not true. And I think that Audemars Piguet has a legitimacy there, in a field where we can offer female clients different kinds of finishes that are attractive and sophisticated. I’m convinced that many women are really interested in movements, but, honestly, it’s been a world driven by men and their preconceptions of women. It’s beginning to change, and we have a role there.

LUX: Is the aesthetic of the watch more important to women?
Olivia Giuntini: Of course, in a way. But I think that men are convinced that, for women, a diamond is more important than a movement. And I’m sure they’re wrong.

Find out more: audemarspiguet.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

ArtSocial launches art therapy programmes to help disadvantaged children and young people. Image by Justyna Fedec

Alina Uspenskaya is the Founder and Director of ArtSocial, a foundation that supports and establishes arts therapy programmes to help disadvantaged and vulnerable children. Here, Alina tells about the foundation’s vision, annual fundraising gala and plans for the future

Alina Uspenskaya

1. How was the ArtSocial Foundation born?

I started ArtSocial more than 5 years ago because I wanted to combine my passion for art, my love of bringing people together and desire to work for a cause that I care about. During my childhood in an industrial city in the North-West of Russia, arts unlocked a different world for me – a world in which I could dream, and aspire to a full and diverse life. I always wanted to find a way of helping other young people, especially those who are the most vulnerable and to help overcome social, economic or health challenges, using the power of art.

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In the art and fashion worlds of London I met many people and luxury brands who have joined me on this mission. With all of this endorsement, I was able to set up ArtSocial Foundation in 2016 alongside the ArtSocial Patrons Club, which is a philanthropic community supporting the foundation’s work.

2. Have you always been interested in the arts?

Art, music and drama were a huge part of my life. When I was a teenager, music gave me a refuge from the feelings and emotions of a turbulent adolescence. When I moved to London over 10 years ago, I discovered this city through its art and met many like-minded people thanks to the vibrant art world.

I should say, though, that the love of art is not enough to run a charity, even if it is an art-related one. That is why recently, in addition to an Art History degree, I graduated with a Masters in Charity Management from Cass Business School.

3. Which of ArtSocial’s programmes are you most proud of so far?

It has to be the most recent program of art psychotherapy in children’s hospitals that started at St Mary’s Hospital in November and will soon expand into The Royal Brompton Hospital paediatrics department.

Doctors and psychologists agree that art psychotherapy can be very effective in providing an emotional support during hospitalisation, especially for children who cannot always express their feelings with words. I’m excited that this year almost 1000 children and young people who are seriously or chronically ill, or hospitalised will receive much needed emotional support from art therapists funded by ArtSocial.

ArtSocial Patrons Club visit to the studio of artist Hassan Hajjaj

4. How do you become a patron and what does it involve?

ArtSocial Patrons Club is made up of like-minded and diverse people from many backgrounds who share a passion for arts and philanthropy. Throughout the year our patrons enjoy a curated programme of events, including artists’ studios and private collection visits, gallery and art fair tours and bespoke behind-the-scenes visits. In the past, we have visited the studios of artists such as Mary McCartney, Paula Rego and Hassan Hajjaj. This season’s highlights include a backstage tour of The Royal Opera House and a visit to the couture atelier of Ralph & Russo.

An annual patron’s contribution is £1200 and thanks to this support, we can sustainably fund some of our long-term commitments and start new projects. To keep up the community spirit of our Patrons Club, we open up just a few spaces to new members every season. Myself or my team meet with every applicant to ensure he or she receives the best welcome and feels properly involved in what we do.

Actress Sally Phillips was a special guest at the ArtSocial gala and auction 2019

5. Can you tell us about the annual gala event?

In addition to the contributions we receive from patrons, we raise funds at our annual Christmas Gala and Auction. The recent gala brought together 90 people from the worlds of art, fashion and business. Our special guest was Sally Phillips (an actress and a champion for Down’s Syndrome awareness) who gave a touching speech in which she shared how music helps her son Olly (who has Down’s Syndrome) to gain confidence and essential social skills.

Christie’s auctioneer Charlie Foley auctioned a stay at Joali (the Maldives’ first immersive art resort), a luxury experience with Chanel in Paris, a stay at Amanzoe resort in Greece and other luxury experiences.

The atmosphere was very warm and supportive. Thanks to our guests, auction partners and our main partner Faidee jewellery, we raised funds to run all of our projects in 2020.

6. What do you hope to achieve in 2020?

This year, we are celebrating ArtSocial’s 5th anniversary, and the thousands of children and young people who we have reached through the projects we fund and run. Our 2020 focus is on the new hospitals programme, to get it well established and expand to other children’s hospitals in London and in Russia.

We have some exciting events lined up for our patrons in the next few months, and are looking to grow our community and welcome new patrons who would like to join us on our mission. Although, the Christmas season has just passed, I have already started planning for the next Christmas Gala, which will be our biggest yet.

For more information visit: artsocial.uk

Model and musician Rebeca Marcos. Image courtesy of Models 1

LUX contributing editor and model at Models 1, Charlie Newman continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about their creative pursuits, passions and politics

Charlie Newman

THIS MONTH: Born in Germany and raised in Spain, 25-year-old Rebeca Marcos has achieved a remarkable amount in a quarter of a century. She started modelling at the age of 20 whilst studying for her Undergraduate Degree in Politics at City University and has since starred in campaigns for Whistles, Armani Exchange and The Kooples, and walked for the likes of John Galliano. She also plays music as part of electro-dance duo Park Hotel. Charlie speaks to Rebeca about self-confidence, career highlights and philanthropy

Charlie Newman: What was it like growing up in Spain and how easy was the adjustment moving to the UK?
Rebeca Marcos: My upbringing was wonderful. Family gatherings were always big and long, I was spoiled for food and good weather. We were encouraged to dance and perform for our family and the beach was super close. My neighbours and I used to go exploring the woods as small children and later on, I joined the scouts at school and we used to go to this old watermill that had no electricity or running water and also no parents nearby so that was wonderful.

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As a teenager Barcelona was a great city to be – very multicultural and beautiful. After school, in the warmer months, we could go to the beach just to hang out and even in winter it’s always sunny. I was a very happy child. I went to a German school from Kindergarten through to the 12th grade, so I grew up in a strange place culturally speaking. They are very opposite cultures in many ways so moving to London didn’t really feel like a cultural shock. I’m quite sensitive and introverted so I think I internalised the British default setting of being reserved and socially awkward quite quickly. I could read the discomfort in peoples faces with the slightest bit of over sharing, but London is also the place where I learnt manners! Either way, I was one of those European teenagers who loved Harry Potter and my graduation gown was of the colours of Gryffindor so I was living the life, plus the music scene [in London] is so much more stimulating than Barcelona’s.

Image by Rob Aparicio via Instagram @rebecamarcosroca

Charlie Newman: You have graced the pages of many high fashion glossies as well as walking for top brands on the runway. What has been your favourite job so far?
Rebeca Marcos: That’s such a hard question! I have had so many nice experiences and been lucky to work with some amazing creative geniuses. Years ago, I did a shoot for Urban Outfitters with Magdalena Wosinska and we just spent days hanging out topless in nature, riding quad bikes at Dave England’s house (a stunt performer in Jackass) and listening to music. It was great fun. But then I also shot the s/s15 campaign for Phillip Lim in Marrakech with Viviane Sassen and that was like a dream. Everything was beautiful, everyone was chill, we shot without hair and make up and then had a day left to go explore the YSL museum and the Souks. The wonderful production team (who had just finished working on Mission Impossible) helped me buy a gorgeous rug which they took to the hotel for me and I still have. The pictures are still some of my favourites and honestly, I think it was one of the most inspiring shoots I’ve ever been a part of. I also really love Christopher Kane both as a human and a designer. Fitting and walking for him is a very graceful experience.

Charlie Newman: If you could shoot with any photographer who would it be and why?
Rebeca Marcos: Carlota Guerrero. She is a brilliant photographer from Barcelona and I love her work and I bet she is a great human to work with.

Instagram @rebecamarcosroca

Charlie Newman: You shot The Kooples S/S15 campaign with your boyfriend – what was that like
Rebeca Marcos: It was a great experience. They are some of the nicest pictures we have together and it’s always wonderful to shoot with your best friend and in Paris. It was also the first time I shot with my guitar on set and in a way it was great to have Kristian there, but it was also a challenging experience which I grew from. He was the musician in the room, he was getting all the attention for that and I didn’t know if it was the fact that I am a model, or the fact that I am a girl in the underrepresented world of female musicians, or if I was being oversensitive and too insecure about my musical side. I really had to pull my pride together and to say: “No, actually I’m going to pull my guitar out as well. Nobody has invited me to do so but I’m not just going to stand here as a hot groupie because I really don’t think I need to.” It was awkward but I am so glad I did. It was a drama that happened exclusively in my head mind you, but still it was a very important experience for me.

Read more: How Los Angeles became a world-class art capital

Charlie Newman: How easy was the transition from modelling to musician? Do you find they compliment one another or do you find you have to prove yourself twice as much?
Rebeca Marcos: Well I don’t think I ever transitioned. Modelling is something I don’t think you can have any control over, it’s something that happens around you while you are “being yourself”. We are like muses for hire. I have done music since before I started modelling and I’m still doing both. There’s always people who think that if you are beautiful you can’t have any skills but who cares? Not me, I’m the one with both. I don’t look in the mirror and go, “shit I’m too beautiful to write some music today.” Who the hell thinks like that? People think they are ugly and stupid, when really their only problem is their self-esteem and binary thinking. I don’t subscribe to the capitalist idea that one has to work hard to be valued. I think if you love yourself then people won’t be distracted by your insecurities and instead pay more attention to whatever you want to express. They’ll figure out your value by themselves. And if they don’t, block them! I work with passion and that is always more productive than trying to prove yourself to imagined strangers. And if I’m supposed to work twice as hard then I’m probably heading for failure. I hope I’m not. Anyway, I definitely think music and fashion go hand-in-hand. They are both informed by and inform culture, and they inspire one another. So in theory it should be easier for me to work in both. We’ll see!

Charlie Newman: So can you tell us a bit about your band Park Hotel?
Rebeca Marcos: Park Hotel is a dance band. We are a duo fronting it, but we are really a great live band of up to 6 musicians: guitars, synths, drums and percussion. The sound has a post-punk feel to it, but it’s hugely influenced by funk, EDM and even disco. But it’s got a bit of a dark vibe too. It’s like a nihilistic party. Me and Tim – the other half of the duo – met 4 years ago. He had been concocting this project in his head for a while and we’ve been gigging for a couple of years now loving life.

Charlie Newman: What music did you grow up listening to? Do you come from a musical family?
Rebeca Marcos: Yes and no. My parents aren’t very musical but my sisters played violin, cello and piano whilst I was growing up. My dad exclusively listened to about 5 different albums of about 4 different bands, the only international ones being Pink Floyd and Santana – great musical taste, just a little limited. My sisters and my mum just liked the radio, and my sisters were hugely into the Spice Girls, Shakira and Britney Spears. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I got to expand my musical horizons and I found out that Pink Floyd’s early stuff was a whole different kind of psychedelic.

Image courtesy of Models 1

Charlie Newman: In light of the #MeToo movement, is there anything within the fashion and music industry you would like to see change?
Rebeca Marcos: Well, I believe values are stronger and more reliable sources of change than rules. Sure, models shouldn’t be sent to photographers that are predatory and same with producers that never get called out on by money-minded labels. But both industries are becoming more and more saturated, women just need to keep standing up for themselves and getting together, and the roles that are available to be played by individuals of any gender should be more fluid. If people truly focused on being more compassionate and respectful from the get go, these things wouldn’t be hard to understand, no matter how privileged you are.

Charlie Newman: What advice would you give to young models starting out now?
Rebeca Marcos: Be strong, focus on your happiness and try to experience the teenage years of your career as life experiences and not as career building. Young girls shouldn’t be expected to have figured out what type of brand they want to develop, or be pressured into having a stellar career immediately.

Charlie Newman: Are there any philanthropic causes that you are particularly passionate about?
Rebeca Marcos: The charity of *Talk To Your Local Homeless Person* even if you just say: “how is it going?” and spare some change. They need to be humanised and we are all individually responsible for the people who have fallen through the cracks of our society and need help. We don’t have to give change to every single one of them, that is not our responsibility, but at least keep them and their pain in mind, because that is the least we can do.

Follow Rebeca Marcos on Instagram @rebecamarcosrosa  and her musical endeavours via @parkhotelband

A prominent member of the charitable Pearly Kings and Queens Society, Doreen Golding as featured in ‘Voices East London’ by Maryam Eisler

Maryam Eisler is a busy woman; co-chair of the Tate’s MENAAC Acquisitions Committee,  member of the Tate International Council, trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery and Advisory Council member of Photo London are to name just a few of her roles in the art world, but first and foremost, she is an artist. Digital Editor Millie Walton speaks with Maryam Eisler about her most recent project Voices East London, the power of art versus politics and the democracy of social media.

Maryam Eisler

LUX: You’ve worked in the art world for a long time in various guises and interacted with lots of artists – when did you start taking your own photos?
Maryam Eisler: I’ve actually been taking photographs seriously for about 20 years now; I did courses and all sorts of photographic ventures, but I never dared to go out publicly. Two years ago, I had just completed a residency in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I explored the arid landscape and the female form, inspired by nature and by the personality of Georgia O’Keefe, in particular- her life and her oeuvre; a friend saw the photographs I’d taken there and she asked me which artist they were by, to which I answered ‘It’s not an artist, it’s me!’ She collects photography herself from the 50s and the 60s and was drawn to the black and white, the classical style – in any case, she asked me to email her a few of them and the rest is history! A few days later, I received a call from the gallerist Tristan Hoare who wanted to meet with me. She had shown him the work without telling me! And that is how this adventure began. Since then, I’ve had a solo show in London, ‘Searching for Eve in the American West’, and more exposure at the Dallas Art Fair and at Unseen in Amsterdam.

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LUX: Sounds very busy – how did you find the time to make your most recent book, Voices East London?
Maryam Eisler: Well whilst all of this was going on, I was playing with the idea of producing a book of my own because I had contributed editorially in the past to several publications to do with artists, studios and creativity (most recently London Burning: Portraits from a Creative City) but I had never done a project where I was in charge of both photography and editorial. My previous projects had pulled me towards the East End on numerous occasions, and everyone I had met there, I felt, was slightly off the wall in terms of imagination, innovation and creativity; so, I embarked on a 22 month journey to the East! What was interesting to me from a photography point of view was that it took me into a kind of parallel world; with my fine art photography, I like to immerse myself in nature, such as the American West or Provence, where I loose myself in thought and in time; but a book project, is a very different cup of tea. This particular book has on offer 80 different creative personalities, many of whom are very well known in their respective fields, the kings and queens of the East End culturally speaking, so we are talking egos, time constraints, fast pace – it’s more of a documentary style approach to photography, and yet in the back of my mind, I always have this aesthetic angle and it’s obviously very important for me to convey my perspective and stay true to my style; it has been fascinating to engage with both types of photographic approaches, at the same time.

Artist and fashion designer, Philip Colbert, as featured in ‘Voices East London’ by Maryam Eisler

The photographs are in colour too, which is different for me since I usually shoot in black and white, but the idea was to convey the vivacity and unique colours of that part of London. I live in the west end which tends to be much more sanitised and commercial, and going to the East End every week was like going on holiday! I’d get to meet these wonderful, energetic people, and encounter new minds in the arts, music, fashion. As you know, the East End today is also the hub of technology so it was super important to show the new face of the area. The project was an exploration into the past, delving into layers of history and culture, but also trying to think about what the area has become today and what it stands for, not to mention the challenges that it is faced with in its future.

LUX: Why did you choose to make the book now, given the political climate, and the changes that will come with Brexit?
Maryam Eisler: I’m always concerned about the future of creativity and the role which London plays in this arena – what incredible role it has played in the past, but also and most importantly what global role it will play in the future, if any. That’s the big question mark. I think one of the great successes of the East End, has been its historic ability to empower creative output, and this has much to do with a friction, in my opinion, between glitz and grits, as well as with the cultural layering and diversity of the area, from the French Huguenots to the Irish silk weavers, as well as the Jewish communities and today, a predominantly, Muslim Bangladeshi community. Spending time with Gilbert & George, I once asked them whether they ever go away on holiday and they said, ‘Maryam my dear, why on earth would we go anywhere? We have the world at our doorstep.’ I think that’s a very unique attribute of the East End.

Read next: René Magritte’s photographs and home videos on display in Hong Kong

There’s a sense today, despite gentrification (I hate that word), the cultural cleansing and the commercialisation of the area, that you still have an essence of the past. Whether it’s London or New York, there’s the classic example of artists moving into areas making it all happening and kind of edgy and cool, and then the developers move in, building high risers, destroying artistic communities, with the locals not being able to afford the price of rent, so they get pushed out; but there’s also this industrious spirit in the East End of London, this skill that its inhabitants possess for being chameleons and adapting to and adopting new situations and environments, and although some have definitely been priced out, others do manage to find ways to reinvent themselves. The people there also have an amazing ability of making something out of nothing, in a very artisanal kind of way; it’s a kind of craftsmanship of their own lives, and the sense of community and support there is still very strong.

Stylist Jude Nwimo as featured in ‘Voices East London’ by Maryam Eisler

LUX: Do you think that art has a social responsibility, as opposed to art for art’s sake?
Maryam Eisler: I really believe in the soft power of art. In the crazy world that we live in, that is becoming even crazier by the day, politically speaking and otherwise, I think more and more that artistic platforms are the last remaining bastions where critical thinking and exchange can take place in an open manner. Beyond their work, artists have also become the philosophers of today, the thinkers; they are the voices through whom we are enabled to think about the world we live in, and if a work of art makes you think, if it impacts you emotionally and intellectually, then it’s done its job, good or bad. Art has the power to move individuals, to make them think but also and most importantly to make them rethink and reevaluate the issues at hand.

LUX: How do you think social media and digital technologies have impacted on the art world?
Maryam Eisler: What’s incredible about social media in my opinion, is that it has broken, the classic system of accessing and understanding art, offering a direct dialogue between artist and viewer. And that is very powerful. Artists have become their own marketers. And why not! Often what the artists say and think of their work may differ drastically from the thoughts of curators, so removing old communication barrier systems and layers has given space for a new form of engagement. Social media offers a more democratic approach to the issue at hand, with increased possibility and connectivity.

Fashion Designer and owner of the VFD club, Lyall Hakaraia as featured in ‘Voices East London’ by Maryam Eisler

LUX: In the past art collecting has certainly been regarded as quite elitist…
Maryam Eisler: Yes, I hate the word collector actually. I am an art lover, not a collector. I like to engage with the producer of an artwork; I like to have conversations with them, to get to know their inspirations and passions, which is exactly what I would offer to the people who are interested in my own photography. I enjoy the dialogue and exchange and for me, that’s an important part of the process. Social media opens that possibility for conversation and dialogue more than ever before.

Read next: Walking in the footsteps of fashion royalty at The May Fair Hotel

LUX: Much of your work is centred around the female form – how do you see yourself engaging with feminist discourses?
Maryam Eisler: The crux of my work revolves around the Divine Feminine, in which I celebrate the feminine identity, form, beauty and intellect. I’m interested in the contrast of form and geometry vs context; I am also interested to explore where and how ‘Woman’ with a capital W fits into the world and nature in particular, hence and indirectly a questioning of my own self-identity, I suppose.

As to the current feminist discourses that are going on, I believe in equilibrium and measured approaches, and I’m afraid that I do not agree with what is going on, as I believe that we have entered a zone of revolutionary extremism and zero tolerance which gives no room to ‘ innocence until proven guilty’ ; that is always a dangerous place to be, and this can only lead to more of the same and without doubt to a backlash of greater proportion. Men and women should live in mindful, conscious harmony. Each side should celebrate the other, with respect and dialogue. Anyone can be accused, these days (on either side of the gender spectrum), but it does not mean that they are guilty, until proven so, legally and with proper evidence!

Drag artist, Jonny Woo as featured in ‘Voices East London’ by Maryam Eisler

LUX: What’s next for you?
Maryam Eisler: I have my first solo US exhibition coming up in May 2018 at Harpers Books in East Hampton, Long Island. Needless to say that I am very excited about this opportunity. The title of the exhibition is in fact “The Sublime Feminine”, consisting of a cross section of my work shot in New Mexico and in Provence, but it will also include new work shot in the Catskills last summer on beautiful Holz farm which belongs to the acclaimed photographer, George Holz.

I have always been obsessed with the work of Edward Weston, and I had the wonderful opportunity of shooting at his original home on Wildcat Hill in Carmel California last May, in the company of his grandson Kim and wife Gina as well as his great grandson Zach, all of whom follow in the footsteps of the man himself – all are fantastic photographers. I myself was inspired by time, space, place and history. Edward is still very present there. His darkroom is intact. His handwritten chemical recipes are stuck to the walls, and his desk and even the lamp which features in some of his photographs are all there …not to mention artefacts he returned from his trip to Mexico following his then love, acclaimed artist and revolutionary, Tina Modotti. It was like spending time in a living museum. And I think the work I produced there has more of a conceptual nature, honing in on the body and shapes. It’s to do with shadow and light, lines and forms. I will be showing these works at Tristan Hoare in January 2019 London, and given that I was inspired by photographic history and past, the wonderful US-based Martin Axon (who was the printer to Robert Mapplethorpe among other greats) will be printing this particular series in Platinum on special hand woven, hand torn Arches paper….so, I am very excited by these upcoming projects!

maryameisler.com

London-based Greta Bellamacina is one of those people who, once discovered, you can’t stop thinking about. Like a sleeper hit which innocuously makes its way up into the charts as one by one fans fall in love, Greta’s infectious presence online and throughout the arts scene utterly grabs hold. For October’s Vogue she is included in a feature about today’s progressive new poets, along with Cecilia Knapp, Selina Nwulu and James Massiah – but this is hardly surprising considering the unique blend of talents in her arsenal. LUX’s contributing poet, Rhiannon Williams speaks to the woman behind the words about the plight of of the public library, how her varifocal talents intersect, and her inspirations.

Ethereally beautiful, the first thing that strikes you is that Greta looks every part the romanticised ideal of ‘poet’. But it is her passion for what she does which, more than anything, startles – and makes you want to follow in her lead as a force for good in a confusing world. Greta’s work as a poet, film-maker, activist and model crosses and fuses borders, something that is seen more and more these days as people resist the restrictive boundaries of having a single ‘profession’ – and what could be more fitting for a modern-day poet? She published her debut poetry collection ‘Perishing Tame’ in 2015 through New River Press, a poetry press which she co-founded herself, and launched it into the world with readings at Shakespeare & Co, Paris and The Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles. She has also edited collections, including ‘Smear’ in 2017, an important anthology for young women poets everywhere, and has published collaboratively with poet-husband Robert Montgomery the collection ‘Points for Time in the Sky’.

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In the role of film-maker a particularly significant recent work was 2016’s documentary ‘The Safe House: A Decline of Ideas’, which smartly tackles the state of the British public libraries, spreading awareness of a plight that not enough people are conscious of. For a poet, the savage cuts to public funding that have brought the libraries of the UK to their knees over the last decade is a political outrage that hits very close to home. Greta’s activism with this documentary, which involved Stephen Fry and Irvine Welsh among others, demonstrated a fierce defiance in the face of a crisis of intellectual deterioration, and a prime example of how Greta uses her creative abilities as a force for good.

On top of all this, Greta has been involved in modelling campaigns for the likes of &otherstories and Stella McCartney. One can only pause in awe to wonder how she has time for so much, all the while maintaining an image that is undeniably slick. This is brought about by a stylishness that spans from the arresting design of her website (think arty snaps with poet John Cooper Clarke outside her film premiere), to her Instagram presence (handwritten pages of her thoughtful, searing poetry), to her fashion choices (somewhere in the realm of elfish art student lost on a Victorian couture runway).

Greta has appeared in modelling campaigns for the likes of &otherstories and Stella McCartney

Rhiannon Williams: How did you first fall into poetry?
Greta Bellamacina: It has always been there, I’ve always heard words in my head that I felt compelled to write down. I knew from early on that poetry has the power to break your heart and fill it up again within a sentence.

RW: Can you tell me a bit more about the intersection between your talents for film-making, writing and modelling? Do they complement or sometimes clash?
GB: I think I have always been drawn to exploring the truth and beauty in the everyday- and playing with everyday conventions. If you make art in any form I think you have the moral responsibly to make the world a better place and be socially progressive. Fashion can be a fun way to make people feel apart of a new consciousness.

Read next: Kering’s Marie-Calire Daveu on championing long-term sustainability 

RW: In your writing as well as film-making you are an activist, tackling the threat to the public libraries in Britain with ‘The Safe House: A Decline of Ideas’ and promoting the empowerment of girls and female identity with ‘Smear’. Was this always a conscious decision to use an artistic avenue to further a cause, or do you think your beliefs shape your work almost without you realising?
GB: The working class fought for a hundred years to have public libraries. My local one had been turned into a block of luxury flats. But it wasn’t until I kept meeting young secondary school students fighting for seats in the library all round Britain that I understood how much it would change the next generation, change the communities if these temples of learning were to disappear. I think it’s good to let the audience have room to imagine their own futures and memories in these places, in order to shape wider beliefs and bring change. I think thats why when I edited ‘Smear’ I didn’t have any age limit or direct theme of Feminism, I just wanted women to have a place to be uncensored and shameless, a place for women to speak.

RW: What is your creative process – how do you sort through ideas and plans for projects?
GB: Rage, heartbreak and love- usually in that order.

Rhiannon Williams: Who are some poets you could not live without reading?
Greta Bellamacina: I always seem to go back to Ted Hughes, his words have some many eternal, harrowing shades to them. It has a closeness to it that you can’t help feel connected. There are so many more, Robert Montgomery of course, Alice Oswald, Warsan Shire, Heathcote Williams, Anne Sexton….

RW: What are you reading, listening to or excited about right now?
GB: I am listening a lot to Mazzy Star, Patti Smith, Sharon Van Etten and Sleaford Mods right now and really enjoying Warsen Shires poetry collection “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth”. I’m excited about the morning sun, learning from strangers and finding new worlds in the sky.

gretabellamacina.com

Model and artist, Orla Carolin. Image by Mollie Dendle.

LUX contributing editor and Storm model, Sydney Lima continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about modelling life and business.

Sydney Lima

THIS MONTH: Orla Carolin has been signed to London’s Storm Model agency for less than a year and has already been making waves on both the fashion and art circuits. Born and based in South-East London, the 18-year-old works as both a model and fine artist as one of the founding members of South London Art and Music Collective NINE8. So far, she has shot editorials for Wonderland, Pylot and graced the cover of cult magazine ‘Zodiac‘.

Sydney Lima: What first made you want to get into modelling?
Orla Carolin: I’d be lying if I said modelling was something I was pursuing when I first started – it more got sprung upon me – but i’m grateful it did!

SL: What do you enjoy about modelling?
OC: You just witness a lot from other people’s creative processes and by watching the way they present their artistic vision/identity, you learn a lot about your own.

SL: Is there anything you don’t like about modelling?
OC: Like any industry there’s definitely room for development. In modelling the representation of people of colour needs to be improved. When I first started modelling I was shocked in the realisation that whilst on the surface of the fashion world, progression has been made, the type of people who are in power to make changes remain the same – and a lot of them still don’t get it.

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SL: How did NINE8 collective form?
OC: NINE8 started out as a group of kids in their second year of college who were kind of drawn together because they had such strange but unifying ideals on art, music and life in general. We realised early on that – in the city specifically – it can be very hard as a young creative to get recognition when you don’t already have the connections or funding to do so. My partner (the founder) Lava , began to officially bring the group together to put on little DIY nights to showcase our artwork, bedroom cyphers in her flat and saved up to create little recording set ups so we could start making music together. It quickly developed to wider friendships and people online who reached out to us as a group because they had similar creative views on non-exclusiveness and positivity. Next thing we knew we had a board of people doing all kinds of things – photographers, artists, musicians, producers, film-makers – we were swapping creative currency making clothes, cover art, music for each other and Lava coined it to put it under the name “NINE8.”

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We really started striving to put the underground scene of DIY London artists on a platform to create and collaborate and the more we worked together the more our merging of styles came together to create this matching sound/aesthetic that we’re always trying to develop.

Constantly creating and pushing yourself to explore new ways of working is so important, and for me the collective encourages that.

Orla Carolin for Nabil Nayal

Sydney Lima: How would you describe your artistic style?
Orla Carolin: Dreamy, illustrative, lyrical, emotional. Poems have always been mixed into my sketchbooks and journals – in my works they become an aspect of an entire scape that usually alludes to an emotion or situation that I’ve attempted to physicalize through personal symbolism and colour. I recently finished my foundation course where I specialised in sculpture, I love creating scenes and scapes physically, too. I think my overall desire when making is to create objects and two dimensional images which in some bizarre and surreal way drag the viewer into my mind as though it were a physical space.

SL: What inspires you?
OC: Other people just totally doing their thing and going for it (whatever it may be), people being vocal about how they feel – regardless of who’s listening. Definitely people who are emotional responders like myself. I am encouraged, for example, by the way artist Louise Bourgeois’ portrays and physicalizes her emotions. However, an admiration like that is only a reminder of an element of what I want to achieve through my work, the execution of something like that has to come naturally in relation to my own experiences, emotions and desires. I’m inspired of the idea of developing this, the more I grow. It keeps me going.

One of Hollywood’s great mysteries, Jared Leto has spent his career defying its received wisdom that you can only fit one niche. Below the radar of gossip columnists, he flits from Oscar-winning performances and eye-catching red carpet appearances – green Gucci frock coat with candyfloss pink cropped trousers recently – to rock climbing and headlining with his rock band, Thirty Seconds to Mars. He fits the role of doe-eyed sweetheart, psychopathic killer and fashion frontrunner all in one.

Raised by his mother, Leto spent his childhood moving from city to city around America, learning to love the nomadic life. He studied cinema, moved to LA and was cast as the sensitive teenage love interest in the cult TV series, My So-Called Life. But Leto was more than a pretty face. A committed method actor, he has lived with homeless heroin junkies for the role of Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream and dramatically lost and gained weight playing the overweight killer of John Lennon, Mark David Chapman, in Chapter 27 and the transgender drug-addict, Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Winning an academy award for his work, Leto never breaks from his character on set. After years of art house, Leto recently went for blockbuster as the Joker in Suicide Squad, taking on the role left by the late Heath Ledger. All this while he has been fronting his rock band alongside his brother, with record sales in the millions. Now he has taken another turn on his alternative Hollywood path, working with Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele as the new face of Gucci Guilty. He spoke to Caroline Davies about commitment, guilt and never quite letting go of the joker.

Jared Leto in the Gucci Guilty campaign

LUX: What scents do you associate with your childhood?
Jared Leto: The smell of a campfire is always pretty powerful. It brings back certain times and adventures.

LUX: What was the first scent you wore?
JL: I think one of my grandfathers got me and my brother Old Spice and Brut soap-on-a-rope.

LUX: Acting, directing, music. Are they different parts of your personality? How do they inform one
another?
JL: It’s been challenging to make them all work. They take a lot of time, which has always been the
biggest challenge for me. How do you find the time to make room for several lovers, I suppose?

LUX: You spent much of your childhood moving around America. Has it given you a wanderlust?
JL: I would say that I like new experiences so that’s sometimes the part than can keep you travelling.

LUX: Where is your favourite place in the world? What would you do there?
JL: There are so many places around the world that I really love. The national parks in America have to be some of my favourites.

LUX: You’re known for your commitment to roles. What has been the most difficult part to play? Why?
Jared Leto: The Joker was probably one of the most difficult, that and Dallas Buyers Club. It’s just very dark and emotional. There was a physical component – I had to lose a lot of weight, so it was really challenging.

LUX: Have you ever scared yourself with a character? When?
JL: I was more concerned with the work that I needed to do in order to try and do my best.

Behind the scenes shot from the Guilty Gucci campaign by Alessandro Michele

LUX: Which character was the hardest to let go of?
JL: The Joker still visits from time to time. So be careful.

LUX: Why Gucci? Why now?
JL: Alessandro drew me to the collaboration and we had met and become friends. And so when he asked me to do it, I was so excited. I thought it would be really fun to join him in this great adventure.

Read next: Gorden Wagener on creative intelligence

LUX: Tell me about creating the footage for the Guilty campaign. You filmed in Venice in December; what was the atmosphere like?
JL: It was improvisational. It was very creative. It was a unique story of this guy and two women on an adventure, and it’s magical but it’s good. It was a lot of fun to make, and a great group of people to work with.

LUX: What do you think of when you think about guilt?
JL: Guilty is a frightful way to mean taking some chances and not always playing things safe.

LUX: How would you describe your choice of clothes?
JL: I don’t really put very much time and variation into fashion to tell you the truth. Maybe that’s a good explanation for a lot of things. I have fun with it and I’m not worried about being too safe with it because at the end of the day, it’s really not big a deal. So I just have a bit of fun with it.

A still from the Gucci Guilty campaign, filmed in Venice

LUX: Do you think that fashion can feel limiting for men?
JL: I think most men’s fashion is pretty boring, utilitarian, safe, and there is something to the
unpredictability of what Alessandro does that’s really compelling.

LUX: How do you view Hollywood?
JL: Well, I’m glad that I am where I am now. I think you sometimes have to throw a bit of caution to the wind. I have taken long breaks from acting. And that’s okay.

LUX: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard about life and acting?
JL: Commitment, to commit

Rami Mekdachi has worked as a perfumer for over twenty years, collaborating with some of the world’s best known brands, such as L’Oréal, Colette, Lacoste and Chloé. And now, he’s created his own high-concept brand, Lola James Harper, bringing together his passion for music, film, design and fragrance with his friends and family. Millie Walton speaks to the Frenchman about curing perfectionism, capturing memories and bringing creativity to the hospitality industry.

Rami Mekdachi

LUX: When did you decide to master perfumery?
Rami Mekdachi: I never decided really. Encounters and opportunities make things happen in our lives. In 1996 I met Catherine Raiser, Head of CCB/L’Oréal. We decided to work together and I joined as a Perfume Developer. That same year, I met Pierre Bourdon and Benoist Lapouza, two amazing perfumers, and now two friends. That’s when I realised how grand the perfume world is. How playing with scents, images, poetry, myth and design can be powerful and generous. How wide and touching it can be…

LUX: Do you have a favourite scent?
RM: I have so many!

LUX: Have you ever struggled to capture a certain smell?
RM: Anything I do, I do it for the term. I do not struggle, I just take my time. I have 100 projects going on at the same time. I am way too much of a perfectionist and when I was 20 years old, I spent too much time on little things, struggling to get what I wanted and trying to get it as fast as possible. Now I have found the cure: 100 projects at a time, no time to lose, when it comes, it comes, when it does not come I change the project. My days are super diverse, every two hours I change fields and projects. That is my cure to perfectionism.

Read next: Marsden Hartley’s Maine at The Met Breuer 

LUX: You’ve had a very successful career as a perfumer, what led you to create Lola James Harper?
RM: For twenty five years, I have been playing music with great singers around the world and I would take pictures for music and travel magazines. Music and photography were in my blood even before perfume. My work as a perfumer was inspired by those experiences. I was lucky enough to have the chance to work with great people and big brands: Colette, Ines de le Fressange, Costes, Lacoste, Chloé, Roger Vivier, Dinh Van. Lola James Harper was a way to gather all the people I love and the three fields I enjoy: music, photography and perfumery.

LUX: Is there a central concept that ties all of your products together?
RM: Good and touching memories of places and people we love, generous and elevating mind sets.

LUX: The names of your candles suggest that their scent evokes a particular memory for their creator. Is it important that the customer realises the story behind the scent or is it more for the purpose of your inspiration?
RM: The point of it all is to share a life and moments that could be touching and evocative for everyone, to transport and make everyone dream. We are all dreaming machines. With Lola James Harper pictures, movies, music and fragrances I want to give to everyone the opportunity to feel free to dream and to do it.

Lola James Harper scented candle

LUX: How does your experience in perfumery inform your other creative pursuits? Music and film, for example?
RM: In music, film and perfumery, I have to compose ingredients together to create a new evocative world. In music I mix sounds, in perfume I mix fragrance notes, in film I mix pictures, motion pictures and sounds. Music helped me to get into the perfume field much faster in 1996, then working with amazing perfumers helped me to enhance my comprehension of a sound mix. Trying to imagine what a fragrance note evokes to people, what colour, what mind set, just opened my consciousness to what immaterial things provoke in our apprehension of the world and gave me so many clues about how to edit pictures, sounds and colours in a film. Life is a huge place to learn and now I know that when I am looking for any answer it always lies somewhere else.

Read next: Fraser sets the standard for ethical and adventurous yachting 

LUX: What’s the most difficult part of your job?
Rami Mekdachi: The logistic and legal part of it! Legislation shifts so often in the perfume world that we have to change our fragrance composition and stickers every year.

LUX: Where do you go to escape?
RM: The basket-ball court with my son. Movie theatres with my daughter. Walking the town, any town, with my wife, son and daughter. Road tripping the world, renting a car with my family and cruising for days. And when I want to be alone, I like to go to any good coffee shop with good music and tasteful coffee where I know no one.

Lola James Harper Shop in Le Bon Marché department store, Paris

LUX: What lies ahead for Lola James Harper?
RM: Lola James Harper is a magical project. It gathers my family and all my friends and my encounters for over two decades. It brings together my three fields, music, photo and perfumery. I love to see people passing by our places and just feeling happy looking at our pictures, listening to our music and testing our fragrance memories. I am really proud to have achieved all that in one successful project.

Now we are working on opening full Lola James Harper destinations, hotels! Hotels with basketball courts, music studios, TV basements, vinyl shops, coffee shops, full of travel and music pictures, full of good fragrances and our way of life. This should happen in 2018. And just for now, we are finalising our first movie, 85 minutes about the last two decades, globe-trotting the world, discovering music, pictures, friendship and family.

lolajamesharper.com