Pablo Arroyo for MFF

“Stylish, sensual and mediterranean”: these 3 words basically represent the core of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s ideal man definition. Celebrating 20 years of menswear, 20 Dolce & Gabbana boys hit last MFF double cover shot by our talent Pablo Arroyo, also featuring many portraits inside the magazine.

By Elisa Lusso – Photo by Pablo Arroyo, courtesy of MFF

Zegna Centennial / Shanghai

Ermenegildo Zegna’s centennial glamorously arrived with the star-studded opening of its first Global Concept Store in Shanghai. To mark the momentous occasion, the venerable men’s fashion house-cum-lifestyle heavyweight unveiled its absolutely sumptuous new core collection alongside this season’s swaggering Z Zegna collection. And as the figurative cherry on the lavish cake, Roisin Murphy dressed in scarlet was front and center (and sultry as ever) at the festivities that followed.

The product of the prolific architect Peter Marino (who’s been deservedly tagged with the epithet “architect of luxury” and is responsible for fantastical flagships for Dior, Chanel, Barney’s and others), the space’s 726 square meters are nothing less than a monolithic metaphor for Zegna’s impressive presence in China. Operating in the country since 1991, the company has been key in the evolution of China’s taste for luxury and is a cornerstone of its ever more sophisticated fashion culture. The new store’s prime location, adjacent to Xintiandi, among the elite menagerie of lifestyle businesses on Hua Hai Road, makes it truly the crown jewel among the brand’s more than 75 other stores in the country. Complete with an exclusive private shopping space for the biggest of its bigwig customers, as well as an “archetypal gentlemen’s lounge” decked out adroitly in Zebrano and bronze, the space is intended to evoke the austere and warm Italian masculinity synonymous with the brand.

Still, architecturally and spiritually, the space’s signature lies in its symbolic and textural homage to the brand’s renowned home in Triviero. As first and foremost a purveyor of finely detailed sartorial pieces, ultra high-quality textiles are to Zegna what Italy itself is to fashion: inextricable. It’s fitting, therefore, that the most complete expression yet of the brand takes its inspiration in large part from its almost sacred reverence for detail: playful touches hinting fancifully at meticulous tailoring and sumptuous fabrics abound in the store, from the lighted exterior’s ambient pinstripes to marble “selvedges” to several instances of seemingly loom-woven metal. Like their handmade suits, there’s rigorous perfectionism at work in everything Zegna does.

Cheers, Zegna. We warmly wish you another prosperous century.

By Tag Christof – images courtesy of Ermenegildo Zegna.

Small Kings – Zuek Simonetti

Automatic Books, an independent editorial project curated by Elena Xausa and Tankboys with Tommaso Speretta, presents “Small Kings”, a book by the New York based – but truly Italian – photographer Alessandro Zuek Simonetti.
“Small Kings” collects a selection of  b&w pictures shot in Passa Passa on the 30rd December 2009, a few months before the Tivoli Gardens district in Kingston witnessed an armed conflict between the Jamaican Army and sustainers of drug trafficker boss Christopher “Dudus” Coke, fighting against his extradition.

Alessandro attended the most famous Jamaican Dance Hall “Passa Passa” together with the journalist Anice Gaddis – author of an article/poster included in the book – to tell the risky story from both visual and narrative points of view.
If you wanna learn more about “Dudus” newsworthy tale, on the 14th of July “Small Kings” will be presented in Venice / Centro Espositivo Spiazzi from 7pm.

By Elisa Lusso – pictures by Alessandro Zuek Simonetti – courtesy of Automatic Books

WONDER ROOM #6 – CU,ZHL

CU,ZHL – see you – a collaboration between Alessandro Zuek Simonetti / Heartfelt Graphic Design Studio / Legno Handmade Silkscreen Printing.

Pictures taken by Alessandro Zue Simonetti – a projet shot in the last 2 year in New York with few point & shoot cameras.

Composed in an indipendent pubblication curated by Heartfelt, silkscreen printed by legno.
Basically 4 friends, 36 black and white pictures and some orange-ink.

CU then. Do not miss it!

WONDER ROOM – Via Tortona 31 – Tuesday 13th of July from 7pm.

By 2DM bureau

Sunday Brunch – Savory Cake

Hello!

The past weeks where special ones.
We had a sad family gatherings, huge cooking jobs and in between I finished my book. On one occasion my sisters brother in law baked this cake and brought it to her house.
After tasting a slice we all couldn’t stop eating it. So I asked him for the recipe to share with you.
He had thought of the recipe himself and luckily new it by heart. So I jotted it down quickly and made it at home as soon as I could.
It’s lovely.
Please use salt and pepper to taste, but don’t forget that parmesan, olives and feta are salty too!

Have a great Sunday afternoon,
Yvette

Text and illustration by Yvette van Boven

¡Viva España!

Sun, beach, sand and water are doing the apparel job in this sensual editorial for V Spain shot by Xevi Muntané, in which our sight is delighted through this top selection of Spanish boys: Andrés Velencoso, Jon Kortajarena, Oriol Elcacho, Antonio Navas, Miguel Iglesias, Joan Pedrola, Haydem y Raul Guerra, River Viperi and the actor Quim Salazar.

The stylistic part of the shooting – curated by our volcanic Ana Murillas – was even more challenging, cause it required to emphasize on uncovering rather than covering these charming sculpured bodies. She enriched the hot scenery by adding true Spanish elements such as fans and banderillas – the latter are used to pierce the bull during La Corrida – and the result it’s definetly a candy for our eyes. Innit?

By Elisa Lusso – image by Xevi Muntané courtesy of V Magazine Spain

The Marcelo Burlon New World

Everybody has already seen THE BOYS! a video shot during the last men show season in Milano!
Now it’s time to show you the editorial shot by our friend Matteo Montanari and styled by a member of the – 2DM family –  Marcelo Burlon! The amazing cast was provide by Barbara Nicoli and her partner Leila.

Photographed by Matteo Montanari @ Atomo Management
Casting Directors: Barbara Nicoli & Leila @ Troublemanagement
Styling Marcelo Burlon + Elia Quadri @ 2DM.it
Lettering: Federico Donelli
Grooming: Marco Braca @ Close Up
Assistents Stylist: Alberto Brasola Barina, Giulia Centofante
Assistents Photographer: Raffaele Grosso + Marco Zanin
Digital Retouching: Upstudiomilano.com
Thanks to Circus Studios and Marco De Giorgi

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by 2DM bureau – images courtesy of Matteo Montanari

Guest Interview n° 17: Cameron Smith

You’ve been living in NY, LA, Paris and now London, but where are you from?
I’m Australifornian, but don’t hold it against me.

You probably didn’t like school very much as you left it at the age of 15. If you could turn back time, would you take the same decision?
Yes, I don’t regret it at all. I left home and got a job working at a web design company. This is definitely the internet era, so to get paid to learn and practice designing websites was kind of a perfect education.

Are you still a wasted kid?
I smoke crack for breakfast, but no. That’s kind a weird question.

What was the passage from skateboarding to photography?
They were both childish acts of rebellion. My parents didn’t let me skateboard and I never got given a camera, so I bought a skateboard when I was 14 and and kept it at my friends house and then started doing photography after I left home. Haha, being strict backfired for my parents.

Is there anything you have learned from the street?
Don’t get high on your own supply.

Which was the first shooting you’ve ever done?
I took snapshots and photos of my friends skating and wanted to be a photojournalist for ages, but decided to try out doing a ‘shoot’ with a model I knew named Tania. We drove down to this really beautiful granite quarry, which is right on the waterfront and has waves crashing on it and climbed on the rocks and took lots of photos and it was all really pretty and fun. Then, on the way back I followed a cop car down a side street and found a guy that had been stabbed with a huge kitchen knife in an act of random racial hatred and was bleeding to death, with the knife still stuck in his back. I shot a picture which was used in the national newspapers, but it made me realize that there’s something fucked up about rabidly trying to find scenes of violence and disaster, and then just taking a photo instead of helping. It was an epic day. I think I chose to be a fashion photographer that day.

Did videos and film making come naturally after photography for you?
Filmmaking and photography are the same thing fundamentally and they certainly serve the same purpose, which is to express and inspire and relate things. Obviously in film there’s sound and movement but fundamentally it’s the same. You can say more and fuck up easier in film, which is exciting.

Are you a blog addicted?
No, I od’d on blogs ages ago.

You publish The Interzine online, which is a place where you collect and store interesting contents from the web on art, music, fashion and culture. What was your first thought about it? “The only website you need”?
It was a really simple idea, to mash up all of the best blogs together. So you can go and look at www.theinterzine.com and see whats going on and whats cool. There was nothing like it at the time so I just made it in a couple days. Later, I heard that Jefferson Hack loved it, and then about 6 months later, he made ‘another reader’ and then pop magazine did their own version of it.
I think designing websites is fucking amazing in that you can use code to take an idea, and manifest it into something useful or fun or commercial and share it with the whole world. It’s magic I think. Like I love the story about the 17 year old russian kid that created chatroullette in 2 days and its the biggest thing on the internet this year. Magic. At the same time its disgusting how people are constantly connected to their machines. Get out and look at the world people! Burn your computers!

In your blogs you like to tell some of your private madness by taking pics. What connects all the shots?
I don’t try to force any connection, but it’s always me and my camera and the way I interact with people so there is natural continuity.

What kind of books do you read? Is there any literary inspiration in your pictures?
I like reading fiction. I like science fiction and fucked-up stuff a lot . I just got into listening to audiobooks because I feel like I’m already overusing my eyes and it lets me multitask, which is sad but everything is so frenetic and jacked these days because of the way are brains are conditioned by the internet. Otherwise it can take me ages to finish a book and I’m usually reading 3 at a time. The new yorkers fiction podcast is great.
( http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction ).

How much art is important in your way of living? In which ways does it affect you?
I love that art can inspire us and that it really has no function. It is an positive sign that humans have souls.

Do you see any possible evolutions in photography? Not only in the way it can be displayed, rather more in the way it will be acknowledged by people?
Yes, the way that digital photography and the internet made photography more accessible really is changing everything. I think its great, it means that photography is becoming better, and there are more beautiful images being made, and generally, it is raising the standard of photography in magazines. About 5 years ago one of the first editorials I shot was based on my blog. The editor, Isaac Lock, emailed me and was like, “I love your blog, how its so fresh and intimate and immediate. Lets do a shoot based on it”. It was new then, but now I’m a little tired of it. Like I feel that the whole snapshot, intimate type of photography has no value, whereas 30 odd years ago it was completely shocking and momentous that, for example, Nan Goldin would exhibit nude pictures of her husband and intimate photos of her tranny friends. It meant something then, but now it doesn’t.

What are your days like?
I live in the 18th arrondisement of Paris at the moment. I’ve been shooting or editing everyday, and partying every night. Paris is SOOOO fun! It’s summer now and its stays light until about 10:30pm here so I’m usually up really late and the noise of the street wakes me up early in the morning so I don’t really get much sleep ever.

What’s the first thing you think when you wake up?
I’m usually thinking about my dreams and what they’re saying to me. They’ve usually really vivid because my sleep is usually pretty irregular. This is really mundane, but if you want to know, last night in a dream, Nicola Formichetti told me “make a less jacked website and you’ll start making serious bucks”. Man, kinda weird to have Nicola in a dream but I appreciate the feedback.

What do you think you will be doing in the next 3 days? 3 months? 3 years? Not telling.

Cameron Smith Page

By Elisa Lusso – all images courtesy of Cemeron Smith

Fit & Brevi Racconti are waiting for you!

The attentions and the aims of many companies and institutions here in Milan, recently seem to point at strengthening new creative talents. Tonight should be busy, starting from Fit Fashion Show 2010 supported by PoliMilano, until “Brevi Racconti”, a collective photo ehxibition at Circus Studios.
Curated and promoted by Andrea Concina /Numérique.

By Elisa Lusso

Tiffany Godoy / The Reality Show

Gothic Cholita Geisha Tiffany Godoy – author of ‘Style Deficit Disorder’ and ‘Japanese Goth’ – presents her latest project as editor-in-chief next to Tomoyuki Yonezu in the art direction, “The Reality Show”.
A new fashion book that mixes the fantasies of runway fashion with the real style of Japan’s street fashion stars.
A fashion portrait of street style, a blog in a book, that’s a mise-en-scene of everyday life.

Guest Music Selectors:
Limi Yamamoto & Lyoki
Leo Candycane (Fancy Him)
Mademoiselle Yulia
Olivier Schawalder x very special supermodel guest
Romain (from paris)

@ Le Baron de Paris, Tokio. June 30th (Wed) Open 21:00
WWW.LEBARON.JP

“Get up close. Get Personal, Get real, The reality show…”

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By Dodi Espinosa