Mark "The Cobra Snake" Hunter might be known for his nightlife photography (featuring the cutest kids donning the trendiest, kookiest togs), but his distinctive, endearingly "ragamuffin Jewish" panache -- a trademark that has evolved by virtue of his extensive travels scouring vintage shops around the world for his eponymous online "Cobra Shop" -- has always made him distinct. It's no wonder, then, that PM Tenore, founder of lifestyle brand RVCA and advocate of the budding brightest in subculture, tapped Hunter to collaborate with his RVCA Artist Network Program (ANP) on a full-fledged collection. True to form, he unveiled his collection Sunday in a setting where he has found some of his greatest fashion finds: a yard sale. Shoppers gathered at the Brunch Bazar in Paris to browse collections of vintage selected by Hunter as well as items from the line. "I am constantly inspired when I travel... from Paris Fashion Week to a sketchy trip to Mexico City, I love colors and funny outfits and have always had a very eccentric style," Hunter said. "I dress exactly the way that I want and I don't worry much about what other people might think."

Re-interpreting his personal looks into the RVCA line was a cinch, says Mark:  "they let me go crazy... I came up with tons of ideas and they helped me make sense of everything." For Spring 2010 Mark also took a cue his dynamic grandparents' style (as commemorated by fellow lensman Todd Selby on the famed fashion/interior shrine TheSelby.com); to wit "the Party Time RVCA rainbow sweater was actually referenced from something I found at my Grandma Renee's house." Some of Hunter's fun, flippant illustrations that first graced his stickers have evolved into the collection's backbone: instantly-identifiable t-shirts culminating with his bestselling The Cobraflage tee (depicting an illustrated Sgt. Snake commanding 'YOU to join The Cobra Snake Party Army!'). No doubt that legions of club kids will be clamoring to enroll.

We caught up with Tommy Ton, Style.com's street fashion photog, for a little chit-chat about shooting Paris Fashion Week.

READ MORE »

To promote his forthcoming book The Selby Is in Your Place (released April 1st worldwide), legendary interior photographer Todd Selby moved in with Colette. "The Selby's Window Apartment," on display from March 1st through 6th to coincide with Paris Fashion Week, features Selby living in the French designer's front window at 213 Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Passers by can steal a glance at Selby in his unnatural habitat, but stopping in the Colette shop comes with rewards. There, advanced copies of the book, limited-edition signed prints, and Selby stickers are on sale. Selby has also been playing host. This week, visitors have been treated to pet portrait sessions by Selby, karaoke sessions, and prize giveaways. Saturday, from 4 to 6 p.m., anyone can stop by with photos of their home or office for a free VIP Selby consultation (with the help of special guests throughout the day).

On Wednesday I met Selby to finish up a project that we have been working on for Vogue Nippon. As luck would have it, my visit happened to dovetail with a karaoke session in Todd's new, very public, place.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your own karaoke abilities?

You are silly.

How did you conceive of The Selby's Window Apartment concept to promote your book?

It's a crazy idea I had: to live in the window of Colette. To see what it looks like each day, keep an eye on my blog on Colette.com to see photos.

Can you perhaps reveal any of the "special guests" who will be assisting you with free VIP interior design consultations?

Nope. They're a secret.

Lyna Ahanda founded Lurve two years ago, and the magazine has been steadily gaining a loyal readership and rave reviews since. The Spring/Summer 2010 issue -- with a cover featuring Irina Lazareanu photographed by Cécile Boroletti -- débuts tonight in Paris with a launch event at OFR Galerie. Featuring artwork Ahanda curated by Chadwick Tyler, Edouard Plongeon, Cécile Bortoletti, Pamela Love, and Jordan Sullivan, the show celebrates the issue's theme, "Beyond the Body Proper." It will be swiftly followed by a must-attend cocktail fête at La Cave de la Fidélité (likely going on as this is posted), and DJ'd by downtown New York's most sought-after jeweler Pamela Love and Olivier Bobin. I recently caught up with Ahanda, who is based between Paris and Berlin, to discuss the new issue's Francis Bacon(s)-inspired theme, the inspiration behind Terrence Koh's photography in the issue, and who she envisions the Lurve reader to be.

How did you initially come to Sir Francis Bacon's quote -- 'There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion?'  Was that eventually designated 'Beyond the Body Proper' as the theme for the third issue of Lurve?

For the past year or so, the fashion industry has been in the center of this "size issue." When I gave birth, I saw my body changing for what I thought was the worst. I was doing research on Francis Bacon (the painter) when I came across that quote (by Sir Francis Bacon, the philosopher). I thought that it was so beautiful how two people with the same names and completely different associations could share the same ideas: on one hand there's Bacon the painter with his distorted portraits, and on the other hand there's Bacon the writer, defining beauty in a way that very few could understand. With Lurve's third issue, I wanted to try to push the size issue even further. My research led me to this anthropology essay, "Beyond the Body Proper," and I soon understood that body image was a subject so deep that by, for example, doing an editorial with a plus-size model, we could not translate anything of significance. So we tried to propel the issue further by just showing "special" beauties and trying to find something beautiful in every person.

READ MORE »

I loved where designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy took their Rodarte collection this season. It was a super show. I adored the patched-together fabric clashes from scraps of plaids and floral prints, especially the photo print of roses. It seemed as if the girls were tipping their hat to grunge in the most updated way without losing their core. Then there were the most amazing group of white dresses -- layered and wrapped with lots of texture and trimmings. Rodarte will no doubt be first on a list for hipster wedding dresses in 2010. Here are my favorite looks... from "nouveau Rodarte gruntge" to "here come the hipster brides."

We loved what we saw when we stopped in at the Carlyle Hotel to see designer Mary Ping's collection Slow and Steady Wins the Race. Her small collection was displayed casually around a suite -- draped on chairs, beds and on hangers in the bathroom -- as if you were stopping by someone's room who was a bit messy and had their stuff all over the place. Ping's work is really great. In one bedroom, she had a series of black T-shirts each in a different fabric, from leather to lace, mesh to rubberized cotton to silk. Then there was the one fantabulous white T-shirt made entirely of pearls (see above). I immediately began shopping and bought a gigantic pearl necklace, a canvas spoof on a designer bag and a canvas down-filled faux fox stole which was fabulous. Great, smart and beautifully made stuff.

Check out this hilarious fashion trend that's all over the streets of Japan. No, it's not kids walking around with see-through skirts, but merely fabulous tromp l'oeil butt prints screened on them. pretty fun, eh? Cant wait til this one comes to NYC.

Another designer I continue to be drawn to every season is Matthew Ames. I always loved the '80s-era designer Zoran, and Ames seems to be somewhat of an updated reincarnation of him. I'm a sucker for geometry and boxy, unfussy shapes as a uniform and this season Ames served them up in lovely painterly and quirky palettes.

It's always fun to see my great old friend Renzo Rosso, and over breakfast yesterday at Balthaszar with his family (son Andrea and daughter Alessia), I heard all about the fun impending show for Diesel Black, the debut of the label's new creative director Sophia Kokosalaki. Well, the show was fresh, with just a little grunge mixed in (I loved the black leather jumper with plaid shirt), but the denim and the super-great, sexy women's jeans were still the stars of the mix.

Last night, Marc Jacobs put on one of the most beautiful shows of his career. Walking into the Armory space that the Jacobs team had adorned with simple artisinal plywood crate benches, walls and floors made out of corrugated cardboard and a big wooden framed box covered in brown paper, I felt a sense of relief at this departure from all the frantic sameness of Fashion Week so far. And when the designer and his partner (both looking super handsome... Marc traded in his skirt this season for a super-sharp custom suit) walked out and ripped paper off of a giant box to reveal 56 girls clad in his beautiful collection, as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (a Rufus Wainwright version?) played in the background, it all just felt completely RIGHT. This was a moment I'd been craving. Jacobs gave us an homage to BEAUTY, not to mention warmth, emotion, serenity, comfort, familiarity, heritage (including his own!) and even a hint of melancholy dusted with sparkles -- without muddling it with cloying nostalgia, technology or trendiness. I would buy and wear for years three quarters of what I saw on the runway, especially the most anonymous beautiful gray skirt with a navy pea-coat. These are clothes that feel like old friends... to be loved and worn until threadbare. I loved what Jacobs told style.com: "'It's refreshing to see something that isn't trying so hard to be new," Jacobs, subversive as ever, said after the show. 'There's so much striving for newness now that newness feels less new.'"  At a time when Lindsay Lohan is designing for Ungaro, Sarah Jessica Parker is doing Halston and word has it Madonna is in talks to launch a line, we need more true blue designers to step up to the plate and give us the real deal like Marc Jacobs did last night.


CLICK HERE FOR PAPERMAG'S COMPLETE DOWN-LOW FASHION WEEK FALL 2010 COVERAGE. >>

Don't miss the Margiela auction that Resurrection and First Dibs are putting on. I wear Margiela every day in the winter  (I have three amazing winter coats!) and have always adored and collected these designs. Here are just a two of my favorite sick pieces up for auction: a double dress and a crazy webbed ballet pump!

I love this invite I got for an opening to celebrate a new Cynthia Rowley limited edition "mystery creation" for Gagosian that will be available at Gagosian's art store (988 Madison Ave.) beginning in mid-February. Can't wait to see what she's doing! I also can't wait to see her hubby Bill Powers as a judge on Bravo's upcoming art-star reality show called Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, which premieres in June.

We CAN'T WAIT to check out all the mint, vintage Margiela pieces that will be shown and sold in a collaborative retrospective and super-sale organized by the dynamic vintage couture entities 1stdibs and Resurrection. A show of 350 of the most amazing pieces will open Feb.13th at a pop-up gallery at One Jackson Square, but over 1,000 pieces will be on sale and viewable at the website 1stdibs. The clothing is all from the estate of the late, obsessed fashion collector Marcia Berger.

With the looming loss of Deitch Projects, now that Jeffrey Deitch is headed to the MOCA in L.A., Manhattan's art scene is losing a huge edge. L.A. is pumping, folks. Check out this awesome five week film festival our old friend Aaron Rose organized called Projections that's taking place Roberts & Tilton in Culver City.
 
Billed as a festival of "rare and hard to see films," Projections will feature the work of lots of our favorite artists and friends: Cheryl Dunn, Mike Mills, Chris Johanson, Jo Jackson and Thomas Campbell to Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alia Raza, Maximilla Lucacs and Autumn De Wilde. And on opening night (January 16th) don't miss a screening of Jonas Mekas (he was my teacher in college!!!)'s legendary 1968 film called Walden: Diaries, Notes and Sketches featuring appearances by the likes of Alan Ginsberg, Warhol, John and Yko, Edie Sedgewick, Jack Smith and more. Check the Projections site for more information.


Projections
January 16th-February 20th, 2010
Opening reception, Saturday, January 16th, 6-9 p.m.
Roberts & Tilton
5801 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Aren't these the CUTEST shoes? I just got these photos sent to me from Robert Clergerie. They are reissuing these shoes which were originally sold in 1990. They're made in Morocco, and are not only cruelty free but they are fabulous, eh?

Check out this photo my friend Gary just sent me. It's of a piece of art (a hat? a wig?) made of customized fingernails. This was, it seems, shown at Spinello Gallery Miami during Art Basel created by Lee Materazzi. Pretty good, eh? (via artlurker.com)

The amazing fashion super-blogger Bryanboy stopped by PAPER Tuesday to pick up a copy of our new ish which has his fun article in it! WHAT a sweetie. Loved him.

READ MORE »