Anastasia Ashley's L.A.

By Alexis Swerdloff

After hanging with the blonde bombshell (and co-shaking our booties to Q-Tip) at the recent PAPER Nightlife Awards, our love for pro-surfer Anastasia Ashley was solidified. In addition to grabbing first place at the Corona Extra Surf Circuit Event last month in Puerto Rico and being a sexy vegan, the L.A. native's coming out with a line of Stride Rite shoes that’ll be available in January! We asked Anastasia to reveal her favorite spots in L.A. and she was kind enough to oblige.

EAT: I love Katana on Sunset. They have an amazing atmosphere and there are always good-looking people there. Pink Taco, which just opened, has a fun vibe and it’s in the Century City Mall, so it’s fun to go to Bloomingdale’s, grab some clothes and then go eat some good Mexican food.

SHOP: Madison on Robertson is amazing. They have high end lines with a mix of not-as-famous designers. I Love Yana K on Melrose. They do custom dresses, to make sure they fit just right. Most of the stuff in there is one of a kind, so you won’t see anyone else wearing your clothes!

SURF: Third Point in Malibu is kind of crowded, but worth it. It has some of the longest waves in California. Matthew McConaughey surfs this spot a lot. El Porto in Manhattan Beach is always consistent, always breaking. Most days I usually head down to Newport and surf a spot called 54th St. I love Orange County too.

Posted Apr. 25, 2007,

Surf's Up on Benefit Season

By David Hershkovits

Tis the season for benefits. You'd be hard-pressed to find a not-for-profit that's not doing what it can to lure supporters to their star-studded events. Then there are others, like the surfwear company Billabong's charitable division Design for Humanity. This year, they're going all out to raise money for SurfAid International, a non-profit humanitarian aid organization that runs community-based health, education and disease prevention programs in village areas of the Mentawai Islands and Nias region of Western Sumatra where 25% of children die before reaching the age of twelve years from preventable and treatable diseases, including malaria, measles, tetanus, diarrhea and respiratory infections.

Tomorrow, April 26th, Billabong USA hosts an event in Los Angeles at the Avalon/Spyder Club in Hollywood. The beautiful thing here is that everyone can participate, as the entire event will be featured in a live webcast to be hosted at designforhumanity. The webcast will be approximately one and a half hours in length and will feature both the fashion, art and music components that can be purchased on Ebay as quickly as they appear.

Posted Apr. 13, 2007,

Cali Comes East: From Tom Ford to Surfer Kids

By Kim Hastreiter

Sometimes I stop and think about how much I love my truly yin yang life, doing what I do here in New York City. Take this week, where I swung from moviestarhollywoodland to OC surfercutieland... from saying "hey" (and swooning when I saw how gorgeous he is looking lately) to Tom Ford up at his new super luxe over-the-top mens emporium to stopping into a fun surf art show called The Happening and meeting all the newest cutest long and shortboard champs and the punky artist/surfers who have been putting a super new cool aesthetic vibe on that world.

When we hit the new Tom Ford shop Tuesday evening for a preview, the first person we ran into was Richard lambertson and Dawn Mello, who, for those who aren't familiar with Gucci history, were the first people to begin to drag Gucci out of the stone age in the early nineties. Dawn was hired by the Gucci company (it must have been in the early nineties) and she hired Lambertson as a consultant (who I knew quite well from his days designing at Geoffrey Beene) to come up with some ideas to bring Gucci into modern times as their demo was at that point geriatric. I remember I went nuts when I saw Richard's first collection because he'd taken the traditional Gucci suede loafer and offered it in jelly bean jewel tones like hot pink, turquoise, bright yellow, kelly green. He also designed a simple Gucci suede backpack in these same colors. I bought four pairs of shoes and three backpacks IMMEDIATELY. (I still have them to this day.) Of course I wrote about them immediately in PAPER too. Then a few years later, Mello took an even braver step and hired the then very young designer Tom Ford and the rest was history. When I saw Richard and Dawn at the Ford shop this week, we gabbed about those backpacks and shoes. I should donate them to the Met or something! (They're in my closet still.)

Then last night, at the opening party for "The Happening" (the show/party was organized by one of my old friends Randy Hild who runs the cute girlie surfer collection Roxy), I fell in love with the work of two artists I saw there and can't get it out of my mind. One guy is called Jeff Canham and he's a surfer living in San Fran who works as a sign painter as well as at the super cool surf shop Mollusk there. I ADORE THIS guy's work (see a photo of him and his stuff below). The show will up from 6-9 p.m. at the MILK gallery (450 W. 15th St.) today (Friday the 13th!). There's also a huge party at the Maritime tonight with lots of surf-friendly music. (check the website for more info.)

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