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All in Interviews
I’ll never forget the first time I discovered the work of Mary Katrantzou. It was in London in 2008 I believe, and I just happened to wander into a room where a rack of her now-famous perfume bottle printed dresses was on display. On hand was her mother who was proudly showing off the stunning creations her daughter had dreamt up.
Designer Spencer Phipps is a born risk-taker. There isn’t a limb on his body that doesn’t have a scar from one escapade or another - that he jumped into with both feet before asking questions. The man is even missing a significant portion of one of his pinkie fingers from one memorable misadventure. And when it comes to taking risks, Spencer also has no problem doing that in business. It was, after all, an impulse decision to launch his signature menswear brand Phipps back in 2017. When, after having worked alongside Marc Jacobs and Dries van Noten, he found himself looking to make his next move and couldn’t find a fashion house that ticked all the boxes. So instead he decided to start his own.
You get the sense, when you speak to designer Joseph Altuzarra, that he is that perfect combination of creativity and commerce. That as a French American, he has an innate sense of style coursing through his veins. While his American roots give him savvy business sense and a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” attitude.
I wanted to interview Alisa Volskaya, the founder of the public relations firm AVEC, for a few reasons. First of all, every time I would bump into her at a fashion show or event, our conversations about the state of the industry, future trends, and fashion in general always went well past surface chit-chat. Secondly, I was impressed by her drive and third, it just takes a lot of guts to launch a PR company during a moment when that field is in the middle of such a paradigm shift. Not to mention doing it in 2020, the year the world stood still.
Consummate creative Alexandre de Betak is an industry touchpoint in the world of fashion. He is behind some of the most era-defining fashion shows, events, and exhibitions of the past three decades. The proverbial man behind the curtain, Alex has brought to life the visions of designers as diverse as Raf Simons, Michael Kors, and Gabriela Hearst, and brands big and small, from Dior and YSL to Jacquemus and Rodarte.
In just under three years, Gherardo Felloni, the creative director of Roger Vivier, has put a new spring in the step of one of the world’s most famous souliers. Since his arrival at the French house, Felloni has given Vivier a fresh joie de vivre with his introduction of the first-ever Vivier sneaker, his unforgettable fashion week collection presentations, and his cinematic style of brand storytelling. Felloni’s infectious positive attitude and his light-hearted approach to shoemaking are however grounded in over 20 years of designing footwear for some of the biggest luxury brands, including Prada and Dior. Not to mention his father and uncle are also shoemakers. For Felloni fashionable footwear is a way of life.
Long-distance soul sisters actress Andie MacDowell and acclaimed author Anne Lamott connect online for a powerful and heartfelt conversation. Where they share openly and freely about their experiences of co-dependent childhoods caring for alcoholic parents and how they have used their artistic voices to work through the pain of the past. How spirituality and a connection to nature and animals have helped them to heal and their hopes for their children and the future.
Cyrill Gutsch is the visionary founder of the company Parley for the Oceans, an organization dedicated to leveraging a community of creators, innovators, and decision-makers to help raise awareness about the fragile state of the world's oceans. Gutsch is leveraging his network of big thinkers to come up with, and implement, outside the box strategies that have a singular goal, saving the seas. Ian Urbina, the Pulitzer winning investigative journalist, has spent years on the high seas reporting on the lawlessness that exists offshore. That experience resulted in the book “The Outlaw Ocean,” which was recently purchased by Netflix and Leonardo DiCaprio. Both men are drawn to the big blue as a place of beauty, danger, loneliness, and freedom. But most of all its critical role in the future of humanity on this planet.
2020 was a very good year for the 20-year-old rapper, singer, and songwriter 24kGoldn. His earworm of a song “Mood” had, by the end of the year, spent eight weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 between its original version, which featured Iann Dior, and the remix that worked in vocals from Justin Bieber and J. Balvin. 24kGoldn, who is taking a leave of absence from his full ride at the University of Southern California for Business Studies, is also in the early stages of setting up a scripted tv series about his life and his debut album “El Dorado'' is set to drop by April. All of which is to say 24kGoldn is currently living his best life.
For the first time during his tenure as the creative director of Berluti designer Kris Van Assche collaborated with a living artist to bring his SS21 menswear collection to life. And it was the colorful, textural, and freeform art pieces by the highly respected American ceramic artist Brian Rochefort that caught Van Assche's eye. An avid ceramics collector, Van Assche was able to reinterpret Rochefort’s bold and layered vision into silk prints shirts, three-dimensional knitted sweaters, and rich patinated leather Berluti accessories. The result is an elevated collection where artists, artistry, and the artisanal are celebrated in perfect harmony.
In a freewheeling conversation that featured both nudity and urination, the collective known as Gelitin, which consists of four Austrian artists named Wolfgang Gantner, Florian Reither, Ali Janka, and Tobias Urban, took time out from their latest project to discuss their illustrious and outrageous career. It’s a history that is rooted in the idea of collaboration, not only between the four men, who first met at a summer camp in 1978, but also between the art they create and the audience that is encouraged to interact with it. And in doing so, transform the pieces in ways even the artists couldn’t have imagined.
It has been a steep learning curve for Derek Blasberg at YouTube. But he hit the ground running. In the little over two years since the fashion insider took on the brand new role of Head of Fashion and Beauty at YouTube he has launched the YouTube Fashion vertical on the site, connected big-name luxury brands with big-name YouTube creators and he gave Naomi Campbell a global platform to be, well, Naomi Campbell. A classically trained journalist who has written for all of the top fashion publications, from Style.com and Interview to Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, Blasberg has fully embraced the new narrative of his career, where instead of recounting peoples stories he is empowering them to tell them themselves.
Harvey Mason Jr. has had a pretty wild ride as interim CEO and President of the Re- cording Academy. He was tapped for the top post just days before the Grammys took place in January 2020. He then spent the rest of the year helping musicians make it through the pandemic via the Academy’s MusiCares initiative, responded to the social justice movement by launching the Black Music Collective project, and more recently he made the tough call to push back the 2021 Grammys show to March 14th, in re- action to the COVID-19 conditions in California. Music is Mason’s life’s blood and he is on a mission with the non-profit Recording Academy to uplevel the industry as it faces the new normal.
Fashion designer August Getty is a gentle soul whose goal is to create a fully inclusive, fully immersive sartorial world where everyone is welcome. All that is required is that you be yourself 100% both in the real world in one of his one-of-a-kind couture creations, or in the digital sphere where he recently created a whole new virtual universe he has baptized Tinitus.
Award-winning designer Priya Ahluwalia is giving the fashion world a dynamic and vital new narrative. Her signature menswear line is both a reflection of her Nigerian and Indian heritage and presents a hopeful vision of the future, where upcycled designer clothing becomes a new cornerstone to the industry and fashion finally begins to reflect a more multicultural perspective. A future where sartorial stories are pulled from places and events that don’t usually get highlighted in traditional history books and the voices of those who have been muted until now finally find an avenue to proclaim themselves.
Alexandre Mattiussi is feeling the love. This past year his company, AMI Paris, saw strong sales as it became a safe haven for shoppers looking for comfort clothing to wear while in lockdown. And he has found himself a new partner in Sequoia Capital China, to help him take AMI to the next level as a global fashion house with a Parisian heart. Matti- ussi is a strong believer in signs, and right now all the signs are saying that big things are in store for a fashion brand built on one simple but powerful premise. Well-made evergreen clothing that you can wear every day of the week.
Photographer Sasha Samsonova is generating quite a buzz with her striking images of women who are comfortable in their own skin and unabashedly sexy. A female Helmut Newton, Sasha is all about celebrating the beauty and strength of the women who stand before her lens.
Romeo Hunte first registered on my radar in a way that I have never connected with a young designer before. He sent me a DM on Instagram during the global lockdown last year and suggested that the two of us jump on an Instagram Live to talk about the state of fashion in the throws of a global pandemic. And that is exactly what we ended up doing.
Declan Chan is one of those front-row fashion fixtures that you always keep an eye out for at the shows. A fashion editor and stylist by trade, Declan has also become a favorite subject for anyone who loves to appreciate those who take the time to put together a look. Declan always looks put together, but with flare. And his outfits are just as eye-catching as the spreads he creates in the pages of publications like Vogue Hong Kong, The New York Times, the South China Morning Post, and Men’s Uno Hong Kong, or the campaigns he crafts for companies like Calvin Klein, Cartier, Estée Lauder, and Lane Crawford.
It is hard to miss Pascal Morand when he arrives at a fashion show. Not only does he tower above most of the guests, but he is also always surrounded by the who’s who of the industry, designer hopefuls, and fashion journalists who all want to bend his ear about one aspect or another pertaining to the business of fashion. But that is what you sign up for when you are the executive president of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.
