The theme of the exhibition took its inspiration from a satire featured in Vanity Fair in the 1930s in which two people, who have never met, have an imaginary conversation. This is where Baz brought in his magic: he directed eight short sequences and recruited Judy Davis to play the part Elsa and have an “imaginary” conversation with Miuccia. Judy’s lines were cleverly taken from Elsa’s 1954 autobiography, Shocking Life, and Miuccia responds to her comments accordingly. Much like the Vanity Fair articles, Judy and Miuccia never actually met, though they appear to be seated at the same table and even toast champagne glasses at one point. So clever!

The exhibition features looks from both the house of Prada and Schiaparelli archives, staged within the various topics of conversation, many of which the two women disagree on, such as Waist Up/Waist Down — when designing Schiap liked the party up top, Miuccia likes the details to be from the waist down — and whether or not fashion is art. They never agree on the latter, but decide to remain friends all the same.

The exhibition is fascinating and Baz’s contribution is genius. Check out our exclusive interview and footage, in which Baz tells us what he is wearing to the Met Ball (Prada!), and what he thinks makes these women so incredible.

In many ways perception does play a role in Tierney’s work. Her images are often ambiguous and avoid being overly sentimentalised. It is for the viewer to decide what to take away from them. To me her photographs speak of afternoon naps, slow summer days, mischievous youth and the incomparable depth of familial love. They are warm and open, much like the photographer herself.

Whilst Tierney never stages her shots, her images go well beyond the traditional point-and-shoot study of the everyday: in a single moment she captures something much more fantastical. As if snapshots from a daydream, each frame is filled with sunlight and colours are exaggerated. The effect is even more surreal in her later work with double exposure, whereby she layers the one roll of film with multiple images.

Most importantly, through her personal work Tierney has been able to explore her own life journey, in particular her role as a mother, which figuratively has been her most important muse. It’s unsurprising, then, that she’s famous for having an open home. I have friends and colleagues who‘ve often gushed about her generous hospitality and her capacity to make everyone feel like they’re part of the family. Tierney shares with us some unpublished pictures of her life at home, and talks about family and her ongoing process of self-discovery.

To read the rest of this article click here.

Alice Cavanagh: Tell me about this series of work ‘Medicated’ [above and below]. How did this come about?
Richard Kern: She [points to one photo] was helping me on a shoot and she tells me she takes Adderall. I was thinking, ‘OK what is that?’ It’s for ADD; instead of Ritalin, now they give Adderall. It’s also the most abused drug in America. There’s a huge black market and people take it recreationally — it’s like speed. I know a bunch of people — like, grown ups — that grind it up and do it all the time.

This girl [points to another] has been on this stuff since she was 14, since her parents split up. She’s on a lot more than this, though. Usually, like, with her, you can’t sleep so they give you something to sleep; then they give you something to stay awake; then they give you something because you’re depressed… This one, she had anxiety and some kind of OCD treatment. I also have photos of regular drugs — like cold and flu medicine. This whole series is legal drugs.

How do you find these girls?
Every time I do a casting I ask the girl if she takes any prescription drugs. There is a film I have done about this, just talking about when they started, why they started.

What draws you to a girl in the first place?
It’s impossible to say, really. Like this girl [points to an image], when I saw her I didn’t think she was going to be any good, but she turned out to be really, really good. But she’s really tiny, [has] like a really thin face, but when she took off her clothes—what a body! She was a really good model. And you know, [as are] all of these… a lot of funny faces.

Are you shooting all of the time?
Not all the time, but most of the time. A lot of the shooting is going to be done this week. I’m shooting five days straight starting tomorrow, and that will be a big body of photographs. I do tours with Vice and we went to six countries and we shot for 30 days. That’s the way a lot of that happens. And then, somewhere like Toronto happens to be a really good place for models and I’ll just book, like, five days of solid shooting.

Do you think your pictures represent who you are in ‘real life’?
It starts out as one thing and then it becomes your job, but it’s a fun job. The one misconception—and you can ask my wife on that, too— is that people think I live this crazy, wild lifestyle. Like I’m going off to have sex with all these girls, but that’s not happening.

It’s really just a job? Do you ever want to try something else then?
Yeah. I do shoot [other things]. Well, not a tremendous amount of other things, but I’ve gone back a lot to filmmaking. I’ve made quite a few new films in the last couple years. But, I don’t have to break out. You have your job, and you don’t really have time for anything else.

I’m sure you have had to explain your work in the past, but how do you describe your approach?
I used to try to defend stuff, but there’s no point because the moment you’ve started defending something, you’ve lost. So, I don’t generally bother anymore. To me, it’s all portraits, you know? Who knows what’ll be happening in 50 years? But you see this work in 50 years and you’re going to know not just the drugs that these people take but also what their lives were like from these photos. You see some of the same products in different households; it’s weird. People leave all their shit out. I would shoot someone just based on their room, because that’s the kind of stuff you’re going to be looking at.

There’s another series where every girl is in the same position, all different bedsheets —that’s like 50 to 100 shots from that — with just the girl lying there. Someday I’ll do some giant piece with it. Then, you see, it looks like no information but actually it’s a lot of information.

Tell me about the cell phone series.
This was a series about cell phones and I started shooting it a little late for America — because everyone has an iPhone in America. So these are all Eastern girls; girls from former communist countries: Poland, Bulgaria and these two [gesturing] are Russians. Occasionally if a girl shows up with a different phone then I’ll shoot her. But I am shooting this because, in ten years this is going to look really good. Who knows what phones we will be using [then]?

Your wife Martynka was one of your models. Are you often attracted to your subjects?
I don’t think it’s any different than if you’re in a room and a person’s got their clothes on. It’s the same thing. If you’re at a job and it’s business and you feel that it’s someone that you have a weird connection with [then] that’s going to happen. But, anybody that shoots like this, they’re going to tell you that the excitement comes after you’ve shot the photos and you’re at home looking at them. Then you think, “Oh, wow! This looks really good. This looks really thrilling.”

My wife asks me that all the time, “Don’t you ever get excited?” Sometimes I’ll lie to her and say, “I felt something. I felt a twinge.” Occasionally that happens. I was thinking [that], this trip in August, it happened twice. I remember two times, like, wow, that feeling.

I saw a behind-the-scenes video of a shoot you did with two girls, and they were so different. One seemed quite conservative about sex and the other was obviously much more open. The end result was the same, though: they both loved being naked and seemed to be so comfortable in front of the camera.
I think people might imagine that a girl without her clothes on is some kind of crazy girl. That’s possible, but I would say any of these girls have some kind of exhibitionist streak, and it seems to me to be kind of common in a certain age group — I don’t know, late teens to about 30. I get people that are late thirties and forties and I almost always know that they’re at a certain point in their life when they’re looking for some kind of excitement.

Do you like photographing older women?
It’s exactly the same. It doesn’t come up as much. An older woman—they wouldn’t fit into ‘Medicated’. Actually, they would fit into this, but I don’t know if they would do it. I’ve shot a few older women naked and it feels weird to ask them. It just feels like a different thing. It takes a certain person to want to be naked and to be around other people of a certain age. When you’re young, you’d do anything. You don’t really give a shit. If someone asked me to get naked now, — I mean, I’ve done it — [but] I’d feel really stupid. I don’t look so good naked.

The historian James C. Cobb once called the Mississippi Delta “The Most Southern Place on Earth” in his essay of the same name. It is, he wrote, “an isolated, time-warped enclave whose startling juxtaposition of white affluence and black poverty suggested the Old South legacy preserved in vivid microcosm.”

This region was once the heartland of the plantation aristocracy, not to mention the slave labour that sustained it. In 1962, James Meredith became the first African American to enrol at the University of Mississippi. Violent riots erupted, two people were killed and 75 more were injured. BBC News reported at the time that Meredith was, “escorted to his first class, a seminar on American colonial history, through a crowd of several hundred jeering students.” Six years later, Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated just across the state border in Memphis.

Although history in the South has been marred by injustice and oppression, the area was also a hotspot for some of the country’s most esteemed artists. There was Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, but this was also the stomping ground of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Jerry Lee Lewis, who all did the rounds between Jackson, Nashville and Memphis.

William Eggleston was born in Memphis in 1939. His family owned a cotton plantation and were once part of the elite class, and he attended the University of Mississippi around the same time as James H. Meredith. I met Eggleston in Paris, of all places. He was wearing a smart suit with a green bow-tie, his hair so freshly combed that I could still see the comb strokes. He bowed when we were introduced.

Eggleston has been taking photos of this part of the world for more than 50 years. He has documented the ‘Vanishing South’, as many have termed it — although he makes it sound much more adventitious than that. “I just photograph whatever is there.” And he really does: road signs, empty gas-stations, milk cartons, unknown characters — “Whoever he is,” says Eggleston, gesturing to an image, “I don’t remember his name.” Intentional or otherwise, through his lens he has captured the South in all its intensity, simply by photographing some of life’s most mundane moments.

In addition to being one of America’s most prolific photographers, Eggleston is also an accomplished musician. He can play almost anything on the piano and likes all music: “Starting with Bach, all the way up to the best American, and everything in between.” He doesn’t like jazz, though — “not at all.”

Eggleston’s latest book release is a trilogy called Chromes. It documents the period from 1969 to 1974, when he first started experimenting with colour. Most of the images featured in the books have never been seen before. Chromes by William Eggleston is published by Steidl.

The hour-long bike ride from Manhattan to Red Hook, Brooklyn can be a hairy one, especially while (in my case) battling a brutal wind on a Buick-sized single-speed lady cruiser. Jack Greer does the return trip a few times a week; not on a girl’s bike, I might add — he’s more of a fixed-gear kind of man — but nonetheless it’s a long journey to make. Greer has good reason, though: out here is Still House, a space he and twelve other young artists have set up. Here Greer is able to do what makes him happiest: make art — although the space offers much more that that. As well as building their own gallery, the group have set up a monthly residency program, bringing in more-established artists to mentor and impart wisdom to the younger artists. “We didn’t want to be like, ‘Oh, it’s a bunch of kids who have another studio — cool, whatever,’” says Greer.

Still House is in an old warehouse that sits on the edge of the Hudson. The studio itself is enormous. A large gallery space sits to the left of the entrance and, behind that, there are a dozen or so partitioned studios. Sculptures are scattered throughout and paintings cover almost every wall. There are several young dudes mooching around, all slim, well-dressed and with the requisite amount of facial hair. Greer is with them, though he’s clean-shaven with tanned skin and short hair. He bounds up to me and introduces himself, a grin cracking across his face. From the get-go Greer bursts with pride and excitement, but one gets the impression that he is generally excited about almost everything. It’s his secret, and it’s catching.

Growing up in Palms, LA Greer was always a wonderkid, blessed with many gifts — the most important being confidence and ambition. This is not to say he isn’t a talented artist, it’s just that the former traits are what set him apart from the next talented artist. Greer knows how to make things happen: at the age of just 15 he marched into Fred Segal with a batch of customised hooded sweatshirts and proposed that they take them on consignment. “It was so weird,” he says, “I don’t know how the fuck I got the courage to do it. I understand that once someone takes interest in a project of mine I’m 100 percent willing to flush it out, but it’s really hard to take that initial step.” Not only did Fred Segal take the hoodies, they also asked Greer to create a line of custom-illustrated sneakers after they noticed the pair he was wearing.

Comprehending how a 15-year-old had the guts to spruik his first fashion line to a major department store is easier than you think, once you get to know him. Greer is the only child (“it’s kind of apparent”) of very supportive parents. He was encouraged to do anything and everything he wanted, and for the most part that was drawing, skating and sewing. This could have been the start of a career as a prodigious fashion designer, but at the time Greer just wanted to be a kid. “I was like, ‘I’m over it, this is cool, but…’ I didn’t really need the money, ’cause what was I going to do? Buy another skateboard, or a PlayStation? The goal had already been reached. I didn’t really understand the potential beyond it and that was OK, because I was young and it was cool.”

After graduation, Greer moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute, where he enrolled as a drawing major. He describes his drawing style as “extremely meticulous and real — like, almost photorealistic.” Greer’s fastidiousness seeps into all parts of his life, and he characteristically (and amusingly) holds messy materials in great disdain. “I hate nothing more than charcoal. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. There is no such thing as creating a clean line out of charcoal.”

From drawing Greer switched to painting, and then took on sculpture. However, after only 18 months at Pratt, he got kicked out for threatening to kill someone after they stole a pair of his sneakers and threw them in a dumpster (yes, you read that sentence correctly). “Here’s the thing,” he explains with a wry smile. “A girl sent me a message on Myspace and asked me out on a date. I said ‘no’ in a funny way, she took offence, came to a house party of mine, stole a pair of the shoes that I’d drawn on and threw them in the dumpster. I found out it was her, and this is where I really fucked up: I wrote her the most heinous, comical-yet-very-ridiculous death threat, and got kicked out of school for it.” Greer was 19 at the time, but he kept up his drawing. “I’ve never been the sort of person where I needed an assignment to make a piece.” Eventually he was accepted back into the school.

Greer’s ballsy attitude, which invariably gets him into trouble, also landed him a job at Nike working in custom apparel. Greer was first recruited as a freelance graphic designer but kept visiting the store to follow up on his work, becoming so invested (read: persistent) that he was eventually offered a job. “The woman who was responsible for the creative direction of that space asked me, ‘What do you even do? Do you want a job?’” Initially he worked in production, but for two years he worked his “fuckin’ ass off” to get a promotion. Now he is “Lead Designer, Creative Direction — though it should be, ‘The Guy On Salary’.” Greer’s not one for letting PR get in the way of his scruples. “You have me 11 am until 7 pm and I’ll work my fucking ass off,” he says of working for the sportswear giant, “but my heart is by no means associated with sport and the brand. I care about making things.”

Greer also makes custom pieces for Opening Ceremony: denim jackets that are studded, patched, embroidered and generally macked-out. Although the personalisation is the all-important element, it’s also the main setback — short of cloning himself, growing the business is impossible. “To be completely honest, I’m stressed-out right now. I’m, like, sitting there with bloody fingers, trying to figure out a way that I can expand this operation. I have this greater idea of what I would love this to become, and I’m a little nervous about how to go about doing that. Everything I’ve always done has been one-to-one … It’s hard to imagine anyone in the world caring as much about something that I wanna make.”

I personally don’t think anyone cares about anything as much as Greer cares about his work. He talks in hyperactive bursts and leaps out of his chair at regular intervals during our conversation. He has so much energy. “I know so many people who don’t wanna work, but they also don’t really wanna do anything. That’s so gross to me,” he says. “I’m so excited about making, about doing. There’s just not enough time for me to really see through all of my ideas, but I could make them bigger — and more — and I just wanna do that so badly.” Greer’s rule of thumb seems to be that when he wants something, he goes for it — and he generally gets it. As he walks me out to my bike, he explains how he managed to secure the grant to set up Stills House. “It’s one of those things that seems unattainable, therefore no-one goes for it. But realistically, in New York, I’ve been lucky enough to find that every single thing is possible in that regard. It’s just a matter of motivation.”

Words: Alice Cavanagh

Alice Cavanagh: You once said that when you were five you wanted to be 50. What is a five-year-old who wants to be 50 like?
Tom Ford: Crazy, actually. It was lucky for me that I had understanding parents who nurtured my personality, as I was not really the typical five-year-old. I think that I was always very self-possessed and very sure of what I wanted from a very young age.

You’ve described yourself as a shy and introspective person, yet you became one of the celebrity designers. In the current age of fashion figures as celebrities, is it possible to succeed without a little bit of spotlight?
No. In today’s world one needs a bit of the spotlight to succeed. I have sort of a split personality: In my personal life, I am quite shy and prefer being alone to being out or in groups of people. In my professional life, however, I realised early on that it is important that a designer company has a ‘voice’, and that voice comes, of course, from the designer: from me. A connection with the consumer is key, as the customer is, in a sense, buying the personality and taste of the designer. For that reason, a public persona of some sort is necessary for a fashion designer.

That reminds me of when you once said that getting dressed is kind of like putting on armour. What do you imagine you are protecting yourself from?
I think that getting dressed and grooming oneself gives a person an incredible amount of confidence, and this confidence can help one feel prepared for any situation.

Are you someone who needs to be liked?
Don’t we all long to be liked? Isn’t this a primal desire of humans? I think it is one of the things that drives people to consume luxury goods: the belief that if they look good, people will like them more. In fact, I think that people that are drawn to the fashion business are innately insecure — the same with actors and performers. There is a need to be loved there.

Your collections are presented privately because you don’t like your designs to be influenced by reviews. Do you think many other fashion businesses could function in such a way?
What I am really trying to stay away from is having the pictures of the collection released to the press immediately following the show. Most fashion houses release the images immediately and the customer sees the collection, sees celebrities wearing the clothes, and sees copies of the clothes in high-street chains within a few weeks. By the time the collection hits the stores it seems old. I have therefore chosen to show my collections in a small showroom setting and not to release images to the press until much closer to the date when the clothes hit the stores.

Your aesthetic for Gucci defined the nineties. What aesthetic defines the current decade?
I think that our cultural obsession with trying to define the period that we live in while we are living in it is a bit nuts. We can’t possibly have the perspective to make real judgments about our own time until we are somewhat removed from it and can look back at it with more clarity. Headlines like “The Movie of the Decade!” when it is 2011 make me laugh. Who can possibly know something like that two years into the decade? It is too soon to know what sort of aesthetic defines (or will define) our decade. As a rule, however, each decade is, in a sense, a reaction to the previous decade, so it might follow that this decade will be less about glitz and more about content and quality. But, then again, it might not.

The Gucci years were led by a sexual energy. Where would you draw the line between something sexy, and something  pornographic?
I don’t think that sex is offensive and I don’t think that the human body is offensive. In fact, I find them very beautiful, which is why some might say that sex features heavily in my work. I have never understood the fear of the naked body that is prevalent today.

You’ve described your time post-Gucci as a mid-life crisis. How did you turn that around?
I would say that directing my first film, A Single Man, was very cathartic for me. It was, in a sense, my mid-life crisis on screen, and finishing the film allowed me to move forward to the next phase in my life.

The film was a masterpiece — I loved it! People were surprised you went through with it. Were you happy when you proved them wrong?
A Single Man was probably the most personal and fulfilling project I have completed in my life, and it meant a lot to me that the reaction was so positive.

You’re a Virgo, and they are famous perfectionists. Do you make your bed every day?
Every day? Are you kidding? I make it in the middle of the night every time I get up to go to the bathroom!

[Laughs] Is your closet perfectly arranged as well?
Of course my closet is very well-organised; however I think that people would be surprised by how edited my wardrobe is.

Do you think your being a perfectionist can be an irritating thing for others?
I always say to Richard [Buckley, Ford’s long-time partner] that he is lucky that at least he can leave the house sometimes and get away from me, whereas I can’t ever get away from myself or out of my head.

You seem to work non-stop. What do you do when you do take time off?
I am lucky that I enjoy what I do more than anything else in the world. Designing — whether it be clothes, houses, or handbags — is what I love to do. That being said, I do love sports to unwind and, depending on where I am, make a point to hike, play tennis, do yoga, or ski as often as I can.

I know you’ve mentioned in the past that the money, the property, the lifestyle was not enough. What completes the picture for you?
For me, without a shadow of a doubt, my connections with other people are the most important thing in life.

When are you at your happiest then?
I am happiest on my ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Richard and my horses and dogs.

OK, last question: how would you rate Terry Richardson as a kisser, out of ten?
I don’t think one should kiss and tell.

Interview: Alice Cavanagh

When recruiting subjects for The Real Deal issue, Lake Bell was a natural choice. You see, although Bell is beautiful and talented (she acts, writes and directs), she also knows how to keep it real — not an easy feat when you’re BFFs with Cam (that’s probably what she calls her) Diaz and you’ve been lucky enough to make out with James Spader. She tells us how she does it.

Alice Cavanagh: Lake is such a cool name! Do you know any other Lakes?
Lake Bell: When you have a name that’s as odd as Lake, you tend to have other people say, “Oh, I knew a Lake growing up.” I met one dude named Lake, but he was younger than me, so I won that one. Plus, there have been a couple of Hollywood pals of mine who have kids named Lake.

Named after you?
No… I mean, they say, “No no, we just like the name.” And I’m like, “Where the hell did you hear that?” It’s a source of odd conversation.

Do you think it gave you a certain start in life? Like, if your name had been more conservative — like, Constance, or something — your life would have been different?
Well, Constance is quite esoteric as well…

OK, maybe that was a bad example.
Well, I do know that from a very young age, when we were taking road trips, I would always see my name up on billboards. You know, like Lake Michigan or Lakeville or Lake Street.

What were you like as a kid?
I was super precocious. I put on all sorts of childlike plays in order to procrastinate from going to sleep. I was always an insomniac. I remember telling jokes improperly, as well. The first joke I ever told at the dinner table was when I was, like, four, and all I said was, “To get to the other side!”, because I only knew the punch line. I just wanted the payoff.

You’re a writer as well as an actress, but you’ve kept your interest in writing a secret because you didn’t want to be derided as a ‘slashie’. Now that you are onto your second film project [Bell is directing her first feature] do you still find it a challenge?
It’s like if you were a model and you wanted to all of a sudden be a designer — because that is what you have been around — but then people are all of a sudden looking at you and judging you for something completely different. As with anything, you have to prove yourself a little bit. I never wanted to be guilty of being all talk; it’s a turn-off for me. So, the idea was that I would not call myself a writer until I was writing and things were out there. Now I feel much more comfortable with it, though. It feels right. I am proud of my short film [Worst Enemy], I am proud of my script and I am proud of the column I write.

Yes — you write a car column for The Hollywood Reporter. How did that come about?
My father owns race-car tracks and so I have grown up with a motorhead dad. The only father-daughter moments we really had were at the auto show or at the racetrack, so I acquired a lot of information and opinions about cars over the years.

You’re so humble about the slashie thing. Do you think someone like George Clooney ever felt weird about it?
He’s George Clooney, though! He could tell me to eat chicken fat and I would! He’s got the charisma of a politician and the cool of a movie star. I think I felt more self-conscious about being a woman, first of all, and doing comedy — you know, directing and writing comedy — as a woman. And, on top of that, to be someone who will occasionally be hired as a piece of ass. Even if you’re in a comedy and you’re playing some sort of sexy something, even though it’s a joke, I think you feel that you’re going to have a hurdle to jump over to get people to take you seriously … People wear different hats [though]. I’m respectful of that.

You declared 2011 to be “the year of nudity”. Why?
Yup, and it’s coming to an end. I don’t know, I think I just turned 32 and I was like, “I don’t really care, let’s just do this for a year while I still got it.” It’s just for me. I think it’s sexy, but it’s important not to take it too seriously. Being naked is pretty funny in the right setting, but I’ve never done this much [nudity] in my life. My poor family!

So, what’s next year?
It’s going to be the year of ‘prudity’ [laughs].

[Laughs] Is it true your favourite body part is your boobs?
[Laughs] I think they’re pretty fun. Boobs are funny in general, but then they are also sexy. Airplane! was one of my favourite movies when I was younger, and because of it, any time I am scared on a plane I just look down at my boobs. Because if there is turbulence, I can’t be afraid if I remember that quick cut-shot in a speedy montage in the movie, when everything is going haywire and they cut to some chick’s boobs bouncing. It’s such an arbitrary, absurd shot.

[Laughs] So, that’s your coping mechanism for turbulence?
Yup. I remember Airplane!, look at my boobs and I always laugh.

Our theme for this issue is The Real Deal. You seem very grounded — kind of a girl-next-door character. Do you like being perceived in that way?
Yeah, absolutely. I am terrified of bitches. I’m terrified of ‘complex’. I don’t like it; it makes me feel very uncomfortable. I hope to be categorised as someone who is accessible. I do want to be the ‘friend’. And it’s great as well, because in terms of public recognition I travel on the subway every day, but I can also rock the red carpet. Nobody bothers me and people are very respectful. I am so thankful for that.

You have the best of both worlds.
I really do. I feel really lucky. I have friends who are megastars, it’s a whole ‘thing’ for them. I remember being at Urban Outfitters and I was getting my basics for fall, and I remember being like, “Oh, this shit is so good, so many good t-shirts…” So, I called Cameron Diaz and was like, “Look, this is ridiculous, you gotta get down to Urban — it’s a small Urban, nobody will know.” And she said, “Oh my God, I love Urban, I’m coming.” We bought all this stuff and within ten minutes there was a swarm of paparazzi outside. That Christmas I got her a wig and said, “We can’t have you walking around with those legs and the blonde hair all the time. Can we take it down a notch?”

How do you avoid that stuff? How do you maintain a sense of normality?
I feel like I keep it pretty real, to be honest. I think the thing that we always have to be careful of — and it’s not even just in this industry, because I have siblings in other industries and they talk about it all the time — is not talking about yourself too much. Obviously we are doing an interview and it’s serving a purpose right now [laughs], but that is the thing that makes me cringe the most: not everybody wants to hear about your shit, you know? I am genuinely excited with everything I do, I think it’s exciting — but I don’t necessarily assume that everyone else thinks it’s exciting.

One thing that is definitely exciting — and I know it was a long time ago — but you got to make out with James Spader on Boston Legal.
We made out all the time. I was, like, the 23-year-old fresh-out-of-college heap of naivety that came into the office. His character was, like, 44 and starts dating me. We totally had to make out, a lot.

Is he a good kisser?
You know, I was always into James Spader — like, eighties James Spader, Less Than Zero, and he was hot and weird. And thenSecretary came out and it was so morbidly sexual… But, you know … he’s as cool as shit and an incredible actor; an awesome comedic actor. That [Boston Legal] was years and years ago. He was so fun, though.

Interview: Alice Cavanagh

Purple launched in 1992 as a reaction to all of the gloss and glamour that had defined the eighties. In its many forms (including titles such as the original Purple Prose, Purple Sexe, and Purple Fashion, as it remains today), it became a respected alternative voice within publishing. The Editor-In-Chief, Olivier Zahm, strived to reveal something raw, original and inspiring — just like his fellow fashion luminaries Martin Margiela and Helmut Lang, who also hit their stride during this time. Almost 20 years later, Zahm is no longer the radical underdog — he is now one of the industry’s biggest stars — and, though the game has changed, he still speaks nothing but the truth.

Olivier Zahm is keeping me waiting. I’ve arrived at the Purple office on rue Thérèse in Paris’ first arrondissement and the editor, photographer and all-round entrepreneur is casually slouching against a bench, fiddling with his lighter. Cigarette poised in mouth, his thumb moves back and forth over the ignition wheel, as if teasing his cigarette: flick, flick, flick. In the flesh, Zahm is exactly as he appears in photographs: trademark leather jacket, sunglasses and skinny jeans; he exudes an air of beguiling cool. I, on the other hand, am standing awkwardly in the corner, trying not to look like I am standing awkwardly in the corner. Thankfully, just as I have run out of things to pretend to do on my Blackberry, he looks at me and says in a slow Parisian drawl, “Shall we do this?”

Both of the Zahm’s parents are teachers and he, by his own admission, has always been academic, having studied literature, linguistics and philosophy at university. With his keen interest in art, he started off as a journalist and a critique for various art publications such as Artforum, before starting up Purple Prose magazine with Elein Fleiss. Though his expertise was founded in academic writing, he was ultimately destined for something more creative. “I always wanted to become a journalist, a photographer or a filmmaker. I knew since I was very young that I wanted to work in fashion, art or cinema. I didn’t know what my position would be, but the text, the writing, came first.”

It didn’t take long for Purple to take off as a publishing force, but during the early stages of the magazine Zahm stayed out of the spotlight. “My position during the nineties was totally the opposite [of what it is today]. I didn’t want to exist; I wanted to be just the person behind the magazine,” he explains carefully. “After September 11, publishing became more difficult. As an editor of a magazine, I understood that if you wanted to be part of the competition, you had to be visible.”

Being part of the competition, however, was not always Zahm’s prerogative. Purple was the alternative publication, spurred on by new ideas and inspiration, with little need for compromise, but the day came when Zahm needed to change tact. “Elein said to me one day, ‘Olivier, we were quite radical in the nineties, trying to push a different aesthetic with different photographers and different artists, but now with this new commercialism, the media is too obsessed with the celebrity culture and it is too vulgar. We don’t belong to this time anymore — we have to stop.’” Initially Zahm agreed with her. “You can’t compete and be against it all at the same time. So I said, ‘OK.’ But the day after, I came back to her and I said, ‘Elein, you are wrong. I will go on.’” That was in 2003. “This is why my position is a schizophrenic position: we are part of it and against it. A magazine is an economy and it has to be part of the system. If I am suddenly radical, I step out of the system and I will lose what I have constructed.”

The look, the lifestyle, the blog are all part of the system as well, although Zahm takes a less flashy approach when it comes to the magazine itself. “Purple is a transparent brand, because the content is more important. We are just the bridge between the clothes, the art and the reader. I don’t like when magazines are over-branded or over-designed, so this is why the aesthetic of Purple is quite calm, no? And respectful. It wasn’t like that at the beginning — we were more like, ‘Fuck the system.’ We wanted to express a voice that wasn’t there at the beginning of the nineties. But then time passed, and I saw all these magazines emerging trying to make more noise, more promotion… So I stepped back and a tried to create a frame that was more delicate.”

When it comes to marketing himself, however, it is a different story. In 2002 and 2003 there was a shift within the fashion industry and the fascination with celebrity culture reached fever pitch. Zahm has tried to put his own spin on it, most famously (and most recently) by putting Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Purple, despite her less-than-inspiring career trajectory. “To me it is a punk thing — pushing the celebrity culture and high fashion. It wasn’t radical though, it was an experiment: what we do with an icon of mass celebrity culture and high fashion? How can the two co-exist?” This statement speaks volumes of Zahm’s reasons for launching the blog in early 2009, and why he decided to become the ‘face’ of Purple.

A self-proclaimed “exhibitionist”, the editor found it easy to broadcast his life on the internet. “This is me, I am punk. I behave the same way behind the camera as in front of the camera. Before, I did not go in front of the camera, because I did not think it was my position. But I started because I needed to play the game.” When Zahm started the blog it was no-holds-barred. He posted everything online, from pictures of his daughter Asia, to images that captured intimate, sexual moments. There was a true sense of freedom, an uninhibited insight into a decadent world, and it was the perfect postcard with which to promote Purple magazine. But it hasn’t been without its setbacks. “It’s not easy with your friends and personal entourage, because they feel a bit exploited. I played with that in the beginning, when the internet was still a virgin place, but now it has become so big that it is a bit scary, so I have had to step back a little, because you don’t know … it’s too much.” He is referring, in particular, to images of his daughter, who will no longer be featured on his blog, at the request of her mother. Perhaps he is also referring to the very public break-up he went through with girlfriend Natacha Ramsay. It was just last year that Ramsay parted ways with Zahm and he broadcasted a heartfelt letter on his blog — which seems to have worked on Ramsay, as the two have since reunited.

It’s Zahm’s candidness that appeals to people, though, and it’s something he will never lose — he is somewhat of a hopeless romantic. “Love is the most important thing I believe in, but I don’t love the way I used to love when I was 20 or 30 [he is now in his forties]. Also, the times have changed; the idea of having one partner for the rest of your life is not valid anymore. I am always searching for the deepest way of loving someone. I am open to a new formula.” Does he have that with Natacha? “I think so, yes. I have to adapt to her and she has to adapt to me. We try to find common trust. I believe that love is all about trust and commitment, but not in the conventional sense. The conventional formula is a jail because we get quickly bored.”

Words: Alice Cavanagh