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bearmustard · 4 years

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Hi Clare! I've been listening to your podcast and I love that there's a lot of talk about the bears there so I thought I'd ask you, right now there's a lot of accs on Twitter trying to be like them and make people think is all happening again and I know I know is all fake but like idk how to explain why?? Like why can we trust the bears but not all these accs?? My actual question is what was the one thing that made you realize the bears were actually Louis and Harry and not someone random??

Oh nonnie, you really know how to fire me up! Welcome to my favourite topic in all of Larrie fandom. Not the bears, per say, (though I love them with my entire being and they are the thing that kept me a larrie when shit got really hard and confusing) but about thinking critically about how communication is happening, what that looks like, and how we can separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, when it comes to weighing up evidence.

A quick note - I am wary of the phrase ‘do your research’, especially since it’s become the catch-cry of conspiracy groups like Q etc etc. I believe that you should research, and consider the expert opinions (in this case, a combination of expert evidence, veteran larries’ experience, information from H & L themselves) but human beings are pattern seekers, and there is only so much ‘research’ will tell you, before your brain starts looking for patterns in the smallest things to create a narrative, and that’s not always how real life works. So you have to kind of hold two things in your mind - the first is that we will never know the full story, or even a fraction of it. (Maybe one day we’ll get a tell all, but I’m not holding my breath). The second thing to keep in mind is that real life is messy as fuck, and often stranger than fiction, and things that are TOO neat are things you want to investigate/think critically about/maintain a healthy suspicion about.

So to your first question - how do you know all of those accts are fake in your gut? Often it’s because they are TOO neat. They line up too well with the story people are telling, which is rarely what the story is. It gets a lot of clout at the time, but long term it doesn’t make sense. I arrived in this fandom at the tail-end of the @goodbyeadulthood phenom, where anybody making any kind of sensible, evidence based theory was called a plant (mostly jokingly) (mostly) so I guess being able to see that this has all happened before gives me a bit of perspective when it comes to excitement about “insider accounts”. Accts like CBO and hscox94 have very clear patterns - they are ridiculously vague, they almost never predict (always following, not leading, events), and they conveniently change/adapt their story to the prevailing winds of fandom opinion.

How we know the bears were the real deal then? I mean, honest answer is we really can’t ever know, but there is compelling evidence that they were. @tellmethisisnotlove has an excellent masterpost (that I just realised feature some of my own theories, lol) on how the bears link to 1D, and specifically to Harry and Louis.

What people forget, though, because it’s been accepted fandom lore for so long, but many larries were not convinced that it was Harry and Louis themselves at the time. It’s only with hindsight that the majority agree. We knew they were connected to the band. RBB definitely started from (probably) Josh Devine, probably as a joke, because he created the first twitter acct, but it was very different in tone from what the bears would become.

RBB really was just considered a cute tour mascot, and that only started to change in the Europe leg of the OTRA tour. Coincidently, this was after the 2 month break where BG was set up, H & L were separated, and L had a bunch of behind the scenes stuff going on with Sony and SYCO. Prior to this, H & L had been less cryptic in their resistance (big gay war of 2014 anyone?) and had paid a heavy, heavy price.

So in Europe, RBB gets a pal, and all of a sudden, they’re being dressed up, usually in the same costume (this is why he was called Teddy Mercury to start) and was just a fun thing to watch out for. They were linked to the band (any roadie you talk to says there’s no fucking way they wouldn’t be signed off by the band) but not in a tangible way.

It got really nuts in July (which, in my head, is when Louis takes over the bears fully, with Harry) for the US leg. This is when big money starts being spent, the scenes get way more elaborate, they start using the blue and green (and red) stickers, and they start featuring props about closeted gay artists, or famous people who had to hide a secret, or sony flip phones (you get the gist). My recollection is that it wasn’t until Vancouver, and the KD Lang book, that the fandom started thinking the Bears were telling us anything, and then we went back and with hindsight realised there were small references to events.

Even then, there was extremely healthy skepticism in the fandom about the bears being directly from Louis and Harry until much later, when in London they had the blue and green spotlights and the ‘Love Larry’ picture. You can hear in the podcast ep the week we finally feel like we can say for sure it’s Louis (and we are hysterical about it) and that’s the week of Belfast, the countdown, the newcastle gay bar, and the reflection of Louis’ shirt in RBB’s sunglasses. That’s in OCTOBER. Nearly FIVE MONTHS of RBB and SBB leaving us cryptic clues and getting more and more elaborate. Five months of people (including die hard RBB fans like myself) constantly doubting themselves as to whether it really meant something. Moreover, the interview where they are asked about it was December, and so for many that was the final piece of the puzzle, so we forget now that there was so much uncertainty about how much we could trust it.

Even now, there are things that we haven’t figured out about the bears, that suddenly make sense when something from the time is revealed, and that has been happening since hiatus.

And that’s my answer - TLDR - that hindsight, critical thinking/understanding, and context are what tells us the bears are the real deal, and were orchestrated by Louis and Harry in response to events and pressures behind the scenes. That they found a way to support and encourage their LGBT fans (and allies) in a year where a lot of things were awful. Those bears were the goddamn light in the tunnel, showing us a way to understand.

#those damn bears #RBB #SBB #masterpost #ask #anon #mine #long post #this became a bit of a sermon sorry #but I've been listening back to the podcast too and I was surprised at how much doubt I could hear #and I was often teased about my conviction that the bears were from H & L #as were others who were of the same opinion #i dunno #i guess is my main answer #Anonymous

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 6 years

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If you feel like discussing it I would love to hear your thoughts on an idea I’ve seen a LOT - that if louis and harry are still a couple, Harry’s connections should result in some benefit or clout for louis to help him get away from Syco etc. Irving Azoff is super powerful, therefore he should be able to help louis too, is the general idea. To me it’s complicated because louis is and was already a separate commodity from harry with a PR plan etc. from the start of 1D (1)

So there are distinct restrictions/contracts that were long underway before the Azoffs came into the picture, a lot of which already involved keeping him publicly separated from harry. That being said, I get it. If your partner has all this clout, it stands to reason they would want to help you in any way possible. It’s what I would do for my partner. It’s a different situation - because fame, money, contracts, closets, and a million other reasons, but I still get why people feel that way (2)

********

I have seen the argument, and part of the problem for me is that fandom discussions of these issues are based on a lot of assumptions about what’s going on behind the scenes and what people want that we just don’t have evidence for and can’t know.

For me, this ask is an example of that as it situates the difficulties Louis is facing in terms or restrictions and contracts. I don’t think we can rule that out, but there are really big questions when you start talking about contracts, because the issue immediately becomes - why is Louis alone in facing those difficulties? And in the face of those questions it’s very easy to create answers that link Harry’s success and Louis’ current situation in some way. But I think that that whole line of thinking is based on assumptions that we don’t know to be true.

And to illustrate this point, I want to talk about different ways of looking at three different things - the first is Louis’ career, the second is Azoff’s power and the third is relationships and careers more broadly.

First, I’ve said it before, but I think fandom ignores the extent to which events that have happened since the end of 2015 have affected Louis’ career. We have every reason to believe that at the beginning of 2016, Louis had a plan. He never got to execute that plan. Then, when he could start thinking about what next, he’d already lost a year. I think there’s every sign that the strategy in 2017 was to try and get material out of soon as possible. That might have worked, but Louis and his labels do not seem to have been on the same page about the sort of music he would make. I think the combination of time pressure and conflict over sound exacerbated each other.

I want to be absolutely clear, no other member of 1D would be where they were in their careers if they’d had the experiences that Louis had had in 2016. (Except maybe Liam, but I think Louis would probably have been where Liam is if he hadn’t had conflict with the label about what sort of music he wanted to make).

I don’t think you need to assume that there’s nasty contractual obligations, or that Louis being sabotaged to explain what’s been happening with his solo career. I don’t rule those things out - the music business is terrible and sucks and there may be a whole lot of additional things going on. But it seems very strange to me to sure that things like contracts and sabotage must be coming into play, when we can see that

Second, Irving Azoff is a powerful man - but powerful men in the music industry have specific relationships and positions that bring them powers - they don’t have super powers that can be used in any situation. I’m by no means an expert in this, but Azoff is a powerful manager and is involved in some sort of high stakes venue war that I haven’t been follow in detail. That doesn’t mean that Azoff has the power to get Epic to spend money they don’t have on Louis’ American promo (to pick an example of something that I think might have been something that Louis might want, but might not have got). Power in the music industry isn’t a wand.

And I think this is an example where one set of assumptions follows another set of assumptions. If you think that the issues Louis faces are primarily linked to 1D’s contracts, then I can see how it seems like a zero sum game must have been played and that Louis lost out. But even if there are contractual obligations that are part of Louis’ difficulties, then it’s entirely possible that Azoff is advising him (I’m completely neutral on whether he is or whether it’s a good idea). Power struggles in the music industry aren’t won straight away, and waiting can be part of the negotiations (I understand this is part of what 30 Seconds to Mars went through - but I won’t investigate them anymore because I hate Jared Leto).

Third, the experience of people I know has been that career success is not necessarily transferable within a relationship to any great degree. People who I know with careers in the same industry support each other in a personal sense, but whether they can do more than that very much depends on their industry and position. You say that you think that it’s a different situation from ordinary people, but actually I think in general what people with power think about you is central to your career - and that’s not something you can just share with your partner. In general, I find it useful to think how people I know have navigated situations of power - and it helps me seperate what might be going on for H&L and the fantasies I have for them (and knowing a very powerful person in an industry can be very useful, but it has never solved the career problems of anyone I know).

You demonstrate how many assumptions there are in this fandom when you say that Louis’ goal is getting away from Syco, and we don’t know that. Anyone who is offering an explanation of what is going on for Louis (including me) is making a lot of assumptions. There’s nothing wrong with discussing that, but the problem comes when you start deducing things based on unproven assumptions. The idea that H&L must have broken up, because if they were Azoff would be helping Louis on Azoff’s behalf, and therefore Louis’ career would look different, is one that is built on many assumptions without evidence. In this fandom, there’s an assumption to make a lot of assumptions and then to act like your explanation is the only possible explanation and everyone else has to be wrong.

What I would advocate for, more than anything else in this fandom, is holding onto the idea that many things are possible. We don’t know most behind the scenes stuff, we don’t what members of 1D want and 2016 showed that really big life changing things can be kept from us. Whenever anyone argues: ‘Don’t you think this must be what happened?’ My answer is no - I can always tell a story that gives an alternate explanation - ad we’ve no way of knowing what’s true. There’s so much we don’t know and therefore there are multiple possibilities.

#I rarely have a problem with the suggestion that an explanation of BTS is possible #what I object to is the idea that any explanation could possibily be certain #given what we know #Anonymous

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dippedanddripped · 5 years

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In 1992, Daniel Day was forced to close his legendary clothing boutique, Dapper Dan’s Boutique, after Fendi took legal action against what it argued was the streetwear designer’s trademark infringement for using the company’s logo in his creations. The fashion house won the battle, but Dapper Dan won the war. Day’s creations, which incorporated the logos of fashion houses like Fendi, Gucci and Louis Vuitton and which were quickly adopted by rap stars, have since become synonymous with the golden age of hip-hop. (His use of those logos has drawn comparisons to the sampling going on in the music at the time.) Decades later, Day frequently collaborates with the same high-fashion world that once legally prosecuted him: with Gucci, for example, he recently collaborated on a mens-wear line and an atelier in Harlem.

Gucci is the same company whose creative director, Alessandro Michele, drew charges of cultural appropriation in 2017 for designing a balloon-sleeved, fur-paneled bomber jacket he said was a “homage” to a similar product from Day’s 1980s-era work. That twist is not lost on Day “If you borrow, you have to make sure that everybody is involved,” said Day, the 74-year-old author of the new memoir, “Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem.” “When you tip the scales,” he continued, “that’s when it’s wrong. ”

In the book you talk about the time you spent hustling as a gambler and in what you called the

“paper game”

In other words, fraud. Day is remarkably frank about the varieties of financial fraud with which he was involved during the ‘70s, before turning to the clothing business.,

In other words, fraud. Day is remarkably frank about the varieties of financial fraud with which he was involved during the ‘70s, before turning to the clothing business. or credit-card fraud. Is your work in the fashion world a hustle? Let me tell you something. The hustlers when I was growing up, they always said, “Look for a hustle that has a loophole in the law.” The paper game had a loophole in the law. The loophole in the law in my gambling was that I came up with technique nobody had. In fashion, I also came up with technique nobody had: I saw the relationship between fur, diamonds and fashion symbols. Black people on the rise wanted furs and diamonds. Then when I saw people’s attachment to fashion symbols. I said: “Wow, this is just as important to them as the diamonds and the furs. So let me find an angle that I can build on.” If they feel that good from a little Louis Vuitton pouch, imagine what they’d feel if I made them look like luggage?

What’s the quintessential Dapper Dan design? That would be the Louis Vuitton jackets that I made that, when you take ‘em off and reverse them, the other side is all mink. That represents elements of my journey, going from

minks2

Day worked in the fur trade before transitioning to running Dapper Dan’s and designing his own clothes. to

logo-mania

That’s his term for popularizing the streetwear emphasis on brand logos, which his work has been widely credited with doing.

That’s his term for popularizing the streetwear emphasis on brand logos, which his work has been widely credited with doing. Logo-mania is probably my biggest achievement in terms of fashion. I’m the father of logo-mania. I like the way that sounds!

Did you ever have any ambivalence about whether a celebration of consumer materialism, which is part of logo-mania, was a good thing? There’s always going to be this battle, consciously or unconsciously and within every one of us, between materialism and spiritualism. The symbolism associated with Gucci, for example, is actually symbolism transference. Let me explain that. When I was growing up, if you had diamonds and furs, that gave you clout. So when the big fashion brands began to come out, I noticed how people gravitated toward them, and that what identified these brands was their logo. So I incorporated that symbol in a way that represented fashion as I see it. This symbol, when it’s incorporated in fashion in a certain way and reflected through a certain culture, has the same impact as diamonds and furs.

I get that you were transferring aspirational power from materials object to a logos. I’m asking more if people’s desire for symbols of affluent materialism, like those logos, ultimately represents something healthy or unhealthy. It’s like this: It’s all right to have one glass of wine. Not the whole bottle.

How do you reconcile the fact that the same industry that was once trying to put you out of business is now embracing you? It made more sense to me that the fashion industry was trying to shut me down than it did that people in my community wouldn’t buy from me. That’s because

my clientele4

Which also included a who’s who of New York rap icons: Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J and Eric B. & Rakim, among many others. were those who thumbed their nose at society: They were the drug dealers and people who didn’t abide by the rules. The years that I was in

the underground

Meaning 1992 to 2017, the years between the closure of Dapper Dan's of Harlem and his reappearance with Gucci.

Meaning 1992 to 2017, the years between the closure of Dapper Dan's of Harlem and his reappearance with Gucci. you don’t see no black publication talking about me. Think about all the great minds that had to leave Harlem because they weren’t recognized here. It wasn’t till the fashion industry recognized me that my community began to also. So your question is, “How did that feel?”

Yeah. Last night I was watching a documentary about the Apollo, and in it Paul McCartney is paying tribute. Paul was saying,

“This is the source.”

In HBO’s 2019 documentary “The Apollo,” McCartney discusses the inspiration the Beatles drew from 1960s R&B music. The Beatles were doing with James Brown like the drug dealers were doing with me. The drug dealers said: “I’m buying that from Dapper Dan. I don’t care if Gucci or Louis Vuitton didn’t make it. I’m buying it.”

So what you’re saying is that the Beatles were open about drawing inspiration from what at the time were new sources in the way that you were drawing inspiration from new sources in your designs?Yeah, there wasn’t shame about the fact. They admitted it and took it to the world. Juxtapose that to my time where there’s this new musical genre, rap, coming along, and I’m coming along. I was prepared to not be accepted. I been denied all along the line. But I can equate these symbols with what we did musically. It all makes sense to me.

With what you’re saying about the Beatles and black musicians, you’re sort of touching on the idea of cultural appropriation and who gets credit for what innovations. Are there parallels there with your situation and Gucci? You cannot isolate what transpired in my life from the African-American experience. You have to start with that. We came to this country as slaves. We didn’t have our own language. We didn’t have our culture. We have to take those elements of this new culture that’s been forced upon us and use that to recreate a culture for ourselves. We continue to do that, and you continue to take it. That’s an imbalance. Gucci can say, “you took our symbols.’” Well, you took our freedom.

When you see

Gucci produce a sweater

Earlier this year, Gucci sold a black balaclava sweater that pulled up over the lower half of the face, revealing a garish set of red lips. After heavy criticism, the company apologized for causing any unintentional offense. that sure looks like it’s playing with blackface imagery, does that make you then question the sincerity of the company that wants you to work with them? This is a multinational corporation. Billions of dollars involved. You think that they’re gonna allow prejudice to interfere with that?

That’s assuming they thought it would interfere. True, but that’s not the case. It was the opposite. It was them embracing culture and having culture at the forefront of their brand. That’s more beneficial for them than something stupid. What they did was a stupid mistake.

You said earlier there were ways in which your own community didn’t support Dapper Dan’s Boutique. But weren’t they the ones who were buying your clothes? It couldn’t only have been hustlers and rappers.Middle-class blacks didn’t buy. They snubbed me. I remember in Morningside Park, we had the biggest block party in the city, period. Everybody from everywhere came. And I was walking by and heard someone on the microphone say, “Dapper Dan with that fake Gucci” — like I was a laughingstock. It was humiliating. A lot of people didn’t understand what I was doing. But today, they get it.

You’re from an older generation than the people who made your designs famous. When you were running the store in the ’80s and rappers started gravitating to your clothes, did you immediately feel a kinship with them and with hip-hop culture? Oh, I was ready for that. I saw the rock ‘n’ roll age, the calypso age, the Afro-Cuban age. I saw all these genres rise and fall, and I embraced each one of them. So when hip-hop came along, I was telling the artists, “You better take advantage.” Because I saw it was the best opportunity we’d ever had to take advantage of a musical-cultural platform that we initiated. If you don’t know how to get money into your pocket, you got nothing.

LL Cool J was one of the first big-time rappers to wear your clothes. What do you remember about him from back in the 1980s? He’s straight hip-hop in terms of his street cred. Contrast him with

Jam Master Jay

The stage name of the late Jason Mizell, who created beats for Run D.M.C.

The stage name of the late Jason Mizell, who created beats for Run D.M.C. Jam Master Jay came from Saint Albans, Queens, where they had houses with basements, you know what I mean? Homes. I remember one day he came back from the Apollo, and when he said, “I’m bad,” I thought, Jam Master Jay, man, you need to quit frontin’. Then I remember him coming back from the Apollo — he had a fight at the Apollo — and he came back with blood on his knuckles, and I said, “He’s ready now.” That was a conversion to him being the classic hip-hop type. Not like what’s his name,

“Parents Just Don’t Understand?”9

A 1988 hit single from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.Will Smith! Not like that.

There was a long time after the store was closed down and you were selling clothes on the street and to

private customers

Most famously the champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. for whom Day designed boxing trunks.

Most famously the champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. for whom Day designed boxing trunks. During that period, did you miss the notoriety that came along with running Dapper Dan’s Boutique? It was never notoriety. I’d never been on an ad. People didn’t know what I looked like. There was a guy going around telling me he was Dapper Dan. Only the gangsters and real rappers knew what I looked like. I’d be in the back of the store. I would never come out. I went out socially with

Mike Tyson

In some regards, Tyson’s enthusiasm for Dapper Dan's clothing was the beginning of the end for Dapper Dan’s Boutique. When the former heavyweight champion got into a fight outside the store in 1988, the incident drew negative public (and law-enforcement) attention to Dan’s business. one time, and I didn’t like the drinking. I generate excitement, but that ain’t who I am. So I can’t miss what I never liked.

What has been the biggest change you’ve seen in hip-hop fashion? Anything people of color do, when we run out of words, we start scattin.’ So hip-hop fashion is going be constant variations. But I think the biggest change is that manhood was a big thing in the culture, but more lifestyles have become acceptable. When I started, being a designer was a sissy occupation. Now you got thug designers. Now you got

Will Smith’s son

That would be Jaden, who performed that function for Louis Vuitton women’s spring and summer 2016 campaign. who’s the face of Louis Vuitton’s women’s wear. It’ll just keep expanding like that.

Are any parallels between the way that Harlem has been gentrified and the way that hip-hop has been absorbed into the fashion world? Of course, but I think younger white children understand the hip-hop subculture better than the adults do, and because of that, they knew whether they should fear an area or not. They’re the first ones to realize that a lot of the problems in communities like Harlem are not directed at them. They’re directed at people who have a certain functionality within the area, like the drug dealers and gangs. Since gentrification has been taking place, you never heard of one young white person getting shot or anything of that nature. Twenty-five years ago, they were chasing white kids through the neighborhood: “What you doing around here?” Now they don’t even pay any attention to young white kids. Younger people have moved closer together culturally than ever before. Fifty years ago, I talked about gentrification coming. So I don’t have this attitude of “they took Harlem.” I know we gave it away.

Do you have an idea for a new hustle? I have been studying religion and studying symbols for a long time, and I said when I get to a certain point, I could go back and incorporate African symbolism into global fashion. What would that do? That would allow people to appreciate our culture on a higher level, appreciate ourselves on a higher level, and show that we can stand toe to toe with all the cultures of the world. If we can bring that back, that’s the missing link. I want to wake up people of color. We can’t do to our culture what we did to Harlem. We can’t burn it down and have nowhere to live.

#fendi spa #dapper dan #gucci #mcm #fashion blog #streetwear blog #urban wear

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jessicakehoe · 4 years

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“Have you seen the shots? I’m so excited to see them! I had such a great day,” says an upbeat and endearing Cindy Bruna on the phone from Paris. The French modelling star, who was tapped by L’Oréal Paris as an international spokesperson earlier this year, is talking to me about our unusual cover shoot in partnership with the beauty juggernaut.

Dress, $7,185, and belt, $1,740, Alexander McQueen. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

In the face of COVID-19, Bruna posed up inside Paris’s Nolinski hotel for a solid nine-plus hours—all while social distancing from the rest of the tiny team who were allowed on-set. Strict pandemic measures also meant that her makeup was completely digital. But Bruna is no stranger to outside-the-box situations: She has stood on the edge of a cliff, plunged into frigid water and lain in the snow (with not much clothing on).

Ranked a “Money Girl” on Models.com alongside Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner, Bruna hit many major milestones early in her career. On her very first job casting, the late legendary couturier Azzedine Alaïa took Bruna under his wing. “He gave me the opportunity to work for him at his showroom; meeting him really made me want to do this job,” says the 25-year-old, who was scouted at the age of 16 in the South of France and made regular trips to Paris with her mother during school holidays.

Jacket, $3,850, pants, $1,250, and shoes, $1,825, Balenciaga. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

At 18, Bruna made the big move to the City of Light to pursue modelling full-time and wound up in New York shortly after for her New York Fashion Week debut. The gig: to walk exclusively for Calvin Klein.

In the modelling world, landing an exclusive has been known to put runway newbies on the map. But Bruna’s 2012 booking morphed into something much greater: It marked a watershed moment for diversity in the fashion industry with Bruna becoming the house’s first model of colour to walk exclusively, which meant she couldn’t be booked for any other New York designers that season. “At the time, I didn’t even know that I was the first to get it,” says Bruna. “I just couldn’t believe the opportunity; it was my first time working in New York. Looking back, I didn’t truly realize the weight of it.”

Jacket and scarf, $5,850, Louis Vuitton. Hoop earrings, $12,990, and necklace, $28,210, Messika. Top, Bruna’s own. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

The experience launched Bruna into the supermodel stratosphere. “It changed my life and career,” she says. In the span of a few months, Bruna was shot by photographer Steven Meisel for the cover of Italian Vogue and earned her wings as a Victoria’s Secret Angel, which she held on to for a steady six seasons. She also became part of the core group of models that make up Olivier Rousteing’s fierce female posse, known as the Balmain Army.

When asked if any one achievement tops her list of proudest moments, Bruna is quick to say no. “I’m very proud of the whole process,” she says. “When I first started, I was full of doubt. I was scared. I didn’t know that I would have to leave my family to go to Paris and then New York. I didn’t speak English. All of that could have stopped me, but I was like, ‘You know what? Just go for it.’”

Bodysuit, $740, Copurs. Hoop earrings, $640, Balenciaga. Cuff, price upon request, Alexander McQueen. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

Overcoming fear can be incredibly tough when navigating an industry that is rife with rejection. “You are constantly judged, compared and not chosen, which can be difficult,” shares Bruna. “I have cried many times about this.” The biggest piece of advice she’d tell her younger self? Don’t take it personally: “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. You’re not what they’re looking for, and that’s OK. Don’t change. Be yourself. The right job will come.”

That self-appreciation mindset is what makes Bruna such an inspired choice for a megabrand with a “Because I’m worth it” ethos. “It’s really a slogan that talks to everybody,” she says. “In my job, it’s all about embracing you and being proud of yourself. Everybody is special. We all have value.” How does this model tap into her unique self? By fully loving her biracial identity.

Dress, $1,425, Area. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

The daughter of an Italian father and Congolese mother, Bruna says that being mixed race is her superpower. “I feel like it’s really a strength to have both cultures that I can learn from and grow from,” she says. “My mom raised me with African values around family and sharing how the world can be difficult for people of colour. I grew up eating African dishes and listening to African music. I share so much of my dad’s respect for others and for nature. I feel like I gained so much from both of them.”

As for joining the L’Oréal Paris family, it’s a gig Bruna does not take lightly. “I realize that it is a responsibility,” she notes. “I want to give not only my face but also my voice to everything we’re doing together.” It’s a voice she’s used time and again as a bridge for others who need one.

Jacket and scarf, $5,850, Louis Vuitton. Hoop Earrings, $12,990, Messika. Stud Earrings, Bruna’s own. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

Bruna has used her visibility and social media clout to advocate for the inclusion of more faces of colour on the runways as well as to speak up about the all-too-common hair discrimination that occurs behind the scenes at shows and shoots with afro-textured hair. “To have been the first woman of colour to work on a Calvin Klein exclusive back in 2012 just made me realize how much we have to push to bring change to the industry,” she says. “Yes, things have evolved since then, but we can still do more.” And the needle shouldn’t stop at a colourful array of models on catwalks and in campaigns. “It’s also about walking on-set and seeing people behind the scenes, like stylists and photographers, of different backgrounds.”

Another topic that gets Bruna fired up is domestic violence against women. “One woman is killed every three days in France,” she states. “It’s a crisis that’s happening all over the world, and I really think that we can be part of the solution.”

Three years ago, Bruna joined Solidarité Femmes, a French network of associations specializing in the reception, support and accommodation of women facing abuse, and is quick to concede that she had a lot to learn when she first began. “It took me at least a year to really understand just how diverse domestic abuse is: The violence happens in so many forms,” she says. “I didn’t even talk about Solidarité Femmes on social media or anything at first. I was just visiting shelters in Paris, talking to women and learning about what the associations were doing.”

JACKET, $4,800, TOP, $3,050, AND SHOES, $1,060, SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO. PANTS, PRICE UPON REQUEST, LOUIS VUITTON. DANGLE EARRINGS, $260, HELENE ZUBELDIA. STUD EARRINGS, BRUNA’S OWN. Makeup by L’Oréal Paris.

Now, Bruna’s passion to help end violence against women has seamlessly extended to her new post at L’Oréal Paris, with her joining the advocating team for Stand Up Against Street Harassment, the brand’s training program with the goal of eradicating gender-based street harassment. “L’Oréal Paris has always encouraged women to live according to their own rules, but street harassment goes against that,” says Bruna. “I feel like Stand Up can help people know how to react if they see or experience harassment. It really invites women and men to learn. It’s about educating people—myself included.”

As our phone conversation winds down, I catch myself feeling empowered and inspired by Bruna’s words and conclude that her strong sense of self totally matches the expressions and moods she elegantly delivered in our cover shoot. “She’s a real one,” I say in my head, before thanking her for being so open with me. “No, thank you!” she immediately responds. “I really can’t wait to see the pictures!”

Try on these beauty looks

Learn about all the L’Oréal Paris products that Val Garland used for Bruna’s FASHION cover shoot and virtually try on each makeup look by scanning this QR code.

Art direction by JACQUES BURGA. Styling by MICKAEL CARPIN. Creative direction by GEORGE ANTONOPOULOS. Makeup by VAL GARLAND, L’Oréal Paris global makeup director. Hair by ALEXANDRINE PIEL. Photography assistant: CLAUDIA REVIDAT. Post-production: LUCY LU. Shot on location at the NOLINSKI HOTEL in Paris.

The post Activist, Advocate, Ambassador: Supermodel Cindy Bruna is More Than Meets The Eye appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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caveartfair · 5 years

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Art021 Wants to Mint a Million New Chinese Collectors

Installation view of Hauser & Wirth’s booth at Art021, 2018. Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.

The first edition of Shanghai’s Art021 in 2013 was scrappy—just 29 galleries filling up a space in the Rockbund Complex. But it proved its art market mettle quickly, and by 2016, fellow Shanghai art fair West Bund Art & Design moved from September to November so that both events could happen simultaneously. Art021 takes a different approach to the internationally-focused West Bund, having committed to reserving at least half of its booths each year for Chinese galleries. And it has become increasingly important to rising Chinese collectors who have started buying art as a lifestyle.

“When we started it, November was nothing—there wasn’t an art thing then,” said David Chau, who co-founded Art021 with PR maven Bao Yifeng and collector Kelly Ying. “People forget that we started before West Bund, and people forget that West Bund started in September and had to move to November. You know, there’s a reason for that.”

Both fairs have grown rapidly—a testament to the market power in mainland China—and attract international galleries aiming to sell to the growing number of collectors in Shanghai and others who travel here from across China. West Bund jumped from 39 to 87 galleries participating in its main section this year. The sixth edition of Art021, which opened to VIPs Thursday afternoon, hosts 103 galleries in three wings of the Shanghai Exhibition Center. But, while West Bund is part of a larger, government-funded initiative to turn a previously industrial stretch of the Huangpu Riverfront into a cultural epicenter, Chau said the privately owned Art021 has been able to become a power center on its own terms.

"FLOWER", 2018. Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh Gagosian

Memento Mori: Black, 2018. Takashi Murakami and Virgil Abloh Gagosian

“We’ve looked at how West Bund is becoming a Basel kind of fair, whereas if we were trying to follow them, or even beat them, we’d be dead by now,” Chau said. “The reason we’re able to succeed is we are just not really following the art world’s rules. We never set ourselves to be a Basel or a Frieze.”

The 34-year-old Chau, who as a 21-year-old investment banker set up a $32 million art investment fund, said instead of fitting the mold of what an art fair should be, he’s focused on courting the newly wealthy would-be collectors in a country where a new billionaire is minted every two days. It’s the major Chinese collectors who buy at Art Basel in Hong Kong and at evening sales held in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing, that are currently driving the country’s rise in art-world clout—and its ability to edge out the United Kingdom to be the world’s second-biggest art market, after the United States, according to Clare McAndrew’s The Art Market | 2018. While many of those collectors buy art at Art021 too, Chau said his focus is on finding newly wealthy, culture hungry Chinese who haven’t collected yet, and turning them on to buying.

“Out of 1.4 billion people I think this is a big enough market that our mission should be to cultivate a million people rather than just cultivating the art world,” Chau said. In other words, Chau wants to expand the size of the pie, not just take a slice from it.

This is what he pitches to potential exhibitors: there is money here and there are people who want to spend it on art. It’s his job to deliver them on the first week of November.

Untitled Anxious Audience, 2018. Rashid Johnson Hauser & Wirth

“It’s about selling, and getting people to come back,” Chau.

Judging by the scene at Thursday’s VIP preview, they’re clearly doing something right. The aisles thronged with fashionable young collectors who milled about in the two halls upstairs before spilling down into the cavernous, Soviet-style structure’s main foyer, where quite a spectrum of offerings was on display. On one end, Gagosian was presenting the wildly popular collaborations between the artist Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton men’s creative director Virgil Abloh. Drake is a known collector of the bombastic work and fairgoers were audibly yelling at passersby to move so they could get pictures. At the other end of the hall, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac had mounted a solo booth of serene portraits by the nonagenarian New Yorker Alex Katz.

True to Chau’s word, there were plenty of deals taking place in the opening hours—contra the general wisdom that Chinese collectors tend to wait to transact until the final day. Hauser & Wirth sold Zhang Enli’s The Garden (2017) for $385,000 to a Chinese museum, Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Anxious Collage (2017) to a collection in Hong Kong, and Martin Creed’s Work No. 2316 COCONUTS (2015) for $210,000 to a collection in China. The gallery also staged a show of work by Matthew Day Jackson at Qiao Space, next to West Bund, and sold his Babel (2013) for $325,000 and Flowers in a Vase with Jewels, Coins, and Shells (Milan) (2018) for $150,000—both to Chinese collectors. At David Zwirner, Oscar Murillo’s bank of (2017-18) sold for $300,000; a small Carol Bove sculpture sold for $220,000; and an untitled 2011–12 encaustic by Francis Alÿs, who opened a show at Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum on Thursday night, sold for $250,000.

Installation view of David Zwirner’s booth at Art021, 2018. Courtesy of David Zwirner.

At Pace, which was participating in Art021 for the first time (they’ve done West Bund since 2015), a suite of three David Hockney iPad paintings sold for $26,000 each, as well as several works by Chinese artists in their program like Qiu Xiaofei and Hong Hao.

“It’s our first year doing the fair alongside West Bund, and we brought more work by Chinese artists here because there’s a different sort of purpose here,” said Youngjoo Lee, the director of the mega-gallery’s outpost in Seoul. “At West Bund it’s more international, and here, it’s more local Shanghai clients.”

bank of, 2017-2018. Oscar Murillo David Zwirner

Untitled, 2011-2012. Francis Alÿs David Zwirner

Galleria Continua is attuned to the buying habits of the Chinese markets, having opened a gallery in Beijing in 2005 (they also have outposts in Havana, Cuba, San Gimignano, Italy, and Les Moulins, France). Federica Beltrame, a director at Galleria Continua’s space in the Chinese capital, said that they had a lot of requests from local clients for work by Antony Gormley—et voila, an Antony Gormley solo booth. Three works were on reserve a few hours into the fair, at €350,000 for large sculptures and €175,000 for small ones. Beltrame added that, while they’ve done fairs in Beijing to support the local gallery scene, she doesn’t see it them taking off in the way Art021 and West Bund have in Shanghai, turning the city into a real destination for Asian buyers every November.

“I feel that Shanghai has a special energy,” she said. “Beijing fairs are a million years behind. Here, everything is just vibrating.”

Centre of the Centre , 2017. Vittorio Brodmann Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Transfiguring (RGB), 2013. Mark Leckey Gavin Brown's Enterprise

Contributing to that energy this year is a new sector at Art021, Detour, where Cesar Garcia, who is the director of The Mistake Room in Los Angeles, hand-picked five galleries, in addition to his own, that each paid a discounted booth price. A slowing Chinese economy and volatile capital markets in the country have also, perhaps counterintuitively, buoyed the art trade, said Sophia Wang, assistant to the director at Beijing’s Pifo Gallery who came to the gallery this year from Christie’s.

“People here are seeing art more as an investment,” she said, adding that this tendency increases in periods of volatility such as the one caused by the current trade war between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Wang said that even with the Office of the United States Trade Representative having announced that Chinese-made art and antiquities would not be included on the list of goods included in the tariffs, the conflict still poses issues.

“It’s building a wall, a barrier,” Wang said of the back-and-forth taxation between the two countries. “It’s not just about the taxes, it affects so many things.”

Pifo focused on works by European and Asian artists at Art021. And on opening day, they sold an untitled Enrico Bach painting for CNY140,000 (roughly $20,000), and two works by the Chinese artist Ni Jun, one for CNY70,000 (roughly $10,000) and another for CNY80,000 (roughly $11,500).

LOVE (Red, Violet), 1966-1999. Robert Indiana Kasmin

Trade war or not, Art021 continues to serve as a prime opportunity for American galleries to test the market waters in mainland China without the significant investment and business challenges that hiring staff or opening a physical space here can generate. Gavin Brown’s Enterprise did the fair for the first time this year and sold work by Vittorio Brodmann and Mark Leckey. It was also Kasmin’s first time at Art021. The New York gallery sold Mark Ryden’s cheeky painting Salvator Mundi (2018), a play on the Leonardo da Vinci painting that sold for $450 million at Christie’s a year ago, but with a fluffy dog holding the gazing ball instead of Jesus Christ.

Kasmin had a bit of fun with the presentation, as two security guards stood by the painting protecting the canvas as if it were truly the Leonardo and not a cute puppy-fied homage. And while it didn’t command a price tag nearing half a billion, it did sell for a very respectable $350,000.

“We’re only three hours into the fair and the activity has been overwhelming,” said director Eric Gleason. As if on cue, a woman approached him, pointed and yelled “Sit down!”—she wanted to get an unobstructed picture of the six-foot-tall Robert Indiana “LOVE” sculpture that served as the booth’s centerpiece.

“We’re thrilled to be here,” Gleason said. His only regret about Art021: “I wished we had came earlier.”

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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newstfionline · 7 years

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The unexpected political power of dentists

By Mary Jordan, Washington Post, July 1, 2017

AUGUSTA, Maine--Little in politics has surprised Richard Malaby as much as the power of dentists.

For years, local dentists held four Christmas parties at Malaby’s 19th-century country inn in the picturesque town of Hancock. But in 2014, Malaby, a Republican lawmaker in the Maine state legislature, voted to create a new type of dental provider to perform basic services in poor and rural areas.

The Maine Dental Association, which opposed the bill, was furious. And the dentists took their Christmas parties elsewhere, costing Malaby $6,000 that December and every Yuletide since.

Among the general public, dentists tend to have a Norman Rockwell appeal--solo practitioners who clean your teeth, tell your kids to cut down on the candy, and put their seal of approval on a range of minty toothpastes and mouthwashes. But lawmakers from Maine to Alaska see a different side of dentists and their lobby, the American Dental Association, describing a political force so unified, so relentless and so thoroughly woven into American communities that its clout rivals that of the gun lobby.

“I put their power right up there with the NRA,” Malaby said. “Dentists do everything they can to protect their interests--and they have money.”

As the cost of dental care rises beyond the reach of millions of Americans, the dental lobby is coming under increasing scrutiny. Critics say the ADA has worked to scuttle competition that could improve access to dental care in underserved areas and make routine checkups and fillings more affordable.

The Federal Trade Commission has battled dentists in state after state over anti-competitive conduct. In 2007, the FTC successfully settled a complaint over a South Carolina dental board requirement that dentists examine children in school clinics before hygienists can clean their teeth, adding greatly to the cost. In 2015, the FTC won a Supreme Court ruling against the North Carolina dental board, which tried to block teeth-whitening businesses from operating in malls.

This year, the FTC publicly commented on a growing campaign to improve access to dental care by creating a category of mid-level practitioners, or “dental therapists,” to provide some routine services. In a letter to the Ohio lawmakers considering such a measure, FTC officials said therapists “could benefit consumers by increasing choice, competition, and access to care, especially for the underserved.”

More than a dozen states are considering similar proposals, despite fierce resistance from the ADA and its state affiliates. During the Maine debate, so many dentists flooded the statehouse in Augusta that besieged lawmakers taped up signs declaring their offices a “Dental Free Zone.”

The dentists had a unique way to get around the blockade: the regular checkup. While the bill was pending, some lawmakers found themselves getting an earful when they stretched out and opened wide for an oral exam.

“I’m certainly a captive audience when I am in the dental chair,” said Brian Langley (R), a Maine state senator who also got calls from four other dentists in his district and ended up siding with them.

The bill establishing a new provider type ultimately passed, but “it was brutal, very brutal,” recalled David Burns, a Republican state senator who retired after supporting the measure. Afterward, Burns said, he got a call from his dentist, who vowed never to treat him again, saying, “This relationship is over.”

Most of the 200,000 dentists in America work solo, in offices that are essentially small businesses. They are known for projecting a remarkably unified voice on issues relating to their livelihood. The ADA says 64 percent of dentists belong to the association. By comparison, only 25 percent of physicians belong to the American Medical Association.

The ADA agrees that too many Americans are getting inadequate dental care. They argue that the answer is not the creation of “lesser trained” therapists, but more government funding and “community dental health care coordinators” to educate people and get them to a dentist.

“Dentistry has a fundamental belief that dentists should be the only ones to do surgical, irreversible procedures,” said Michael Graham, senior vice president of the ADA’s Division of Government and Public Affairs.

Others argue that the American model of dentistry is badly in need of innovation and competition. The Pew Charitable Trusts and other foundations advocate therapists as a way to improve access and affordability.

Therapists cost less to train than dentists do, and states set the rules governing their training and scope of practice. Supporters say the idea is for the therapists to work in concert with a licensed dentist but be more mobile, visiting people in nursing homes and underserved rural areas to perform basic oral exams and fill and pull some teeth.

They would also treat people on Medicaid, the government health-care program for the poor. Two-thirds of licensed dentists do not accept Medicaid, and hospital emergency rooms are swamped with people with neglected teeth.

“Therapists are not a silver bullet but a significant way to begin addressing the problem,” said John Grant, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ dental campaign.

Louis Sullivan, a physician who served as secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush, said dentists’ opposition to therapists is largely about money.

“They think dental therapists will be competing against them and therefore will compromise their income,” he said.

Sullivan noted that doctors strongly opposed the creation of nurse practitioners in the 1970s. Now doctors--and the health-care system--can’t live without them, he said.

As in the nurse-doctor battle, there is a gender factor: More than 95 percent of dental hygienists are female. As a group, they support the idea of therapists and, with additional training, could join their ranks. Currently, hygienists work in small offices with licensed dentists, 70 percent of whom are male.

Dentistry has “been an old boys’ club,” said Ruth Ballweg, a professor and physician assistant at the University of Washington School of Medicine who has been involved in the fight for dental therapists. “But the model is changing.”

More than 50 countries, from Canada to New Zealand, have dental therapists. Alaska Native tribal areas first introduced dental therapists to the United States in 2004. Since then, Minnesota, Maine and Vermont have approved them. Ohio, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Dakota and several other states are now contemplating their authorization.

The ADA has spent millions of dollars trying to block the bills. It also filed multiple lawsuits trying without success to stop the Alaska program.

“They went after these Alaskan therapists like they were ISIS. It was embarrassing,” said Jack Dillenberg, a dentist who has taught at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

Dillenberg visited the Alaska program, where therapists working in consultation with a licensed dentist--sometimes by telemedicine--visit islands, remote villages and other underserved areas.

“I thought they were awesome,” said Dillenberg, one of few dentists to publicly support the therapist idea.

The issue is “intensely debated and can be very emotional,” said Mary Otto, author of a new book, “Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America.” “It has to do with dentists’ identity and the professional autonomy they have fought to keep for generations.”

In Maine, the therapist bill turned out to be the most contentious issue of the 2014 legislative session. It passed only after opponents added multiple restrictions, including a requirement that therapists work only in the presence of a dentist. Supporters failed even to persuade lawmakers to let therapists travel to nursing homes alone.

Three years later, resistance remains high. Dentists control the dental schools and the state licensing board, and not one therapist has yet been trained.

Meanwhile, people who can’t pay continue to put off care. On a recent Friday, Michael Hanson, 54, a lobsterman who went 15 years without seeing a dentist, was sitting in the community health clinic near Maine’s Acadia National Park. Over time, lack of care and poor health ruined Hanson’s teeth. In February, they were all pulled. He sat toothless, talking about eating soft food for months while he awaits his dentures.

Hanson said his daughter, too, skips annual exams because it is hard to come up with the money.

The dental system is broken, he said. “You go to the hospital and they give you time to pay your bill. But you go to the dentist and they want you to pay right there, and people just don’t have the money.”

Heather Sirocki, a Maine lawmaker who backed the therapist bill, is a hygienist by training. She has seen the swollen jaws and blackened teeth of people who can’t afford dental care. She’s even heard of people driving to Canada to seek treatment.

People like Hanson “are not asking for a free handout,” Sirocki said. “They are asking for a dental appointment.”

#dentists #dental care #American Dental Association #dentists and politics #dental therapists

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