BEAUTY issue



ONLINE content

ARBITERS
Questions for Stephen Knoll
A Girl's Best Friend

BON APPÉTIT
Questions for Nobu Matsuhisa
Questions for Tony Esnault
the new Le Cirque interview Iké Udé

BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions for Nicholas Callaway
Questions for John Hunt

FASHION
Chinatown photography Norman Watson
Passions of Rihanna photography Iké Udé

KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Dominique Swain Lolita Has A Tattoo interview Brandon Judell
Jared Leto My Bashed-up Life On Screen interview Brandon Judell
Zoe Saldana No Regrets interview Brandon Judell

KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portraits backstage at Olympus Fashion Week interview Valerie Steele
Francesco Clemente Impermanence of The Self interview Johan Falkman
Roger Szmulewicz Looking at Pictures interview Parker Stephenson

aRUDE comment

In our second beauty issue, we have undertaken an elegant profile of varied personages culled from the music, painting, restaurant, photography, design, and the museum world.

Each profile exemplifies varying degrees of beauty, aplomb and passions with which the talents invest in their practice.

In his latest reincarnation, the restaurant maestro, Sirio Maccioni, has yet again finessed the legendary Le Cirque originally founded in 1974. This New York City landmark is tantamount to the penultimate New York social register and deservedly so, if only for the bold-faced names that regularly feast there under the exquisite orchestration of the maestro. And the ambiance and décor, realized at the tune of $18 million, is something to behold.

Francesco Clemente, the artist, aesthete par excellence, interviewed by the Swedish/New York base painter, Johann Falkman, reveals in a rare, savory interview, the sublime passions and sympathies that inform his enduring art. Here and there, he alights on the impermanence of life and his eventful collaborations with art-world figures such as Basquiat and Andy Warhol.

Born in the peripheral town of Saumur, France's Loire Valley, Tony Esnault has become quite the darling at Alain Ducasse at The Essex House, New York. Mentorship under the redoubtable master Alain Ducasse, has paid off tenfold and more. His mastery and confidence is fluid, beautiful and reassuring.

Photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders—astutely and verily interviewed by Valerie Steele, the ever prolific and august director of "The Museum at F.I.T. New York"-is the Nadar and August Sander of the age. In this meticulous interview, Green-Field charitably articulates his inspirations, plethora of ideas and photographic verve that keeps his imaginative lens ever focused and sharp.

Daniel Malcolm, curator in charge in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a charitable interview gingerly irons out the kinks of museum acquisition. Mr. Malcolm scored an enviable coup d’état by spearheading the acquisition of the "Gilman Paper Company" collection of photography. This very acquisition is by far, one of the most important that any museum can ever hope for. To be sure, the Gilman collection is widely reckoned as the finest in nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century photography in private hands.

Nicholas Callaway and John Hunte are hardly your quotidian businessmen. Each has taken artistic liberties in his business in such a manner as to transcend the obvious aim of business: money; each epitomizes the spirit of imagination in unparalleled entrepreneurship.

To boot, I had the pleasure of photographing the rather young and beautiful singer, Rihanna. In the thick of her prime, she oozes such radiance and exuberance of her musical gift, so much so that she sang a few notes during our shoot, while her music played on.

What luck that one can still find consolation in these pockets of beautiful oasis while Baghdad burns!!

- Iké Udé

aRUDE past issues