My last day in New York and The September issue
For the 1/3 night in a row, I'm sitting down to write a publish and it is overdue and I'm beat. But it makes me feel like I stay here after I run myself into the ground and I can sleep after I get home day after today nighttime.
I had another great, great day. I spent the first part of it talking to Yakov and Angela Hanansen , two great mosaic artists with a studio and mosaic school in Chelsea. Yakov's latest work was unveiled last week and I was indeed fortunate to be able to see the work and have him describe it to me.
His installation is in a new 7th Avenue front to Penn Station and it includes marble mosaic detail photographs of the unique Penn Station embedded in a wall of the present day Penn Station. He described his paintings there as an expression of the fragmented nature of reminiscence. Since humans do not forget things in small fragments, it made sense to use small fragments of marble to demonstrate New Yorkers' collective reminiscence of the a great deal-loved and now long-gone original Penn Station. Brilliant and to hear the artist describe his work to me in those terms at the same time as we sat in his studio was a actual thrill.
Look for greater about the Hanansens when I get back to my standard habitual next week.
After that, my super and clever pal Tom and I took a walk thru his community and checked out architecture. Tom's been a New Yorker for almost 30 years and I swear he knows each square inch of this town by using coronary heart. Walking round with him is an archeological day trip and I can't get sufficient of that stuff. Today we walked the new High Line Park, that is extraordinary, and then he mentioned the vintage department shops along Sixth Avenue.
I even have walked down Sixth Avenue more times than I can count number, but I've never really observed the buildings that line it. I like to consider myself as the man who notices the whole lot, however virtually, my attention to element may be unsuitable.
This is the original O'Neil department store. Sixth Avenue had an extended railways strolling down the center of it a hundred years ago and lining Sixth from approximately seventeenth to 23 Streets become what became knows as The Ladies' Mile. The Ladies' Mile changed into wherein the dry goods, branch stores and get dressed stores were centered inside the Manhattan of the final century.
Here's the O'Neil department store today. Like everything else in Chelsea, the O'Neil building has been carved up into wildly expensive condominiums. It still has its iron facade and cuppolas, and there's something to be said for that.
New York's packed with gemstones like the O'Neil building and I'm lucky to have a pal like Tom who takes such satisfaction in pointing them out.
Then to put a cap on everything from the week, another friend and I went to see September Issue, a documentary about the making of the September issue of Vogue. It was a fitting movie to see at the end of my Fashion Week experience. The movie's fantastic and I think I understand the business and art of fashion a whole lot better than I did a week ago. Here's the trailer:
I doubt I'm going to start buying $5,000 suits any time soon, but I can see the fashion world's influence through the worlds of art and commerce in a way now that I couldn't see before. So let's say Jason Wu picks bright yellow to use as an accent on a dress and he settled on that yellow because it reminded him of something he saw or read. Anna Wintour approves of the dress with the yellow accent and puts it in Vogue. The editors of Elle Decor and Metropolitan Home see the yellow accent and start homing in on yellow accents in the rooms they profile. Manufacturers see a yellow throw pillow highlighted in a shelter magazine and start integrating yellow and other bright colors into their lines the following year. I get a furniture catalog and start seeing all of these bright colors coming out and when somebody asks me what's the hot new color, I say "Yellow, it's all over the new furniture catalogs." And all of that started with someone like Jason Wu taking a walk on a Sunday afternoon and seeing a yellow butterfly or raincoat or traffic light.
A week in the past, I thought my answer to that query stopped with what the manufacturers had been displaying me. Now I can see the road it follows to get to me more honestly. The more I consider this the more I can see that what happens on the runways of New York and Paris without delay results me, what I do for a living and also what I like. It's exciting and I virtually haven't idea about it earlier than.
And just think, I never would have seen any of that were it not for a forward-thinking faucet company that watches these runway shows like hawks for the very reason I just described. Thanks again Brizo !
