Neue Luxury is a global dialogue on luxury in the 21st century.

• GRACE JONES

  A leap of faith

  Cue: Grace Jones leaps off the Eiffel Tower—Bond is in pursuit—parachute deployed; lands safely, and makes a successful escape from the MI6 agent. The scene from A View to a Kill (1985), where Jones plays May Day opposite Roger Moore’s James Bond, was a moment of pure movie drama, it also perfectly encapsulated her mysterious and fearless oeuvre.

• DAVID BOWIE

  The art of death

  Saturday 18 November 1978, thousands of us were huddled under clear plastic sheets, doing what we could to keep the rain out. Darkness had fallen. We were waiting for David Bowie. It was Bowie’s first visit to Australia, the excitement was palpable and the crowd was counting down the minutes until he would appear on that stage.

• JEREMY SCOTT

  Bringing back the fun

  I visited Scott at his studio located amongst the vintage stores and record shops down the wrong end of Melrose Avenue in LA. Arriving outside a nondescript, blacked out shopfront, I double and triple checked the address, however any doubts rapidly subsided when Jeremy himself opened the door, welcoming me into his colourful world.

FEATURES

• REI KAWAKUBO

  Perfect imperfection

  This May, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will unveil its new exhibition devoted to Rei Kawakubo. Kawakubo will become the first living designer honoured with a monographic show since Yves Saint Laurent in 1983.

• PETER MARINO

  The dream weaver

  Marino—let’s call a spade a spade and anoint him with the mantle of ‘starchitect’—is a man obsessed with style. For almost fifty years this striking character has applied architectural nous to a dazzling array of commissions, including private homes for the superannuated, grand, conceptual interiors, and all manner of radical side projects.

• MAPPLETHORPE

  Creating a future legacy

  When Robert Mapplethorpe died in Boston on the morning of 9 March 1989, he was 42. He had already attained a degree of notoriety in art circles and questions had been raised about the pornographic content in his art. His images contained explicit nudity, graphic records of homosexual acts and sadomasochistic scenes initially encountered on his journeys into the Manhattan underworld—before being meticulously recreated in his studio.

• IAN CURTIS

  Unknown Pleasures

  “A change of speed, a change of style” sang Ian Curtis in the opening line of New Dawn Fades: a track from Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, released in 1979. By accident or design, this visceral debut captured the essence of Manchester at a juncture in its social and cultural history.

• CRAIG GREEN

  Romance & Optimisim

  It’s a rare moment when fashion editors are moved to tears at a fashion show. Of course, there are stories of audiences weeping at the hands of Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela, but that was over two decades ago, way before the industry reached the apex of corporate capacity and widespread cynicism ensued.

• BALENCIAGA

  Shaping Fashion

  Described by legendary fashion photographer Cecil Beaton as ‘fashion’s Picasso’, and heralded as one of the most innovative and influential fashion designers of the 20th century, Spanish born designer Cristóbal Balenciaga challenged convention with his extraordinary pattern cutting and audacious silhouettes, yet he remains surrounded by a sense of mystery.

• BOB RICHARDSON

  Reckless beauty

  Bob Richardson, in his unpublished biography, wrote: “There are two kinds of people on Earth, those who live in the past and those who live in the future. How have I been able to survive for 75 years? Guts—willpower—pride—I am very proud of myself—I am not ashamed of anything—I have no secrets—I am free.”

• FEAR OF GOD

  Cult following

  Fear of God’s cardinal rule is that the simplest solution will often be the best one. The brand is known for selling high quality streetwear staples—plaids, abraded denims, oversized hoodies—to a luxury clientele, but its appeal can be difficult to define in exact terms. “I’m not conceptual or art driven,” Lorenzo told the German fashion editor Joerg Koch, “I’m solution oriented”.

FEATURES

• SANCAKLAR MOSQUE

  Embedding cultural memory in contemporary architecture

  When the head of the philanthropic Sancaklar Foundation, Suat Sancak, first approached Emre Arolat with a request to design a new mosque for 500 worshippers, the architect turned him down. “I told him I’m not that kind of architect,” he remembers.

• HALSTON

  A world of youth, beauty and glamour

  In the 1970s, Halston was the go to designer for the luminaries of New York society. Tall, handsome, charismatic, daring and impeccably dressed in his signature black turtleneck, Halston exuded style and elegance ahead of his time. The visionary instinctively knew how to dress a woman using a ‘less is more’ approach.

• LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES

  Some rules are meant to be broken

  From Vetements to Valentino, Balmain to Balenciaga, Thom Browne to Tom Ford, the game has changed. Gone are the borders and boundaries, the can’t do’s and must not’s. This is a game of personal expression and fashion freedom, and it’s time to choose your team.

• FRANCIS KURKDJIAN

  The memories of scent

  Francis Kurkdjian is a formidable French born perfumer who, aside from running his own highly successful fragrance empire, finds the time to continuously create superior scents for houses such as Burberry, Nina Ricci and Kenzo.

• THIERRY-MAXIME LORIOT

  The storyteller

  When I interviewed Thierry-Maxime Loriot in 2014 on his transition into fashion curating, he called himself a storyteller. Two years later when speaking about his work curating the Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, he similarly stated “You can put something on the wall, but it’s better if you tell a story. It’s like going to a movie, visitors want to experience something.”

• 30 YEARS OF MENSWEAR

  An interview with Ross Poulakis

  Ross Poulakis, general manager of Harrolds Australia’s Luxury Department Store, is standing in the middle of their vast and immaculate menswear store in Sydney, hurriedly selecting a tie to better match his double-breasted Harrolds Private Label suit as he prepares for the camera. As the 29-year-old son of Harrolds founder, John Poulakis, Ross has grown up in the business, watching as his father turned a single Melbourne menswear store, established in 1985, into a dynamic retail empire.

• FASHION ICONS AND INFLUENCERS

  Neue Selects

  In every generation, there are just a handful of luminaries who seek to redefine mainstream concepts of fashion, beauty, art and design. Their creative influence enables us to track the tectonic shifts of our cultural, social and political landscapes, while reminding us that every great dream begins with a dreamer.

• The philosophy of memory

  Neue Perspective

   

  Yet again, I put this pen to paper. The steel nib loops with a little scratch “toothy”, the aficionados call it. Balanced between thumb, index and middle fingers, it is more guided than gripped. I turn experiences into tiny gestures of the arm and hand, which leave marks behind—marks you turn back into experiences as you read.