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

In this nicotine-stained café, once the preserve of market workers and late-night hustlers, there are black boys with pink hair talking fashion to white girls with Afros. “She’s beyond amazing,” declares a wild-eyed youth describing his latest discovery. “It’s like Lang on acid—sick and beautiful and completely NOW!” Beyond this scenario, lurking in the corner, sits legendary American photographer Annie Leibovitz—chic and understated, but surveying the room with a frosty antipathy. Paris Fashion Week is in full flow, and people are watching.

Lagerfeld’s career spans six decades and as many brands, most notably Chloé, Fendi and Chanel which he has helmed since 1983, eleven years after the death of Mademoiselle left it covered in déclassé dust.

New York's Metropolitan Museum has announced that Camp: Notes on Fashion will be the title of its next blockbuster Costume Institute exhibit. The exhibit is launched each year by the star-studded Met Gala, where attendees do their best to dress according to the prescribed theme.

Italian fashion house Gucci says it wants to reach 10 billion euros ($A15.5 billion) in annual sales and replace LVMH's Louis Vuitton as the world's biggest luxury label. The Gucci brand is reaping the benefits of a radical makeover under designer Alessandro Michele, with a flamboyant style that has won over fashion fans and helped sales surge.

For more than just one generation, Alexander Wang is the messiah of a casual-luxe, sports-infused lifestyle that echoes the lowbrow culture of the 1990s and fuses it with an insouciant sense of modelesque refinement. Those ankle boots and leather miniskirts? That’s Wang territory. Those insanely studded grained-leather holdalls and bucket bags? Wang.

At once mystical, romantic and heroic, rivers have captured our imaginations and informed our mythologies for centuries. As powerful symbols of renewal and change, it is timely that we take to the LA River and discover fashion’s new undercurrent—those reframing luxury through a lens of youth culture, artisanship and creativity. This is a place where rivers run deep and where all things merge into one.

Heron Preston, the eponymous label of the San Francisco born former Nike marketing man, is one of the buzziest names taking the fashion world by storm. With experience working with Yeezy and Off-White, Preston’s utilitarian military-meets-sportswear garb is catnip for today’s youth.

Since its launch in 2013, Virgil Abloh’s Milan-based label Off-White has helped storm the luxury barricades, not to destroy but to liberate. Named after the colour of a blank canvas, Abloh’s streetwear has taken its place beside venerated luxury brands such as Ralph Lauren, Gucci and Saint Laurent—but with a philosophy that has carved its own niche into the fashion world.

I have a distinct memory of the Russian stylist Lotta Volkova from London clubland in the early noughties. Casting models for Katie Grand’s Pop magazine, I frequently scoured the underground in search of arresting individuals and found this strange looking creature throwing shapes on a podium at Kashpoint, Matthew Glamorre’s alt-scene one-nighter in Soho. This was the club of choice for delinquent denizens, outré fashion students and those who revelled in the gloriously messed-up aesthetic of the day.

Margiela did things differently, from a distance, without branding himself a celebrity. His designs and their anti-perfectionist stance were an antidote to the slick glamour and party-girl artifice of the day. His were statement clothes, emboldened by art, and delicately ‘unfinished’. They were the future.

There’s something distinctly American about Mike Amiri, a sense that anything is possible and nothing is unattainable. Channeling Jim Morrison’s nonchalant sex-appeal or Axl Rose’s defiantly messy style, Amiri’s collection is a homage to the grunge aesthetic of 1980s and 1990s Los Angeles. And while rock star glam has long inspired designers from Jean-Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld to Hedi Slimane and Marc Jacobs, Amiri’s quintessentially Californian vision is both laid back and extravagant, with a level of artisanship that has distinguished his coveted label in the luxury market.

There’s a new order in place, and it’s all about who is looking at whom. The boundaries between fashion and entertainment have blurred, creating an entire new generation of influencers. Social media is providing its proselytes with a glimpse into the rarefied world of celebrity while transforming the way we engage with fashion, art and culture. 

Standing at the nexus of function and style is LA designer Jerry Lorenzo, whose streetwear label Fear of God is an authentic representation of today’s diverse youth culture. Regularly referred to as a ‘cult leader’ his engagement with a digital audience has inspired a community of avid fashion proselytes. Neue Luxury is proud to present an interview series with Jerry Lorenzo about his cult-label Fear of God.

Andreas Kronthaler’s first words to me come in the form of playful admonishment. “Are you being naughty?” he asks. He’s caught me trying on hats in the showroom of Vivienne Westwood’s Paris HQ, and arches an eyebrow in mock-disapproval. This imposing figure, all d’Artagnan hair and baggy trousers, cocks his head slightly, but I’m sizing him up too.

In a world dominated by prejudice and judgement, we take the time to celebrate those who overcome the constraints and limitations of everyday life, move beyond the pragmatics of function and embrace a world of emotion, creativity, aesthetics and the sacred. A world where soft lines meet structured silhouettes, pleats embrace prints and power succumbs to play. 

Photography Ribal Hosn, Styling Gadir Rajab, Hair Kyye Reed, Makeup Justin Henry, Art Direction 3 Deep, Models Em-Jay & Cellina ZAAR-mgt.

On a cold January evening in Paris, Carol Lim and Humberto Leon presented their Autumn/Winter 2017 collection for the luxury label Kenzo. The collection—a mix of arctic surfing combined with urban style—was typical Kenzo style; colour loud and prints bold. But what really set this show apart, was how the entire backstage area was laid bare.

Whip thin with a blunt fringe and poker straight black hair, Bouchra Jarrar cuts a demure figure in the airy, beige surrounds of her Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré office, dotted with succulent plants and modernist furniture. Mere months after taking the role of women’s creative director at the house of Lanvin (following Alber Elbaz’s abrupt departure), she couldn’t seem calmer—surrounded by candid backstage images of her Spring/Summer 2017 runway show, the label’s first to take place in the gilded halls of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.

Manolo lives for beauty. He is the Proust of shoes,” states André Leon Talley former Vogue editor-at-large in an interview with The New Yorker. High praise indeed, but as the designer of some of the world’s most covetable footwear, Manolo Blahník, is deserving. Blahník is a craftsman with intimate knowledge on the geometry of a shoe, in particular the precision and balance required of a high heel.

London 2010. St Paul’s Cathedral, squeezed into the city like a relegated old timer, remains to these eyes, design at its most daring. It’s a fitting location for Alexander McQueen’s memorial service: grand, awe-inspiring, immortal; but also a disturbing reminder that things have come to this. Lee—for he was Lee to me—would have hated it: the crowds, the silence, the poignant, solemn atmosphere. Yet in a wonderfully reflective way, both man and building have managed to capture the architectural zeitgeist.

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.

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.

Victoria Beckham is much nicer than anticipated. With the nonpareil combination of Spice Girl ubiquity, marriage to an adored ex-footballer, and now credible fashion designer, you might presume this got-lucky ex-pop star to be beyond modesty, but that certainly isn’t the case. Whatever your assumptions, be prepared to warm to this most blessed of modern celebrities.

As we enter a period of tectonic change for gender equality, we reflect on some of the most powerful women across fashion, culture and the arts—from the creatively audacious Anna Dello Russo to the mysterious Elena Ferrante. We take a look at how these influential women have harnessed their talents to stimulate change, inspire creativity and reconstruct notions of gender.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.”

The exterior of Rick Owens’ Venetian apartment looks, at first glance, decidedly un-Rick Owens. Perched on the beachfront of Lido, in a quiet area south of the main tourist hub, the pistachio façade of the building gives nothing away. There is no bell, just suspicious neighbours.

Rousteing knows when a beautiful woman with attitude is in need of a coat of armour. He is most closely associated with the Kardashians, the behemoths of reality television. Kim wears his clothes with aplomb. Her half sister, Kendall Jenner, made her Paris runway debut at Rousteing’s show. They edge into each other’s Instagram snapshots, a tool that Rousteing uses to connect with his fans as he “grows up with the house”.

One of the great virtues of art is that it enables us to see the world differently while affording us the freedom to explore the intersections of our senses. Neue Fashion uncovers a world where classic meets creative.

On the face of it, Tim Blanks, the renowned fashion critic, doesn’t fit the preconceived idea of a fashion journalist. Famous for his year round uniform of short sleeved floral shirts, he has been producing whip smart reviews for more than three decades that concentrate on the runway soundtrack and the current political climate as much as they do the clothes.

It is a well known truth that fashion can be a notoriously difficult, competitive and enervating industry, especially for an enthusiastic young designer starting out with limited funds and scant business knowledge. There is mounting pressure to design and produce numerous collections with a unique signature that pleases both press and buyer.

Today, the reinvigorated and much celebrated Costume Institute is led by British born curator Andrew Bolton. He has been responsible for megawatt shows including 2011’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and last year’s China: Through the Looking Glass, which most notably broke all attendance records for the department.

Vaccarello’s silhouette is centred on desire itself in its most visceral, liquid form—the silky dresses with incendiary splits that travel imprudently northwards, far beyond the hip bone and into the sphere of brazen exhibitionism—the kind that would once have resulted in rampant persecution.

“Cult is a word you would never say in Hollywood,” John Waters once said. “Cult means that [the film] lost money and three smart people liked it.” Though many would refuse to admit it, cult status is the absolute zenith of creative ambition. For truly provocative artists and designers, even the most glittering of institutional success will never compare to the eternal glory of becoming a cult symbol.

It’s a crisp evening in October 2000 and a myriad of celebrities, journalists, clients and friends of the house, are gathered in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to celebrate a self-titled retrospective of the finest work from fashion designer Giorgio Armani. After an introductory speech downstairs, guests are free to wander through the exhibition at their own leisure, winding through decades of sartorial style and elegance. 

Lebanese businessman and collector Tony Salamé stood on an escalator above a crowd of some 2000 lavishly dressed socialites, art world impresarios, politicians and journalists. They joined him for the much anticipated launch of Aïshti, the enormous $100 million mall and art foundation set alongside the picturesque Mediterranean, 20 minutes from Beirut.

Jakob Schlaepfer is a quiet yet incredibly influential voice in contemporary fashion. A strange paradox considering the textile house has conspired with some of the world’s greatest art and fashion luminaries for over 112 years. One only has to see the fabrics that beset the red carpets of Festival de Cannes and the Oscars, or pick up an issue of Vogue to reveal the depth and breadth of their output.

Contemporaneously art and fashion are economic and cultural bedfellows, but it wasn’t always so. Historically art and fashion found themselves philosophically opposed. Within each discipline there traditionally existed a hierarchy of value. Fashion was understood to be fickle, transient and in constant flux, and art was considered intellectual, even elitist.

Berlin based perfumer and renowned nose Geza Schoen redefined the industry in 2006 with the introduction of Escentric Molecules 01, the beginning of a range of astonishing molecular scents that pushed the traditional boundaries of fragrance.

Deliberate, considered and incremental, Harrolds Made to Measure is as much an antidote to fast fashion as it is the complete antithesis. Through its flagship and personalised tailored experience, Made to Measure clients are immersed in a curated world of craftsmanship and tailoring.

I’m posing questions to Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren that are a little more searching than most. Instead of asking about their hit fragrance, Flowerbomb (one bottle sold every three minutes), or their private relationship (former partners, now platonic—for the record), I’m plundering sociology, anthropology, in fact, any-ology I can muster.

Nicola Formichetti never met Andy Warhol—their lifespans overlapped by ten years—but refers to the American artist as his “dream teacher”. Their post-mortem union transpired when Formichetti launched the Welcome to Diesel World exhibition in Melbourne in March of 2016, where Warhol’s high-gloss albeit chilled paintings of cultural icons were hanging in a major gallery. The pair’s parallels are simple: children of working class parents whose imaginations fought to keep up with the prodigious rate of artistic output.

Isabella Blow was one of the fashion world’s great connoisseurs and bohemians, a British aristocrat, stylist, muse and mentor of young, seminal designers such as Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and milliner Philip Treacy, and models such as Stella Tennant, Honor Fraser and Sophie Dahl.

In the midst of the current volatile and frenzied fashion landscape, a label has appeared that is challenging the once unquestioned codes of the show system, and producing intriguing urban collections that are electrifying both customers and critics alike. Georgian born Demna Gvasalia is the man fronting the Vetements collective.

Long considered by many as an exotic antipodean outpost, our collective identity has always been shaped by a constant tension between the ancient, the old world and the new. With a nod to the past and a warm embrace of the future, Neue Fashion takes a grand tour through the sculptural forms, soft lines and strong silhouettes of our European and Australian masters.

“Fashion should always be about discovery and creating an identity. The idea isn’t just adding to the visual overload of clothing out there,” says Hadida, who is still as passionate and visionary about fashion as he was when he first opened the doors of L’Eclaireur in a Parisian basement in 1980.

In 2003, American essayist Judith Thurman, while covering the men’s collections in Milan and Paris for The New Yorker, wrote, “The flash of an ankle used to represent the chasm between a sophisticate and a rube.” Had she turned toward her countryman Thom Browne, who introduced his ready-to-wear collection that same year, she might have noticed a seismic shift in culturally sanctioned displays of masculine (that is to say, American) vanity.

Michèle Lamy walks forward to greet me in the foyer of her Parisian townhouse like a tiny woodland creature: inquisitive, glistening, mesmeric—as though she has just burrowed her way through a mound of wet peat and emerged into the sunshine. In that inimitable French way, we embrace like old friends. She studies me carefully, first directly in the eye, and then all over, as if searching for my soul.

Conceived upon a nexus of art and science, perfumus, or ‘to smoke through’ in the Latin tongue, may be the only earthly counterpart to ambrosia. Neue Fashion explores seven of the world’s most unique olfactory creations that stimulate our imagination and highlight the dualities between heritage and modernity, simplicity and decadence.

The rules for a luxury brand used to be relatively simple. Be subtle, be exclusive, be surprising and create desire. However, with the rise of the conspicuous acquirer and the democratisation and proliferation of luxury, volume consumption and brand identity erosion seem to be the order of the day. 

In recent times much has been written about the strategic opportunity that Australia’s geographic location and proximity to Asia has offered purveyors of luxury products and services. Long considered by Europe as an exotic antipodean outpost, Australia has always sought to embrace its European heritage while advocating the virtues of American style commercialisation.

In taking on the forces of fast fashion and by ironically delivering at a faster rate, Ford will no doubt emerge an even bigger luxury force to be reckoned with—with each new collection made more exclusive by virtue of its limited edition. Executed with Ford’s trademark finesse and vision, the recalibration will indeed put the designer at the lead of fashion’s new renaissance.

All hail Stella McCartney, the designer who has made ethical business a cornerstone of her label by practicing sustainable production methods, all the while reinforcing her unique creative vision. Her successes so transparent that she is merely known by the moniker Stella, shedding any demand for a surname.

Over the past year I’ve worked with Thierry-Maxime Loriot to bring The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk to its Melbourne venue at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). This is the fashion world of Thierry-Maxime Loriot.

Some of the greatest things happen by chance. Far from being on the radar, it is the unforeseen events or unexpected meetings that can change the course of one’s life. For Christopher Chong, creative director of international luxury fragrance brand Amouage, meeting David Crickmore, chief executive officer of the coveted perfume company, in 2007, was just one of the many chances that have occurred in his illustrious career spanning art, fashion and opera.

Belgian fashion designer Walter Van Beirendonck quickly deflects the word ‘obsession’. “I don’t think I should talk about obsessions but rather fascinations or rituals,” says Van Beirendonck, who cites a list of rituals that are continually drawn into his world: animal, ethnic, folk and art rituals to the darker side, including sadomasochistic and voodoo rituals.

Pinning down a time to speak with Stephen Jones isn’t easy. As soon as he returns from Fashion Week in Paris, he sets off for Japan, literally with no time in between. But when you start to compile a list of the world’s leading fashion designers he collaborates with, patience is obviously required.

In the current landscape of luxury fashion Artioli is something of an outlier. It remains a thriving family run business by continuing to do what it has always done: make hand-crafted shoes for men with passion and gusto.

Amongst the barrage of communications we are likely to receive daily, there lies a moment of stillness and reflection in the form of a handwritten letter by Nicolas Ouchenir. It is Ouchenir’s handmade and carefully crafted calligraphy that has enamoured designers, architects, and creative iconoclasts around the world.

It’s clear the goal for Melvin Tanaya and Lyna Ty—the founders of Song for the Mute—is to create clothing that encapsulates their dedication and passion for craft and tell a personal story curated over many years.

In the early 1980s, The Antwerp Six caused an avalanche on London’s fashion scene, not dissimilar to the Japanese designers showing in Paris at the same time. Amongst the group were Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck and Dries Van Noten.

Susan Dimasi established luxury fashion house Materialbyproduct (MBP) in 2004 as a means to invent future systems for fashion design. These systems are shaped by the Australian context, as well as the fashion industry’s needs for smaller production runs within less physical space.

Even today portraits of the aviatrix convey a powerful sense of allure and exhilaration. Throwing caution to the wind with their daring adventures, the exploits of the aviatrix captivated the world and the zeitgeist of an era of progress when women began to radically challenge conventional gender roles.

Nick Wooster, menswear style icon, entrepreneur and self-confessed brand, was in Melbourne, Australia, recently in his role as strategic consultant for Woolmark, witnessing the transformation of natural fibres into wool.

Like his beautifully crafted clothes, fashion designer Lui Hon chooses his words carefully. There are no large arm gestures, as are often seen in this industry, only thoughtful responses to each question.

Adam Brown, Founder of Orlebar Brown, is taking a more considered approach to mens swimwear. His insights into quality and the exchange of knowledge is encouraging consumers to reconsider their perspective.