The Colorful History of California Graphic Design
Louise Sandhaus’s new book, “Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California & Graphic Design 1936-1986” ($55, Metropolis Books), is a collection of visual artifacts as eclectic as California itself. The volume begins in the year that the L.A. transplant Merle Armitage designed the nontraditionally laid-out book “Igor Stravinsky” and ends with April Greiman’s “Does it Make Sense,”... More
Gary Baseman Collaborates with Coach for Spring 2015
During Coach’s heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, the C might as well have stood for “classic” or “collegiate.” But Stuart Vevers, Coach’s new creative director, has a decidedly different agenda for the brand: “Making the normal fantastically normal” is how he describes it. For spring, C stands for “cartoonish,” or “cultish.” Putting together his... More
Cosmic L.A. Style: Stargazing with Miss KK & Friends
On Sunday night, in the shoe designer Jerome Rousseau’s elegant Hollywood studio, a colorful community of artists gathered to celebrate the debut of MissKK: A Sister Collaboration, a clothing line by costumer, stylist, and designer MissKK (née Kristine Karnaky) and her sister, Kat Karnaky, a textile designer and printer who lives in Oakland. Hanging on... More
Cameron, Witch of the Art World
Pale and slender, she is wrapped in a black and white shawl that once belonged to Rudolph Valentino, a Spanish comb fanning out from her fiery red hair. Slowly, she lifts the long, fringed lashes framing her blue eyes and fixes her liquid gaze on the camera. She extends her hand and opens her palm... More
What Warpaint Packs on Tour
When Warpaint returned to Los Angeles in July after a two-month tour that spanned the western hemisphere, Emily Kokal, one of the all-female quartet’s vocalist/guitarists, would often find herself wandering the hills of her Echo Park neighborhood instead of relaxing at home. “I’m so used to moving and seeing new things,” she said over coffee... More
Videre Licet: Furniture Glam Enough for Hollywood
President Obama sits behind a custom walnut desk of their design in his private study, and François-Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek’s Paris apartment is illuminated by their light boxes, but until now, the design partnership of Daniele Albright and Stefan Lawrence fell under the auspices of Twentieth, Lawrence’s contemporary furniture showroom in Los Angeles. Now,... More
Dennis Hopper’s “The Last Movie” Screens at Paris Photo
Three of Dennis Hopper’s four children — Marin, Ruthanna and Henry — gathered at Paramount Studios with Hollywood friends like Andrew and Luke Wilson and Todd Phillips (director of the “Hangover” franchise and friend of Ruthanna, Hopper’s daughter with the “Zabriskie Point” star Daria Halprin) and art-world luminaries including Bill Viola and Sophie Calle for... More
“Veils” Celebrates the Art of the Obscured
As its name suggests, “Veils” — a 40-artist group exhibition opening Saturday in the West Adams neighborhood of L.A. — offers interpretations of the physical act of concealment. But the show’s curators, Jhordan Dahl and Ariana Papademetropoulos, also made a point to stretch the concept, exploring ideas about public personas and the occult. The works... More
Cosmic L.A. Style: Coryander Friend and Parachute Market
Spring is in the air, and this weekend Parachute Market is celebrating the season with “Let There Be Light,” the third installment of this curated design fair. The brainchild of set designer and vintage dealer Coryander Friend < http://coryander.com/> , Parachute aims to bring an aesthetic cohesion to the popular pop-up market format that extends... More
Cosmic L.A. Style: Designer and Vintage Connoisseur Katy Rodriguez
Resurrection, the bi-coastal vintage boutique that Katy Rodriguez founded with her partner Mark Haddaway, just celebrated its 18th birthday. During those years, Rodriguez launched her own clothing line, co-curated a collection of rare 20th century fashion auctioned at Christie’s, and discovered meditation through the Self Realization Fellowship—a personal shift that’s been reflected in a new cosmic... More
Tune In, Try On: L.A.’s Psychedelic Sixties Boutiques
San Francisco might own 1967’s Summer of Love, but L.A.’s trippy season went on long after that – just like its eternal sunshine. The late ‘60s here saw love-ins in Elysian Park, acid tests in Watts (presided over by Merry Prankster Ken Kesey himself), and an explosion of Hollywood nightclubs such as The Trip, The... More
“The Mothership” Lands in Downtown Los Angeles
Currently eight and a half months pregnant with her first child, the artist and curator Carly Jo Morgan has been exploring themes of motherhood since long before her own was imminent. Years ago, she designed a tribal-futurist “Mothership” collection for her jewelry line, All for the Mountain, that led to a commission from Sonia Rykiel.... More