At Home With Joachim Splichal
Joachim Splichal’s home is decorated with sleek furniture and modern art by the likes of Robert Rauschenberg and Pasadena local Steve Roden, but walk through the kitchen, out the back door and past the azure blue pool, and suddenly you’re transported to a farmhouse in the south of France. On a recent warm fall afternoon,... More
Space Invader
For the L.A.-based painter and installation artist Sarah Cain, space is more than just physical; it’s also psychic and emotional. “I try to morph the three,” says Cain, whose site-specific works incorporate existing elements like wind and light and dip into a playfully vivid palette that defies her contemplative nature. Cain developed her style creating... More
A Safer World
Mathew Gerson was already familiar with the ways conscience and commerce intersect when he had a “eureka” moment. Gerson–who in 2005 founded online retailer Econscious Market, which sells eco-friendly products and donates up to 10 percent of the retail price of each sale to charity–was reading a book about Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners... More
Ann Roth: Craft Queen
Some call her the doyenne of costume design, but Ann Roth herself prefers the term “broad.” Turning 80 next month, Roth may be the oldest working costumer in the business, but she’s flaunting blue toenails — not hair — and dancing to Tom Waits in the morning for inspiration. And if an Emmy for her... More
Florence Welch: Songbird
Since she was discovered, as the story goes, singing Etta James while drunk in the loo of a London nightclub just a few years ago, the flame-haired singer Florence Welch has ascended to superstardom with a sureness and swiftness that feels almost pre-destined. When her band, Florence + the Machine, releases its second studio album,... More
Back to School
When Hurricane Irene rained all over the planned Southampton screening of Tatiana von Furstenberg and Francesca Gregorini’s coming-of-age boarding school drama, “Tanner Hall,” the duo — best friends since their own teenage years at Brown — decided to move the festivities to Los Angeles. Pulled together in three days by Von Furstenberg, last Tuesday’s low-key... More
Putting the Spark in Arcade Fire
For Arcade Fire devotees, Regine Chassagne’s sparkly dresses — gold stripes and disco stardust at the Grammys, tarnished sequins atwirl on “Saturday Night Live” — are as much a signature as the band’s exuberant sound; even from the cheap seats, Chassagne shimmers. Get a little closer, and the finely wrought frocks, designed by the Montreal-based... More
She’s a Rainbow
In the artist Alia Penner’s eyes, everything looks better covered in rainbows. Not girly, pastel rainbows, but brilliant acid hues that bring to mind Peter Max and Sonia Delaunay. When the California-born artist isn’t painting rainbow-framed portals into alternate universes, she brings her pop psychedelic sensibility to album covers and posters for L.A. bands and... More
Authenticity Before Glamour
W hen Ann Roth was designing the costumes for 1975’s “The Day of the Locust,” set in the late 1930s, her commitment to historical accuracy made her an anomaly. “Hollywood made dream costumes” then, says Roth, now 79. “They didn’t do what I do.” Today the industry has caught up with Roth, and this year... More
Brian Butler’s Magick Act
For the Los Angeles artist Brian Butler, magic (or “magick,” as the case may be) is as modern as technology. Certain teachings may be ancient, he notes, but that doesn’t make them any less relevant. “In the modern world of computers, the same energies are still operating,” he says.Butler was premiering his film, “The Dove... More
Gregory Parkinson’s Winning Style
In 2008, at the peak of the financial crisis and with the disappointing sales figures of his last collection hanging over him, Los Angeles-based fashion designer Gregory Parkinson went for broke, using rare fabrics from his archive to create his most spectacular collection to date. Presented in actress Shiva Rose’s garden one spring afternoon, the... More
The Untrained Eye
In 1951, Charles Brittin, a mailman and amateur photographer, moved to Venice, Calif., and began to photograph his surroundings: the desolate streets and misty midways, the oil derricks erected by the beach and the vibrant Beat community, with the artist Wallace Berman at its core, that gathered regularly at Brittin’s apartment for impromptu parties. He... More