My World. FLY magazine featuring Prada. The latest not the last.

FLY magazine has just launched its new website FLY16x9, where they'll upload editorial content in the form of moving fashion films, the same format they do with their magazine.

The news is that such high resolution videos will be able to be seen on iPods, iPhones and all kind of video enable PDA's portable music players.
You need to suscribe to have this service but it means you'll be able to enjoy your FLY magazine on the subway ride and not only on your home computer.

I wonder how often they will upload new content or how good this thing will work but so far the site is covered with many interesting videos featuring designers such Ann Demeulemeester, Junya Watanabe, Louis Vuitton or Maison Martin Margiela.

Their latest video is tittled My World, a fashion short film directed by Stephen Blaise featuring all designs by Prada, starring model Masha Yakovenko.

This video was recently exhibited at Foam Museum in Amsterdam.

Presentation of lamono magazine in Madrid

lamono magazine is a free monthly magazine based on Barcelona.
I've been collaborating with them since August but never met them personally till last Thursday when they threw a party in Madrid to introduce their latest issue; En Femenino (Feminine). For such issue I interviewed American artist Maya Hayuk, one the most rebel feminist artists I know.
Here's an extract of the interview:

You are one that defends women rights more than anyone else I know, and i remember once you denied the participation in an important exhibition for the fact that you were the only female among 20 something males.. How do you see the situation of women artists such Agathe Snow, Kiki Smith or yourself in contemporary art?.


I'm always amazed and offended when i am invited to be in a "expose of contemporary art", but am the only woman involved. I find myself having to ask often why there are so few or no women involved, then send around ever-growing lists of women artists who i admire. It seems obvious to me that since there are about 50% women and 50% men in the world, and since there's nothing that would make a man biologically better at making art, that it would be a given that in any art show you'd see this statistic reflected in the gender of the artists. What i hear so often - from men who are putting the shows together - is that they "just don't know any women artists" and i wonder if they live under a big penis-shaped rock. I say that i don't want to be in shows that tell the public that women artists are a minority. I don't have the time or the energy to be the poster child for women or the token woman artist so the curator sleeps well at night. I honestly believe that in a few years we will look back on this time and shake our heads at how ridiculous this time in history was.

The party took place at Fast Cool art gallery in Huertas, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.
We got there late but was already crowded; I saw photographer Luis Díaz former assistant of Daniel Riera.
Anna Parini, illustrator, whose work has been featured in the cover of this issue, was there on a 'live-painting-show' (pic above).

Truly in love with the new cover of Kaiserin magazine

Cover photography by American artist Brandon Herman

And they know it is awesome; only the cover is download-able through their website.

Metal magazine launch party. NYC

Spanish-based magazine Metal has became, in just a couple of years, a referent on what's cool and what's not in fashion photography.
Unfortunately it was hard to get a copy in the US and it was friend and NY fashion editor & content coordinator Angela Esteban Librero who provided copies for us to see.

The publication will finally be distributed in America (it already is) and last Tuesday Angela together with Romina Herrera Malatesta threw a launch party at the Dactyl Foundation Gallery, the same venue where S magazine had its launch party a couple of months ago.

EVERYONE was there, it was packed, it was hot, and it was fun.
The walls were covered with the work of photographer Christophe Kutner and a screen put in the back of the gallery showed the best works published in the magazine to date.

Free margaritas for everyone and obviously I got drunk as hell, my camera died before i could get any good picture and all I could save were a couple of snap shots that follow...

milkshakechocolate.net in ELLE Girl Korea

My very personal fashion project milkshakechocolate is featured in this month ELLE Girl Korea on a special "Online Magazines" together with Australian sesamemedia.com and Korean nazine.com thanks to the lovely MinKyung Kim who contacted me to ask permission to publish the magazine and send me a couple of questions.

I was thrilled.

I founded milkshakechocolate and been fashion director and editor in chief for two years and right when the e-zine came to an end I received the best press I could ever had.

I'm very grateful for such honor because ELLE Girl Korea is demonstrating that a girls' magazine doesn't need to be all boys and pinks; they are publishing interesting articles, really good selection of contemporary designers and cool stuff by the hour in their pages. Believe me.

Below is the translation of the interview, although I don't think they published the whole (I can't really tell as the publication is in Korean so I have not clue of what's published and what's left away). But there you have:

1. Milkshakechocolate... So sweet name! For readers of ELLEGirl, tell us a bit about what's Milkshakechocolate magazine.

milkshakechocolate started in 2006 as a platform for young artists, both in the field of fashion and art.
At the beginning, all the work that was published was from artists I met through myspace or from artists I knew personally whose work was really good but very difficult to find other than in their personal sites, because they were still young and unknown.
The first issue was a bit of a success and soon I started to have the opportunity to feature the work of wide renown artists like BLESS, Sandra Backlund or Boudicca, whose presence in the magazine would support the work of the younger ones.
Now milkshakechocolate is focused in avant-garde fashion because that's where my personal interest led me to.

2. It is known that one staff is in charge of editing and designing. How do you choose up the rest of staffs?

I choose the people that work for milkshakechocolate in regards of the quality of their work. The majority of those people are friends or friends of friends whose work I really respect, so it's like a community of friends working together and doing things they like to do. I'm very fortunate to have such good professionals collaborating with me.



3. Why you choose online-based magazine, instead of paper based one? In comparison with other online magazines, the majority of articles are lengthy detailed interviews. With so much read, is it more suitable for offline media?

This is a really good question that I often ask myself too.
milkshakechocolate started as a very personal project, and still is really. When I started my main goal was to feature the work of artists I knew and really admired.
The first thought was to do it on paper, in a zine-kind of magazine. But paper is very expensive and you need a good monetary back up to print and then distribute, something I didn't have at the time, so I needed to think of an alternative.

I believe in a DIY (Do It Yourself) philosophy, if you want to do something you should use all is around you to make it happen.

My friend Alex gave me the brilliant idea to do it online because it's cheaper and the distribution is worldwide. So I attended a course on web design and started to design the magazine myself.

Now things are a little different, the quality is getting better and the goals are others.
I realized myself what you so brilliantly asked me: my articles are very in-depth because that's what I was looking for, but online readers want quick and very easy readings because it's uncomfortable to be in front of a computer.

For this reason I decided to go on paper and that's what me and my partner Sonia Ostrovsky are working on right now. The next issue will be on paper and the magazine will have a new name.



4. Anyway, you feel keenly the boundary of online magazine. What's the most difficult thing?

The most difficult thing is to find artists (designers, photographers, illustrators, journalists etc) that want to be feature or to work for an online magazine, unless is a world renown online publication like showSTUDIO of Totem Fashion.
I was really fortunate to have the support of designers like BLESS or Boudicca, who believed in my magazine and their interviews opened a lot of "doors" to me.

But online magazine have not credibility whatsoever because there's thousand of online publications so for the artists their work gets lost on the net. That is why I decided also to go on paper because I wanted to feature the work of designers who only agreed to be interviewed if my magazine was printed.

5. On the contrary, what's the fascination with online media as compared to offline one?

I like the democratization of online media.
Everyone is able to express his/her creativity and to show it to the world.
Before we had Internet it was very difficult for artists and designers to get known if they were living in a remote town. They needed to move to big cities in order to know the right people. Now they can be in contact with the whole world with just a click!
I think we all are very blessed that this thing is happening in our time. You only need two things to make an online magazine: a web design program and Internet connection.

6. Two special issue 'Subway Issue' and 'Child Issue' were shown. What are your inspirations in planning special issues?

Haha… there is really not a planning!
Both themes were chosen in a certain moment when I just felt inspired.
I chose the Childhood issue because that was the first issue of the magazine so I thought it would be fun to ask the artists how they see childhood, the "first", the beginning of everything.
The Subway issue was chosen because at the time I met a very special person on the subway… ☺

7. It has been dealed with fashion, art, and cultural whole. But most recent issues are inclined to define only fashion and design. Are you deliberately designed for this purpose?

When I started milkshakechocolate I wanted to create a Fashion & Art magazine, a publication with an eye on modern culture.
For that reason the first issues headed that way but I soon realized that fashion was my real passion, that all my energy was dedicated to find good designers rather than good fine artists.
Consequently the magazine developed into a fashion platform and now it's a mainly-fashion online publication, always focusing in fashion as an art more than fashion as a shopping experience.


8. Milkshakechocolate still has stayed in 2007. When will the next issue be out? The issue from winter 2007, the one that is now on view, was the last online issue.

We are now working in the new issue that will go on paper. The magazine's name will change too but unfortunately I can't give more details yet.
In any case, I would like to give you a little scoop so I'd say that we interviewed amazing designers like Jean Pierre Braganza, Toga or United Bamboo… And the magazine's new name was inspired by a trip that my partner Sonia did to Seoul last year!

Thank you so much (again and again and again)

A [nother] new magazine. NICO

I haven't lived in another era so I can't really compare the current with any other.

For that reason it's all speculation when I say that the market haven't been so crowed with magazines never before. Every time i go to the news stand a new cover with a new name looks at me and I wonder, another??

The competition is tremendous, which is good if you're a reader (quality rules) but worrisome if you're a magazine maker (space is narrowing and advertisers get pickier and pickier).

In any case, as I said, quality is ruling these days. From Luxembourg arrives NICO, a new magazine. Although is not exactly new because this issue is their second.
On April 10th they throw a release party in Paris and Angelina A. Rafii, fashion editor of the mag, sent me the news. What a shame I don't live in Paris!. ^_+

New Magazine. News Paper. NEWWORK in Town

There's never been so many magazines around as nowadays.

Every time I go to Universal News (a popular news stand in NY) I just get really lost at the quantity of new publications that every month hit the stands... no that i'm complaining but, is there work for so many people?.

For those who know me that might sound like a very funny rhetorical question coming from my mouth... me?, who is building up a new magazine... in any case, my point is to introduce a new magazine, another one, but this one is a little special.

NEWWORK is brought to life featuring the work of 7 artists solely from New York and it combines fashion, art, politics and design in a newspaper format rather than in glossy paper.

The printing quality is quite nice as it's the work featured inside. I can only find one "but", and that's the way we'll be able to storage such publication... not very easily i would say, but hey.
Let's say well-come to the new work.

* special thanks to Michael Romanowicz for the images

Tony Solis

It is always refreshing to see young photographers getting big.
As a magazine devourer, i get tired sometimes of seeing the same names over and over in every page of every publication I buy; if, let's say, Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott are the new "in vogue" boys, then their work will be feature in every single big magazine out there; Vogue, W, Pop, Numero...

For this reason I'm more often interested in small and independent publications which range of photographers and designers is more diverse and fresh.

Mexican magazine Baby Baby Baby is one of my vices since I discovered it in 2006, always hard to get (although now that American Apparel stores will distribute it everything will get easier) but always a surprise for the eyes.

Many of the photographers that Paola Viloria, fashion editor of the publication, chooses to be published get bigger and well known, as Mexican photographer Tony Solis whose story Cirqueras (Circus Girls), published in the spring-summer 06 issue of the magazine, has been since of great inspiration for me.



------
Cada vez más a menudo me interesan las revistas pequeñas y los fanzines donde al menos los fotografos y los diseñadores que publican no estan tan "quemados" como los publicados en las revistas de siempre, el Vogue, el W, Pop, Numero... donde si los fotógrafos Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott son la pareja del momento, su trabajo saldrá en al menos un edito en las páginas de las revistas antes mencionadas dando así pie a que se hable una y otra vez de ellos dejando muy poquito espacio en nuestras mentes para los que estan empezando.
La revista mexicana Baby Baby Baby es una de mis favoritas en este aspecto (no se si ha llegado a España todavia aunque se que las tiendas American Apparel van a empezar a distribuirla), donde encuentro fotografos de lo más interesante que ademas, gracias a Paola Viloria, editora de moda de la revista, han ido escalando y haciéndose cada vez más conocidos, como el mexicano Tony Solis cuyo edito Cirqueras, que publicó en el número de primavera-verano 2006 de la revista, me ha servido de fuente de inspiración desde entonces siempre que no conseguia "ropa de marca" para darme cuenta que no la necesitas para hacer cosas interesantes.

new year new name more people more help

the winter issue of milkshake chocolate was the last issue of this magazine under such name.
when i created the magazine two years ago the main content was illustration therefore the name had this sense of cute and childish. after two years online though, the publication was developing to something more "serious" and now that name remain a little in the limbo.

for this reason i'm redesigning the magazine, the name and the content.

• i'm looking for collaborators that want to submit interviews, fashion editorials and articles. writers, stylists, photographer, i'm open to ideas. I do have also some people to be interviewed and i need journalists that want to. around the world.
  
  
• i want in-depth articles and experimental photography and writing. let's take advantage that this platform is commercially free and so we can do and say what we please. let's be free.

thanks that i luckily had the support of people like Bless, Boudicca or Sandra Backlund in the past who agreed to be interviewing for milkshake choc. the site has grown in credibility what is helping me to get other very interesting designers to interview and contributors to work with in this following issue.


if you'd like to be part of this personal project, please say hi at patri.le.crayon (a) gmail.com it's very important that you send samples of your work both if you are a photographer, a stylist or a writer.

thanks for reading so far :)


/// estoy buscando colaboradores para milkshake chocolate.
despues de dos años bajo ese nombre, la revista esta tomando otros caminos más "serios" y experimentales y por eso necesito darle un nombre mas adecuado y más contenido.
estoy buscando fotografos, estilistas y escritores. quiero gente experimental, conceptual y que tenga algo que decir.
gracias a las entrevistas pasadas que hice a gente como Bless, Boudicca o Sandra Backlund, la publicacion ha ido tomando credibilidad y esto me esta permitiendo el acercamiento a diseñadores cada vez más grandes.
antes solia hacer yo todas las entrevistas pero ahora necesito ayuda.
si te apetece colaborar no dudes en ponerte en contacto conmigo a patri.le.crayon (a) gmail.com es muy importante que me mandeis ejemplos de vuestro trabajo, ya sea de fotografia, estilismo o escritura.
mil gracias y un saludito!.

Here It Is...

The winter issue
I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks to all the people that make it possible :)

// Ya está aqui, el número de invierno de milkshake chocolate.
Un millón de gracias a todos los que hicieron posible que este número viese la luz.

Bobble-Bee & Vanidad

I knew it was going to happen but i didn't expect it so soon...
Vanidad, one of the most read fashion magazines in Spain, is turning 15 years old and to celebrate it they just launched their new website.
One of the current features is the link to their favourite blogs, "Rock on the Blogs", where they included mine...
When Julia from the editorial office at Vanidad contacted me weeks ago to ask for permission to link my blog I couldn't believe what she was asking me for... my blog in such a big publication? Please, go!

So from here, thanks for choosing bobble-bee and place it together with such faves of mine as katelovesme or Nothing to Wear. And congratulations to everyone.


/// Sabía lo que venía, pero no me lo esperaba tan pronto...
Vanidad, una de las revistas de moda y tendencias mas leidas en España, cumple 15 añitos y para celebrarlo acaba de lanzar nueva pagina web.
Una de las nuevas secciones incluye la publicación de sus blogs favoritos, "Rock on the Blogs", y entre ellos han escogido el mio...
Cuando Julia desde la redacción me contactó hace semanas para pedirme permiso para publicar mi blog no podia creer lo que mis ojos estaban viendo... mi blog en una publicación de las dimensiones de Vanidad?, por favor, adelante!

Desde aqui queria agradecerles mi presencia en sus páginas junto con blogs como katelovesme o Nothing to Wear, a los cuales sigo muy a menudo. Felicidades a todos!

milkshakeCHOCOLATE Winter 07-08 ... working on it

Hello dear readers, I'm going to be absent from bobble-bee for a week because this next Saturday December 22st is the launch of the winter 07-08 issue of milkshakeCHOCOLATE.
For those who doesn't know, I'm the editor, designer & fashion director of this web zine that I created two years ago. It is still very small but it gives me so much work already!.
The launch of every season is the hardest part... editing images and text, contacting late collaborators and working on everything to be ready on time...
For this issue we will publish interviews with Boudicca, Poltock & Walsh, Reality Studio (interview by Mahret at F&Art), Magda Malina... and more.
I will try to post little news in bobble-bee but if i don't, now you know where my mind and computer will be working on...

In the meantime, a little scoop: the amazing cover Anita from Champagne Valentine did for this issue. ^^^
x.

// Queridos lectores, voy a estar ausente por una semana porque se acerca el lanzamiento del número de otoño de milkshakeCHOCOLATE.
Para aquellos que no lo sabeis, yo soy la editora, diseñadora y editora de moda de este web zine que cree hace ya casi dos añitos, y aunque todavia es muy pequeñita, no sabeis el trabajo que da!.
Lo peor llega ahora, los "lanzamientos" es lo que más laborioso: editar fotos y texto, contactar colaboradores que se han ido quedando atras, dejar todo listo en definitiva...
Para este número publicaremos entrevistas con Boudicca, Poltock & Walsh, Reality Studio (la entrevista la hizo Mahret de F&Art), Magda Malina... y más.
Aunque intentaré publicar aunque sean noticias cortas en bobble-bee, no os lo puedo asegurar.

De todas formas ahi os dejo la portada del numero, que la gran Anita del equipo artistico Champagne Valentine ha realizado para este número.
beso

More Gainsbourg through Sorrenti's Eyes

Although Charlotte Gainsbourg is not a favourite of mine (I rather her sister Lou), I anxiously await the arrival of Paris Vogue Dec 07 to my news stand because I still remember with pleasure's chills the special Sofia Coppola the same publication did in December 2004, one of the best "specials" a magazine has ever done on someone (although Interview's Elizabeth Taylor special curated by Bruce Webber wasn't bad either).
Everyone has seen already the editorial so many bloggers has posted in their sites (thanks Mode et Utopie!), but today I found an extract that robot posted in The Fashion Spot with photographs by Mario Sorrenti... what a joy. Now I want the issue more than ever.

Noovo Festival for Fashion & Photography by A. Esteban Librero, part I

Those of you who follow Wendy Brandes' blog or Jen's In Your Fashion might already know about the meeting these two lovely women and yours truly had last night in uptown NY.
Please forgive me if I don't post about it today but I would like to publish what my friend and Metal magazine's NY fashion coordinator Angela Esteban Librero wrote for bobble-bee about her experience at the noovo Festival for Fashion and Photography in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where she went with really great people and where she met all those artists I admire and whose work I truly respect.
I couldn't go myself because I was called at the very last moment to do a gig but she kindly brought the good news and wrote about them for me.
Here it's only the first part... more to come.


My personal trip to Noovo Festival in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
by Angela Esteban Librero.

Noovo Festival, hosted by Diane Pernet and organized by El Correo Gallego, featured 30 fashion designers from around the world including: Gareth Pugh, Boudicca, Three As Four, Eley Kishimoto, Patrik Söderstam, Henrik Vibskov, Txell Miras, Luxoir, SinPatron, Jan iú Mès, Romain Kremer, Peter Pilotto, Petar Petrov or Mikio Sakabe. In photography, we could see the work of Michael James O'Brien, Miguel Villalobos, Daniel Riera, Pierre Gonnard, Dino Dinco, Ari Versluis, or Ana Laura Aláez.

There were as well special presentations from Magazines like FLY DVD , B-guided and fashion, style and beauty festival You Wear It Well. Before going further, I would like to introduce to all of you the beautiful city of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, which is an extraordinary, historic, monumental city and pilgrimage destination.

PART 1

All checked in, Miguel Villalobos, Graham Tabor and I started our trip to Santiago. While we stopped in Madrid to change flights we discovered that there is a Chapel in the new airport!!


Once in Santiago a bus took us to the hotel; Miguel V. happy to be there and Dino Dinco and his friend and artist Gustavo admiring the view from the bus.
In the bus we met the guys from ThreeAsFour, Peter Pilotto and Gemma and Henderson from Gareth Pugh (you can only see their heads!).













Once we checked into the hotel we went to take an "aperitivo" around the city with the lovely Peter Pilotto's duo: Peter and Christopher.
This part of the country is know by their "Empanada Gallega", sea food and Tetilla cheese and that is exactly what we order! How delicious is to be in Spain!

Later in the evening we joined the rest of the group for diner at a sea food restaurant. I arrived late and everyone was already eating…

From left to right starting from the image at the bottom: Gemma and Henderson from Gareth Pugh, Graham Tabor from FLY and Miguel Villalobos, in the center, the amazing Diane Pernet, Robb Young (in charge of the international Press), Peter and Christopher from Peter Pilotto and Mark Eley of the design team Eley Kishimoto. Later on ThreeAsFour guys and Joseph from Seven NYC joined us for drinks.


The gorgeous Diane Pernet posed for me because I wanted to take a photo of the great jewelry she was wearing (the snail was made for her by Miguel Villalobos).