WWOZD? Oliver Zahm

Olivier Zahm - A Founder & Editor for Purple Magazine discusses fashion, style, and inspiration. He also has a photo DIARY that I enjoy very much.

WHAT I’M WEARING NOW An Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket and ostrich boots, American Apparel jeans and a vintage Christian Dior shirt. I buy a lot of these T-shirts from Eleven on Elizabeth Street. They feel sweet against the skin. My watch is a Seiko from the ’80s. It looks like a gold Rolex, which I can’t afford yet. The glasses are Ray-Ban. I have five pairs, all in different shades of amber. I love amber. It’s a beautiful color for men. The only perfume I wear is because of its amber color — Azzaro, which is an old cheap cologne for workers.

STYLE CREDO To me, the best time for men was in the ’70s. I would love to look like Polanski or Jack Nicholson back then, the way they wore their jeans with just a shirt, a good watch, glasses and a nice white jacket. It was simple, but really sexy. At the beginning of this decade all the men got very glamorous. They started buying a lot of clothes. Me, I don’t like it. When you notice clothing on a man, I find it suspicious.

ON INSPIRATION Nothing is more inspiring than love and true sexuality. People say my magazine is very provocative or transgressive. Not at all. If there is nudity and sex, it is not to provoke, it is to show the beauty and love. In the next issue, I have the artist Dash Snow wearing women’s clothes from the fall collections. To see a beautiful man like Dash, who for me is American aristocracy— this is inspiring. - via thefashionspot.com

WWOZD? Oliver Zahm

Olivier Zahm - A Founder & Editor for Purple Magazine discusses fashion, style, and inspiration. He also has a photo DIARY that I enjoy very much.

WHAT I’M WEARING NOW An Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket and ostrich boots, American Apparel jeans and a vintage Christian Dior shirt. I buy a lot of these T-shirts from Eleven on Elizabeth Street. They feel sweet against the skin. My watch is a Seiko from the ’80s. It looks like a gold Rolex, which I can’t afford yet. The glasses are Ray-Ban. I have five pairs, all in different shades of amber. I love amber. It’s a beautiful color for men. The only perfume I wear is because of its amber color — Azzaro, which is an old cheap cologne for workers.

STYLE CREDO To me, the best time for men was in the ’70s. I would love to look like Polanski or Jack Nicholson back then, the way they wore their jeans with just a shirt, a good watch, glasses and a nice white jacket. It was simple, but really sexy. At the beginning of this decade all the men got very glamorous. They started buying a lot of clothes. Me, I don’t like it. When you notice clothing on a man, I find it suspicious.

ON INSPIRATION Nothing is more inspiring than love and true sexuality. People say my magazine is very provocative or transgressive. Not at all. If there is nudity and sex, it is not to provoke, it is to show the beauty and love. In the next issue, I have the artist Dash Snow wearing women’s clothes from the fall collections. To see a beautiful man like Dash, who for me is American aristocracy— this is inspiring. - via thefashionspot.com

Power In Buildings

I picked up an amazing book over the weekend called "Power In Buildings", and it got me interested in the author, Hugh Ferriss. The book is Ferriss's personal odyssey through the modern architecture of America from 1929 to 1953...Dams, bridge anchorages, grain elevators, skyscraper projects, and viaducts are delineated in Ferriss's rich work, and it's all pretty inspiring when you realize how influential his drawings have been on architecture, movies, and pop culture in general.

Hugh Ferriss (1889 – 1962) was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. According to Daniel Okrent, Ferriss never designed a single noteworthy building, but after his death a colleague said he ‘influenced my generation of architects’ more than any other man. Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman) and Kerry Conran’s “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”. “Just Imagine” (movie from 1930), strongly influenced by Hugh Ferriss’s book, Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929), takes the archetype vision of the future city as defined by a Manhattan-like skyline, and portrays it in all its beauty and majesty.

Hugh Ferriss Flickr Page

Power In Buildings

I picked up an amazing book over the weekend called "Power In Buildings", and it got me interested in the author, Hugh Ferriss. The book is Ferriss's personal odyssey through the modern architecture of America from 1929 to 1953...Dams, bridge anchorages, grain elevators, skyscraper projects, and viaducts are delineated in Ferriss's rich work, and it's all pretty inspiring when you realize how influential his drawings have been on architecture, movies, and pop culture in general.

Hugh Ferriss (1889 – 1962) was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. According to Daniel Okrent, Ferriss never designed a single noteworthy building, but after his death a colleague said he ‘influenced my generation of architects’ more than any other man. Ferriss also influenced popular culture, for example Gotham City (the setting for Batman) and Kerry Conran’s “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”. “Just Imagine” (movie from 1930), strongly influenced by Hugh Ferriss’s book, Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929), takes the archetype vision of the future city as defined by a Manhattan-like skyline, and portrays it in all its beauty and majesty.

Hugh Ferriss Flickr Page

Saturday Find: Armani Casa's Bach Bar

Reflecting the spirit of Armani's haute couture, the Armani Casa 2009 collection interprets the Art Deco period in a contemporary way with textural variety, a geometric sensibility and an affinity for a restrained palette, creating a point of view that is both consistent and connected. Imitating the movement of one of his pleated garments, Armani applies a glossy, pleated surface to the geometrically styled doors of the black lacquered Bach bar, finishing it with lobster-colored fabric.

Favorite Giorgio Armani quote: "The difference between style and fashion is quality."

www.armanicasa.com

Saturday Find: Armani Casa's Bach Bar

Reflecting the spirit of Armani's haute couture, the Armani Casa 2009 collection interprets the Art Deco period in a contemporary way with textural variety, a geometric sensibility and an affinity for a restrained palette, creating a point of view that is both consistent and connected. Imitating the movement of one of his pleated garments, Armani applies a glossy, pleated surface to the geometrically styled doors of the black lacquered Bach bar, finishing it with lobster-colored fabric.

Favorite Giorgio Armani quote: "The difference between style and fashion is quality."

www.armanicasa.com

Gay Talese: "Passeggiata"

Watch for his explanation of "passeggiata." It's the best!

Via goitaly.about.com -
Passeggiata: As evening falls and the harsh sun inches out of the your favorite piazza, an evening ritual is bound to begin, the Italian tradition of passeggiata, a gentle stroll (slow! think slow!) through the main streets of the old town, usually in the pedestrian zones in the centro storico, the historic center.

Italians tend to dress up for passeggiata, and tourists are usually easy to spot in their shorts and fanny packs. Older folks sit along the route, nursing a beer or a glass of wine in the bar, and watching for things to gossip about; la passeggiata is where new romances are on display as well as new shoes.

Passeggiata is especially popular on Sunday evenings. During the summer, some Italians even drive to nearby cities, the coast, or the lakes for a special passeggiata.