GET READY FOR 2012

Its been a crazy one, lets keep it going.
Thank you for your patience & incredible support.

xoxo
zana

READING WITH ZANA 18 - RIOT OF PERFUME

You might be sick of me talking about it - but it is here, in full tangible tactile form. They say the future of print is through the iPad, but the scent of an unopened magazine and the feeling of a pages fanned under your thumb will never be replaced. Riot Of Perfume visually exists somewhere between a low tech zine and a carefully designed publication, occupying an attractive middleground. A quote from V Magazine's review seems to sum it up perfectly: "Flipping though the pages, it’s difficult to distinguish what exactly is “fashion” or “art” or “criticism”, and that’s precisely the point."

The magazine is being sold in NYC at McNally Jackson and End Of Century.
It is also available to be purchased online through my webshop HERE

TWO HANDS BETTER THAN ONE

What began as a quiet and uneventful Sunday turned into a spur of the moment tattoo appointment with my friend & modern renaissance man MXM (of Sang Bleu notoriety). Admittedly, I wanted to take advantage of his last few days working at East River Tattoo before he flew back to London. I got my first piece by him 10 months ago - a ring of keys with a little hand & moon at the top. The hand was actually improvised on the spot, but has quickly turned into my favorite part. And in the time since I got it, the hand now makes total sense - I have always been a very tactile person, and as a designer I use my own hands for every aspect of creation from start to finish. There's also an element of nostalgia, as my mom loves imagery of hands, from large scale mosaics that she used to make to a wire sculpture in her livingroom (among others).

I brought this image to MXM for reference: a composite of an Ann Demeulemeester feather, my hand, and the base of a Victorian charm.

I wasn't particularly attached to the bottom embellishment, I just wanted something to anchor the wrist so it wasn't completely severed. Given that MXM is a master of geometric designs & linear star formations, I gave him free reign on that section.

The finished piece. I love the fact that it will be concealed 95% of the time, as it runs from my thigh up to my hip. Check out more of MXM's work HERE

RIOT OF PERFUME MAGAZINE LAUNCH

After returning to New York from my European travels back in February, I met up with my friend Marco Lockmann who wanted to discuss an idea he had for starting a zine/magazine. No advertising, no trends, non-models, black & white. In theory, it all sounded great - but to build a magazine from ground up is an arduous task, and most of the time attempts towards new projects such as this never make it past the initial brainstorms. This is one exception.

Arriving at the launch of Riot Of Perfume couldn't have been a more inspiring moment. In 10 months, the concept developed into a fully realized publication - spearheaded by Lockmann and fashion editor/writer Eugenie Dalland - which I am proud to have contributed to. Features include an experimental pictoral by Roberty Nethery of the political journalist/musician Anika, interviews with designer Siki Im and NY artists Joe Bradley and Christ Martin, photography by Tina Tyrell, artwork by Dutch artist/model Saskia de Brauw, and several other images & articles surrounding aesthetics, music, and sexuality. I photographed & styled two portrait based editorials with my harnesses. Once the physical magazine arrives from the printer, I will post information on how to locate a copy.

Zach & Lady Fag

With my partner in crime, Char Alfonzo

Designer Norisol Ferrari


Who needs a Xmas present when you have the most best ladyfriend?

STUDIO VISIT: KERIN ROSE aka A-MORIR

There's a really interesting dynamic within the fashion design community in New York. Not exactly a hierarchy, more like movements. There's the been-there-forever's (Donna Karan, Isaac Mizrahi), the CFDA sweethearts (Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, Rag & Bone), Style.com new forces (Prabal Gurung, Suno, Mandy Coon), and there's this great group of us who are just becoming established, yet working in a very hand-crafted, meticulous & customized way - and loving it. Perhaps its a bit more prevalent in the world of accessories, but I've been lucky to meet several New York based designers who are making their own rules for how they run their businesses, resulting in the creation of their own cult niche.

Of course the obvious issue of making pieces à la minute (per individual order, no mass production) is the fact that you end up spending 90% of your day physically producing the pieces! This is one of the reasons why its taken so long for me to meet up with the lovely Kerin Rose, designer of the infamous eyewear label A-Morir. We first met outside of the CFDA afterparty for Lady Gaga, and instantly clicked. We then bumped into each other after Mugler in Paris and vowed that we would meet up back in New York. Then we both had crazy Octobers and crazy Novembers and I finally made it over today.

Although we work with different materials, I found that we shared almost parallel experiences with our businesses. How our love for making things turned into a fulltime job, the assumptions of factory-like production when in reality every individual crystal is applied by hand (as with rivets on harnesses), and especially how many online customers do not understand (or read) that since every item is custom created per order, it will take time to be delivered. That is what makes what we do special.

I could easily blabber on forever about my thoughts on handcraft & the fashion industry, but this post is about featuring Kerin's awesome work. You can find her pieces worn by all of the big biz ladies like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj and in the pages of Elle France, Vogue Hommes, and GQ (check her interview on Vogue.it). And if that doesn't sound busy enough, she's also one of the designers featured in Gaga's Holiday Workshop at Barney's. Plus she has sick style and amazing hair.

CHAR ALFONZO X JEREMY WARDLAW X BROOKLYN

Sometime over the summer, my humble apartment was transformed into a makeshift wardrobe closet with the attempt to use my rooftop for set of a photoshoot. On that day, I learned that someone had put a big lock on the rooftop door, leaving the shoot slightly nomadic. Luckily an even greater space was acquired, but in the time beforehand I sat surrounded by some of the most beautiful, unobtainable FW11 menswear by Givenchy, Rick Owens, Mugler, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten etc etc (with a guest appearance of my Pendant Harness). The result was the images in this post, photographed by Char Alfonzo, styled by Paul-Simon Djite and modeled by Jeremy Wardlaw (Re:quest).

See the full set of images HERE







More images HERE