Art Direction for MiNDFOOD Style SS19 magazine

"Fashion fades, style is eternal."" — Yves Saint Laurent

"I have a boat detached from all climates." — André Breton

Yves Saint Laurent’s philosophy drove the art direction for the ninth edition of Style magazine, and Breton’s haunted it. Striking celebrity portraits, fashion garments, and beauty shots were skilfully combined with a controlled use of typography to create compelling layouts. Zoë Kravitz graced the cover in a liquid-gold Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress, while inside, full-colour spreads were designed to elegantly display the season's most iconic launches. From the moody, evocative layouts for YSL’s Black Opium and Rouge Pur Couture to clean, light layouts for Joy by Dior, the art direction ensured the presentation of these contemporary pieces remained timeless.

For the Kravitz feature, a portrait of her adorned in a Dior Couture butterfly mask commands the right-hand page. An apparition from the Musée Rodin show, her face stands guard over the layout like a Parisian mascaron watching over a dreamlike world. These eight pages were curated with as much precision as if they were displayed in the museum itself. The introductory spread deploys a giant, graphic 'Z' juxtaposed as if the muse is breaking out of a typographic cage. Crafted by legendary British milliner Stephen Jones, the mask pays homage to art patron Peggy Guggenheim and her famously avant-garde, insect-winged frames. This otherworldly atmosphere carries into subsequent spreads, mirroring the ghostly spirit of Breton's Les Attitudes Spectrales featured in the Dior show, as Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano and Chanel Haute Couture envelop the star in daydream-like colours: “This woman became so bright that I could no longer see her.”

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Surrealist-inspired haute couture show took place on the 22 January, 2018, inside the Musée Rodin. An exquisite spectacle, the historic space was redesigned into a giant chessboard, subverted beautifully by floating sculptures of the human form and a massive, suspended birdcage.

Chiuri took inspiration from the radical artist Leonor Fini, who originally exhibited with Christian Dior in his pre-couturier gallery days. Models navigated the board wearing temporary body tattoos that spelled out fragments of Les Attitudes Spectrales by André Breton, the fiercely dogmatic co-founder of the movement. Up close, the models’ skin revealed these Surrealist statements in controlled, whisper-like ink marks: “L’imaginaire est ce qui tend à devenir réel” (The imaginary is what tends to become real), “L'Amour est Toujours Devant Vous. Aimez!” (Love is always before you. Love!), and “Au commencement il ne s’agit pas de comprendre mais d’aimer” (In the beginning, it is not about understanding, but about loving). These words were intentionally placed to empower the models as they navigated the board.

Despite this issue being completed nearly eight years ago, the visual narrative remains remarkably contemporary. The historical art movements referenced within these pages endure, and featured luxury pieces like the iconic Dior Saddle bag continue to be reinvented season after season. Time may pass, but style remains. Today, Zoë Kravitz still guards the houses of Dior and Saint Laurent, mirroring the permanent, mythic stance of the Parisian mascaron in the magazine — a poetic nod to the historic stone mascarons watching over Le Huitième, the 8^th arrondissement that Dior calls home.

Following this narrative of devotion, love also took center stage in the curation of the issue's beauty and cultural spreads, which celebrated a series of iconic international moments — a fragrance launch and a Sicilian wedding. For the Joy by Dior article, the layouts balance white space with full-bleed photographs of the fragrance’s muse, Jennifer Lawrence, to capture the essence of the perfume — an olfactive interpretation of light.

“A subterranean passage unites all perfumes.” — André Breton

For the Chiara Ferragni wedding dress feature, full-page layouts of the two custom-made Dior Haute Couture gowns were utilised to display the incredible skill employed to create these garments.

“At the bottom of the steeples behind the most elegant reservoirs of life and of wealth.” — André Breton

MiNDFOOD Style SS19 launched in September 2018 in tandem with the Auckland Art Gallery's Strike a Pose Fashion Film Series, where Seedlip cocktails were served alongside copies of the magazine.