In conversations with Ana Dominguez Siemens for White Paper By. Read the rest of article here

Published by Aperture in April, Young New York is Ethan James Green’s first monograph. 

I spent a few days with Ethan on a road trip in 2015 and was so inspired by the poetic quality of his work that a year later I asked him to shoot the cover of my novel Wildchilds. Read the rest of the article here.

It was September 1983. I was staying for a week at my artist Tony Viramontes’ Paris flat while working as the showroom model of Yohji Yamamoto. There were other friends of Tony’s crashing there too: models, muses, hangers on…the usual entourage. But I had my own mattress in a corner of the living room which was also his studio. Read the rest of the article here.

Winter fell, we had no autumn this year in Madrid. In two days, I went from going to my market in a T shirt, to layering up and shivering my way through the local neighborhood shops. One lightbulb here, my 2019 diary, which I have to order from the stationary shop and wait for; it will take one week. And carrots and leeks for my chicken soup. Amazon? You could not pay me. Read the rest of the article here

n July 2013 I started writing this blog. My sister Sylvia Melian had insisted so much that I think I did it to get her off my back. Or Sylvia just reminded me that I loved writing and that I had so many things to write about, from the arts and crafts of Andalusia to stories about my three decades as a fashion photographer’s agent in Paris, Milan, Los Angeles and London….

I had very clear ideas of what I wanted my cover to be: French auteur 1950’s with non-identifiable models. I wanted a mood, not a face. I wanted my readers to have their own picture of the main characters: Iris, a soon to be supermodel, and her lover Gus, a sexy chicano fashion photographer.

As an intern at a fashion forecast office in Paris,  I was Myriam Schaefer’s protégée. One day she came looking for me in a panic because an American was at the door with a huge portfolio and no one could speak the language well enough to understand what he was saying. It turned out that he was a Mexican American fashion illustrator from LA who had just graduated from Parsons’s  NY and was proposing to work for us illustrating the office ” look books “ at 50 francs ($10) per illustration.

Slim was a good friend of my mother, Mary Melian. They met in Andalusia, Spain, in the late 60’s when he was on assignment for Holiday magazine in Marbella and Alfonso Hohenlohe, the founder of the Marbella Club, introduced him to my mother and Sotogrande. Sotogrande was a new resort that was being built in the province of Cadiz and already attracting interesting people escaping the bling crowds because of its rural feel and the fantastic golf and polo facilities, a first in Spain.

I have always been fascinated by muses and their relationship to the artists they inspired and the importance they had on their work. For many years my favorite illustrated book on Paris was Kiki’s Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900-1930, an evocation of the life of the famous model Kiki de Montparnasse and her generation in Paris, from her favorite haunts and the cramped artists’ studios where she modeled to her relationships with so many of the great artists of the period: Modigliani, Picasso, Satie, Matisse, Leger, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Miro to name but a few.

Spanish decorator Jaime Parladé, Marques de Apezteguia, who sadly left us in January this year. Dubbed “The doyen of Spanish designers” by Architectural Digest magazine, Jaime and his English wife Janetta, were dear friends of my mother Mary Melián. They met in 1962 when we moved to Andalucía while my father Alfredo (Freddy) Melian Zobel was beginning the groundwork and search for what was to become the gated community of Sotogrande.

I have been very inspired lately by these words pronounced by Eugenia Huici de Errazuriz  (1860-1951) as I tackled yet another, small, move which, however, generated 9 boxes of stuff to find place for in my already full flat.  I generally have my own law about possessions and that is: anything that comes into my home, means something else has to go out. Accumulating makes me claustrophobic, I do not collect anything and even though I have worked in the business of the visual arts for decades, I have nothing hanging on the walls. Bare white walls give me peace and make me feel serene and grounded .

Do you like to shop every week? Do you buy cheap throwaway fashion? Do you like fast fashion? How much does your t shirt cost? Where was it made? How was it made? Do you inform yourself? Do you care?

As a talent scout for many years I am always curious about special young people that are pursuing their dreams and about what lies behind their motivations.  I met the art student Christabel MacGreevy a while back and have been following her itinerary with a lot of curiosity and admiration. This is an interview I did over a year ago when she was studying art in London.

I had not grown up in an urban environment as opposed to Tony who was very inspired by the 80’s club scene and the larger-than-life characters that inhabited it. Many of the portraits he did at the time were of terrifying, insolent and aggressive girls and boys, thickly covered in strong make-up and boldly dressed.

love fashion but I am aware and careful of how and why I consume it. Avoiding fast fashion and focusing on independent designers rather than brands that belong to anonymous conglomerates is one way. The other way is by endorsing the designs of companies that believe in fair trade and sustainability, brands that respect the traditions and the craftsmanship of artisans, fashion that makes a difference to our lives not because of the feeling of possession when you buy it, but because of the social, cultural and political impact your choice will have.

I like strong things: Strong colors, smells, visuals, sounds….extreme people, bold art, techno music and spicy flavors, flowers that are not pastels and that are in your face: zinnias, cosmos, gladioli and deep scarlet carnations with long stems.

I just returned from a very inspiring trip in Mexico City. I was lucky to be under the guidance of 2 very special locals: Ignacio Garza and Luciano Concheiro, who made me focus on having a multicultural experience, making it about the arts, architecture and design of this vibrant country. Oh…. and the cuisine too!

As a photographer’s agent and lover of this media I reflect very often on the visual overload we are subject to every day since the explosion of digital capture.  From the days of complicated, expensive and cumbersome photographic equipment, to the first cell phone with a built-in camera made by Samsung in the year 2000, 15 years have gone by and everyone has become an amateur photographer.

Where I come from in Andalucia it is a big business and it is all made by hand. Esparto is hardy, resistant, waterproof and environmentally friendly, as well as beautiful to look at. I think that my love for esparto comes from my mother who used to have a pile of different sized big baskets to go to the market with, as well as over 50 other baskets of every size to use as bread and fruit baskets, flat baskets to lay out fruit and vegetables, baskets for napkins, baskets for the chimney fire wood, baskets for magazines etc etc

From the Paris showroom and exclusively for fashionsphinx.com here is the beautiful AW 2016 collection. I have been following Sybilla avidly since her triumphant return two seasons ago and her collections have been constantly graceful and stylish.

As I grow more aware about the quality and (limited) quantity of the fresh produce available to me I realice that very few people are as lucky , and many of those living in urban environments cannot afford good food nor are given the opportunity to grow their own kitchen garden or huerto to supplement their requirements and those of their kids.

I had not grown up in an urban environment as opposed to Tony who was very inspired by the 80’s club scene and the larger-than-life characters that inhabited it. Many of the portraits he did at the time were of terrifying, insolent and aggressive girls and boys, thickly covered in strong make-up and boldly dressed.

From picking absently at the bread basket on your table to judging a restaurant by its bread ……it never fails. If you get served a bunch of pale industrial chewy nondescript generic baguette slices, then I advice you to run away! Any restaurant that these days has the nerve or laziness to serve bad bread does not deserve your custom.

Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) was the pioneer of abstract sculpture and a true revolutionary. When he died he left his entire workshop to the French estate on condition that it be reconstructed as he left it.

I always turn to gardens when I want to know a city better. Like food markets, botanical gardens and city gardens are a mirror of local culture and a country’s history . It is also a passion that people of all wakes share, a language that they can speak. No matter if they do not understand what they are saying, they are talking garden language.

Unless you have spent the last ten days living in Mongolia in a yurt with no wifi, you must have heard about THAT hat which Pharrell wore during the past Grammy awards. It is all over the blogosphere and it even has its own Twitter account. Genius styling moment, he rocked that hat.

Piecing together Vivian Maier’s life can easily evoke Churchill’s famous quote about the vast land of Tsars and commissars that lay to the east. A person who fit the stereotypical European sensibilities of an independent liberated woman, accent and all, yet born in New York City.