Just got the the Dazed newsletter, in which I found:

August 2009: Inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrayal of the New York fetish scene. Photography by Karim Sadli and styling by Robbie Spencer.

Wow, just got some previews of a series Adrian Wilson is working on for for SB5! I’m so excited. Can’t show you too much, but I can’t resist! haha. Hands on your magnifiers!

I wont play the “edgier-than-you” guy, I love W magazine. I really do. The question “why” requires a long answer I will not even try to get into here… The subject here is the last issue of the magazine in question in which one could see Bruce Willis’s tattoos (an actor for whom I must admit having some sympathy), and, in a rathernice Steven Klein-photographed series, see him in the middle of some proto-kinky plays.

Just thought it was worth sharing.

Our long-time contributor and friend Sven Marquardt was exhibiting a bespoke photographic series at the Levi’s Flagship store Berlin.

XI was the sadist to my masochism.

We had g-chatted all day at work, but I had misunderstood his invitation to fuck in the office toilets, and missed my chance. By 6pm, I was all tingly and force-invited myself to his flat, despite his protests about him having band practice. I told him I just needed 45 minutes, to which he replied “only?”. I smiled as we boarded the 55.

I propped myself on the kitchen counter and he grabbed and parted my thighs. The sound of keys fiddling at the front door interrupted the beginning of what could’ve been an unusual fuck. His kitchen is not very clean.

We walk up to his room, he throws me on the bed and strips my tights and panties down. He likes the tan lines on my butt: they simulate little white knickers against the darkness of my sunned skin. He feigns trying to remove them and digs his nails into my flesh. I laugh.

He smokes a joint in silence. I know I am here only because I invited myself, only because the need to be fucked by him became unbearable. XI plays with me, makes me punchbag my own insecurities. I am almost in love with him, already enamoured by our fucking, and he knows it. It is too easy for him. He taunts me with his silence as I buzz around him like a needy child.

Lying on top of me, he looks me in the eyes and spits on my face. He licks my teeth. In one brisk thrust, he’s in me. He’s big, and it is always delicious when I am not completely wet yet. His eyes in mine, a harsh sultry look. His smell is intoxicating, a bitter mixture of sweat, sex, dirt and mdma. He rarely washes, but his stink exhilarates me and I lick his acrid armpits with delectation.

He always kept his black Oxfam-bought jeans on during sex, simply letting me unbuckle, unzip and pull out his dick from his boxers. The belt-buckle pricks my groin. I like it like that, especially if I’m completely naked under him. But that day, he only removed my tights and let my panties dangle around one foot. I was wearing a grey jersey dress. I suckle his tattoos.

He rolls me around and spanks me. The word ‘spank’ belies the intensity of his slaps. They’re painful, hard and fast, relentless on my bum cheeks. They burn and turn bright red, I can feel it even though I can’t contort enough to see. I relish the stings. I’m like a child in his lap. If I put my hand, he still slams down. He makes me feel small, because I am falling for him, a man who does not want a girl. He has told me so. Several times. I am still in denial.

I suck at the wedding ring tattoo on his hip.

I love it when he fucks my mouth, chokes me with his dick. I seek his crotch, he grabs my head and forces himself down my throat. My eyes tear a bit, but I enjoy the forcefulness of his thrusts. He moans as he rams himself in and out, pulling slightly at my hair. I don’t want to hurt him with my teeth, I perfect the hole, fill it with saliva so that he can groan louder. His dick is big and fervent, he grips at my head guiding himself deeper in my throat. I have to pull away when breathing becomes impossible. I have never allowed cum in my mouth, but I dabble with the thought of gagging with XI.

He throws me on my stomach and takes me from behind. If I clench inside, I can feel myself enveloping him. He’s slow in his thrusts. His hand presses down on my back, he tilts slightly to the right and pushes in slowly. He makes the most delicious sounds, grave moans from somewhere deep inside. I know the expression on his face behind me, the pout and the abandonment in his eyes. I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed, but I grip at the bedsheets. I suck and nibble the thumb he forces in my mouth….continued

XI and la gueule du monde is available at www.rashakahil.com

Body Snatcher

It’s the morning after a night before that involved six hours of wine tasting at the bar down the road where she works and Gemma Slack is feeling it. “As if I know what a vanilla bouquet is,” groans the 23-yr-old womenswear designer, staring into her black coffee as we sit down to talk at The Old Shoreditch Station. But if Slack is hung over you could never guess. Her raven crop, slashed black eyeliner, alabaster skin and wide smile framed in vivid red lipstick tell a different story.

Raised in Pitsmoor, an area she describes as “like the Brixton of Sheffield,” Gemma Slack moved south to do a foundation year in fine art at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. Her sculptural fixation with the human form emerged early on and when a tutor introduced the idea of swapping to fashion for her degree course, she applied to the London College of Fashion to study womenswear. “I was told you don’t just have to make pretty dresses and jeans,” she says. “So I went there and couldn’t sew, couldn’t pattern cut or anything. How the hell I got on the course I don’t know. My portfolio of work was stapled together at the back instead of stitched. Fashion had always been on my radar so it was a natural progression for me. I just never though of it as a job I could do.”

The body is a constant theme in her work, inspiring both silhouette and materials. From the armour-like spine and ribcage protection in the most recent collection to the flowing human hair shoulder pieces in her debut show. An obsession with tough physiological structures like muscle and bone that compliments her love of leathers and hardware – if not her vegetarianism. But then she manages to live above a butcher’s shop in Dalston. “I had one person stand in front of me wearing a full fur coat tell me that using human hair was repulsive,” say Slack. “I would never use fur, or even synthetic fur. Leather is different, I fell in love with leather years ago and no other material can be manipulated in the same way. But hair is a waste product. We cut it and throw it away. Another person said it made them feel sick. It amazes people have such a strong reaction. I never set out to achieve that but I like it. I just wanted to harness the way hair moves as a material.”

For her autumn/winter 2009/10 show Slack looked to the overlap of science and religion for inspiration. Building her racy aesthetic on the concept of protection as something symbolic rather functional. Encasing the models in zipped leather micro dresses with articulated back plates, body-con all-in-ones with taped smoke print panels, padded sci-fi leather gilets and BDSM-inspired face masks. Clinging modern fabrics offset with rough-hewn leather showpieces and heavy metal hardware. Monochrome shades and natural flesh tones dominated the colour palette. “Hardcore fetishists would look at it and think it was too floaty,” says Slack. “But it’s more about empowerment and maybe my own fetishes to do with leather. Sex is a natural part of everything. It’s about being sexy for you. That’s the most attractive thing anyway.”

Despite the hangover Slack is looking forward to working at the bar again later. She enjoys learning new techniques at home, getting on with her new collection and hanging out in Dalston’s hair shops coveting the wigs. Her only concession to thoughts of fame is hoping to see Siouxsie Soux or Marilyn Manson wear her clothes. In the meantime she’ll make do with celebrity endorsement in the form of Roisin Murphy. Spotted wearing the infamous hair-shouldered jacket at London Fashion Week. “That picture was really good,” laughs Slack. ‘And it’s probably the only opportunity I’ll ever have to get into Heat magazine.”

Ben PERDUE

During my last trip to Rome, it gave me a hell of a pleasant shock to discover Ostiense Station in its present state. See how the entire facade -made of Travertine marble by the way- is now surrounded, supported, protected, jailed, made up, decorated by those complex and beautiful metallic constructions!
I was astonished. I tried -in vain- to ask the people from the Ferrovie Dello Stato if the structures were temporary or meant to be permanent, supposed to prevent the building from collapsing or used so as to climb onto the roof… My questions might have been pretty naïve (and my French accent strong enough not to be taken seriously) but the sight of this impressive “neo-Roman” style architecture wearing jewellery was totally surrealist and captivating to me.
Doesn’t that make you want to be a jeweller?