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Lyana Yaroslavsky
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Lyana Yaroslavsky, Can we ever move on from our past?I am was born on a snowy January 1st splashed in champagne in the city, which still calls itself Leningrad. My childhood is enveloped in fur and Peter the Great's city seems splendid. I admire Lenin; his portrait on a star is pinned to my school uniform. My childhood is evenings at the Kirov Ballet, Sundays in the countryside at our dacha à la Turgenev, intelligentsia gathering at my mother's apartment, with my grandfather at the piano; on the walls, my grandmother's watercolors and long walks with my father, an art book editor. For one of my birthdays, I receive a box of colored crayons that I proudly show off to my comrades at school. The teacher says to me, « You must share them with the others. » And my crayons come back reduced to nothing. That is, in my child's eye, communism. And yet, Russia means breakfasts of caviar on toast, but oranges and bananas are a rare luxury. All that comes from abroad seems more precious...fruit, music, clothes and magazines with their mysterious letters. My first real book: The Master and Marguerite by Boulgakov, a fantastic satire on society under Stalin; his goon police force and his corrupt circle including writers. The devil, disguised as a foreigner, strikes them down with his vengeful hand. It is funny, tragic and liberating. I understand it all despite my young age and laugh hysterically (I still laugh today when I re-read it...always in Russian). On my list of bedside reading: The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, War and Peace by Tolstoy, 100 Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez, and Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, David Sedaris' Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. When I turn 9, my mother decides to immigrate to Israel. Leave my father, my grandmother? But it is a passport to freedom allowing the two of us liberty. For me, it is a leap into the unknown. An adventure to I don't even know where---Africa, maybe? We pass through Vienna, a château bursting with jubilant gypsies and other immigrates. A magnificent picture! Then off to Israel; we arrive in the middle of the night and what a glorious vision: gas stations lit up like interplanetary space stations! Adieu forever to the colorless and grey Soviet Union. I have found paradise. Some time later, the Yom Kippur War breaks out. With all the other children, I take to blackening out the headlights of cars to make Israel invisible to its enemies at night. For years, I write letters to my father back in Russia who never answers for fear that he will get in trouble with the authorities. Ten years pass. Like all Israelis, I do my military service: two months of training, sleeping in a tent, waking-up at 4 am to run. Military life in Israel? I take dance and art classes, simultaneously learning how to manipulate arms. Between patrols, I become a model. I marry with much trepidation, refuse to make coffee for the middle-eastern men of my new family, promptly get a divorce, meet a film director and leave with him for New York. Freedom. I cherish the word. I am 20 years old in an apartment in Greenwich Village. New York: intense, magical, boiling over with people of all nationalities, a beehive of artists and galleries. Absolute modernity. My whole life lies ahead of me. Parsons School of Design is steps away. I learn sculpting, painting and then graphic design. Upon graduation, I join the largest graphic arts studio in New York, Paul Davis Studio but I soon quit to marry a wonderful Frenchman who brings me to Paris, the most beautiful city in the world (after Venice!). I am hired by an advertising agency, then I become the artistic director of a graphic design agency with no indoor heating, Intégral Concept Ruedi Bauer. I work for the Grand Palais, Les Arts Décoratifs, the Minister of Culture, the Luxembourg Museum, the Athénée Theater, and create my own studio. I decorate the walls of houses with Ready-made and mixed media (photos+sketches+objects+textures). A self-taught interior architect, I decorate the walls of houses with Ready-made and mixed media (photos+sketches+objects+textures). I recycle treasures from the flea market and Drouot and give them unexpected, grander functions. Old bodices and corsets are draped on walls, fireplaces are transformed and 18th Century busts of Madame Bovary are now bedside lamps. And then, I travel the world: islands, seas, the light on the Nile at dawn, Kyoto and its temples, Bali, finally and above all, Venice. Is something going to happen? Will someone discover me? But this 'someone', once again, is me. I buy 19th Century watercolors at Drouot and fall in love with a Murano chandelier without knowing what to do with it. Then, one day, I decide to change my coffee table. I take the watercolors and the chandelier, turn it upside down, spread the branches out like flowers and insert the whole thing in a plexiglass cube. The need to create grows inside me, bores through me. I am re-blossoming... a 'late bloomer'. I finally find my calling and now I am faced with the task of true creation. A frightening task but one that excites me and that of which I have always dreamed. The chemistry of creation, of chance (who doesn't have any?), of raw materials and different styles, the beautiful, the strange...all combine to ultimately, hopefully be rewarded with Art! I don't know which great artist said, « Art? 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. » Once past the visual conception, I am confronted, day after day, with calculating measurements, finding the right screw, electrical wiring (the mystery of watts and volts), the finishing touches, the transport, the million and one modifications, the final result is my Creation: my tables, a mix of the paradoxical and the sophisticated, of Versailles and Rock and Roll. A reflection of myself? Perhaps... Childhood. From country to country. Nomadic in my eyes and spirit, but anchored by my heart. « Changing place, changing time, changing thoughts, changing future » (Maurizio Nannucci, Peggy Guggenheim museum, Grand Canal, Venice). With time and love, and with art as a new companion, I have moved on. On and away from my past. www.lianayar.com Farouk CHEKOUFI Franck Boclet The new face of FASHIONFace of the new dandyism, creator of a masculine fashion though also contradictorily feminine, going against the current trends  Arnaud in love with Dubly ESPACEMAX.In 2004, Arnaud Dubly decides to buy the Espace Catherine Max, a pioneer in organizing private sales upscale showroom.  Jesper Borjesson the golden boy at CERRUTIJesper Borjesson will celebrate his 35th birthday this year.  ALEXANDER MCQUEENAlexander McQueen was born in London on March 17th 1969, the youngest of six children.  ZUHAIR MURAD SUBLIME ARTWORKFIRST STUDIED FASHION DESIGN IN BEIRUT & THEN WENT TO PARIS WHERE HE GOT HIS DEGREE FROM THE CHAMBRE SYNDICALE – PARIS, IN 1993. By Farouk CHEKOUFI  Romano Ricci, “THE CITIZEN KING” of perfumes.A young creator with a prestigious name, Romano Ricci had the chance to be initiated at a young age into the secrets of perfumery by his grandfather  RAMDANE TOUHAMI King of Creation1992: Ramdane is still at college when he creates the “Teuchiland” Tee-shirt, using the Timberland logotype.  A BEAUTY PROGRAMME INSPIRED BY THE VERY SPECIAL PERSONALITY OF LISA SIMONThe name written in beautiful crimson letters crowned by a flower  John Allan, an empathetic and visionary creator.Pioneer of the « grooming attitude » for the American man.  The dynamic world of PACO RABANNEOn the 18th February 1934, in San Sebastian, a town in the Spanish Basque region, a child was born who was to lead a highly eventful life.  With LOVE FROM OTAZUAlways straight from the heart Rodrigo Otazu designs by pure instinct and straight from the heart.  Donatella Versace So coutureBlond hair, tanned complexion, sublime evening dresses, passionate and rich. Everything here seems perfect. But more than just an icon, Donatella Versace remains a very mysterious and complex woman. |
