VOLUME III
it’s your fantasy.
ASHTON SANDERS
The sun beats down mercilessly in Downtown Los Angeles, but inside the studio, it’s quiet and cool. Ashton Sanders speaks with a measured confidence, gently and evenly. Imbued with a sense of humility and clarity, his disposition has an immediately calming effect. And his quietness isn’t shyness…
BILLIE EILISH
A sign of our modern age is an insistence on complexity and contradiction. None of us are any one thing. Billie Eilish, with her raw, rough teen angst imbued with measured emotion, represents a particular duality. She rocks a loose fitted tee and a pair of Nikes…
Christian siriano
The red dress is gargantuan in both nature and stature. Its ruffles and curves move and sway and as fabric falls upon fabric, the dress comes to life like an animal unto itself. It’s a living, breathing piece of art, and the designer behind it is about as shy as his vision. As Christian Siriano talks, I can see the wheels turning, the vision unfolding, his dream of a universe springing into being…
SALEM MITCHELL
Satchel Lee: What does fantasy mean to you?
Salem Mitchell: Anything can be fantasy. I could be living in a fantasy and never know it. Maybe because I can’t see myself the way other people see me…
MELA MURDER
David-Simon Dayan: The charismatic, playful, generous multi-dimensional being that is Mela Murder. Where do we even begin? Photographing you both before and after Amethyst’s birth were two beautiful experiences. During that earlier shoot, I remember just waiting for the drops to fall on the seamless… I had fully accepted that we may have ended up at the hospital…
MICHAELA DEPRINCE
For a sample of the trials faced by Black ballerinas, Google “brown pointe shoes.” Until pointe shoe company Gaynor Minden unveiled two shades of brown in 2017, dark-skinned ballerinas invariably wore shoes that did not match their skin tone or were forced to resort to dying their shoes themselves. The prevalence of such micro aggressions reflects the exclusionary underpinnings of ballet culture…