Editor’s Letter
December is for dreaming, and there’s no better space to start than up in Magritte’s illusionary clouds in the brilliant blue sky, where reality is suspended for a magical moment. And right there we close this fabulous year with the cover of Coco Rocha, quite a surreal supermodel herself who was plucked 15 years ago from an Irish dance competition in her hometown in Canada for the runways of the world. In the midst of the Hermès and Louis Vuitton shows at the recent Paris Fashion Week, Amy Yasmine captured the supe in all manners of movement, back-bending in Balenciaga and cat-curling in Chanel, playing up her iconically sensational 100 poses-per-minute, now immortalised in her book Study Of Pose: 1,000 Poses By Coco Rocha. “As models, we only have our face and bodies to tell an entire story, often in one moment,” she says in ‘Haute Coco’ (page 126), citing how modelling should be a performance art as with acting and singing, which she’s championing with her Coco Rocha Model Camp that also empowers models how to be
a business in themselves. Surrealist undertones and fantasy overtures theme this issue, which we started working on four months ago with our signature editorial ‘Malaysia’s Most Stylish Women’. Being our 15th anniversary edition we took it to the sky with 15 women who personify real style and dynamism, at a three-day “immersive fashion” weekend at The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur, where each took a lead role in the shoot (page 86) and also a film short, premiering in December on harpersbazaar.my. There’s Qalisha Ray casted as Man Ray’s Woman with Long Hair, 1929; Geraldine Dreiser as a gorgeous Dora Maar; Shalma Ainaa contemplating a Giorgio de Chirico-esque space; and the others stars that each took on the spirit of Surrealist masterpieces and muses—all dripping in Bvlgari gems. Dreamscapes exist all around, what more in designed spaces that evoke the otherworldly. I’ve explored some of the most fantastical places this year, including travelling into heartlands of Provence to the futuristic winery of Château La Coste—the wine-making chai were famously designed by Jean Nouvel—where a massive Louise Bourgeois spider crouches in a Tadao Ando infinity pool, and the whole estate opens up with artwork by worldfamous artists and architects (page 162). Then, the futuristic 7132 Hotel high up in the Swiss Alps, designed by starchitect Peter Zumthor, with rooms by Kengo Kuma and Tadao Ando (page 165). Hiking up to 3,000 metres of the iconic mountains, into my own Magritte blue sky, there I encountered the perfect panorama for dreaming ... and what dreams may come. J