A Todd Oldham Cover Shoot for Hotel Venus Magazine
Todd Oldham
A magazine cover for Patricia Field and why I somehow ended up here.
I work in finance. I am not sure I will do this forever, and please do not ask me how or why, because I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. really.
Three years ago I thought I was on the verge of my dream career. Fashion magazines. Editorial shoots. Ever since I was a teenager, I collected magazines the way other people collected records. I never imagined I would end up in the financial world in New York.
And yet here I am. The funny thing is, I kind of like it, but need to keep one toe in the fashion world.
The conversation that started everything
Before this unexpected detour, I worked at Vogue Italia. I stayed for as long as I could tolerate my completely insane boss.
I had imagined she was one of those fabulous women who had sacrificed everything for a brilliant career. Independent. Strong. Larger than life. Within a few months I realized there was another explanation. She was not single and chain-smoking because she wanted to be. No sane person would voluntarily spend that much time around her. I am not naming names. But she was awful. Eventually I left.
I was genuinely sad to go, because there were so many extraordinary people there. Michael Philouze remains one of my favorite partners in crime, and someone I am convinced will have a major impact on the fashion industry.
Looking back, I have nothing but gratitude for the experience. I met photographers, editors, stylists, gallery owners, architects, artists, and all the people who exist behind the glossy pages. While helping organize an event for the 30th Anniversary of L'Uomo Vogue at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, I found myself surrounded by people whose influence extended far beyond fashion.
The more time I spent around Vogue, the more I realized that fashion was not really about clothes. It was about ideas. Fashion simply happened to be the vehicle. So while I had decided I could not keep working for a lunatic, I was not quite ready to leave the world behind.
Which brings me to Patricia FieldI've been visiting Patricia Field's store on West Broadway as part of my weekend ritual. Walking into that store feels like stepping into an alternate universe where rules do not apply.
When the opportunity came along to join Hotel Venus as a special projects editor, I could not say no. Like everything she touches, Patricia Field brings together an unlikely cast of characters, each possessing their own strange kind of genius.
Our first cover shoot featured Armen Ra, photographed by Todd Oldham.
Hotel Venus, in the flesh
Special guest cover photographer: Todd Oldham. Inside, an interview with Patricia Field, the local color of West Broadway, the multimedia artist Floria Sigismondi, and this month's Miss Venus. It is exactly the unlikely collision Patricia is so good at engineering, and Todd's portrait of Armen sits at the center of it like a held breath.
What fascinates me most is that Todd seems increasingly interested in moving beyond fashion. And honestly, I understand why.
He has grown frustrated with the fundamental structure of the business. The industry requires designers to render their own work completely obsolete every six months, to force new sales. Create something beautiful. Sell it. Forget it. Move on. For a multidisciplinary maker who values longevity and accessibility, that cycle is wasteful and artistically restrictive.
So he is winding the wholesale apparel business down. If you want the origin story of everything he is now stepping away from, read how Todd Oldham built a fashion empire with fifty dollars and a bolt of fabric.
Photography is a natural fallback. He has already spent more than a decade orchestrating the visual presentation, the sets, and the imagery for his own brand. Photography lets him capture permanent artistic expressions instead of fleeting retail products.
by his own design
He pointed the camera back at me between setups for lighting set up. This is the only frame I kept.
And then there is Armen RaArmen is impossible to describe properly if you have never met him. A downtown New York legend. The kind of person who seems to exist slightly outside of conventional reality. The connection between Todd and Armen goes back a bit, I think. Armen designed those wonderfully ridiculous cubic zirconia cocktail rings that became a signature part of Todd's world. Massive stones. Glamour bordering on absurdity. Exactly the sort of thing that made both of them so much fun.
Watching them together feels less like a photoshoot and more like two old collaborators continuing an ongoing conversation. You can follow Armen on Instagram.
This is one of the things I love most about New York. You start out thinking you are interested in fashion. Then suddenly you are talking to artists, musicians, architects, club kids, photographers, gallery owners, and people who refuse to fit neatly into any category. Everyone overlaps. Everyone influences everyone else. And before you know it, you have accidentally wandered into an entirely different world.
Which is probably how I ended up in finance.
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Where it all began,