Jonathan Velardi

18.2.15

The Curators: Please Do Not Enter

My interview with Nicolas Libert and Emmanuel Renoird, founders of Downtown LA’s enticing concept store – Please Do Not Enter – has dropped at New York-based wanderlust guide Melting Butter. ‘The Curators’ is a collection of interviews with vanguards from around the world who share their insight about their city and creative environs. After visiting the curated space of Please Do Not Enter last year, Nicolas and Emmanuel kindly shared their cultural and culinary hotspots of Downtown LA with me.

Nicolas Libert & Emmanuel Renoird

As well as staging an ambitious programme of events at their Pershing Square headquarters alongside the collection of unique and limited edition luxury products, their personal guide proves Downtown LA is one of the of the most enterprising neighbourhoods in the city worthy of exploration – the stylish duo recently swapped the cultural capital of Paris for the City of Angels after all.

Curated Space: Please Do Not Enter

Discover the full interview with Please Do Not Enter at Melting Butter as well as their curated guide of hotspots from daylight to nightlife across Downtown LA.

Eggslut and Press Brothers Juicery located at Grand Central Market

OHWOW in West Hollywood

Mustache Mondays at La Cita Bar

My favourite art and design hotspots spanning from London to Europe are now available at my ever-expanding guide on Melting Butter here - happy exploring culture vultures!

For more on Art, Culture & Lifestyle

visit www.jonathanvelardi.com/writing

Images courtesy of Please Do Not Enter, Huffington Post, WSJ, OH WOW and La Cita Bar

11.2.15

Foot Werk

You don’t need Google to tell you anything goes on the internet. Add a hashtag to that anything and you find yourself sympathising with a global online community hungry for expression in as few and witty characters as possible. So to the recent buzz this week that has been reported by the likes of Dazed & Confused, i-D and PAPER Magazine on the curious hashtag that is #heelconcept. Punch this meme into Instagram and behold a collection of arched feet, precariously balancing atop resolutely lo-fi objects from the sublime to the ridiculous to create the illusion of a high heel shoe.

As DIY footwear floods our Instagram feeds, we ask the meme’s creator about #HeelConcept: http://t.co/nAflSa2nUx pic.twitter.com/yev2vzrZ84
— i-D (@i_D) February 11, 2015

First recorded by the grammer @m.sty in December of last year, who stood on a bronze figure performing autofellatio against the backdrop of a cutting mat, the hashtag has since inspired hundreds of avant-garde prototypes as a means of alternative self-portraiture.

Ladies, step aside. The men are coming up with their own #heelconcept [SUB REQ.]: http://t.co/00jNCTbAKQ pic.twitter.com/i5q6VUBbB5
— WWD (@wwd) February 9, 2015

High fashion, contemporary art and a generous helping of irony at its most fabulous come together in an amalgamation of DIY beauty and anti-aesthetic style, which has left trend forecasters head over heels. Perhaps because on closer inspection #heelconcept has been attracting both sexes with fashion journal WWD headlining ‘Ladies step aside: The men are coming up with their own #heelconcept’, with their respective hairy limbs en pointe, including that of my own. Having come across the phenomenon on my feed last week I couldn't resist raiding the kitchen cupboards to channel the lexicon of none other than pop culture supreme Mr Warhol, by putting my toes to werk.