Morning in Miami (2)

For the astute viewer, you will see that this year I am on the north side of the hotel. Otherwise not much has changed although it's a little less cloudy!

I arrived in Miami last night in time to get to the launch party of the New York Times Magazine's T section website. I checked into the site this past Sunday and found it O.K. - a bit too fussy for my taste - however, I am a HUGE fan of the magazine. Whenever the T section appears I am astounded that something of that rarified a sensibility comes with the dignified New York Times, but there it is. Hip and prescient articles, inventive photography, a great regular series in Robert Maxwell's "Originals" portraits, a highly original revolving selection of artists and designers doing the guest T graphic that opens the well. I even find the contributors bios interesting as they seem a cut above the usual magazine contributors in terms of what they're working on and their prior achievements. I usually find magazines that try to be cool annoying, but T's blend of cool and substance is the real thing. Well maybe it's a blend of cool and superficial, but it's for people who subscribe to the notion that there's profundity in surface and style and creativity. (A note- the website seems to have problems loading today, but try to access it through nytimes.com.)



From the T party, there was just time to drop in on In Fashion '07 - the most awful collection of fashion photographs. "200 fashion photographs by 20 photographers!" banners blare all along Collins Avenue, but what a waste of time. What's so dispiriting about bad fashion photography is all the effort that goes into it with all the models, stylists, hair and makeup artists, assistants etc.. At least if bad photographers take bad street photographs or landscapes they're only wasting their own time. (I highly recommend bad photographers to take self-portraits.) Anyway, so as not to be completely negative, here are two images from the show that somewhat broke through the clutter. Taken by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who clearly knows a good prop when he sees one, here are his pictures of Irina and Madonna. If you go to his gallery website you'll see a whole series on guitars, which the organizers of In Fashion 07 were not smart enough to make his display.

More to come.