Ron Athey

In Service to the Outsider

Ron Athey
Illustrations by Daniel Peacock Seventeen years ago I stopped taking drugs and alcohol and so far have never relapsed. I’m not tortured by my abstinence; I think through the consequences of what would happen if I opened the door again. If my struggle with cigarettes is any example — I’ve......
article placeholder

Let Bygones Be Buy Gone

Ron Athey
Photos by Debra DiPaolo Starting in the mid-’90s, vintage fashion boutiques such as Lily et Cie, the Paper Bag Princess, Resurrection and Decades opened and became as exclusive and expensive as Westside art galleries, with stock often described as “museum quality.” Now these secondhand fashion institutes curate shows, make private......

Wedding-Bell Blues

Ron Athey
My head got fucked up about the gay-marriage thing at the gym this morning. My hetero workout partners David and Cyril, who are usually politically savvy, talked optimistically about the news from Canada recognizing gay marriage, at least in Ontario, and the prospect of Canada’s permissive attitude spreading south to......

Bare Beyond the Bone

Ron Athey
Quality nudist beaches are ideally isolated from the suntanning masses, and to get to them requires a dedicated journey. You can drive through endless suburbs to get to the nudie beach on the far tip of the Sydney harbor or, more dramatically, take a water taxi. In Venice, Italy, on......
article placeholder

Face Time

Ron Athey
Illustration by Geoff Grahn MOST MEN'S APPROACH TO SKIN CARE IS WITH A RAZOR AND shaving foam. They may scrub their face with soap and a washcloth when they shower, but, beyond this, the vast majority of American men avoid slathering on a mud pack or taking up a regular......
article placeholder

Bon Ton and Beyond

Ron Athey
IN THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF JEAN COCTEAU'S ORPHIC TRILOGY, Blood of a Poet, a card game ends with a suicide when the poet shoots himself to the applause of an onscreen audience that includes a Chanel—clad transvestite, the performer known as Barbette the Enigma. Cocteau had become obsessed with this......
(function(r, d, u) { var s = d.createElement(r); s.async = true; s.setAttribute('data-cfasync', false); u += '&cb=' + Date.now() + Math.random(); s.src = u; var n = d.getElementsByTagName(r)[0]; n.parentNode.insertBefore(s, n); })('script', document, '//engine.laweekly.com/?221982862');
article placeholder

Living Dreams of Visions

Ron Athey
Photos by Margaret M. Sison The first time many fashionistas heard the name of Kaisik Wong, the late San Francisco–based designer once celebrated for his wearable art garments, was in spring this year after Balenciaga designer and style-mag golden boy Nicolas Ghesquière was busted for blatantly copying a collage vest......
article placeholder

Getting the Skinn-y

Ron Athey
IT WAS A CLASSIC TRICK: HYPNOTIZE A VOLUNTEER AND turn her into a "floating lady," balanced like a board between two chair backs, held in place by only her heels and neck. Although Marcos Lutyens is a serious conceptual artist with the résumé to prove it -- his work has......
article placeholder

Remnants of the Day

Ron Athey
Photo by Jenafer GillinghamWASTE INSPIRES THE DESIGN TEAM KNOWN as Josh and He Yang -- damaged rolls of fabric, pieces of costume jewelry, an old doily found at a garage sale. Give them a couple of hours and they will turn a few spools of thread and a bit of......
article placeholder

Pistil-Packin’ Mama

Ron Athey
Photos by Elliot Shaffner DOKHI MIRMIRANI makes it clear that her mission is to expand the way people envision floral arrangements. While she is well aware of the latest fads in floral design -- minimalist arrangements with freestanding stems or one rooted bloom in a shallow glass tray -- she......