2 posts tagged "Charlie Siem"
EXCLUSIVE: Bruce Weber And Dior Homme’s Can I Make the Music Fly?
When the droves that came to Miami this week depart at the end of Art Basel Miami Beach, one new arrival will stay: Dior Homme, which opened its new store, and fifth in the U.S., on December 1st. Tonight marks the boutique’s launch event and, for the occasion, the label commissioned Miami native Bruce Weber to create a film that will become a permanent installation at the new store. “It’s one of the great perks of my job that I have the ability to work with these creative talents who I so admire,” says Dior Homme’s creative director, Kris Van Assche. “Bruce is an incredibly talented photographer and filmmaker and one of the most influential figures in the world of fashion. This new film is particularly fascinating as he brings a very personal aesthetic, and we tapped a particularly diverse range of young males.”
For Can I Make the Music Fly?, Weber tapped a few prodigies of the dance and classical music world: among them, fashion favorite Charlie Siem, who at 26 is already the veteran of several ad campaigns; the Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, whom Weber calls “the dance world’s fastest-rising star”; and 10-year-old Claudius Agrippa, an “astonishingly gifted” violinist. They do make the music fly, like the film’s dedicatee, the frenetic pianist Glenn Gould, used to. If this kind of impassioned playing seems to border on spectator sport, that’s all part of the Weber point. Miami, the photographer said in a statement, “is my hometown and also the hometown of a great ballet company and orchestra—and last but not least, the hometown of the Miami Heat. I made this film with all of that in mind; as well as my love for classical music and how sometimes the wildness of the 4th quarter of a basketball game is like the giant leap of a ballet dancer.” The trailer premieres exclusively on Style.com, above.
Strings Attached
Fashion’s newest rock star is…a violinist? Acne Paper is the latest coup for the 25-year-old English virtuoso Charlie Siem, whose classical chops (and model good looks) are quickly making him into an a sensation. At a party last night at the Ritz in Paris for the launch of Acne Paper‘s 12th issue, editor Thomas Persson remembered first encountering Siem—via YouTube. “A friend of mine told me about Charlie and after I heard him play I knew I wanted to do an issue on youth and talent,” Persson said. “My grandfather was a violinist. He wasn’t at this level, of course, but I grew up in my grandparents’ house listening to this kind of music.”
In the new issue, Siem is shot by Andreas Larsson for one spread, and in another, by Bruce Weber, who imagines his 25th birthday party with a cast including actor Aaron Johnson, skateboarder Matt Giesler, and rugby player Paul Bester. Siem was on hand last night to play a few pieces for Couture-weary attendees like Alexa Chung, Francesco Vezzoli, Kim Jones, Philip Treacy, Delfina Delettrez Fendi, and stylist Hannes Hetta, who produced a moody shoot for the new issue with his sister, photographer Julia Hetta. Those expecting AM-dial classical got a jazzy, high-wire rendition of Antonio Bazzini’s Dance of the Goblins instead. (It also features on his new album.) “You can surprise people with a violin,” the handsome musician—who also stars as one of the faces of Dunhill’s Spring ’11 campaign, and recently appeared in VMan—said.