When Raf Simons resigned as Creative Director of Dior — choosing personal interests and passions over the pressures of our hyper-connected world — the fashion industry sat up and took notice. Raf’s bold decision to re-set and re-focus, tuned into how we’ve all been feeling. Our lives are moving faster than ever before. Careering from one thing to the next, we consume new music, fashion, film, art, magazines, even celebrities like Pacmans. Swallowing it all up. At first it was exhilarating, then exhausting. What does it all mean? And how are we supposed to process what we see/hear/feel/need if we are connected 24 hours a day? We’re a culture obsessed by likes, views, and comments, but the pressure to be popular is becoming too pervasive. How many of us have woken up in the middle of night and refreshed our social media feeds or hurriedly caught up on emails? Like hamsters constantly pounding the wheel we have emerged frazzled and exhausted. Something’s got to give. Thankfully the sands of time are shifting, and in 2016 our health and wellbeing score higher on the luxury scale than ever before. Extreme-busy-ness is no longer something to aspire to, and there’s little denying that the greatest luxury in life today is time.
In The New Luxury Issue of i-D, we explore this new mood and our prevailing desire for change. Photographed by Harley Weir, i-D cover star and model of the moment Lineisy Montero says real luxury is time spent with friends and family. For Alessandro Michele at Gucci luxury is poetry, while for Silvia Venturini Fendi and Dior Homme’s Kris Van Assche luxury is in the details. This issue we also meet Molly Bair, the Philly girl with the big walk and big dreams, chat a new language with British artist Eddie Peake and muse on making the move from modeling to movies with Australian supermodel Abbey Lee. Zoe Kravitz reveals her battles with body image and we celebrate creating something on your terms with the young editors behind 1Granary, Mushpit, PYLOT, LAW, A Nice Magazine, Typical Girls, Baron and Polyster, who are changing the face of magazine publishing with their treasure-forever-thick-papered publications. In a series of thinkpieces we question whether the backlash against social media is truly coming and reflect on the phenomenal success of Vetements, the new messiahs of luxury. To close, we ask i-D’s fashion friends and family what luxury means to them? Their responses are unanimous. It’s a huge generational longing. So if you’re not busy 110% of the time, good. And if you haven’t updated your Instagram account in a couple of days, great! Let’s wave goodbye to work for work’s sake and stop clogging up the airwaves. It’s time to step back, reset, and relax.
The greatest luxury in life is time, savor every second!
Credits
Text Holly Shackleton
Photography Harley Weir
Styling Julia Sarr-Jamois
Model Lineisy Montero at Next Models
Cover 1 Lineisy wears jacket and earrings Céline, Cover 2 Lineisy wears jacket Céline