Nicolas Petrou is the kind of guy you don’t know whether to flirt with or be afraid of. He’s aggressive and demanding, with more personality than a bull-dyke has bite, but underneath it all he is a loyal friend who has been my boss and my drinking partner for the past five years. My time working for him as a design assistant was high drama to say the least. During the day I was his bitch - turning down phone calls, picking up lunch, and getting slapped in the face (which he knew I enjoyed). At night I was a bitch of a different kind - making our dinner reservations, picking up drinks at the bar, and bringing over the cute boys, preferably two or three at a time.

When his womenswear job went sour Nicolas walked out and onward into a new life, calling the shots as Creative Director and CEO of his own menswear label, PETROU\MAN. I’m not his full-time bitch anymore, but I jump at the chance to help out whenever I can in the hopes that he’ll hook me up with some fierce clothes, drinks at SoHo House, and a high dose of sarcastic humor and caustic wit.

Artwork created for EVB by Soteris Kallis and Nicolas Petrou
Portraits of Nicolas (and his dogs) shot for EVB by Shelby Gates

Andrew Yang: So, my first job for you at PETROU\MAN was modeling for your Spring collection look book. It was a lot of fun coming in and dressing up in all your clothes, but why did you have to cover up my face?

Nicolas Petrou: That’s a little bit of an off question, especially for the first one. Is this interview about you or PETROU\MAN? Are we solving your personal insecurity issues here? [But to answer your question,] I didn’t want people to put a face on my clothes and associate them with a certain type of guy. I wanted to create a neutral environment that different guys could associate with. So, it had nothing to do with your face. Or maybe a little.

Andrew: Did it inspire you to cover up all those cute models for your presentation in psychedelic bodysuits?

Nicolas: I feel that you want me to name you as my inspiration with this question, but again, it all had to do with my initial concept. There was so much inner beauty in this collection. All of these beautiful boys were completely covered and unrecognizable but there was still enough to capture the essence of the clothes and forget the wearer. Risky in a way, as so many people have such a need to show off their cute faces, but so effective with my presentation and what I was expressing. The boys that were under covers had such fun doing it! They forgot who they were for two hours and transformed themselves into PETROU\MAN creatures.
Andrew: Similar to what you created for this interview, you don’t just document the work you do, you create artwork.

Nicolas: It's all a part of my artistic expression and my contribution to the people that love my clothes and want to feel special when they buy them. I had a conversation with my assistant and Head Designer, Soteris Kallis, and we both concluded that this is the only way to go. In this reality that we live in, with so much destruction in the world around us, it’s sometimes nice to be able to escape to a more abstract and not so conventional place. Sometimes you can find so much beauty in things that others find ugly!

Andrew: Do you design for yourself?

Nicolas: What a boring question! I will not answer that.

Andrew: Tell me about what made you leave Athens for London, and Europe for New York?

Nicolas: Athens was too chaotic for me. There is no order there and generally people are more interested in their iced coffee and their vacation, than their work. It’s a great concept if you are used to that, but I was never into this slow and relaxed way of living. I was used to New York City and it’s fast pace - I loved the energy, the passion and the determination of the people here. I felt alive and there was no way for me to survive anywhere else. Then, I got accepted at Central St. Martins and moved to London, graduated in 1993, and was offered a design job in New York.
Andrew: Which city has the cutest boys?

Nicolas: I would have to say Paris for sure. Anything the French do they do it so well! Wine, cheese, bread, food, cakes, art, cinema, love and even cheating! They just do it all so well! We all can learn something from the French boys! Come on, my ex cheated on me with a French guy while I was working hard to support both of us and when I found out (from you actually), all I was thinking was who was this French guy and what could do him too. It’s a sick thought but I was more jealous just because the guy was French. If the guy were from Slovenia or some other eastern European country, I wouldn’t mind it as much. Maybe my ex can explain to you in more detail what was so intriguing about sucking French cock.

Andrew: If you had to scout the New York City streets for your models, where would you go looking?

Nicolas: This is New York, Andrew, and there are tons of amazing model agencies. Why would I go looking in the streets for guys? Now if I were looking to get laid then I would definitely look in the East Village or Williamsburg.
Andrew: What kind of boy do you like to see in and out of your clothes?

Nicolas: The boys I would like to see in or out of my clothes are, I guess, at Eastern Bloc every Wednesday night. They are scruffy, they have tattoos, they don’t pluck their eyebrows and they don’t rollerblade.

Andrew: Where do you draw inspiration from?

Nicolas: Would the word “everywhere” sound cliché? But then, so would your question!

Andrew: I’m trying to be a serious fashion journalist here! Let me try again. Where do you draw the line between what is artistic, and what is wearable?

Nicolas: I think a collection should have both. The artistic pieces are for your windows and editorial hype and the staples are your bread and butter. You have to be able to educate the consumer about what is more artistic and that is what my “job” is. I was never interested in a mass-production setup. I love what I do and if I am not involved in it one hundred percent, then I am not interested in doing it or exploiting my customers. It’s nice to know that the actual designer has touched the actual piece you are buying, and that is not the case with a lot of clothes out there.

Andrew: What’s wrong with the way guys dress today?

Nicolas: Which guys? Where do you hang out since you started dating whoever you're dating now? You are talking about the masses and I am not interested in that part of the world. The guys I see out at art openings, at parties and out in bars all look great! They all have something to say with the way the dress! It’s such an inspiration to be watching all these boys with their tattoos, their hairdos and their own style of dressing. I just love all of them! I'm keeping an open mind when it comes to how people dress and I absorb it all, digest it, and feed my mind with it. That’s what keeps me constantly inspired and always creative.
Andrew: Do you feel like your collection is filling a void within the fashion industry?

Nicolas: Yes, definitely! Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. If I felt I had nothing new to say or offer then I would have stayed silent. The personal need to create something that is not available in the market is what pushed me to do this. This is a very focused and complete collection with no gimmicks. What I also think makes this collection different is that the clothes are very wearable, with great proportions and unique details. The inside of these garments are as beautiful as the outside.

My task now is to expose the collection to as many people as possible. And it’s happening! The collection received tons of press in such a short time that we decided to do a presentation during fashion week for press and buyers. Robbie Spencer, Menswear Fashion Editor of Dazed & Confused flew in from London to style the presentation! It is very exciting as we already have a lot of interest from Paris, London and Asia.
Andrew: Aside from creating this collection and the next, what is occupying your thoughts these days? Boys? Travel? Art?

Nicolas: Aren’t boys, travel and art a constant pre-occupation of our minds? I would like to keep doing what I am doing. It makes me happy and keeps the balance in my life. There are always so many things to do in New York and so much information to absorb that there in never enough time in my day for all the things I want to do. I am constantly thinking of the next move, the next collection, the next meeting, the next boy, but I always have time for a nice dinner with friends and great conversations!

Andrew: What music describes your current state of mind?

Nicolas: Brian Eno’s Music for Airports! It’s so minimal and unique! I think it compliments the collection is so many ways. You should listen to it.

Andrew: When are you going to give me some free clothes?

Nicolas: PETROU\MAN is not a charity organization. I have done so much charity in my life and it came back to bite me hard. So, no more freebies for anyone. Unless, of course, you're a cute East Village boy and we're dating.

Andrew: If you weren’t a fashion designer, what other dreams would you be fulfilling?

Nicolas: In Greek we have a saying that goes like, “If my grandmother had balls I would call her grandfather.”
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In May of this year, artist Luke Smalley passed away unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 53. Aside from a brief obituary written by Alex Hawgood on the blog for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, not a great deal has been written about the life of Luke Smalley and the development of his successful career. The current exhibition of his photographs at ClampArt titled Sunday Drive represent his final body of work.

Born John Luke Smalley into a strict Catholic family of five children, he was always called “John” by relatives, never “Luke” - a name he later chose for himself after leaving home. Growing up in rural Northwestern Pennsylvania, he was the baby of the clan for seven long years, until the birth of his sister in 1962, but according to numerous amusing family stories, John (a.k.a. Luke) never was happy relinquishing his place as the youngest and most loved.

After graduating from high school, Smalley spent time in Southern California before moving to New York City to begin a career in modeling while attending Hunter College. He soon moved on to Boston to attend Northeastern University, and eventually landed back in California where he graduated from Pepperdine University - tellingly, with a degree in sports medicine.

Equiped with a Polaroid camera from the age of 12, he always seemed to be snapping pictures, and after college he continued to be interested in photography and the arts (while earning money from modeling and working as a personal trainer). He soon created a short film based on male swimmers, which he took unannounced to Jack Woody sometime in the early 1980s. Woody’s company, Twin Palms Publishers/Twelvetrees Press, then located in Pasadena, California, had recently printed a monograph for artist Bruce Weber, to which Smalley strongly related and greatly admired. Smalley was a quiet, relaxed individual who was easy to be around, and he and Woody soon struck up a casual friendship. Woody began taking the young artist to various Hollywood parties where he met many celebrities of the day, including Herb Ritts, who would also serve as later inspiration.
It was at this time that Smalley’s idea for Gymnasium was born, which then took the next fifteen years to develop and execute. A series of black-and-white photographs of young, male athletes set in an ambiguous time and place. The images are eventually what kick-started Smalley’s career, and remain to this day his signature work. Woody’s company published the series in book form in 2001, and it was this publication that attracted the attention of commercial agents, and eventually earned Smalley commissions for editorial and fashion work. Soon the photographs from Gymnasium were featured in an exhibition at Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art in New York City, and Smalley began earning income from his print sales.
While Smalley spent many years living between Los Angeles and Northwestern Pennsylvania, by 1999 he had shifted to living in New York City while continuing to regularly make the 11 to 12 hour drive home, remaining close to his family and creating the majority of his work.

Around 2002, British menswear designer Kim Jones stumbled across a copy of Gymnasium at the Mercer Hotel. He fell in love with the work and hired Smalley to shoot images of his designs. Their collaboration culminated in Smalley’s second book of black-and white and color photographs, Kim Jones, now a rare and valuable collectible.

Smalley’s next photographic series, Exercise at Home, for the first time consists entirely of color images and revisits themes of adolescent growing pains acted out under the guise of earnest athleticism. Again, buff teenagers perform for the camera, this time competing in simple but strange contests meant to establish their standing within the group. As with Gymnasium, Smalley painstakingly coordinated the creation of the work to the extent of constructing his own athletic equipment, props, and costumes. Twin Palms published the work in 2007, and exhibitions coincided at galleries in New York City and Los Angeles. It was Smalley’s plan to continue publishing artist books in small editions every couple of years, which would then be coordinated with the exhibition of the prints, thus supplementing his ongoing commercial career.
Smalley's final series, Sunday Drive, was conceived as a humorous and provocative narrative, which would finally incorporate women into his oeuvre. It tells the story of three nubile young women who inexplicably primp and preen while frequently slipping into dramatic moments of exaggerated ennui. The bedecked threesome eventually piles into a butter-colored 1966 Chevy convertible, and it soon becomes clear that they are en route to the state penitentiary to visit their respective boyfriends (incarcerated for crimes unknown). The second half of the story involves tattooed young men killing time in the slammer waiting for their sweethearts to arrive, and seeming unusually distracted by one another. Consistent with his two earlier series, the imagery of Sunday Drive constructs a world of a timeless era in which the artist lightheartedly toys with issues of sensuality and machismo.

After completing the series, largely shot in an out-of-commission wing of a prison in Maryland, Smalley finalized the photographs and set in motion the plans for an exhibition at ClampArt, in New York City, to be accompanied by his fourth book, Sunday Drive, again published by Twin Palms. Sadly, he never lived to see the success of his final project unveiled in the fall of 2009.

All images: ©Smalley Partnership, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City
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This week's East Village Boy of the Week is David, from Brooklyn
Photographed for EVB by Greg Reynolds

These photographs of David Levy were taken in his home and on his block in BedStuy, Brooklyn. I am primarily a portrait photographer with a cinematic sensibility, influenced by such films as Jean Vigo's L'Atalante and Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête. I approach each shoot as the writer and director: creating the narrative, composing the frame, shaping the light, choosing the background and engaging the subject so that I might bring emotional life to the image. - Greg Reynolds

 

IN RESPONSE TO SUDDEN WIDESPREAD OUTRAGE, IN AN ACT OF SOLIDARITY,
NEW YORKERS WILL GATHER AT MANHATTAN'S PIER 45 (AT CHRISTOPHER STREET) FOR A VIGIL

IN MEMORIAM OF JORGE STEVEN LÓPEZ MERCADO

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 22, 2009 AT 5:00 PM

On the night of Friday, November 13, 2009, 26-year-old Juan Martinez Matos picked up 19-year-old Jorge Steven López Mercado in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and drove him to the nearby town of Cidra, Puerto Rico. After discovering that Mercado, who was dressed as a female, was a man, Matos, in a whirlwind of rage, not only murdered Mercado, but beheaded him and dismembered his body. The remains were then partially set on fire.

Mercado’s body was discovered in the nearby town of Cayey, Puerto Rico. A search for the murderer immediately began, Matos was apprehended, has confessed, and is imprisoned with bail set at four million dollars. Initial reports seem to indicate that the line of defense will be invoking “gay panic”, a strategy commonly used in recent times with varying degrees of success. In a troubling interview with Univisión, police investigator Ángel Rodríguez Colón went on record as saying (as translated into English), “These types of people, when they enter this lifestyle and go out into the streets know that this could happen.”

We find this unacceptable, and furthermore call for a stop to the blaming of the victim in this case. Never in Puerto Rico’s history has a crime been prosecuted with a hate crimes provision attached, despite the existence of said provision since 2002. We want to make sure that this is the first case.

The Manhattan vigil will occur in conjunction with satellite Sunday vigils in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Durham, and other American cities. The resulting photographic and video footage will be used in efforts for full prosecution of this case.

Speakers slotted include major political, social, and artistic leaders of New York City.

The organizers wish to thank thank GLAAD, The LGBT Community Center, Dignity, Anti-Violence Project, LCOA, and the office of Speaker Quinn for their continued support in these efforts.

Information for events outside of New York can be found here.
The Facebook group can be found here.