Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1056059
16 letter editor HUNT SLONEM D ecember is the most creative month of the year. We all become decorators, directors, artists, and chefs, heaping boughs of pine and magnolia on man- tels and banisters, dressing our front lawns as we would never dare dress ourselves. Our food is Picasso on a plate and jewel-hued elixirs blooming with smoke, san- dalwood, and pear. The December issue of PaperCity is no slouch in the creative December fray, with art director Michelle Aviña hopping a plane to Mexico City to shoot our 16-page gift guide, based on Diana Vreeland's zest for beauty and thirst for the eccentric. Michelle cherry-picked three of D.V.'s most memorable muses, and she and pho- tographer Ivan Aguirre re-created iconic moments in front of the camera — à la Veruschka, Penelope Tree, and Marisa Berenson. To wit, see page 55 where hairstylist Cesar Vargas conjured the 8-foot swaths of hair, fashioned for the statuesque German model Veruschka during a shoot in Japan with photographer Richard Avedon (1966). The waifish Penelope Tree with her painted lashes, slice of bangs and cheekbones you can set a martini glass upon, dances alone in her impossibly skinny bell bottoms. When the muses were "in the can," much of the crew flew to the U.S. to complete part dos of the gift guide — dioramas, and doses of exoticism and eccentricity based on totems much loved by D.V. — shells, feathers, coral, bone; gothic and Byzantine treasures; jewels like lollipops and candles with the scent of a winter monastery. We wish you a very merry Christmas, happy holidays, and blissful New Year. Holly Moore Editor in Chief holly@papercitymag.com