If you’ve driven down Melrose by the PDC in the past few days, you’ve seen it/gawked at it/perhaps pulled over to take an iPhone pic of it, then scurried back to your car in pervy shame. I’m talking about Alpha Man’s window display for the 10th anniversary of Helmut Newton’s seminal book SUMO. Alpha’s window features a nude, wide-stanced mannequin, replete with, uh, huh, her–manicured landing strip (design by CM Squared). At $15,000, the original version of the gargantuan tome is “the biggest and most expensive book production in the 20th century!” as publisher Taschen enthuses on its website. The re-release is a fraction, nay, sliver of the original’s price tag (i.e. $150).
But according to Alpha co-owner Darren Gold, the powers-that-be who guardian Newton’s estate (Newton died in 2004 in a car crash near the Chateau Marmont) don’t exactly view the window as a venerable homage, despite the fashion photog’s exquisite eye for the female nude. Gold says an unidentified representative of the Newton estate went directly to Taschen executives in Germany to complain about the offending display–ostensibly to have it pulled.
“We’re in awe of him, we’re inspired by him,” Gold says of Newton and his legacy. “We’re not doing anything shady. This is provocative in a good way.”
Is he going to take it down? Gold’s response: sort of an oh helllllll no.
To be continued—and we wait patiently to hear what Newton’s peeps say about the window. Stay tuned.
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don’t take it down!
I have always loved Newton and can’t wait to get a copy of the re-released Sumo.
I wrote about it all over on my blog http://arielgordonjewelry.blogspot.com/