32 WSJ. MAGAZINEEDITOR’S LETTERILLUSTRATION BY ALEJANDRO CARDENASBROOKLYN BOUND Anubis (in Kevin Durant’s jersey) and Bast (wearing Akris) stroll along Dumbo’s cobblestone streets with Who.HOOP AND GLORY
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HIS MONTH’S COVER STAR, Kevin Durant,
is unlike any other player in the NBA, a
nonconformist who sets the tone for our
September Men’s issue. One of the greatest
talents in basketball history, he’s also been praised
by friends and creative partners for his fi ercely inde-
pendent thinking, which led him to keep his own
counsel and choose the Brooklyn Nets during this
summer’s free agency. He’s not afraid of reinvention,
either the physical kind he’s carrying out after rup-
turing his Achilles during the NBA Finals, or the sort
symbolized by changing his number from 35 to 7—a
biblical reference to the concept of completion. “I’ve
always been on a search,” he says. We can’t wait to
see where this next chapter takes him. Despite spending three decades designing doz-
ens of private homes and commercial edifi ces, John
Pawson does not call himself an architect, hav-
ing left school a year short of earning his degree. It
suits a man who shrugs at attempts to classify him
as the master of minimalism and who holds fi rm to
his famously stripped-down aesthetic no matter how
much it runs against the grain. Now, in renovating a
country retreat with his wife, Catherine, he’s push-
ing his exacting vision to its limits.
Artist David Hockney is an unreconstructed
smoker who fi nds that even cities like Los Angeles,
where he resides, have grown puritanical about the
habit. It’s one reason he’s become so attached to his
new property in Normandy: “The French know how tolive. They know about pleasure.” Hockney—whose cre-
ations are featured in the inaugural exhibition at Pace
Gallery’s massive new Manhattan space—is a lifelong
student of art whose works are in constant dialogue
with geniuses of the past, from Chinese scroll paint-
ers to Picasso. His style and his art come down to one
impulse, he says: “It’s always just to please myself.”
That saying could also serve as a motto for the issue’s
fashion story photographed by Gregory Harris, which
captures the Byronic side of the modern dandy—indi-
vidualism at its most romantic.Kristina O’Neill
[email protected]
@kristina_oneill