CThru.com Presents Tony Ward

Self Portrait With Handlebar Mustache

TW: When did you first realize you had a distinct eye for mens fashion?

KS: It began In High school, I was an Art Major, painter and sculptor. I wore black clothing covered in Gesso on purpose, very Jackson Pollock.

TW: Did the way your father dress for work and casual time impact your early view as to how men should approach the way they attire themselves?

KS: Yes my father dressed very well, he was a white collar man. This was the 70’s you had to look fly even for work. He also dressed for evening, Tux all the way. He is a 33 degree Mason so he had to come correct. He wore a wide variety of hats and cologne that made my eyes water, but he was always well groomed. He’s still a fly cat. Smooth like china silk. I love him for that.

Mississippi At the Crossroads: Photo By Kwaku Alston

TW: Who is your favorite menswear designer today?

KS: I like a bit of every one. I take designer sport coats and cut them below the pockets to crop the front of the jacket. I’ve just finished a Paul Smith sport coat. I’ll rock that today with Pink shoes. I’d also like to add, I only wear ROGER CHARLES NEW YORK, the shirt company I started with a partner in 2007.

TW: We met during the glory days at VIBE during the early 90’s…. How did your tenure there impact your approach to mens fashion as you moved forward with your career as fashion director for several other popular culture magazines, including DETAILS and GEAR?

KS: VIBE was my first real taste of artistic freedom. I could choose my calibrator’s like you my friend. We could test the boundaries of traditional American publishing, go on location and show beautiful nudes. The work was seamless in the context of VIBE. It allowed me to dream and make pictures I wanted to see in a magazine.

Mississippi: Photo By Kwaku Alston

TW: We have both shared the experience of working for the famous Guccione family. I for the father Bob senior. and you for the son Bob junior. What was it like to work for the son of the founder and publisher of Penthouse magazine?

KS: Bob junior is a true original thinker and thoughtful man. A great human being. I was lucky to be in his company and at all times I love him very much. When he writes his memoirs I’ll be first in line to buy the book. He has his place in the American history of publishing. SPIN Magazine stood alone as the voice of the late 70’s and early 80’s. It covered bands that couldn’t get arrested at the time. I could go on forever about Bob. I learned how to bring a product to market, communicate the vision and sell it to marketers. He had a great deal to do with who I am today.

TW: You are currently fashion director for ESPN the magazine. What is the most interesting fashion editorial you have published thus far?

KS: Every year we do a shoot called Kings For a Day. It features up and coming NFL Draft players. Young guys who enjoy the work I do. The other amazing shoot was with the Washington Capital Police posing as Secret Service agents protecting the President. It involved blue screen and great gray suits.

Photo By Albert Watson

Photo By Jody Ake

TW: What is your favorite mens fragrance?
KS: Tough one I have a very bad nose, due to years of allergies. I have worn Calvin Klein Obsession. I think I drained the bottle and never got a refill.
I may start to wear ODIN 04 as it is clean, light and natural.

Self Portrait With Beard

For Immediate Release

Posted By Jessica Moats

Introducing KONG Magazine

KONG Magazine is pleased to announce the launch of its inaugural issue on Friday, July 2, 2010. This bi-monthly magazine will be available both online and with a limited edition print version containing all the original artwork from the site. KONG Magazine is a sex and comedy publication that seeks to bring stimulating entertainment and art to women around the world.

Creative Director and Founder, Jessica Moats, uses her impressive background at publications such as New York-based Playgirl and BlackBook Magazines, to create a magazine that will fill the void in the current women’s interest market. KONG Magazine creates an interface were sexual interests coincide with cultural ones by offering the newest trends in music, art, foreplay, design, humor, comedy, politics, technical innovations (including vibrators and other sex gadgetry) and photography—the X-rated kind.

The first issue seamlessly blends the mission of KONG Magazine by entertaining, informing, and promoting collaborations between emerging artists and writers. Cover model, Greg Sestero of famed cult classic, The Room best exemplifies the magazines’ ability to effortlessly mix sex and comedy.

Please email press@kongmagazine.com for a press kit, interview requests, and additional information on the magazine or any of its subjects.

Letter From Editor In Chief

……….TW has been invited by German Cosmopolitan to produce a 10 page editorial for the 30th anniversary issue in October, 2010. TW is casting a fashion or glamour model in the Philadelphia or New York area for the “Art & Sex” special edition. Minimal nudity is required. Interested models should contact the studio at tony@tonyward.com. TW is also in search of a hair and makeup artist for the production as well.

It was the fall of 1999; I was working on an assignment in Munich, Germany for Penthouse Magazine and was scheduled to produce a shoot for Dutch art director, Onno Klein who was working for Penthouse, Holland at the time. Onno and I met in Munich to produce the shoot, and he brought along a beautiful Dutch model from Amsterdam for me to photograph at my hotel.
During the sitting, Onno kept telling me how much he thought I would love the place of his birth and that I would absolutely fall in love with the Red Light District, and the general openness of the culture in The Netherlands, as the attitudes and atmosphere in Holland at the time catered to creative types like myself. He was very convincing, and shortly after returning to the states, I received an email from him to schedule a production in Amsterdam the next time I returned to Europe.
Onno sent me pictures of a variety of Dutch models to select from, and promised to make them available for shoots upon my arrival to perhaps the most creative, liberal, international city in the world.

On my very first trip to Amsterdam, I decided to photograph a friend of the art director and well-known model by the name of Justine Bakker. Knowing that I was new to the city, Justine volunteered to show me around the beautiful quaint city and introduced me to Frans Verlinden, the owner of the famous Winston Hotel and well-known patron of the arts in Holland. Justine realized that if I met Frans, I would have direct access to many artists who worked in and around the city, including Paul Blanca, Micha Klein, Erwin Olaf, Aldert Mantje and others. Frans and I became best friends and he introduced me to his closest friends, two of them happened to be the producer’s of the grand fetish party called WASTELAND.

Justine Bakker

Frans arranged a meeting for me to meet with Wasteland organizers, Rene Meuessen and Jeroen Oosterhout. They were apparently already familiar with my work and commissioned me to produce a picture for a poster that would symbolize and promote the next Wasteland event. They also invited me to document the event as it occurred twice yearly which resulted in the publication of this monograph a decade later. I was happily introduced to the greatest party on earth.

Rene Meuessen

Jeroen Oosterhout

The book is in memoriam to our dear friend and brother, Frans Verlinden who passed away suddenly and way to soon, in the spring of 2006. It would not have been created if it wasn’t for the assistance and guidance of Frans.Verlinden. We love you Frans, always.

In Memorium

…..Blend is to mix smoothly and inseparably together or to mix in order to obtain a particular kind or quality. A perfect title for the avant guarde publication born in 2005 from a collective of Dutch visionaries from Amsterdam. The studio was delighted to be participate in producing some of the first fashion spreads for the new publication. Today Blend has grown and evolved in to the mainstream and has morphed in to a popular culture icon in Holland and beyond.

Blend Fashion

The intention was to design a lifestyle publication for people that enjoy contemporary music, art, film, fashion and photography. With an ear to the ground for what is happening on the street, Blend editors are quick to point out trends that are happening in the alleyways and on main street with an intense passion and regard for all of the the topics that attract their growing 21st century readership.
Besides the regular issues of Blend which appear on newsstands eight times a year, they also collaborate with external parties such as the Stedeliijk Museum of Holland to create unique publications that are referred to as Special Blends. These additional publications have featured the work of Andy Warhol for example……

www.Blend.nl

It is hard to believe that a decade has passed since I published my first two books on erotic photography with the charming little bookstore, La Musardine located at 122 rue du chemin-Vert, Paris. Friends in the states informed me about the renowned French publisher, and its hardcore counterpart Alixe Editions. At the time, the late 90’s, I had found an outlet for publishing my most challenging erotic work under the creative direction of Penthouse founder and publisher, Bob Guccione. Many of the pictures that were originally photographed for Penthouse, were later published in my first two volumes Ogasm and OrgasmXL, under the editorial supervision of La Musardine owner Claude Bard and his insightful assistant and Anne Hautecoeur.

My first visit to meet Claude and Anne was a short walk from my apartment in Menilmontant, through the beautiful Pere Lachaise cemetery, were many notibles were laid to rest. A short distance to the unique erotic bookstore, La Musardine is mixed in with a variety of apartments, business’s and delicious French pastry shops, that are located along the busy Parisian street, If you don’t pay careful attention as you got close to the address, you could easily walk past it, as I have on many occasions. Once you enter the shop, hundreds of books lining the walls of the quaint environment overwhelm you. Erotic titles that you would never imagine would ever be published could be found in La Musardine’s extensive library. It was an education in itself, just looking around at all the literary works and photography books published on the subjects of sex and erotica. I knew at once that I found the right publisher for my vision and erotic imagination……..

Tony Ward Interview

S.M. Where does your work start?

T.W. With a good cup of coffee at 7:00 AM with friends at a cafe near the studio. First, I stay current with the news by reading the paper front to back. We cajole about current events and after a while I head back to the studio to ponder who I will photograph or write about next for the daily blog which was launched in August of this year.

S.M. What most inspires you?

T.W. Well, over a 30 year career I’ve been fortunate enough to have been inspired by many things and or event’s in my life. Early in my career, I was inspired by the great documentary photographers that produced pictures for the big glossies. Life and Look are a couple that come to mind that included the photograph’s of legends, W. Eugene Smith and Gordon Parks. When I studied photography in college, especially during my two year enrollment in the Master of Fine Arts program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I became more interested in commercial, particularly fashion photography and it’s impact on our visual culture. At that time, the late 70’s, I was inspired by the work of Avedon, Newton, Hiro and Bourdon. In the early 80’s, I found inspiration in corporate culture by being employed by one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Smithkline Corporation. After a four year stint at Smithkline, I opened a full service photography studio that produced imagery for many fortune 500 companies. The 90’s inspired me to explore the world of erotica, to travel and photograph women, preferably in the nude at various locations in Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, Paris, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and of course Philadelphia, my home. This decade is still being defined.

Interview

S.M. What do you like most about your work?

T.W. The freedom to express myself and most recently to put my thought’s in to words via the blogosphere.

S.M. What are the worst bits of your career so far?

T.W. The worst has been, at times when I was raising my family, I produced many pictures purely out of the motivation to make money, a means to an end. At that point in my career, although I was making a good living, the freedom that I had always sought in my work, particularly the subject matter was lost. I like many folk’s was ruled by the almighty dollar and was seduced by America’s capitalist culture. The best is when I work with a new subject, like a piece of raw clay….alway’s fascinated to see how I can mold it and to see what evolves from the encounter.

TW Interview

S.M. What are your plans for the future?

T.W. My immediate plans are a full time commitment to the daily blog. There are two new book projects ready to go to press and the development of a new fragrance.

S.M. How do you incorporate the variety of influences in your work?

T.W. The best thing I have found recently is the blog. It allows me to publish a variety of my interests and influences under one communications platform.

S.M. Where are you from, born, living?

T.W. When I am asked this question, which is fairly often, I refer to our current president Barack Obama. I also come from mixed parentage. My father’s root’s were African, although he was born in the south, Savannah, Georgia. He and his mother and younger brother, like many other people of color during that period of American history, migrated north for better opportunity. For a time, they lived in Harlem, then moved to Philadelphia where he met my mother Jean, a white woman of Italian descent. She was born and raised in South Philadelphia. They had three children. I was the last and have been living in Philly ever since. The city of brotherly love.

S.M. What’s your favorite thing right now?

T.W. Publishing the new books, the blog and as always pursuing the next subject!

TONY WARD INTERVIEW

Vibe Founder Quincy Jones

…..In 1993 music mogul Quincy Jones launched the magazine VIBE with great fanfare in New York City. Q realized the importance of Hip- Hop music in the American cultural landscape and created a magazine that soon after it’s initial launch, became it’s predominant voice. Quincy attracted an emoromously creative publication team that included, Diddo Ramm, George Pitts, Alan Light, Kevin Stewart and Mimi Valdez, all of whom your’s truly had the pleasure of working with during those early days. This core group of creative’s attracted legions of photographers from around the country who clamored to be published on the pages of the new avant garde publication.

In June of this year, VIBE ceased publishing, one of the fatalities of weak advertising sales, a declining readership and a recessionary economy. The closing stirred memories of a fun period of producing images for the esteemed publication.

Keith Murray

My first assignment was to photograph Keith Murray, a rapper widely considered to be one of the greatest MC’s of all time. Murray had just released his first album, The Most Beautifullest Thing In This World on Jive Records. I loved the title track and was thrilled that I was headed to New York to photograph the young rap prodigy.

Thandie Newton

Several more assignments came in to the studio during VIBE’s glory days. My favorite was this shoot with Thandie Newton, the English born bombshell that starred in numerous films including Jonathan Demme’s Beloved and the female lead Nyah Hall in the film Mission Impossible Two. There is no greater creative exhilaration than directing a movie star for a still shoot.

Vibe Fashion

Quincy has vowed recently to keep VIBE alive on the internet. The studio will be checking…..

IMAGES FOR VIBE

Guest Blogger Mikel Elam added; “I met Quincy Jones in 1989 in California. Quincy and Miles were good friends. Miles asked me to go to Quincy”s house in Bel Air to deliver a painting by Miles to him. Q purchased the painting directly from Miles for his home. I recall the painting was very large and we had some difficulty getting it into one of Mile’s cars, an SUV. Part of the painting stuck out of the back of the vehicle.

Quincy was very nice. I met him again in New York at Miles apartment and a third time in Montreux, Switzerland for the annual jazz festival in 1991. This was a special occasion because Miles played with the Gil Evans Jr. Orchestra. As you know, Gill Evans Sr. was a close friend of Miles and collaborator on many albums, among them “Sketches of Spain”, a masterpiece.”