ICON: Janelle Monáe

Are we a lost generation or our people?

Add us to equations but they´ll never make us equal

She who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel

So why ain´t the stealing of my rights made illegal?

They keep us underground working hard for the greedy

But when it´s time to pay they turn around and call us needy

My crown too heavy like the Queen Nefertiti

Gimme back my pyramid, I´m trying to free Kansas City

Mixing masterminds like your name Bernie Grudman

Well I´mma keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman

You can take my wings but I´m still gonna fly

And even when you edit me the booty don´t lie

Yeah, I´mma keep sangin´, I´mma keep writing songs

I´m tired of Marvin asking me “What´s Going On?”

March to the streets ´cuz I´m willing and I´m able

Categorize me, I defy every label

And while you´re selling dope, we´re gonne keep selling hope

We riding up now, you gotta deal you gotta cope

Will you be electric sheep? Electric ladies, will you sleep?

Or will you preach?

ICON: Anaïs Nin

In my Icons series I now want to draw your attention to the wonderful, freespirited, strong, sexual but sometimes sad Anaïs Nin, or Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell as her full name is.

According to her diaries,Volume One, 1931 - 1934, Nin abandoned formal schooling at the age of 16 and began working as a model. Later she shared a bohemian lifestyle with Henry Miller during her time in Paris. This relationship inspired Philip Kaufman to make the very erotic movie Henry & June.

On 3 March 1923, in Havana, Cuba, she married her first husband Hugh Parker Guiler (1898-1985), a banker and artist, later known as "Ian Hugo" when he became a filmmaker of experimental films in the late 1940s. The couple moved to Paris the following year.

Nin appeared in the Kenneth Anger film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) as Astarte, the Maya Deren film Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), and in Bells of Atlantis (1952).
In 1947, at the age of 44, she met and began living with Rupert Pole (1919-2006), sixteen years her junior. On 17 March 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona, returning with Pole to live in California. Guiler, remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin's second marriage until after her death in 1977.

ICON: Daphne Guiness

My all time idol, the Haute Couture collecting, amazing looking Miss Daphne Guiness.
This is from the September 08 issue of Italian Vogue. Photos by Steven Klein.