Assouline’s coffee table books are a safe bank for beautiful descriptions of art in all its facet’s. A special place is reserved for the books about landscapes and cities. “New York Chic” by Colombian-born author Armand Limander and Scottish photographer Oliver Pilcher is no exception.
Oliver Pilcher made almost all photographs for the book, as he had already done for “Paris Chic” 3 years earlier in 2020. Whilst the front cover depicts the Manhattan Bridge with the brightly lit New York skyline in the background, all beautifully blurred, the back cover (see below) shows entertainer Omar Hernandez, who became a New York household name around 2020. He stands for connecting people though his clubs and restaurants, which is a very important common thread in the book “New York Chic”.
New York is both, architecture and human spirit. All the photographs in the book are testament to it. Whilst other cities overwhelm though beauty or architecture, or have none of it and convince mainly through the people living there, New York combines both, on all levels.
Armand Limnander and Oliver Pilcher live in New York, so the feeling of texts and pictures is very authentic. New York has always been a true melting pot of people and cultures, combined with very rich people living there. These celebrities somehow raise the overall level, because New York is pretty democratic when it comes to where people live and where they walk the streets. Encounters with very rich or very famous people are much more low-key than in other cities.
Armand Limnander moved to New York after his studies in California. As he writes in the introduction (highly recommended to read), he came without money and lived with friends and friends of friends first, but was immediately overtaken by the spirit of the city. Naturally, young people find other perks appealing than those with more life experience, but New York can cater to everybody. The city is the lighthouse of cultural diversity and multipolarity in the USA. San Francisco is more low key in comparison. New York is in many ways the opposite to what the official USA stand for – it is more the city of immigrant Melania Trump than her husband’s, although he was born there. If you have ever been to the mid-western countryside, you might agree that New York could be on another planet when compared to the rest of the USA.
New York, for Armand Limnander, is all about the open spirit to connect and bond in unlikely places with people you would have normally never have met. He emphasizes how many life-long friends he made in that way. New York breaks up the superficial American friendliness. New York, he writes, welcomes everybody without resentment and without asking questions. Those who make it there, one might add, to be precise. It was not easy two centuries ago to immigrate and pass Ellis Island, and it is not easy today.
To live there, one needs to really want it (except when one is rich, then of course it is easy from the beginning. Money simplifies the common difficulties of finding an affordable apartment etc). Like London, the pace is very fast and it is easy to fall by the wayside. The hurry, the stress, the competition, the prices, the badly paid manual jobs – but also the possibility to make the American dream come true. Europe is safe place to be, economically. Even in the UK, the most American country in Europe, there is a security net. But whilst this buffers hardships, it also makes the potential gain less likely.
In a documentary about New York’s famous department store Bergdorf Goodmann’s, journalists interviewed a sales lady and asked for her salary. I tell the story as I remember it, as I was so impressed. It is some years ago that I watched the film and I do not remember its name. The sales lady said 5000$. The journalists asked in which period of time, a month? She said oh no, in a day, if it is a good one.
This shows best what is possible in New York. You take risk, you are responsible for yourself, but you have the chance to strike good and to participate in a lifestyle that is far above of what you can get somewhere else. If you cannot adopt to the pace of the city, you leave again, and New York will not miss you.
There is one little complaint on the architectural part of the book from my side – almost none of the beautiful round water tanks are shown. They are so plentiful on top of houses in New York. They give the city the feeling of a castle with many turrets, something I absolutely adored every time I was there. Naturally, other people have other highlights, especially artists like Oliver Pilcher.
To summarize, the book “New York Chic” does capture the fast-paced New York spirit very well. The connection between the historic architecture, also with phenomenal new sights like the High Line, and the people trying to make their dreams come true, does create a very special mixture.
“If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere” sung Frank Sinatra.
The city welcomes newcomers in general and out of principle. If one can survive longer than a holiday and even make the city his or her home, depends solely on the individual. New York is a city without guarantees or limits.
All rights to the book belong to:
Limnander, Armand (text) and Pilcher, Oliver (photos): New York Chic, 2023, published by Assouline Publishing, 3 Park Avenue, 27th floor, New York, NY 10016 USA, printed in Italy by Grafiche Milani, ISBN: 9781649802309
It is proudly noted in the book that the various quotes in the book where all handwritten by artist Thaddeus O’Neil – something not to everybody’s pleasure as the gold colour and the difficult to read handwriting do not much to enhance the book, in my opinion.