Slideshow
Styling by Todd Ramos
Models Raliat Akinlolu, Wade Groux and Haylee Nesmith
for Page Parkes Agency
Grooming by Bianca Linette for Page Parkes Agency
Styling Assistance by Monica Lester
Drawing inspiration from across continents, cultures and generations, and from the chic style of Palm Beach and the Amalfi Coast, Concetto Limone is the quintessential footwear choice for the discerning individual's resort attire. Concetto Limone is a Miami-based luxury house that specializes in the micro-production of artisan footwear and designer goods. With world-class craftsmanship, advanced production methods, and an array of rich materials, Limone creates proffers impeccable design that elegantly infuses historical motifs with a modern sensibility.
In February of 2020, Concetto Limone, led by Houstonian Marcus Spagnoletti and Matthew Chevallard, launched its first line of unisex products, the Limone Loafer, in the Miami Design District.
The hand-woven natural raffia loafer loafers and mules are meticulously sewn together by hand by master craftsmen and craftswomen with a distinct design language. Raffia is made from the segments of the leaves on the Palmyra palm, a tree native to Madagascar that offers breathable textile. Each pair is adorned with calf leather lining, a cushioned insole, and natural rubber outsole — inspected and touched by over 12 sets of hands through a production process that ensures that attention to detail and technical innovation is paramount for these statement pieces.
Valobra Master Jewelers has been creating jewelry for 115 years, beginning in 1905 in Torino, Italy as the official master jeweler to the Italian Royal family. Being the fourth-generation master jeweler, Franco Valobra continues this legacy by creating the most exquisite one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry made in the Houston showroom and offering luxury timepieces to clients and the community. Valobra Master Jewelers, situated in the heart of River Oaks in Houston, also has locations in New Orleans and Lugano, Switzerland.
Related Articles Around the Web
"Captain America" Artist: Eliseo Hilario The Kingsmen Car Club, Houston, TX
That's the name of her show opening Saturday, May 8 at Mid Main Gallery (3550 Main St.), showcasing her rapid-fire shots from the Houston Art Car Parade, for which she has served as a chief photographer since 2016.
"Shattered Vanity" Artist: : Nicole Strine, Trinidad, CO
"Mad Max Mobile" Artist: Scott & Max Ballard, Houston, TX
"It's Only Rock and Roll But I Like It!" Heights High School with artist Rebecca Bass, Houston, TX
"The Peep Jeep" Artist: John Gregory, Houston, TX
The exhibit is a precursor to this year's Houston Art Car Experience, which takes place May 14-16 at The Orange Show World Headquarters (2334 Gulf Terminal Dr.) in lieu of the traditional parade. It will feature 80 incredible art cars on display during the day and lit up at night, plus interactive walking tours, children's craft activities, and performances by The Suffers, Los Skarnales, Tomar & The Figs and Bayou City Funk. Full Metal Jaschke will encapsulate a colorful photographic montage of some of the best art cars from the Houston Art Car Parade days of yore.
Over the years, Jaschke has snapped more than 2,000 photographs for the Orange Show Center For Visionary Art, which puts on the annual parade, so it was no small feat for her to sift through them all to find a selection of photographs that perfectly encapsulate the frenetic annual experience, which she describes as being akin to a synthesis of Burning Man and Mardi Gras, with just a touch of Mad Max.
"It's wild. It's not anything goes, but everything is accepted," says Jaschke of the parade and associated events, which usually have her shooting for around 10 hours over the course of the weekend. "You're in a crowd of people who just love art and who love being free."
The works Jaschke selected for the show — a combination of closeups, full-body shots of the cars and shots of the parade's boisterous crowds — capture the full essence of the high-energy annual event. Homaging the metallic exuberance of the cars in the parade, the photographs in the exhibition are printed on metal, which Jaschke says really do the artistic intent justice. But there is nothing metallic or staid about the ebullient-hued and frenzied photographs in her show, which seem to move and dance as if they are, in fact, on parade.
Jaschke has carefully framed each shot so that they are perfect photographic representations of the imaginative energy that the event channels each year — an energy that inspires Jaschke greatly.
"I really respect people with wild imaginations, especially when they are my age or older. We all have an imagination growing up, but somehow over the years it kind of gets lost in the daily grind. There's a sort of creative thievery that happens when we age, so it's fun to meet people who still have it, and especially people who still have it in magnified ways," she says. "They're free in what they want to wear and how they choose to present themselves and their crafts, and that really just resonates with me."
The opening reception for Full Metal Jaschke, which will be on display at Mid Main through September, kicks off this Saturday at 6pm and will include a special visual presentation, music by DJ Chaney and a handful of other surprises. While the party will be socially distanced outdoors, masks will be required while inside the gallery.
From Your Site Articles
Per court filings, the parent company of the CultureMap website has sued PaperCity magazine for having "brazenly violated federal law" in allegedly stealing confidential information about CultureMap's advertisers and deals. Gow Media claims to have been "undercut," losing at least $860,000 in revenue, and suffering "harm and injury" of at least $17.2 million.
"There's a clear electronic trail," David Gow, CEO and owner of Gow Media, tells CityBook, noting what he calls three years of "obsessive" spying on his company's records. "I've never filed a lawsuit in my life. I never wanted to file a lawsuit. But I had no choice." He says the magazine's alleged actions undermined his employees' hard work and jeopardized his stakeholders' investments.
"The allegations in the lawsuit are without merit," says Jim Kastleman, president and co-owner of PaperCity, who also notes that lawsuits are "foreign" to him.
The May 2021 cover of PaperCity
The Houston CultureMap homepage
The federal suit filed in the Southern District of Texas on April 30, 2021 names as defendants Urban Publishers and UPI Digital companies, which operate as PaperCity, a longstanding print magazine and, more recently, a prominent player in the state's digital-media sector. PaperCity does business in Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, as does CultureMap, which also has a presence in Austin and San Antonio.
Chad Miller, who is described in the court documents as "a former sales manager at CultureMap who now works for PaperCity," is also a defendant. Gow Media alleges that Miller "illegally and covertly" accessed the database where CultureMap stores client information.
"Using this valuable stolen information — including, among other things, customer lists, pricing information, employee notes, and advertising contracts — Miller and Urban began a campaign to divert advertising customers away from CultureMap and to PaperCity," Gow Media claims in the court documents. "The unauthorized log-in credentials were used thousands of times to access CultureMap's trade secrets, including nearly two dozen log-ins from IP addresses directly tied to PaperCity's offices."
Gow Media alleges that unauthorized credentials were used to access its customer relationship management (CRM) database — in software called Nutshell — 4,274 times between late 2016 and early 2020. "The unauthorized credentials were tied to a personal Gmail account named 'cmapnutshell@gmail.com' which was created on September 9, 2016 by a person who had administrative rights to CultureMap's Nutshell account at that time," according to the publicly filed complaint. "Upon information and belief, this account was created by Miller, just two months before his departure from CultureMap."
Besides the alleged illicit accessing of the CRM system, Gow Media accuses PaperCity of poaching a half-dozen of its employees — and of plagiarism. The court documents note that PaperCity began running an online feature called "Where to Eat Right Now in Houston" shortly after CultureMap launched its recurring item, "Where to Eat in Houston Right Now." The suit calls this "an amateurish and poorly disguised act of mimicry."
"Not only has PaperCity succeeded where it should not," the suit alleges, "CultureMap lost potential new business and potential repeat business because of PaperCity's ability to undercut CultureMap's proposals and unfairly compete based on the use of stolen information."
PaperCity's Kastleman sees the matter differently. "Gow Media has claimed that someone at PaperCity improperly gained access to their contact database resulting in lost revenue," he says, "despite the fact that most of the very customers Gow Media complains of have been longtime PaperCity advertisers.
"Unfortunately," Kastleman adds, "in this highly competitive industry, it appears that this lawsuit is primarily driven by the fact that, over the past several years, CultureMap has seen a large turnover of employees. Many of those employees have now found a home at PaperCity, including several high-profile salespeople and editors, including Chad Miller." Kastleman notes that Miller actually had a long history with PaperCity before his comparably brief stint at CultureMap, having been employed at the magazine for eight years previously.
"While surprised that a suit was filed, PaperCity looks forward to vigorously defending these claims in court and presenting the full picture," Kastleman says.
