Put It in Ink: Ari Marcopoulos for YSL

COURTESY YSL

You may not have immediately made the association between YSL—he of the expensive auction, the Studio54 style and taste for ultra luxe fabrics—with tattoos and skateboarding, and we’ll forgive you that. Each season of men’s, designer Stefano Pilati has commissioned a new film, and this year he’s brought in photographer and filmmaker Ari Marcopoulos. The latter is best known for his work with skateboarders, and most recently was featured in the Whitney Biennial. No Way Back, a short documentary about tattoo artist Mark Mahoney, was created in collaboration with Pilati to showcase the inspiration for his upcoming Homme S/S 2011 collection in Paris. There are florid pans of Mahoney’s colorful studio, a look at his early life, and inquiry into why he does what he does. Mahoney recalls a teacher who told him that his myopia would prevent him from ever amounting to anything as a painter: “That’s true, but it’s a pretty fucked up thing to tell a kid,” he says,. Luckily, he found his true calling in ink. The worldwide premiere of the quiet, even spiritual film will debut on Friday, June 25, 2010 in Paris at the presentation of the collection.