Designing his Destiny: Lenny Kravitz

THE RENOWNED ARTIST HAS AGENCY KRAVITZ DESIGN, IS A PRAISED ACTOR AFTER HIS PERFORMANCE IN THE HUNGER GAMES, AND NOW IS THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER FOR DOM PERIGNON. THE PRESTIGIOUS CHAMPAGNE HOUSE HAS ALLOWED HIM TO PUT TOGETHER A DREAM TEAM FOR AN OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION, THUS ENABLING HIM TO FULLY EXPRESS HIS CREATIVITY.

It seems like music has always been a part of Lenny Kravitz’s life. When he was a baby, he lived in Bedford, New York with his mother who worked as an actress and his father who worked as a TV producer. Lots of big names such as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington came to the house, and young Lenny quickly became a jazz enthusiast. He first showed interest for drums, then guitar, then bass, proving to be exceptionally talented with all instruments.

Even though he had not quite found his style at the time, his first album Let Love Rule still gained attention when it got released in 1989, especially in Europe. However, it was with Are You Gonna Go My Way that Lenny truly achieved international success. Classics such as Fly Away and American Woman followed shortly thereafter. Raise Vibration is his 11 th album, and, having sold over 40 million albums, he still has the same passion for music today.

Kravitz tells us, “What keeps me going is the love of music, the love of humanity, and love itself. I still love making music. I still love performing as much as I did when I was in high school coming up, so I am not jaded, I am not tired of it. I am still very artistically hungry, and the joy is there. If the joy was not there, I think I would have a very hard time doing it. I would be faking it, and you would feel that. You would say, ‘He is just going through the motions’, and a lot of people who do things for a long time, at some point, get to that point where they are walking through the motions, and, for me, even though I do act from time to time, I am not that good an actor to be able to do that. The passion that you see is there because it is there; it exists, and I am always looking to grow and get better at what I do, so I am always striving, and so that keeps me going. The energy that I get from the audience is also really beautiful.”

This multi-instrumentalist singer has a very versatile career, showing interest for art, furnishing, and architecture. In 2003, he founded the Lenny Kravitz Design Studio, which allows him to express his own vision of design and his taste for fine art. He cleverly blends vintage and modern, with a combination of textures that he outlines with a special attention to lighting. We can admire one of his latest projects in Toronto, where he and his team designed one of the floors of the Bisha Hotel, viewed as the most prestigious hotel in the metropolis. This passion naturally led him to photography, a world he knows inside and out since he has collaborated with the greatest photographers on the planet.

“I was introduced to photography by my father. My father was a journalist – he worked at NBC News, and he covered the Vietnam War and came back with a Leica camera, and I used to play with it when I was a kid. I had no idea how to use it, but I was drawn to the camera itself. I thought it was very interesting, the design of it, the buttons… Then later on in life, my father gave me the camera when I was 21, and, at 24, I got a record deal, and I began to be in front of the camera. But I thought it was far more interesting what was going on behind the camera. So, I started to talk to those photographers, and they would invite me into their dark rooms to see the process."

"People like Mark Seliger, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, and different people would show me how the camera works and techniques. I did not really understand at first, and one day I just got the bug, and I went out and bought my own Leica. I said, ‘I am gonna figure this out.’ because I am more into trying [things] out, like when I learned to play instruments. Get the instrument, put it in my hand, and figure it out. Then, by 2012, I started on tour to shoot."

WHAT KEEPS ME GOING IS THE LOVE OF MUSIC, THE LOVE OF HUMANITY, AND LOVE ITSELF

--Lenny Kravitz

"I decided that on my days off I would start to shoot. That ended up being my first book and exhibition called Flash, about me shooting all the people that are shooting me, which was not what I intended on shooting, but every time I went out to shoot, I got chased down by paparazzi or by fans, so they ruined my pictures, and they ended up being what the exhibition was. It was the idea of Jean-Baptiste Mondino – not mine. He saw the photos, and he said, ‘This has not been done. You need to do this.’”

Lenny Kravitz is a man of taste and an epicurean who travels a lot, so it comes as no surprise that he was seduced by the universe of the most famous champagne in the world, Dom Perignon. He developed a true friendship throughout the years with Richard Geoffroy, the cellar master of the illustrious champagne house. “He started to come to my concerts, and, then after one of them, he told me he had been inspired to create one of his vintages. In any art form, whatever you make: music, paintings, champagne, or writing a book, it is really the same process. It is a discipline! Then we thought that one day it would be interesting to do something together at Dom Perignon, and years went by.”

Eleven years later, Lenny Kravitz become the Global Creative Director of the brand. He and his team developed their first photo exhibition concept, which they wisely entitled Assemblage. He achieved the feat of gathering an impressive group of celebrities in a Los Angeles home that he decorated himself. This included Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon, film icon Harvey Keitel, actress and model Zoë Kravits, fashion prodigy Alexander Wang, renowned choreographer Benjamin Millepied, one of the greatest Japanese soccer players in history, Hidetoshi Nakata, and Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw, all of whom were celebrating in the festive spirit of Dom Perignon.

“I was very much inspired by this book about Studio 54 by Ron Galella who shot all those great pictures of New York nightlife. I wanted it to be natural lighting inside, also in the dark with the flash. We had a dinner party and a dance party. My daughter Chloé was the catalyst;

she got everybody relaxed and talking. Whenever anybody has a party, and no matter how big is the house, everyone is in the kitchen. We started in the kitchen, and then we moved to the dining table, and we had a wonderful dinner party, and then we went downstairs to the club. We built a nightclub in the house. It is a house that Kravitz Design had just finished building in the Hollywood Hills, called Stanley House. It was just a real evening of those eclectic groups of artists just hanging out.”

Surprisingly, one of the last aspects of creation which the charismatic singer hasn’t yet touched, is fashion. His boldness, his unique style that blends the vintage vibe of the ‘60s with the audacity of the ‘70s, and his avantgardism all impose themselves just as much as his music. He never stopped breaking the barriers of styles and genres.

“I have been asked and offered so much. At the time, when that was happening, I could have made a lot of money, and I could have had a big business. It was like everyone was doing it. All the musicians had a clothing line, and I tend to run the other way when everybody is doing something because I like to be myself, so I started Kravitz Design. I went down the design/ architecture lane because it was something I was so interested in, but I had no idea how I could make that happen, and how I would get into it. I just took my own money to start the company and lost a lot just to figure it out. It’s been wonderful, and I have paid my dues. I got accepted into that world by spending time and going to Milan and being with all these people, and then Philippe Stark discovered me. I am very much into the design of clothing and style. One day I would like to do it, but I have to think how, what, and where I would manufacture it – how I would do it in a sustainable way and how it would be perfectly green and right because the world does not need another clothing line. It would be more a statement of how it’s being done and why it is being done and who is making it, and nobody is being armed and people are being paid fairly.”

By the conclusion of this conversation, it’s clear that Lenny Kravitz’s style and charisma are inimitable and authentic. After all, there’s no need to imitate it when you already have the real thing.

Photographer Mathieu Bitton

By Stéphane Le Duc