How many licks does it take to get to the center of German artist Hannes Bend's candy sculptures? None, actually.
Sure, Bend casts his creations from a mix of sugar water and glucose. And, yes, for his first solo show in the U.S., which opens tonight at Half Gallery (owned by Cynthia Rowley's husband, Bill Powers), Bend spent a day at Broome Street's Papabubble's sweets shop cooking up his most recent creations. (Disclaimer: We love the place. Papabubble will personalize anything in fabulous confectionery form.) But this is art, not foodstuff, so the Berlin-based Bend covers all his work in a thick glaze of clear varnish. "I want to preserve my pieces like bronze or steel sculptures," he remarks. The partial inspiration here: Jeff Koons. "His sculptures are candy-colored," Bend says. "I use candy."
Though Bend's sugary "Hermaphrodite" pièce de résistance — a nearly 300-pound behemoth shaped like Rodin's "The Thinker" but made from male and female bits — won't be at the show, his "Praying Hands" and "Crucifix" sculptures will. Both were cast from actual knickknacks bought on eBay.
Guess bubble dress: Sweetheart neckline, check. Super faded wash, check. I should have been
a teen in the '80s. $128 at Guess stores.
J Brand 400 jacket in Edinburgh: The antiqued hardware is a good compliment to the vintage dresses I
will be wearing underneath. $246 at Jbrandjeans.com.
Seven for All Mankind boyfriend shorty: Sure, they're super short, but the eyelet fabric of
the pockets peeking out is a sweet, girly twist. $159 at 7 for All Mankind stores.
True Religion Leah vest: Totally has that "Kate Moss at a music festival" look. I'll take it! $185 at True Religion Brand Jeans.
Like most people in the arts, my default dress is black, so it is no
wonder that my favorite sneaks are all-black Prada and Louis Vuitton
pairs. Now there's an even classier alternative: Nike has teamed up
with fabric design company Maharam to create a pure abstraction of the
sneaker: The Horsehair Collection. These three different black-on-black
versions of the basic Air Force Nike 1s (which came out twenty years
ago), are covered with hairs clipped from horses' tails (which then grow
back). They're like a minimalist dream of footwear. Their density and
sensuality take them out of the realm of the smelly sneaker constructed
out of some mysterious synthetic material while maintaining the look of
the leap that made the Air Force legendary. 
CEO Michael Maharam has previously collaborated with designer Hella Jongerius on a
Nike shoe, and he says he hopes to continue to put the firms' looms to
work on Nike's designs, not only for footwear, but also for clothing.
Camel, cashmere, silk, cotton and velvet are all destined to find their
way under -or rather over-foot. The idea is to bring sensuality to the
sneaker, and dress up the sports shoe for running through airports and
swishing through restaurants, rather than basketball courts. Maharam
calls it "restrained luxury." At $250 a pair (at selected Nike stores),
these shoes do fit into boardrooms better than locker rooms. 
I'm not much of a primer person. I don't use a skin serum before my moisturizer, nor am I a believer in foundation primers. I don't even bother to use basecoat before I apply nail polish!
Even though we don't get to the opera nearly as much as we'd like to (damn you, MTV and Jersey Shore!) we do like to keep abreast of the opera and classical music scene through the brilliant anonymous blogger based out of Milan known as Opera Chic. (See our previous interview with her 
When you're going and what you're seeing matters too.
Ed Ruscha shirt
Larry Sultan shirt
Harley Pasternak got his entree to Hollywood training actors like Halle Berry and Jim Caviezel on movie sets in his hometown of Toronto. Several years later the 35-year-old fitness and nutrition expert is taking his "5-Factor" concept—five small meals a day, five 25-minute workouts a week—to the masses. He's on QVC with workout DVDs, equipment and snack bars, and has a rapidly-expanding meal delivery service in LA, Toronto and Vancouver. Though he's still training plenty of celebs, Pasternak has recently written The 5-Factor World Diet (Ballantine) with Laura Moser, a book that aims to explain why the rest of the world isn't as fat as us. We talked to him from Honolulu, where he was doing a little "private boot camp" with some musicians whom he politely declined to name. 
We have to ask—does Lady Gaga wear face masks when she exercises?
You make a list of the ten healthiest countries in the world in the book. Some of them we've heard about before—Japan, Italy, Greece—but others were surprising. What's the deal with Sweden?
How long have you been working with Rihanna?
