Author: Declan Tan

Jamie xx interview // Flaunt

on By

Softly spoken South Londoner Jamie Smith, aka Jamie xx, sits hands in black jacket, ankles crossed. We shake hands on the sun’s flood through the top window at XL’s HQ—it’s an unusually bright day in West London as Smith’s busy winter turns brightly toward an even busier spring, both for his band, The xx, and his solo work. Smith looks and sounds a little fatigued—he’s just finished his first solo LP; he’s working on a ballet; and he’s about to head over to BBC Radio 1 to lay down a session. There’s still a giddiness beneath the surface, though—and I suspect Smith would much rather be making music than talking about making it. And he doesn’t look the type to nap.

Continue reading “Jamie xx interview // Flaunt”

Kirsten Dunst interview // Flaunt

on By

JH_5-copy1-791x1024

Published 7th July 2014 // Flaunt Magazine

Kirsten Dunst is so alarmingly unassuming that, at first, I don’t even notice her standing beside me in a fuzzy pink sweater and blue jeans. She is, perhaps, the kind of performer who can easily swing from red carpet premiere all the way down to our current location: an emptied rave maze in Stoke Newington, with its box office-style marquee that often reads something to the effect of “Nelly’s Dirty 30.”

Continue reading “Kirsten Dunst interview // Flaunt”

Jung Chang interview // Flaunt

on By

First published in Flaunt magazine (14 November 2013) //

Concubines, Detective Work, and a Taste for Ibérico

I meet author Jung Chang in a classy Chinese restaurant atop a Kensington hotel in London on a Friday evening, 7 p.m. sharp. She’s ten minutes late and I’m having a beer with the barman, Vittor. He’s Italian but can speak smooth Mandarin, picked up from three years on cocktail duty. Vittor demonstrates by showing someone the toilet in what rings like true, learned dialect. I tell him I can’t speak a word of it, and he balks.

“What a lad,” he says, for the first time of many. I’ve got an Asian name and an even Asianer face. And Vittor’s the Asianest man at the bar.

Continue reading “Jung Chang interview // Flaunt”