To help celebrate this Holiday Season in a unique way, Yves Durif has collaborated with Artist, Leah Tinari, on a series of exclusive, one-of-a-kind, collectible gifts that are all available at The Yves Durif Salon at The Carlyle! The various pieces - which range from straw fedoras by The Salting NYC to decorative plates for your vanity or ornamental plates to hang on your wall - feature themes that are inspired by Yves and have all been hand-painted by Leah herself. Stop into the Salon or call us at 212-452-0954 if you are interested in acquiring these limited edition pieces!

A client of the Salon and friend of Yves, our featured artist Leah Tinari has a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and her prolific portfolio straddles fine art, commercial art and fashion. She has published three picture books including Limitless: 24 Remarkable American Women of Vision, Grit, and Guts and The Presidents: Portraits of History and her work has been featured in many notable publications such as V Magazine, The New Yorker, WWD, The Fashion of the Times, and Elle, and has collaborated on campaigns with Bergdorf Goodman, Rebag, Uniqlo and more.

We spoke with Leah about her work on this new Gift series with Yves...

Tell us about your collaboration with Yves: What is it and how did it come about? 

Leah Tinari: Yves and I are friends and he has always been such a supportive cheerleader of my work, he is really incredible. We discussed wanting to collaborate together and being that I have been doing a lot of custom apparel as well as home goods we thought we could do something special combining my custom work and the salon by making some limited edition art works for the salon boutique. We started with some hand-painted fedoras as well as plates and vanity trays. Of course the content is clever and hair-inspired and made with love.

We are all familiar with your work having seen your books Limitless: 24 Remarkable American Women of Vision, Grit, and Guts, and The Presidents: Portraits of History as well as (of course) the hand-painted sneakers that you first created for Yves, but how would you describe your art to someone who may have never seen it?  

LT: I like to describe my work as a visual diary of my life: the stuff, the people, the things that interest me in the world. My work is the way I digest my personal current events. I have also begun to rethink how I present my work and how clients can access it. I have been making more street wear/apparel that people can take out and wear on the streets - feeling more accessible to the general public, as opposed to showing in, say, a more gallery setting.

Do you have a philosophy that guides your creative expression? 

LT: I try not to overthink the work; always approach with humor and nothing is too precious. Always using my personal experiences to inspire my work, this way I am always true to who I am and can be confident about what I make and why.

What do you admire about Yves and the work that he does? 

LT: Yves is amazing, he is always curious and excited. So wonderfully supportive of other creative minds. He is an artist, he just works in a different medium than I do.

Yves Durif’s tagline is “Hair Is Beauty Is Art Is Yves Durif”... Is? What would you add to this?

LT: I would say "Yves Durif is ESSENTIAL."