Shirt by Buckler available at Toff, Miami Beach. Vintage pants available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach

Vintage dress, Belt and earrings available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. VINTAGE PUMPS AVAILABLE AT C. MADELEINE’S, NORTH MIAMI BEACH. Glove by Chantelle available at Saks Fifth Avenue, bal harbour.

	Sleeveless knit top by Cardiac available at Misery & Co., Miami beach. Hat by Penguin available at Penguin, Miami Beach. Jeans by Diesel available at Diesel, Miami Beach. Necklace by Rochenne Sol available at Misery & Co., Miami beach.

ALBERT MARTINEZ

Yeah, it’s kinda wearing my heart on my sleeve,” Albert Martinez says of having his entire belief system inked onto his body. The numbers 1951 and 1982—the dates of his mother’s birth and death—are tattooed on either side of his throat. One inner forearm shows an alien Madonna and child, while the “evil father” is on the outside of the same arm, “always turned away from the family, towards the world.”

All of his tattoos have symbolic and philosophical meanings. The pirate ship represents “being rebellious and free,” while the raven sitting on a skull represents Misery & Company—the notion that bad vibes attract the same, and also the name of his stone-cold hipster clothing boutique on South Beach. “In fact, I went around telling everyone that I was going to open the store, then got the tattoo so I couldn’t back out.”

Misery & Co., Martinez says, is an anti-mass-production store, where everything is hand-customized and dedicated to blurring the line between art and fashion. “It’s very uncorporate. Misery & Co. is my way of mocking that corporate mindset.

“Some people think I’m radical, but they’re missing the point,” adds the Hialeah-born 24-year-old with the Jake Gyllenhaal-esque features, heavily inked upper limbs and gold nose stud. “Today’s society, the way people live, that’s twisted. You get away from that and you’re supposedly radical. Well, I’d say my beliefs are pretty ancient, actually. I read the teachings of the Buddha and take my lead from that.”

So is there any wisdom he’d care to pass on? “Sure, but it’s pretty obvious stuff,” Martinez says. “When things get stressful, you need to stop and breathe. Smile and be nice and spread some love. And remember, happiness is not a destination, it’s a journey.”

	Vintage dress by Missoni available at C. Madeleine's, north Miami Beach. Vintage black necklaces available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. Hairpin by Pelusium Co. available at Pelusium Co., Miami.

CRISTINA LEI RODRIGUEZ

People often lick my art or put it in their mouth,” Cristina Lei Rodriguez says. “Perhaps because it’s so shiny they think it’s also clean, but it probably isn’t.”

Maybe it’s because the art looks so organic. Rodriguez uses plastic, paint, epoxy resin, Plexiglas, rhinestones, jewelry and plastic plants to create strange, glistening, bejeweled, color-saturated vegetation that looks as though it might come from another planet. “I try to take things that are artificial and make them look like they’re somewhere in the life process,” she says. “Either blooming or wilting, living or dying.” A fast-rising star in the contemporary-art world with a world-class agent in the form of Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Rodriguez was recently invited to participate in Deitch Projects’ “The Garden Party,” a group show along with Yoko Ono, and earlier this year sold a key work to the influential Rubell Family Collection.

The 32-year-old Miami-born artist, the offspring of a Japanese mother and Cuban father, initially worked in the creative department of MTV Latin America before studying art and political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. She then lived in Hawaii and California before returning to her hometown three years ago.

“Miami has changed a lot since I left high school,” she says. “I came back because I could feel the pull of an artistic community. It’s small but important and growing all the time. And the city as a whole is trying to define itself. It’s a city where people are fascinated by new things. Everywhere you look there’s that fascination with nice, shiny, consumer objects.” She smiles slyly. “Miami is a very feminine city in that way.”

ALEJANDRO CALVANI

Alejandro Calvani has packed a lot into his young life since arriving from Puerto Rico five years ago at age 17. As part of the disco-punk crowd that first colonized The District restaurant’s Saturday-night Poplife party, Calvani was an underage club kid par excellence. “It was a really good crowd, a very flashy night, very dressy,” Calvani remembers. “We’d never repeat an outfit. I’d do pixie bangs, gold-lamé hot pants with cowboy boots, crazy stuff.”

However, his most vivid memory is of the night somebody sprayed Mace on the dance floor. “There were people screaming and coughing and running everywhere, it was crazy. But that’s what happens when you have people taking too many drugs.”

Back then, getting ready and going out were his only real interests, but now he has grown tired of the fickle nightlife arena and is looking for something with more…well, substance. “I was totally clueless and taken in by that whole scene. I was always trying to be extravagant, to get noticed, and there was no end of people cheering from the sidelines. But eventually you notice that people just want you to be a spectacle, and they’re not really your friends.”

CALVANI: Hoodie by L.A.M.B. available at Chroma, Miami Beach. Pants by Dolce & Gabbana available at Dolce & Gabbana, bal harbour. Vintage tank top available at Sasparilla, Miami Beach. Shoes by Calvin Klein available at Nordstrom, coral gables. Necklace by Christian Dior available at Christian Dior, Bal Harbour. Necklace by Alex & Chloe available at alexandchloe.com. Watch by Skagen available at Nordstrom, coral gables. COPPOLA: Dress by Gum Couture available By Calling 305-910-1117. Vintage belt available at C. Madeleine’s, north Miami Beach. Bra by Calvin Klein available at Calvin Klein Underwear, south miami. Pants by DogPile available at dp-77.com. Vintage necklace and ring both available at C. Madeleine's, north Miami Beach. Shoes by Via Spiga available at Via Spiga, Miami Beach. Ring by Bulgari available at Bulgari, Bal Harbour.

These days, Calvani earns his crust doing makeup for Christian Dior at Dadeland Mall while studying fashion design at downtown Miami’s International University of Art & Design. As for the glad rags, they’ve gone to the back of the closet. “Now I just wear black, head to toe. There was a photo of me last year in Ocean Drive with an alcoholic drink, and I’m legally underage at the time. And then they called me a Boy George look-alike. Honey, please. I am not a Boy George anything. I’m an original.”
And the future? “Everyone seems to want to move to New York now. That’s the trend. But I don’t follow trends, I start them, and I’m staying here.”

LARA COPPOLA

I used to be a stylist, but I’m a fashion icon now,” 22-year-old Lara Coppola says with a cheeky grin. Maybe, but her day job involves nightclub marketing and PR.

While her iconographic fashion status is debatable, Coppola’s international jet-set credentials are absolutely impeccable. The daughter of an Italian father and French-Egyptian mother who met in Milan, she was born in Caracas. This explains why she speaks four languages—French, Italian, Spanish and English—and holds three passports. “And I’m Jewish, too. What’s with that?”

After studying PR and film at Florida International University, she took a course in communications at The American University of Paris. “But fashion just took over.” Her fanatical love of fashion came from her ultrastylish mother. “Of course, I had to rebel first. So I was the rich girl going to punk shows. I looked so nasty that people would stop and give me their spare change.”

Initally she thought that styling other people was her future, but the jobs she liked were few and far between. “I did Daddy Yankee’s album cover and realized it’s not what I want to do. So then I started hosting parties and DJing here and in New York.”

There’s still more than a little punk rock about her, even now: Her fingernails and toenails are always covered in black varnish and have been for five years. “Sometimes I take it off for a day or two, but when I look at my hands without black varnish they don’t seem to belong to me anymore.” I tell her I like the silver bow in her hair. “Yeah, it’s cute, huh? I stole it from a styling job.”

So how has she found life in the Magic City? “Miami is cheesy. If you’re going to live here you have to embrace it. That’s my mantra: Embrace the cheese.”

Black pinstripe suit by Sisley available at Sisley, Miami Beach. Black lace bra by Victoria's Secret available at Victoria's Secret, Miami Beach.

NATASHA TSAKOS

Performance artist, actor, clown, stilt-walker and dancer Natasha Tsakos epitomizes Miami’s astonishing energy and cultural richness, so it seems only appropriate that her one-woman show, Up Wake, should be one of the inaugural acts at the new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts.

The 27-year-old South Beach resident was born in Geneva, Switzerland, went to Guatemala at age 15 and worked in a jade factory for a couple of years. So how did she come to live in Miami? “My mother dropped me off here one day, and she forgot to pick me up again.”

After a stint at The Boston Conservatory, Tsakos studied theater, music and dance at Miami’s New World School of the Arts. But she was always interested in performing, even as a small child. “Every Christmas I’d put on small plays at my grandparents’ house,” Tsakos says. ”I’d memorize whole stretches of a play and perform it with costume and makeup and sets and props that I’d make myself. From the age of 12 I knew this was my life. Performing is in my blood.”

Up Wake tells the story of a day in the life of Zero, a cartoon character who is trying to get to work. The story line is “a nonlinear narrative,” according to Tsakos. “It has no words, so it’s universal. There is a surreal element, but it has a strong backbone that allows people to interpret it their own way.”

Meanwhile, she seems to have overcome the initial distress of maternal abandonment and taken to her new home. “It took me a very long time, but I’ve learned to love Miami,” she says. “It’s developing so rapidly that it’s exhausting to look at it. I’ve never known a city to change so fast, right in front of your eyes. Perhaps that’s why it has a very superficial lifestyle, and many people seem to lack basic human values. But I’ve finally found a handful of beautiful people here whom I can share my life with.”

Top by Marc Jacobs available at Marc Jacobs, Bal Harbour. Tank top by American Apparel available at American Apparel, Miami Beach. Drainpipe jeans by H&M available at H&M, New York. Vintage belt available at Sasparilla, Miami Beach.

LAUREN AIELLO

If they gave out prizes for being stylish, Lauren Aiello would have a full Gucci trophy case. But right now she can’t decide whether she should work in music, fashion or publicity. So she’s doing a bit of everything until she makes up her mind. That means freelance work as a stylist, hairdresser and makeup artist, occasional PR work, and a regular DJ slot at Revolver every Friday night at Studio A.

“I love Revolver because it’s an open format, meaning I can play anything from the Smiths to Gnarls Barkley,” Aiello says. “I also like to throw in a lot of rock ’n’ roll, ’80s indie music and old-school hip-hop like A Tribe Called Quest or Pharcyde. And it’s all about the music and the crowd; it’s not about image, money and drugs, like so many Miami clubs. The crowd is really enthusiastic, and that means an awesome vibe. There are lots of indie people, some South Beach people, some models. Everyone has a great time and it’s always a great party.”

However, she’s still pretty obsessed with fashion and loves nothing more than getting “absolutely dressed up” in a hot outfit. “Lately I’ve been working a tough tank top, cute little shorts and gold Prada heels, my accessory of the moment. I also love skinny jeans—they’re my passion—worn with suspenders and a rock T-shirt.”

She has always been into fashion, she says, but since she started working for Marc Jacobs in Bal Harbour, she’s off the chain. “I’m completely enveloped by fashion, totally saturated in it. I look through Vogue and know all the pieces, all the designers.”

When it comes to style, says this relocated New York native, Miami is learning fast but still has a long way to go. “It’ll take a couple of years, but it will develop a more individual style. You can see it happening already.”

	Vintage black jacket available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. Black button-down shirt by Theory available at Neiman Marcus, Bal Harbour. Black jeans by Levi's available at Levi's, Miami Beach. Vintage gray-and-black diagonal tie available at C. Madeleine's, North Miami Beach. Black sneakers by Converse available at Nordstrom, Coral Gables.

NICK SCAPA

Twenty-three-year-old Nick Scapa runs Miami-based Music House with partner Read Fasse. Their fast-expanding résumé already includes tracks for various television commercials—including five Visa spots—and soundtrack work for MTV. And last fall they did the backing tracks for VH1’s reality talent show But Can They Sing? “The answer,” says Scapa, “was no, they couldn’t.”

As well as making music for films and TV, Music House has its own label and is currently putting together a roster of future recording artists. Scapa is excited about signing Devon Smith, “an unbelievable talent, only 22 years old, who makes music using little old Apple computers.”

As if that were not enough, Music House is also looking to sell songs and backing tracks to established hip-hop producers. “Our beats are really unusual,” Scapa says. “We use a lot of live violins and cellos and try to program the drums differently, to get a different kind of vibe. We’re always looking to give our music another layer of color.”

Scapa has no formal musical training. Instead, he studied advertising at the University of Miami. “I never really thought I would use it, but it was useful when it came to licensing my music for TV commercials.”

With business booming, Scapa is now looking for a downtown warehouse in which to build the Music House studio. “I can’t wait. I love being in the studio. It’s such a good way to get lost. It’s blissful. Time means nothing, just waiting for everything to snap together.”

Originally from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, Scapa came to Miami to study at UM and never went back. “People back home diss Miami, but I love it. First day I got here I saw the beach, saw the girls, saw the clubs, and said to myself, Hey, this looks like a good place to go to school.”



JAYDEE FREIXAS

Screenwriter and budding movie producer Jaydee Freixas is what you might call a force of nature. If cojónes are any measure of potential, this kid has a golden future ahead of him.

Take his short movie, Jamaica Motel, for example. It started out as a school project, part of his film studies at UM. “They give you film and a camera and you turn in a student film.” Jaydee and his partner in Enlight Films, director Aaron J. Salgado, wrote a script and raised half their $10,000 budget by doing promo videos for real-estate companies so they could hire a professional crew.

The result is a stylish, gripping minimovie that brings together the occupants of three separate rooms at the motel. Its debut in May earned Jamaica Motel glowing reviews in the local press. It also got Freixas a threatened lawsuit from the owners of the actual Jamaica Motel on a seedy stretch of Calle Ocho. He wasn’t worried. “I said to myself, if this movie gets big enough that they threaten to sue then I’ve done my job. And sure enough, when we got ready for the screening they threatened to sue. But we just told them it was a school project and they realized it really wasn’t worth their while.”

FREIXAS: White t-shirt by Down and Dirty Ethics available at MIA Skateshop, Miami Beach. Jeans by Abercrombie & Fitch available at Abercrombie & Fitch, Aventura. Tiffany Dunks by Nike available at MIA Skate Shop, Miami Beach. Jacket by Futura Laboratories available at Futuralaboratories.com FRANCO: Dress and White heels both by Luca Luca available at Luca Luca, Bal Harbour. Vintage bangles available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach.

Meanwhile, Freixas—who will graduate in December—and his partner are in preproduction for their next project, Vandal, a Miami-based movie about a graffiti artist. “We have a library of ideas, enough for the next 10 years.”



ANDREA FRANCO

Documentary filmmaker Andrea Franco says her Peruvian homeland is plagued by chauvinism and misogyny. And that’s just the women. “South American cultural values are largely defined by the prejudices of Catholicism,” Franco says. “Even the women are chauvinistic, antigay and antiwomen. So they raise their boys to be macho and their girls to be deferential. It has changed a bit, but it’s still the predominant social role-play model, and that’s very problematic. That’s why I live in Miami and not there. I couldn’t live like that anymore. I love Peru, but it’s almost intolerable for an independent-minded woman to live and work there.”

Which led her and a fellow Peruvian UM film-studies student to make Quiero Volver, a documentary about a young woman’s return to Lima a decade after leaving the country. It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

Next up is Paolo, the story of a young gay Peruvian who returns to Lima after eight years away. Clearly, homesickness is something of a theme for her. “Well, it’s true. I’m here in Miami, but every film I want to make is about Peru. You have to leave to appreciate it. It’s kind of sad, but that’s the way it is.

“People sometimes ask me, ‘Why don’t you go to L.A. or New York?’ But I’m here and I’m staying.”

Vintage black jacket available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. Black button-down shirt by Theory available at Neiman Marcus, Bal Harbour. Black jeans by Levi's available at Levi's, Miami Beach. Vintage gray-and-black diagonal tie available at C. Madeleine's, North Miami Beach. Black sneakers by Converse available at Nordstrom, Coral Gables.

FANCY

At 32 years old, Fancy is the daddy of our Cool Kids. Yeah, that’s his name, Fancy. Or at least, that’s the only name he’s prepared to give. A colleague spoils the air of mystery, though. “His real name is Keith,” she shouts on her way out the door.

Fancy relocated from New York, where he was working as a DJ and music producer. As manager of Studio A he has been here four months and is still adjusting to the cultural shift. “There’s a different understanding of professionalism down here, to say the least. People move so slowly, it’s a little bizarre. It takes me an hour to get a pack of cigarettes. Some of the most active people I see are the homeless. I’m going to start hiring people from the shelter. They’ll work for booze.”

So what exactly is he trying to bring to Studio A that Miami didn’t have already? “Well, for a start, none of us at Studio A are former bankers who’ve decided to open a branded industry, like some of the nightlife promoters you’re seeing around Miami now. With us, it’s,‘For the kids, by the kids.’ We’re the sort of people who actually goto nightclubs on our own initiative. Problem is, we drink most of the profits, too.

“We’re trying to create a cultural institution, to grow a local culture, not just in Miami but throughout the whole South Florida peninsula. A lot of great kids are down here, but they’re really not being given any focus and encouragement to be different. We hope to change that.

“What do I like about Miami? Well, I find a new thing to love and hate about Miami every day.” So what do you love today?

“The fact that there are so many drunk and easy 18-year-old girls. And what do I hate? The same thing.

	Vintage shirt available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. Vintage belt available at Sasparilla, Miami Beach. Jeans by Tsubi available at Base, Miami beach. Vintage hat available at Fly Boutique, Miami Beach. Pin by Vivienne Westwood available at Vivienne Westwood, New York.

SEBASTIAN PUGA

As the public face of one of South Beach’s hippest nightspots, 23-year-old Sebastian Puga takes his partying very seriously indeed. “I just got back from a networking trip in New York City,” says the promotions manager of Rokbar, “making sure I keep up with trends and seeing my friends. But mostly it was business.” Such dedication and professionalism in one so young!

Born and raised in Miami, Puga was working toward a bachelor’s degree in marketing at FIU. But even before graduating his stylish looks were earning him pocket money and lollipops at various Miami clubs. “I started at an early age as a club promoter, because older promoters would give me drinks and free entry just to turn up with my friends,” he says. “We dressed up and looked great—we became the club décor. My whole career started because I was going out so much. At first I was just making a few hundred dollars a month, but then I realized that this is actually a real business.”

These days he’s the one handing out the free drink tickets, four nights a week. “Rokbar attracts lots of local artists, musicians, graphic designers, fashion people,” Puga says. “It’s not a tourist joint, and locals know it’s a late-night spot, so a lot of them arrive around 2:30 or 3 a.m.

“There aren’t many cool places in Miami that avoid the clichéd South Beach idea of house music for sunburnt people in polos and denim miniskirts. Only a very small percentage of nightlife is actually doing something different and original. Most clubs look at each other and copy. At Rokbar we have the luxury of being a smaller venue, so we can afford to do something really cool.”

Ring by Urban Outfitters available at Urban Outfitters, Miami Beach. Earrings by Toff available at Toff, Miami Beach. Vintage bangles available at Fly boutique, Miami Beach.

SUSAN LEE-CHUN

America wants you to conform yet still retain this exoticism, but it’s never on your own terms,” says artist Susan Lee-Chun, whose work explores identity and cultural visibility through the use of costume, uniform, performance and installation. Lee-Chun and her husband are both from South Korea, and both moved to the U.S. at age four. She majored in art education before completing her master’s at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“It used to make me depressed when I was younger, especially at high school. It seemed very serious, this race thing. So now my work is about blurring that boundary between what we know about race and the confusion surrounding it. It’s hard to put into words, but I prefer to try. Race is such a live issue here, it’s crazy.”

Using her own sewing machine, Lee-Chun designs and makes garments, then creates an environment using the same fabric. She then performs in that environment, creating a sort of camouflage effect. “Or I’ll wear a blonde wig, which is a reference to the idealized American girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. I tried to dye my own hair blonde a couple of times, but it never works. It just goes a horrible orange color.”

For her Camouflage series, she created a cushioned environment with black lace over olive-green sandbags and fatigues and helmet to match. This was documented in a series of six photographs, but with her face always shielded from the camera. And for a recent show at MoCA, she built a small house and sat inside making and stuffing little plaid balls, then rolling them out.

“It’s fascinating how people interact with the work. I enjoy the humor in it, but it has social ramifications. I still so want to be part of this dominant image, this white Anglo thing. It’s a Catch-22 situation.”

Mind you, not everybody feels so at ease with the questions her art provokes: “My husband says, ‘Who are you? You’re nuts!’ ”

Photographer available at Gian Photography, New York.
Hair by Luis Beltran.
Makeup by Joshua Ristaino using M•A•C Cosmetics/Blink Management.
Shot on location at Parc Lofts, Miami.