Great story, here is the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/fashion/06poss.html?oref=login story follows
As the lunatic cavalcade of fashion makes its seasonal appearance in New York, you have to wonder: are today's clothes made to protect the naked body or the naked mind? After all, what better way to distract ourselves from thoughts of the flesh than through the subtle allure of a brand-new dress?
Some prefer the flesh. The fashion photographer Sante D'Orazio, one suspects, would be happier if he could dispense with clothes altogether. His current show of glossy black and white photographs of Pamela Anderson, at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Chelsea, nearly did just that, leaving Ms. Anderson with little more than a G-string (embroidered with a rhinestone dollar sign) to the imagination.
Sound a little obvious? Mr. D'Orazio likes the volume loud. His Manhattan loft is filled with great 1980's-era paintings - Schnabels, Warhols, a Keith Haring - but the Warhols are skulls, and the Haring is too graphic ever to have been exhibited. "Sex and death, that's what it's really all about here," he said.
It may not surprise, then, that nothing fascinates him more than a beautiful razor-sharp knife, a fancy he has indulged ever since he bought a switchblade at G. Lorenzi, an upscale cutler on the Via Montenapoleone in Milan, more than 20 years ago. While Mr. D'Orazio has several fearsome but lovely knives, his favorite might be described as the femme fatale of the blade world: a Corsican vendetta.
A bright triangular stab of a blade that pivots into a sinuous notched sheath reminiscent of a Brancusi or a high-heeled mule, a Corsican vendetta practically cries out for a featured role at the Metropolitan Opera House. The vendetta was a rural knife, dating from the 1700's, that evolved into an instrument of family pride. James Loriega, a historian in Mediterranean weapons, explained that the vendetta code meant that if your honor or that of your family was impugned, you were bound to take action, after duly advising the wrongdoer to choose one of the three S's: schioppo (gun), stiletto (dagger) or strada (the street - i.e., escape). Some vendetta knives were engraved with a dire inscription like "Che la mia ferita sia mortale" - may the wound be fatal. (Contemporary variations can be found at
www.knivesofcorsica.com.)
For Mr. D'Orazio, history is as close as he wants to get to a vendetta's jagged edge. An only child, he grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960's. "I was around gangs and knives all the time," he said, "but I never associated with it at all, though there was always something sexy about it." He remembers an older cousin, the vice president of a local biker gang, who carried a switchblade in his boot. "I was repulsed and fascinated," he said. "Today I have the goatee, I have the leather pants and I have the knife. I just don't have the bike."
The knife does not even see action mincing garlic. Its only use is the charge Mr. D'Orazio gets from walking around with it. Happily for all concerned, he is a lover, not a fighter. "Psychologically, the thrill is amazing," he said. "If you're feeling mischievous, it's amazing what happens when you have this in your back pocket." (Luckily his vendetta blade is a short 3.5 inches; carrying a concealed blade longer than four inches is illegal in New York.)
Even with the knife resolutely in his pocket, though, he is not in the clear. "If I'm out in that mood, it usually means someone's going to get in trouble," he said. "And that someone is usually me." Love hurts
