LEONID GUREVICH styling for BASIC magazine. Hairstylist SHIRLEY GORDON

BASIC magazine features brand new story I styled.

I envy myself because I got to work again, with the award-winning, the incredible visionary hairstylist SHIRLEY GORDON, who created jaw-dropping wigs for the shoot. Not wigs – MASTERPIECES. (Remember those four simultaneous VOGUE covers that Beyonce graced? It was Ms. Shirley Gordon who colored Ms. Beyonce’s hair for those VOGUE covers, hence why it looked more radiant than ever.)

⚠️ Aside from styling this, I did something I’ve never done before. I wrote a poem. My first poem ever and in English. I wrote it in 2020, amidst the protests that followed George Floyd’s and Breyonna Taylor’s murders. In this poem, titled "Love Letter" I juxtapose everything I love in Black people with what they've been forced to suffer through for centuries well into today - and it's nowhere near to be over. The reason I relate to these horrors so much, is that as a Jewish gay man from Russia, with relatives murdered in the Holocaust, I know a thing or two about what it means to be treated like a rightless animal in the country of your own birth. ~ Leonid Gurevich

Scroll down to read the poem.

Intense BTS moment captured!

Stylist: LEONID GUREVICH

Photographer: ROBERTO LIGRESTI

Hair: SHIRLEY GORDON

Makeup: DAVID MADERICH

Nails: SHORT CAKE NAILS

Models: YA JAGNE (FENTON) and IYANNA (COLBY Management)

Shirley Gordon’s Assistant: RENTIA WOODLAND

Leonid Gurevich’s Assistant: YAMEN HAMA

DESIGNERS include: Dur Doux, Elmadawy New York, Flying Solo, The Confessional Showroom, Tekne, Cheng, Tom Tom Fashions, David Dalrymple, Val Stern Jewelry, GBGH Jewelry and more.