Where Kaitlin Phillips is the culture publicist of downtown (she’s consulting for this issue; otherwise, she would have been on the list), the Taiwanese-born, New York–based Gia Kuan is her fashion counterpart. Since hanging out her eponymous shingle, in 2019, in Chinatown, this publicist seems to have achieved the impossible: being incredibly well liked in the industry, even during Fashion Week.
Like many players on the New York independent-film scene, he started off working at Kim’s Video and Music, on St. Mark’s Place, before taking up cinematography for everything from features (the Safdie brothers’ Good Time) to documentaries (on Chinese taxi drivers), to experimental movies (on Kathy Acker) and music videos (for A$AP Rocky and Nas). The old guard has given their approval—Sean Price Williams has collaborated with Albert Maysles and Martin Scorsese. He is now working on his feature-film directorial debut, The Sweet East, starring Jacob Elordi.
