Old Days, New York

A symphony of sounds - invisible in the forefront, inescapable in the background. Listen close to the bustled sighs and tireless sirens not far from the traffic tirades or tourist brigades. This concrete chaos is not one for the faint hearted. New York was built for the biggest and the best, where the seeds of old town blues blossom into hard grafted success. Daring by day, dynamic by night; model Doug Payne at State Management takes to the streets of the Capital of the world.

Photographer Emilia Staugaard captures Doug downtown by the Lower East Side, where the steel stairways stand like the spines of the tenement tower blocks. Guided through the iron grooves of the subway gates, the platforms glow with the gazes of big apple-eyed travellers passing through. In a city split by omittance and opulence, everyone shares the same sidewalk: no dream too big, no dreamer too small.

Stylist Charlie Ward dresses Doug in the shades of the Harlem night; but much like the madness in Manhattan, nothing is truly black and white. In New York, the days never grow old, so, for Doug, every new dawn is a lesson to embark on - striving to stay awake in the city that never sleeps.