Conversation Piece: Moz in Wax

Photo: Danny Kim/New York Magazine

As the founder of the accessories line Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons, Derrick Cruz is known for creating unexpected objects from unlikely sources: for instance, straight razors carved from fossilized woolly-mammoth tusks. For his latest project, though, he looked to Morrissey, whom he calls “my generation’s Elvis,” for inspiration. Over the next two months, Cruz will produce 600 hand-cast beeswax candles in the crooner’s likeness ($185 at Occulter, 83 1/2; Orchard St., nr. Broome St.; 917-769-2220) from a model originally sculpted by North Carolina anime artist Sean Burford. The wax takes four hours to cast and set in the ex–Smiths front man’s image; Cruz hopes to turn out ten busts a day. (“The edge of his ears and the spike of his hair are a real pain in the ass,” he says.) Though pricey, each 1 1/4 pound candle burns for 65 hours—three times as long as paraffin wax, or approximately 105 repeat listens of The Queen Is Dead.

Conversation Piece: Moz in Wax