Kendall Jenner, A$AP Ferg, pole dancers and mock dollar bills reading, “In Ice girls we trust,” were centerstage at Ice Studios as Las Flaquitas mixed 2000s hip hop with contemporary dance beats and fashionistas danced the night away.
Young, beautiful people flooded Water Street on Saturday night, sporting lace umbrellas, faux fur handmade skirts and two-foot-tall hats, hungry to enter the launch party for volume 2 of Ice magazine.
At the tail end of fashion week and the onset of Hispanic Heritage month, founder and Bronx native, Renell Medrano celebrated the second publishing of her editorial glossy surrounded by VIPs. The Dominican photographer who grew up in the South Bronx, told amNewYork she currently lives in Soundview, adding to the legacy of Latinas from the Bronx paving a path towards global recognition.
“I think it’s super fire. It gives me like a throwback vibe,” photographer and former model, Jordan White said of Ice Magazine, who attended the Downtown bash by way of California. “I take a lot of inspiration from Renell as a creative.”
Medrano graduated from the Parsons School of Design and captures striking and bold portraits including celebrities, like fellow Bronxites Mary J. Blige and Ice Spice. Her New York show LAMBÒN, Spanish slang for freeloader, represented her Dominican roots and acted as a launching pad for her magazine.
Ice sports an all-female team and centers everyday Black and Latina women as their raw selves, while deliberately countering the idealized Western beauty standards of whiteness and thinness.
“I wanted to give space for us to see each other [and] say, ‘It’s okay to be sexy in your own skin,’ whether you’re round and curvy or petite,” Medrano said in an interview with Diedre Dyer in volume 1.
For her first casting call, Medrano expected a small turnout of a few dozen people, but instead she interviewed almost 500 women from the tri-state area to fill 11 spots in her first issue about NYC women who “do it best.”
Inspired by her collection of Player’s Magazine — founded in 1973 and often referred to as the “Black Playboy” — ICE Magazine developed its own brand of femininity. Ice girls or “Not Nice Girls,” illustrate women can be fearless and powerful while simultaneously being sexy and vulnerable. “Onlookers no longer have to question who the Ice girl is. She is relentlessly herself,” reads the intro.
Medrano’s images merge reality, fine art and editorial photography for a bold trifecta of in-your-face portraits full of confidence and strength with a steamy slant. Scantily clad Ice girls almost always look straight into the lens, deep into the eye of the viewer, and reclaim the male gaze as their own.
“With a lot of male photographers, they’re just focused on technique and getting a product out. [But with Medrano,] she picked up the camera because she had something to say,” full-time photographer Derrick Devonn told amNewYork. “She saw women as more than the mother. Women as more than the Madonna. She’s seeing women that she meets, women who are like her. She makes them into monuments, but it’s intimate.”
Ice magazine highlights the thoughts and feelings of their sensuous models in text, and touches on nostalgia with a fictitious 1-800 hotline that recalls the days of phone sex lines where curious callers are charged $.99 for half a minute of raunchy conversation. But Ice is not about sex.
“It’s still giving sexy, but it’s not about being naked. I wanted to create a place where women could feel comfortable and free,” Medrano said in her interview.
“One of my many dreams is for my tribe, Ramapo Munsee Lenape, to be federally recognized,” reads a quote by Troi Frost beside an image of her in a G-string bikini, as she flexes her arms and shoulders like a bodybuilder for the camera in the first issue.
Volume 2 features nine Georgia Peaches from Atlanta, following Medrano’s vision to find real women across the country who are unabashedly fierce in their own way.
Judging by the fashion on Saturday night, urban wear with a twist of 90s prep and a more is more attitude, is trending for Fall 2025. Girls were dressed in Balenciaga shoes, baggy jeans, a designer top and a Yankee fitted cap to tie the look together. A belt worn as a bra and Adidas running suits paired with dress shoes. Exposed skin, bold patterns and unconventional silhouettes were the theme of the night, with a touch of invincibility.
Released by IDEA booksellers based in Soho, London, and at $38 a pop, nearly 300 copies of ICE magazine sold out at the event Saturday night, leaving a line of adoring fans empty-handed. Digital copies of volume 1 are available free of charge on WePresent. Launched in 2018, the artistic platform of WeTransfer features cutting edge work with a mission “to be the most representative creative site on the internet.”
Reach ET Rodriguez at etrodriguez317@gmail.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
