Musée Magazine No. 5 Vol. 2

MUSÉE THE FASHION ISSUE

VIVIANE SASSEN YINKA SHONIBARE MARTIN PARR BOUDICCA DENNIS FREEDMAN PAUL CAVACO DICK PAGE JED ROOT NOÉ SENDAS STALEY-WISE TRUNK ARCHIVE WWW.MUSEEMAGAZINE.COM INTERNATIONAL EDITION NO. 5 FASHION VOL. II

www.museemagazine.com International Edition No. 5 Fashion Vol. II Est. 2011 Issue No. 5

Editorial Office Founder / Editor in Chief Editorial Director Editorial Director Editor / Writer Creative Director Communications Director Editorial Team

Andrea Blanch Ellen Schweber Ann Schafer Kyria Abrahams Marsin Mogielski Kyle Hockaday

Brian Bunting Chelsea Domaleski Will Ehrenreich Grace Handy Austin Klein Ngoc Le Christine Lee Elena Mudd Dawn Marie Perry Lauren Taubenfeld

Website Email Facebook Twitter Tumblr

www.museemagazine.com musee@museemagazine.com facebook.com/MuseeMagazine twitter.com/MuseeMagazine museemagazine.tumblr.com

Cover by Š Viviane Sassen

2013 MusĂŠe Magazine Reproduction without permission is prohibited

www.museemagazine.com International Edition No. 5 Fashion Vol. II Est. 2011 Issue No. 5

3-4

Editor’s Letter

5-42 Viviane Sassen

by Andrea Blanch 43-54

Yinka Shonibare

by Kyria Abrahams

63-92

Martin Parr

99-110

Boudicca

117-144

Dennis Freedman

by Elena Mudd

by Kyria Abrahams

by Andrea Blanch

149-158

Paul Cavaco

by Andrea Blanch

159-170

Dick Page

by Andrea Blanch

177-190

Jed Root

191-206

Noé Sendas

by Andrea Blanch

by Austin Klein

213-220 Staley-Wise

by Andrea Blanch

221-240

Trunk Archive

249-250

Next Issue: Nude + Naked + More

251-252

Special Thanks

by Andrea Blanch

Š David Radin

Editor’s Letter

EDITOR’S LETTER: Creating a quality fashion photograph is, without a doubt, difficult. In order to fully realize a good fashion photograph, one must select a superb team to help bring the photographer’s vision to fruition. Unlike other collaborative practices, the photographer cannot just rely on technical prowess from his or her team members; the team needs to have the aesthetics, taste, and imagination that’s in sync with the photographer’s direction and conceit.

We tried to inspire and expose a new generation of emerging talent to artists who have crossed boundaries from art to fashion and back again. Artists who forge new ways of seeing, break rules, and speak their own visual language. These artists that we feature: Viviane Sassen, Yinka Shonibare, MBE; Noé Sendas, and Martin Parr do not care to be defined.

British design duo, Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby of Boudicca, offer their unique insights into the world of clothing design. We also feature the gallery Staley-Wise, which was the first gallery in the world to showcase fashion photography. Jed Root and Trunk Archives give us an inner view of the world of representation and archival photography.

Also in Volume II, Dennis Freedman, Dick Page, and Paul Cavaco were asked to contribute for their high standing in the industry as well as their expertise, experience and knowledge.

These professionals have worked with the best talents in the business and their advice should not only be read, but also followed. Freedman’s guidance for emerging photographers is pragmatic, inspirational, filled with observation and should be considered a guidebook for any photographer considering fashion as his or her means of expression and as a career.

Learn your craft, observe, and be serious.

Š Hanneke Van Leeuwen

VIVIANE SASSEN VIVA VIVIANE! Born in the Netherlands, Viviane Sassen studied fashion design and photography before receiving an MFA from Ateliers Arnhem, the Netherlands. Some of her earliest memories are of life in Kenya, where she spent three years as a child. When her family returned to the Netherlands in 1978, Sassen was troubled, “I didn’t feel like I belonged in Europe, and yet I knew I was a foreigner in Africa,” she says. She made Parasomnia, her newest body of work, in a number of intentionally unidentified African countries, featuring anonymous subjects. Her fashion work has a bold sense of color and is very similar to her dreamy, hallucinatory work in Africa. And yet, Sassen considers her fashion photography to be entirely separate from her fine art projects.

Musée Magazine

Every once in a while, there comes along an artist who is completely original. The first time I saw Vivianne Sassen’s work was the James Danzigner Gallery in the spring of 2010. Although I viewed her as an art photographer, I remember thinking how easily her pictures could translate to fashion.

I became reacquainted with Sassen while reading an issue of Acne Magazine, and I once again fell in love with how freshly stylized, symbolic, and mysterious her work is. I was hooked; I knew we needed to feature her work in the magazine.

Later, while interviewing Michael Hoppen for Volume 5 Issue I, Sassen’s name came up again. Hoppen, who represents Tim Walker, spoke about her in exceptionally glowing terms, calling her “unequivocally the greatest fashion photographer in the world today!”

“Tim [Walker] and I talk about her endlessly, she’s brilliant,” Hoppen told me. “I would take Viviane on tomorrow. I think everything she does is amazing. She doesn’t rely on all of the traditional avenues. She bucks all of the trends. She takes black people in the mid-day sun in the heart of Africa and lets their faces go dark and creates wonderful visual sculpture. This is a woman who is like Tim, who says: this is the way I do it. I know, in years to come, we will be looking at Viviane’s work . . . I’m not saying we won’t look at a lot of other fashion, but I think most of it is transitory, I’m afraid to say . . . I like to see photographers hand making things like Viviane does, like Tim does, like Sarah [Moon] does.”

Sassen’s work is everything I love in fashion photography, that is, it transcends fashion and becomes art. She uses color brilliantly. She uses space, she uses the body as a form. Sassen just cares about making a compelling photograph!

Sassen spent a segment of her childhood — between three and six — in Kenya, and then returned to the Netherlands. On arriving in Holland she recognized that neither country could entirely be home again. Memories from early years are often simultaneously vivid and obscure.

However, as Sassen recently discussed in The British Journal of Photography, for her, fashion photography is a ‘puzzle’ with specific goals, which is absolutely distinct from her approach to fine art. As such, mixing the contexts of finished work can be problematic. At Huis Marseille she chose to project — rather than print and hang — many of her images, creating a ‘disposable’ quality, presumably because this is more aligned with the ephemeral nature of magazines. Another fundamental difference is that while she works independently on her fine art, fashion shoots encompass an entire team of professionals.

Distinct categorization notwithstanding, multiple interviews with these professionals (many of which can be found on Huis Marseille’s website) confirm that Sassen’s approach to fashion is light years away from the norm. A common lament is that fashion photography, has become aesthetically repetitive. Sassen doesn’t follow prescribed scripts—not even her own. Her working method is characterized not by rigorous planning and logic, but by instinct and spontaneity. In attempts to convey this method, references to explosions tend to come up, as does a sense of being made to feel alive. In many cases, she deeply connects with her models and stylists in an exchange of energy and a collaborative flow. Although she may be influenced by personal memories, her work is often noted for being uniquely future-focused; she has no interest in re-staging great fashion moments of the past. Sassen is not ‘The Next Avedon,’ she is a vivid new entity.

Faces are often obscured in Sassen’s images. In these constructions, an underlying current of her work becomes particularly apparent. Sassen’s work is more about the intelligence of the body in relation to forms and colors, rather than being just another rotation of the far too easily spun exchange between sexuality and consumption.

Which is not to say her models are never erotic, quite the opposite, but the eroticism tends to be conveyed as a raw, abstract, personal, moment, rather than one constructed for the sole purpose of turning you on and stoking your object lust. She allows for, maybe even (re)constructs, the possibility that fashion has more to say to the world than ‘buy me’, and this ‘more’, this parallel realm of experience, will become increasingly relevant over the next decades. n Written by Andrea Blanch. Edited by Kyria Abrahams.

Photograph of Viviane Sassen by Hanneke Van Leeuwen

Sassen has worked extensively in both fashion and fine art for two decades, Photography’s art/fashion border can appear soft and prone to drifting.

All photographs courtesy of Viviane Sassen, Zuiderzee Museum, POP Magazine, DeLaMar Theatre, Acne Magazine, Dazed & Confused Magazine, Sec Magazine, Numero Magazine, Double Magazine, and Stevenson Gallery.

“I’ve always believed it’s one half of one percent that has something new to say in any field. It takes a very particular, unique vision of the world. I think that’s quite rare, and if you get the opportunity to work with somebody who has that, you’re very lucky.”

– Dennis Freedman, Creative Director of Barneys

© Viviane Sassen for Acne Magazine

“For me, it is a real honor and a real pleasure to work with Viviane.

And she is a proper artist. You’ve been speaking of her as a fashion photographer, but for me she’s an artist. I never saw her work as just fashion photography; for me it is more than that. It’s about fashion, of course, but normally, when we think of fashion, we think of obvious beauty. Viviane is not working with an idea of obvious beauty. She could be working with the most beautiful model. But she’s thinking of this model not as a human beauty, but more as a texture, a volume. She makes a new form of beauty with it … it’s spontaneous, it’s so intimate, you’re always surprised.”

– Carven designer, Guillaume Henry in an interview with Nanda van den Berg

© Viviane Sassen for POP Magazine

Š Viviane Sassen for Dazed & Confused Magazine

Net, Parasomnia Š Viviane Sassen

“When someone comes along who is authentic and consistently fresh in their approach, people start to realize it. I think for any artist to succeed, no matter how good they are, a consensus needs time to form. They have to do consistently good work for a few years, and opinion accumulates. No matter how good the person is, even from the beginning. I think Viviane’s in this position now, where people are recognizing this about her and starting to treat her as what she is: an original image-maker.”

– Jonathan Schofield in an interview with Nanda van den Berg

© Viviane Sassen for Sec Magazine

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Transformation and magic.”

Andrea Blanch, Photographer and Editor-in-Chief of Musée

Š Viviane Sassen for Dazed & Confused Magazine

Š Viviane Sassen for Acne Paper

Š Viviane Sassen For Acne Paper

Vertigo Š Viviane Sassen

Š Viviane Sassen for POP Magazine

Laundry Š Viviane Sassen

Š Viviane Sassen for POP Magazine

Š Viviane Sassen for DeLaMar Theater

Das Wald Duo Š Viviane Sassen

Š Viviane Sassen for DeLaMar Theater

Š Viviane Sassen for Double Magazine

Fantome, Parasomnia Š Viviane Sassen

Š Viviane Sassen for Numero Magazine

Š Viviane Sassen for Double Magazine

Bokkie Š Viviane Sassen

Ayuel Š Viviane Sassen

Kolbe Š Viviane Sassen

Prosper, Ultra Violet Š Viviane Sassen

Š Viviane Sassen for POP Magazine

Solomon’s Knot © Viviane Sassen

Goldcoast, Ultra Violet Š Viviane Sassen

DNA, Ultra Violet Š Viviane Sassen

Kisumu, Flamboya Š Viviane Sassen

Parasomnia, Parasomnia Š Viviane Sassen

© Viviane Sassen for Zuiderzee Museum © Viviane Sassen for Zuiderzee Museum

YINKA SHONIBARE, MBE

© Yinka Shonibare, MBE.; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

FABRIC OF TIME

Yinka Shonibare, MBE studied Fine Art first at Byam Shaw College of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) and then at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA, graduating as part of the ‘Young British Artists’ generation. Shonibare was a Turner prize nominee in 2004 and awarded the decoration of Member of the “Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”. In 2010, ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ became his first public art commission on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. He currently lives and works in the East End of London.

Musée Magazine Yinka Shonibare, MBE is not technically a “fashion photographer,” but his subject may indeed be fashion. At the forefront of his identifiable style: Dutch wax fabric — the stereotypical patterns of traditional African garb. Ironically, these “traditional” patterns are not traditionally African at all. Born in London, but raised in Lagos, Nigeria, the clothing explores the dichotomies inherent in his upbringing: colonialism, racism, and identity.

“One irony of Shonibare’s art is seeing the sober, expropriatory European mannequins dressed in glowing fabrics they originally created as a means of transferring currency out of their colonies . . . it piles irony upon irony, this fabric,” said Dan Bischoff (“Post-Colonial Party Time,” FiberArts, Jan/Feb 2010).

Shonibare’s “what ifs” now include work in The Smithsonian, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, and numerous commissions including the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.

“You’ve got to be a bit utopian to be an artist,” Shonibare said in an interview with Art21. “It’s not a very realistic occupation.” n

Written by Kyria Abrahams All photographs courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York

If fashion photography is about creating a fantasy, then Shonibare’s work is fashion photography. He loves the falsity surrounding the “authentic” patterns, and styling them as traditional Victorian garb only adds to the joke.

He has printed his personalized batiks with fashion logos from the house of Chanel, and with the numeral “50” to mark Ghana’s 50th year of independence.

“I don’t link visual art and fashion,” Shonibare said in an interview with Coline Milliard. “Curators have their own ideas about what your work is. For me it’s not art, it’s not fashion, it’s just what I do. Curators come and give it a name. It’s nice to have a job, you know. For me, it’s just a job. I don’t care what they call it, just give me the job.”

When the artist was 18, he contracted a virus which left him partially paralyzed. He now gets around mainly using a wheelchair, and much of his vision is, by necessity, carried out by assistants. An article in The Guardian this past February, he noted that he ‘cannot decide on the extent to which disability influences his work.’ However, Shonibare is also quoted as saying: “Your head goes crazy if you pursue what ifs.”

45 Musée Magazine No. 5 Vol II

© Yinka Shonibare, MBE. ; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

In 2005, he was bestowed the formal title Member of the Order of the British Empire for his service to the arts.

An MBE is the lowest rank in an order of chivalry established by King George V in 1917. Shonibare accepted the title with the appropriate irony, choosing to use it at all times and referring to himself “a commoner with an MBE”. Even the artist’s name is now a part of his deeply layered work.

Š Yinka Shonibare, MBE. ; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

Š Yinka Shonibare, MBE. ; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

Š Yinka Shonibare, MBE.; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

Š Yinka Shonibare, MBE.; Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York

Pedro Abreu Title: The Pedestrians Contact: www.pedroabreuphotography.com

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“The emperor’s new clothes. ” Belle McIntyre, Photographer

L.j Title: MEss Contact: www.leejoon62.tumblr.com

L.j Title: MEss Contact: www.leejoon62.tumblr.com

L.j Title: MEss Contact: www.leejoon62.tumblr.com

MARTIN PARR IMPERFECTIONs IN A PERFECT WORLD

Martin Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey, UK, in 1952. When he was a boy, his budding interest in the medium of photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer. He studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic, from 1970 to 1973. Since that time, Martin Parr has worked on numerous photographic projects. He has developed an international reputation for his innovative imagery, his oblique approach to social documentary, and his input to photographic culture within the UK and abroad.

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Martin Parr looks at the world through a blunt, saturated, and often wickedly real lens. His photographs seem to aim to give the viewer a real representation of what was there, in front of the camera, not to give the subject a pretty picture of themselves. Browsing through Parr’s vast collection of images, one can see that almost no one looks glamorous or perfect in the shots. Models are transformed from the elongated figures we see in most fashion magazines into pretty and flawed women. Parr has an ability to capture his subjects at the most awkward and often funny of times — before they take a bite, as they tilt their head, as they talk on their cell phone. But not only that, he often gets so close to them, we have to wonder how these people ever let such a critical lens snap their image for the world to see. But his charisma and captivating personality keep him from getting in trouble for what he does; he can easily charm someone after taking a candid photo of them.

Parr sees the world of fashion everywhere — from the backstage at a Dior show in Paris, to the streets of Dakar, to the beaches in Brazil. His combination of high fashion and fashion of everyday people on the streets gives him a unique perspective in the fashion world. He has said he loves and hates the fashion world, but being as well respected (and good) as he is, he gets quite a bit of freedom in what he does. One aspect he seems to find most absurd is the perfection found in fashion photography; Parr says on his website, “I explore the whole idea of making fashion look more believable and like the idea of doing street casting, indeed trying to make fashion not look like fashion.” For a photo book for Urban Outfitters, Parr casted on the streets of Marrakech, because he prefers to work with real people and they tend to be more excited about the shoot.

Parr cuts through the soft diffusers of the perfected fashion industry to blast a bright and clear light on it, asking us to look at it in a different way.

He is a great fan of the photo book, publishing over sixty of his own in the last twenty years. Parr works at an unmatched pace in the photo industry, taking tens of thousands images every year.

Alec Soth, a fellow Magnum photographer, called Parr, in an article for the StarTribune, the Jay-Z of documentary photography. “Where Jay-Z’s universe brings together poverty and superstar bling, Parrworld (as one of the retrospectives was called) is a more ordinary place. Parr holds up a mirror to the fluorescent-lit shopping mall the world has become.” But he is not afraid to also show himself as a part of this commodity-driven world. In 2005 he published the book “Fashion Magazine” in which he created a fashion magazine through his unique lens. Parr created all of the advertisements, illustrations, and fashion shoots himself. Noted industry professionals like, Christian Lacroix, Sonia Rykiel, and Victoire de Castellane offer their view of Parr’s images in the book. Parr takes us across the globe and into different social venues reminding us that everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status or location wears and represents fashion. Parr’s fashion images will either make you cry or laugh, and what Parr chooses to do is laugh at the perplexities and absurdities of humans and their representation of themselves. n

Written by Elena Mudd All photographs courtesy of Martin Parr, Janet Borden, and Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Š Martin Parr / Janet Borden / Magnum Photos

Vito Fun Title: Codependence Day Contact: www.letsmakefamous.com

Vito Fun Title: Codependence Day Contact: www.letsmakefamous.com

Vito Fun Title: Codependence Day Contact: www.letsmakefamous.com

Edward Henry George Wallace Title: Prince-cess

BOUDICCA SINGULARLY NEAT

We are BOUDICCA, the namesake of an ancient queen of England, whose spirit defiantly intertwines with our being, all pushed along by two heads that wander like polymathic gypsies, led by heart and a yearning to find more poetry, more questions to ask.

And in those roaming moments, led by curiosity and technology, you belong within no land and are labeled by no one.

Š Alexandra Catiere

In an interview with Metro International, Zowie said Boudicca’s inspiration is a mix of high-brow and low-brow. I think the high-brow is self-evident in your work, but what’s the most low-brow thing you’ve been inspired by in your clothing? Is someone out there wearing a dress that was inspired by an Adam Sandler movie and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon?

“I am Cornholio!” shouts Butthead running through the airplane, and a variety of scenes across their time! Hmm, yes, back in the MTV original days, we named a jerseysleeve tube top after this sweet bit of dialogue! Always made us smile.

You said: “When Boudicca was formed in 1997, we envisioned it more as an art project than a fashion line.” Are you more artists than designers, and the clothing just an incidental byproduct that comes from making art?

Don’t remember that quote. Odd how what you say at the beginning comes to haunt you, sweetly reminds you of your truths.

Wode reveals hidden messages invisibly printed on limited edition Boudicca garments. Is it safe to say this is the first perfume that also acts as a spy pen?

While writing these questions, I’m listening to the mix that you made for SHOWstudio. The first track

by The Smiths happens to be a song that my highschool boyfriend put on a mix tape for me: “There is a Light That Will Never Go Out.” Is that song about your relationship, your art, or both?

Garbo’s Mata Hari slides through that sliver screen and discovers a fragment of the past that changes everything that exists as of today. A time traveling spy pen maybe could assist this adventure.

We stood in Brixton Academy surrounded by the chants, the tribal calling of Morrissey’s fans, and we made a loop of this beat, this rhythmic calling for the show we are part of in Tel Aviv‘ — ‘Fashioning the Object’. Of course, Brian was always the lead to Morrissey; he took me through that world and showed me the details, the humor, the sadness, the lyric of sharpness and poetry. He shared with me his world of Morrissey, a world that had been so crucial and evident to his thinking. That alignment of another’s thoughts that truly allows you to feel okay about who you are, push you to search for your own questions and answers. And so, the phrase is strong and fits all.

The image for Wode is a woman lying on a bed, with bright red lips and blue dye sprayed across her neck like blood dripping from a wound. So, tell me how much you love melodrama.

Do you think fashion should (or possibly can) be eternal?

Don’t know her much, but every now and then, you find yourself in a place that you let go and then you run through the forest on instinct alone — and times like that create images, whether 2D 3D, or 5D, that somehow stay always in your language. Ms. Melodrama comes out to play.

I was trying to think of what Smiths song goes best with this image of Wode. I decided on Morrissey’s Suedehead: “I’m so very sickened. I am so sickened now. It was a good lay, a good lay.” What do you think?

Today, we consider individualism over the thought of eternal fashion — how important is individualism? Does it work for the tribe we are in? Does it work for the future …the calling from a murder of crows, drifting, sifting over of our culture? How key is it to express who you are and the cold morning air, alongside the echoes of a life batask the question? Will capitalism even allow it to remain? tle… “Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me. No hope, no harm; just another false alarm” It seems that when we talk and research this question, we find ourselves watching Mike Kelley’s film Cross Gender/Cross Genre, Part 1. Or, reading the book about transgender identities, the “night-birds” photographed Does being in love make it easier to be unique? Your

by Christer Strömholm, in Les Amies de Place Blanche online persona is so creative and free, I get the feel(“she used to be in the French Foreign Legion but she ing that you support and enjoy each other immenseconverted to nylon stockings and skirt”). You find a ly. Or do you secretly fight over design when no one sense of power and poetry, bravery and determination is around? of identity, individualism and life that runs through these worlds, these people’s lives. That brave step to true Fighting — also known as debate, discussion, stubbornindividualism is the light that should never be allowed to ness, ego, and stupidity — is forever the balance to our go out — protected by wisdom in our culture, with law inevitable existence with each other. Did we think we and acceptance. would get this far?

© Alexandra Catiere

“Odd how what you say at the beginning comes to haunt you.”

-Boudicca

Probably not, but then, we still question that each and every day, along with a massive list of other doubts. But then, this is also possibly the reason we are still fighting and living… Two Beckett characters, seemingly relevant: Rooney [Ed. In the Samuel Beckett play “All That Fall”] suggests to his wife that they continue their journey walking backwards. He says: “Yes, or you forwards and I backwards. The perfect pair. Like Dante’s damned, with their faces arsy-versy. Our tears will water our bottoms.”

new style of business architecture that — as with all new pathways less trodden — come slowly towards you, and it is hard to find others who are determined and financed enough to wander alongside.

Is it possible to be involved in fashion, but stay pure as artists? Do the two ever conflict?

No. And yes.

You reject mass production, and it’s widely accepted in a certain kind of community that this is admirable.

Can you expound more on why you personally eschew big business?

Admirable sounds like a word that is slipped out the side of the mouth wanting to have value but feeling lonely. To be clear, we were once very open to big business, but big business was not so open to us. To continue, we still could be a brand of world-wide dominion, this we believe — from menswear to jeans Wode-dyed, fragrance and interiors, hotels and restaurants, gardens and forests, Wellington boots and sunglass parades, libraries and cartoon noir cinemas. Of course, why not? But it has to be done with a brave attitude, a new way of thinking, a

© Alexandra Catiere

You’re a fashion company, but your website features interviews you gave to each other and a list of perfectly cool books (including a well-worn copy of Nick Cave’s And the Ass Saw the Angel). Are you just hipster art students at heart? Is there something to be said for the “art school esthetic”? (And do you also have the soundtrack to ‘And The Ass Saw the Angel’ with Mick Harvey?)

Doghead Revisited [Ed. Track 15 on And the Ass Saw the Angel] is the soundtrack for the memory of our first trip to the studio we had in Hackney Wick (an area since taken over for the British Olympics).

Those first days, walking in the dirt and rain, were like London streets that sat right under the title “DOGHEAD”: a broken sign creaking in the winds, dogs prowling, barking, salivating, grinding teeth pushed under the garage walls, crumpled corrugated iron, blokes missing fingers and hands, everything darkened with dirt and dust from years and years of lorries and load-ins and outs of dark goods, dark dust, dark matter, disused rail arches filled with rusting bruised vans, crumpled on top of each other like dead elephants who had eaten rotten rusty fruit and lay drunken, broken, empty, isolated, on the brink of a cinematic seventies gang meet. The correct backdrop to invite clients to your atelier? Confusion reigns . . . Now long gone, under running tracks and penthouse apartments. If we are lucky, though, the ‘Blade Runner’ collision may return one day. Blade Runner: the cinematic story that gives context to our art school days. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.”

Why do you take photos of your own clothes? Are you also a hobbyist photographer, or is this skill just used for the clothing line? Would you ever want to be a fashion photographer? How often do you use other photographers?

We have spent the last year working with chrono-photography exploring identity, landscape within the identity, hunting for the invisible, and all that sits all around us. Whether quantum or shamanistic, there is something there, that pulled us deep into its heart as a process and a journey to travel down and we are still there. No, that does not makes us photographers, but just people wanting to walk further towards what they imagine. To stay locked in one category — to talk of labels and areas defined — is the dangerous way to face forward. We are working, that is all — trying to not live within any of these boundaries or walls. Outside is often cold, quiet, still, but bursts of electric tear and rip open all thoughts and then… then… that is the point we are waiting to capture.

For fun, describe Boudicca as if it were a cheesy, stereotypical fashion brand, which, of course, I know it is not. For example, are you “bold and iconic” or “effortlessly stylish”?

Tailored sex. Hot stupidity. Singularly neat.

What’s with that coat you set on fire? I saw pictures on Facebook. Did you make a coat just to set it on fire?

Ah, but it is for your imagination. Not for us to demand or tell, but to leave you with these questions.

When I say the word “fashion,” what comes to mind?

Industry. Repeated cycles. Suited Bowie. Insecure dominance. The wrong word that can no longer stretch around all it presupposes to be. n

Interview by Kyria Abrahams Photograph of Boudicca by Alexandra Catiere All other photographs courtesy of Alexandra Catiere

Do you think of yourselves as New York designers or “a British duo”? I’ve seen you referred to as both.

Well we are based and have always been based in London and we are both British. We showed three times in New York, and perfect exact copies of the first look of the last New York show sit in the archives of both The Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute and the F.I.T. Museum archive, like gargoyles hanging over the edge, somehow protesting and protecting that moment, held still in time in the city it was first revealed.

Musée Magazine No. 5 Vol II 104

Š Alexandra Catiere

© Courtesy of Bottega Veneta

© Alexandra Catiere

Š Alexandra Catiere

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Surprise.”

Nicole Miller, Designer

Michelle Aristocrat Title: Human Nature Contact: www.michellearistocrat.com

Dominique Garnier Title: Fashion Underwater Contact: dominiquegarnier1@hotmail.fr

Dominique Garnier Title: Fashion Underwater Contact: dominiquegarnier1@hotmail.fr

Dominique Garnier Title: Night in Manhattan Contact: dominiquegarnier1@hotmail.fr

DENNIS FREEDMAN “UNDERSTAND THE CRAFT”

Dennis Freedman is the award-winning Creative Director behind Barneys New York. Freedman is responsible for providing leadership in the areas of all photographic and video images, graphic design, store design and image, and visual merchandising. He also serves as creative curator of the Barneys New York windows, engaging various artists, designers, and creative partners for a constantly evolving mix of style influencers.

Mr. Freedman’s influence extends into the world of design and interiors; his own collection of 20th century furniture has been featured in prominent international publications.

Musée Magazine

What are three words that describe you?

Instinctive. I can’t use one word. It can’t be three. I bounce off things . . . I’m very focused, very decisive. I think it’s very important to have a clear point of view about what you believe and what you don’t believe, what you like and what you don’t like.

What did you do before working in publishing?

I was at Parsons, where I studied design. I actually did some interior design for two or three years, until, believe me, I had to get out of that.

Do you miss the magazine world?

I was incredibly lucky to be able to do what I did at a time when it was possible. I think that it would now be more difficult for me. At W, there was a real focus on photography, it was a focus on trying to give our readers an alternative to what other magazines gave them. For example, the first story I did with Bruce Weber, the whole story was based on Bruce and my love for Eudora Welty.

We went to Mississippi to take her picture and build a story about the world, [while] somehow making her the center of it. That story is still one of the most human and moving stories that I’ve ever done. It couldn’t have happened if we were only interested in trying to talk about fashion. Fashion existed within a bigger world, and that’s what you wanted to see W. And that happened. That was the norm, that wasn’t the exception.

When I say the word “fashion,” what comes to mind?

There’s literal “fashion,” and then there’s the bigger world: what you wear, how you express yourself, what you’re saying about yourself. It’s a creative endeavor for everybody, and it isn’t about money. It’s not about a designer. It’s about how you see yourself and how you express yourself creatively. Fashion travels all around the world for a reason. However, I’m very well aware, fashion is a business, climates have changed and the demands on editorial magazines are great. They were becoming more and more intense while I was at W.

Put down your camera. Put the camera away! People who want to be fashion photographers, many of them don’t even understand what that is. I think they want to

An emerging photographer is lucky enough to get to you, what should they have in their arsenal? What would turn you on?

It’s not about numbers, although I’d certainly like to see more than one [photo]. Someone has to be able to look at their own work and know whether it’s interesting or not.

I would never expect someone who is 22 to have that faculty. I would never have known, but I was beginning to know. To be honest, I didn’t see that much when I was working at the magazine that really impressed me. I didn’t have to open up the book, I could have a conversation and then I’d know if it was even worth opening the book up. I would just talk about photography and ask whose work they were interested in. Eighty per cent of the time I wouldn’t get an answer, or it was a fashion photographer, which was a let down because, come on, if you’re interested in photography and all you can come up with is one of ten photographers that we all know, it’s over, it really is over! Those photographers that they will mention, Juergen or Bruce, they could tell you a hundred photographers whose work they are interested in. If you know nothing, you are never going to be anywhere. Come back when you’re serious.

What makes a good photograph?

A photograph should not reveal itself easily. The best photographs are images that you can come back to over and over again, and question certain things: the meaning of it, the ambiguity. For me, the best photographs are ambiguous.

If you were to have your portrait done by any photographer, living or dead, who would do it?

Lucien Freud, without a doubt.

Courtesy of Barneys New York

What advice would you give to emerging photographers?

be “fashion photographers,” as in, they want the life, but what they don’t really understand is the craft. It’s not just about taking a picture. I would say to 99 per cent [of people]: put your camera down, because you’re just going to keep taking the same meaningless photograph over and over. If you take it 300 times, you’re just going to repeat this very banal idea of what a fashion photograph is. So, put it down and observe. The first thing you must do is somehow get your foot in the door with a fashion photographer. Watch and observe, and see what hair and make -up really is, then you will have understood that it’s really about a team and the stylists. If you don’t have an idea about that, you shouldn’t be taking pictures because you are just never going to be very good. There are very few people who have a voice; that’s hard, I could never do it.

It’s not about me, my vanity, because god knows what would happen. If it wasn’t Lucien Freud, it would be Alice Neal.

Would you ever use an iPhone to shoot a whole campaign?

I would use anything if it was the right way to express what I wanted to express! It’s like the egg before the chicken — people say, I want to do an iPhone story — well, why? I would say the most important word is why? If there’s a quality about that phone that really taps into something, then you’d better explore what that is. I’ve always believed it’s one half of one percent that has something new to say in any field. It takes a very particular, unique vision of the world. I think that’s quite rare, and if you get the opportunity to work with somebody who has that, you’re very lucky.

What are some of your hobbies?

That’s a good question. I do have many interests. I am very interested in architecture and art. When I travel, that’s something I really enjoy. Almost everything having to do with the arts is of interest to me. Dance, music, ballet, opera, modern dance, that’s a big part of my life.

Since I came to New York, dance was a big passion of mine.

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Why do you collect furniture and not photography?

Well, I actually do collect photography, not compared to really serious photography collections, but I do collect.

On the other hand, my furniture collection has substance to it. It’s a pretty big collection and I think it’s a rare collection. It goes back to my interest in design and architecture and when I was in school, at Parson’s, reading about Italian furniture. I was fascinated by what was happening then and it happened to be a period that is unique in the whole history of design. There was a period in the 1970’s where it was very much about these political and social ideas. It wasn’t about function, it wasn’t about style, but rather, it was an explosion of ideas and creativity, and use of materials. I remember seeing these pieces in magazines, but, of course, I didn’t have any money. When I got a job, the first job I ever got, $17,000 a year, I bought my first piece. I couldn’t believe that I could actually get one of those pieces, and that just set off this real passion for continuing. It’s hard to stop. I thought I stopped about ten times, and I just can’t!

In your photography collection, do you collect everything?

Yes, everything. There’s no one theme. It’s very broad and I know that I will never have a photography collection that is unique or in any way game-changing, whereas the furniture collection is game-changing. There isn’t another collection like it, and I think it is a revealing collection. If you see all of these pieces, it will create some kind of realization about what has happened in the last 50 years.

It’s an extraordinary way of thinking and expressing and there’s all this fascination now with design as art. I do think there are some people making furniture today that are really talented, and a few of them I collect, but there aren’t that many.

“Put down your camera. ” – Dennis Freedman

Do you consider fashion photography to be art? Can it be art?

If you’re an artist, there’s no one else that you have to factor in to what you’re doing, it’s all you. When you do a fashion photograph, whether there are clothes or not, you’ve got another factor in there. It’s no longer completely coming out of your own independent thought process. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be a great photograph. It can be great no matter what.

I believe that with furniture and design as well. With architecture, there’s a function or not a function, you might say I don’t want any function, that doesn’t mean that there’s not great architecture, furniture, and design.

At the end of the day, it’s still how you say what you’re trying to say, and is it something that really is unique — is it yours?

What would you like to be remembered for as far as your contribution to the world of fashion?

I want to be remembered for having held a position involved in creating work that allows and encourages the creation of [more] good work. Creating good work and also being able to be ambitious about that. Not to settle. I have to say I’m very stubborn and obsessive about every final thing. n Interview and Photograph of Dennis Freedman by Andrea Blanch All other photographs courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Š Courtesy of Shahid & Company

Courtesy of Barneys New York

Š Courtesy of Shahid & Company

Courtesy of of Barneys New York Courtesy Barneys New York

Š Courtesy of Shahid & Company

Rebekah Campbell Untitled Contact: www.rebekahcampbell.net

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Timeless.”

Jan Kaplan Planit, Celebrity Manager

Rebekah Campbell Untitled Contact: www.rebekahcampbell.net

PAUL CAVACO AN ALLURING DIRECTION An Interview with the Creative Director of Allure Magazine

What are your responsibilities at Allure magazine?

I work on the fashion shoots, I work in the art department with the design director. She designs the entire magazine, I just make suggestions to her — bigger, smaller, you know. I look at all the images that go in the magazine.

I do some of the edits for her. I do a lot of things.

In an interview from 2000, you said that ‘everything is possible’ in fashion because of the visual nature of the Internet. Now, with sites like Pinterest, Tumblr, and so on, people are constantly sharing photos of “pretty things.” What effect has this had on your industry?

I’m torn on this, because I think it has a really good effect. We get to see a lot. Things that we couldn’t access before, we are now able to access. You don’t have to rent an entire movie to see the part of the movie that you remembered. For me, where it’s bad, is when I’m able to access a lot. How I remember things sometimes lives differently than what it actually was. For what I wanted to do photographically, I can now show it to [a client] rather than having to describe it to them. It’s me remembering something, interpreting it to someone whose going to interpret what I said and run it through their filter and interpret. So, by the time it comes out it has nothing to do with the original, but we have a new image. Whereas, now, you can copy it exactly. And, you know, I like copying, I don’t mind a complete copy. I like sampling, I like hip-hop.

Of all the images you’ve created, which is your favorite, and why?

Linda Evangelista: Flying, for Harper’s Bazaar with Peter Lindbergh. I had just gone to see a show called Théâtre de la Mode. My friend Anna Sui took me . . . Théâtre de la Mode depicted this woman flying in the air, wearing an evening gown . . . [Meanwhile] Melvin Sokolsky had done these pictures of women flying, and I had just gone to work for Bazaar. It all felt like the perfect storm.

Peter Lindbergh was the photographer, and, in the end, because he used that [35 mm] Polaroid film, which has the most beautiful, strange contrast — and Peter’s use of light, and the dreamy quality of his pictures — plus, given Linda, at that moment in her career. That one picture was just so beautiful.

Can you remember the worst image that you helped create? Any faux pas that you made?

There’s so many. I’ve made so many mistakes. I did a shoot once, which, for some reason — I won’t name it because it was so horrible —

© Michael Thompson, Beauty; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

it was the wrong thing at the wrong time. Don’t forget, a magazine comes out three to five months after you’ve done the picture. It’s fashion, things change, and if you’re not paying attention to the culture, and I wasn’t . . . and grunge came. Vogue did an incredible grunge story, and I completely missed the boat. I was doing some high glamour snow bunny insanity, which wasn’t even good for [what it was], even if it was the right moment. It wasn’t good, so it was like a double whammy of badness.

It happens to me enough.

You are given one white background, one model, and one white shirt, how many different ways could you style that? And if you could add just one item, what would it be?

As long as the shirt didn’t have to be worn as a shirt, probably a million different ways. There’s probably an infinite amount of ways you could do it.

And one item?

In your opinion, what makes a good fashion photographer?

Probably a lot of different things. For me, what I love is when fashion photographers have defined their woman.

Which doesn’t mean that woman is always the same, but the essence of that women is the same. Helmut Newton’s woman always had a certain chic, didn’t matter how she was dressed, there was a chic to her. Avedon’s [woman] had a chic; Steven Meisel’s women have a chic that’s particular to them, not to anybody else. It’s particular to their aesthetic. Bruce Weber’s woman has a chic. That’s his aesthetic. I think it’s [about] finding the woman that has your aesthetic. Mario Testino’s woman is very Mario.

Even though she could be dressed or undressed, there’s a chic to her that’s very specific to that photographer.

© Michael Thompson, Cindy Crawford; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

What was my woman?

I think yours had a sexuality and a sensuality and she was much more in charge of herself, in charge of her body, that’s what it was to me. She did things; she wasn’t embarrassed to do personal things. That was part of life.

Being aggressive about sex was part of life, not being aggressive about sex, being adorable about sex, all of that was part of life and I think we saw that in your pictures.

A panty.

“In order to get ideas moving you have to just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. Changing, shifting. It’s only by the doing.”

– Paul Cavaco

Can people define themselves through one ubiquitous item, such as wearing the same pair of sunglasses everywhere? Or does that create a caricature more than a style?

To me, it’s a caricature; it depends on the person. I think some people consciously think, ‘I’ll wear a hat everyday and that will create this look,’ or, ‘I’ll wear red lipstick.’

But if it doesn’t come from an honest place, like, that you [actually] wear red lipstick, that its part of who you are, that’s how you see yourself. It’s not something you put on for other people. It’s something that you do for yourself.

To me, it’s a caricature when it’s not honest, and its not coming from a place deep in your spirit.

Who should have the final say on the shoot?

The photographer, it’s a photograph. Yes, we’re collaborators, but, in the end, it’s a photograph. No matter how I see the picture, I’m not the one taking it. And I’m never going to see the picture exactly the same way because I can’t stand exactly in that spot, so even if he puts the camera on the tripod, I look through the lens, it’s still not the same. Because the photographer gets behind the camera and tilts it ever so slightly [they are] altering the image to suit their own eye. So, in the end, it’s the photographer, it’s a photograph.

Do you have photographers?

any

advice

for

emerging

Just to work. I think what always struck me about new photographers is that, a lot of times, they have an idea and they’re waiting for the circumstances to do it. I think you have to just do it. Don’t wait for the circumstance, do it on your own time. If you wait until everything lines up for you, by the time you get to the idea it’s an old idea. In order to get ideas moving you have to just keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. Changing, shifting. It’s only by the doing.

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Musée Magazine

How would a new photographer get to see Paul Cavaco?

No one sees me anymore [laughs]! They usually go through the photo department. Or, I’ll see a photograph that I love and I’ll say, ‘can you get this person up?’

I find it hard to meet photographers because I want to look at the work, and really look at the work, and I find it hard to have the person sitting across the way from me while I look at the work. They’re waiting for a response, so they’re watching my face. [But] they don’t know what my face is doing, they don’t know me, so what they’re watching is something that they’re imagining. Their perception of what’s going on with me. I squint maybe because I can’t see, you know, there’s so many reasons and ways they’ll interpret it. I’d rather have time, go through the pictures back and forth, look at them fifteen times if I want to. So, I don’t really like to meet with new photographers for that reason.

What do you think makes a good fashion photograph?

A lot of elements. I think it’s a model who is interesting, which means that somehow she’s doing whatever is appropriate to the picture, what ever that is. There are so many interesting fashion photographs that are not at all the same. Some are very personal looking, some are very abstract. The model actually conveys what the photographer is trying to convey. . . [When] everything is harmonious. Also, that the eye is interested, that you can look all around the photograph and the eye is interested whether you’re looking at the actual image, at the negative space, at the shoes, the dress, the hair, the make-up, that your eye is interested all of the time.

That’s what makes it. That you — as a viewer — are interested in what you’re looking at.

What photographer(s) have had the most influence in fashion photography in the past 10 to 15 years?

Steven Meisel. Almost hands down . . . In the end, everyone ends up looking there, at his [work in] Italian Vogue. I think Steven recognizes that there’s artfulness to what he does, but he is what he’s always wanted to be: a fashion photographer. That’s what he loves. He loves fashion, he loves popular culture and that’s what you see in his photographs. I think that’s what makes him interesting as a photographer . . . He did pictures of people on Facebook. When all of the Hollywood girls were being paparazzi’d with their Starbucks, he did photographs like that. He takes things from popular culture and turns them into fashion.

If there was no Allure, what would you do now?

I’d probably work with my daughter and do something with her. We don’t know what it is yet, but, actually, we’re going to do something!

In terms of your contribution to fashion, what would you like to be remembered for?

Strangely enough, at the time I started working, I was one of the few guys working, and I’m probably one of the few men who have been the fashion director of Vogue and fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar. There were very few of us, and people thought that men doing women’s fashion was campy. Which is not really true. Robert Turner was a beautiful editor, not at all campy, a beautiful Vogue editor. But I think that was the popular conception. I hope that by staying as long as I did in the industry, much longer than most guys, that I changed that perspective. Now, there’s so many men working in the industry, as stylists, as editors, as creative directors . . . and when I started in the 70’s, that wasn’t the case. I think I’m one of the [originators] of that. So, that’s probably my contribution. n

Interview by Andrea Blanch Photograph of Paul Cavaco by Andrea Blanch Illustration of Allure by Chelsea Domaleski All other photographs courtesy of Art Partner and Jed Root

Š Michael Thompson, Natalie Portman; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

Shiseido Š Andrea Blanch

DICK PAGE ABOUT FACE

Since 1997, Dick Page has been working with Shiseido in Japan. In March 2007, Dick Page was named Artistic Director of Shiseido. For Shiseido, Page’s key role is Acting Color Creator and Product Developer for the brand world wide. Dick Page works with photographers such as Michael Thompson, Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Juergen Teller, Philip Lorca Di Corcia and Mario Sorrenti.

He is currently based in New York.

Musée Magazine

How did you get your start as a make-up artist?

Do you have a favorite travel destination?

I just made it up! I was part of the English music and fashion scene in the 1980’s. It was a postmodern DIY thing . . . you don’t have any money so you cut each other’s hair and make clothes, you do make-up, you make your own music. I was always painting and drawing, and I figured, that’s not such a transition. At some point, it occurred to me it could be a job . . . something about English eccentricity made it seem like a valid option for me.

Iceland is my favorite place. It’s incredibly beautiful. And compact as well . . . It has a very ‘why not?’ attitude to it.

Like, ‘why wouldn’t you be a photographer and a musician?’ They don’t have that stigma of people saying, “Oh you’re in that box? That’s where you live?” Which I really hate.

What was your first break?

It was a series of breaks. The proper big break was probably in the early 1990’s, coming to the United States for Calvin Klein shows . . . When I moved to London, the first person I worked with was Juergen Teller, because he had just moved to London . . . I started working with stylist Melanie Ward . . . Corinne Day, and David Sims.

Suddenly, they became part of the next wave, and that’s what happened.

You also worked with Avedon, right?

Yes. That was great. And hilarious! We had one shoot where he had a single side light source and I painted the girl with the shadows as though it was coming from the opposite direction. So, when you look at the picture, you know that the light is not coming from where the shadows are falling. It doesn’t make sense . . . He was open to that stuff. He didn’t give a shit about fashion.

When I say the word “fashion,” what comes to mind?

Miserable children wearing expensive clothes. That’s what advertising looks like to me now.

Shiseido has some very interesting videos, which follow you to various cities including Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York. Are you the next Anthony Bourdain?

I don’t necessarily want to put my mug all over it. They’re really fun to do . . . It’s a different perspective. It’s partially to say: “Well, where does inspiration come from?”

To show that it exists outside of [the usual things] and part of my conscientious approach is that I don’t believe in trends. I’m not that interested in fashion. I’m aware of it, since I’m up to my balls in it, but it doesn’t really keep me awake at night.

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Speaking of Anthony Bourdain, he once said that chefs are in the business of hospitality. Is beauty and make-up also in “the business of hospitality”?

Kind of. Somewhere between hospitality and social work.

I’m happy. It’s brutal, but I’m quite happy to do these department store appearances when I actually meet the women buying this stuff versus meeting jaded beauty editors. To meet people who are actually buying the product is fun . . . You decide whether it’s beautiful or not. How beautiful do you feel? Are you feeling defensive or aggressive, invisible, or engaging? You can call it with how you dress and how you put your face on. You can decide to disappear.

What are some of your other passions?

I like to garden. Mostly herbs, because I’m still trying to figure out what things the deer won’t eat.

What do you cook?

It really varies. It’s very influenced by where I’ve been or what I’ve got into my head. I do get a little fanatical. I’ll be banging away at this one kind of food for a while until James finally is like, “Can we not have Malaysian food again tonight? Please?”

Do you collect photography?

I have more paintings than photographs. I have mostly Juergen Teller’s photographs.

Do you have favorite photographers?

It comes in waves. The other day, I was looking again at Arthur Elgort. That stuff is really strong, very honest. I really love the clarity in a way that I might not have when I first started working, thinking it’s too commercial. It’s actually very beautiful. Also, he’s a great communicator.

And that’s what makes the big difference in photography.

If someone can communicate the subject, and you believe in that moment, and he’s entirely present.

McGrath just because of the volume and the scope.

I don’t think she’s one person. I think there’s several of her.

Are there any emerging photographers you would like to work with?

In the Shiseido video about Japan, you said that a certain temple was beautiful in a way that, quote, ‘any religion you don’t belong to is beautiful’. Can you expand on that?

I’ve not seen that many people whose work I’m excited by. Certainly I would like to work with somebody I could contribute my skills to.

“You can teach technique but you can’t teach an eye.”

-Dick Page

Tell me about some emerging talents in make-up.

When I first started seeing senior assistants, I would meet them and see if we got along, and look at their book. But now, anyone with five bucks can afford to have their pictures retouched, so I don’t even know what people are capable of anymore. I need to have people who work with me so I can see what they’re doing, because you can teach technique but you can’t teach an eye . . . A lot of people don’t even think to watch faces in action. When I’m training assistants, the first thing I make them do is talk to the person without even touching them. Don’t even put any cream on the face, just talk to them and watch what their face does . . . Even if you’re working with a still photograph, the face is an animated thing. You can’t just freeze it.

Your contemporaries, is there anybody whose work you like?

I was actually just reading this book “How to Steal Like an Artist.” It’s all about how to use your influences and be honest about theft . . . T.S. Eliot said the same thing. But if you’re honest about the origin and to the fact of being a thief, you’ll get more out of it than by trying to maintain originality.

So who did you steal from?

The idea of religion is an abstraction to me. Because I’m an atheist, I feel the liberty to enjoy the work. Jeffrey Steingarten — the food writer for Vogue — was talking about visiting Venice, and how the Venetians thoughtlessly left all the beautiful paintings laying around churches rather than collecting them in museums. I think it’s staggering to go to something like The Salute [ed. Santa Maria della Salute] . . . but I’ve no engagement in the myth or the mythology.

Do things lose some of their beauty the closer we get to them, and is this true for make-up?

That’s an interesting idea. I don’t know if things lose their beauty but you can develop an immunity to certain kinds of beauty. Which is why it’s interesting to me when I go to England and I take the train to the country to visit my family — you stop to think: you never seen green like this.

You know, things you took for granted when you were there. I don’t know if that’s true about make-up, but you certainly can get bored . . . I think boredom is dangerous.

Is there any face you haven’t done that you’d like to do?

I saw this girl in a bar the other day and she had this amazing profile, this crazy great nose and I thought: “Is there a way to say you have the best nose without sounding like a complete psycho?” There’s not, really!

What if you look at a magazine and you see something horrendous and you say, if I could just – I wish I could’ve done it or whatever.

Sometimes I think it’s rubbish but, then, who is to say? It’s only opinion, or taste, or a personal idea.

I did see something the other day that I just thought was lazy . . . That’s the kind of thing that I just think is a waste of an opportunity.

From Stephane [Marais] and Linda Mason. I admire Pat

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Malgosia Bela & Fallen Guardsman, Glemham Hall, Suffolk, 2009 Š Tim Walker, courtesy of Michael Hoppen Contemporary

Has anyone ever been angry at you for making them look more beautiful?

But you can comment on other people’s things without naming them!

I have had a couple people cry. This was years ago. Once, I did someone for a wedding in England and she burst into tears and said: “I’m never going to look this pretty again.” I’m like, “Sure, you will! No, you’re not!” [laughs].

It’s none of my business.

Do you have any part in the creation of the Shiseido product?

Everything! I work with a lab very closely. I take photographs; I paint 10 x 12 acrylic panels based on the photograph. It has a name, it has a backstory. I keep a small, one-strip sample for reference; the other part of the sample goes to the lab . . . My idea behind this was that I didn’t want them to work with outside vendors or to use existing product. They have to start from scratch, which is why my lead time is so long. So, the title of Artistic Director, well, basically — they know that I’m a busybody: nosy and controlling.

It’s your opinion.

Yes, but that hops back to the temporary thing, the ephemeral. It’s not going to keep me awake nights because it’s going to be gone by the morning . . . A. version of this happens at parties when you’re meeting new people and someone asks, “What do you do?”I say, “Makeup,” and they’re like, “Oh no! Don’t look at my face!”

So, what do you do about a friend who thinks her make-up looks great but we all think she looks like a clown?

What’s the single biggest mistake that a woman makes when putting on make-up?

Where are we all screwing up?

Again, that’s none of my business — it’s not how I see them. But there was one girl that used to work with me, she was a great looking girl but she had a thing for these false eyelashes. They looked like she took a nap and someone stuck them on her while she wasn’t looking. I couldn’t really get past them, it was just one of those things.

Caring too much or not caring enough. Seeing it as an obligation or chore. That’s the worst of it. If it’s anything that is routine, anything you’re obliged to do, that’s the biggest mistake you can make.

What’s the difference in putting on make-up for the camera and putting on make-up for the party?

Are you still learning new make-up tricks?

Depends on the camera, depends on the party . . . If it’s candlelight, you can get away with murder.

Mainly, it’s reformulation. Occasionally, there’s a product that comes along that changes the way I think.

What is one make-up trend that should absolutely never make a comeback?

There isn’t one. There’s no such thing as bad make-up. It’s only bad if you don’t like the way it looks . . . I don’t believe in trends. Trends are just mathematics. Trends happen after the fact.

I’m not very popular backstage for this position.

Shiseido © Nick Knight; Courtesy of Shiseido

So would you feel more free in creating a look for a photo shoot or in making up a face for a woman who is going out to a party?

It really depends on the individual. Obviously, you’ve got to be more sensitive to someone who is going out in the world as themselves because you don’t want to send them off to clown school if they’re feeling natural and gorgeous.

What if someone tries to correct flaws on their face with make-up?

I love [the idea of] reducing fine lines and wrinkles. But it’s a photograph of a seventeen year old. How insulting is that? Once you’re done correcting, what’s left, who’s there?

Do you wear make-up? Should men wear make-up?

If they want to . . . Why not? If I’ve got a big honking zit, I’ll cover that up if I’m doing videos.

If you weren’t a make-up artist, what would you be?

Independently wealthy. I hope.

When you’re talking with a woman, are you subconsciously fixing her?

No. Unless they’re really boring, then my mind might wander.

Do you feel painting is similar to applying make-up?

I think the disciplines are the same. If you have an eye for color, light and texture you can pretty much do anything.

What would you say your “work uniform” is?

White reflects the light so I can bounce light right back onto the face. I never understood why people wear black in fashion. But that doesn’t make any sense because you just absorb all the light. I know some make-up artists require all their assistants to wear black and it seems like the most backward thing. You’re dealing with light. You want the most light as possible!

That’s your job. Shoot the damn shoe and move on. And don’t have too much of an opinion about the clothes; let them happen.

What’s the difference between a photographer working for advertising and doing an editorial job?

Theoretically, you have more freedom editorially. But it depends on the publication. It depends on your editor and all circumstances. I’ve been in those horrible situations — the digital monster — they’re sending off pictures and the client fires back: “Oh, change the hair, fix that!” You know what . . . if you care this much about your brand, could you at least be in the building when it happens? I started laying the law down at Shiseido. If we’re doing this shoot, you need to be in the room.

Did you ever do a job where somebody said, “Dick, where’s the make-up? I want to see more make-up.”

Not in those exact terms but, yes, people have. Sometimes I’ve gone with it and said yes or sometimes I stood my ground and said, “Well, she’s already dressed like a Chinese transvestite, and she can’t walk in the shoe, and she has a tree on her head. Do you really need makeup?” I mean, sometimes you want to go whole hog, but sometimes restraint is good. Good make-up is the right make-up for the circumstances. n

Interview by Andrea Blanch Photograph of Dick Page by Andrea Blanch All other photographs courtesy of Shiseido, Art Partner, CLM UK

So what would your advice be to an emerging photographer?

The same for anyone through the industry across the board: don’t get power crazy too soon . . . Be open to collaboration. Be responsive and engaged and communicative. The worst thing is when a photographer comes in really high handed and lays down the law. They just shut everyone down. No one is going to be interested.

Curiosity. You’ve got to be curious and engaged, open to whatever is put in front of you. I think that’s mostly it.

No tantrums, please! No ‘I can’t shoot this shoe.”

© Mario Sorrenti, Art Partner

What makes for a good fashion photographer?

Shiseido Š Nick Knight; Courtesy of Shiseido

Marc Jacobs S/S ‘13 © Juergen Teller; Courtesy of CLM UK

Natalia Villalobos Title: Irgs Contact: www.nataliavillalobos.com

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Ephemeral, but pleasing.”

Rose Hartman, Photographer

Keziban Barry Untitled Contact: www.kezibanbarry.com

Matt Monath Untitled Contact: www.MattMonath.com

JED ROOT DEEPLY ROOTED

Jed Root is the founder and sole owner of Jed Root, Inc. The company was founded in 1989, in Root’s East Village apartment. It has grown to be one of the leading artist management agencies in the world, with over 50 employees and offices spanning New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tokyo. The companies currently represent over 180 individuals, including fashion photographers, makeup artists, hair stylists, fashion stylists, illustrators, set designers, and manicurists.

Š Andrea Blanch

Musée Magazine

Tell me a little about yourself.

How do you represent somebody like that?

I’m originally from Canada. I went to high school in Alabama, met Kevin [Aucoin], and then went to LSU. I didn’t really go to any classes at all, and Kevin wanted to move to New York, so we moved there in ‘82. I got introduced to the business, pretended to be Kevin’s agent for a while, started working with [Steven] Meisel and doing Vogue covers, and then I joined Art + Commerce. . . I started my company in 1989.

These are people who we don’t necessarily have anything to do with their blogs or what they’re doing. For instance, Google now has Google Premium, which is basically YouTube, but people are giving money to have their own defined space and make it a channel and create original, professional programming. Everyone’s idea with Google Premium is it’s a great way to get an idea for a television show out there — it gets a big following, then you can sell it to a real network and have it broadcast for even more money . . . When I say “blogger”, you may be thinking specifically of writing, but there are also video bloggers, people who have developed their own style and on-camera persona, and who have developed a big following.

Tell me about your photography collection. When did you start collecting?

Back in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s. I started collecting at benefit auctions. Back then, at the benefit auctions, people gave really good stuff. Now, I think most people give secondary work for the most part. You certainly don’t see great, iconic Irving Penn images and [Richard] Avedon and Helmut Newton at benefit auctions anymore.

What other collections do you have?

For a while, I was into Southeast Asian art, and I still have a big collection of photography books, in addition to photography prints. My most recent [collection] is wine, because I can use it up. It doesn’t hang around forever.

Which wines do you favor?

French, mainly. Now I have a house in L.A., so I’ve been getting into the better Californian wines. I like a lot of Italian and Australian wines as well.

I’m not sure we have a specific profile. It’s a big mix between what we’d call legitimate actors as well as reality show people, as well as alternative people, like fashion bloggers. Condé Nast is starting their own Google Premium channel. There’s going to be a Glamour channel, there’s going to be a Vogue Channel, and so we’re representing those people in that respect.

Oh really? Like who?

Like Elessa Vovan, who has a [fashion] blog called Purse Buzz. She has a big presence on the internet.

Well, for example, say Lancôme wants to do a series of how-to makeup videos. They would contact one of these makeup artist video bloggers who teach people how to use products. And FCC rules are involved, so they have to say “this is sponsored by Lancôme”, for instance, and then the person may get a million views for that video.

But nobody likes advertising anymore. It has to be mixed with entertainment or information or something in that respect.

What do you mean by “nobody likes advertising”?

People become immune to anything that screams ‘advertising’. It doesn’t necessarily sell specific products anymore, and if you want to push those products specifically, you’ve got to work more into an entertainment or informational sort of programming to really be able to grab people’s attention.

Name one characteristic of a Jed Root artist.

Keep your clients.

That’s not a characteristic! That’s advice.

Well you have to have the right sensibility and the right kind of personality to be able to keep your clients. That is the most frustrating thing. As an agent, all you can do is get someone a client for the first time. You can put their work in front of the right people, you can advise them as to what direction their work should be going, you can edit their work, and if you’ve really got a lot of weight in the business you can convince someone to try them out

Photograph at Jed Root office by Michael Thompson

What is the profile of the client that Jed Root likes to represent?

So how does this translate into representation?

for the first time. After that, it’s up to the artist. There are a limited number of clients out there, so if you can’t hold onto the clients you actually get, your career is going to be limited. It’s a lot of work to get that first person in with the client for the first time — a lot of work for the agent. If you’ve got to look for a new client every single time, it’s just not cost-effective.

How did you come to form the TCA Jed Root agency with Tracy Christian?

One of the artists I represent is the hairstylist Ted Gibson. He’s on the show What Not to Wear. Ted was represented by Tracy for the television space before we took him on. As this whole reality show thing grew, they were looking for hairstylists, makeup artists, somebody to be a judge on America’s Next Top Model, and Tracy would be my go-to person. When I opened the Jed Root L.A. office, Tracy and I started meeting in person and it was love at first sight. About a year ago, she called me and said her contract at the agency she was working at was up . . . So I said “Fuck it. Let’s do it.” We opened the agency last January.

be the menswear designer for [Alexander] McQueen, and there’s a way to build those people, sort of like the ‘shadow warrior’ kind of designer.

What is a typical day rate for photographers today?

It varies widely. On the retail side of things, the lowend jobs would be about $6,000 up to about $10,000 or $15,000 depending on what the usage is and what needs to be done. The advertising side is all over the place.

What are your hobbies?

I’d say cooking is probably number one. I tend to skew towards French, some Italian, I don’t really cook Japanese but I’ll incorporate some Japanese elements into things.

Does your photography collection hang on your walls?

It’s either on the walls or against the walls, never in storage. I only buy stuff that I want in my house. I don’t buy stuff speculatively, as is: “I don’t really like that picture, but it may be worth something down the line.”

“Keep your clients.”

-Jed Root

When I say the word “fashion,” what comes to mind?

Work! [laughs]

© Damon Baker; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

In the press release for TCA Jed Root you say that fashion, luxury, entertainment and celebrity are all interdependent. It seems you are entirely self-sufficient. Is there anything else you need before taking over the world?

Well, I don’t want to take over the world [laughs]. I’m not looking to have a monopoly or a mafia or anything like that. In terms of expanding further, there are some things that came up recently as ideas — I think there is a space out there for people to represent fashion designers, either as agents or fashion designers.

In regards to…?

Arranging personal appearances, getting their PR in shape, the correct kind of strategy, licensing deals. Also, there are a lot of designers out there who aren’t in front of the camera and don’t want to be. Like, someone could

Has the internet made it easier or harder to find talented people?

Easier. Way easier.

What makes a good fashion photographer in your opinion?

They have to have a vision, and they have to have a sensibility. They have to know how to handle a shoot.

It’s a collaborative effort. The photographer has to be the captain of the ship. Sure, there’s an editor or a client but you have to be the one directing everyone — and that’s where I find a lot of advertising stuff goes wrong these days. You’ve got this celebrity under contract, they want their own hair and makeup team, and then they don’t speak to the client, and they can’t speak to the photogra-

needs to do. Someone’s got to be good at handling those kinds of situations, and taking someone else’s brief, someone else’s vision, and turning it into a photograph, and achieving what they wanted but making it even better than they thought it could be — rather than just “Go out and do a good picture for me.”

happy with the budget that’s offered.

What’s your morning routine?

A lot of coffee, a half a pack of cigarettes, and the New York Times. Then, I’m ready to take a shower and head to work. n

Do you go to bat for the photographer if there’s an issue with the client?

Normally I stand for the photographer, unless the photographer’s wrong. In the end, the client is paying us, so it really depends on the situation. It’s hard. Oftentimes I do side with the photographer, but in practicality, I’m more of a referee. I may tell the photographer “Yes, they’re wrong, but we want to get paid — is it really worth this fight?” You need to pick and choose your battles.

Interview by Andrea Blanch Photograph of Jed Root by Andrea Blanch All other photographs courtesy of Jed Root

Is there any deal you really wanted to happen that didn’t work out?

Haven’t done the Pirelli calendar yet. We need to hurry up and do that, because pretty much nobody uses a calendar anymore.

Where do you think you’ll be in five years?

Same.

You don’t Endeavor?

see

yourself

ever

becoming

like

What kind of talent are you looking for now? Is there any particular kind of talent you don’t have?

People with different sensibilities, and different talents, but they overlap. And they’re at different levels of their careers as well. We have people that we can put on lots of different types of jobs. Certain photographer may be right for the job, but the client doesn’t have the budget for them. Other people who don’t have as high a profile are

© Damon Baker; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

No, I don’t foresee ever being that big. I mean my agency is big in our world, altogether there are around 60 employees worldwide, which by photography agency standards is quite big, but I can’t see it expanding into something huge and having 3,000 employees or something.

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Freedom.”

© Damon Baker; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

Damon Baker, Photographer

Š Damon Baker; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

Š Damon Baker; Courtesy of Jed Root, Inc.

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

, NOE SENDAS P.O.V. OBSTRUCTED

NoÊ Sendas was born in Brussels in 1972, and began presenting his work in the late 1990’s. He studied in Lisbon, London, and Chicago, and also had residencies such as Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Sendas is a multi-lingual, mixed-media artist who resorts to different means of expression: video, sculpture, collage, drawing and photography. Explicit and implicit references to other artists are part of his raw materials. Specific concerns about the reflection and practice of visual arts can also be added to his repertoire. Quotes from Shakespeare and Beckett are present in his work, as well as references to important movie directors such as Godard.

Musée Magazine

Did you grow up in Brussels?

I was born in Brussels in 1972, then I moved to Lisbon and went to high school in London. I had an inner city European education. At the age of 13, I had already switched my main language three times. Either I was lazy, or I just realized how verbal language is limited — how some words — and therefore some states of mind do not exist in different languages. If I wanted to make a point or make other people feel my presence, I just had to invent my own language. I started to use drawing as my language of thought.

How has your international education affected your work?

The educational programs in Europe were all very similar. I was lucky to have a little financial aid, which allowed me then to have the free time, to travel, read, and go to cinema houses and Museums. I was very lucky; I met some great professors and just wandered around Europe from one artist residency to the other.

When did you decide to become an artist?

I never did. My parents were artists and hippies. They never had a living room, but always had studio space, so I was a kid who played with paints and brushes. Luckily there was no kind of pressure on their behalf for me to become an artist. They did their stuff and I did mine. Later on in philosophy classes, I become more aware and only then started to make conscious decisions.

What was your experience like at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin?

I had just finished an exchange program in the School of Visual Arts of Chicago. I arrived without a plan; there were no classes, no obligations. I was just left by myself in this amazing old studio in Kreuzberg. It was perfect to deconstruct all the work I had been doing, to start from zero in a city, which was also rebuilding itself. At that time Berlin was not yet the hub for international artists, curators and galleries, it was a city living in slow motion. You really had time to be in the studio, to fail and to fail better.

You incorporate a multitude of different mediums in your creative process, have you been formally trained in all of these mediums?

I structured myself around a group of professors, authors

193 Musée Magazine No. 5 Vol II

and the idea of drawing as process of thought. I was selftaught in all mediums. I really enjoy the construction process, the practical decisions in building up of an object, and working with space when installing of a new piece.

What is it about Beckett and Shakespeare that interests you? Any references to Waiting for Godot?

I had a strange and powerful experience with the [Beckett] book Molloy. Using artist Bruce Nauman’s words, it was as if I was hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. I was just falling and falling until I finished the book.

From there, I just kept on reading his books and biographies and that’s how I later came up with the German Diaries project.

Why do you practice visual arts?

To keep myself alive.

What interests you about the body, the observer’s perception mechanisms, and the ‘discursive potential of exhibition methods?’

The body, after 40 years carrying one . . . is where everything starts and stops. The objects and the discursive potential of exhibition methods versus the observer’s perception mechanism are the bridges between two different bodies, or even bridges built to connect or to put in motion different parts of the same body.

Given your use of the sampler, what are your views regarding appropriation? Is appropriation only appropriate if it constructs something new rather than a collage?

The sampler is just a contemporary metaphor for something that is very basic and a recurrent creative process in Occidental culture, the idea of collecting things: objects, words, quotations, gestures or photograms, and rearranging, re-editing, interlacing them in different ways.

The ingenious part of it is to generate an equation with two or more existing elements and to end up with a magical number, towards which the viewer does not feel the need to seek, or to recognize its original elements. When I am working with my Crystal Girl series . . . I am editing.

Not with a time line, but with layers of time. Just like a palimpsest.

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York © Noé Sendas, courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

NoĂŠ Sendas, courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© © Noé Noé Sendas, Sendas; courtesy Courtesy of of the the Michael Michael Hoppen Hoppen Gallery, Gallery, New New York York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

© Noé Sendas; Courtesy of the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

Is there something to be said about a state of aloneness in your work?

I do it in the work itself, I do not know how, or have the need to translate it to words.

What are your obsessions?

I believe that creative acts themselves depend on obsession. Therefore they are my main obsession.

In your installation, The Collector, you collage two faces into one. What does it mean to make one face out of several faces? Why is this significant in your work?

In The Collector, I only collected self-portraits then I interlaced the self-portraits of the different visual artists. The pair, which I consider more representative, in this series, is the Goya versus Nauman collage. Goya, very fragile, is being given water by his doctor [Self-Portrait with Doctor Arrieta, 1820], and the young and powerful Nauman is spitting water as a fountain [Self- Portrait as a Fountain, 1966]. This is when I started to work in the digital medium, and using the Internet as a huge library of image resources, which opened up a new field of possibilities to me.

The subjects in your work have body parts that are often replaced by shapes or symbols. What is your intent in substituting or deleting parts of the body?

It’s been said that I work my images as a cinema editor.

I did make video art for a few years, but I’ve also been making sculpture the last five years. So I have a notion of gravity, of weight and balance. If you take out a left leg from a figure in a photograph you should add a stone on the right hand of the same figure, so it is balanced and it does not fall. Also, all my figures either in sculpture or in the manipulated photographs are faceless, or as I like to call them, they are Nameless.

What kind of music are you listening to right now?

By chance, I am now in Berlin, a good friend just passed me Where Are We Now? by David Bowie.

When I say the word ‘fashion,’ what comes to mind?

Glamour.

Three words that describe you?

Sometimes imperceptible, often lucky, always obstinate.

How do you think your work has evolved?

Who or what are your influences?

I try to make it simpler, with time you accumulate more and more information, and at the same time, the idea that less is more becomes vital.

More who than what, and to be fair this would be an endless answer.

What’s the next project you’re working on?

Currently I have two ongoing series, Crystal Girls and DESCONOCIDAS, and I am preparing a tour for the German Diaries project.

How would you describe your work?

I try to avoid labeling it.

What would you be doing if you weren’t an artist?

You mean if people stop recognizing me as an artist?

I would just keep on doing what I do. n

Interview by Austin Klein All photographs courtesy of Noé Sendas and the Michael Hoppen Gallery, New York

Enrico De Conti Untitled Contact: www.enricodeconti.com

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“FUN! And don’t take it too seriously.”

Nessia Pope, Artspace Curator

J.T.Julie Liss Bergonz Untitled Untitled Contact: www.facebook.com/JulieBergonzPhotography Contact: www.jtlissphotography.com

Azzura Piccardi Title: MistEros Contact: www.azzurrapiccardi.com

Š Andrea Blanch

STALEY-WISE “THE KEY IS STYLE”

Established in 1981 in Soho, the Staley-Wise Gallery opened with an exhibition of Horst photographs and continues to show the work of masters of fashion photography. Artists include Lillian Bassman, Bert Stern, Ellen von Unwerth, Nick Brandt, David LaChapelle, Patrick Demarchelier, Horst, Phil Stern and Harry Benson among others. The collection also includes Hollywood portraiture, landscape, still life and nudes.

Takouhy Wise and Etheleen Staley are the Directors.

Musée Magazine When did you and Taki decide to create the Staley-Wise Gallery?

We worked together in the late 1960s. Then, in 1981, old personal friends, Joan and Charlie, were opening a stock photo business on Wooster street and invited us to host a gallery in their space.

So, your friends came up with the idea of having a gallery?

Yes. They were photographers, and I guess they wanted some help with the rent. They probably thought that we would show their work. But we had a list of people that we wanted to have in our little gallery.

Who were the first photographers that you represented in your gallery?

Horst and Louise Dahl-Wolfe. In those days, [fashion photographers] never showed in galleries . . . An early show we did was The Nude, that was sort of a departure from strict fashion photography. Our third show was Dennis Piel, a hot young Vogue photographer at the time.

How did you decide on prices?

We just made it up as we went along. I think we charged 500 dollars each for the first Horst photographs.

How did it evolve to where it is today?

We opened in December 1981. This is our fourth space, but we’ve been in the same building for a long time.

What’s the gallery’s mission statement?

That’s not in my vocabulary.

Do fashion photographs translate to art?

Certain photographs transcend fashion, they become art.

I think most don’t. Those photographers are rare. Some do; LaChapelle, Turbeville, Bert Stern, Horst. Most don’t.

When I say fashion, what comes to mind?

More style than fashion. When we do portraits, the key to everything is style.

“When we do portraits, the key to everything is style.”

– Etheleen Staley

How was the gallery received?

It was such a departure that Times critic Andy Grundberg gave us half of the front page of the Sunday Arts and Leisure section. We got a huge review, and lots of attention right at the beginning.

Did you realize that you were on the cutting edge of showing fashion photography?

Yes, but we didn’t give it a lot of thought . . . we didn’t belabor fashion, that’s just what we liked, and we were going to show what we liked. Nobody else had done it. It was the beginning of photography galleries.

215 Musée Magazine No. 5 Vol II

How does that translate to your business?

I know about everything. I couldn’t imagine selling fashion photography if I didn’t know anything about fashion, but people definitely do.

Your gallery was said to reveal a changing vision of the female role, can you comment on that?

Over the years, the body has changed, the attitude has changed. Every decade, there have been noticeable changes in the way women present themselves. There were people running and jumping and doing things in the fifties that they wouldn’t have dreamed of doing [before].

Initially, they were just objects, but they became participants in later photographs.

Š Lillian Bassman Night Bloom, Olga Pantushenkova, Paris.

New York Times Magazine, 1996 Courtesy of Staley-Wise

How has the culture changed as far as the fashion market for photography since 1981?

Well, there wasn’t any market for fashion photography.

Now, there is a tremendous interest.

are without each other.

Where do you see the gallery five years from now?

I’d like to be sitting there until my last day. I really am very happy to be able to come to work. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t. n

Does vintage have more value than contemporary?

Not so much. I think our clients would just as soon have a bigger beautiful print than an 8 x 10 vintage print. We don’t really sell to connoisseurs, we sell to people that want immediate impact. Rather than a small, vintage print, they care that it’s signed.

Interview by Andrea Blanch Photograph of Etheleen Staley by Andrea Blanch All other photographs courtesy of Staley-Wise

Any advice for an emerging photographer?

It’s a very tough business to get into, and to stay in. You can have your moment and — here today, gone tomorrow — its tough. There’s a lot of competition . . .

Keep at it, try to be original. The main thing is to have a vision that somebody else didn’t have before you. If you’re lucky, you’ve got something special. I don’t even know that you can develop it. It’s either there or not there.

Who is your favorite designer?

Lately, I’ve been going to a shop in London Hampstead that has clothes I can’t find anywhere else. I like Rick Owens. I just wear bits and pieces. I’ve had clothes for just so long, I just wear what I’ve got.

What comes first: love or work?

I’ve been very lucky to have a wonderful husband who I’ve been married to for a very long time, and I have wonderful children. I’ve been very lucky in that aspect of my life. If I had to make the choice between home life and work life, I would take home life. It just worked out that way.

Do you think being a team of women helped you or held you back?

It didn’t hinder us nor did it help us . . . I would never have done this on my own. It makes all the difference in the world to have a partner. We wouldn’t be where we

© Ellen von Unwerth Laced Up, Rouilly le Bas, 2002

Š David LaChapelle My House, New York, 1997

TRUNK ARCHIVE THE TREASURE TROVE Eight years ago, Trunk Archive was started in a kitchen in Copenhagen. At that time, five Danish art collectors intended to start an archival software company. In 2007, however, Matthew Moneypenny took over as CEO and changed the face of how high-end photography is licensed.

That kitchen in Copenhagen has now branched into three offices in New York, Los Angeles and Paris. And the “software archives” transformed into over 500,000 images from artists like Nick Knight, Hedi Slimane, Bruce Weber, Guido Mocaficio, Mary Ellen Mark, Philip Lorca di Corcia, and Inez & Vinoodh.

Trunk Archive is not stock photography, it is a wholly unique licensing library. When Ian Schrager’s new London Edition Hotel needed photography, they went to TA. As did Tiffany’s and Ralph Lauren. Almost every photograph on TA’s site was originally created on assignment for a high-level magazine.

What makes Trunk so attractive is that — in most instances — these images are licensable for the first time ever.

And then, there’s the bespoke service. In an interview with “A Photo Editor”, Matthew Moneypenny said: “In most markets around the world, high-end licensing is still a more hand carried service. It’s cultural.” When asked to elaborate, Moneypenny explains that in many

international markets, personalized service is still preferred over electronic, and that customer service is essential to forging trusted relationships.

However, it isn’t only the client who gets individually tailored service, it’s also the photographers themselves.

Some artists need help editing their archives, others with scanning and retouching or advice on publishing and representation. In order to accomplish this, Trunk has a large and dedicated staff, one that speaks the same visual language as its artists.

Moneypenny allows that many of the images in the archive are fashion based, but explains that “the goal of what we’re doing with Trunk Archive is to represent the best of the best in the medium. This includes portraiture, celebrity, landscape and still life photography, conceptual and even documentary photography.” n

Profile by Andrea Blanch Photographs of Agents and the Creative Department by Andrea Blanch Art work by Kyria Abrahams; additional edits by Chelsea Domaleski

Creative Services and Licensing Departments of Trunk Archive Top row: Leslie Simitch, EVP; Veronica Raphael , Agent; Nadja Conklin, Agent; Nassia Kalmakis, Director of Creative Services Second row from top: Lauren Pishna, Licensing Assistant; Matthew Moneypenny, CEO Third row from top: Anna Ottum, Creative Services; Gayle Taliaferro, Editorial Director; Jennifer Cirignano, Agent Bottom row: Matt DePaola, Agent; April Tripodi, Agent; Emily Hughes, Creative Services; Maureen Chung, Licensing Assistant; Daniella Corricelli, Licensing Assistant

MusĂŠe congratulates Erik Madigan Heck, who has been named winner of the 2013 ICP Infinity Award in the Applied/Fashion/Advertising category.

Photo by Erik Madigan Heck; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Nick Knight; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Nick Knight; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Steve Hiett; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Miles Aldridge; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Giampaolo Sgura; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Raymond Meier; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Inez and Vinoodh; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by William Klein; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Enrique Badulescu; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Raymond Meier; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Pari Dukovic; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

Photo by Peter Lindbergh; Courtesy of Trunk Archive

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“Dovima and the Elephants, Richard Avedon.”

Jack Pierson, Photographer

Arber Sefa Untitled Contact: arbisafe@hotmail.com

Helen Ly么n Untitled Contact: http://stephaniehoppen.com/artist-new.php?artistid=98

Helen Ly么n Untitled Contact: http://stephaniehoppen.com/artist-new.php?artistid=98

Helen Ly么n Untitled Contact: http://stephaniehoppen.com/artist-new.php?artistid=98

WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD ‘FASHION’?

“‘Be kind to fashion, it dies so young.’

I didn’t say that, Jean Cocteau did.”

Alexandra Penney, Author

Arber Sefa Untitled Contact: arbisafe@hotmail.com

NEXT ISSUE...

NUDE + NAKED + MORE

SUBMIT YOUR WORK TO MUSÉE NO. 6: Nude + Naked + More 1. Submit high resolution images based on the theme: NUDE + NAKED + MORE. 2. Please do not include watermarks.

3. Use ‘Issue No. 6’ as the email subject.

4. Include name, photo title and contact information that you would like see published.

5. Deadline for submissions is April 1st, 2013.

6. To submit, please visit www.museemagazine.com or send your work to submit@museemagazine.com

WWW.MUSEEMAGAZINE.COM

SPECIAL THANK YOU

Special thanks to Beatrice Dupire, North American Publisher of Le Journal de la Photographie, for her invaluable contribution in helping make MusĂŠe Magazine No. 5 Fashion Volumes I and II a reality.

Special thanks to the MusĂŠe team for working extra hard to make this issue possible.

WWW.MUSEEMAGAZINE.COM