Photo grandeur. If we’d like to tell a story about fashion and people that represent it, choosing only one picture for every great photographer from the early years of ‘900 till today, probably the pages of this issue won’t be enough. The common denominator would be the simplicity; a white or grey background, clean or rarefied lights and shades, the absence of props: only gazes, faces, expressions, style, light, intensity, fashion, attitude. In location pictures, or in en plein air ones, was and still is the subject the element that “arises”: just look at portfolios of Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Norman Parkinson. In their shots, landscapes were often neutral, “nowhere”, as it’s used to say in fashion photography. The skill of the photographer, first of all, and then of styling and grooming, accents the most eccentric fashion up to the masterpiece. Among the photographers in which I believed first there’s Johan Sandberg: his obsession with the research of the “perfect” light make him a master of photography. Style 2007, the top model Patrick Petitjean in Gaultier, picture by Johan Sandberg.

Tecnologic accessories are being involved and actually used to create different forms of art, from filmmaking to fashion. Everyone remembers some scenes from 2001 Space Oddysseyand also the more recent Rick Gentry’s artworks which have been realized with floppy discs. There are many different cases of digital contamination even in fashion, (one among many the electronic circuit inspired prints by Christopher Kane). It’s even more surprising when a brand founded in 1837, it’s experimenting with this kind of creativity on the most traditional of man accessories: the tie. 8 Ties is a project the maison Hermes has commissioned to the french artist with mexican roots Miguel Chevalier, which uses computers as his main media of expression, (exhibition till october 27, Palazzo Morando, Milan).The installation, (at the bottom) has been realized so that each one of the patterns created by the artist becomes animated by the viewer’s movements, creating a special soundtrack. A second artwork, shows the patterns in addition to the french philosopher Christine Buci-Glucksmann’s words. The harmony in the classicism of Chevalier’s patterns, it’s incredible. It makes us see how pois and lines are really coming from a usb key and electric cables.

Jordan Better, artista visionario e fashion maker, dal 1999 titolare di Lost Art, NY. La foto in poltrona è stata fatta da Rennio nella prima metà degli anni ’90, ed è stata pubblicata su Harper’s Bazaar Uomo; Jordan indossava un abito gessato firmato Paul Smith. L’altra, più recente, è uscita su Max dicembre 2008 ed è anche stata presentata a novembre 2010 in occasione della mostra RCS “MODA: SOSTANTIVO MASCHILE”, curata da Alessandro Calascibetta: qui,  Jordan veste abiti di Lost Art e di Just Cavalli. Lo scatto è di Bela Chow (non cercatelo, non lo troverete: è lo pseudonimo di un fotografo che non ha potuto firmarsi) e lo styling di Carlo Ortenzi.

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