Vogue Paris 100 Years: Thames & Hudson: Book Review

Vogue Paris was first published in 1920 and this book, Vogue Paris 100 Years, edited by Sylvie Lécallier and published by Thames & Hudson, records some of the highlights of its 100 year history. 

Vogue Paris 100 Years published by Thames & Hudson

Ever at the cutting edge of women's luxury and fashion, it contains images by many of the great photographers of the last century: Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Mario Testino, Guy Bourdin and many more. The fashion illustrations, especially from the early days, are equally striking by such as Lepape, Gruau and Benito. As you'd expect, the photos in particular vary between the exotic and the erotic and all are designed to have maximum impact - after all, this is high fashion that's being sold.

Inevitably the emphasis is on youth and few older models appear. While this is just how it is in fashion (women's fashion in particular) this imbalance could perhaps have been rectified by the inclusion of the December 2010 photoshoot by Tom Ford, For Ever Love, in which a man and a woman, both well into old age, kiss and fondle with a passionate abandon that will shock those who think that such antics are just for the young.

Complementing the illustrations are comprehensive histories of the brands, designers, models and editors that have made the magazine so remarkable. Despite its international nature, Vogue Paris had retained its French character and chicness, and long may it continue.

A book for anyone interested in fashion, design and photography or in their undoubted social impact.

Vogue Paris 100 Years, edited by Sylvie Lécallier, pub. Thames & Hudson £45.

I was sent a review copy - all views are mine alone.

SR Journal: Style Illustration and a Story of Inequality of Opportunity in Fashion

Sarmilla is the design force behind Ocha & Garth - featured here a couple of years ago (link below). She has recently been showing some of her style illustration on Instagram and kindly drew a couple inspired by images of me. 

Grey Fox by Sarmilla of Sr Journal

Keen to find out what drives such talent, I asked her to tell us more about her new business Sr Journal. Sarmilla tells about her love of fashion and the inequalities she's experienced making her way into the business of menswear.

GF: Hi Sarmilla. You've been featured before on the blog - would you tell us who you are and your background?

SR: I'm Sarmilla;  my background comes from and trained as a Menswear designer from St Martins, and RCA. So I have been in the industry for some time and it has been an experience that I don't think I will ever forget 

GF: I noticed recently that you've started to produce lovely fashion and style illustrations. How did you come to do this? Are you a trained artist?

SR: I've always loved doing illustrations. During the lockdown I went back, got my art equipment out and drew. It was amazing and getting totally lost in creating it helped to escape from what was going on. The digital illustrations have become a habitat of drawing on my mobile.

It has been a hard road in trying to be part of "MENSWEAR" as a designer. Drawing illustrations has and was mainly out of frustration of not being able to get a job as a designer in menswear or been part of the creative side of menswear the barriers that I use to face were unbelievable. Everyone of us has struggled in this trade but some of us had to work much harder (and still are) and face a lot of crap that would be about our culture background. 

Anna Wintour first put her hand up in saying, "Yes, we have not allowed BAME to be part of fashion." It takes a lot of courage to do this to own up to the mistake. My illustration comes from this I think; throughout my career trying my best to stay in something that I love to do beside ignorance thrown that I use to face I suppose no one will ever understand but it has made me respect and adore Menswear even more. 

So my illustrations are from that. As you will see none of the men have skin tone and I choose it to be that way because to me skin tone should not or ever be important to anyone or in any trade. It's about the person, the CREATIVITY that should stand out not someone's skin I have yet to understand why it does? 

Trained as an artist I would say more as a Menswear Designer but my love for art has always been there.

GF: Are you influenced by the work of other artists or illustrators? Whose work do you admire and why?

SR: My parents would be my influencers. My Father is the biggest influence in my life and menswear. He used to wear amazing tailored suits and from my mum, the colours of the sarees she wears is how I learned to understand colour from a very early age. As for artists, I admire their work and that to me is much greater than being influenced.

The two on my top list of Illustrators would be David Shrigley for saying the truth in a humorous way and Sameer Kulavoor an Indian artist in Mumbai also does the same. Artists there are too many on my list but the ones on my top list are the following: Jason Pollaok, Amrita Sher Gil, Yves Klein, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jack Whitten, Roy Lichtenstein and Salvador Dahli. 

All images of Grey Fox by Sr Journal

GF: Your work is available as greetings cards (see image below) and I assume that you are available for commissions. Please tell us more about that. How can you be contacted?

SR: Yes it was a bit of an accidental process I would say as my Mum and friends were telling me to convert these illustrations and all were complaining about not finding stylish cards for men so I went and produced them. I still draw on my Samsung phone using my finger as my paint brush. 

I suppose something positive has to come out of all of this. All of the cards are available on my Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SRJournal. As for Commission work yes I would be totally up for that it would be great to do. Anyone can contact me by my SR_JOURNAL instagram it would be nice to hear from you all:)). 

Blog feature on Ocha & Garth.

Greetings cards from Sr Journal

Interview: Jamie Ferguson Photographer and his Book 'This Guy'

On a recent Instagram TV post* I described how I obtained much style inspiration from books of portraits and street-stye images of well-dressed men. One of my favourite books is photographer Jamie Ferguson's This Guy. Published late last year, it contains his excellent photographs of modern men's style around the world. Many of his subjects I've met and it's fascinating to see how well he has captured their looks and personalities.

Image Jamie Ferguson from This Guy

I asked Jamie to tell us more about his book and his work:

GF: Jamie, please introduce yourself and tell me how you got into photography

JF: My name is Jamie Ferguson and I've been in the menswear industry for the last 10 years and working as a photographer for the last 5. I got into photography through the emerging street style blogs and websites back in the mid 2000's. People like Scott Schuman, and Tommy Ton. Seeing their imagery of men who I thought dressed well made me want to shoot - figure out how they were doing what they did. Slowly I started experimenting bit by bit, buying my first camera and 50mm lens. Luckily because I was already working in the industry I had a bit of access to the clothes and the people that I wanted to shoot and started to timidly do so. And I've just built it up from there.

Image Jamie Ferguson

GF: Your book gives a wonderful overview of modern men's style. Which came first for you - an interest in style or photography?

JF: Probably an interest in style. The guys that I was seeing on those sites, the older gentlemen from Italy and Japan, wearing tailoring that was beautifully worn in to the point of being a second skin, I'd never seen anything like that before. Before that the only real access I had would've been magazines but they never really covered anything that 'real'. It was always more high fashion shoots that I couldn't relate to and clothes that I would never wear.

GF: I notice that many of you subjects are smiling and you always seem to capture a bit of their personalities. How do you decide how to portray a subject?

JF: I don't think I ever really enter a shoot with a pre-determined idea of how I want the portrait to turn out. With personal work, like the book, I really enjoy spending time with the subject and getting to know them better, chatting about a bunch of stuff, which I find puts the subject at ease a little more. They're not fully aware the camera is there or that we're shooting because we're just having a conversation about a shared interest. It takes a while to warm up. And I love telling jokes and trying to capture a bit of levity with that person. I find images of people laughing or smiling or just something different from the usual 'serious' shots much more interesting, personally.

Image Jamie Ferguson

GF: You attempt a definition of style - what, to you, makes a man stylish?

JF: Haha! In no way would I say that the book or my work is my attempt to 'define' style. The guys I chose for the book I certainly think have great style but style is so fluid and subjective. What I think is stylish someone else could disagree and that's fine. Clothes should be fun. People should feel like they can still experiment with different styles and not worry too much about getting it 'right' all the time. We're all going to fail sometimes at that. I still do. All the time. But every now and then you'll ty something you thought wouldn't work for you and it becomes a much loved garment.

What I look for, especially when shooting something like street style, is someone who is comfortable in their clothes, an understanding of fit and proportions, a playfulness with those proportions as well as colour and pattern. It's hard to compute all those things at once and a lot of the time it's gut feeling.

Image Jamie Ferguson

GF: How would you describe your own style and is there anyone who particularly influences your personal and photography styles?

JF: My personal style is conservatively eclectic. By that I mean I like trying a lot of different styles but tend to stick to the tried and true within them. At the minute I've been quite comfortable with a kind of preppy-Ivy-French-bohemian thing. On the flip side I'm still very drawn to soft Italian tailoring but dressing that down as much as I can. I really enjoy that playing around with high and low and trying to dress a causal thing up or a formal thing down. Of course it doesn't always work but that's half the fun!

In terms of photography I love the work of Peggy Sirota, Annie Leibovitz, William Eggleston, Matthieu Venot, and Glen Allsop. To name a few.

GF: Are you planning any more books?

JF: There's always something floating around up there. Of course I'd love to do another This Guy at some point. The 2 years putting that together was some of the most fulfilling work I've ever done. Who knows?

This Guy by Jamie Ferguson published by Hardie Grant UK

*My favourite style books - @greyfoxblog on Instagram

Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Style

I've been lucky to be a fairly regular visitor to Glyndebourne Festival Opera for some 35 years. There have been many highlights and our visit recently to see Cendrillon (as guests of Glyndebourne) was one of these. In retelling the Cinderella story Jules Massenet wanted to highlight the magical aspects of Cinderella's transition from downtrodden youngest daughter to princess. This production achieves this remarkably well and there was indeed a touching magical beauty to the opera with moments both of humour and tragedy.

But Glyndebourne is as much about the experience as the opera. Tickets for Cendrillon were still available from £85 so this is an experience not just for the few. Entering into the spirit of Glyndebourne, bringing a picnic and dressing up (most men wear evening dress) adds so much to the fun of the occasion and are what draw us back on an annual basis. 

Dressing for Glyndebourne. Chester Barrie made to measure dinner jacket & trousers, Budd silk shirt, hat Laird Hatters

The weather for our visit was perfect - sunny with a cooling breeze. In all the years we've been going I can count the wet and cold occasions on one hand; and there is plenty of shelter if you are unfortunate enough to have bad weather.

We were treated to a Leiths picnic and Nyetimber sparking wine (for those not driving) and I recommend this delicious option if you'd rather not bring picnic basket, tables and chairs to do it yourself.

It's often assumed that the Festival is completely sold out or that only the most expensive seats are left, whereas there are often some lower-price tickets still available. Check on availability by going to https://www.glyndebourne.com/festival/ and enjoy your day!

My wife and I were guests of Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

People: Lara Platman, Photographer and Tweed & Land Rover Enthusiast

This is the first of an occasional new series which looks at people whose lives are grey only in the sense that they may or may not have a few grey hairs. I start with photographer Lara Platman, whose book, Harris Tweed: From Land to Street, I enjoyed on my trip to Harris and Lewis at the invitation of The Harris Tweed Authority last year. Lara and I also share a love of old Land Rovers; we both own a series 2a Land Rover.

GF: Please introduce yourself and what you do:

LP: I am photographer and author with four published books (Art Workers Guild, 125 Years, Harris Tweed, from Land to Street, Spirit of Land, the Distilleries of Scotland and Through the Night, the Passion of Motorsport) and work with various editorial lifestyle and photographic outlets and appear regularly on BBC Radio Gloucestershire. I am a Brother of the Art Workers Guild, a committee member of the Guild of Motoring Writers and my photographs can be found in the collections Victoria and Albert Museum, London. I am an ambassador for Leica Camera AG and a Getty Contributor. Blimey that was a mouthful!

I embark on projects that inspire me, that instil a passion in me to complete them for whatever reason, regardless of the financial benefit – which does cause some annoyance to my accountants. I have recently restored my 1964 Land Rover Series 2a and drive her as my daily where each outing is an adventure either under or inside the car (more about her later). I am currently writing a radio drama about a woman racing driver from the 1920’s and along with having a motor racing licence I also just passed my motorbike license, so I suppose I am completely ensconced as a petrol head.

GF: How did you come to be a photographer? What do you photograph?

LP: I trained in photography and Fine Art in Newport under Keith Arnott and Roy Ascott, with visiting tutors such as Martin Parr and Brian Eno. When I left university I assisted Chris Nash and David Gamble to name but a few. Went off to New York to work and ended up welding for the comedians Penn and Teller along with assisting a photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. 

Coming back to London I realised I wanted to get back to my roots of being brought up in dressing rooms (as my parents made theatre costumes), I loved (and still do love it) Dance and Theatre, so set to working at the Royal Opera House amongst the many dance venues in London and supplied newspapers with the shots. Soon after, went to work at Country Life. They sent me on their ‘Out and About’ features, where I was sent to Goodwood Revival and then my photographic life changed. I got the petrol head bug and now photograph people and cars amongst my other commissions. 

I used to shoot with a Nikon FM2 and adored my 85mm f1.4 lens, then was gifted a Hasselblad camera, which allowed me to really find the form of the square photo that I love today, and still shoot with it for books and larger commercial jobs. When digital photography came in in 2008 I had moved from my Nikon FM2 to a Nikon D100 for editorial jobs and I utterly hated it. I thought that my chosen profession was almost doomed, until that was, I discovered a Leica M6 kit in a pawn shop window. Complete with two camera bodies and three lenses, one being a Noctilux 50mm /f1 I suddenly fell back in love. Everyone seemed to have been discarding their film cameras and I scooped this kit up, inside a Billingham Hadley Pro bag, I found a lab to process and scan my film and I got back into the editorial swing of things.

These cameras and lenses dictate how I photograph rather than what I photograph. Although I haven’t photographed any wars, weddings or small children, I probably would shoot anything that my camera lenses allow me to.

GF: Your book Harris Tweed; From Land to Street was the result of seven months on Harris and Lewis - tell us about that.

LP: My first publication was commissioned by The Art Workers Guild, to celebrate their 125th year. I visited 125 artists in their workshops across the United Kingdom and made a photo and wrote down what it is they do and how they are inspired to work on their pieces, rather than their biographies which can all be found on the internet these days, I was more interested and thought that people would be more interested in, how they work and why. I shot this on the square framed Hasselblad and it allowed me to really compose each photo and create a scene I was happy with.

The in-depth study of these artists and craftsmen sparked my interest in weaving, of which some of the Guild members are, which led me to the Harris Tweed publication. I was commissioned to create Harris Tweed, From Land to Street (Quarto Publishing) which looks at the 100th year of the Orb stamp and the industry of Harris Tweed, from the sheep and crofters to the wool sorting, washing and mill workers through to weaving, and finally the cloth produced for upholstery and tailoring. I lived up on Harris for 7 months whilst photographing and writing part of the book, which allowed me to shoot the book by each season, look at how the people on Harris and Lewis live and produce a book that was more than simply a tourist’s account of this historic industry. I lived in a croft and also camped quite a bit. 

Staying up in Harris and Lewis really changed my outlook on how I live as a city dweller and when I returned to London I almost immediately needed to leave again, (I soon put in place an escape route and began the idea of moving to the countryside). I started to understand the whole concept of sustainable existence amongst your surroundings, where as in London my life seemed to be on tap and very needy. Making the Harris Tweed book gave me so much more than just photos and words. There are some photos from this book on my website. Again, these are shot with the Hasselblad and I loved the pace of the camera on tripod with both portrait and landscape. The whole process of using a Polaroid is something that makes me fall in love with every click.

GF: You have just completed restoring an old Land Rover yourself. Tell us more.

From an early age I was always interested in making something from nothing (probably from being brought up with people who made costumes), and my ex boyfriends had Land Rovers. Knowing that I wanted one, I set to on finding one that was fairly decent and affordable. I bought Big Red from photos and went to see it in the dark in the rain and fell in love with her straight away. Little did I know about many of her individualities that needed changing. I started on repairing her chassis - well my wonderful historic car and Land Rover specialist, Adrian Wynn, started changing her chassis - and he suggested I actually give her the whole restoration treatment. 

So that is what I did. There is a whole article on my website about how I restored her. It took me almost 2 years, knowing I would never sell her, I was soon realising that she was costing me a huge amount of my working time…meanwhile, she is my adorable Big Red and I love her more and more each day. Off to find another one now to do the same only this time I will sell the new restoration and always keep Big Red. I have had many offers for her, but no way is she going anywhere.

GF: What dreams and plans do you have for the future?

LP: As you read earlier, I wanted to leave London and live in the countryside, but near to London still. So I moved to the Cotswolds which allows me to pop into London as well as having some space and natural landscapes around me. I was really only trying it out but seven years on, I am still here in the Cotswolds and have really put down roots with buying a plot of land. 

Over the next few years I shall be building my house which will have a garage and darkroom so I will be able to continue my passions of photography and car restoration. I am currently researching different ways to make the house as passive as possible and create a carbon footprint that does not affect the world too much. I am by a mill race so would like to utilise the water in an efficient way. 

My interests as a photographer and journalist, from dance, theatre and art, to automotive may now be moving to architecture, engineering and sustainability… I think being a photographer and journalist allow me to investigate a whole variety of crafts and trades, of world issues and situations, that perhaps I would never have known if I had chosen another trade. In fact, I have no clue as to what trade I would have chosen other than the one I am in.

GF: Anything else you'd like to mention?

Well, I suppose, I would like to say, that now that I am nearing 50 years of age, the photographs that I took in my twenties, might be less technical or well printed (remember we all printed stuff back then) but the subject matter is becoming more and more relevant, so I think I could start to look back at the archives and create a retrospective of sort. I photographed a team of In-Line skaters from Texas to New York, I photographed well established actors and dancers, cityscapes that no longer exist, architectural artistic masterpieces, so perhaps the work from my past might pay for the work in my future? Which in one respect is quite a positive thought.

With many thanks to Lara Platman.

www.photofeature.co.uk

Twitter: @photofeature

Instagram: @photo.feature

All images: Photofeature/ Lara Platman
Read more about her Land Rover on her website.

Other Links:
Billingham bags
Leica Store UK
Harris Tweed Authority

Chester Barrie Style at The Olivier Awards 2018

I was privileged to be a guest of Savile Row's Chester Barrie at The Laurence Olivier Awards this week. For the seventh year they are the stylish menswear sponsor of the ceremony which celebrates London's premier position in the theatrical arts. Many of the nominees and presenters at the awards ceremony wore Chester Barrie suits, dinner jackets or tuxedos, including Giles Terera, who won Best Actor in a Musical and Michael Jibson, who won Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, both for Hamilton which took seven awards.

Giles Terera 

The Chester Barrie ready-to-wear style offers a strong look in the shoulders and a defined waist, ideal for formal wear for events like The Oliviers. I wore a black shawl collar suit (see below) which I obtained from Chester Barrie last year and is still in their current collection in blue and black. Peak lapels are a strong part of their formal tailoring style and velvet, wool, tartan and silk jacquard in all colours from black to blues and brown make for a wide selection of formalwear for all tastes and styles, ages and shapes - as the images below testify. See Chester Barrie.

Wearing Chester Barrie at The Olivier Awards. I'm with fellow guest menswear writer Nick Carvell

The show was superb and I enjoyed every moment of it and the after-party in the Natural History Museum, where the champagne flowed, good food was served a wonderful time was had by all.

Here are some of the names of the men that Chester Barrie dressed for the evening of the Olivier Awards ceremony: Adam J Bernard, Jason Donovan, Michael Sheen, Joe Mcelderry, Michael Jibson, Giles Terera, Peter Polycarpou, Lee Mead, Bill Dreamer, Frank DiLella, Joe McFadden, Ash Hunter, Obi Ugoala, Alfred Molina, Horace Oliver, Jamie Lambert, Emile Ruddock, Dex Lee and Edward Baruwa.

I was a guest of Chester Barrie for the evening and would like to thank them for their hospitality.