Yony Leyser grew up in Chicago, where he studied writing, filmmaking and the dramatic arts, going on to start his career as a director at an early age. At 26 he finished his first feature-length film, William S Burroughs: A Man Within, which included appearances from icons such as Iggy Pop and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.

In 2010, Leyser moved to Berlin and dedicated his next movie, Desire Will Set You Free (2015), to the ever-changing, vibrant German metropolis. Leyser believes Berlin has changed since he first got there – and that it has also changed him. The Forumist met up with him to find out what he thinks about transition and change, and why he believes hedonism is important to finding yourself.

How did Berlin change you?
“I first visited Berlin in 2007 during a university programme. I went out to explore squats, queer parties, housing collectives, demonstrations, vegan restaurants, bike shops, parks and cruising zones. I was in heaven and somehow managed to complete my course at the same time. I fell in love with the queer scene here, with the public space, with the ability to meet diverse groups of people, often with non-conformist views and a desire to defy. I moved here permanently in 2010. The city has changed a lot since I first arrived, and so have I. I became a much more comfortable person here, which was due in part to being able to be around people like me, in a queer community with support from my friends, with basic human rights that the United States deny, like health insurance, public transportation, bike lanes and the ability to survive and thrive. My last two films were heavily influenced by the city of Berlin. Now that I am in my thirties, my priorities have changed and I have entered a new dimension professionally, which is more difficult here, but I’m getting there.

Desire Will Set You Free feels like an homage to Berlin. What fascinates you about this city?
“The city of Berlin is the main character in the film. Berlin is a city of death and disparity, of rediscovery and rebirth, a city for the queer and demimonde, for the outsider and foreigner. I hope that identity remains. In Desire Will Set You Free we were trying to preserve this identity. Together with my producer Paula Alamillo, we set out to document all our friends and various nightlife icons, and the venues where we used to hang out before they disappeared. We wanted to pay back the city for all it did for us. The film was largely improvised and everyone played themselves. It features the who’s who of Berlin and I hope it will serve as a time capsule or yearbook of the 2010s.”

Your movies deal with topics such as hedonism, punk and queerness. What and who inspires your work?
“Some people who inspire me are John Waters, James Baldwin, J Halberstam, Gregg Araki, Ulrike Ottinger, JT LeRoy and David Wojnarowicz.”

How would you personally describe hedonism?
“I guess it’s the pursuit of pleasure and the here and now.”

Do you think it’s important to find yourself, to satisfy your desires?
“Learning and self-learning are important lifelong endeavours. We all adapt, grow, develop and change. Our goals, friend circles, lifestyles, political views, partners, sexual desires, self-views change as we gather experiences and grow older. I think it’s very important to explore our desires and the desires of others, to move forward and to avoid suppressing feelings and emotions that could become very detrimental.”

During your twenties, you went to punk shows on a regular basis. Was this a support system for you?’
“Yeah, I used to love punk. It was a very fun community to be a part of. It’s a deviant way of being subversive and I think that’s important in today’s political climate. Although I don’t really consider myself punk any more, I still appreciate punk.”

What fascinates you about punk in general?
“I guess it’s about rejecting the status quo, capitalism, forming communities of people with similar views by going to punk and rock shows. Growing up in America in the 1990s, I just saw consumerism as the main religion and talking point, so punk became a very attractive alternative.”

You chose to play Ezra, the main part in Desire Will Set You Free, yourself. How much of Yony was in this character?
“Ezra was a mix of me and some friends of mine at that time. I chose to play the character because everyone else was playing themselves and there was so much improvisation that playing that role became a way of controlling the scenes from the inside.”

And what was it like acting and directing at the same time?
“It was super-difficult. I am really happy that I did it and I think it made sense for Desire, but I don’t think I would do it again.”

Desire Will Set You Free deals a lot with hedonism, sexuality and self-discovery, topics you won’t find in many mainstream movies. Why do you think they’re still taboo/niche topics? And how would you like to change that?
“With films, funding usually goes to ideas that are safer, those that are considered safe investments. The really wild people with hot ideas rarely jive with the funding and production elements of making movies, but people are interested in seeing those things. I am so lucky to have my films supported by German film funds and I hope they will continue to take more risks with films covering these topics and include more minority voices.”

Do you think our society is too prudish sometimes?
“Definitely. I guess it’s because people are scared, but I think Berlin is one of the least-prudish cities that I have ever been to.”

What are you hoping to change in people’s minds with your work?
“I don’t know if I want to change people’s minds. Rather, I strive to portray under-represented communities and to creatively document interesting moments in recent history.”

How would you define the meaning of transition?
“Many people strive to achieve constants throughout their lives and aim for stability and sameness, but life is always in transition and I think that embracing change and our journey is key to attaining happiness and unlocking creativity. For me, being an artist and being queer imply embracing a life in transition, and our work can reflect on those transitions and shed light on elements of society that many people ignore.”

Team credits:

Words by Ole Siebrecht
Photography by Tom Kleinschmidt
Styling by Veronika Dorosheva
Makeup by Hyenaz
Talent: Yony Leyser and Hyenaz
Production: Veronika Dorosheva
Special thanks to: Karin Kruse, Ringo Kaufold, Antonia at Hermés, Soma and Phoebe at Fake PR and Aisha at Agency V

Fashion credits: 

#1 Jacket and Shoes: Talent’s own, Top and Trousers by Pringle of Scotland, Glasses by Ace & Tate  
#2 Shirt by Joseph, Sunglasses på Ace & Tate, Hyenaz wears Harness by Mad Kate and Exit
Waistcoat: Talent’s own, Trousers by Pringle of Scotland
#3 Filmstills from “Desire Set Free”
#4 Top, Trousers, Shirt and Shoes by Hermès, Glasses by Ace & Tate 
#5 Harness by Mad Kate and Exit 
#6 Filmstills from “Desire Set Free”

Without constant development, fashion wouldn’t exist. But a continuous transformation can be challenging, too. For many fashion brands, young or established, a question arises: how do you react to the current trends without modifying the DNA that is essential for success? The answer might be to embrace the concept of evolution and make it the core of the brand. This is what the young Parisian label Icosae does. Its design process involves a sort of evolutionary circle of a physical painting: the artwork is first transformed into a digital print and then printed onto garments. When worn, it becomes something semi-physical.

We met Valentin Glémarec and Dounia Merabet, the sharp minds behind Icosae, at their showroom in Paris, where we got the chance to see their work in all its stages – from the paintings made by creative director Glémarec to the ready-to-wear garments. For the AW18 show, boys paraded in cool streetwear looks through the solemn surroundings of a Parisian church. Along with the theme of the collection – the younger generation’s obsession with celebrities and its almost religious reverence of them – it was a slap in the face for anyone who thinks that fashion is superficial.

Glémarec launched Icosae in 2013 and it has been on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar for three seasons. He studied art at Les Arts Décoratifs du Louvre and Olivier de Serres and, during his final year of school, started working with luxury fashion houses such as Givenchy and Valentino, which he still does. 

Merabet is in charge of PR and business strategy. She worked on commercial development at Lanvin and Givenchy for almost 10 years before joining Icosae. The two met at the showroom after the SS16 show. “I really liked the clothes, especially the tailoring and quality of the pieces, and I really wanted a new challenge,” says Merabet. “Now it’s been two years. I’m mainly responsible for brand strategy, but when you work in a small house like Icosae, you end up doing way more.”

We chatted in depth to Glémarec about the evolution of the brand, its DNA and that AW18 show.

Please tell us more about your latest collection.

“We wanted to talk about how celebrities are worshipped nowadays, how they’ve replaced God. The inspiration comes from my background as a painter and my observation of several paintings at the Louvre, some religious. Naturally it was interesting to compare what people believe in nowadays with what people believed in during previous decades. Maybe God is too abstract for people now. It’s easier to relate to celebrities because they can follow them, yet they can’t reach them.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDuuSXIcOHw

What were people’s reactions to the show?
“Our idea was to create a contrast between the venue and the collection and to show mainly streetwear pieces in a church. It was shocking for some, but even church representatives were positive about it. The characters on the prints are our ‘muses’ – a black African muse, an albino child muse and one with a covered head. It’s all about being receptive and connected to the real world.”

Why did you work with streetwear this season? Is it an answer to a global and continuous trend?
“There is a business side to everything [Laughs.]. In our previous collections we were making a lot of tailored pieces that we couldn’t sell. So we decided to respond to the current demand and make a streetwear collection mixed with tailored jackets. We didn’t change our DNA. It just evolves with every collection.”

icosaeofficial.com

Team credits
Words and art direction by Veronika Dorosheva
Photography by Chris Filippini
Catwalk photography by Shoji Fuji

“What does Devotion mean to you?” The question went through my head. I closed my eyes for a few seconds… DE-VO-TION… The word echoed round my head, bouncing back and forth, and I could see each letter being highlighted, one by one, as though in a PowerPoint presentation, until they dissolved and transformed into two different visual stories. I saw dervishes in their long jackets turning round and round in an ecstatic dance and I also saw ravers losing themselves to the booming beat of the music inside a dark club, their eyes closed and their hands up in the air. Dervishes and ravers are two completely different crowds and yet in my mind they were two sides of one coin, both completely devoted to music and dance.

For dervishes, music and dance play a crucial role in their physically active meditation practice. Dervishes, the members of Sufi orders, implement physical exertions in order to attain an ecstatic trance-like state and reach God (the source of all perfection). Their religious rituals, known as Sema (which translates as “listening”), include singing, playing instruments and dancing. They seek to abandon their egos and personal desires by listening to the music, focusing on God and spinning their body in repetitive circles that have been seen as a symbolic imitation of planets in the solar system orbiting the sun.

How about ravers? What gods do they worship? What sources of all perfection do they see in their vivid visions? (A big yellow smiley goes in here.) What altered states of mind do they achieve? Those of us who have ever been to a rave can surely answer this in their own words. But how and where was the good old rave born?

The rave movement first appeared during the UK acid house movement of the late 1980s, in London and Manchester to begin with, before spreading to other places and countries. House, acid house and techno music were played at rave parties, which were usually held in warehouses and underground venues. It was something completely new, a sort of liberation movement, as ravers didn’t actually care what they were wearing. There wasn’t a dress code, as with previous subcultural movements such as hippies in 1960s and later, punks and skinheads.

While scouring the internet for information on ravers, I stumbled upon the photography book Raving ’89 by Gavin and Neville Watson. Published in 2009, it documented the rave movement in the UK. Its pictures of kids sweating, rocking their bodies and wearing shades caught my attention, as well as the images of dark, hazy spaces and blurry lights, happy faces and big eyes. But there is more to the movement than that. The early raves were an explosion, a revolution and liberation from everything that came before it.

Three decades have passed since the first rave parties, and guess what? The rave parties are still around and for one good reason: the music has a tremendous power over our bodies and minds. It can heal wounds, it can take us elsewhere and it can make us smile…

Berlin is one of the major cities where music has played – and still plays – a crucial role in city life. We who live here are all music devotees – maybe some of us are even music slaves, but we all go raving, dancing, vogueing or jazzing. Music is our devotion.

Credits:
Words by Veronika Dorosheva
Photography
#1-3 & 5-12 by Gavin Watson “RAVING 89 book”
#13-17 by Tilman Bremb “Zeitmashine”
#4 Whirling Dervish Ceremony – Image sourced online

The documentary depicts the makers of the eponymous drag show, which used to take place in THE CLUB, the famous gay bar in the district of Neukölln. The Real Housewives of Neukölln, “Berlin’s preeminent trash drag musical cabaret comedy sketch show”, as described by the makers themselves became a sort of emblem of Berlin’s creative queer scene and drag community in particular. It has thus contributed to Berlin’s district of Neukölln, becoming a magnet for artists from all over the world who are open to explore creativity beyond sexual and gender standards.

The documentary captures five drag artists with captivating interviews in between performances and combines them with short snippets from their actual stage performances.

The documentary shoot took place from September 2016 to April 2017, resulting in many hours of exclusive footage, which were carefully reviewed and edited by the filmmakers who describe this project as being their most ambitious project to date.

The documentary is a portrait of a “family” of artists from different cultural backgrounds who got together in order to explore the social role of a drag queen within contemporary culture and society. It’s fun to watch the artists describing their stage characters and sharing their personal motivations of doing drag on such a personal and authentic level. Each of the drag queen characters is very unique and each of the portrayed artists has a different artistic approach.

For Cheryl Nobyl, drag is about having fun with gender presentation in order to highlight the performativity of gender, because “people are taking it very seriously, but at the end it’s just a show”. Cheryl Nobyl’s wish is to have a platform to issue her vision of a transgressive queer world where people could live in. For Fanny Crackwhore, it is about being on stage and performing, and the drag performances are a “celebration of fan”. For Ash Traylia, the drag is part of self-discovery and about exploration of the feminine energy within yourself. “The masculinity is just an act you play.”

Ida Entity’s character has both masculine and feminine features: she wears a pink wig and also a moustache. Ida Entity is very aware of the transformative power of clothes. She believes that depending on what you wear you can feel more feminine or more masculine and your body language will change accordingly. And there is another question that she often asks herself: “Why is it funny for a guy to put on a wig? Is femininity something we can make a joke about?” Ida Entity doesn’t give direct answers to these questions, but Ash Traylia does to a certain degree by highlighting that drag performances have a purpose and that special energy, and that they are not glamorous. “They are not dealing with glamorous things necessarily, they are just dealing with some shit that needs to be said.” For Collapsella the drag performance is about embracing the freedom of self-expression and about questioning the binary system of gender ascriptions, which unfortunately still very present in our society. “Being Collapsella allows me to joke about what I see around me…” says Fabio, aka Collapsella.

As diverse and funny as their stage names may be, they are serious with their performances and their unique approaches to drag. With its beautiful cinematography and the exclusive footage of the Neukölln’s certainly hottest queer show of the past year, the documentary offers a unique insight into “Queer-Utopia”, Berlin’s queer artistic community and culture.

Unfortunately THE CLUB was closed, so The Real Housewives of Neukölln drag show is on a forced break at the moment, but the artists are looking for a new place to continue their work. You can still witness their incredible performances at Berlin’s Yo! Sissy! Festival. They also organize a new party series called Frrrrruity. The next party is coming up on the 29th of July, so please don’t miss it!

On the 12th of August The Real Housewives of Neukölln documentary will premiere at Lichtblick Kino in Kastanienallee 77 in Berlin. This one is a Must-Watch!

Credits:

Words by: Veronika Dorosheva

All visuals courtesy of THEM

Documentary premiere event

Margiela Archive Pop Up Sale was held during Paris Fashion Week earlier this year in March 2017 and now again, just a week ago during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin. In the pop up shop people could acquire samples from Margiela’s archives for (ridiculously) high prices of 500 euro for a silk dress and 850 euro for a pair of Tabi boots. Considering the prices for new luxury goods, the price tag of a 500 euro didn’t seem to be so outrageous – but remember, we are talking here about samples and some private second-hand pieces, many of which were not in their best shape and showed stains and visible traces of use.

Just when we believe we know everything about Margiela, new facts come out, casting light on Margiela’s broad creative input and influence over the fashion industry. Did you know that in October 1997, Margiela was appointed as the artistic director for Women’s ready-to-wear (RTW) collections at Hermès, the Parisian high fashion luxury house? I didn’t know until I visited ‘Margiela, The Hermès Years’ exhibition at the ModeMuseum Antwerp, an exhibition that aims to explore Margiela’s oeuvre from his years of work at Hermès, juxtaposing the Hermès collections to Margiela’s creations for his own label, Maison Martin Margiela. This exhibition is on display at MoMu Antwerp until the 27th of August 2017 and is showing this collection for the very first time.

Margiela remained at the position of creative director for Hermès RTW Womenswear for 6 years, from 1997 to 2003, and created 12 collections altogether. He had three important criteria in mind while designing the collections for Hermès: the highest levels of quality, comfort and timelessness. He then introduced a different logo, and he chose not to work with printed scarves or carrés in his collections, nor even with prints – a very daring idea considering the long tradition and history of Hermès printed scarves. He presented his collections on women of different ages and body types, another rather daring idea in fashion industry of that time.

Margiela designed numerous garments as transformable pieces, which could be worn in various ways. Collections were consequently interchangeable, marking the birth of ‘slow fashion’ before ‘slow fashion’ was introduced as a concept.

Although I may have sounded skeptical towards the beginning of this article regarding the hype for Margiela’s creations, I am not skeptical – rather, I am impressed. Impressed to acknowledge and to recognize how even many recent trends actually exist due to Margiela’s genius.

And here is the reason why everyone who is interested in fashion and in the current state of fashion affairs, so to speak, should make their way to Antwerp to see the exhibition for themselves: while strolling through the exhibition I recognized every single trend from the beginning of nineties to our present days in at least one of Margiela’s pieces. Be it exaggerated shoulders, the way the clothes were presented to the public, down to the choice of models and unusual locations for shows, his influence was there. I also learned that Margiela interned with Jean Paul Gaultier from 1984 to 1987 and upon closer look, I could indeed see Margiela’s subtle references to the French maestro.

Another interesting fact that was only recently introduced to the public is that Margiela set up his label not alone as many believe, but with Jenny Meirens, another mysterious figure in fashion industry. Jenny Meirens is someone we still don’t know much about and who sadly passed away on the 1st of July this year. The Margiela exhibition in Antwerp doesn’t reveal much about Margiela’s female companion; unfortunately the exhibition included no additional information about Meirens. However, this NY Times article by Susannah Frankel does talk about Meirens as the woman behind Margiela.  There is also the documentary We Margiela on its way that claims to tell “the untold story of the enigmatic fashion house” of Maison Martin Margiela.  It is supposed to feature Jenny Meirens and the members of the creative team talking about “creative processes and unique philosophies of the Maison.” The documentary is scheduled to premiere in 2017.

Another highlight of the Margiela exhibition at MoMu is a series of videos that show Margiela’s Hermès collections, which were co-directed by Margiela himself, according to the official press release. Check out the exhibition to see it for yourself this summer at MoMu in Antwerp.

Credits:

Words by Veronika Dorosheva

Image Credits:

Header Image. Hermès A/W 1998-1999 Vareuse in double-faced cashmere, sleeveless high-neck pullover in cashmere, mid-length skirt in Shetland wool and boots in calfskin, ‘Le vêtement comme manière de vivre’ Le Monde d’Hermès, Photo: John Midgley

1. Maison Martin Margiela A/W 1996-1997, Photo: Anders Erdström
Hermès A/W 1998-1999, Photo: Studio des Fleurs

2. Maison Martin Margiela S/S 2009, Photo: Giovanni Giannoni
Hermès S/S 1999, Photo: Studio des Fleurs

3. By Stany Dederen

4. By Stany Dederen

5. By Stany Dederen

6. By Stany Dederen

7. Maison Martin Margiela A/W 1996-1997, Photo: Marina Faust

8. Hermès S/S 1999 Cardigan in doube-faced crêpe, collarless shirt in Oxford, pants in crêpe and belt ‘Étrivière’ in bridle leather, Le Monde d’Hermès, Photo: Serge Guerand

9. Hermès A/W 2002-2003 Tuxedo over-skirt in silk ottoman from ‘Les Gestuelles’, Photo: Marina Faust

10. Hermès A/W 2001-2002 ‘Jupe enroulée’ from ‘Les Gestuelles’, Photo: Marina Faust

11. Hermès A/W 2001-2002 Double-breasted jacket and pants in wool, sleeveless high-neck pullover in cashmere and silk and muff in kidskin and lambskin, Le Monde d’Hermès, Photo: Ralph Mecke

12. Hermès A/W 2001-2002 Collarless jacket and pants in cashmere and silk, high-neck pullover in cashmere and silk, scarf ‘Losange’ in silk crêpe, Le Monde d’Hermès, Photo: Ralph Mecke

13. Maison Martin Margiela A/W 2000-2001, Photo: Marina Faust

14. Maison Martin Margiela S/S 2009, Photo: Marina Faust

15. Maison Martin Margiela S/S 1996, Photo: Marina Faust

16. Hermès A/W 1998 image of the advertising campaign over-painted by Martin Margiela (Cape Cod watch designed by Henri d’Origny and double-tour strap bracelet created by Martin Margiela), Photo: Thierry Le Goues

Luis Alberto Rodriguez is NYC-born artist with Dominican roots. He’s been a professional dancer for 15 years, a job that took him to many countries in Asia and around Europe. In 2011 he finally moved to Europe and settled in Sweden. His next stop was Berlin, where he moved almost five years ago, at first still commuting between Sweden and Berlin. Looking back at his career he realised he needed a change. Despite having a good contract with his dance company and being able to live a good life, he felt like something was not quite right. He decided to leave the company and relocate to Berlin. He sold his apartment in Sweden, bought a camera and has been photographing for two and a half years. This year he won the Public and American Vintage prizes at the 32nd International Festival of Fashion and Photography, which took place in Hyères, the south of France, at the end of April.

When I saw his work at the festival I fell in love with it immediately. Its unique combination of references coming from different disciplines, including fashion, sculpture and dance, made it feel very fresh. The covered human bodies in his photographs were perfectly made extractions of a movement that preserved the energy generated by the moving bodies. Although the bodies look like sculptures, they don’t feel cold and frozen, but alive and full of energy. In Rodriguez’s work, the movement and the energy that should be impalpable due to its nature becomes solid and tangible. As we cannot see the models’ faces or clothing wear we are not distracted and forced to see the movement as a whole. These living sculptures force us to ask questions about the identity of the hidden bodies and they become a paradox: we can see the bodies, but they are covered and thus remain a mystery that boosts our imagination.

Shortly after the festival, I met Rodriguez in a cozy cafe in Kreuzberg, Berlin, to talk about his experience at Hyères and his work.

How did you get into photography?

“It goes back to when I was still working at the dance company. We were on tour in China and I had this idea of taking pictures of women’s shoes, cropping them at the ankles. I had never been in China before and it was extraordinary to see how differently people dress and behave in China. So I was chasing people on the streets, constantly taking pictures. Then I started posting the pictures from my trips, the pictures of shoes and old ladies – I like eccentric old ladies very much – and I was surprised to get good feedback. To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I just knew that it was an interesting approach. And I just carried on. I even started a Tumblr blog. My idea was to do the same thing in NYC, Barcelona, Berlin and other cities in Europe, but when I moved to Europe I soon realised it wasn’t working, because everyone looked kind of the same and you couldn’t tell if the picture was taken in Berlin or Paris or elsewhere.

“A friend of mine, a stylist from New York, persuaded me to get into photography. He said I have a talent and should go for it. I started taking pictures of my family and friends and people on the street. From that moment, my life started to shift. I started meeting people who worked in photography and fashion. I made the decision to quit my dancing job. I bought a camera and dedicated myself to photography. From 2015 I started getting obsessed with it. Some of my photographer friends helped me with the technical aspects I needed to learn first.

“My idea was to translate my dancing experience into photography. I always liked fashion, so I wanted to combine fashion and dance and focus on the body and the clothes. I wanted to work with people, with bodies – basically everything I knew so far and everything I had worked with during my dance career.

“I am not looking at my photographs as fashion photography, though. It’s not my interest. I am looking at clothes not as fashion pieces but as the raw material to work with. When I work with clothes I always ask myself how I can expand them. I am trying to look at the photographs as movements, but they don’t have to show a movement. Photographs are often considered as something static, as a way to capture and seize the moment. I am trying to think about the images as energy. I am asking myself questions like, ‘Where is the body going?’ and ‘Where is it coming from?’ Some people ask me why I’m not doing film. At the moment I am not interested in moving pictures. I feel that a still image gives more room for imagination. While taking a still picture I can be completely honest or I can lie, I can manipulate the reality that the spectator sees and then it’s the spectator’s job to think the story through the end.

“I think a lot about what I am doing and what I am saying with my work. I think that, as an artist, you have to be aware of what you are contributing. There are so many images out there. When I look at those of old masters such as Avedon I see complete commitment. These images are not trendy, they are timeless – they were good in the ’60s, in the ’80s and today, and they will still be good 20 to 30 years from now. This work doesn’t come from following the latest trends. This is something I would like to achieve with my work.”

Why did you choose to apply for the competition at the Hyères festival?

“I hadn’t heard about the festival until a friend told me that it is the[itals] competition to go for. I completely forgot about it until last autumn, when a professional I met during the portfolio review at Helmut Newton Foundation [in Berlin] mentioned it. So I applied without really knowing much about the festival and the competition. Ater I sent my application, I started to do a little research and realised it would be a great opportunity.

“It was at a moment in my life when it felt like I was going through a sort of crisis. I had no job and had to sleep on a friend’s couch. I started to look for jobs but as I’d been a professional dancer for 15 years I didn’t have any other experience. I didn’t even know how to make coffee! I got offered a job at a photo-service place, but it was full-time, 9am to 7pm every day. Eventually, they said they didn’t think it was for me and that I should focus on my creative work instead. And it was definitely better that way. Shortly afterwards, I found out through Instagram that I had been selected for the Hyères competition. I was tagged in a photo, but since I didn’t get any message I thought I was one of the highlights from all the applicants. I couldn’t really understand what was going on, but I was kind of guessing that I was one of the 10 shortlisted photographers. And the next day, I finally got a message that, yes, I’d been selected. It was a big moment for me.

“It was so impressive to see my work being showcased at the festival! I also really enjoyed talking to the audience and seeing how the public reacted to my work. And the fact I got the Public prize means a lot to me, because it meant I have made a connection with people through my work. Participating in the festival was a life-changing experience for me.”

What was it like being selected among photographers whose background was in photography? Did it make you feel insecure?

“I think we all have very different languages when it comes to work. When I first started photography I was trying to hide from dance. Now I try to use my dance background in my work because it made me who I am now. The other photographers don’t have this sort of experience.

“I am really trying to think about what I am doing. Sometimes it starts with a concept, sometimes I just like the clothes or the model or the location. But since I found this one thing, I have been trying to understand what I am actually saying with this. For instance, I started to realise that I am drawn to a certain aesthetic – that I like to cover the bodies that I show in my pictures. Through this, I am questioning identity and through questioning identity, I am making it even stronger.

“Regarding the series of images I showed at Hyères, I wanted the pictures to be very large because I wanted people to see the tension between hiding and being so visible, to show something that is actually impossible. I wanted my images to provoke a lot of questions. But even if you as a spectator don’t understand what is going on in these pictures, you can still feel a connection. Even if the bodies are covered, you still feel the movement – you might even imagine the expression the models have on their faces. Or you can think about who those covered bodies are – is it a girl or a boy, are they white or black?

“I titled this series Patina. I wanted to take one emotion and see what happens with it over time. It wasn’t my intention to confuse people but I liked the fact that many people couldn’t really understand what is happening in my photographs.”

How long does it take for you to create one photograph?

“The three images that you can see here belong to the series of seven or eight photographs. I created them within two days. There were many reasons for me to work so fast – first of all I was shooting in a public space and it was February and it was very cold. Also, friends were modelling for me for free and they had to hold these crazy positions, so I couldn’t make them suffer for too long. Often, I would try the different possibilities of the movement at home before going on location to shoot.”

What’s next?

“I want to continue working on my ideas and developing my signature work. I have also started working on a personal series, which is going to take some time because I am also making clothes for this project. And this is more like a dream, but I would love to travel to Africa and collaborate with people who work with local artisanal materials. I would also like to start showing my work in galleries.”

www.luisalbertorodriguez.com

Credits:

Words by Veronika Dorosheva

All photographs by Luis Alberto Rodriguez

Clara Daguin was one of the 10 competing fashion designers at the Festival d’Hyères that took place at the end of April 2016 in Hyères in the South of France. The fashion jury included many prominent names such as Julien Dossena, the creative director of Paco Rabanne, who was the head of the jury this time and a former participant in the festival in the past, Nicole Phelps, director of Vogue Runway, fashion designer Pierre Hardy, Tomoko Ogura, the fashion director of Barneys New York and others. The jury didn’t show much interest in fashiontech. As a result, Clara Daguin and her fashiontech approach wasn’t among the finalists, and the special prize of the jury was awarded to Hanne Jurmu and Anton Vartiainen who showed a rather handcrafted collection clearly inspired by the 70s, one of the biggest trends of the past year, as well as the hippie movement and vagabonds of eras past.

I had a chance to ask Clara Daguin a few questions about her innovative collection, which was inspired by Silicon Valley in the United States where Clara lived for a while, and about the way people use technology nowadays. We can love it or hate it, but we can’t neglect the fact that we all depend on technology. Clara knows this very well herself: she is diabetic and has an insulin pump. When she got the pump she began thinking a lot more about technology and extensions of the body, Clara asserts.
Her womenswear collection entitled “BODY ELECTRIC” plays with the idea of technologically enhanced bodies featuring garments with led circuits inserted into them – technology that the designer developed herself, by the way – and ear accessories with built-in heart rate monitors.

The shoes are high-tech as well, using built-in gyroscopic sensors that are able to detect the movement of the foot and the position of the body while walking and contain a potentiometer system that lies inside the zipper and makes the light shining inside the soles fluctuate: the soles light up when you zip the shoes on and dim out when you zip the shoes off. When asked about future trends in fashion and technology and if those are something positive or negative, Clara says that she sees the development of technology as an ambiguous process that is hard to predict in advance: you can only see if a certain technology has a positive or negative impact on society when the technology is already there and is being used by many consumers. Technologies like 3D printing for instance, can have positive as well as negative effects: on one side 3D printing can enable people make objects and even garments by themselves comfortably in their homes, but on the other side it can lead to overproduction and overconsumption. In the end, it’s up to consumers how they deal with technology and its positive or negative side effects.

Credits:

Text: Veronika Dorosheva

Images: Courtesy of Hyères Festival, Veronika Dorosheva, Alice Brygo.