Photographer Matin Zad on tracing the similarities between designer fashion and everyday life
Instagram has brought countless clever creatives to our attention. Joseph Pickard, Kalen Holloman, Doug Abraham, My Day With Leo... The latest artist to catch our eye is photographer Matin Zad with his #fashion series.
"Over the past two years, I’ve been using Instagram to produce an ongoing series, #fashion, on the representations and reinterpretations of luxury brands I see in everyday life," explains Zad. "I look for moments that allude to specific designer brands – a runway look, an ad campaign, or just someone who reminds me of a Versace woman or a Yohji man. Each image is accompanied with a single hashtag of a designer or label name. For instance, a nun taking her photo at Walgreens brought up Raf Simons' spring/summer 2012 collection for Jil Sander, of pure white modernist dresses."
"I look for moments that allude to specific designer brands – a runway look, an ad campaign, or just someone who reminds me of a Versace woman"
"The idea was born out of my love for fashion advertising – how just a few images can capture the essence of a brand's seasonal aesthetic," he furthers. "I think the most memorable campaigns have been born out of irreverent artist and designer pairings – Cindy Sherman for Comme des Garçons, Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs, or Mark Borthwick for Maison Martin Margiela. Capturing subjects spontaneously with my iPhone has allowed me to work in a manner different from what I'm used to. I can be extremely meticulous and precise when shooting in a studio, whereas this series challenges me to draw interesting images out of uncontrollable, often mundane scenarios that could change or disappear in the blink of an eye."
"The comparisons I make can be very literal, other times abstract, but always with tongue firmly in cheek," says Zad. Here, we present #fashion observations alongside, for the the first time, the original designer looks. #uncanny.
An easel by the side of the road of what looks like a child’s finger painting, reminiscent of Dior Homme’s S/S15 collection of colourful scribblings on whites, blues and greys.
A chair wrapped in a charcoal striped blanket held with packing tape had a similar silhouette to Comme des Garçons' autumn/winter 2014 collection.
A stream of red paint flooding the street recalled the cutout droplets in Christopher Kane’s spring/summer 2014 collection.
Words by Laura Bradley
