Colour

In the current spring/summer 2011 issue of Another Man stylist Robbie Spencer, photographer Richard Burbridge and artist Maurizio Anzeri collaborated for an explosive colour story, fusing fashion and art. Based on block colours and stripes, focusing on graphic shapes and prints and using a variety of pieces from a man’s wardrobe, “we wanted to create something elegant and timeless with each look but with a juxtaposition of modernity and youth”, Spencer explains. Reinterpreting the abstract shapes in the garments, Burbridge – who Spencer describes as “a master of lighting” – beautifully captured the intensity and contrast of light and shadow, distorting the focus of some areas and objectifying and exposing the details of the others. Adding a further layer to the story, once styled and shot by Spencer and Burbridge, the images were then handed over to needlework artist Maurizio Anzeri to apply his signature embroidery process over them.

In this web exclusive, AnOther features before and after images, an outtake spread from the printed story and an interview with Robbie Spencer.

What was the initial starting point and inspiration behind this shoot?
The story was inspired by early menswear editorials from the 1960s and 1970s in iconic magazines such as L’Uomo Vogue, Nova and Vogue Homme International, taking the elegance of how men were photographed in that era for editorials and applying the elegance to a contemprary context and clothing.

Why did you decide to base it all on colouring and shapes?
The idea was to create graphic immediate compositions through clothing lighting and the models posture, using bright colours and stripe which was something that was really present within the S/S11 collections to create a surreal collision between, clothing lighting model and Maurzio’s input.

What directions did you give the model?
It was important that there was an element or reality in each picture, and through all the different layers, the shadows, artwork you saw a real person, the model. Timothée acted and posed in a natural way – I find it quite distracting when male models over act. Timothée understood the concept of the story and knew that we were trying to capture the real him, a human realness to the story in amongst all the other more staged and technical elements that were involved.

How did the idea come about to use Maurizio Anzeri’s needlework over the shoot?
I had been speaking to Maurzio for a few months about potentially collaborating on a series of projects together, I have been a fan of his work for a long time and I was really excited about taking what his does with forgotten old photos he finds of people and applying that to a fashion/modern day context. It seems like the perfect collaboration between art and fashion to create some hybrid images. I like the idea of incorporating his technique of using thread into fashion images, re-appropriating fabric into the printed image rather than something that when I got the brief for this shoot.

What do you think his work adds?
I think this collaboration with Maurzio added and extra layer and three-dimensional element to the initial story idea, it elevated something that could have been taken very literally into something for more exciting and experimental.

Did you face any challenges with the shoot?
It was hard to get our heads around how far we should go with the actual images as we were always aware that this is how they will in the final magazine edit, so we always had to bare in mind framing and crop wise where Maurizio could work on.

How would you sum this shoot up in one line?
A collision of art and fashion through graphic prints and colour.

For the complete fashion story you can buy the current spring/summer 2011 issue of Another Man here

Text by Lucia Davies

Credits:
Photography: Richard Burbridge
Styling: Robbie Spencer
Artwork: Maurizio Anzeri
Hair: James Pecis at D+V Management using Bumble and Bumble
Make-up: Frankie Boyd at B Agency NY
Model: Timothée at Bananas Models
Casting: Daniel Peddle
Set Design: Amy Henry at CLM UK
Photographic assistants: Jeff Henrikson, Kim Reenberg
Digital technician: Seba Lucrecio at Dtouch
Styling assistants: Elizabeth Fraser-Bell, Jessica Bobince
Production: Etta Meyer at Art + Commerce