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Christopher Michael: You had mentioned before how Madonna was the most collaborative person in terms of the artistic process out of everyone you've ever shot, what made you decide to put her on the cover of your new book in particular?
Tom Munro: Well I guess, she is perhaps Madonna and one of the most iconic figures, but the actual idea came to me to use the book as a means of highlighting an African charity that I've been working with called Meak. After the collaboration with Madonna, she invited me to go to Malawi with her for a week, which I did in April of last year. I saw all of the things she was doing there, so I asked her if I could include Raising Malawi (www.raisingmalawi.org) as one of the beneficiaries of whatever proceeds we manage to make from selling the prints. So in the end, it sort of just seemed a natural step to put her on the cover with Raising Malawi being included in the book.
CM: In your works, you tend to be a walker between worlds in a sense, with your hands both in celebrity as well as fashion. Which realm of your work would you say defines you more?
TM: I think the celebrity portraits sort of materialized and came about through celebrity endorsements, from fragrances and that sort of thing. I also had a contract with Details for 3-4 years and I shot a lot of male celebrities. I ended up building relationships with, you know, Justin [Timberlake] and Patrick [Dempsey]. So when they were endorsing products we got together on those, like with Justin and the Givenchy fragrance, Play. I've also done various things with Leo [Di Caprio] for his film promotions and such. We've just done something with Warner Brothers for Inception, his new movie. With Patrick Dempsey, we've done Avon fragrances and such, so it was really through editorials and stuff that I've managed to work into these celebrity endorsements. I don't know, I suppose one becomes known for taking celebrity portraits but it's something that was sort of a progression for me from being a fashion photographer and was never something I really pursued, it just evolved I guess.
CM: Obviously, the subject of celebrities moving in on the territory previously dominated by the models is a conversation that's been going on for years at this point. Do you feel it's something that's finally stabilized or do you think that celebrities continue to gain more ground as time goes by?
TM: Well, certainly in terms of advertising it still seems to be pretty strong. However, it seems to be more cosmetics and fragrances, and less about fashion, in terms of what celebrities take on. I think there are kind of defined areas that celebrities really tend to occupy and that there is room for everyone in the end.
CM: I like the idea of looking at it that way...I read that photography was something that you started to play with in your mid 20's after you had been travelling and that one of the places you had been travelling to at the time was Bali. It's one of my favorite places and has such an incredibly spiritual nature to it, I wanted to find out if you had any sort of revelation during your time there at all? Or if photography was born of some other process going on in your life at that time...
TM: I was traveling with a bunch of friends and we were sort of getting up to no good and having a good time. Basically, taking pictures was just a hobby; a friend said that I should do it seriously. For me, the idea of making a living as a fashion photographer, particularly having grown up on the country side of England, to move to New York and become a fashion photographer was sort of a very alien concept. When I had returned to London I had been travelling for a period of 9 months already I think, and a friend of mine was taking a photography course and suggested I take it with him so I did. It wasn't born of some undying passion or anything, it was more of a 'why not give it a go' sort of thing. That class ended up being a provincial course that led me to transfer to the London Institute, which took me to Parsons and New York. One thing lead to another and I started working with Steven Meisel. It was during my time working with him that I thought this was sort of my time to actually do this and be serious about it. It was a great experience working for him, when I left, I was 32 and I really just thought, I have to make this work because I'm too old to change tracks now, so I just stuck at it basically... not to say that I didn't enjoy it.
CM: What would you say are amongst the most prominent traits you learned from your time working for Steven?
TM: Prior to working for him I worked for a more commercial photographer in London and we'd go to Miami and put a long lens on the camera and that was pretty much it. The first shoot I did with Steven where I was sort of being 'tried out' was an Italian Vogue shoot with Christy Turlington and a few other girls. Christy was standing in a galvanized bathtub with Wellington boots on in the middle of the garden with a headscarf on in black and white, and it was so removed from wide angle lenses and things and anything else I had experienced before. Over the years, apart from learning technique and lighting, I just basically learned to open my eyes and sort of explore things creatively, further than I certainly had ever thought of doing before. Steven is an incredibly versatile photographer, probably the most versatile photographer, so when I left I certainly didn't have his talent and still don't but I understood how to light in many different ways... Where I came from, everything was very formulaic and I sort of knew where to put the camera in order to make someone's legs long and that sort of thing. So I was kind of winging it to begin with, I didn't have my own style or voice yet. I mean if you know how to light and you know and understand composition, that's half the battle I think. You obviously also have to have an affinity for beauty; it's all those things combined. I sort of left Steven with having learned all those elements in my head, and it was truly a great experience. He would take pictures in no light, whereas in my previous position in London we would have stopped shooting by then. With Steven, he pushed film as far as it would go in those days before everyone started using digital... You know, he would purposely shake the camera or knock it or something in order to create more emotion from the slightly blurred effect. All the things that one wouldn't do because everything had to be sharp and precise, it was just a discipline and a different approach to photography.
CM: You've just referenced the arrival of digital and the exodus of film which reminds me of something that Olivier Theyskens mentioned as well... How in times past, the legendary photographers would both create and maintain their work and reputation on 10 epic shoots a year. Whereas now, with the arrival of digital there is such an impatient pressure to mass produce everything and photographers are not given the time to really find a moment of grace caught on camera. Do you feel that to be true even since you've started?
TM: It's interesting because I've been having this conversation with my agent recently. The industry has changed so much from the days of Avedon and Newton and Penn. They would do one editorial a month perhaps, like you said- it was a limited amount of editorial, or a book that would really define them. They had to keep evolving then within each work, which is one of the most difficult challenges of being a fashion photographer... You have to keep re-inventing yourself but sort of within the borders of your own world. It makes it difficult to draw that fine line between cranking it out every day and trying to approach it with more of an intellectual fashion with a sort of greater honesty towards yourself. It's hard to do that when you are shooting back to back. I mean, in the last couple of years I've done roughly 60 shoots a year and running from one airport or plane to the next and getting off a plane and going to a job, it's hard. I'm not sure it's the right way to be doing it, but it's not all bad because it means there is a demand and something one should be grateful for. I think it's just how the business has evolved and it's still very much about images, but perhaps less so than it was 20 years ago. The immediacy of digital has a huge part in that evolution. I mean, it used to take a week to pull something together and now you do it as you go along throughout the day. I mean, when we used to shoot film we'd be doing Polaroids and then spending 30 minutes trying to get back to what you achieved in the polaroid. That's one of the best things about digital photography, that you don't have to go back and get it because you already have it.
CM: What do you find to be the most relevant subject or change that's occurring in the business today?
TM: Certainly there is a sort of movement towards embracing femininity and we clearly went through a period that was all about androgyny and boyish models so I'd say that's obviously changed. Maybe it's also because I'm getting older (laughs). But in fashion photography, you are embracing their intellect, their beauty, and their sexuality and in my pictures I like to portray women with certain strength. I think for me, shooting young girls who are androgynous is sort of quite hard to bring that (strength) across. I've never really been a huge fan of the really young models in terms of shooting them. We are all conditioned to view the world and fashion in a certain way, and it gets very political when the girls look anorexic and 99.9 % of the population doesn't look like that. At the end of the day we are selling clothes and, like seeing a film, fashion creates something for people to aspire to or want to be a part of and it has to ensue those emotions. In turn, part of one's job as a fashion photographer is to create something that people aspire to, and because of social demand we like to see something slightly more idyllic than a model absent of gender or legal age.
CM: What do you hope is the next great big shift and leap in fashion photography?
TM: I like shooting beautiful women so what's going on now works wonderfully for me. I think looking back on fashion photography from the 60's, 70's and 80's the women were beautiful women. I think that there is a handful of girls now that fall into that category... I think that hopefully we can stay in a world that is believable. I mean there are always going to be people that are more beautiful than others but it's about celebrating femininity and intellect and beauty. That's actually a really hard question because on the other hand, the sort of shock factor of the 80's and punk was equally interesting but in a completely different way. I think that we are going through a good moment for me and in terms of where the industry is but it would be boring if it stayed the same. Things have to keep evolving which is why models and photographers all change. You have to stay on top of the game and I don't know what the next stage is going to be...
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Christopher Michael: I've read in some of your previous interviews that you've been sketching since quite a young age... Have you kept all of those drawings from the very beginning? Do you think you would ever be open to putting those images into a book?
Olivier Theyskens: I have a huge amount of drawings from when I was young. I have two trunks full of drawings, from..well, ever! Anything and everything. There are a little fashion drawings and other kinds of drawings as well.. I never had a professor for drawing, the only time I went to school, my mother brought me, and the professor brought a mannequin of a beautiful woman's face and told me, "draw that." So I drew it and I only had done the contouring, you know the eyes and everything, and then she came and took a pen and made a big line in the middle of the face and said, "You have to make this disappear with shadowing and everything." I remember I was too sensitive and shocked by the act of making that mark in the face, I cried and we never went back. Actually it's funny because my Grandpa, when he passed away, my parents discovered that he had put a lot of my drawings in a bank. I always had a big amount of drawings in my room and little by little they ended up in the trash. As a child I didn't really think it was a big deal, but I now have a lot of those drawings that my grandfather kept and another huge amount that I kept on my own. It's a huge mess; there are no dates on them or anything... I should really take the time to organize them. I think what's interesting with those old ones is that you see the change throughout and the evolution. The funny thing is when you look at old stuff you remember the moment it was created. I don't always remember the year but I remember doing it, or showing it; there are always memories connected to each piece. I think that a book of drawings is a great idea, but I'm not sure that I would be so interested in doing a book of my old drawings, necessarily.
Christopher Michael: I really appreciate the fact that you seem to operate in your own realm in terms of being aware but not really paying so much attention to what other people are doing when you are creating your own designs..
Olivier Theyskens: I tend to reject things that remind me of the work of others, if I do a drawing and I have the thought that it resembles something already done I never keep it. I don't like it at all when it's clearly inspired by someone else or is clearly the idea of another person. So I have to be aware of what is already done as well. Sometimes I have a strong feeling about what someone is doing, like "oh that person is right, this is really what girls are looking for," and at those times, it's very hard to not re-project that vision into your own work. To say to yourself, "ok, I can still bring something else,"...that part is not easy sometimes. It depends on where you put the creativity. If it is a really inspired collection you should be able to do it without copying anybody else's idea or inspirations.
Christopher Michael: You said that you don't have a muse and it made me wonder if perhaps you are your own muse?
Olivier Theyskens: This is a question that everyone asks and I understand that everyone is wondering. Someone who creates women's fashion and these ideas should probably have a muse or an example, a perfect version of it all. It's true, but I like a lot of strong female characters. I like to look at pictures of models, and great actresses; I like all people actually, family people, a lot of women, a lot of girls and all that, but I don't have just one muse in particular. I have been discussing a little bit, the subject of myself as my own muse. I could say for example, I can imagine what it is like to be that person, to be that woman, and how I would like to be dressed. It's not really a muse, but I don't need to see the girl right in front of me to imagine what she will look like... I feel it. But I would not say I am my own muse (laughs). I have an imagination the way a film maker has an idea of how he wants the actress to be. I think in the movies there are a lot of people who are looking for something they imagined, they had a scenario or an idea but they don't have a particular muse that the actress is supposed to imitate or try to look like. I feel as though I'm more like that. I like the models and how they look, and they are great to show a collection, but at the same time you want to also give them something different.
Christopher Michael: How has the past year been in terms of your process with the book? What has the journey been like through 2009?...
Olivier Theyskens: The book has been a very great thing for me and a great story because I know, and I think Julien knows, that it's a unique project. We were never thinking when we met (I was 17) that we'd do this. After a few years he did pictures sometimes but we had never thought that I'd be doing what I'm doing now and that he would come to shows making a lot of materials that would ultimately end up becoming a book. He kept everything; he has all of the negatives, etc. The work that the book was edited down from spanned over 15 years so obviously we didn't end up using everything. He was a really close friend of mine that would come to the shows all the time, not necessarily for pictures, and a few times he was starting a process with his new camera and asked me if he could take pictures and I was like, "sure, but don't bother the professionals please,"' and I would not even see the images he was doing. It was an interesting subject for him to go further and see more. Then little by little he started coming to all of the shows with his camera. When we look back on it now, it's quite amazing. Backstage is such a strange place, there is so much happening. He's always looked at it in his own way, trying to find what was interesting for him, and I think that is what makes the book special, that it's not a vision of images we usually see from fashion. He came to me with the idea and I said, " ok, show me an example of what you would like to do," and he came to me with a little book, only 10 examples... it was a little book with no chronology, the pictures all together, all black and white and only a few color shots at the end. I thought it was so beautiful I decided to show it to an editor and see what they thought, so I went to Assouline and they ended up loving the idea. Like me, they thought there was something with the color pictures, that we should see where we could go with the images in color. So I told him that I'd like him to continue shooting in color and let it evolve and see what we can do. Eventually the moment to do it arrived. I told him at the last show, "Make good pictures because I think we are there, so try and make it the best so we could end with a good session!" I had never really interfered in Julien's work. We had been doing things together and I always had a lot of respect for him, I'm usually the person who makes a lot of the decisions, but I'm very open to respecting someone else's own creativity and I could give my opinion but in the end it was very much him who made the final choices.
Christopher Michael: And you guys have known each other since school right?
Olivier Theyskens: Yes, he was in photography and I was in fashion design but I did not stay long. I went away quickly and we just kept in touch. We remained good friends. Actually, every time I wanted to make some sort of photo material, I always asked him to help or to give me his advice. He is a person that is very rare. We don't have enough people today that are really individual, going their own way. The people who allow themselves to forget sometimes what fashion is doing and they do what is really pure and modern and purely beautiful. He does a lot of his own work. When you see a portrait of his, you end up really questioning yourself, is it beauty?, is it ugly?, it's very attractive...yet very strange. He likes models and takes portraits of people that he is fascinated by. He can make a picture of a strange guy or of a girl who is beautiful but has a very interesting face that you don't always understand. In many ways, there is a bit of tragedy also in his work. He is strangely seeking something that is questionable I find...He is so sensitive that it can take months before he finds somebody he wants to do a portrait of. What he did for the backstage worked fine because it's every 6 months, but for his own work he's very step by step, and into taking his time. He needs to almost fall in love or something, it's very bizarre. He's a perfectionist. In photography, it's not fashion. People are not wearing pictures, so photography can be more elitist sometimes, also. There is not only one way of doing it. I think that's the problem for many fashion photographers these days, you have legendary photographers that are famous for 10 pictures, and the famous photographers now days have to do a shooting every 2 days. It's very hard. You need clever assistants who can find you new lights, which doesn't make it so easy to be a perfectionist now. I think the mass production in the industry made photoshop such a useful tool. So many shootings today, you can see the result on the screen right away and even if it's not so perfect, you can just correct it afterward. You don't shoot anymore a "moment de grace" or find this magical moment where everything was perfect and you captured it. There is so much to be done that it's become useful though, and also to make diversity, to change the color and all of that. If we were still relying only on the camera, we would not be able to do so many pictures that look different from one another.
Christopher Michael: What was it like doing the French Vogue with Mario Sorrenti?
Olivier Theyskens: Ahh yes yes yes, this is a person I really love. It was easy, what was good is that it was a place where we had a very natural light. There was this window in the ceiling, and we were there around midday so it was a really nice, strong source of light. Mario is heterosexual, but when he shoots his model he's also a very sensual person, everyone feels that. You see it in the pictures, the models, you know they were charmed a little bit and when you see his work you understand. Even when I see Natasha Poly photographed by Sorrenti these days, there is such sex appeal. Even though I'm a boy, I could feel his charm, feel what being in front of his camera is like. You don't have that all the time, but there is a chemistry between a model and a photographer. It can be a distance, or an appeal, or just a clever feeling but there is always a link...
Christopher Michael: If you look at the people who come out of Belgium, from you to Dries, photographers like Willy Vanderperre, stylists like Olivier Rizzo... What is it about this small country that seems to produce so much talent?
Olivier Theyskens: For me, the connection with France is important for some of my fashion roots... we are very close (Belgium and France). I remember always going between France or England when I was a child. I always thought Belgium was a place "near the other places." It's very much a mix of cultures. On the TV you would see things that are produced by other countries, or music from other countries; it was rare to get your own culture that was made by your own country, which is probably why a lot of Belgians tend to travel a lot. They are very open and yet, still they have their own roots. You can make serious work together with Belgians also. I find that we tend to be very hard workers. In the end, actually, it seems that I have a lot of Belgians around me. Even if I'm not attached to the fact that they are Belgian, every time I think wow, they really work well. It's strange, in Belgium if you ask someone to repair something you know they will do it well. If they are charged with a project, it will get done. In France it can sometimes be a different story.
Christopher Michael: What was it like to have such success so young?
Olivier Theyskens: Well even when I was in school, it was known that I wanted to be a designer who is known. I wanted the top things. I remember that there were no students that wanted that; even if they did, they would not dare to say it. However, I was thinking at the time it would take 15 years, because it was not common at that time to do a show. It was becoming slightly boring around that period... there was not enough new things and I had a feeling there was space for new things. When I started I had to do a lot by myself, I think it's not the key to success but it's important to know all of these aspects. Even I think it's great to know the time it takes to do something, because I'm not slow, I'm quite quick, but I know what I'm asking a person to do when I ask them to do something for me, even to make a pattern or to sew. You have to take the time to imagine a collection, to draw it and to follow it and make it real. You appear to be living with that craziness, only when the collection is done and it's shown, you retire back to the peaceful side.
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Christopher Michael: As someone who's really grown up and been nurtured by London, what is your sort of perception of New York in comparison, as a different market?
Anthony Maule: Well, you come to New York to make money don't you?!! It's a business here and you have to have a product to sell; that's the message you get when you come here. London still aspires much more to the ideal of being avant-garde, so the spirit there is still much more about creation over commercialism.
I would recommend everyone go to London when they first start out just to experience it. I mean, I can only really talk about it from my own perspective but when I first went to London it was the mid-late 90's, there was this big energy there back then. It was cool to be the poor struggling artist and I think there's always been this general opinion that everyone has about London being this hub of creative energy.
It's partly to do with the history of punk culture being born in the UK, even though aesthetically it doesn't really exist on the street as much anymore. The spirit of punk still exists in many different ways and maybe always did even before it became a brand... It's just inherent to British culture to be like, "What the hell, I'm going to do what I want." People from all over still want to buy into that so they come, they feed off of it for a while and they learn how to be individual. London's really good at that.
Christopher Michael: How did you meet the editors you work with?
Anthony Maule: The connection to Andrew [Richardson], Karl [Templer] and Olivier [Rizzo] was all through Guido, Marie [Chaix] was more of a sort of organic process. Sometimes it seems that you just meet up with people and it kind of clicks or it doesn't. I'd seen Marie's work and she'd seen mine, we both liked each others' work and it sort of went from there. We met up and 2 weeks later we shot a story for Acne Paper, it just sort of clicked. That was quite special.
I have a great relationship with Andrew as well... his office is around the corner. I'm interested in what he's doing with Richardson Magazine; I think it's the perfect voice for him and we are always kind of throwing crazy ideas around. He's rather subversive...he always likes to kind of subvert the flow (laughs). That's why I really enjoy working with him, because he's someone who will really question something over and over and I find it more interesting to work with those kinds of people. I like the way he thinks and the way he references things. It's nice for me to work with someone who thinks like a photographer.
Christopher Michael: It seems that you have your teams that you enjoy working with and have a great creative rapport with them...but there is always that one person that you really sort of look forward to working with one day...Who is that person for you?
Anthony Maule: That I've not worked with? Big Mac....I've not met him (laughs). I've read in some of your previous interviews about this sort of cross-generational period where the new generations are having the chance to work with their icons and I kind of feel like I've been very fortunate so early in my career to work with a lot of my icons already. To be able to collaborate with people like Fabien and Olivier [Rizzo] already I just sort of went...off the wall, in a way. I didn't preconceive any of that, I was just surrounded by people like Julian [Watson] and Guido who were incredibly supportive, believed in me, and were interested in launching my career...Melanie Ward is another incredible stylist that I'd really like to work with. People like that, like Melanie and Joe, they are kind of structured, simplistic, and graphic. I'm just naturally drawn to those kinds of people. I'm a bit like that kid out of that Rodriguez film "Planet Terror"...you know, the one with the toy dinosaur that says, "I want to eat your brains and gain your knowledge." I'm just fascinated by people with experience and history in this business. I just see what we do as such a privilege that I want to use it to educate myself, it makes it feel more real for me that way. I have to say though that I'm just as interested in working with people from my own generation and younger, it is totally different but you can learn from everyone I think and especially now the younger generations seem totally in control of the future so I'm looking at working with a broader range of people now.......I'd love to work with Panos too, his work just kills me.
Christopher Michael: Dream publication?
Anthony Maule: French Vogue.
Christopher Michael: Do you look at the arrival of digital as the reason behind an over saturation in fashion photography? Or do you look at it as the reason behind an increased sense of opportunity for people to work within the business...
Anthony Maule: Well it's postmodernism, isn't it? That's it. Perhaps it's a weird term to use but that's how I see it. That's the world we live in now, everything is over saturated so that everything, in itself, is very modern and relevant. But it's both really....of course there's more opportunity now and than there ever was and digital has definitely made it more accessible to everyone, but I think we all start to see that technology is bringing something very different, very new, to the table and it is very exciting. It will force change and that's a good thing. The people that adapt to it and embrace it are ultimately the people that will survive.
Christopher Michael: You were saying print pages are being threatened as we head toward online media, yet somehow during economic threats and the arrival of the online publishing world there seems to be numerous sort of niche print publications opening up...
Anthony Maule: I think that will always happen. We always need independent voices no matter what format they come in, but you know, the idea of the print magazine as a luxury item is nothing new. Portfolio was luxury, Egoiste was luxury; the idea has been around for years but I think for a while now that's the only thing that print media has been left to aspire to become...As digital takes over, print publications will simply become more and more desirable and collectable. So that's the point, if you can back it, it's still an interesting time for the independent voice in print media now and maybe that's why you've seen the interest, because they could see that happening and they're passionate about what they do. Look at Self-Service, it's the perfect example... it's like buying a book, it's the same price as a book!! (laughs). It's totally decadent and embracing the times in its own way. I love it! There's something very nostalgic about print media now and we still need those people who are obsessed with it to keep it alive.
Christopher Michael: What would you say is the best way to start?
Anthony Maule: At the end of the day I don't think there is one route. I think there is the route for you, what feels right and is organic for you is your way to go. For me, the path was just very natural. I knew I wanted to be a photographer when I was 14. I was in school and I wasn't thinking too much about my future really but then I had these tutors who, when I graduated art school, were like listen, if you want to be a fashion photographer just go to London...so I went to London. Then, for a long time I was happy just to feed off the industry and see what was out there before I even thought about what it was that I wanted to contribute. I really needed that period of experience first before I was "ready" and I was educating myself with the industry too. There was so much that was new to me when I first moved to London. It can feel very intimidating at the beginning so the best advice you'll get from me would be to gain as much experience at the beginning as possible, stay focused on your work, and be patient.
Christopher Michael: So what about now, what's next? What can we look forward to this season?
Anthony Maule: Ah, hah! Well, this season will be very exciting... lots of changes, new editors...I don't want to say too much. It's just all evolving and the industry is so transient, what I say today is going to be different tomorrow anyway, so that's it. I'm really excited about what's going to happen over the next 12 months...
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