Thom Brown by Erik Madigan Heck

Absolutely stunning colour saturation and classic compositions with 1950's beauty and elegance by photographer Erik Madigan Heck, for Thom Brown SS2015's 'NO PHOTOS PLEASE' styled by Rebecca Ramsey. This collection has lots of 1970 flare and power in its colour and form, whilst also including folk elements like the wool embroidery and tatting in the embellishment and accessories.

When I was in graduate school (Parsons School for Design MFA) I used to try and show my fashion work in group-critiques, and discuss it in the larger context of photography as a medium. The professors for the most part wanted nothing to do with fashion photography, and I find today this is still true in the academic world, and the gallery world- fashion photography is still kind of the ugly cousin of Art photography. On the one hand I understand that on a base level fashion photography is simply serving a function: to advertise the clothing that it portrays. But, on the other hand, I think fashion photography is kind of a nothing term, where it can encompass anything and everything. It can be analyzed in terms of how it portrays gender, how it comments on socio-economic illustration (oftentimes in the most crass way), and it’s also unburdened from being critiqued by academia- so in many ways it’s free to exist as a true barometer for our time. It also has the ability to merge fantasy and illustration into a medium that I feel has become very expected. I rarely see Art photography in a gallery setting that excites or inspires anymore. But, I would be lying if I said I set out to use fashion photography as a way to discuss all of that, for me I’ve always seen my work as an extension of my interest in beauty as an ideal. Beauty is really the only thing that interests me. I think it’s the only true thing we have to discuss in art. Erik Madigan Heck