Images from my first ever fashion shoot, for January Biannual magazine.

The inspiration was a post-apocalypse movie called Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle), Luc Besson’s first film. Survivors dressed in makeshift costumes fight it out amongst the ruins. The ingenuity of the clothes inspired Pouline Töpfer’s combinations of designer fashion and improvised materials.

Although the photographs look simple and improvised, it took seven of us, plus the two models, to complete the project. We shot it at manysquaremetres, a large warehouse space in Kensington.

The experience of shooting fashion is one of dealing with other creative people who have their own ideas and needs: designers, dressers, models, hair & makeup artist, assistants. The location itself is another player, and so is the light. In a long day, time is short and every one works hard.

I’ve always thought of fashion photography as the most creative of the commercial genres: artists working with other artists. The unrestrained aestheticism of fashion, the pursuit of beauty in whatever form, seems a noble human endeavour to me, despite all the waste, exploitation and superficiality. Body decoration must be the oldest form of creativity, and it’s not going away any time soon.

.