Yvan Rodic gave us a lecture the other day. Of corse he is beautiful and I am now stalking him daily to see where he is in the world, and what amazing people he has picked up. He's the guy with the french accent, commonly wearing some type of suit trouser (pale blue when I casually bumped into him at LFW) with a different coloured jacket, shirt and dickie bow tie. No, not with a massive SLR with numerous lenses, but a simple hand held digital.
For those of you whom aren't aware of who he is, here's the low down:
Born in the French part of Switzerland, he began working in media and marketing, Copywriting (what that is exactly im not too sure), internships in Brussels and then moved to Paris where he ended up doing another internship. He then went onto writing for Coolhunter and a few magazines.
Here is where his real career path commences! After receiving a G10 for christmas in 2005 he began taking face/snap shots at parties, just as a small self inspiring project. Through this, traffic automatically started to build up, internationally; so he decided to document through blogging. facehunter
"I don't like to appear as a photographer, I prefer to be discreet which
is perfect for blogging"
Having moved to Paris and working for coolhunter he automatically became more involved with the fashion industry and people included. Cover and Tokion magazines approached him (remembering street style didn't exist in magazines) and his hobby turned into a must-read monthly in mags (alliterationwas always my fave figure of speech). In September 2006 he worked for men.style.com though an invitation via e-mail to New York fashion week. January 2007 he worked Sao Paulo Fashion week. He explained how his 'work' wasn't much of a fashion blog, more of a style blog. He looks at the people themselves and tried to capture an essence and personality through natural image. He did admit to spending more time with some people than others to shoot in a specific place which created more of a story to the photo, but the clothes themselves were all about how the person was wearing them. That October he opened his first exhibition in Colette invitingnew generation photographers and bloggers.
"Sometimes my work is staged, trying to put together the best person
with the best background. It gives an interesting effect. It's not the reality, i
t's my reality. I don't try to represent the style of one place/city; I try to represent the style of one person. Eighteen to twenty-five years old are the ages I go for really; under eighteen, too young to create individuality and over 25 have their own lifestyles or moulded into one, for example having a child and settling down."
After explaining the above, he gave his views on fashion and the trend predtction cycle. This made me wonder why I was spending so much money and being educated on something that was a myth and already out of date when its produced.
"The new creative culture is the desire for people to be themselves, which uses a common culture. Everyone is aware of the same culture but express it customly in so many ways. Globlosation is a myth, it's just the naive vision people have. Black is back every season, it's just an old fashioned way of forecasting trends. People today are much more random, they don't follow trends. Subcultures are becoming less, and people are influenced by people around them. Fashion has become more of a bubble, it's more the way you pull it off, not if its trendy. I take photos of style, not the clothes"
I wasn't sure weather to cry and clap! He made so much sense, but having to present a forecasting pitch for 2012 in 3 weeks, I felt like such a hypocrite of agreeing. I instantly thought; 'What am I doing here then?' After the confusion and frustration I asked him if his views on fashion and the whole prediction cycle have always been the same, or if that now he was more 'fashion contious' or having been involved in fashion had changed his opinions. I don't think he understood what I was trying to get at, but he basically said that he had always had the same views before he entered the industry. Coming from a country where fashion wasn't as big as here or Paris, I suppose he can see things as an outsider.
Here are a few of his images from recient posts from facehunter
and his visual library that I enjoy:
Today Yvan not only has Facehunter, Visual library, The facehunter show, Myspace and an i phone application but at the beguinning of 2010 and for fifteen of the queens british
pounds, you can buy over 300 pages of Yvan's photos, inspirations, lifestyle, so on and so fourth.
Competition:
Tavi - 13 year old fashion obsessed girl. Tacky? Just a Fad?
The Sartorialist - Well known for shooting more polished, refined or upper class people. obsessed with tailoring and focus' more on the fashion scene.
Garance dore - Photographs particular girls, models or very beautiful girls. Se likes to get to know the person more
JAK + JIL - Photos particualry from fashion week's and seems to have a fetish for shoes. Document clothes that appear strange or edgy. People dressing in an extreme way.
Street peeper - International street style blog which is more of a group project. Its very fashion and brand related, each picture is tagged with brand of clothing.
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