6 ★ FT Weekend 9 November/10 November 2019black velvet. The series was inspired by
Ignatius Sancho, who, in 1774, became
the first black Briton to vote. Addy
decided to shoot Kamara front-on; he’s
locking eye contact with the lens, his
chin slightly raised. He looks strong, yet
reads as slightly defensive. “We wanted
to portray a sense of pride and power,”
Addy says of the work, “mixed with the
connotations of our past struggles and
accomplishments”.
What makes it his favourite? “It was
the first time I was like, ‘I can do this.’
It was the energy on the day, and
how we researched it and how we were
fearless.”
Although the fashion industry has
made progress when it comes to inclu-
sivity, Addy feels that there’s still a vital
need for different viewpoints. “Some-
thing my art tutor told me in sixth-form
is that if we all sat down and drew an
apple, the same apple, the perspectives
would all be differ-
ent,” he says.“So I
have to bring my
perspective”.
This perspective
brings influences
from late 1990s
pop culture in the
way he toys with
the masculine and
the effeminate, his
use of texture,
bright colour and
the sultry gazes of
his subjects. What
is he trying to capture when he takes a
photograph? “With portraits, I just want
to get who you are on the day. Or I
research who you are and then I ask,
‘How have you not been shot?’ Some
people lookstiff, but I don’t mind that.
If you’re stiff, that’s how you are all the
time. I’m learning how to figure people
out”.
When Addy shot fashion photo-
grapher Tim Walker, for instance, he
brought his own dog, Wolfgang, to the
shoot. As a photographer, he says, he
understood that it can be a strange
experience having your own photo
taken, and, knowing that Walker liked
dogs, he thought that the dog would
help to put him at ease.
Ultimately, he says, he wants his pho-
tographs “to tell a story”. “There are
characters. There are themes. It’s really
elaborate. Being on set is like a dance,”
he explains. “It’s a performance. But I
always try and just find the beauty in
everything”.A fresh perspective
Interview Campbell Addy is shaking up fashion|
photography with his bold take on portraiture.
Baya Simonsmeets him at home in Hoxton
T
he last few years have seen
a major shift in the way lux-
ury labels collaborate. Now,
brands are putting more
trust into young and emerg-
ing talent — as well as some unusual
characters to co-create their collections.
We choose the collaborations that have
changed the fashion landscape as we
know it.Uniqlo x JW Anderson
When it wasannounced, the outcome of
the Uniqlo x JW Anderson project was
quite a difficult one to imagine. The Jap-
anese brand is known for practicality,
while the Northern Irish, London-based
designer Anderson presents conceptual
ideas. However, this unlikely duo work
so well together that the collaboration is
currently in its fourth season (their lat-
est collection went into storesOctober
17). Anderson’s childhood memories of
the great outdoors transform into wear-
able pieces including zip-up jumpers,
utilitarian trousers and ready-to-hike
puffer jackets with a clear visual signa-
ture that doesn’tneed a large logo
printed across the chest to be desirable
Hypebeasts can’t get enough; most of
the pieces have already sold out and are
popping up on the resale market for
double the price.Ugg x Eckhaus Latta
Thanks to Jessica Simpson, Lindsay
Lohan and Paris Hilton in her reality TV
showThe Simple Life, by the early 2010s,
Ugg boots were transformed from
footwear favoured by surfers into argu-
ably the most-hated shoes of the
moment. A rebrand was needed and the
Californian brand decided to trust the
next generation with it.
Last year,
Belgian avant-
gardist Glenn
Martens com-
pletely recon-
structed the
Ugg boot for
his Y/Project
a u t u m n /
winter 2018
m e n s w e a r
show in Paris.Martens created thigh-high versions
of the classic beige boots which instantly
went viral. Rihanna became a fan and,
as so often happens, the world followed
suit. However, what Martens started,
Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus are taking
even further. As showcased in the Eck-
haus Latta autumn/winter 2019 show,
the label swapped the oval silhouette for
an angular one. The first chapter of Ugg
x Eckhaus Latta was imagined in one
day, and consisted of five different foot-
wear silhouettes along with four outer-
wear options in Ugg’s signature sheep-
skin. Their second take was shown this
September during New York Fashion
Week and included seven new, boxy sil-
houettes in men’s and women’s sizes, set
to be released in February.Duran Lantink x Browns
Fashion
There’s something undeniably punk
about Duran Lantink’s work. The
Amsterdam-based fashion designer
battles with the idea of overconsump-
tion by only using existing garments.
Imagine, for example, a mash-up of last
season’s hit jacket from Prada and an
unsold Balenciaga shirt that might oth-
erwise end up in a shopping outlet,
spliced together in a brand new, one-of-
a-kind fashion hybrid. This forward-thinking not only
garnered Lantink
a spot in the semi-
f i n a l s o f t h i s
y e a r ’s LV M H
Prize for emerg-
ing designers, but
also got the atten-
tion of luxury
retailer Browns
Fashion.
Ida Petersson,
Browns director
o f m e n’s a n d
w o m e n s w e a r
buying, explains: “I had been thinking
about what I could do with the product
which we had that was beyond repair
and seeing how imaginative Duran is, I
felt very strongly that Browns would be
in good hands.”
Their partnership gave Lantink carte
blanche to raid seasons’ worth of
Browns’ unsold and damaged items,
before turning them into 45 unique
fashion hybrids.Moncler Genius
Perhaps no other luxury brand has col-
laborated quite so much over the past 12
months as Moncler, the outerwear
brand synonymous with luxury down
jackets. Since being acquired by RemoRuffini in 2003, Moncler has undergone
a major brand revamp. At the beginning
of 2018, Ruffini decided to re-visit the
structure of the collections and
launched Moncler Genius. Under the
motto “one house, different voices,” the
label employed eight different designers
to reinvent their heritage.
The current line-up includes Craig
Green, Simone Rocha, Pierpaolo Piccioli
of Valentino, Richard Quinn, 1017 Alyx
9SM and Palm Angels, along with two of
the brand’s own labels, 1952 and Greno-
ble. This month,
Moncler is taking
the concept fur-
ther as it opens
House of Genius
in Milan, Paris
and Tokyo until
January 2020.
D e s i g n e d t o
resemble art gal-
leries, the spaces
feature special
products by each
of the “Geniuses”.Gucci x Dapper Dan
A luxury fashion house collaborating
with a bootlegging legend? Trust Ales-
sandro Michele of Gucci to turn industry
rules on their head as he joined forceswith Daniel Day, aka Dapper Dan. Gucci
had been called out for appropriating
ideas from the New York designer, who
was himself known for using fake lux-
ury fabrics in outlandish silhouettes in
the 1980s. However, Michele had a very
2019 response to the criticism. Rather
than simply apologise, why not collabo-
rate? First, Gucci partnered with Dap-
per Dan on a collection of colourful
pieces inspired by his rich bootleg
archives, before investing in the reopen-
ing of his Harlem atelier in January
2018, now relocated on Lenox Avenue.
Continuing to work with Gucci, the
Harlem native has since fronted the
brand’s tailoring campaign, and even
made a range of custom Gucci looks for
this year’s Met Gala. Age 75, Dapper Dan
even has a biopic in the making — and
he’s only getting started as a whole new
generation discover him.Dream teams: the collaborations changing the game
Collections| L uxury fashion brands are turning to ever more imaginative partnerships to reach new audiences, writesDino Bonačić
B
ritish fashion photographer,
model casting agent and pub-
lisher Campbell Addy is sit-
ting on a sofa in his flat in
Hoxton, east London. He’s
wearing a black long-sleeved T-shirt,
black ribbed tracksuit bottoms and a
black Kangol beret, like a kind of high
fashion soldier. He looks great. While
we speak, he holds a cushion against his
stomach. He’s armoured up, as if pre-
paring to field a stream of questions
about diversity in the fashion world.
“Three years ago, I was just happy to
be here, so when I’d get asked questions
about being a black photographer, I was
like, ‘yes yes yes!’. But then I started
reading interviews with other photo-
graphers, and they never got asked
what it was like to be a white or Asian
photographer.”
Addy has become successful just as
the conversation around race and diver-
sity in the fashion industry has intensi-
fied — yet it’s hardly surprising that he
wants to return the focus to his work. As
a photographer he has shot fashion edi-
torials for Vogue, Interview magazine,
The New York Times,the FT and, most
recently, the cover for last week’s Wall
Street Journal magazine, as well as com-
mercial campaigns for the brands
Fendi, Nike and APC. He has also gained
recognition for shooting such stars as
musicians Tyler The Creator, Kid Cudi,
FKA Twigs and designer Paul Smith.
Of the recent headlines announcing
the “arrival” of black fashion photogra-
phers, with reference to Tyler Mitchell,
the first African- American to shoot the
cover of American Vogue, Addy says:
“Black photographers didn’t just pop up
in the late 2010s...
Where were the black
fashion photographers of
the ’80s and ’90s? Oh, I
know, they just weren’t
given jobs. Historians and
writers and journalists
need to be critical. And
understanding how
blackness was viewed in
the industry 20 years ago
will be key to not making
certain mistakes now.”
His work has been
exhibited internationally
in London, Oslo and
Paris. 2017 saw him open
his first solo exhibition,
titledMatthew 7:7, along
with his first bookUnlock-
ing Seoul, a photodocu-Top, from left:
Campbell Addy’s
photographs for
i-D magazine;
British Vogue;
an image from
photographic
series ‘Ignatius’,
shot for
NiijournalBottom:
Campbell Addy
photographed in
London by
Adama Jalloh
for the FT‘We wanted to
portray a sense of
pride and power,
mixed with the
connotations of our
past struggles and
accomplishments’
mentary exploring the gay scene in het
South Korean capital.
Raised in a family of Ghanaian
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Addy grew up in
Croydon, south London. “I was born at a
very poignant moment in history, just
months after Stephen Lawrence was
killed,” he says. “My mother was first-
generation Ghanaian in Britain. It was a
time where you had this melting pot of
immigrants who still weren’t recog-
nised, and for whom slavery and the
civil rights movement were so prevalent
in their childhoods. Me and my peers
were either taught, ‘be better, do better,’
or ‘be so grateful you have a life. Look
what your grandparents went through.’”
Just as significantly, Addy was born
into a visual world. He recalls watching
MTV with his mother and seeing Prince,André 3000, Michael Jackson and
Beyoncé on screen. “I saw lots of black
people,” he says. “So when you’re a teen-
ager, you ask, ‘why aren’t I there?’ ”
He left home at the age of 17, and in
2012 went on to study fashion commu-
nication and promotion at Central Saint
Martins in London. After graduating,
aged 23, he began to concentrate on
fashion photography, and — without
any formal training — started a twice-
yearly fashion and culture journal
called Niijournal nd founded Niia-a
gency, a casting agency representing
models of colour.
Now, at just 26, his sensual, emotional
images are recognisable for their lay-
ered references to 20th- and 21st-cen-
tury movements such as the 1980s
counterculture Buffalo fashion move-
ment, and Black Lives Matter, and for
the way his photographs seem to luxuri-
ate in the beauties of different skin
tones and body shapes.
“Ignatius”, a favourite photographic
series of Addy’s featured in Niijournal,
and shot while he was still at university,
distils his style. The images show stylist
Ibrahim Kamara — Addy’s frequent col-
laborator — dressed in a white turtle-
neck and a red necktie secured with dia-
manté brooches, his head wrapped inNextGen
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