His fashion stays in focus

What is it that has kept Jean-Marie Perier in fashion photography for 60 years? Obviously it’s his obsession with celebrities, style and glamour that propelled his long and storied career in the international fashion world, as the photos in his latest exhibition reveal.

In “Portraits de Mode: Revolutionary Fashion Through the Lens”, currently on view at Zen at CentralWorld as the finale of La Fete, the renowned French photographer and filmmaker focuses on designers caught up in their own wildest fantasies. Europe’s top designers – titans of haute couture – pass in parade in front of his lenses.

Polka Galerie curator Sophie Escougnou has assembled photos of Giorgio Armani sitting on his suitcase on an airport tarmac. Kenzo Takada greets his fans from an elephant’s back and Christian Lacroix cheers on a model.

Karl Lagerfeld relaxes in front of his chateau in snowy Germany, Yohji Yamamoto practises his judo, and Ottavio Missoni soaks up the sun on a sailboat.

If fashion designers are identified with super-luxury and sophistication, Perier manages to double these qualities in his photos – and immortalise them along the way. The result is an uncontrolled extravagance and flamboyance rarely seen on the runways. They make featured models like Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Monica Bellucci look like props.

“Mention Perier, and all the designers and models would like to work with him,” Escougnou tells The Nation. “That’s why it’s so easy for him to bring these celebs together for photo shoots. And he doesn’t need to pay them!”

Now 72, Perier is too frail to travel from France to Bangkok for the exhibition’s opening, leaving Escougnou to do the honours. She guides the press through 71 photographs, captured on film, not in digital pixels, between 1994 and 2009. Most of them are big, up to 1.2-by-2.2 metres. Some of the large images are grainy because they were printed in Bangkok.

“Perier’s exhibitions usually attract a lot of attention in Paris. He’s one of the few artists to have been selected to stage an exhibition at City Hall. Only important artists are allowed to exhibit there,” Escougnou says. His work has been shown on both sides of the Atlantic.

His obsession with celebrity, design and glamour is perhaps the main thrust that fuelled Jean-Marie Perier’s 60-year trailblazing career.

Magazine work afforded direct access to the fashion realm. After a stint with Marie-Claire, Perier worked at other French magazines in the 1960s and ’90s. For Salut les Copains he photographed the young “ye-ye” pop singers like Francoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, France Gall and Johnny Hallyday.

In between, he directed such films as “Antoine et Sebastien” with Francois Perier and Jacques Dutronc. In the US he hit the big time, directing more than 600 TV commercials for companies including Canada Dry, Coca Cola, Nestle, Bic, Camel and Ford.

He returned to photography in 1990, joining Elle magazine and later Paris-Match and Le Figaro, shooting top names in fashion like Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier.

After 2000 Perier again devoted much of his time to filmmaking. He directed documentaries and short films featuring Jacques Dutronc for Paris-Premiere.

A film was also made about him. The 2008 documentary “Ma Vie est comme un film” (“My Life is Like a Film”) chronicles his career and is regarded as a must-see for any professional or aspiring photographer. It won the Laureat Telemaques – Savoir au Present the following year.

Throughout an extensive career, Perier made friends with many fashion designers and models, and the photos he took of them reveal their intimate relationships, Escougnou points out. He had their full cooperation.

Getting Kenzo on the back of an African pachyderm might seem a daunting task, but the designer agreed to Perier’s request with glee. He got a shot of Westwood sitting next to a model whose face was covered in acne, says Escougnou, “and he didn’t mind having pimples featured clearly in the photo”.

Perier even managed to gather all of Europe’s best-known designers together for a single “class picture”. He did it in Photoshop, though – assembling the individual portraits he’d taken of them all for the project.

In another impressive image, Lagerfeld, dressed in black, stands in the garden of his snow-covered chateau – a marvel of contrast. Yamamoto is captured training during a martial-arts class, a shot that relieves him of any sophistication.

What do these images tell us about the fashion scene? They confirm how easy it is for the world’s top designers to turn their wildest fantasies into the stuff of art. And it is Perier’s duty to immortalise it.

SNAP IT UP
“Portraits de Mode: The Revolutionary Fashion Through the Lens” continues in Zen’s outdoor arena until June 30. There is no admission charge.