Now you understand, you know, that the magazines need to have that look—the full look policy. I understand also, sometimes you can just say no and no one is going to chop your head. Sometimes you change a pair of shoes and you see your assistant just like changing color. It’s okay. But you feel it, no? There is that fear now, you know, pissing off the houses.
But you’re happy to do that from time to time. Like, otherwise why be a stylist?
To be honest, I don’t think I would be a stylist if I was 20 years younger.
Tell me more.
It was very experimental 20 years ago. You were talking with words. You were meeting and you were explaining with sentences and ideas of art and stuff. Now, with all the mood boards, it’s like everything is nearly decided before the shoot. You talk with images, you don’t even talk with words. If you write an idea, then you’re not sure it’s actually understood—if it’s just said with words. I find that very frustrating, because then you have to do something with already existing things. At that time we were discussing.
So what do you blame for that situation? Is it just that we move so fast and images convey things easier?
I don’t know what’s moving, because fashion doesn’t move. We’re still in a big duty free world. I don’t think images are moving so much either. They’re moving faster on your phone, but what they are is not really moving. If you open a magazine of four years ago and one now, there’s not a huge difference. We consume images more, I think, but it’s not that they are moving and I don’t think fashion is moving too much. Since you have to understand everything with an image, I think everything becomes 2D, you know, like you feel there’s a lack of dimension. But I think dimension will come back. I have the feeling that young people are trying to work around that a little bit—like with volumes and body shapes.
And more people are making magazines like the kind that Christopher is making: niche and very particular, and driven by their own interests.
Study, what I really loved is that it’s not a fashion magazine. In a fashion magazine, if you look at old stuff, everything gets tacky so fast. Even your own styling, when you look at it, sometimes it doesn’t travel through the ages really well.