Photographs by Julien Claessens
Published by Assouline
Text by Sally Singer
From the backstage of a young designer to the walls of an exhibition, from a book to a museum, and today to fine art prints: the life of these images, told from the beginning.
I am a photographer. For more than twenty years, I followed Olivier Theyskens backstage, from his student apartment to the French luxury houses. In 2010, these images became a book, The Other Side of the Picture, published by Assouline, with a preface by Sally Singer of Vogue US.
Here is how these images came to be, and where they have traveled.
behind the scenes
Olivier Theyskens, for those who do not know him yet, is one of the greatest designers of his generation. At 21, he dressed Madonna for the Oscars. Since then, he has dressed, among others, Emma Watson, Nicole Kidman and Mylène Farmer, no less. Backstage, they called him the dark prince of fashion.
We met in Brussels, on the public transport that took us to La Cambre, the school where we studied: he fashion, I photography.
I started visiting his studio and documenting his work when he was only 18 or 19. There was something special about it. I still remember the day a fax arrived: Madonna was interested in his creations.
Very early on, I was fascinated by the singularity of his creations, his daring and his way of reinventing the codes of fashion. My young photographer's eye became, in a way, an extension of his world.
We then went a long way together, from his first student work to the Nina Ricci shows in Paris or Theory in New York. And even though Olivier's work has been photographed by the greatest photographers in the world, he never stopped calling me for his backstages, his catalogues and a few campaigns.
I was also his backstage photographer, wanting to offer a different view of fashion backstage and runway shows. In black and white, I looked to capture what you don't see, what you don't expect to see: suspended moments, spontaneous gestures, everything that happens away from the spotlights. Another way of telling the story of his creations, beyond the runway.
When the girls were getting dressed, all the photographers were sent out... except me. Trust had built up over the years. I was part of the furniture.
This closeness allowed me to photograph differently, without being an intruder. Sally Singer once said of me: “He is not an ordinary backstage photographer.” I kept the sentence. It summed up fairly well what I was trying to do, without ever really trying to define it.
before the book, the exhibition that changes everything
Years later, I had accumulated thousands of images. Then in 2008, all of these images came together as a coherent whole, a body of photographic work in itself, among the other projects I was working on at the time. This work, which barely circulated, reached the organizers of the Transphotographiques festival in France.
The festival treated fashion photography as an equal in dialogue with auteur photography.
And suddenly, the spotlights came on. I found myself exhibiting and being exhibited. At the Tri Postal, in the main hall, my images hung among my idols; in the same space as Karl Lagerfeld… right next to those of Jean-Loup Sieff. I was still young, it was a bit crazy. The presence of the legendary artistic director of Chanel obviously gave this exhibition a whole other visibility. That same year, by happy coincidence, I started working as a photographer for Chanel's fragrance department.
In parallel, for several years already, I had been quietly building a book dummy, patiently assembled from photocopies. Without really knowing where this work would lead me, but with the conviction that it deserved to become a book one day.
Top: start of Julien Claessens' book dummy.
Middle: hanging of Julien Claessens' photographs at the Tri Postal.
Bottom: video of Karl Lagerfeld at the Tri Postal opening.
new york, launch night
This book finally came to life. The dummy ended up in the hands of Prosper and Martine Assouline in New York, and I ended up meeting them. On February 11, 2010, the book is launched in New York, at Barneys. Simon Doonan welcomes the whole New York jet set of the time, with Anna Wintour among others. I remember that moment with an almost unreal feeling.
And since I'm telling the backstage stories, let me tell this evening's as well.
The after-party is at the home of artist Ron Ferri, in his apartment on Central Park. It is midnight. I am talking with Aimee Mullins, muse of Alexander McQueen, who would become the actress we know. She is shaken: the designer died that very morning, in London, just as Fashion Week is about to begin.
And somewhere in this party is also the woman who would become my wife, with whom I now live in Mauritius.
It's a bit of my moment.
Top: Julien Claessens, photographer, with models Jessica and Ashley.
Bottom left: Olivier Theyskens, designer, Sally Singer, then fashion news and features director at Vogue US, and Julien Claessens.
Bottom right: Hamish Bowles, editor-at-large at Vogue, Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue US, and Olivier Theyskens.
New York, February 11, 2010.
The book then continues its journey, with a signing at Liberty in London, and it also lands at Colette in Paris.
these images at momu
Almost eight years later, the MoMu in Antwerp devotes a retrospective to Olivier, She Walks in Beauty, curated by Karen Van Godtsenhoven (since at the Met, now at the Barbican in London). I'm called, almost naturally, to shoot the catalogue. I bring my dark, charcoal touch, so dear to the designer.
On opening night, Olivier and Karen had prepared a lovely surprise for me: an entire wall devoted to the photographs from the book. Beyond the gesture of friendship, which touched me deeply, there was something quite moving about seeing these images return to the walls of an exhibition, nearly ten years after their first presentation.
Photographs from the catalogue of the exhibition She Walks in Beauty.
and after
Today, I want to keep these images alive, to give them a new existence, beyond the pages of the book.
I reopened my hard drives and chose ten photographs to make fine art prints. Ten images that, to me, tell something of this adventure, of Olivier's world, but also of my eye as a photographer at that time. Taking them out of the book, enlarging them, giving them a place on a wall, is also a way of rediscovering them, almost twenty years later.
I never stopped photographing Olivier's work, until I left for Mauritius, five years ago. Thousands of unpublished images remain, years of creation, encounters and moments captured in intimacy.
It is time for me to dive back into these archives to look for a few gems. These first ten prints are probably only a beginning.
Photographs from the book The Other Side of the Picture, Assouline editions, New York.
Design: Olivier Theyskens. Photography: Julien Claessens. Text: Sally Singer.
Julien Claessens
