There is a thing I love to do a lot and that’s collaborating with people from different backgrounds and with different skills. In the past, I organised quite a few events in Italy that combined writing and visual arts for example. Lately, though, my mind has been taken by other things, most of them art/cinema/fashion/style-related and in particular by a few ideas for photo shoots.
One of my “dream photo shoots" would involve London-based neo-cabaret duo Georgeois Bourgeois and Maurice Maurice, better known simply as Bourgeois & Maurice. Their style makes me think about the costumes of Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 cult film Liquid Sky, infused with a heavy dose of decadent glamour, a few vintage inspirations and tons of irony, so I would choose them not only as the main models for my photo shoot, but also as co-stylists.
Ghostly and androgynous Bourgeois and mysterious Maurice with her towering hairdo are grotesque, but at the same time imaginative and rather fashionable characters. Originally, cabaret was a way to comment on a moment in time, and that’s exactly what this duo does. 
Bourgeois & Maurice have actually reinvented cabaret, adding a modern twist to it, singing about cultural and political matters or contemporary issues such as the cult of celebrity and MySpace (‘Cyber Lament’), or managing to squash in the same song Primark, Topshop, Nu Rave and The Klaxons (‘Girls in Neon’).
I have always loved music, but in the last few months I haven’t found too many new artists to listen to and for a while I felt sick about going to gigs to just see the umpteenth band sounding and looking the same. But this self-help group (as they like to describe themselves) seems to have brought a breath of fresh air to the music scene: their performances, accompanied by film footage, are visually striking, energetic and entertaining. I like their slightly melancholic and heartbreaking songs, often verging on the tragicomic.
I find an extremely infectious track as “Don’t Go to Art School” – with its lyrics claiming “You don’t need no plastic Nazis/Or the approval of Charles Saatchi/There’s nothing wrong with watercolours/Outside your 9 to 5 (…) They steal your lunch/Pickle it in lube/Then exhibit it at the White Cube” – absolutely genius.
What would be the theme of my dream photo shoot be? Louise Welsh’s book The Bullet Trick, in particular the bit of the story that takes place at a sort of burlesque club in Berlin. The theme would be perfect as Bourgeois & Maurice could impersonate a cabaret act from the Republic of Weimar times. The clothes and accessories for the photo shoot would be a mix of vintage, glam, neon colours and moderate excesses. Actually, if they ever turned Welsh’s book into a film, they should definitely give a part to this very theatrical duo, I think they would bring some irresistible energy to a film.
Maybe my photo shoot will never happen, but if you want to listen to Bourgeois & Maurice’s music and check out their style, don’t miss their shows at London’s Bistroteque this weekend (29th-30th August, 8pm). Just don’t forget to create your own very personal style – maybe inspired by Bourgeois & Maurice – before turning up at the club’s doors.
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