Note to readers: the following interview (and tomorrow's feature) will give you the opportunity to take part in Xavier Brisoux's Competition – read the instructions and the interview carefully. Good luck!
Documenting fashion is not always easy: you can take a beautiful picture of a model wearing a unique creation, but developing a narrative or creating correspondences and subtle connections with other disciplines - such as art, architecture, film or graphic novels - may be trickier.
French photographer Mathieu Drouet produced throughout the years a consistent portfolio, exploring also the possibilities of photojournalism with audio-visual projects with a strong social impact and an architectural twist. He recently developed, for example, a series of audioguides about a Parisian neighborhood and its inhabitants.
Drouet has been chronicling the work of knitwear designer and artist Xavier Brisoux since the early beginnings. Year after year, Drouet and Brisoux tried to tell a story rather than creating a mere lookbook.
Gradually, Brisoux moved from regular fashion collections to textile art pieces and sculptures, and Drouet acted as a documentarist, capturing in close-ups the dynamic movements of the yarns and inviting viewers to consider the hard work that goes into the tightly knit ribbed constructions and samurai-like armors Brisoux creates.
As Brisoux' practice matured and progressed, Drouet was able to inject in the images his passion for other disciplines, such as literature and film.
One of the latest series, showing Brisoux's pieces emerging from the sand as if they were fossils from the future or alien artifacts, evokes sci-fi settings and mysterious universes, like the harsh desert planet of Arrakis in Frank Herbert's "Dune" saga.
In 2018, Drouet took pictures of Brisoux's collection at Villa Cavrois, in Croix, France. Ahead of Brisoux's new exhibition "Du Point à la Ligne" ("From Point to Line"; from today to 5th March 2023) at the villa, that will feature seven pieces by the French designer, the photographer returned to Croix to document the show.
You collaborated with Xavier Brisoux since the beginning: in which ways do you feel your photography and the narratives you tell through it developed throughout the years?
Mathieu Drouet: Xavier knew how to evolve his purpose and his art by detaching himself from the fashion world. I am not – nor will I ever be – a fashion photographer, so I always let myself be guided by Xavier's creations and by the feelings they trigger in me. At the beginning, I was following his vision and maybe I was just trying to respect it without intruding, but the Sprezzatura project allowed me to take my place by telling a different story from Xavier's and imagine a variant or a reflection of his narrative.
Which are the most technically and artistically demanding aspects of taking pictures of a fashion design, a textile piece or an art object?
Mathieu Drouet: Since our first shoot at Villa Cavrois and the Maille Haute-Sculpture series, I changed my tools. I have always worked with a classic 35mm digital camera for my clients, but, for my artistic projects, I use digital or film medium format cameras. Introducing these medium format tools was only possible when Xavier became more confident and radical. When he managed to understand my own radicalism, it became easier for me because the medium format is more natural for me. So, I would say that I waited for Xavier to express himself completely and to become open to accept my artist statement.
You recently shot some dreamy images of Xavier Brisoux’s pieces emerging from the sand as if they were fossils, as if they were oxymoronic "fossils from the future" rather than from the past. Can you tell us more about the concept behind these poetical images?
Mathieu Drouet: Like Xavier, I am very influenced by Frank Herbert's "Dune" saga. I devoured the novels when I was a teenager and, in 2004, I had the chance to work in Nubia in Sudan on pharaonic remains on Sai Island. I may have hallucinated the arrival of Shai-Hulud during a sandstorm, but the experience left a lasting impression on me. And during my high school years, I had the chance to portray Moebius. His work on the concept art behind Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Dune" adaptation that never saw the light, resonates in my mind with Xavier's work.
In 2018 you did a photoshoot for Xavier Brisoux at Villa Cavrois, the building designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens at the end of the 1920s for the wealthy industrialist Paul Cavrois. What fascinates you about this building?
Mathieu Drouet: I don't have the same relationship Xavier has with the villa. I discovered the work of Mallet Stevens later on when I visited the casino in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. I remember seeing the villa for the first time the day of the shooting. I wanted to be directly confronted by the place, which, I admit, is superb. That said, I think there are parts that make me uncomfortable, like the playroom in the villa which I find a rather cold place for children.
In the new pictures to illustrate the exhibition at Villa Cavrois, you suspended Xavier Brisoux's designs in the air, as if they were powerful entities or alien creatures: what inspired the pics about the Villa Cavrois event?
Mathieu Drouet: Both Xavier and I get inspired by a wide range of influences in our productions. I like a healthy dose of nerd or pop counter culture, for example. While we were taking the new pictures, I knew the stakes were high for Xavier, but, at the same time, on that day I was not comfortable with the place and with the mood hanging around it. There was indeed a dichotomic sense of wonder and anger hanging in the air that day that resulted in a form of possession, as if a poltergeist was infiltrating Xavier's knitted piece and reality. I felt it deep inside me and that's where the pictures came from!
Image credits for this post
All images in this post copyright and by Mathieu Drouet
Images courtesy Xavier Brisoux
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