Martin Parr on his new book “Fashion Faux Parr”

“I was surprised when Friend asked me about it,” says renowned British photographer Martin Parr, remembering his inauguration into the fashion industry. “But I thought I would take on the challenge and I never looked back.” While today Parr shoots several fashion stories a year – from high-end brand campaigns and portraits to magazine editorials and behind-the-scenes footage – this first shoot in 1999, for the Italian women's monthly, was the first example of Parr's distinctive, often humorous, aesthetic. deliberately a way of navigating the world of fashion.

Martin Parr: “Fashion Faux Parr”, published by Phaidon

(Image credit: © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos)

Recently published by Phaidon, the cheerfully titled Fake Parr Fashion is an exhaustive study of the later fruits of this relationship. Colorful and boldly executed (it was designed by frequent collaborator Melanie Mues), the new fashion book serves to remind fans how this unique partnership has unfolded over the past 25 years.

Alongside the well-documented campaigns for Gucci under former creative director Alessandro Michele – including the now-iconic image of a silver-haired sun worshiper wearing stark white sunglasses in Cannes – sits a queue of models photographed at New York's famous Katz's Delicatessen, part of a broader tourist style portfolio commissioned by Vogue USA in 2018, and in Versailles, a backstage project for Jacquemus filmed last year. Earlier street scenarios from Senegal, Cuba, Bristol and Broadstairs are also featured, along with special props and portraits of British designers.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Phaidon)

While style has long been central to Parr's documentary work, acting organically as a signifier of a season, place, era or society, his fashion work more closely observes trends and special moments, largely produced in tandem with artistic directors, stylists and beauty professionals. teams. “It varies,” he notes, reflecting on the collaborative nature of the work. “With editorial fashion, we have more freedom and I like exchanging ideas with the artistic director. With advertising, the script is largely established by the client, so the filming is much tighter.

“I love doing fashion and of course it brings in income, which helps me run the foundation,” he continues, referring to the Martin Parr Foundation, gallery and archive space which he opened in Bristol in 2017. “So my relationship is [with fashion] is a good one.

(Image credit: © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos)

Indeed, although Parr says his own world is still that of a documentary photographer – and it is this work for which he is best known, as designer Patrick Grant illustrates in the book's introduction, specifying that he “takes pictures of old guys looking at walls.” , socks and sandals, bottles of ketchup… bad weather and sunny tennis matches, Christmas dinners, chic interiors”, the fashion world was particularly positive about this match. Fake Parr Fashion may be his first fashion volume proper, but Gucci (who also collaborated with Parr on his Gucci ArtWalls series in 2020) and Louis Vuitton have also both co-authored monographs, and in 2005 Parr published a more ironic title, Fashion magazinein which he appeared on the cover.

As with his documentary work, there is much charm and a certain richness to Parr's fashion images; a particular warmth that gives the images, and perhaps the industry as a whole, a feeling of accessibility, closely linked to his frequent practice of involving real people in his shoots. His approach is also often quite simple – his point of view is what he offers – and he uses his surroundings to shape the narrative, rarely shooting in the studio. In previous interviews, Parr has spoken about the societal changes he's seen over his decades-long career (mainly the arrival of cell phones), but what about the challenges he associates with photography fashion?

(Image credit: © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos)

“If there are a lot of models, it's difficult to make sure everyone looks good and in position,” he explains, relaying an obstacle just as common to anyone tasked with taking a family portrait . “You have to persist in shouting instructions.” Inevitably, this perseverance paid off, and as designer Tabitha Simmons notes in the book, recounting a day filming with Parr, he left “an indelible mark on the fashion industry.”