Fashion week addiction!

LAB' GUEST COLUMN _ Fanny Caffin_ Fashion week addiction! 1/2                                                                                            

"Who never heard of the “Fashion Week”?

Even if you are absolutely not interested in fashion, you are surrounded by this term everywhere: television, radio, magazines.... This term can be very confusing since it is used all year long. The term “Fashion Week” refers to the six seasons of the different brand’s shows. The shows are organized in three categories: Haute Couture, Ready-to-wear and Men’s fashion, which are presented twice a year for the two seasons: Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter.

Four years ago (already) I was part of the “neophytes”… and I'm not even sure I had yet heard of the term “Fashion Week”! During a period of doubt, I happened one day to be by chance near the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris - a camera in my hand (my lovely Nikon D40X)-, when the Christian Lacroix’s fashion show was about to start. This building has the great advantage of being made ​​of large glass windows which allow people standing outside to see what is going on inside (Photo 1). 

Pic. 1: Christian Lacroix / picture 'on the spot' through a window of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

My curiosity was attracted by the event’s preparation, and I was not the only one! I got quickly surrounded by other curious onlookers pressed against the windows like me! As I couldn’t enter inside without a precious pass, I immortalized the scene by a few shots through the window. (Photos 2, 3)

    

Pic. 2, 3: Christian Lacroix / pictures 'on the spot' through a window of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

The next day, having some spare time, I sent some of these pictures to several fashion’s websites wondering if they would be interested in “testing” me as a photographer. An answer arrived a month later! The developer of one website (www.photoparismode.com) contacted me to offer me a “trial” on the new show season, starting the very next day!

So I plunged into the world of fashion, and I photographed my first creator: Lie Sang Bong in one of the Hotel InterContinental’s rooms. That day, everything impressed me: the place first of all - I never thought I would one day enter a hotel of this standard - and then the show itself  of course! (Photos 4-9)

Pic 4-9: Lie Sang Bong Fashion show - Hotel InterContinental, Paris

I felt like I was on the other side of the mirror of these magazine pages that I was looking at in the dentist's waiting room. It was before discovering the world backstage after the show! This exciting atmosphere was also another universe to discover; it is really impressive to see so many people bustling around one single model! (Photo 10)  

This is how I became addicted to fashion show photography and why, on my spare time, I walk Paris’s streets in the hunt for designers. Now, I store tens of thousands of pictures which all have a different story that I’ll maybe tell you another day..."

Pic. 10: Lie Sang Bong Fashion show - Hotel InterContinental, Paris

all pictures credits : Fanny Caffin

LAB' GUEST COLUMN _ Fanny Caffin_ Fashion week addiction! 1/2                                                                                               

Fanny Caffin is a french PhD student in fondamental research and, in another way, an self-taught photographer. You can follow her artistic work on:
https://www.facebook.com/F.Caffin.Photography

Other links updated less regularly:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Fann.CAFFIN
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fanny_caffin