The project brief challenged Julian to document any part of the designer’s work that he found interesting. “But I knew if I was going to shoot, it was going to have to be everything,” admits Julian. The focus of the ensuing images, however, was on Celine’s 1st year white shirt project. Julian’s affection for this garment is unsurprising as Céline used him as a fit model, thus he saw the garment develop from illustration to construction.
The toile which was fit to Julian’s body also features in the lookbook, draped across chairs, and worn by Céline. “The nicest fabric was used for the toile, and the not nice fabric was used for the real garment; they had run out of the nice one”, confides Céline, which poetically reflects the prominence of her toile in Julian’s photographs.
A great influence on Céline’s designs and the aesthetic of Julian’s photographs was the photographer Brassaï who, incidentally, hails from the same region in Romania as Céline. Julian, like Brassai, used black and white film to shoot at the familiar CSM studios, explaining: “It’s more tactile, it’s more romantic. I tend to produce my best work on film, just because I can’t afford to make mistakes.”