Duo Parallax
Gen Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Kaliver Earrings Constantina Vintage Glasses Poppy Lissiman Robbie Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Alexander Mcqueen Glasses Poppy Lissiman
Duo Parallax is a fashion story about an imaginary band active in the ‘80s, which consists of Brigitte Wilder and Stefan Canard, names suggested by Genevieve Welsh, the model portraying Brigitte. The idea for the shoot came to Vladimir after attending James Blake's live show last year. As Vladimir puts it, he decided “to shoot an editorial that looked like the imagery of an ‘80s band one finds in the ‘images’ tab of Google search results - a ‘composite portrait’. His fascination from an early age with the ‘80s music scene growing in Simferopol and listening to Post-Soviet rock, British rock, and English new wave has finally led to the realization of the music vision in photography.
Vladimir Kravchenko, a Sydney-based photographer, teamed up with Paige Grace, a fashion stylist and a creative director, Kimberley Forbes, a MUAH artist, Jarmaine Stojanovic, a graphic designer, Hayley Pease, Ernest Andreenko Wichmann, and Ellie Morgan to create a portrait of Duo Parallax.
The story is an ecosystem of the band presented in images, which include an album cover, a paparazzi shot, a poster, and a video clip stills. Paige tells us that the photoshoot was meaningful specifically as a tribute to one of the main themes of the ‘80s - breaking of gender stereotypes and its interpretation in fashion. We speak with Vladimir and Paige to discover more from behind the scenes and Duo Parallax's 1987 UK tour performing tracks for the new album, Voices of Discord.
Photography Vladimir Kravchenko Style Paige Grace MUAH Kimberley Forbes Talents Genevieve Welsh and Robbie Wood Graphic Design Jarmaine Stojanovic Assistant Hayley Pease Style Assistants Ernest Andreenko Wichmann and Ellie Morgan
Gen Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Kaliver Earrings Constantina Vintage Glasses Poppy Lissiman Robbie Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Alexander Mcqueen Glasses Poppy Lissiman
‘A favourite pastime of mine is reading the lyrics of popular songs, as though they were poems, to mock the zeitgeist they aspire to express.’
— Vladimir Kravchenko
Which bands affected you the most throughout your life? What was their impact (on your values, worldview, professional sphere)?
Vladimir: The first album I ever bought was by Aqua. I was nine or ten at the time. I would rollerblade euphorically around Simferopol blasting ‘Happy boys and girls’ through my cassette ‘walkman’ and imagine that my friends and I are the happy boys and girls of the song. Only half a year later, thanks to my father, I got into Nautilus Pompilius, a sombre post-soviet band, to whose music I listened with an abandon full of anxiety, dread, and secret joy.
Gen Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Kaliver Earrings Constantina Vintage Glasses Poppy Lissiman Robbie Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Alexander Mcqueen Glasses Poppy Lissiman
‘The breaking down of gender stereotypes was pivotal to '80s fashion, and it was important to me that I paid homage to that in this story.’
— Paige Grace
Gen Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Kaliver Earrings Constantina Vintage Glasses Poppy Lissiman Robbie Wears: Suit Nicol & Ford Top Alexander Mcqueen Glasses Poppy Lissiman
The details as the earrings, the sunglasses, the patterns on the shirts, the makeup colors, the pin, and the spikes present a stylistic journey that recreates through a modern prism the late ‘80s of the past century. What is your favorite part in the ‘80s style in fashion and music spheres when you look back at it today? What were some of the props you were most excited to gain for this shoot?
Vladimir: For me, Duo Parallax is a band that ridiculed corporate greed, and other vices of the ‘80s, through the language of those vices, and so seeing suits in the wardrobe was very exciting.
Paige: When Vlad pitched me the concept, I was super excited as I love the '80s! I grew up listening to '80s music and still do today: Queen, Talking Heads, The Cars, The Cure, Duran Duran... It's genius!
The '80s were fun and experimental time - especially within the music and fashion industries. That's when women dressing masculine became chic and revered - I model my personal style on this. A woman in an oversized suit is so powerful to me. I wanted to embrace that by using male suits on Genevieve and female suits on Robbie. The breaking down of gender stereotypes was pivotal to '80s fashion, and it was important to me that I paid homage to that in this story. I was SUPER excited to get my hands on the Pigsuit pieces - an Australian label that is progressive and daring. The suit Genevieve wears featuring sexual imagery really spoke to me as it was reminiscent of the underground party scene in the ’80s! I loved working with the fabulously tailored suits from another Australian brand BELANCĒ, playing on androgyny. Having the catsuits and the quirkier pieces such as the cat ears really added a fun, rebellious, and sexually liberated angle to the band. I pictured Genevieve’s character and drew inspiration from Debbie Harry and an ’80s inspired Courtney Love - the party girl! Some of the rare designer pieces Robbie wore, for example, the Balenciaga shirt in the paparazzi shot and the 'undercover' jacket in the Latte Di Luna Live in Dortmund shot were incredible to work with. The backstory behind that jacket was that the designer used a band’s photo without their permission, the band sued, and the line got cut. So it was an exciting and rare piece to get my hands on.
Gen Wears: Top Pigsuit Earrings Constantina Vintage
Robbie Wears: Suit Trelise Cooper Top Marcelo Burlon Shoes Sebago Sunglasses Poppy Lissiman
‘My favourite look of the ‘80s, though, is a casual, off-stage one: a pair of loose-fitting trousers with a tucked-in T-shirt and thick-framed, dorky glasses.’
What is your favorite part in the ‘80s style in fashion and music spheres when you look back at it today?
Vladimir: My favourite look of the ‘80s, though, is a casual, off-stage one: a pair of loose-fitting trousers with a tucked-in T-shirt and thick-framed, dorky glasses. The other day I watched an early Luc Besson film, called The Big Blue, and really enjoyed the chilled out styling in it. In ‘80s music, I love the use of synthesised sounds and the lyrics.
Gen Wears: Dress Nicola Finetti Jacket Ann Demeulemeester Fishnets Voodoo Headpeice Ateiler Eight
Gen Wears: Suit Pigsuit Turtle Neck Vintage Shoes Dorateymur Robbie Wears: Jackets And Pants Belance Shirt Ralph Lauren Shoes Sebago
‘Who can ever forget once-seen images of Ian Curtis, with beads of sweat swelling on his forehead, or Annie Lennox, her big mouth - predatorily joyful, singing their hearts out on stage?’
The shoot incorporates the creation of the fictional band and involves their tour, CD releases, singles, and music videos - a journey of Duo Parallax towards success. Let’s discuss the idea for this story and the creation of the band. What were the most intriguing parts while imagining the narrative unfolds? How far did you go with the characters - do they have names or life sorties?
Vladimir: The seed from which the shoot germinated was me attending a James Blake concert last year, with a fellow photographer, Tim Ashton. I was mesmerised by the way the gelled stage lights (green, lemon-yellow, blue) illuminated James Blake, making him look mysterious and otherworldly, and made a mental note of the effect.
Soon after, I rewatched on YouTube one of my favourite Depeche Mode video clips - A Question of Lust - and a similar feeling came over me again. I remember watching Martin Gore basking in pink and yellow light, his face full of rich sorrow, and thinking that there is something transcendental about a well-illuminated performer on stage. In those concentrated, adrenaline-rich moments a singer’s face expresses more than a mere mortal’s ever could. Who can ever forget once-seen images of Ian Curtis, with beads of sweat swelling on his forehead, or Annie Lennox, her big mouth - predatorily joyful, singing their hearts out on stage? As I was falling asleep one night, soon after that, the concept for the shoot sprang into my mind in its entirety: to shoot an editorial that looked like the imagery of an 80s band one finds in the ‘images’ tab of Google search results after inputting a bands name - a ‘composite portrait’.
I made a note of the idea on my phone but thought it would never go anywhere until a few weeks later I met Genevieve, who told me about her boyfriend, Rob, and I realised that I have the perfect models to execute it. Then I did quite a bit of visual research, looking at photographs and video clips of many well-known and obscure 80s bands online and the narrative formed around the types of images I wanted to get: an album cover, a paparazzi shot, a poster, a video clip still, etc. It was very fun visualising a fictional band going through the motions of being a band: getting their picture taken for a magazine, for instance, or recording a video clip. I was so engrossed in this fictionalisation that at one point, I came up with an album name, Voices of Discord, and 13 track names:
1. Sex and hypnotism
2. Stolen pride
3. Latte di Luna (Milking of the moon)
4. Forgetting you is easy
5. Forgetting you is hard
6. Louder
7. Debentures
8. Helsinki
9. Society et al
10. We can make you rich
11. A unisex dream
12. Similar interests
13. Moral Bankruptcy (Bonus Track)
Once the shoot was done, Genevieve suggested very fitting names for the band members: Brigitte Wilder for herself and Stefan Canard for Rob.
Gen Wears: Top Trelise Cooper Suit Saint Laurent Earrings Constantina Vintage Robbie Wears: Shirt Ralhp Lauren Jacket Comme Des Garcons Tie Vintage
What is the most memorable moment or episode from the shooting day or the preparation for it?
Paige: Most certainly sourcing the clothes for the shoot. It’s always my favourite part, and it was so exciting to have such a variety of Australian brands and big designer pieces. I had 3 full racks of just clothes, not to mention accessories and shoes! So when the shoot was over.. the overwhelming dread of returns kicked in!
Vladimir: There were two really unpleasant but lucky moments. As we were wrapping up the first look on the location, the shutter of my film camera stopped functioning properly. It was very fortunate that the studio where we headed next had a beautiful Contax 645 with a full set of lenses that I was able to borrow.
Then, as I was setting up the lights for the first studio look, a tungsten light exploded right near my face, shattering the thick glass filter at the front (luckily in a direction away from anyone) and almost bursting my eardrum. The studio management told me they’ve never seen or heard of tungsten exploding so dramatically. The purely positive was seeing Genevieve and Rob pretending to perform non-existent songs and listening to some real songs that Rob played for us off Spotify.
