Meet Inez Van Lamsweerde, One Half of Celebrated Fashion Photography Duo Inez + Vinoodh
You may not recognize the names of photographer Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, but you will certainly recognize their work. The duo, who go by Inez + Vinoodh, met in the 1980’s in fashion school in their native Amsterdam and have since become one of the most powerful creative forces in the fashion industry.
They rose to fame in the ‘90s with their use of bold colors and digital technology which was in direct opposition to the era's anti-fashion, grunge look. Theirs was a celebration of women, fashion and the medium, in a way that had not been seen for some time. “My mom was a fashion journalist and she used to always go to the shows in Paris,” said Inez over the phone, “so [growing up] we had all these issues of French Vogue that featured Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton, so I grew up thinking that’s how women should look, and behave, and be.” Having been influenced by the French glossy, she headed to fashion school in Amsterdam because “it seemed to make the most sense.” When she got there, however, she realized that it was not the right path for her so she ended up spending most of her time photographing her girlfriends. "That was more exciting than anything else,” she says. Soon she switched her major and pursued photography at the famed Rietveld Academy of the Arts.
Her time at fashion school, though, was not a waste. There she met Vinoodh, who was pursuing fashion design and would later launch a label and give Inez her first jobs. “I started taking pictures for his label, so from my first year in art school I was studying and also working. I was lucky that I knew which direction I wanted to go in from the beginning.” They continued working together, with Inez behind the camera and Vinoodh acting as a stylist, until 1991, when Inez moved to New York City to spend a year as an artist-in-residence at PS1. “It was about 6 years before we were both free – in terms of boyfriends and girlfriends – for us to start going out, and by then we had been working together,” she recalls, “[Vinoodh] decided to come with me and that was the year we said “well, let’s just go for photography.” We started taking pictures at the same time and it was incredible.” The rest, as they say is history.
Inez and Vinoodh began experimenting with a software similar to Photoshop called Paintbox, mixing their photographs with stock photography in order to create digital collages. An early editorial for a 1994 issue of The Face magazine entitled “For Your Pleasure,” became an instant sensation, featuring a now iconic image of two models, standing over their bicycles, eating a popsicle, while behind them, the Space Shuttle takes off. The women are shiny, perfect and sexualized. It was unlike anything else out there. “I think for both of us, coming from the ‘70s, and coming from this time when a certain strength and eccentricity, but also a certain wildness build up the character of a woman [influenced us]’” said Inez.
From there, they worked with everyone that was anyone: Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton ad campaigns; Vogue editorials. Their work blurred the line between fashion photography and art so soon they were exhibiting their work in museums and galleries all over the world. It was inevitable that they would branch out into video." We wanted to focus on the ideas, the feelings, and the kind of woman that we’re speaking to, because videos last forever. An ad in any magazine is there for a couple of months and then people throw the magazine away, but a video lives online forever. It’s such a powerful medium!” They assembled a full in-house team that includes post-production. “It’s now part of our work and part of our language, and from there, the music videos started coming,” she says. Their first music video, Bjork's eerie and ethereal “Hidden Place," proved that their unique approach to image-making translated to other mediums. They also became big collaborators with Lady Gaga, directing her video for “Applause,” shooting the image on the single's cover, as well as her many appearances in fashion magazines like V and Italian Vogue.
Most recently, Inez + Vinoodh shot the video for Rihanna’s “4, 5 Seconds,” alongside Kanye West and Paul McCartney. The process was again, surprisingly unorthodox. “We hadn’t heard the song until the day of the shoot, we had only heard a version that was just Kanye singing, and we had seen the lyrics,” Inez recalls, “so we had this idea that included special effects, and when we got on set and heard the song, we felt the honesty and the straightforwardness of the song, and [our previous idea] went out the window.” Within minutes, they had come up with a new concept for the video, “it just needed them, the incredible artists that they are, looking the purest they could be and the most themselves they could be, and that’s really what happened on the shoot.”
While their jump to video was not surprising to anyone, their recent forays into jewelry, perfume, and even jeans, have earned them a few critics. Still, it makes sense to them. “We have this thing where there’s too many ideas, so it’s about getting together and figuring out what’s possible to make,” says Inez, “the jewelry started because Vinoodh asked Ten Thousand Things to make me a necklace [commemorating] our son Charles turning 10. It was basically our two wedding rings intertwined on a chain with a tiny little star at the bottom because our son’s middle name is Star.” Every time she wore it she got so many compliments, they decided to launch a whole collection in collaboration in the brand.
The jewelry, and the fragrance, called 1996 and done in collaboration with Byredo, is only the beginning. “We’d love to expand the idea of fragrances, connected to photography, to furniture, housewares, we’re obsessed with home decoration!” she says, laughing. “We’ve done these big still lifes of flowers at Gagosian Gallery, and for us they feel like they are at the base of a certain design sensibility that we think could be brought into a whole line of products. We’re inspired by everything.” And while it might seem strange for photographers to become lifestyle brands, it’s all part of a natural progression for the two, whose work has such an organic quality – even when it’s digitally manipulated – and whose humanity lies at the very center of it.
“We love people. That’s why we’re in this profession,” she says, “we are mesmerized by all these incredible faces and bodies that come in front of our lens. For us, the day has succeeded when someone leaves the set feeling better about themselves than they did when they walked in in the morning.” This passion and love of people is clearly an extension of their own amazing relationship. “We both know immediately what is right. We share the same passion, obviously for each other, but also the passion for our work.” She adds, “we are equally obsessed with out work as we are with each other and our son Charles. It’s all part of the same life.”
And what a wonderful life it is.
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