Weston and Weber go back, at least to the mid-nineties.Alannah Weston's favorite book as a child was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler, the story of two children who decide to spend the night in the Metropolitan Museum. An advantage of being a scion of one of world's great retail dynasties is that Weston got to re-create that childhood fantasy as a Christmas campaign, only now it's a night in Selfridges, the legendary London department store where she is creative director. And she had as her co-conspirator the equally legendary Bruce Weber. "As a kid, I always wanted to run around a department store at night, fantasizing that I could buy anything I wanted," he recalls. "Years later, as a teenager, I remember seeing a TV show with Barbra Streisand after-hours in Bergdorf's and I thought, Boy, is she lucky!

Weston and Weber go back, at least to the mid-nineties. "We share a lot of things in life, especially dogs and art," says the photographer. She calls his massive career overview Blood, Sweat and Tears her bible. They last worked together two years ago, on a shoe campaign for Selfridges. "Everything has to have a bit of a twist for me," says Weston. "I'm not much of a fashion person. There always has to be a story." Which makes Weber, the past master of the implied narrative, a dream collaborator for her. In that last campaign, a handsome fireman turned into a superhero in the ladies' shoe department. In this new one, a ballerina meets a poet, a beautiful young Grace Jones lookalike is lovestruck by a boxer. He's holding a puppy while she soothes his bruised eye. It's a quintessential Weber moment, young outsiders meeting in a romantic fantasy…with dogs. There's also a wizard, a Rasta Santa, five ponies, a handful of adorable kids, and Tim Easton, the face of Weber's iconic campaigns for Ralph Lauren in the eighties. That mix of old, new, and slightly skewed is a Weber signature. "I still photograph people I met 30 years ago, so I do have a big repertory company—old friends, parents of models, my favorite dogs I meet walking around the neighborhood, people I'd love to dance with, others I'd like to play football with. As you can see, the people I'm drawn to in my work are limitless. I like it when a sitting is like making a vegetable soup from scratch."
POST: 2024-11-24