Branding the man: why men are the next frontier in fashion retail

French photographer Brigitte Lacombe has made a name for herself with her utterly clear, unfussy photographs of the world’s most remarkable celebrities.

I met Lacombe at the home of Susie Tompkins-Buell, activist, philanthropist, and long-time collector of photography, who opened her home for a private evening to celebrate her photographer friend’s new book,  Brigitte Lacombe: Anima/Persona.

I later had the chance to chat with her about the ever-growing power of photography in probing beneath the surface of celebrity. It is almost impossible to find a photo by Lacombe that does not offer its subject honestly and directly. It is not a photo but a mirror placed in front of us. Lacombe sees us as we  truly are — nothing more.

In a December 2009 profile of Meryl Streep in Vanity Fair, Lacombe provided an incredible montage of images from her thirty years experience of photographing Streep, chronicling the actress’s amazing beauty through the years.

She took a few moments to contemplate what brought her this far, and why celebrities feel instantly comfortable being photographed by her.

Pellegrin: What is it that drew you to photography and why do you think you are better able to express yourself with a camera than with a brush or pen or music?

Lacombe: I was very influenced by my father’s great love of photography, and [I] dropped out of high school to be an apprentice. It turned out, luckily, that it was a vocation!

Pellegrin: Would you agree that photography is as much about the person in the photograph as it is about the photographer?

Lacombe: Yes very much so.

Pellegrin: So what does your work say about you?

Lacombe: No artifices, direct, and very black and white.

Pellegrin: Your work manages to pierce beneath the surface of the subject… what is it you look for when you meet someone and how do you use the camera as a tool to tell a story — what is your process?

Lacombe: I stay one on one with the person I photograph and try to create an atmosphere with no tension. I am very focused and scrutinize the sitter intensely, but with good intentions!

Pellegrin: Your new book, Anima | Persona contains images from some of your most famous work. What was the process to edit these images and how is this book a companion to the one before it?

Lacombe: I worked very closely on Anima / Persona for over a year with my Associate Janet Johnson, and with Pascal Dangin who is the co-publisher with Steidl…. [I ] Reviewed my archives of the last 30 years , and narrowed down  the chosen images, again and again, until it seems that you have the ones that you cannot live without.

Pellegrin: Women photographers have only somewhat recently been truly recognized for their contribution to the world of photography: Tina Modotti, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange… is there a “female sensibility” to the art?

Lacombe: I am not sure that I see such very different sensibilities within the women photographers that work today. I don’t think I would be able to tell if a photograph has been taken by a woman or not without looking at the credit.

Pellegrin: What is the relationship between your camera and a celebrity — how do you use your camera to photograph a famous person?

Lacombe: Of course it is never about “the camera” but about how you approach someone. The world of cinema and movies is a world I am familiar with and [I] do not feel intimidated by [it], so I approach it with simplicity.

Brigitte Lacombe: Anima/Persona is published by Steidldangin and retails for $95.00.  Order it from Amazon.com and save $35.00.

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In the not-so-old days, the expedition to find the perfect Christmas tree involved getting into a station wagon with ropes and blankets and a very sharp ax.

In A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote writes of his boyhood memory of picking a tree that is “a brave handsome brute that survives thirty hatchet strokes before it keels with a creaking rending cry…Lugging it like a kill…”

Despite our nostalgia for Christmas past, the truth is, Live Christmas trees are perhaps one of the most wasteful aspects of the holiday — not including the exchange of gifts nobody wants or needs.

In 2008 U.S. consumers bought 28.2 million Christmas trees — a ten-percent decline from the previous year. 2009 looked to be a full 35-percent up, and from the number that showed up on curbs around my neighborhood, it certainly looked like the spirit of Christmas came alive for many. Perhaps it was just their way of saying goodbye to a truly awful year.

And so in these early days of 2010, I snapped some pictures of trees once loved, now chucked unceremoniously to the sidewalk. Some appear to be waiting for a bus. Others are shrouded in embarassment. Some lean against one another for support while others have been horribly mutilated – one burned, another clipped of its branches that were then neatly stuffed into knotted bags. Others were allowed to keep their tinsel or lights. A festive farewell.

These are the ghosts of a Christmas past.

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It’s part of our DNA to shop — or at least that’s what we’ve always been told. There was nothing more lustful than American consumerism, the wanton disregard for tomorrow when the urge (and ease) allowed them to have what they want today.

But that seems to have changed.

A recent New York Times/CBS News poll reveals that almost half of the Americans surveyed said they were spending less time buying “nonessentials” and more than half were spending less money in stores and online.

Not exactly music to the ears of economists. But it certainly begs the question: why have we been so hopelessly dependent on a consumer economy for so long?

Not since the Great Depression have we seen Americans returning to “the simple life” — or life where shopping and mass consumption is not such a singular focus.

Perhaps that’s why art supply stores, libraries, and even museums are showing better than usual foot traffic. According to the New York Times, attendance at many museums and cultural events dropped from 2002 to 2008, but in 2009 showed a measurable increase (although they don’t tell us by what percent.)

Meanwhile, movie attendance increased 5-percent — not enough to make up for the dramatic losses over the past ten years but it has to mean something, especially if you’re a studio that isn’t producing movies like Avatar.

Hobbies, sports, and simple home improvements have become the new way of spending leisure time, and it’s made an impact on the idea of family togetherness. Rather than going and maxxing out daddy’s credit card, families are re-discovering the simple life.  In a January 3 Times article, “In Recession, Americans Doing More, Buying Less,” Barbara Koricanek, a retired nurse said she realized “we don’t need half of what we got,” and began getting rid of excess clothes in her closet and even baking her own bread. Another family bought a used canoe on Craigslist and took to weekends paddling the waters of the Florida coast.

The Queen of DIY perfection, Martha Stewart, has rebranded her daily television show as “Hands On Television.” In the past few months, she has increased the number of segments on home crafts, recycling everyday materials into a variety of useful objects. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age, anyone would watch an entire segment about the many uses of Mason jars.

While Americans may not be shopping for yet another pair of jeans or designer shoes, they are looking for ways to interact in a meaningful way, and the neighborhood craft center or organized activity clubs may just be the next consumer market.

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