Location, location, location. What they say about real estate also holds true in fashion photography. While the product is every bit as glamorous, creating those fantastical images was nothing short of hard work, carried out by a team of 13 pros—art directors, photographers, makeup artists, hair stylists, assistants, and models—who traveled from far-off places to the French Riviera and Monaco for a fashion shoot spanning five captivating days.
The famed Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, which sits on 17 acres located between Nice and Monaco, was the site of the first day of shooting. The rocky shore just below would mark the staging area overlooking the Mediterranean. While photographer Alistair Taylor-Young prepared for the day’s shoot schedule, model Sigrid Agren was coiffed by hair and makeup artist Pedro Pianto before hours of her standing stock-still in various challenging, yoga-like positions with a circlet of fresh flowers on the Martinique beauty’s head.
The second day of shooting took the team to the coastal mountain range Massif de l’Esterel. There, NM art director Lori Stadig instructed French workmen to haul a white wall onto the beach, an idea that was, at first, lost in translation. (A wall on a beach? Je ne comprends pas!) Also nonindigenous to the coastline was the espresso maker plugged into a generator and perched upon the rocks, providing an early morning jolt before the cameras started clicking again for Sigrid.
A change of theme, from floral romanticism to graphic intensity, was witnessed at yet another venue, the Monaco Heliport, where Polish model Zuzanna Bijoch had her moment on the helipad cantilevering the azure sea, as well as hours spent in the Nice Harbor, poised atop its flat-planed slabs of rock. Making the last day truly something of legend—even among world-traveled models—was the Bubble House, or “Palais Bulles,” Pierre Cardin’s former domicile, built in 1989. Designed by renowned architect Antti Lovag, the pod-house, with its panoramic views of the Mediterranean, was where Zuzanna beautifully shaped the looks pictured in the Evening Odyssey feature.
Images snapped by Stadig, Taylor-Young, and NM associate art director Devin Hall from their time in France.
