Mert & Marcus cover story, American Photo Sept/Oct '13

8/13/2019 Mert & Marcus cover story, American Photo Sept/Oct '13

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 AMERICANPHO

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MERT ALAS & MARCUS PIGGOTT

STORY BY MATTHEW ISMAEL RUIZ

© M e r t A l a s & M a r c u s P i g g o t t

38 AMERICANPHOTOMAG.COM SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

ashion’s reigni

ng

auteurs Mert & Marcus

Exuberantly defiant in its variety,

the work of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

is consistent in its brashness. And it’s made

the duo among the most sought-after and

talked-about photographers in the business.


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© M e r t A l a s &

M a r c u s P i g g o t t

Fashion’s Reigning Auteurs

201

Lara

Vo

ert Alas and Marcus Piggott—affection-

ately known in fashion circles as simply

Mert & Marcus—live a charmed life. As

art-conscious club kids in the ’90s, they fell back-

ward into fashion, each other’s arms, and, most

important, photography.

They choose not to discuss their romantic status,

but their creative collaboration is so powerful that it

has long transcended physical attraction. Alas told

us that for him, making Mert & Marcus pictures is

about the time they share and the work that goes

into them—neither has any desire to work separate-

ly—and continually pulling from an eclectic range of

influences in the service of their point of view.The duo’s discerning, constantly evolving aes-

thetic makes them coveted among haute-couture

magazines and advertisers who give them the free-

dom to make images without the constraints placed

on many of their fellow photographers.

In the economics of photography, the divide

between commercial and editorial work is pro-

nounced; for fashion, even more so. Fashion

photographers use editorial work, often unpaid, to

express themselves artistically and to attract the

attention of deep-pocketed luxury brands. Alas and

Piggott developed their aesthetic shooting and styl-

ing for forward-thinking magazines such as Dazed

& Confused and i-D and moved on to regularly shoot

editorial work for the likes of Vogue and W and ads

for brands such as Louis Vuitton and Givenchy.

Stylists love the pair because their infinitely

expanding collection of influences means they might

be working with any imagery, from raw nature to

space alien to zombie baroque. Designers love them

because they entice people into a world where a

handbag costs more than some cars. “Our job is to

create an identity for brands so people can relate

to them,” Alas says. “But that doesn’t mean that it

doesn’t hold any artistic value within that process.”

Such a perspective is not necessarily unique, but

what sets them apart is their range. Many pho-

tographers become known for an easily identifi-

able style that editors and art directors can bank

on. But these two seem to be from the Bruce Lee

school of photography. The martial artist whose

style became famous for having no identifiable

style was unbeatable because opponents could

never predict his next move. By not restricting

themselves to one style—often even they don’t

know what’s coming next—Alas and Piggott have

made themselves appealingly versatile.“It probably would be easy to have one style, to

be honest,” Piggott says. “But we would get bored.”

M


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Alas concurs: “The substance directs the light, the

look, the colors, not our style,” he says. “It would be

so vain to start a project with our style. That’s not

how we approach it.”

When Alas and Piggott met in 1993 at a party

on a pier in Hastings, England, they were barely

in their twenties, both club kids looking for the

next party. Alas, a Turkish emigré who had studied

classical music, tells us that before they met, they

hadn’t lived much life yet, and that, in effect, grow-

ing up together formed the basis of their fluid work-

ing relationship. “We kind of experienced everything

together anyway, from the start, so i t’s so easy to

communicate. It’s like looking back at your diary

to say, ‘Oh, do you remember this?’ It evolves veryquickly between ourselves.”

Their meeting began a whirlwind romance that

ultimately led to their picking up a camera and

learning how to make pictures together. They ran

with an artsy east London crowd, going to galleries

with Lee McQueen (founder of the Alexander

The People’s Ph

Below: Jessica Stam, for

W , March 2005. Right:

Christina Ricci, for POP

Autumn/Winter 2004.

PIGGOTT: IT PROBABLYWOULD BE EASY TO HAVEONE STYLE, TO BE HONEST.BUT WE WOULD GET BORED.

ALAS: IT WOULD BE SO VAIN TO START A PROJECTWITH OUR STYLE.

‘ ‘



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McQueen design house) and stylist and fashion

editor Katy England, and chasing artists like group-

ies. Piggott taught Alas, who was assisting McQueen

at shows during the early ’90s, how to use a camera,

and they developed their workflow and aesthetic in

a loft on Old Street. The two would go to bookshops

on Charing Cross Road, look at the their favorite

monographs, and try to figure out the lighting. For

their earliest shoots, they did everything themselves—

styling, hair, makeup, and set design. Their first

published work in Dazed & Confused was sparked,

unsurprisingly, over drinks with friends who just

happened to work there.

Early work for cult titles like Dazed allowed them

to work in fashion while retaining the freedom topush their limits artistically. “The Love magazine, the

i-D magazine, and in the old days, The Face maga-

zine—all these magazines didn’t have so much of a

commercial purpose, but they did have prices of the

clothes,” Alas says. “So, yes, we want to do art, we

want to show the world that we’re not just about a

bag and shoe. Yes, we are rebels and we don’t care

about money. But it’s an industry. It’s commercial,

plus culture, plus art. In one bag.”

The pair’s pragmatic attitude has helped them

navigate the world of commercial fashion, but their

taste is responsible for their status as trendsetters.

They borrow only from the best. Images by Mert &

Marcus draw on the work of such notables as Guy

Bourdin, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Helmut Newton,

and the duo continually pull from new influences.

But with that approach, their visibility opens them

to controversy. A 2011 Love magazine editorial Alas

and Piggott produced called “What Lies Beneath”

drew criticism online for bearing an undeniable

likeness to photographer Jeff Bark’s haunting series

Woodpecker. Their 46-page spread, with its striking

similarities in subject, tone, and iconography—and

even some props—can be said to expand upon the

vision of Berk’s original eight images, with a bigger

budget and higher production values.

Indeed, not much shackles their creativity: Their

shoots boast some of the biggest budgets, most

talented collaborators, and hippest influences. They

create images with cameras and computers with

help from a small army of digital technicians, re-

touchers, and art assistants before, during, and after

their shoots, obsessing about every detail and find-

ing solutions to every problem that arises. Having

a team allows them the luxury to concentrate on

the more artistic decisions to be made on set rather

than be bogged down by technical troubleshooting.Those artistic decisions are typically collabora-

tions with like-minded creative rock stars like Love

founder and editor Katie Grand or Vogue creative

director Grace Coddington. Their circle of co-

conspirators is small but close. They talk on set in

a sort of culture-vulture shorthand, using loose as-

sociations to describe the desired vibe for the shoot.

When they say to Coddington, “Factory girl, ’60s

England, she’s poor, she’s lonely, she’s depressed,”

Left: Adele, for U.S. Vogue,

March 2012. Above: Daria

Werbowy, for French

Vogue, September 2012.

Fashion’s Reign

everyone knows what they’re going

So when Vogue’s imposing fashi

Tonne Goodman, invited them to d

infamous shoot with Adele—which

our 2012 Images of the Year (Janua

2013)—they trusted that their visio

it to the page. Though they were e

Adele’s music, Alas and Piggott hapainting the media’s well-worn pic

sick young starlet with a sharp coc

velvet vocal chords. They wanted t

their world, make her one of their

wanted to embrace her beauty, her

says. “Bring her into this world of

Again, controversy followed. The

ages drew jeers from critics who ca

authenticity, up in arms at the exte © M e r t A l a s & M a r c u s P i g g o t t ( 2 )


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© B r a n d o n S t a n t o n ( 4 )

Left: Angela Lindvall,

for POP Fall/Winter

2002/2003. Above:

Malgosia Bela, for

LOVE Issue #8.

Fashion’s Reigni

ALAS: WE WANT TO

ART, WE WANT TO STHE WORLD THAT WNOT JUST ABOUTA BAG AND SHOE.

‘ © M e r t A l a s & M a r c u s P i g g o t t ( 2 )


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The People’s Ph

© M e r t A l a s & M a r c u s P i g g o t t ( 2 )

Above: Jeisa Chiminazzo,

for POP Autumn/Winter

2005. Right: Kate Moss,

for Love Issue #3.

Lisa, and you remember that experience.”

That such art informs their work doesn’t mean

they’re trying to make a new Mona Lisa. They

don’t hide their influences; they made a cactus

shrine to Helmut Newton at their palacio in Ibiza

after the photographic great died. Lots of photog-

raphers borrow from Newton, and from Richard

Avedon and Bill Brandt. But what holds these

two together as a team and sets them apart from

others is their point of view and their restless

hunger to try something else—and then something

else again. Alas says that he doesn’t even like 80

percent of their past work. It’s that drive and dis-

satisfaction that pushes them forward.

“I think that’s the hardest thing, when you have

a certain level of taste,” Piggott says. “Trying to

please yourself.” AP


processing applied to the images. Alas could not

care less. “When I see a celebrity the way the celeb-

rity [always] is, I have no interest,” he says.

Alas and Piggott do not confine their artistic ex-

pression to glossy magazine pages. For years they’ve

been working on an archive of personal work,

including plenty of nudes, destined eventually for a

book (they’ve been offered deals by a few major pub-

lishers but have yet to sign). Whatever a Mert &

Marcus book ends up looking like, the duo will likely

have moved on to something new. And to be sure, it

will unpeel more layers of artistic inspiration.

For Piggott, those eclectic touchstones include

“dreams and holidays and life,” while Alas explains

how his travels influence the work. “You go to a

museum, you remember Mona Lisa looking at

you,” he says. “You see a girl that looks like Mona

Mert & Marcus cover story, American Photo Sept/Oct '13

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