A Q&A with Clifford Jago Creative Studio on the third instalment of the Jago project.
The Sunflower Children
Who is Clifford Jago?
Clifford Jago is a fictional fashion stylist who travels to different countries to embrace their culture and ignite his fashion dreams through abstract creations using materials and objects rather than fashion credits.
Why did you feel like creating this fictional fashion stylist?
At The Creative Studio of Clifford Jago we do everything from art direction and photography through to styling and curating. Using the codes and conventions of fashion photography, we twist them on their head to bring a new approach to photographing models. We have learnt all the rules from working in the industry it was time to play with them and question the set format to see what is possible and how the bar can be pushed. When we started out as photographers, we were always frustrated with the politics of styling, obviously magazines require brand credits which is great but not if you want to dress a model in a dress made of 100 banana skins. This brought limitations to our creativity so we decided to create Jago, where we can use this character to be cheeky and playful. Jago is a way to evolve from these limits whilst still embracing everything from fashion photography that we love but merging it into the world of fine art were it can and become its own style.
What are the inspirations for the project?
The DNA of the Jago imagery starts from the influence of old vogue masters such as Helmut Newton and his more experimental colour work, Norman Parkinson and his playful nature with models in different environments, the abstract side of Cecil Beaton and the epic super model world of early 90’s Steven Meisel.
Are you trying to convey a message with this project?
We wanted to carry this energy and use the power of the fashion model to reference this world but try to progress the imagery into something which feels relevant today using everything we have available to us. Here we have picked out some of our moments across the three Jago books that are influenced by iconic Vogue imagery.
Clifford Jago Creative Studio