Sometimes the inspiration behind a fashion shoot is clear-cut. The line of a song, a scene from a film, a particularly enticing shade of a colour. Other times it’s a culmination of moods that whirl together into a snapshot of the zeitgeist.
For Remi Rebillard this shoot was a melting pot of the events and moods of 1991. Photographed in March of that same year, in the week that was Serge Gainsbourg’s last, the graffiti you can see it the shoot is what quickly collected on the walls of Gainsbourg’s house in the days following his death. Remi snapped pictures of the mounting scrawl of messages and, though there’s no direct correlation between Gainsbourg and the shoot, he incorporated that feeling into his work.
The bold styling is also a product of the times. Remi remembers the influence of Jean Paul Gauthier, Azzedine Alaia, Mondino – “the saturated colors, the strong make-up” – while models including Rebecca Romjin round out the feeling that the shoot is an early ’90s time-capsule.
While Gainsbourg’s start as a disillusioned painter is something Remi feels he can relate to, there’s nothing to suggest that feeling compromises his work or the complexity of the themes he puts into it. A vibrant portrait of 1991, you can view more of Remi Rebillard’s shoot at the gallery above.
