Photographer Peter Stember was granted special, unrestricted permission to take account of the backstage preparations at Marchesa’s fall presentation. The runway show itself he didn’t have particular interest in photographing. At least, that was the plan. Here's an edited version of our conversation.
Q. You were allowed to arrive several hours before all the other photographers. What was going on when you got there?
I had what they call “all-pass” security clearance so I literally could go anywhere. I arrived at the same time models arrived. You could feel a certain amount of anticipation.
Q. This was your first time backstage at a show, what was your initial impression of the scene?
Quite busy. It’s like a small army of people all functioning with their specific skills, be it hair and makeup, stylists, who knows, those were the main elements of what was seemed to be going on. And of course, the sheer number of people that were coordinating the entire overview of the event, so it was really rather, as fashion shows go I guess, it was probably ordinary but looked rather complicated to me.
Q. As a photographer, did you have a specific plan of action?
My strategy was no strategy really, and I typically work that way. I like to come to an environment or a situation, whether it’s in a studio or I’m meeting somebody for the first time to photograph for an editorial, for example, with as little knowledge about them as possible—as opposed to ‘I’m supposed to read a draft of the story and get all this background.’ I don’t find that useful. I simply walked in like a proverbial fly on the wall and took it as I saw it
Q. You initially weren’t planning on photographing the show. Why not?
This is the one thing—at first—I was not particularly interested in photographing. As I mentioned to Marchesa, this is a story that I wanted to photograph more to do with the preparation than the actual runway or product, if you will. I was not interested—or at least I thought I was not interested in the fashion. But with Marchesa, you can’t but help not be interested in the fashion, it’s so gorgeous.
Q. So your plans changed quickly?
[My Marchesa contact] had very kindly given me a very good seat for the runway show itself, to which I responded I was not particularly interested. Then I thought well why not because that would be the compilation of all of this preparation. So, I was surrounded by other fashion editors and whatnot and the only person with a big camera taking pictures. That was really marvelous.
Q. What was the most striking image?
Because the girls were walking by me, literally a couple of feet away, at floor level, I was not looking up at them as you would on a riser or a runway. I was interested to photograph the bodies of the girls rather than the full length so I would get segments in a horizontal format rather than a vertical format—segments of the girls that were walking by so I would get a shoulder or halfway down their leg or something like that. The lighting was very good on the floor so it was very well lit and rather dramatic. So those pictures were much more interesting than I had anticipated, in fact, I was going to blow it off.
Q. What will you remember most from backstage?
In terms of interest from my point of view, what was really fabulous was the moment before the girls had stepped out into the public forum. In other words there was this huge cluster of girls—seems huge anyway because the dresses were so big—of maybe 25 girls all standing shoulder to shoulder bunched up—I was in the middle of them photographing this palatial looking sort of backstage at Palais de Royale or some such place. Really just a gorgeous cluster, mélange of imagery and to that I was photographing with available light. There was movement in the image and that to me was really quite lovely.
Click on the slideshow to view Peter Stember's behind-the-scenes images from Marchesa Fall 2013.
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