Whichever way you cut it, the fashion world has seismically shifted over the past decade. The industry has increasingly become a mirror of cultural and political commentary, fraught with scandals, conspiracies, genius levels of risk-taking and the integration of new technologies. Self-taught photographer Joshua Woods was there to bear witness to it all. In his new photo book Fashion Diaries, the Harlem-born artist reflects back on five years of his career spent capturing the mania and magic backstage at fashion week in cities around the world.
Joshua started out as a street style photographer in 2012, but quickly came to realize that he needed more. Joining me on a call from Paris, where he now resides, he explains, “I felt like I was missing out by being on the street.” Taking a leap of faith and putting everything into his dreams, Joshua found himself far from the New York City sidewalk and into the swirling orbit of the industry, learning as he went. “Once I got backstage and got to know everybody, it just took off. It all happened so fast,” he says. “I would jump from one venue to the next, not knowing what the lighting situation was or if I would get a spot to get good images within a five minute time frame.”
Fashion Diaries chronicles the evolution of his insights from 2012 to 2017, and features intimate portraits of the frenetic and chaotic task of putting a runway show together. Scenes of last minute hair touch-ups, a sea of distressed make-up artists, models and producers bustling around each other, and attendees in high anticipation behind the curtain fill the glossy pages. Handwritten notes are sprawled across from photographs, often vulnerable and reflective of his many stages of self-doubt, insecurity and sheer excitement along the way. Just a few pages down from a spread of A$AP Rocky embracing Michèle Lamy, he writes, “At times my credentials got me into the pit and not backstage. I hate the pit. It made me feel worthless. I didn’t have a unique POV.”
Accompanying the self-aware scripts are playful anecdotes that only someone who had become so intimately involved with this world would have: “I remember one show I sat on the floor and by accident I was sitting on someone’s dress or something. I wondered to myself who has such a long garment and why is it under my butt. It just so happens to be André Leon Talley.”
In addition to his improvised mode of work, Joshua has an impressive roster of editorial clients under his belt including covers for AnOther, Purple, Le Monde’s M Magazine, as well as a number of projects with this very magazine, alongside commercial work for Gucci, Wales Bonner and Nike. I was curious about what seemed like a stark contrast in place between shooting runways and editorial. He tells me: “I think it’s the same… It’s this rollercoaster. That pace from those years is the same pace that I work at now when it comes to editorials or the demand of commercial work. It’s what keeps me going, it’s what drives and inspires me.”
Scanning the pages of his new book, it’s impossible not to take in the sheer amount of fun that was had over those chaotic and generative years. Joshua would enter to see the birth and death of fashion legends, boundary-pushing runway pursuits and the frenzy of nightlife across the world’s cultural capitals. Recounting the mayhem, he says, “Those parties were some of the best times of my life. They were really heightened. I don’t know if there’s anything else that can compete with that level of spectacle or theatrics.” He adds, “Since making this book, I had a lot of time to think about the amazing times I lived in. If I couldn’t see anything else and the only thing I experienced in my five years was fashion week, I would be happy.”
The past decade has seen the fashion cosmos absorb larger political and cultural conditions and left us with new kinds of questions: Does fashion and the arts have the responsibility to confront these conditions as part of its larger mission? Or should they exist as forms of escapism and entertainment? “It’s a new day. You can see the world has progressed, and how those older norms of fashion are not the same anymore,” Joshua suggests. “The conversation reflects more than just individuality now. There are now opportunities for designers to express themselves in relation to things that are happening in the world. That’s the role of an artist.”
An artist himself, Joshua is a dreamer who often has visions that are larger than life. We talk about the future and potential of the industry, and how the runway can serve as a vehicle for these larger imagined desires. “I would love to see more fantasy, more desired realities. Fashion can be an amazing place for these kinds of conversations to happen,” he says. Joshua goes on to cite Iris Van Herpen’s holographic experimentation at her 2017 show as one of his biggest influences. “The runway is basically a blank canvas, almost like a painter’s canvas. It’s amazing to see these beautiful moments of desirability, stepping into these different dreams, different realities, different utopias.”
Though he’s now based in Paris, Joshua grew up in Harlem, New York, which he says was his first exposure to fashion and credits as one his formative inspirations. He believes Paris is experiencing a particular cultural transformation, one where the fashion, art and culinary worlds are colliding and mixing up high-brow and low-brow culture with pop, hip hop and queer culture. Now looking back on five formative years spent learning the ropes and cementing his position in the industry, he’s interested in taking a moment to reflect before moving onto exploring new visual and conceptual realities within his work.
Credits
Photography Joshua Woods