So, seven years ago, on a whim, I dragged my ass to the London School of Fashion, for a short course in Fashion Journalism. I ran a style blog at the time, and I ran it with passion. It was a short course, alright. But packed with knowledge, field trips, discussions, and yes, assignments. I remember waking up every morning, grabbing a quick breakfast, and being at the LSF at an hour I usually wake up at. A day full of classes, with just a short lunch break, and we’d be on our way back with a new assignment that had to be submitted before dawn. Those were the happiest handful of days in my life.
One of the assignments I was required to submit was on the work of Nick Knight. To be honest, I had never heard of him, or most of the other photographers assigned to every student, before. But when I started looking up his work, I sat in awe, looking at the electric, volatile imagery in his work, as one after another of his famous collaborations came forward. Explaining his fearless style as a photographer, Nick Knight sees his body of work as “an ongoing communication, a response to events”.
The London based Knight does not see himself as a classic photographer. He believes in the product more than the process. He was one of the first photographers to use internet as an outlet for his interests. Nick Knight has worked for some of the most prestigious platforms including Vogue, Dazed & Confused, The Face and Visionaire and clients like YSL, Bjork, Alexander McQueen, Calvin Klein and Massive Attack. His collaborations with Yohji Yamamoto, art director Marc Acoli and designer Peter Saville are the stuff photography legends are made of.
His work is unlike any other eminent photographer’s. It has this terrible energy that can captivate and intimidate at the same time. His forms seem to have utter disregard for the conventional, and his subjects seem to strip the drama off fashion, laying bare its core, its base elements.
