Valette Studio - Paris Fashion Week Menswear 17th January 2023, Fall Winter 2023-24

After a long break in (photo)blogging caused by lockdowns-related & others, I’d like to come back to this activity together with the new upcoming projects and ideas.

I’d like to start from sharing some photos from the fashion show I had a pleasure to participate in, which was a fall-winter 2023-24 collection of Pierre-François Valette, creator of Valette Studio , whose collections have been highlighted since 2020 during Parisian Fashion Weeks.

I’m sharing few looks from the presentation itself, being aware that my equipment, although very nice, still coulnd’t give us these nice, Vogue'-like, runway results and vibes. I’m much more satisfied with backstage photos, in bw below.

Enjoy!

Collection

Backstage

Quarantine Still Lifes

Although I’m 100% introvert, what I enjoy the most, is taking photos of people. I take these photos following my own rules and one of the basic is ‘trying to stay invisible’. I observe and take visual notes or create a full image.

But despite that my brain permanently oscillates around photography. I think in images and about images all the time and try to move them out of my brain using camera. Mostly a phone camera, which is not a good quality one, as I’m not a gadget person. It’s more like drawing a sketch of how I perceive the reality surrounding me.

Obviously during quarantine my contact with other people was and is remains limited, what has resulted in shooting small series of still lifes, created by using mostly everyday objects: books, flowers, plant-based food and bottles of wine. That perfectly represents what are mine small pleasures ;-)

Baltic Sea in November

… and andante from the piano concerto no 21 by Mozart.

I’m totally a beach person, but only under the one circumstance: the place has to be empty. When I was studying and having my internship in St Petersburg 2012/13, I loved to walk along the ‘sea side’, I mean, the Gulf of Finland. It was one of these (rare, I think…) times in my life when I was sharing living space with others, including sharing bedroom with a crazy catholic girl who has never smiled. In the second room we had a cute, Danish party girl (my human there) and a Chinese one without name, but with many Chinese friends. The didn’t speak any language despite of Chinese and ate a lot of chicken and rice, exactly in such order. For an introvert it might be a nightmare.

It was fall/winter time and the beach was absolutely empty. Maybe I should have been afraid of sth, I don’t know. But it was the place where I could breathe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist anymore and these months were the last months before a kind of new-urban space has been built in this area. (Vasilyevsky Ostrov).

Another totally empty beach was the one in the Severodvinsk, White Sea, the north of the European part of Russia, which is probably one of the weirdest places I’ve ever visited.

Cuban beach on the Gulf of Mexico (2016), empty and silent, far away from typical tourist spots, is literally a heaven and one of the proofs for Gd’s existence.

I have no idea how many times I’ve walked along the beach(es) in Tel Aviv. Usually I do that with a camera or with a bottle of wine (surprisingly, the first one happens more often). I love this place, as long as tel avivian weirdos leave me alone. No, not these handsome and hot guys who enjoys their afternoon and evenings finally being free after work in one of their three start-ups, only the weirdest people from all the place. I worry they feel sth in common with me. Anyway, in this place sometimes you really need to struggle (or rather run away…) to be left alone.

Coney Island in September, during office/school hours, when the weather is insecure.

And the heroine of today’s story, just the Polish beach located on the Hel Peninsula. I went there in November with my sister and her family. I traveled to the Baltic Sea many times as a kid, but mostly it was during summertime. Going there in November was a wonderful idea. I was supposed to have the test shooting there, but it has been cancelled. Thanks to that I could have this amazing walk.

It was cold, raining, empty and beautiful. I was listening to the waves or to Mozart: andante from the piano concerto no 21. Absolutely beautiful piece of music (btw, it was the final piece from the soundtrack in ‘The Amadeus’ movie, when Salieri finished his story…)

Andante Piano Concerto no21 by Karajan

and photos I took this day.