Who Is.. David Shrigley

The celebrated art of David Shrigley is a type of bizarrely irresistible craze level genius using cult-like + highly sarcastic humour to navigate his vision of everyday situations + the funny, sometimes misunderstood + often awkward human interactions. Seemingly inconsequential at the surface, his continuously fragmented narrative is satisfied with surreal bursts of deadpan hilarity + comes to life in the form of his now world-famous child-like texts + illustrations. 

Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire in the United Kingdom in 1968, Shrigley studied at the Glasgow School of art in 1991 where he then lived + worked for 27 years before more recently moving to Brighton in 2015. He finds inspiration for his pieces through the medium of (overheard) conversation + snippets of text from just about anywhere. Crude + at times ‘out there’ in terms of his messages, Shrigley confesses to being a complete outsider in the art world. His art possesses a sense of dark humour, as though he’s a rather wisest young child observing the adult world through a deeply witty, sometimes dirty lens. It’s a kind of genius. 

Although best known for his fascinating drawings, his work doesn’t finish there. Finding himself in a variety of other mediums including music, photography, large-scale installations, sculpture, painting + animation, he’s got a penchant for keeping things fun no matter the means of expression. 

Shrigley’s art has been the subject of major solo shows around the world including exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery + Museum in Glasgow, + the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles while his works are included in seriously prominent collections around the world including MoMa NY, tate, London, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation, Vienna, Austria + Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland among others. He was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize for his solo show David Shrigley: Brain Activity which came after a major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2013. His pieces have been commissioned for massive public display, most notably his monumental sculptural creation, ‘Really Good' which was unveiled in Trafalgar Square, London for the Fourth Plinth Commission. Just this year, in January the artist was awarded the decoration of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, also know an OBE.

Despite feeling on the periphery of his own industry, he’s most certainly know by the in crowd. You can dine in what is essentially a gallery of Shrigley’s  exclusive creations which he made specifically for the popular restaurant in London, Sketch. Par for the course, excuse the pun, of course is it’s Instagramable pink interiors which play as the backdrop to his vision. 

David Shrigley is the king of the most elegant type of rude + crude when it comes to his drawings; simultaneously smart-ass + smart. Deadpan humour has never been more fun or fabulous, chic or wonderful. 

Find out more at davidshrigley.com

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Who Is.. Suzy Menkes

Understanding fashion as an industry in it’s entirety + in a way that’s both elegantly chic + brutally intelligent - beyond the obvious glamour + tempting frivolity of fashion’s fast pace excitement - isn’t always a given when it comes to much of the content that’s splashed in front of us in the modern-day world. Fast paced everything has become a concrete theme in our lives + it doesn’t always perform on the same plain as high-end quality. Where the sometimes superficiality or perhaps more aptly put, the flippancy + sometimes self-involved nature of the new-generation FROWers has taken hold; fashion journalists with whom there’s a sense of educated authority aren’t as easily come by today. There’s all that reality. And theres there’s: Suzy Menkes. 

Holding court as one of the most prolific fashion authorities in history, Menkes’ current title, since joining the Conde Nast family in 2014, is International Vogue Editor. With an accumulative audience of over 31 million viewers, her articles + written reports for the fashion conglomerate grace the web pages of 21 international Vogue websites which are translated into 15 different languages. To say she has scope would be an understatement.

However, such an empowered position wasn’t Menkes’ initial ambition. She isn’t just a fashion-focused, power-hungry woman but more a person with genuine authenticity + a deep commitment to upholding an excellence in what she does. She prides herself on seeing the bigger picture; life to her is more than prettiness + clothes however important + glamorous the industry deems itself. It’s about igniting a conversation + perhaps not always saying the right thing.

Writing has been a lifelong love of Menkes’ + on her first morning as a student, reading History + English Literature at Newnham College Cambridge, she joined Cambridge’s university newspaper, Varsity, becoming it’s first female editor-in-chief in her third year at the famous university. In 1967, upon graduating she joined The Times of London as a junior reporter which then led her to her first job as a fully-fledged fashion critic, at just 24, under the guidance of Charles Wintour, Anna Wintour’s father + the then editor of the London Evening Standard. It was back at The Times some time later that Mrs. Menkes met her late husband David Spanier. The couple went on to have three sons together.

Prior to her current position at Vogue, Menkes held a respected role as fashion critic at what was then known as the International Herald Tribune - which later of course rebranded as the The International New York Times, for 26 years. Her tenure there saw her build a solid presence in the industry + one that brought her immense regard as both a journalist + celebrity type within it’s inner circles. Throughout everything, her views on fashion itself has remained the same since starting out, of which she says 'It isn’t good because you like it; you like it because it’s good.'

In light of the truth over popularity, a good journalist must possess the ability to not hold back in their critical views + possess a confidence to share a decisively cultured opinion of a show or collection, despite the natural fear, + sometimes inevitable reality, of loosing popularity among fashion’s elite. Known for her truthful + independent views alongside a very strong personal principle, Menkes does not accept freebies or gifts from anyone. In the fashion world, people of influence receive a lot of free products from brands + designers. Editors, contributors, bloggers + anyone that a brand sees as a way to get their product out there. It is a practice that’s been around long before this current era of bloggers who openly chat about the array of beauty products + new outfits they’ve been sent though. It’s nothing new. Magazines + most print publications have been doing it for years in a different guise. What they share in terms of product shopping pages is all tied back to which brands are advertising the most that month + which they perhaps need to get more commitment from in terms of double-page spreads. The reality of what we’re seeing IS influenced by the bigger brands + those able to pay their way to a place in front of our eyes. But you won’t see Mrs. Menkes accepting any of this. Her distinct style of critical journalism remains firmly in tact + with serious respect, she’s never sold out in order to better her opportunities or her pocket. If she thinks something is good it’s for good reason + not just because she herself thinks it’s ‘nice’ or that she was simply ‘gifted’ it. Her opinion, you can be assured when reading any of her show reviews which come out one after the other during fashion month - isn’t a business deal, it’s both educated + deeply informed, never of the minute or of personal preference. 

Another massive contribution Suzy Menkes has made to fashion is in hosting a yearly luxury summit, known as the Conde Nast International Luxury Conference. The prestigious meeting celebrates + challenges the global luxury market bringing together well known names + newer, more innovative disruptors making their way into the luxury sphere. Mrs. Menkes has hosted it annually since it’s inauguration in 2015, taking in a new stylish city each year, from Florence to Seoul, Muscat to Lisbon + Cape Town. This year’s meeting is currently postponed but will be held in Vienna, Austria taking in topics around the opportunity for the luxury market as a result of the social + economical evolution in Central + Eastern Europe. You can watch an array of the conversations + topics in the CNIluxury’s Conference Library HERE.

Menkes has also recently launched her own podcast, Creative Conversations with Suzy Menkes which is available on most podcast platforms. Her first conversation is with Dior’s Creative Director Femme, Maria Grazia Chiuri with whom she discusses the reality of being the first woman to lead the brand, feminism, Couture, design inspiration + growing up in a fashion family. Click her to find out more..

When it comes to such a perceptive + insightful journalistic approach to fashion + the luxury market, Suzy Menkes commands her place in the industry as the epitome of class, authority + mastery. Never too far with her impeccable eye + wit, we hope to enjoy her intelligent + unforgivingly impartial words of wisdom for years to come. 

Who Is.. Nick Knight

Creativity, in all it’s messy masks, isn’t always something that reveals itself to be conventionally beautiful. It can be dark and dirty, dangerously seductive and at times, hideously painful. However, in all it’s forms, the creativity of famed fashion photographer Nick Knight is somehow consistently exquisite. Esteemed for testing the boundaries of traditional practices and the ideal beauty, he relishes innovation and continues to prevail as one of the industries leading image makers. 

Born Nicholas David Gordon in London in 1958, the young visionary studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design which was where he published his first photography book, Skinheads. Before even completing his studies he was already one of the world’s most sought after photographers. Around this time he was commissioned by I-D magazine’s editor, Terry Jones, to produce 100 portraits for the publications fifth anniversary issue. As a consequence of the partnership came the beginnings of Knight’s future and the opportunity to work with Yohji Yamamoto, the Japanese designer, shooting his 1986 catalogue under the art director Marc Ascoli. The success of this project saw him go on to create 12 successive catalogues for the designer. 

From there Knight found himself the commissioning picture editor for i-D, work that enabled him to sharpen his craft working alongside the great Terry Jones - former art director of British Vogue and co-founder of i-D.

His reputation as an avant-garde figure in the space of progressive image-making has been hard earned and over the past three decades his lengthy career and impressive portfolio has earned him that rightful title. He continues to experiment with the latest technologies and his curiosity in such advances saw him launch his fashion website SHOWstudio.com in 2000, which he says in his own words is there to show ‘the entire creative process from conception to completion.’ His passion for the experiential has stood to him and seeing the future of film as an important medium in the industry he has acted as a leading force in offering a unique way in which we consume fashion, encouraging and nurturing the industry through the transitional age of the digital era. SHOWstudio also aims to work with the worlds most influential and yet to be discovered creative visionaries, from writers and filmmakers to photographers, illustrators and authoritative cultural personalities.  

A true perfectionist, Knight works in the exact same outfit every single time he produces. The jeans he wears are specially commissioned - as when they went out of production he just had to have them. Beyond the beautiful he has some very important themes in his work, one of which is imagined in his collaboration with Lady Gaga for whom he directed the video for her hit single Born This Way. The theme of empowerment and showing unity and community within minority groups is something he comes back to again and again in his work. Some of his most revered creative collaborations have been with leading designers such as Yohji Yamamoto, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen while some of his major commercial clients have included an array of global brands including Audi, Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Lauren, Levi Strauss, Mercedes Benz, Royal Opera House, and Swarovski. He is responsible for no less than 36 British Vogue covers and has shot the record covers for greats like David Bowie, Paul Weller, George Michael and Massive Attack. In 2010 he received an OBE in recognition of his contribution to the arts. 

Knight lives in Richmond, London with his wife Charlotte and their three children.

Who Is.. Rankin

Whether you’ve ever even heard the name John Rankin Waddell or not has little bearing on the fact you are sure to know the work of Rankin - the name by which the celebrated British photographer is better known. Considered one of our times brilliant creators, a capturer of stills and film that reach the world in a way that has allowed him become a recorder of the century.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1966, Rankin moved several times due to his Dad’s job and ended up spending his teenage years in St. Albans in the countryside of Hertfordshire in England. Of his childhood he says ‘I wasn’t really surrounded by much imagery growing up. My parents were lower-middle-class. Art and culture wasn’t something they ever had any contact with and consequently I didn’t either”. His first foray into photography didn’t comet light until he was in his late teens when a local hairdresser who typically cut his hair asked if he could photograph his new look. However it wasn’t until he was 21 that he actually starting shooting his own work - all the while doing the rather opposing task of studying for an accountancy degree at Brighton Polytechnic. During this time he began to further investigate the medium of print and with a quickly growing love of the creative world he deserted his accountancy studies and began a formal education in photography at the London College of Printing.

It was at college that he met Jefferson Hack and together they started a friendship that would become an infamous relationship from which would stem successes far beyond realms of anything the young photographer had once been allowed imagine in his childhood, once the furthest thing from art and the cultured world of London’s creative scene. Together they founded Dazed + Confused. The celebrated publication began - and has ever since remained - a cult status monthly style magazine, documenting the art and culture scenes of the Brit Pop and Britart movements. Now just called Dazed, the publication has been in existence for 28 years and continues to be one of the industries go-to authorities on style and culture. 

It was the early 90’s and the era was a super creative one, the parties were notorious and the high-brow fashion scene was on fire. The magazine was a direct link for Rankin to create and share amazing images and be invited to all the right parties. He got to shoot all the ‘in’ crowd and using his inherent curiosity about people’s character he was motivated to keep on creating. While working with his subjects he is known to talk to them ceaselessly so as to provoke a natural yet different outlook of their personality. “Portraiture for me is all about making a connection with my subject, building up a rapport, which the viewer also feels”, he says. 

He has gone on to shoot an incredible list of famous faces including celebrities, politicians, models and , from The Rolling Stones, Daniel Craig, The Spice Girls, Bill Nighy and George Michael to Kate Moss, Jude Law, Britney Spears, Tony Blair, Alicia Keys, Cindy Crawford and Grace Jones. Also part of his priceless portfolio is Adele, Alexander McQueen, Pharrell Williams, Kate Winslet, Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Ralph Fiennes, Selma Blair, Madonna, Damien Hirst.. the list goes on and on. Perhaps some of his most notable portraits are of Queen Elizabeth and Prince William. Rankin’s commercial work has included campaigns for Rimmel, Nike, Dove, H&M, BMW, and Coca Cola. Branching into directing, he has also creatively directed music videos for artists like Kelis, Miley Cyrus and Rita Ora among others. 

Apart from his extensive work as a portrait and fashion photographer he has extended his collection of magazines over the years, launching others publications like RANK, Another Magazine, Another Man, and his most recent, HUNGER, a bi-annual fashion bible which is accompanied by HUNGERTV.COM, a website that adds a whole other creative layer to each shoot in the magazine with behind-the-scenes film. 

So from his early and more provocative portraits in the 80’s to becoming one of the most sought after photographers of our time, Rankin has helped both the creation and capturing of the attitudes and aesthetics of a generation.

Who Is.. Cindy Sherman

Cynthia Morris Sherman was born in New Jersey on January 19, 1954 and is one of the contemporary art world’s most influential and consequential living female photographers. More widely known as Cindy Sherman, her career as an artist has spanned nearly 40 years and throughout she has exclusively created photographic self-portraits that explore, with a strong streak of feminist  messages, the construction of modern day life, drawing on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes. Socially critical and amusing, her work is never far from the truth; mirroring the realities of our time with a sustained and precise fabrication that forces the viewer to take a deep breath in personal recognition or perhaps a wider, more general appreciation of it’s greater meaning.

Sherman is an interesting and interested character. Upon graduating from the State University of New York in 1976 she moved away from painting and began what would become her life’s work beginning with Complete Untitled Film Stills (1977-1978) which would remain one of her most seminal series and consisted of 69 black-and-white images. In the 1980’s she moved on to colour film and larger more mammoth productions focusing slightly more on the use of lighting and facial expression. She has since, at different times, focused on directing motion film between her famous photographic series. But her photography remains her most celebrated and revered work. 

In every series of creations, Sherman works as her own subject while capturing herself in an endless range of pretences and guises. In the creation of one or any of her photographs, she is everything all at once, from makeup-artist and hair-stylist to creative stylist, creative director and of course, photographer. All of this means she stands alone in the industry, in which she is typically grouped within the era of the Pictures Generation, through her distinctive mix of performance and photography. Drawing upon film, fashion and a lot of influential and commercial advertisements, she ironically plays into with the cultural stereotypes that are massively supported and encouraged by such media portals and draws upon her belief that we must challenge them with a sense of sharpness and dark humour. In her processes, she uses wigs, prosthetics accessories, liberal amounts of makeup and set designs that all enable her visions to come to life. 

Sherman has been the subject of many major museum exhibitions, most recently at MoMA in 2019 and again at the National Portrait Gallery, in London which also showed this year. She lives in New York City where she also works in solitary in her Manhattan studio. 

Who Is.. Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons is a renowned American contemporary artist best known for his transformations of everyday objects such as puppies and inflatable plastic toys to vacuum cleaners and delicate trinkets, turning them into fantastical, larger than life masterpieces, including, most iconically, balloon animals in vibrant, garish colours, produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces.

Born in York, Pennsylvania, on January 21, 1955, the celebrated artist is something of a living legend. After finishing high school he attended the Maryland Institute College of Art. During his time in Maryland, a school trip to the Whitney Museum in New York to see a Jim Nutt exhibition would prove a major turning point as he was so infatuated with the Chicago artist’s work that he up and left Maryland, leaving to enroll at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the very establishment that would afford him an honorary doctorate some 30 years later. 

Swiftly making a beeline for New York in 1977, Koons took a job at MoMA in an administrative role. His presence was always noticed due to his brightly coloured and outlandish attire and hair, sometimes he would adorn himself with an inflatable plastic flower and large brash bow-ties - the first signs of his now infamous sculptures. In 1980, he jumped ship and got a job working on Wall Street, selling mutual funds and stocks at First Investors Corporation. This job was a strategic move however as it allowed the young artist fund his creations which would eventually appear in his first solo show, The New series (1980–83) in which he had vacuum cleaners and shampoo polishers displayed in clear Plexigas vitrines.

In the years since his first solo show in 1980 his work has been shown at all the world’s major museums and galleries, in cities around the world, from Berlin to Sydney, New York to Los Angeles, London and Paris, Oslo, Venice, Zurich, Shanghai and beyond. His most recognisable pieces are of course his larger-than-life balloon animals but beyond his Neo-kitsch materialisations is his artistic love of a variety of other art forms including human sculptures and paintings, all born of his eclectic portrayal of his misunderstood vision. 

Astute and media-savvy, the self-proclaimed crowd-pleaser is not one to shy away from applause or acclaim. In 2014, the self-assured and extrovert artist posed naked in his gym for a major Vanity Fair profile, shot by Annie Leibovitz, which was published to welcome one of the most crucial points in his career, a retrospective of his entire body of work shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. This is one of many solo exhibitions the artist has enjoyed internationally. Not only is his work enjoyed by millions, the world over, he has influenced many other artists over the past few decades, most notably perhaps, Damien Hirst, another of the 21st century’s most prolific contemporaries. Of his hero’s work, Hirst has said “The first time I saw his work, in the late 1980s, it just blew me away”.

Commanding a team of over 100 in his New York City studio, in the Chelsea neighbourhood, Jeff Koons continues to test the boundaries between high-brow art and the pull of mass culture, not to mention the potential as an artist found in the mass market following he has cultivated. In his long standing career to date, he has created something very unique: the combining of the art world and celebrity, his status as both artist and celebrity firmly rooted in our innate interest in both his art and him as a person. Koons has noted that there are no hidden meanings in his art and he leaves the world deeply divided, some think his work is innovative and holds a major place in art-history, while others feel it is vacuous, tacky and full of self-importance, some even referring to him as the “king of kitsch”. However despite the critical divide, Koons continues to have the last laugh - as do those who invest in his work; he is the most lucrative living artist, his famous Rabbit fetched the highest price ever for a piece by a living artist in May 2019, selling for $91 million. The epitome of Neo-Pop, investing in a Jeff Koons is definitely worth the hype whether you’re after high art or something more culturally popular. 

Who Is.. Yayoi Kusama

You may already be aware of and completely in awe of Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist, who despite many personal difficulties is one of the most revered contemporary artists alive. Born on March 22nd 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama was born into an affluent merchant family where her artist tendencies and creative disposition were completely unaccepted by her family. She began drawing and painting at a very early age and determined as she was, Kusama never steered off her path as a born-to-be artist. Enraged by her daughters most undesirable behaviours, something the family believed brought endless shame upon them, her mother would intentionally rip up her creations, leaving the young artist even more determined and purposeful. It was about this time that she admits to her hallucinations beginning. Involving vast expanses of open space, filled with polka dots, these imaginative delusions would prove to become the matter of her most iconic pieces and haunt her for the entirety of her life. 

Despite much unrest and turmoil at home, she somehow persuaded her parents to allow her attend art school to study as a painter. It was at the Kyōto City Specialist School of Arts that she attained a not-so-influencial and brief training. Amid immense family conflict which very much hindered her yearning to work as an artist, she moved to New York city in 1957. Before immigrating, she destroyed much of her early work. 

New York was her ticket to freedom, something she’d craved since childhood. There her obsessive repetition flourished and she began what she called her “infinity net” paintings - large canvases consisting of millions of tiny dots that she never let the edge of the canvas limit, their presence a reflection of the limitlessness of infinity. This early work was her contribution to the emerging Minimalist movement however her transition into performance art meant she was seen as a leader of the Pop art group soon after, a movement well-known of that time. She found herself at the centre of the city’s avant-garde scene and around this time her creations were beginning to gain major recognition, exhibited alongside some of the era’s most notable artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

At the height of the 60’s in New York, her work mirrored the issues of the time, especially her performance pieces which saw her touch on politic themes and society-induced limitations around homosexuality and the rights of women. She sought to be a voice for those who were silenced by the time’s controlling constraints. Her performance pieces were hugely successful, despite the many controversies surrounding them, what with her overindulgent use of nudity in public. Her public performances saw her arrested several times, yet these dangers never dampened desire to convey sensitive themes and her longing to help those she felt needed a platform from which they could be acknowledged and heard. 

Her work has been shown in endless exhibitions around the world and is part of the permanent collections at the LACMA, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, MOMA in New York among many others. In 2014 and 2016 she was regarded as the most expensive artist. She has acquired world acclaim, both from those deeply imbedded in the the art world and those who, simply embarking upon a must-do visit to MOMA while in New York, tend to fall for her madly beautiful masterpieces. 

Kusama never married, and amid the endless rumours that surrounded her and many of the artists she worked with during her time in New York, she only ever admitted to her relationship with Joseph Cornell, the legendary artist who, 25 years her senior, was an obsessively controlling figure in her life. The union was non-sexual though, in fact they never had sex and were simply bound by a pure love for almost a decade. 

After Cornell’s death in 1977, her mental health deteriorated rapidly and she permanently relocated to her home country where she voluntarily checked herself into a psychiatric hospital; she resides there to this very day. She has remained an outsider to her peers ever since and, despite a certain self-consciousness, she keeps it that way. Her studio is across the road from the hospital where she works on new works, all while fighting the hallucinations and mental illness that have plagued her her entire life. Known as the ‘princess of polka dots’, the celebrated artist has known many hardships in her life. Turning her demons into something beautiful, her life is a story of survival and endurance and her art some of the most sought after pieces of her generation. Known for her mirror rooms, polka dots, mushrooms, pumpkins and at one time the repeated drawing of penises, her compulsion to repeat patterns is her way of dealing with her demons. Yet thanks to this unwavering desire to create, her desire to die has always been outweighed.

Who Is.. Mr. Pearl

With his 18 inch trained waistline, Mark Erskine-Pullin famously known as Mr. Pearl is something of a 21st century genius and a mysterious father figure in the fashion world. It is not just his commitment to his beloved craft as a corsetier - he wears a corset 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (relieving himself of the garments only to bath) - that he really skyrocketed to fame but rather the fact that he is arguably the most iconic, talented and sought-after corset maker in existence. 

Born in South Africa in 1962, he grew up in a working class family and lived a modest life there with his father Neil, an English toolmaker and his half-English, half-Dutch mother Yvette. Upon their divorce however, he was sent to live with his grandparents Hetty and Ruben Searle. Falling in love with corsets and the art of waist training at a young age, his fascination was encouraged living with his Grandmother, where he would lace her into her corsets upon her request and, loving every minute of it, so his journey into the fashion world was born. Feeling under much pressure to conform, Pullin married a South African actress but later ended it before moving to London, where he found his freedom. He worked as a dresser and costume designer for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden by day and by night he was a regular nightclub attendee and performer - going under his alter ego “Pearl”; it was later that Isabella Blow named him “Mr. Pearl”, which has stuck ever since. 

After a stint working under the legendary performance artist, fashion designer and club promoter, Leigh Bowery, Pullin moved to Paris to pursue his career as a corsetier after meeting designer Thierry Mugler at the Love Ball in New York City. Paris has become his home and there he works on a made-to-order basis for private clients only. Marking a history of controversy, the corset is often seen as a symbol of female oppression, yet to the contrary a sign of sexuality, power and the pursuit of pleasure. For Pullin it is a form of self-discipline and of his work he says, “it is not about being fashionable. I do not follow fashion at all. I’m interested in an ideal, a kind of expression of elegance, which really has nothing to do with fashion”.

From conception to materialisation, a Mr. Pearl piece can take months of hard work and craftsmanship. Mr. Pearl has produced creations for designers such as Chloe, John Galliano, Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix and Antonio Berardi, while celebrities like Kylie Minogue, Jerry Hall, Sophie Dahl, Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian not forgetting his long-term collaborator Dita Von Teese have been known to wear his designs. 

In a time when fashion is fast and seasons are multiplying, there’s something nurturing in the fact that Mr. Pearl’s work will always take time. His dedication to the art sees him refuse to use any form of modern technology in the making of his famously extravagant and opulent inventions. And so it stands that if you’re in the market for one of the world’s most iconic corsets, Paris is calling.