AIR || David Ramirez x Luis Alberto Rodriguez
AIR
Concept, styling and design: David Ramirez || Photography: Luis Alberto Rodriguez
Model: Fahrani Pawaka Empel || Make-up and hair: Felix Stößer || Assistant: Marquet Lee
Our third collaboration explores the notion of air through the conjoint creative energies of David Ramirezand Luis Alberto Rodriguez. Moments of motion and colourful flux are captured as the mood of the wind directs draped, oversized and vividly coloured parachute materials. Time stops and reveals a push and pull between force, fabric and body.
With bulbous layers of material covering her body, the sylphlike figure is caught in streams of energy. Currents electrify her being. Her drift is free. Movement and balance: she is breathing the air that carries her.
The element of air is omnipresent and intangible. Along with fire (PAWAKA), water, earth and aether, it is a source of life. When air moves, change occurs.
David Ramirez is a collector of iconic vintage fashion. His infatuation for bold designs from the past continuously influences his interpretation of the present. David is the Creative Director of Das Neue Schwarz, a vintage boutique in Berlin and has furthermore worked as a fashion trader, designer and stylist in New York and Brussels. Utilising nylon parachute material and rope that is commonly used for hiking, he custom sewed the AIR project’s ballon-like fashion pieces.
Luis Alberto Rodriguez, New York native, self-taught photographer with a unique sense for composition, scale and proportion. His work has been published in numerous media, inclduing Sleek Magazine, Kaleidoscope, Numéro Homme, o32c online and Der Greif. He has exhibited at Wanås Konst and Gallery Molekyl in Sweden; A Number of Names Gallery and ClampArt Gallery in New York. Most recently Luis was awarded both the Public Prize and the American Vintage Prize at the 32nd Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères, France.
Written by Katerine Niedinger
