Steven Meisel did not shoot Vogue’s latest fashion spread. There were no backlights, no beauty dish. Instead the austere fashion publication took to Instagram for a special Fashion Week photo shoot.
“I thought this time around during Fashion Week in New York we could try doing a shoot that shows clothes you can buy in stores right now,” explained Sally Singer, creative digital director at Vogue. “And everyone in fashion is pretty aware that Instagram is sort of the morning coffee of Fashion Week — it’s the thing they wake up to and the thing they go to bed to.”
Yesterday Vogue posted the shoot, which it’s calling #VogueInstaFashion, on its website. The spread features top model Hillary Rhoda in scenes all over New York City–Times Square, Central Park–all shot with just an iPhone by photographer Michael O’Neal. According to Singer, Andrew Gold from Vogue’s photography department had been following O’Neal’s work on Instagram and thought he would be great for this project.
“What’s so amazing is how receptive the younger stylists have been to this–getting up at 5am to do a shoot with Instagram even when they have Fashion Week shows to go to all day and parties all night,” said Singer.
“We just came up with this last week and everyone, stylists, model and photographer, were on board and excited about it. Usually during Fashion Week you can’t get anyone to do anything last minute, everyone is booked up. That shows how powerful Vogue is, sure, but its also shows how powerful Instagram is.”
Singer said she loves the speed with which Vogue can post fashion images with Instagram, whereas with an editorial shoot, “you sit on the images for months.” She hopes Vogue will do more of these Instagram-only shoots in the future.
“The fashion world has changed so much and opened up because of the visual Web–people think like fashion people now, that’s really exciting and empowering,” said Singer.
Images via Instagram/moneal
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