As tradition dictates, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week introduced a new key visual for the A/W 12 season. This time around, they left the creative direction in the capable hands of Alex Prager, a self-taught L.A. photographer and filmmaker, whose edgy art career peaked with a photography exhibit at the MoMA in New York in 2010.
In between runway shows and hunting passed hors d'oeuvres, I talked to Mercedes’ bold choice for the season’s visual about her relationship with art and fashion, working with Lara Stone—Prager's subject in the story—and tried to convince her to move to Berlin (Spoiler: She just might.).
Alonso Dominguez: I love the idea of someone who is crossing over from art into fashion doing this piece.
Alex Prager: I’m dabbling in it; I’m not crossing over.
AD: That makes sense. What does it feel like to walk the line? Is there a line?
AP: Yes, there is definitely a line. With jobs like this there’s not so much of a line because they gave me a lot of creative freedom, but in the end we are still selling a product. This is different from my art because in my art there is no product, so I can literally just go wild, do whatever I want and nobody is going to judge me for it—except based on their personal affinity for it. With this, it’s more about, “Do you connect with that picture?” or beauty reasons, like, “Do you want to be involved with that world?” I don’t know. There are different things to think about.
AD: It’s very romantic, in a way, which hasn’t been Mercedes’ thing in a while. I mean, it’s an actual story and it surprises me that the setting is so not industrial. Usually with cars you see steel around them for some reason. But here you introduced this idea where the car sort of becomes part of the scenery, and it is really all about her story and what she is going through.
AP: Yeah, I know. I was surprised they let me do that because there is so little focus on the car.
AD: Right! I was like, “Wait, is the car wet? They let her do that?” You know, that kind of thing. So, who is Lara Stone’s character in this dream of yours?
AP: Well, I never make a full story before I do a shoot; it’s more that I make pictures that could tell a story because I like everyone to be able to kind of fill in the blanks that they see. For me as an audience member, I have my own idea of it, but as a photographer, I didn’t really come up with a story. I just wanted it to be something that was kind of beautiful and romantic, but also had a dark undertone to it. To do that I had to walk a fine line with Mercedes because, you know, they don’t want anything dark in their ads. But I think with projects like this you can get a little bit closer to that side of things because it is more like an art collaboration.
AD: Where was it shot? [Passerby: “Say Berlin!”]
AP: [Laughs] I’d never been to Berlin yet so we shot it in this location called Big Sky in California.
AD: So, home, right? You’re from L.A.?
AP: Yeah. The concept was for there to be a tornado, but normally L.A. is big blue skies so it wouldn’t have worked. The day when we were shooting there was this huge wind and rainstorm, which is very unusual for L.A.
AD: Let’s chat about Berlin, since we’re here and all. What was your largest reference of Berlin? What did you know about the city?
AP: I mean, the main thing that I noticed is that it has a lot in common with L.A. in the sense that a lot of people went West to look for gold and start new lives and make something out of nothing, and I feel like Berlin has that same sort of energy. You have that young, hungry energy. The fact that this city was built so quickly after everything was bombed out… I really like the energy here.
AD: Where have you been? What have you liked?
AP: I went to the East Side Gallery and I saw that painting of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker.
AD: Oh, making out?
AP: Right! I love that. And we went to some thrift stores and what else have we done…we went to the Checkpoints. I don’t know, I love the history; I mean, I don’t love the history; I’m very interested in the history. I want to come back here for longer and really explore it.
AD: Definitely. You should move like we all did!
Let’s talk about Lara for a minute, how does she fit into your idea of femininity, or your idea of contemporary beauty?
AP: Well, that’s the thing, I got really lucky being able to use Lara because most models out there are just so uninteresting to me because I’m not really into the woman being so skinny and stick-like. It’s not really my idea of a beautiful woman, even though that’s the trend right now. But Lara has, you know, a voluptuous figure. She still represents a kind of hourglass, classic woman’s body, which is what I really go for in film and art and everything. I like there to be curves on a woman, and the fact that she has the blonde hair but also a very unique face. It’s really cool and she’s a good actress too.
AD: She is! I was surprised by the video. There is definitely a story coming through her that is really interesting—a new development, actually.
AP: Yeah.
AD: What about the colour choice? Again, there seems to be this old filter, very film like. It actually does remind me of The Wizard of Oz.
AP: It does? Oh good.
AD: Yeah, when you mention it, I was like, “Oh, that makes sense.” What were you feeling? It seems nostalgic, and sort of cheeky in a way. But what is it to you?
AP: I was definitely thinking of The Wizard of Oz. Obviously the scene where Dorothy gets swept away is in black and white and I only shoot in colour, so it was kind of my version of what Dorothy would be like and that whole scene would have looked like in the Wizard of Oz, had they shot it in colour.
AD: [Clicks heels together] Amazing. What’s next for you?
AP: I am working on my next short film and my next exhibition that’s going to be released in April in Los Angeles, New York and London.
AD: Brilliant, you should come to Berlin after that.
AP: Yes, I was thinking about it.
AD: It’s a great place, really, and I think people are very welcoming.
AP: I can tell, I feel very connected here.
AD: I think you would fit right in.
AP: You think so?
AD: Yeah, I’m serious. You should think about moving here.
AP: [laughs] Maybe. We’ll see.
[Image: Alex Prager by Maxime Ballesteros for berlin fashion journal
