When you’re a boy:Men’s Fashion styled by Simon Foxton

Born in 1961, Foxton has played a pivotal role in forming and defining key shifts in menswear over the last 30 years. Many of his images fuse gay sub-culutre and streetwear. When you’re a boy celebrates men in fashion photography specifically men who create photographs of men. A rather unusual slant for the Photographer’s Gallery, this show focuses primarily on the stylist and his collaborations with photographers Nick Knight, Jason Evans and Alasdair McLellan amongst others.

My first encounter with Foxton’s work was in ID Magazine’s English Heritage Shoot, October 2005. The shoot featured overtly homo-erotic black males situated in scenes taken from classical artists such as Gainsborough and Poussin. Cheeky and irreverent – the classical artists would turn in their graves – just the kind of thing I like. This shoot blew me away and has stayed firmly rooted in my mind for the last few years. I knew the photographer was Nick Knight but didn’t realised who the stylist was until I saw this exhibition. The contrast of bondage clothing and the beauty of the scultped male form, combined with a painterly landscape was something I had never before encountered in fashion photography.

Clothing and styling go hand in biker gloved hand. For Foxton clothing appears to be secondary to a platonic appreciation of the of the godliness of male form and features. Some of the most arresting shoots such as From War relegated clothing to the background – the dynamism and energy provided by paint-splash colour, punching fists and tensed muscles. This is pretty daring and demonstrates the trust and respect that this stylist has built with the photographers he’s worked with. He has been brave enought to let go of one of the key aspects that define a stylist’s career – clothing.

There’s an interesting contrast in his work between hyper-real street style images with a gritty but humourous reality and shoots where clothing fades in into the shadows and the creation of an image takes precedence.

Courtesy of Designcatwalk

“I’m not into hot new looks, it’s more real than that”(Independent 18.07.09) – this truly stuck a chord with me and how I feel about fashion at the moment. I love reality and I love how Foxton brings humor to high fashion – cute boys with braces in avant garde outfits as an example. I’m into hot new looks but I’m also into what’s real which is why I have asked real people that wear hot new looks to start contributing to my blog through diaries. Hot new looks can be real, fashion is real and the way it’s worn and the problems it gives us are real – I have a lovely picture of a big bloody blister that my hot shoes gave me. That’s real, for me it isn’t separate so I guess that’s where my opinion differs.

Image courtesy of NY Times

A funny thing happened after the show, something that gave me faith in the human race. We hit a Diner in Soho and Manaboutworld and DUB LDN went to the bar to get me a drink. I was eyeing up the menu and counting my pennies to see if I had enough to splash out on a burger – business start-up budgeting sucks. A tramp came over and asked me for money and I told him I was counting my pennies for a burger cause I was skint so he asked me if I had enough to get one becuase he didn’t mind helping me out if I needed it. The world is weird but wonderful sometimes.

I also received a lovely birthday gift today from someone with impeccable taste – Encens et Bubblegum by Etat Libre D’Orange. Maybe sometimes I am a bit bubblegum in personality and the incense undertones remind me of my catholic upbringing, a reminder to be INCENSE GOOD when I’m being BUBBLEGUM BAD.

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