Definitely. Many designers want to see their collections portrayed in a certain way and towards a certain market, down to who they want to see wearing their clothes. Back in the day, the biggest insult would be to be called a “poser” – now everyone just looks the same. We don’t believe in the notion of marketing to tribes, clothes take on their own lives once worn. When you remove the marketing aspect and the vision of the designer, you see the truth.
This truth unravelled while we were developing rolls of film. Each photographer was given only one roll of 35mm film, the rules and the clothes. Most of them come from a non-fashion photography background. With Lutz Huelle, who is a womenswear designer, we weren’t expecting for the photographer to be shooting on men, yet it looked so natural on them, you wouldn’t even question seeing the clothes and asking if it was for a man or woman, people just wore what they wanted to make an outfit out of. The spectrum of ages, races, and places was more reflective of the world we live in than what is usually portrayed in magazines. Fashion sells based on fantasies, there is no truth to it.
Trier and Vinterberg have both stated that they just wanted to establish a new extreme. "In a business of extremely high budgets, we figured we should balance the dynamic as much as possible." We couldn’t agree more with this statement. We are already seeing cracks in the “fashion system” – it has reached a tipping point. Print puts pressure on people to buy, to be a right size, be cool, be flawless. Individuals are curating their lives on social media as if they were brands. We don’t want anyone to look at Pairs and feel like shit about themselves. The industry makes people feel like shit. We need to all be left alone to let our creativity fuel us. Imagination makes us free in a world full of rules.