Bruce Weber to be Honoured by British Fashion Council

Bruce Weber to be Honoured by British Fashion Council

Famed photographer Bruce Weber will be honoured by the British Fashion Council on December 5th with the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator. Ahead of this award, Weber recently gave an interview to Business of Fashion, wherein he discussed his work, and the influences throughout his life that brought his skills and visions to the forefront of fashion and photography.

Known for his fantastical work in fashion, from portraits and editorials, to brand campaigns and more, Weber rose to prominence in the 1970’s and has been a staple in the fashion industry since. His stark portraits and depictions of luminous scenes bring to mind captivating individuals, ethereal lands and exciting events.

“People think that photographers live like their photographs,” Weber told Business of Fashion in an interview today. “In some way they do — emotionally. But physically they don’t. I’m always with a lot of people in my pictures. But I don’t have a lot of people around me a lot in my life.”

Born in Pennsylvania, Weber initially studied theater in Ohio, turning later to New York to pursue filmmaking. While he has continued in to make films throughout his career, his now legendary career in photography has shaped his image, beginning with campaigns for designers including Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein – some of his most most well known and controversial work.

“When people hire me to photograph for them, I think about the person I’m working for, not the company,” Weber explained in the interview. “Like, for instance, when I first started working for Calvin Klein, Calvin was out all the time at clubs and parties, he had this really glamorous New York life. In a sense, that’s what I was photographing — his desire, the passion he had to live like that.”

While his work for Calvin Klein and other raised eyebrows due to their revealing nature, other campaigns set stylistic models that would be followed for years to come.“When I started working for Ralph, I got to know his family and it really started with family photographs,” Weber went on to explain. “Ralph and I had a lot of common interests — in cars, old clothes — so I was photographing his world. It wasn’t my world, but it was his world. And that was the fun part of it, to go into these other worlds.”

While his work so often lies in a fantasy world he shares with the viewer, the real world does creep in and influence the reverie.“I do see America very differently now. I’ve been travelling a lot because I knew the election was coming up and I wanted to see what was going on in the country,” Weber told Business of Fashion. “We were down in West Texas for a long time, in Kentucky, in Tucson. I could see how that whole part of America had changed, how disappointed a lot of people were with their life and their life in America. And so if I kind of interpret that, and eventually put it in my pictures, I’ll find a way to get back to the way I originally felt about the country.”

Bruce Weber to be Honoured by British Fashion Council