INTERVIEW: PAOLO ROVERSI TALKS TO FILEP MOTWARY
Filep Motwary: How did you feel when fashion started taking a flashier, commercial turn about a decade ago, with Mario Testino and then Terry Richardson?
Paolo Roversi: This is good! I think it is how this business works. Fashion is moving every month, and the same goes for fashion photography. The worst thing for someone in fashion is to be called a”has-been”. All these people bring new, fresh things in.It’s not a question of quality any more. It’s about new energies, new ideas.
Filep Motwary: Agreed, but in the ’70s or ’80s, for example, we had craftsmen like Guy Bourdin or Helmut Newton. Is fashion becoming more laid-back?
Paolo Roversi: Of course I am not going to compare Testino to Newton—each of them has his own vision and approach. Indeed, things have become easier with all these new cameras and technology. The quality too. But this is part of the times we are in. If you compare the way Balenciaga or Dior made a dress back then to how it’s done now, you can see that nothing is the same. It’s not about the flash; it’s what our times demand to see. Everything is faster now. You know, Guy Bourdin could take three or four days on 10 pages or even more. Now Testino or Richardson has one day for 20 pages. So yes, times have changed.Motwary: You have insisted on working with a Polaroid camera since the ’80s. How did this obsession start?
Roversi: As soon as I discovered this type of film I was enchanted by it. Even now I still feel this way and I cannot justify the reason. You know how you fall in love with something—maybe it was the colour, the contrast. It became my palette immediately. I also started to work with this camera for its size, the 8×10 format. Taking pictures one by one is a slow procedure. I found my way through this camera— how to work. It was the ideal way to express myself. By now, I know it very well. It has become a part of my skin; my blood.
