Chloe Lazard
December 5,2016
Artist Statement
Studio
Azzedine Alaia
I decided to research the designer Azzedine Alaia not only because he was and still is my favorite designer but because I wanted to recognize his recent death and bring respect to him, his brand and the community surrounding him. I wanted to play with the idea of feeling like you were inside Alaia’s head and being able to feel like you were looking and thinking about the ideas the way he was. I recreated an advertisement that Alaia had done on the streets of Paris in the late 1900s as action shots with his closest muses. I decided to take vintage Alaia dresses and shoot a close friend of mine through black and white film walking dwon the streets in the West Village, a place that feels very European to me when wondering the neighborhood.
Then, I built a room since space was very important to Alaia and personal space was even more important. I then painted the back wall a hunting green and left the two side walls white to make sure it wasn’t too overwhelming. I then hung quotes that Azzedine had said In the past around the film photos on the wall, which I hung in sets of three and would make sure that the same dresses were on the same wall.
The quotes were a last-minute decision that I made because the walls felt so empty and when they hung them on the walls at the exhibition it looked amazing.
