‘Assistants’ Celebrates the Unsung Heroes of Fashion Photography
Behind nearly every iconic studio fashion photo is a stylist assistant. These unsung heroes often go entirely unnoticed to the outside world, but they are essential to the photographic process and vital members of the team. A new photography book, Assistants, brings fashion stylists from the background and puts them front and center.
Assistants is a joint effort between Parisian stylist Virginie Benarroch and French fashion photographer and creative director Lola Raban. The book includes many beautiful portraits of fashion photography assistants and offers a visual collection of the tools of their trade. In Assistants, fashion stylists are transformed from being a mostly unseen force behind the perfect fashion portrait to portrait subjects themselves.
“I find assistant stylists fascinating,” says Virginie Benarroch in a quote translated from her native French. “Their style, at once functional, versatile, yet aesthetically refined, is the result of real thought.”
As Benarroch continues, every fashion stylist has their own workflow, their own unique kit, and habits specific to them and their experiences.
“They handle most of the logistics, without their contribution being recognized for its true value by the industry,” she continues.
It’s very unusual, but a welcome change of pace, to see a photography book that celebrates some of the many people who work diligently to help create powerful, successful photos. The spotlight is almost exclusively on the photographer, or, more often, the subject.
Benarroch and Raban are longtime friends and collaborators, and they wanted to work together on a project that finally, authentically celebrates stylists.
“I wanted to photograph on several scales. A face, one hand, a clip in a kit,” adds photographer Lola Raban. “The same assistant who adjusts a millimeter of fabric will, 10 minutes later, force 12 suitcases in an elevator.”
Assistants is published by Exhibition Magazine and is available now. The book comes with three different cover variants, as shown above.
Image credits: Photographs by Lola Raban. Styling by Virginie Benarroch. Creative direction by Edwin Sberro. Book design and publishing by ‘Exhibition Magazine.’ Photos provided courtesy of C.A.P. Communication.
