Fashion Forward
Innovative photography duo French Cowboy are the latest celebrated artists to showcase their work on exciting new online platform Runway Gallery
The dramatic and often playful photographs from the collaborative Paris-based duo Mia Macfarlane and Julien Crouigneau, best known as French Cowboy, can now be found on Runway Gallery – the exciting new venture that showcases affordable, contemporary art for the home. We talk to French Cowboy about their curious name, their favourite projects, and how they found inspiration in a papal statue.
it starts with a story
‘French Cowboy was born when Mia and I were on our first holiday together,’ says Julien. ‘ We were in Mallorca, in a car with the windows down enjoying the warm air blowing through our hair, and we came up with this strange character – a French cowboy who tries his best to be a real cowboy. We spent our entire vacation imagining awkward, funny situations for him.’ It was the first story they created together, and so they decided to keep the name, and from it their collaboration was born.
‘ We always start with a story,’ says Mia. ‘ We first talk about our ideas and through talking we come up with a richer, more detailed story. Then we start researching all the elements: the location, ambience, colours, models, styling, hair styles and make-up. We end up with huge, very detailed mood boards.’
Whether working for clients such as YSL Beauty or on their own projects, French Cowboy love graphic location shoots – chateaux, helipads, quarries, engines, aeroplanes — and cool hues. ‘ We definitely prefer cooler colours,’ says Mia. ‘ We set our white balance on both our cameras to be just slightly blue. We are attracted to its dramatic, yet calming, quality.’
The pair are also heavily influenced by fashion, listing Alexander Mcqueen (‘ for his crazy universe’), Vivienne Westwood (‘ for her conscious return to the world’) and Elsa Schiaparelli (‘ for her funny and revolutionary designs’) among those they admire.
‘Fashion is the artist’s colour palette that allows us to tell the story we want to tell. It inspires us but we are not driven by trends,’ says Mia. ‘However, as we go to a lot of fashion shows and follow our favourite designers, we can’t help but be inspired by fashion and it is often a dress, or even a pair of shoes, that will give us an idea.’
fashion reimagined
‘ When we saw Guo Pei’s show in 2017, we could see the photos we wanted to take as the show happened,’ says Mia. ‘Her Legend collection was inspired by European iconography with sculptural dresses in the shapes of a Fabergé egg, a papal statue, and fairy tale queens – but we saw a royal garden with insects and animals. After the show we went directly to our contact and friend, Bin Y Toh, and begged him to let us shoot the gowns. A month later we had the shoot organised with insects and taxidermy birds to go with our vision.’
The duo’s Sock It! collection is a firm favourite. ‘ We had so much fun coming up with the ideas,’ says Mia. With their friend, Laura (‘ incredible legs’), as the model, the series features socks of all colours and styles in extraordinary surroundings, from a launderette to a jet engine, from under the body of a car to a backdrop of a spacecraft. ‘ There are at least 20 Sock It! images and each one stands alone and tells its own story,’ says Mia. ‘ We have more ideas in our heads but we have so much we want to shoot and never enough time. The series allowed us to get our first agent, our first exhibition in Paris and an invitation to speak and exhibit at the Nordic Light Festival with some of the best contemporary photographers in the world.’
Buy art from French Cowboy and other artists at runway-gallery.com