Vancouver: Obakki’s seashore style
One of the big draws for reading a fashion magazine is the editorial spreads. I’ve been asking myself what it is about fashion photography that I find so fascinating; what is it that is so satisfying. I’ve always been one to believe that fashion is a form of communication, and of course this is no less true of photography.
A designer’s and a photographer’s job is similar–they both creatively interpret reality. As such, both fashion and photography have the ability to stir our imaginations and take us to a place or time that is so strikingly real, we forget that it is, in part, someone’s invention.
One place I dream about regularly is the beach on a cool day. Drifting out of bed and into the sand, barefoot, easily dressed in a washed-out palette of carefully distressed clothing. Although I missed Obakki‘s Spring 2009 preview, I feel privileged to have been able to browse Candace Meyer’s photographs of the collection. It took me to this place. Model Julia Dunstall gracefully moves between a dilapidated old beach house and the shore of Shelter Island NY, evoking the texture, movement and transparency of Obakki’s spring line. Sheer silks, double layered cottons, jerseys and chiffon coupled with Meyer’s softly saturated images lend themselves to the rustic sense of luxury the Vancouver-based line has become renowned for.
Craig David Long is a Renaissance man with a post-modern sensibility. His interests in the arts, culture, fashion and design have collided over the years, shaping his thoughtful and observational writing style. Prior to becoming the regional winner of FASHION Magazine's 2008 Reporter Search contest for Vancouver, Craig had dabbled in the world of public relations, working with clients such as the Law Commission of Canada, Vancouver Magazine, Starbucks and Warner Bros. Pictures. He had also founded Vancouver's popular street-style blog, The Commodified (thecommodified.blogspot.com). Craig retired the site after two years, when he assumed his current role as the Assistant Editor of Vancouver's new regional lifestyle quarterly, Montecristo Magazine.