Who: Agathe Zaerpour and Philippine Chaumont have been collaborating in the field of experimental fashion photography and art direction since 2014.
When: Agathe and Philippine met during their studies at ECAL in 2011.
Before creating Chaumont-Zaerpour in 2017, Agathe Zaerpour worked with a french art director, doing graphic design and art direction on fashion campaigns, visual identities and branding. In 2014 she obtained her bachelor at ECAL, Lausanne.
Philipine Chaumont graduated 2008 from high school in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. She left Africa to start studying fashion in Paris at Duperré, and visual communication at Ecole Estienne. She worked for a French magazine and in graphic design studios in Berlin.
In 2016 they stop all their side activities to start their own business with a book for Jaquemus, for which they did photography, art direction and graphic design .
Where: Chaumont-Zaerpour’s photographic work was featured in many magazines in 2018, including Hearts, Fat Magazine, Dapper Dan Magazine, Aleï Journal, Odda and The Skirt Chronicles. They also work for many fashion brands including Jaquemus, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, and Byfar.
What: With their book project Things People wear in Kenya, soon to be published by Kodoji Press, Zaerpour and Chaumont present their journey through the Kenyan fashion world. Moving between high fashion and everyday inventions, the duo records “the way people tinker, find ways to extract a new life out of used things, and the uniqueness of all these cobbled objects.” Thus what they see permeates the two photographers, who begin to intervene in their own creations, their pictures, either while making them, or later when working directly on the film material.
Why: The joyful, experimental approach of Chaumont-Zaerpour offers a fresh and humorous way of redefining the gaze in fashion photography.
