Magic touch

Photographer Duane Michals and actor Josh O'Connor on Loewe’s pantomine-inspired A/W 2018 menswear publication

‘I’m quite willing to abandon the rules about what a photograph is,’ says the American art photographer Duane Michals, the mastermind behind Loewe’s latest A/W 2018 menswear publication. The series of images, shot at the Teatro Reina Victoria in Madrid, Spain, and devised in collaboration with M/M Paris, stars actor and Loewe campaign star Josh O’Connor as ‘Francois Fauxpas’, a top-hat clad failed magician, who attempts to perform a series of miscalculated tricks on the model Erik Frey. Michals’ black and white pantomine-centric images, which feature giant playing cards, flying chairs and crystal balls, will feature in a hardcover photo book in a limited edition of 1,200 hand-numbered copies. Here, in conversation with O’Connor, he reveals more about his practice, from the emotive lies captured in photography to its need to reveal an educative narrative thread…

Fashion Features Editor

Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*. Having previously held roles at 10, 10 Men and AnOther magazines, he joined the team in 2022. His work has a particular focus on the moments where fashion and style intersect with other creative disciplines – among them art and design – as well as championing a new generation of international talent and profiling the industry’s leading figures and brands.