Photography by Elle Muliarchyk. Art Direction by Jacob Wildschiødtz. Story by Anne B Kelly. Music bySuperflux. Covers artwork by Tarik Mikou . Website design: Plume.net.
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Phillip Lim talking about his incredible journey. This intimate interview is so heart-wrenching and honest, Such an inspiration and determination. One of my greatest role models. <3 <3 <3
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Erin Dixon: What was the catalyst for the trip?I had been visiting Chadwick Bell’s studio while he was working on his Spring 13 collection. I was inspired by the woman he imagined. I saw her as a romantic ideal of myself - a 2013 Georgia O’Keeffe. A city girl, an artist, escaping into the desert to find clarity and reinvent herself. I hadn’t really left the city for at least six years, and I thought it was perfect timing to become the fantasy woman Chadwick had invented. I thought of the trip as a fashion experiment and a performance. But it turned into something more intimate.Erin Dixon: How did you decide upon the route?Chadwick was inspired by the 1920’s photography of the serene vast desert. So I started in Arizona and Utah. From then on my journey was nearly as spontaneous as Kerouac’s On The Road. I traveled the West and East coasts seeking magical yet understated landscapes.Erin Dixon: How did the contrast of tailored clothing and nature activate your creativity or inform the character?Fashion industry thrives on characters. It manufactures a plethora of fictional personages that we happily inhabit. We are so seduced and over-stimulated by them that we never think of discovering and creating a character of our own! Having been a model and a photographer in NYC I’d accumulated so many masks that my creativity became diluted. I wanted to strip off those masks and create something new. That is why I am unidentifiable in the photographs. I want anyone be able to invent their own character/story looking while they’re on the website. I don’t want them to see “Elle Muliarchyk in a black wig”.
Erin Dixon: How did the collection influence the shots?Again, I didn’t want to stand our as a character - I wanted to be an observer blending into the environment. For example in the image with the big cactus I’m wearing a dress with similar vertical ridges. I’m wearing a snow-white jumpsuit next to a snow-white adobe church. Or in the shots standing and crouching on the rock in the middle or a stormy water I feel like the dress I’m wearing is blending with the wind.Erin Dixon: Did the words come before, after or during the trip?It happened simultaneously. I had never kept a diary until this trip. Every few days I’d send a new entry to the writer Anne B Kelly. She would then weave it into a single fiction story and send her progress back to me. Her words inspired me for the images to follow.Erin Dixon: What was the most challenging medium to work with (e.g., words, music, photos)?It was the layout. I worked with my team to recreate individual elements which evoked my experiences from the trip, but now we needed to put them back together! I guess it’s like synthesizing various scents and combining them artfully into a perfume. It would have never happened without Jacob Wildschiødtz art direction.Erin Dixon: Is there any part of the experience not featured in the project?Time! I wish I could make the website FEEL like you’re on a several months’ journey, while keeping the reader captivated. Even Marcel Proust hardly succeeded at it. Our attention span is so short. But that’s the side effect of our age… My hope is that people will linger on the website and actually take time to read the story. Take time for magic in your life!Erin Dixon: How did the project help you evolve as an artist?On one hand, I absolutely thrive on collaboration and believe that you can create greater things working together. On another hand, with a collaboration there is always a feedback which taints your creative instincts. Often the final creation is just a sum of compromises. Even when you work alone (let’s say photographing a friend to feature on a blog), you’re always creating a “product” for a particular audience. The “feedback” is always on the back of your mind. However, they say the true “geniuses” are “selfish”. They are ignorant of external opinions and don’t bother to “please” anyone but themselves. For “Escapes” I decided to suspend the approval/feedback-seeking desire and just create images I loved.In fact, I wasn’t planning to share and publish them until halfway into the journey.I would recommend this exercise to every creative person. It’s like a reset button. Don’t think of your creation as a “product”. Don’t ask, “What would Jesus do?”, ask “What would I do”. Haha.I feel like I rediscovered and reinvented myself creatively on this journey. I have more faith in my visual language and message.
Erin Dixon: Did you learn any fundamental truths about humanity or human nature in general? What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself?I think we’ve become cyborgs. Even when we get together with friends our conversation mirrors the technology - we either “reblog” (recycle old information/gossip) or “instagram” (report the events from our own life tinted with our favorite “filter”). I discovered the magic of fashion for the first time in my life seven years ago when I secretly took self portraits in hundreds of changing rooms. I didn’t try on those expensive garments in order to post the photos on my blog - there were no fashion blogs then! I was captivated by the transformative power of fashion. I discovered that my mission now is to inspire women to discover and experience the magic of fashion on their own terms. Dress for yourself , try to not think whether what you wear would be snapped or snubbed by a street style photographer.Erin Dixon: What place were you most affected by and why? What is your favorite shot from the trip and why?Perhaps it was in the middle of the night on the rocky beach on the East Coast. (The shot with white umbrella) There was a tiny harbor with sailboats chiming in the wind. It sounded like a hundred little churches were ringing their bells. It actually happens when the lines lightly bump against the mast. I’d never heard this sound before and it was magical. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTP9Y8bGKaAErin Dixon: Where will you go next?I’m preparing for a similar collaboration with another designer+model I love. I want to continue creating these little ” fashion wormholes” through which you can transport yourself into a fairy tale. Or you can crawl in bed with it as with your favorite book. -
A poignant portfolio of the McDonalds visitors by photographer Nolan Conway who visited 150 McD’s in 22 states
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Andrej Pejic and the customized Hello Pussy phone case.
Source: ellemuliarchyk IG -
Andrej Pejic and Elle Muliarchyk at Pure Food and Wine.
Source: ellemuliarchyk IG -
Thank you so much, Sharon Edelson, for a wonderful article in Women’s Wear Daily about my collaboration with Chadwick Bell, online multimedia multi-sensory gallery and “illustrated fairly tale” from my US road-trip. Take a look and escape into magic! Escapes From Paradise
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Muliarchyk’s latest project, “Escapes From Paradise,” builds on her fascination with different personages. For the debut installment, she turned to her friend and designer Chadwick Bell, whose spring collection “was inspired by, what I would call, a contemporary version of Georgia O’Keeffe,” she explained. “It’s a girl who is bombarded by this city life and she says, ‘Okay, basta! I am going to the desert and I am going to find peace and completely reinvent myself,’ because of the serenity.” Muliarchyk, who hadn’t been on vacation in ten years, borrowed Bell’s clothing, packed her camera, and embarked on a two-month-long road trip to Utah and Arizona, then along both coasts, and transformed into the designer’s imagined woman.
Instead of creating 2-D images, she put together an experience driven by synaesthesia. A friend, Anne B. Kelly, wrote the accompanying text, partially based on a diary Muliarchyk kept during her travels, and composer Superflux created an original soundtrack; the photographer wished, “Somehow, I could also add smell and tastes and maybe the desert wind.” Jacob Wildschiødtz, art director for Love magazine, suggested she post the multi-sensory gallery on Tumblr, so the road and story unfolds in front of viewers as they scroll.
“It may sound too flowery, but I believe in fashion more as a dream machine than, let’s say, film … Hollywood is no longer ‘silver screen,’ or what it used to be,” Muliarchyk, who is already planning her second installment of the “Escapes” series, added. “Contemporary art is more and more just about exchanging money. But fashion I still believe in. It’s so evocative, it’s like a pastiche of memories and other associations, and it really has to do with your life on an everyday basis.”
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![Thank you Daniel Scheffler and Interview Magazine for featuring my “BABY” - Escapes From Paradise
Sometimes all it takes to get the creative juices flowing is a change of scenery; and in former model and longtime New Yorker Elle Muliarchyk’s case, that meant a road trip. Muliarchyk has worked on her latest project, “Escapes from Paradise,” a series of mostly black-and-white, diary-style self-photographs, for the past year. The project took her across the US, dressed in Chadwick Bell’s spring 2013 collection, shooting herself in a purposive “film noir” style.The work has been transformed into an interactive online experience that incorporates an original music score, GIFs, a fictionalized diary written by Anne B. Kelly to accompany the photographs, and the photos themselves. In the East Village coffee shop Everyman Espresso, we sat down with Muliarchyk to discuss her escape. DANIEL SCHEFFLER: Who are you, exactly?ELLE MULIARCHYK: I am an artist working with photography and film. I use—and constructively abuse—fashion as my medium, because I consider it as one of the greatest vehicles of communication in our society. Fashion is our mask, but it’s also a membrane that filters the information between our inner and outer worlds. I want to study and test our relationship with superficiality, as I believe we can use it to make our lives more exciting and inspiring. I also strive to always fill my work with beauty and dreams. SCHEFFLER: I want to know more about your career so far. Give me some details of what you’ve been up to and how you found a place for your creativity.MULIARCHYK: As a model, I would secretly take self-portraits in the changing rooms of luxury fashion boutiques.The New York Times exposed my obsession through an article and exhibition. I met amazing people who had their finger on the pulse of art and fashion and the skeleton keys to these exclusive universes. I collaborated with Neville Wakefield [on a series of photos of] saints in churches dressed in contemporary fashion and designer Bella Freud, daughter of painter Lucian Freud. Their insight and encouragement helped me find my own vision. SCHEFFLER: Tell me about the photos you took in changing rooms all over the world. What was your thinking at the time?MULIARCHYK: I wanted to create beautiful images with things I couldn’t afford, but it grew into something else. Through this process I discovered fashion, and its magic, for the first time in my life. SCHEFFLER: How have your Eastern European roots infused your work? MULIARCHYK: I am obsessed with pagan mysticism, the folklore and fairy tales.SCHEFFLER: How long have you been in New York, and what made you choose the city?MULIARCHYK: Twelve years. It’s the only city where you can make your dreams come true despite your background or personal history.SCHEFFLER: What has been a career highlight for you?MULIARCHYK: That would be my latest project, “Escapes From Paradise.” The world around fashion is so delicious, intriguing, and multi-sensory. It expands beyond a photograph, which I always felt as the 2D prison for my ideas and passion. I love sharing stories, and I also love music and books. “Escapes…” encapsulates all the things I love. Thanks to this project and the journey I finally found my language and direction; though it’s only my first draft. I hope people will find it magical and inspiring.SCHEFFLER: How did you conceptualize the project?MULIARCHYK: I had visited Chadwick Bell’s studio while he was working on his Spring ‘13 collection, and the woman he had envisioned inspired me. I saw her as a 2013 Georgia O’Keeffe: a modern girl and an artist who escapes the crazy New York City to find clarity in the desert and in nature. I decided to literally become the woman Bell had dreamed up. I wanted to test the “Dream Machine of Fashion” on my own skin. SCHEFFLER: Tell me more about the process and how you have achieved the desired results.MULIARCHYK: I traveled across Utah, Arizona, and the East and West coasts taking self portraits wearing Bell’s collection. I would shoot mostly at night in the middle of nowhere—with not a soul in sight for miles. My images were simultaneously inspired by my collaboration with Anne B. Kelly, a writer who turned the entries from my road trip diary into a fiction story, which you see alongside the photos. I worked with acomposer to create an original soundscape evocative of my journey. Finally, art director Jacob Wildschioedtz helped me put the photos, story and music into a multimedia online gallery. And so it feels like a road unfolding in front of you, or you can curl up with it in bed as with a book.SCHEFFLER: What is your greatest aim with your work? And how do you feel about fashion in 2013?MULIARCHYK: Fashion is being presented to us in an intimidating non-inspiring way. I want to reinvent the experience of fashion. I want to prove that it can be truly magical and empowering—the way I discovered it in the changing rooms.SCHEFFLER: Any photographers you simply adore?MULIARCHYK: Araki.SCHEFFLER: What’s on your bedside table?MULIARCHYK: My Bible is a book called The Constant Choice, about making good versus evil decisions in your life, by Peter Georgescu. As a teenager in 1950s, he escaped hard labor camps in Romania, to eventually become one of the greatest businessmen in America. A must-read for anyone in our business.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/9bef3884ceff49459af60f82b2a6a625/tumblr_mltkl3IUi01qfxeeeo1_r1_500.jpg)
Thank you Daniel Scheffler and Interview Magazine for featuring my “BABY” - Escapes From Paradise
Sometimes all it takes to get the creative juices flowing is a change of scenery; and in former model and longtime New Yorker Elle Muliarchyk’s case, that meant a road trip. Muliarchyk has worked on her latest project, “Escapes from Paradise,” a series of mostly black-and-white, diary-style self-photographs, for the past year. The project took her across the US, dressed in Chadwick Bell’s spring 2013 collection, shooting herself in a purposive “film noir” style.
The work has been transformed into an interactive online experience that incorporates an original music score, GIFs, a fictionalized diary written by Anne B. Kelly to accompany the photographs, and the photos themselves. In the East Village coffee shop Everyman Espresso, we sat down with Muliarchyk to discuss her escape.
DANIEL SCHEFFLER: Who are you, exactly?
ELLE MULIARCHYK: I am an artist working with photography and film. I use—and constructively abuse—fashion as my medium, because I consider it as one of the greatest vehicles of communication in our society. Fashion is our mask, but it’s also a membrane that filters the information between our inner and outer worlds. I want to study and test our relationship with superficiality, as I believe we can use it to make our lives more exciting and inspiring. I also strive to always fill my work with beauty and dreams.
SCHEFFLER: I want to know more about your career so far. Give me some details of what you’ve been up to and how you found a place for your creativity.
MULIARCHYK: As a model, I would secretly take self-portraits in the changing rooms of luxury fashion boutiques.The New York Times exposed my obsession through an article and exhibition. I met amazing people who had their finger on the pulse of art and fashion and the skeleton keys to these exclusive universes. I collaborated with Neville Wakefield [on a series of photos of] saints in churches dressed in contemporary fashion and designer Bella Freud, daughter of painter Lucian Freud. Their insight and encouragement helped me find my own vision.
SCHEFFLER: Tell me about the photos you took in changing rooms all over the world. What was your thinking at the time?
MULIARCHYK: I wanted to create beautiful images with things I couldn’t afford, but it grew into something else. Through this process I discovered fashion, and its magic, for the first time in my life.
SCHEFFLER: How have your Eastern European roots infused your work?
MULIARCHYK: I am obsessed with pagan mysticism, the folklore and fairy tales.
SCHEFFLER: How long have you been in New York, and what made you choose the city?
MULIARCHYK: Twelve years. It’s the only city where you can make your dreams come true despite your background or personal history.
SCHEFFLER: What has been a career highlight for you?
MULIARCHYK: That would be my latest project, “Escapes From Paradise.” The world around fashion is so delicious, intriguing, and multi-sensory. It expands beyond a photograph, which I always felt as the 2D prison for my ideas and passion. I love sharing stories, and I also love music and books. “Escapes…” encapsulates all the things I love. Thanks to this project and the journey I finally found my language and direction; though it’s only my first draft. I hope people will find it magical and inspiring.
SCHEFFLER: How did you conceptualize the project?
MULIARCHYK: I had visited Chadwick Bell’s studio while he was working on his Spring ‘13 collection, and the woman he had envisioned inspired me. I saw her as a 2013 Georgia O’Keeffe: a modern girl and an artist who escapes the crazy New York City to find clarity in the desert and in nature. I decided to literally become the woman Bell had dreamed up. I wanted to test the “Dream Machine of Fashion” on my own skin.
SCHEFFLER: Tell me more about the process and how you have achieved the desired results.
MULIARCHYK: I traveled across Utah, Arizona, and the East and West coasts taking self portraits wearing Bell’s collection. I would shoot mostly at night in the middle of nowhere—with not a soul in sight for miles. My images were simultaneously inspired by my collaboration with Anne B. Kelly, a writer who turned the entries from my road trip diary into a fiction story, which you see alongside the photos. I worked with acomposer to create an original soundscape evocative of my journey. Finally, art director Jacob Wildschioedtz helped me put the photos, story and music into a multimedia online gallery. And so it feels like a road unfolding in front of you, or you can curl up with it in bed as with a book.
SCHEFFLER: What is your greatest aim with your work? And how do you feel about fashion in 2013?
MULIARCHYK: Fashion is being presented to us in an intimidating non-inspiring way. I want to reinvent the experience of fashion. I want to prove that it can be truly magical and empowering—the way I discovered it in the changing rooms.
SCHEFFLER: Any photographers you simply adore?
MULIARCHYK: Araki.
SCHEFFLER: What’s on your bedside table?
MULIARCHYK: My Bible is a book called The Constant Choice, about making good versus evil decisions in your life, by Peter Georgescu. As a teenager in 1950s, he escaped hard labor camps in Romania, to eventually become one of the greatest businessmen in America. A must-read for anyone in our business.
