[FOR JOSEPH]
IN CONVERSATION WITH ILONA HAMER, STYLIST
This interview was part of a series for JOSEPH CURATES, an online magazine of sorts, dedicated to the creatives and creators who share a similar outlook to the British fashion brand - where I was employed as Content & Social Media Editor.
It’s the role of the fashion stylist to contextualise fashion. To give it a place and time in which to exist outside of the runway. Some create fantastical situations, playing to the theatrics of clothes, and others explore normalness. The real whys and hows of dressing. Fashion director and co-founder of UNCONDITIONAL Magazine Ilona Hamer takes this holistic approach. Her readers have come to expect a quiet examination of fashion: a cuff left unbuttoned, the slipping strap of a summer dress. And, some gentle nudity. Here she explains how it all came to be.
ON BEGINNINGS
I started at Vogue Australia when I was 20 and was there full-time for six years. I walked in the door as the office coordinator and left as junior fashion editor. My time there definitely shaped my knowledge on style and publishing. I moved to New York in the fall of 2012 and have been freelancing here, and working on personal projects, ever since.
ON FASHION
A great editorial is never really about the clothes or the fashion – it’s about the image and the story that is being told. I am not an elitist when it comes to clothes. I was trained working with luxury designers while at Vogue, but I love hunting for vintage pieces, working with young designers, finding that obscure thing that adds value to an image through texture or silhouette. I like using the same shoe throughout stories, and I like repeating accents such as jewellery because that’s how real women dress. I don’t know any women who change all of their jewellery every day. It’s that mix of personal and editorial. It bridges a gap. And with Unconditional it’s what we focus on, what people respond so well to.
ON THE UNCONDITIONAL READER
The Unconditional girl is often the most interesting person in the room, especially when she speaks, not just when she steps through the door. She is a woman with a story. With something to say. And most importantly with a point of view. Unconditional is an amalgamation of the modern women we encounter and what interests them. It is for those who follow and absorb fashion, but do not obsess over it. It’s our voice for interesting, intelligent women who want something more and who value style, ideas and quality over quantity.
ON THE ROLE OF STYLIST
It’s my job to reinterpret things, to create a new style or meaning to what the designer intended. To make it feel new and different and interesting to the viewer. A lot of the time my job on set is to be the ice breaker – the one to help break down any barriers with the girls we are shooting and create connections. To create a really comfortable space to make the best pictures. There are so many images in Unconditional where the girl’s smiling and looking off camera – but that’s usually because I’ve told a really bad joke.
ON AESTHETIC
I would say I am a classicist. I love a tailored suit, a white shirt, great denim, perfect little black dresses – the wardrobe essentials. I think my take on them is to play with these things and give them new life in images. I love to give clothes personality and shape on set, and really spend time to fold, roll, gather, untuck, re-tuck, twist, pin, exaggerate. To move the garments into a new form to create a picture. Images, where regardless of the clothes, there is a strong woman that I identify with. Sometimes she isn’t even wearing clothes. I grew up in Sydney near the ocean, so being free with your body and at ease is also something important to me so nudity does tend to feature heavily in my work too.
ON FASHION’S SHOCK TACTICS
Right now the most shocking thing you can do is be tasteful and make interesting yet relatable clothes that people actually want to wear on a Tuesday at 9am. I think we are so over saturated with things that are supposed to shock us, that style has become ironic. What goes on outside fashion shows these days is not personal style at all. It’s a formula to attract attention. A way to make money. I think we as a society have become insatiable, we consume far too much in most areas of life and it’s taking its toll on the environment and on humans alike. Designers are overworked, and exhausted, and have such extreme expectations put on them that no wonder the musical chairs [of fashion house appointments] continues. Editorially, I think the most important thing is to be authentic and to have a voice and to be consistent no matter what the medium. That is the way to make people respond.
ON IDEAS
Most good ideas come to me through procrastination. Whenever I try and force myself to come up with an idea I get nothing, so generally speaking, I need my brain somewhere between a relaxed state and highly pressured (to be doing something other than what I am doing) and somehow I find I connect dots of things that inspire me to come up with a story idea. The internet is usually the fastest way to do this, but I prefer to visit book stores, galleries, cinemas. Even the park to people watch. Anywhere that is real and present and does not come with a screen attached.
ON FUTURE GENERATIONS
I hope our current era won’t be remembered for crop tops and chokers and contouring!