ABOUT ANTON
Until relatively recently, Anton Corbijn was probably most famous for being the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2. Now, however, his career has branched out, with an award-winning directorial debut on the feature-film, ‘Control,’ about the life and death of Joy Division singer, Ian Curtis; and with his striking advertising and campaign work for G-Star.
Born in Strijen in the Netherlands, Anton started his career as a music photographer when he saw the Dutch musician Herman Brood playing at a cafe in Groningen (the Netherlands) around 1975. His pictures gained instant exposure for Brood and, until the singer’s death in 2001, Anton remained his ‘in-house’ photographer, a pattern of long-term collaboration he has maintained with many other artists.
In the following years Anton got to photograph hundreds of world famous celebrities, including: David Bowie, Miles Davis, Robert DeNiro, Stephen Hawking, Elvis Costello and Clint Eastwood. But it is his iconic covers for the U2 albums, ‘The Joshua Tree’ and ‘Achtung Baby’ and his other work with the band that have made the greatest impression. Anton later moved into directing music videos and made a short film about Captain Beefheart for the BBC called ‘Some Yoyo Stuff’ that, ultimately, led to ‘Control.’
His collaboration with G-Star began when, “They asked me if I would help them find a new way of shooting their campaigns. I gave them a briefing of what I thought they could be doing and they liked it very much and said I should be the one to shoot their campaign. I’m not a natural choice for fashion, but I really like G-Star, I like the people there, their attitudes.”
The first campaign gave Anton the opportunity to challenge G-Star’s established advertising house-style and create a new, fresh look: “In old G-Star campaigns they shot models in studios against a white background, but I wanted to change this. So instead of using empty studios we used outdoors locations, and instead of models we used Alexandra and Toby from ‘Control,’ because G-Star loved the film and I loved these actors.”
The first campaign was an instant success, adding new vitality to the G-Star visual presentation. Anton was invited back for the following campaign and was delighted to accept, as long as he could try something new: “We chose to do the next shoot in black and white, which was another transition.”
His third campaign continues the strong black-and-white visuals - this time with a more refined, elegant atmosphere - and features an old friend. “The new campaign with Liv Tyler is a little softer. I first met Liv in 1996 to photograph her for a German magazine. She is an absolutely wonderful girl, she looks classical yet she has an edge, it’s an intriguing combination. It sort of sums up G-Star, I guess.”
Delighted with the results of the campaign shoot, both Anton and Liv jumped at the opportunity to return for the Fall/Winter campaign, although Anton, again, wants to shake it up: “The second campaign will focus more on her edginess, while the first was more focused on her classicism.”
The results of their collaboration will be seen later this year on billboards and magazines across the world.