Piers Hanmer

Distracted by Fashion

“I started at a time when I could play and experiment, and I could also make mistakes, and we’d figure it out and make a story. Today there isn’t that time. But even towards the end of this period when the budgets started to get tight, I still had to be creative. A story I did for Interview needed an idea and I was on a different job at the time and the outfit that the model was wearing kept dropping thread onto my carpet. And I kept picking it up, but every time I looked, I remember thinking, it’s actually rather beautiful the way this thread is falling. So I just got a piece of carpet, nailed it to a moveable wall, draped thread over it and there was our concept for the shoot. But it created an image. It was a creative time for all of us.”

Distracted by Fashion is a compilation of visual artist Piers Hanmer’s creative world through twenty years of set design, celebrating magazine editorial from the years 2004-2024 for publications such as American, British and Italian Vogue, W Magazine, Vanity Fair and Interview.

Part scrapbook, part visual essay, Distracted by Fashion reveals the personal threads that run through Hanmer’s editorial work. From personal photography to initial notebooks and sketches, behind-the-scenes snapshots to finished spreads, the book’s many layers take the reader on a journey to view unique worlds for photographers to live in. 

Collaborations with photographers include Annie Leibovitz, Craig McDean, Steven Klein and many more.

The book features an exclusive conversation between Piers Hanmer and fashion editor Edward Enninful OBE in which, both reminisce and dissect a wonderful era of fashion editorial.

The publication also features a text by curator and photography writer, Charlotte Cotton.

Edition of 1000
342 pages
20.32 x 25.4cm
Softcover

ISBN 978-1-917282-22-2