James gets his tan on
It always really excites us when we welcome new blood into The Partners. Having recently added 3 lovely new designers to our London teams, we were stunned and delighted when one of our ‘new bloods’ leapt out at us from the pages of Metro, earlier this week…James was plastered across page 31 of Thursday’s Metro in nothing but his underpants, and a beautiful design branded onto his skin as part of his ingenious ‘Tan The Man’ project.
Contrary to what the article says, James explains that “The idea came about as an entry for an exhibition at The Arden & Anstruther gallery in Petworth, Sussex. The gallery was owned by the late Paul Arden and is now run by his wife. The idea was floated that a photographic exhibition should be held in his memory, to preserve his radical way of thinking. As his ideals were best captured in one of his books, entitled ‘Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite’, the book became the brief for entries for the exhibition”.
He continues, “There’s a page in the book, which explains that ‘your body can be what you want it to be’. This got me thinking about tan lines etc, and how skin is like photographic paper in that sense. All I needed was some content to ‘develop’ onto myself. I launched a live competition brief online, open to all designers, illustrators and creatives, and gathered about 60 design entries from across the world. Janine’s (Rewell) entry was the clear winner, so I set about getting it tanned onto myself”.
You can read about, and see pictures of, the process in more detail at the project blog.
The vinyls in development
Vinyls on, it's into the booth
A work of art
