FRAHM Jacket
In 1997 my girlfriend of 1 year, Emmalou, now my co-founder & wife, said she was moving to London from Manchester to pursue a career in the music industry.
Ultimatum: I could stay, and we were done, or come with, and carry on. She's a strong and beautiful woman. I came with. Of course I did.
19 years later, we left for Bath, with two small children, a Jack Russell, careers, and a load of mad stories.
This is my first photoshoot in London since my mental collapse. No city I know has a more varied and beautiful modern urban scenery. I couldn't live in London again. It's too intense. But I love visiting.
I wanted bright, crisp, clear, colourful contrasts to show our jacket's utility in urban, rural, working and travel environments.
Here goes!
New FRAHM model Stuart was my next door neighbour in London before I moved.
A 6’4” size XL. Stu is a hench ex javelin thrower in his forties you might cross the road to avoid, on a dark night.
A big but agile beast from Derby, he's also a husband, dad and plays a mean guitar every evening.
He's actually one of the kindest, gentlest, calmest men I know.
These are the contrasts that make FRAHM Men. Stu is chiselled from rock, but vulnerable, kind. A Gentle Man. We're all different.
He could also throw you or I over the Thames, with a decent run up. Which is handy.
I wanted to find a scenario that undermines the pretension of an expensive clothing brand. I never want us to take ourselves too seriously.
I'm a bit obsessed by Fish & Chips. From a photographic point of view, I love the surface mundanity of eating them, vs the simple pleasure it gives. It's a FRAHM thing. Real life is beautiful.
I even paid a location scout to find us a photogenic chip shop. I'm a fussy bugger, we didn't find anything, and I gave up.
Then, as we wandered along the South Bank at night, heading to our next location, we saw it. A perfect, bright, clean, shiny blue box in the darkness, with the lights of the high-rises behind. I squealed.
I love those moments of serendipidy. David loved his unexpected extra meal.
David is Grey Fox, an influential voice for classic men's style, who's been verey supportive of FRAHM since the beginning.
It's rare to see older men taking account of by brands, and he's very charismatic, so I was over the moon when he agreed to model for us.
We'll be modelling with ever greater diversity as we grow and meet men. All creatures, great and small.
All those posh locations and we settled on the side wall of a nursery near Elephant & Castle.
Photographer Beetle Rhind spotted the yellow arrows on clean steel. It was too much to resist. A perfect background for the yellow & blue Original Utility Field Jackets I was dragging around in my enormous wardrobe bag.
Beetle and I had talked about using long-exposures to create blurred masses of people walking past. A sense of busyness, but also urban dislocation. I think it worked beautifully.
