Aldo Fallai (Florence, 1943) lives and works in his native city and in Milan.
With a diploma from the Florentine Istituto d’Arte, where he later taught, he opened a graphic design studio with the photographer Mario Strippini and began to approach photography himself.
In the middle of the 1970s he met Giorgio Armani, who was making his debut as a designer at the dawn of the worldwide affirmation of Made in Italy, to which Fallai’s photography made a fundamental contribution.
His first assignment from Armani was a reportage for “L’Uomo Vogue”; this marked the start of a collaboration that was to continue for a quarter of a century, in the course of which Fallai helped to build and consolidate the image of the designer’s brands (Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Armani Jeans). A famous reportage of 1976, pivoting on the topic of second-hand apparel, helped to make his name as a fashion photographer with a disenchanted, restive and unconventional style.
If Giorgio Armani builds his sterling reputation in the fashion history for tailoring and dressing a revolutionarily sleek-silhouetted age of men, Fallai is the pioneer who can make a beautiful and elegant man step through the lens.
Looking back at his career as a fashion photographer, Fallai says it was a lucky accident when he met Giorgio Armani - before he was “the Giorgio Armani“ - at a private party in the 1970's.
“We both freelanced for a T-shirt company, where he was the designer, and I was the one who painted the print on the T-shirt. And then at this party, he asked me if I knew a photographer who can do a six-page project of Vogue, and I said I would try“, he recalls.
“I had taken pictures for myself, but never for fashion magazines,“ he says, jokingly. “I was very young and stupid,“ he says, but confident that he could do it.
That brash confidence has paid off. Fallai's photo shoots have been famous for a refined aesthetic and formal purity, recognizable from his early work to his latest photographic forays. He presents a distinct sensibility in the capturing of bodies and faces.
Fallai says he doesn't know how many stars of the fashion world he has worked with, or how many Vogue covers he can claim. Maybe he was never counting.
The “lucky accident“ when Fallai met Giorgio Armani led Fallai to become one of the world's most celebrated fashion photographers.
Born long before Photoshop was invented and a master of light and shadow, Fallai states that he barely uses “the thing“ not only because there are the risks of “having the same picture all around“ and “the embellished products becoming the taste of the mass“. But he also says Photoshop is a tool only for someone who used the wrong light, or making people look different than they really are. Making a fat person look thinner is not his game. “There is no ugly people in the world,“ he says.
Having achieved international fame, Fallai also worked for labels such as Hugo Boss , Canali , Cerruti , Salvatore Ferragamo , Gianfranco Ferré , Calvin Klein , Valentino and Ermenegildo Zegna . His reportages appeared regularly in the Italian and international fashion press, in magazines including “Amica ”, “Anna”, “Annabella ”, “Elle ”, “GQ ”, “Grazia ”, “Harper’s Bazaar Italia ”, “Max ”, “Moda ”, “Mondo Uomo ”, “L’Uomo Vogue ”, and the English, Italian and Australian editions of “Vogue ”.
Interview source:
usa.chinadaily.com.cn & www.catola.com
Official Website:
http://www.aldofallai.com/
With a diploma from the Florentine Istituto d’Arte, where he later taught, he opened a graphic design studio with the photographer Mario Strippini and began to approach photography himself.
In the middle of the 1970s he met Giorgio Armani, who was making his debut as a designer at the dawn of the worldwide affirmation of Made in Italy, to which Fallai’s photography made a fundamental contribution.
His first assignment from Armani was a reportage for “L’Uomo Vogue”; this marked the start of a collaboration that was to continue for a quarter of a century, in the course of which Fallai helped to build and consolidate the image of the designer’s brands (Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Armani Jeans). A famous reportage of 1976, pivoting on the topic of second-hand apparel, helped to make his name as a fashion photographer with a disenchanted, restive and unconventional style.
If Giorgio Armani builds his sterling reputation in the fashion history for tailoring and dressing a revolutionarily sleek-silhouetted age of men, Fallai is the pioneer who can make a beautiful and elegant man step through the lens.
Looking back at his career as a fashion photographer, Fallai says it was a lucky accident when he met Giorgio Armani - before he was “the Giorgio Armani“ - at a private party in the 1970's.
“We both freelanced for a T-shirt company, where he was the designer, and I was the one who painted the print on the T-shirt. And then at this party, he asked me if I knew a photographer who can do a six-page project of Vogue, and I said I would try“, he recalls.
“I had taken pictures for myself, but never for fashion magazines,“ he says, jokingly. “I was very young and stupid,“ he says, but confident that he could do it.
That brash confidence has paid off. Fallai's photo shoots have been famous for a refined aesthetic and formal purity, recognizable from his early work to his latest photographic forays. He presents a distinct sensibility in the capturing of bodies and faces.
Fallai says he doesn't know how many stars of the fashion world he has worked with, or how many Vogue covers he can claim. Maybe he was never counting.
The “lucky accident“ when Fallai met Giorgio Armani led Fallai to become one of the world's most celebrated fashion photographers.
Born long before Photoshop was invented and a master of light and shadow, Fallai states that he barely uses “the thing“ not only because there are the risks of “having the same picture all around“ and “the embellished products becoming the taste of the mass“. But he also says Photoshop is a tool only for someone who used the wrong light, or making people look different than they really are. Making a fat person look thinner is not his game. “There is no ugly people in the world,“ he says.
Having achieved international fame, Fallai also worked for labels such as Hugo Boss , Canali , Cerruti , Salvatore Ferragamo , Gianfranco Ferré , Calvin Klein , Valentino and Ermenegildo Zegna . His reportages appeared regularly in the Italian and international fashion press, in magazines including “Amica ”, “Anna”, “Annabella ”, “Elle ”, “GQ ”, “Grazia ”, “Harper’s Bazaar Italia ”, “Max ”, “Moda ”, “Mondo Uomo ”, “L’Uomo Vogue ”, and the English, Italian and Australian editions of “Vogue ”.
Interview source:
usa.chinadaily.com.cn & www.catola.com
Official Website:
http://www.aldofallai.com/
L'uomo Vogue 1985
Emporio Armani - “Blu Bianco Blazer“
Emporio Armani - “Blu Bianco Blazer“
Ph: Aldo Fallai - Models: Mike Hill, Kim Mouret, Elliston Lutz.
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Aldo Fallai TIMELINE
