Venetia Scott

Not content with merely creating objects of desire, as a stylist Venetia Scott helped introduce the concept of narrative into fashion photography.

Anyone whose name is associated with fashion is likely to be tarred with the cliché brush; there’s nothing journalists like better than to put an interviewee in a box. My expectations of Venetia Scott, creative director to Marc Jacobs, stylist to photographers Juergen Teller, Helmut Newton and Steven Klein, friend of Kate and Pete, and now a successful photographer in her own right, were heavy with negative associations; she would be thin, humbly pretentious, expensively but consciously crumpled…

Well, she is thin. But rather than conveying the heavily styled insouciance of “a fashion person”, she’s a warm, softly spoken woman who, in terms of appearance, has more in common with a 40s film star. Think a young Katherine Hepburn.

Over tea in Moomin cups in her beautiful but comfortable home-cum-workplace (a converted Post Office sorting office) in west London, she makes a confession. “I really love camping,” she says, and goes on to wax lyrical about the best tents, equipment and locations.

Not the admission that one would expect from one of the founders of the grunge look and “heroin chic”, but Scott hails from practical English stock. Sent to boarding school at an early age – a somewhat authoritarian experience – Scott wanted to get into fashion journalism. She joined the ad sales team at Vogue, which was her route to editorial, before becoming assistant to the celebrated fashion director Grace Coddington.

After three years of being allowed to have only one object on her glass desk, Scott quit Vogue at the same time as Coddington to go freelance. Influenced by Larry Clark’s photography in his book Kids and seeking an antidote to 80s power perfection, she began creating “stories” and seeking both unusual locations and casting. One of her first collaborations was with Teller, whom she has just begun working with again after their personal relationship ended a few years ago.

Over 18 years the pair were responsible for creating some of fashion’s most iconic looks, for magazines such as Dazed & Confused, The Face, Italian Vogue, Self-Service, W and i-D. Advertising clients included Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Anna Molinari and Katherine Hamnett.

Scott’s styling, much like her photography, creates a vision of an accessible lifestyle. She looks for a narrative, as opposed to flogging the must-have latest item. Her work is aspirational, but more for the mood, the experience – not the clutch bag. “The idea comes first, and then the clothes,” she says. Her foray into photography, now her dedicated profession (along with her styling and creative direction at Marc Jacobs), was the result of her
temporary split with Teller. “I wouldn’t have felt a need to pick up the camera if Juergen and I hadn’t stopped working together. But many of the other photographers I worked with just got in the way,” she laughs.

Since launching herself as a photographer Scott has shot two campaigns for designer Margaret Howell and the Kate Moss story for Dazed & Confused, which shows an earthy but ethereal Kate and Pete, crazily, innocently and happily in love – a tabloid dichotomy. The mood is more that of a day out in the country with your loved-up mates than a dedicated photo shoot.

What is particularly likeable about her is her sense of loyalty, but not in a naff false bonhomie way. She talks of long-term collaborators as “family”: eighteen years with Teller, nearly a decade with Jacobs, loves projects with Big TV (she has styled their promos since Gawd knows when)… Working with her is clearly a good experience; the results speak for themselves.

Unusually, she doesn’t shoot on a digital camera and relishes her relationship with her printers. It was a wonderful experience to look at her work on a light box, made more human by her nine-year-old daughter (by Teller) chatting away while doing her homework at the same table. “I don’t need loads of equipment as I have a very small team,” she explains.
“I prefer working with auto-focus as it allows me to capture moments, go away, think about them and enjoy the process of print-making. Also with digital, there is a danger of too many people getting involved with the shot just after you’ve taken it, while film allows the image to grow on you.”

So what about non-fashion brands? Would she tackle Weetabix, for example? “I’d be interested. I’d like to work out why characters are there,” she says. “Is the protagonist confident and credible, or has he just been put there?”

A back-story to a cereal commercial, now that would be interesting. And it might just be what us consumers are waiting for.