Inez van Lamsweerde (born 25 September 1963, Amsterdam, Netherlands) & Vinoodh Matadin (born 29 September 1961, Amsterdam, Netherlands) are a Dutch fashion photographer duo,[1] well known for their work for fashion magazines, advertising campaigns, and for their independent art work.
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Vinoodh Matadin studied fashion design in Amsterdam between 1981 and 1985, and started working after finishing his studies. When he met Inez van Lamsweerde in 1986,[2] she was an art student at Gerrit Rietveld Academie (1985–90), and the two became partners both professionally and in private. In their collaborations they moved between art and fashion, and rather than making comments on fashion from an outside point of view, they’ve instead become a part of the system. Still, they’re best known for images that can be interpreted as both critical and slightly disturbing. Matadin & van Lamsweerde introduced digitally manipulated photographs at an early stage, allowing them to explore questions about gender and sexuality, reality, superficiality, and identity.[3]
Inez spent a year on a studio grant at the PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York 1992–93, where she produced two series of photos that led to her breakthrough;[2] Final Fantasy, a mix between adult features and adolescent bodies, inspired by the hype surrounding skinny supermodel Kate Moss, questioning the child as the symbol of innocence; and Thank You Thighmaster, merging life size doll-women with human models,[4] creating a sophisticated interplay between glamour and horror. In 1995, van Lamsweerde made the more subtle manipulated series The Forest, of men with feminine body parts.
Matadin & van Lamsweerde continued to explore the boundaries of reality, placing stock photo behind the models, creating a gap between the "real" models and the obviously faked backgrounds, such as in Go Cindy, Go Cindy from 1995.[5]
In 1997 they collaborated for the first time with the French art and design duo M/M Paris, in a campaign for Yohji Yamamoto, which has become an icon in the history of fashion photography. The collaboration has continued since, and has resulted in works such as milneufseptantesix, campaigns for Balenciaga, and the video for Björk's Hidden Place as well the cover photos for her Vespertine, Medúlla, Biophilia albums, amongst other works with the Icelandic artist.
The digital manipulations of their work became more subtle as they developed their personal artistic language,[3] and presently the only manipulations made are regular retouching.
Matadin's and van Lamsweerde's work have been published in magazines like French, British, Japanese, Italian, and American Vogue, as well as V Magazine, W Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, GQ, Self Service, The New York Times Magazine, Purple Fashion, Visionaire, Fantastic Man, Butt, VMAN, Arena Homme Plus, Man About Town, and 032c.
They have produced advertising campaigns for brands such as Viktor & Rolf, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Chloé, Stella McCartney, Valentino, Gucci, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Roberto Cavalli, Yohji Yamamoto, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gap, Cesare Paciotti, Narciso Rodriguez, Dior Homme, Dior Joaillerie, Chanel Beauté, Pucci, Emanuel Ungaro, Lancôme, Balmain, Isabel Marant, Callaghan, H&M, Lee Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt, Joop, Giuseppe Zanotti Design, Moschino, Miss Sixty, Jimmy Choo, Laura Mercier, Herve Leger, Nina Ricci, Blumarine, Just Cavalli, Angelo Marani, Et Vous, Sandro, Roberto Coin, and Lady Gaga.