You can catch the project at Dover Street Market, where limited edition prints are now available, or in the current CDG collection, where the Lost Boys have had a considerable influence, and hear what Mottalini had to say about it below.
Can you explain the project a bit? Had he been saving the swatches out of love for CDG or intending to make something from them?
Okay, so Jeffrey W. Miller is a set designer and prop stylist and also my son’s godfather. I photograph interiors and still lives, and Jeffrey and I collaborate pretty regularly on a mix of conceptual still life projects and commissions. Back in the day I paid my dues working as his assistant for years before going off on my own, and I’ve learned a ton from him.
One day, while shooting a project at his apartment in New York City, I discovered a random shoebox at the bottom of his closet that was filled to the brim with fabric swatches. Being somewhat ignorant when it comes to owning fancy clothes, I found it fascinating to learn that those little pieces of fabric represented every single piece of Commes de Garçons clothing Jeffrey had purchased over the span of thirty years. Jeffrey is a CDG fanatic who went on to design this Peter Pan-meets-Basquiat crew of little misfits and the “Lost Boys” were born. And constructed from the very swatches I found in that old box.
Jeffrey never intended to make something from them, he’d just saved them over the years for a more practical purpose. In case any of the pieces needed repairs, the swatches could be used as patches. He basically took these functional little scraps and turned them into something weird.
Had you worked with Jeffrey before?
Jeffrey is like my uncle. We first started working together back when I was a clueless kid, barely able to take care of myself and I had no clue that prop styling was even a thing. Ten plus years later I’m all grown-up and we work on all kinds of photo projects and commissions together.