Vice Fashion - Brand New Skin

PHOTOS: Gavin Watson
STYLING: Aldene Johnson
ASSISTANT: John McDonnell

Fred Perry jacket

When he was 13 years old, Gavin Watson got his hands on a Nikon FM2 and started taking pictures of his brothers and his friends mucking about. These photos later turned into a book called

Skins

, which is arguably one of the best and most important books about youth fashion and culture ever published.

If you don’t know it, sucks for you. Just ask your local fashion photographer or hot young art snapper. Guaranteed they’ve ripped it off (or as we say in the biz, “paid it homage”).

We’ve always loved Watson’s photos and would often gaze out the window going, “This guy is amazing and he hasn’t shot anything for years. Maybe we should track him down and see if he’ll shoot something new for us.”

After about five years of doing that, we pulled our thumb out of our ass and we rang him up.

Vice: So Gavin, what have you been doing since Skins?

Gavin Watson:

The last eight years I’ve been in the pub. Thankfully I’m out of it now.

Anything else?

I suppose I’ve been taking pictures of any fucker that would hire me… Punk weddings, punk album covers, covering the UK rap scene, having the odd exhibition here and there. Um… Once I drove to Sicily in a Renault 5 with no tools and no spare tires and a tent with no poles and a grand in a housing-benefit envelope.

Sounds weird.

It was. Generally though, I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing since I was 13, just taking photographs of my daily trials and tribulations.

What are the pictures of here?

They’re of some kids that do grime music in East and North London. I decided to do it because they remind me a bit of the same spirit we had back when we were young.

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