Earlier today, I had a quick chat with David Lipman of Lipman, who helped redefine Hudson’s brand DNA. His agency (whose sterling client base includes Diane von Furstenberg and David Yurman jewelry, among others) conceptualized and is currently executing next season’s ad campaign.
Tell us about the inspiration for the shoot.
First, everything comes for us from rock and roll. But for this shoot, we want something deeper. We’re interested at body form, body parts and the erotic nature of the human body. We wanted Mario to create something that most people in the jean world haven’t seen yet. People will most likely look at fashion photography as fashion references but we felt it was important to break through the mold and go into the moment of erotica through the late 60s and 70s when the sexual revolution happened and pictures went to another place.
We inherited this brand called Hudson that had a union jack flag on the back of its jeans. Korean-American Peter Kim, the founder of the company, idolized everything that was English and rock and roll. He was sitting in my office one day, and I said, “the ultimate rock and roll girl that I know sat a week ago where you are sitting and that was Kate Moss”. He was floored saying, “oh my god, I can’t believe I was sitting in the same chair as Kate!”
Hudson Jeans is about California freedom and English cool. That’s the DNA of this brand. We wanted to make it true to Peter’s vision and remain pure to that. The concept was to try to go to all the English ‘birds’ of the moment. There’s this movement of English girls like Daisy Lowe, Alexa Chung and Lily Donaldson. I did Burberry for sixteen to seventeen years so I knew a lot of them. I actually worked with Lizzie Jagger on a campaign.
Is that how you found Georgia May Jagger? What made her the face of Hudson Jeans?
Well I saw this picture of Georgia and she had this smile. I said, “oh my god. there’s something there. Find out where that girl is… I want to meet her. I’ll fly to London tomorrow.” She happened to be in Las Vegas with her boyfriend Django James, so I flew to Vegas, met her and as soon as the door opened, that was it. It’s THAT moment. I knew, in seconds, that Georgia is IT, right there. She was the most special girl in the world.
It’s Georgia’s second campaign for Hudson, right?
She’s incredible. A year later and she changed so much — her confidence, her poise and she knows herself so much better. Obviously there’s trust because this is a family now. We put so much of our soul into this campaign: the same stylist, same photographer, same Georgia, same Lipman crew, a lot of the same people.
Have long have you worked with Mario Sorrenti and Camilla Nickerson?
I’ve known them both for a really long time. I was working Mario’s little brother, David, in 1994 and met Mario shortly thereafter.
