Photos Of The Day: "Fluorescent Adolescent"
Tyrone Lebon
Since I discovered Tyrone Lebon's photography I have a major crush on everything he does. ll probably gonna spam you with loads of editorials from him simply because he also always snaps people that I adore. The most recent example being Willow Smith for i-D magazine.
A trip into nature, combined with an amazing styling, great clothe and stunning Willow herself this has become one of the most inspiring editorials I've seen in a long time. Unbelievable that she is only 14 years old, having so much to say. "The best piece of advice I've ever been given was when my brother Jaden said, 'Albert Einstein said that time was relative, but he forgot to say that so is everything else,'" says Willow. "And that just made me think: good and bad is so relative. Moral and immoral is so relative. Everything in the world is just so relative. You could say, 'Oh, that girl is so mean to me', but really if you look at her life and how she was raised and her experiences that have brought her to this point, you really can't label her because it couldn't have been any other way. Putting a label on someone doesn't really work because everything is relative." (via vice)
Drake called you his "young muse" on Instagram, and internet detectives placed you both at Abbey Road Studios in London recently. Are you working together?
[Laughs] I hope. That's all I can say. We'll see what happens.
Who's on the wish list to work with, from any medium?
I'd love to work with Hiatus Kaiyote. I'd love to work with Grimes. I'd love to work with Miley Cyrus, actually. I literally want to make music with her. I produce the beats, she literally just comes to the studio. Also, Wes Anderson and Tim Burton. I'd love to work with Pendleton Ward, the creator of [TV show] Adventure Time. Oh, and Lolawolf.
What do you think of your generation?
I feel that right now what our generation needs is to do the art that's in our hearts. Do it to the fullest and try to help other people find out that thing that makes them happy. The more people that are doing what's in their hearts, the more that heart vibration is going to start spreading around the world, and the more people will start thinking, "Wow, maybe McDonalds isn't what I should be eating, maybe the way they're teaching me in school is depressing me, maybe I should be climbing trees and meditating more than I should be listening to my teachers telling me that everything I'm doing is wrong." So it's taking those little steps towards awareness.
What's the hardest part about growing up?
Making mistakes. I'm the kind of person who hates making mistakes, it's my pet peeve, but I do it very often, so that's very hard, especially when you're young and trying to learn things. You have to make mistakes in order to realise what you want and what you don't want for your life - and for everyone that's completely different.
What would Willow Smith's version of the world look like?
The whole world would be one big tribe, one big commune. It wouldn't be split up and divided, we wouldn't be fighting nearly as much, we wouldn't be using unnecessary sources of power. We'd be using free energy, we'd be eating from the trees, we'd be drinking from the natural stream. There wouldn't be traffic, and diapers and pollution in our rivers. It would all just be transcending into another dimension [laughs].
CREDITS: Interview: Hattie Collins (via vice) // Photography: Tyrone Lebon // Styling: Julia Sarr-Jamois // Hair: Marcia Hamilton at Fr8me using Mizani // Make-up: Steven Aturo at The Only Agency using Laura Mercier // Nail technician: Tracy Clemens at Opus Beauty using Jin Soon // Photography assistance: William Mathieu, Steven Gabriel // Styling assistance Bojana Kozarevic, Roberta Hollis, Sophia Phonsavahn, Victoria Zengo Tailor Brian Frank // Production: Rosco Production // Production: Holly Gore at Dobedo Productions
Sept. 19, 2015
Labels: May I introduce
