by Josh SIMS-August 2002
How many fashion designers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just call Thierry Dreyfus. The hullabaloo surrounding catwalk shows tends to focus, if not on the designer, then the DJ, but there is something much more powerful and subliminal than the ethereal strings or the big beat: the light. Dreyfus, 42, Frenchman, artist, is also the world's leading catwalk light designer, a man who bends atoms to create atmosphere - just as cinematographers once created the allure of Garbo and Crawford with some precise pointing of the shade. Dreyfus gives Helmut Lang a naturalistic mood, with his models passing in and out of shadows as though walking down a street. For Martine Sitbon he creates the pink and amber light of Paris. For Dior Homme, backlit and stroboscopic effects; misty moodiness for Miguel Adrover and stage spotlights for Victoria's Secret. "Light is a strange substance, but also something you can carve and use to change the way people look at things," says Dreyfus. "After all, you wake up in the moming and it's light that determines your mood." Dreyfus was broke in early '80s London when he landed a job assisting the lighting designer for the Strasbourg opera.His interest grew over time, like the turning of a dimmer switch rather than in a flash. Fittingly, alongside projects for the French State bank, he is now also designing lamps.
Thierry Dreyfus is showing at The Fridge Gallery Paris in October.
