With all the hustle and bustle surrounding New York Fashion Week, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the festivities are actually supposed to be fun.
Thankfully, someone usually comes along and reminds even the most powerful industry players that not everything needs to be so serious. John McLaughlin, motion designer (and the ballsiest photographer at Fashion Week,) is that person this season.
McLaughlin has taken his animation and photography talents and used them to create the silliest, most stylish GIFs of all time. Featuring a number of celebrities, editors and models, he managed to convince them to “hold” what he calls a “fuzzy dude.”
How exactly did he come up with the idea? And most importantly, how on earth did he get Anna Wintour to participate? HuffPost Style chatted with him to find out.
Like most great things on the Internet, these cute little guys came about almost by accident. “I was messing around in my downtime and experimenting with the dynamic hair texture,” he explained. “It started to look like a character so I threw eyes on it and it just looked funny. I made it move, posted a GIF on Tumblr and it randomly got tagged and shared.”
It was a year later when McLaughlin was approached by the fashion evangelist at Tumblr to partner up for New York Fashion Week. “I was kind of thinking, ‘what am I going to do? I’m an animator, and there are already all these talented fashion photographers,'” he said. After attending and covering a first show, the idea for having people “hold” the fuzzy guy was born.
This season, he’s teamed up with Milk Studios to cover its broad range of shows, many of which attract major celebrities. Of course, there is no photo opportunity more coveted than of Anna Wintour, who McLaughlin admits he didn’t even recognize at first. “Last season, I honestly didn’t know who she was. I walked right up to her and she looked really confused. After doing a bit of research, I saw her this season and knew I had to get her portrait again. I showed her what I do on my phone and she agreed to do one.”
Best of all, the photos offer more than just a giggle. “Through my agency we teamed up with Champions Against Bullying,” adding, “we had people going out in the street taking photos of people with their hands out. For every fuzzy they comped in using the hashtag #NYFWFuzzy, the agency donated a dollar to the charity.”
As for McLaughlin’s continued participation in Fashion Week, things are definitely moving in the right direction. “I’m getting there… I’m learning more each time. This is definitely a big step up, I mean, I knew who Anna Wintour was this season.” [laughs]
To see more GIF’s, head to McLaughlin’s Instagram and Tumblr.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
