Daisy Chain

A new biannual publication offering an authoritative, fresh perspective on fashion photography

Created by fashion industry veterans Phillip Bogart Duncan and Charles Daigrepont Desselle, Daisy Chain is decadent and surprising, lushly produced yet unfussy. Each issue presents a playful mix of new and seasoned talent, contextualized by a theme. The curation pinpoints the current moment, as well as the foundation it springs from. Previously overlooked work is celebrated, and the canon is reinvestigated. Elsewhere, fashion photography is promotional product; in Daisy Chain, it is the art itself.
The inaugural edition, “Space,” includes original commissions from Thibaut Grevet, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Kuba Ryniewicz, Emma Summerton and Zeng Wu while reproducing works by Hans Feurer, Nick Knight, Mert and Marcus, Viviane Sassen and more.

"PHILLIP BOGART DUNCAN is a creative director with a foundation in the fine arts and an award­ winning career spanning editorial, agency, and in-house creative development. One highlight is his four-year stint at Vogue, where he worked directly with Anna Wintour and the Vogue team, overseeing both shoots and layouts across the magazine, as well as scouting new talent for its pages--many of whom went on to global success and renown. Also while at Vogue, Phillip art directed the title The Editor's Eye, a book of photography that celebrates the work of some of the magazine's most legendary editors like Polly Mellen and Grace Coddington.

Early on, he honed his talents in concept development working under Raul Martinez and Alex Gonzalez on brand campaigns shot by Steven Meisel, as well as Vogue Italia editorials. Those skills served in his role launching Mondadori's Flair magazine and at Kate Spade New York where he transformed the brand's global image for its $2.4 billion sale to Coach. Duncan has freelanced for publications like Visionaire and Vogue Arabia, for whom he refreshed Nicki Minaj's image in a cover story with frequent collaborator, photographer Emma Summerton. He has developed a go-to reputation as an authority in photography, a success he can trace back to his childhood in San Francisco, where he spent every moment possible pouring over art books and fashion magazines.

He received a BFA in Studio Art and Art History at the Parsons School of Design, through which he spent a year in Paris. His private collection of fine art photography includes work by Lee Friedlander, Harry Callahan, Deborah Turbeville, Bruce Davidson, Mark Borthwick, Viviane Sassen, and more. His eye always searches for the integrity of the image and he adds a sense of modernity tempered by a profound knowledge of culture and the arts. Daisy Chain magazine, brings together his incisive eye and thought-provoking aesthetic. ""At their best,"" he says, ""fashion, and fashion photography, express a version of life at a precise moment. It is a reflection of its time. It may be glamorized or ridiculous, but there is always a beautiful truth expressed.

CHARLES DESSELLE creates platforms that blur the lines between art, culture, and technology. A founding team member of Saatchi & Saatchi New York's first digital ad agency, he architected cutting-edge interactive for global brands a step ahead of consumers' increasing appetite for digital experiences. As an art director in Europe, he has led projects for Raf Simons, Adidas, and Louis Vuitton. His extensive portfolio includes a cross-disciplinary background in graphic, print, hardware, and accessories design. For Desselle craft, savoir-faire, and sustainability are focal points of the vision developed in his philosophy of fashion, one rooted in classical communication theory, economics and art history, about which he has taught university seminars in Rome and Florence.

Desselle is a graduate of Columbia University where his studies in economics led him to focus on Bayesian data-analysis. However, while studying he worked as a designer in New York's garment district. During this time he became intimately familiar with the pages of the fashion magazines, recognizing that the imagery and skill displayed in the ads and editorials captivated his attention the most. Combining his early acquired expertise in coding and experience at Saatchi & Saatchi's Management Training program, he landed an art direction job for Raf Simons, which confirmed his path.

A seasoned collaborator, he relishes the moment that the ideas crystallize into form, when the sense of energy becomes palpable. With Daisy Chain magazine, he wants to create another kind of platform, where self-expression and community take center stage with little regard for commercial matters. ""I want to bestow the viewer with new eyes, a transversal way of thinking; extraordinary juxtapositions of the old, forgotten, or overlooked with the modern and sensational."" Of French-Haitian descent, Desselle has traveled the world extensively, having lived and worked in Italy, France, Haiti, and the Netherlands, he considers himself most significantly, a New Yorker.