The most-Loved photograph on the Loves stream this week comes via writer, editor and consultant Dal Chodha, who selects a photograph that Amsterdam-born photographer Ed van der Elsken took on the streets on his hometown. The self-taught photojournalist was a prolific journeyman, spending time in central Africa, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Paris, but always returning to his native country in between, making his sprawling archive a visual trip through some of the most fascinating and eclectic places in the world. Above, his shot of two young women dressed up to the nines in the very best of 60s fashion – miniskirts, stiletto pumps and button-down waistcoats included – sporting the most magnificient, towering beehives. Here’s Chodha with a few words on the dissolution of street style photography and the trouble with maintaining gravity-defying up-does.
Why did you decide to love this photograph by Ed van der Elsken? Street style photography has reached an impasse. It could learn a lot from photographers like Ed van der Elsken, Evelyn Hofer and Nico Jesse whose work has a verve that’s hard to find right now. We’ve become too focused on fashion as a two-dimensional statement. This photograph appealed to me because it doesn’t just present a hemline, a handbag or a hairstyle. Here, we’re immediately drawn to the secrets that these beehives might conceal because of all of these things. A good photograph is one that demands you ask more.
If it belonged to you, where would you hang it? Oh, this would have to be printed 5x7 and blue-tacked onto the bathroom mirror.
Elsken was a great traveller: what’s the greatest trip you’ve ever taken? One of the most amazing things I have ever seen is Gullfoss – a waterfall located in the canyon of HvÃtá river in southwest Iceland. It was half frozen, shrouded by blankets of glistening icicles. I am constantly dreaming up (flimsy) reasons to move to Iceland.
If you could take Elsken out for a night on the town, where would you take him and what would you do? I don’t think the streets of London as they are now would interest him much. Just look at what is happening to Soho! It feels like Milton Keynes. After watching My Amsterdam – a documentary film Elsken made in 1983 – I would imagine that he’d enjoy peering through shop windows. I would take him to the beauty hall in Debenhams or House of Fraser on Oxford Street and see how he would photograph all of the sales assistants and perfume spritzers on their lunch breaks. We’d then publish a neat little photobook of these portraits complete with scented pages and a flocked, nude dust-jacket.
Is bigger really better when it comes to hair? Not always because having hair this big probably makes life quite difficult. What do you do if it rains or snows? How do you go shopping and try things on without flattening it? How long does it take to repair it after sex? How do you shower! Putting my dreary pragmatism to the side for a moment, maybe bigger is better because I don’t think this photo would exist if that weren’t true.
Beehives or ponytails? Beehives for day and sleek ponytails for evening.Â
60s or 70s? The 70s, but mostly because of Lauren Hutton.Â
What’s the last thing you bought? Yesterday I bought a 2016 diary – the same one I have used for the last five years. I don’t think I will ever use the calendar on my phone because I have a great fear that it is making me stupid. Last month, when I was in Poland, I also bought two pairs of embroidered sheepskin slippers in adorably small sizes for my two nieces.
