“Gucci is constantly in transition so the brand is open to anything”: Ivar Wigan on his sci-fi fantasy interpretation

We’ve long been fans of Ivar Wigan’s here at It’s Nice That. From the first time we caught a glimpse of his photo series The Gods, we were desperate to cover whatever came next for this fresh photographer. And now it is here, in nothing short of greatness in the form of a fashion editorial for Gucci. Published in Wonderland’s latest Spring issue, the photographer takes us on the ride of a lifetime, and into a cyber-futuristic void of fashion, glamour and photography.

“Gucci is constantly in transition, so the brand is open to anything,” Ivar tells It’s Nice That on his latest commission. It’s an attitude embraced whole heartedly by the London-based photographer, and injecting his distinctive sense of mysterious allure into the pictures, Ivar – along with a talented team of creatives including stylist Toni Blaze – produced a shoot well worthy of Gucci’s fabulousness.

He first became interested in photography while living in Jamaica, the setting for his first photo series Young Love, taken over two years on the Caribbean island. Consisting of 70 images and films, the energetic series marks the first of many evocative series from this artist who is so good at capturing the magnetism of a moment. In other work, he turns his lens on party scenes galore, snapping the vibrant personalities of the attendees with a brazen flash. And in commercial jobs, he’s photographed for the likes of Louis Vuitton and Comme De Garçons, and is represented by the photography division of Academy Films, Academy Photo.

Looking back, it was the paintings at art fairs that made Ivar want to become an artist, but more specifically, it was the time he saw Nan Goldin’s work at Frieze when he first thought he could do art photography too. In turn, he started photographing straightaway, going on to add, “Anyone can pick up a camera.” And when it came to Gucci, the task at hand was equally freeing. With two Gucci exclusives under his belt already this year, Ivar’s shoots are notable for their fantastical elements.

“The idea is that we could all be living in a digital dream,” he continues on his chosen theme. “We could wake up one day from a lifelong virtual reality fantasy,” he adds, and with this Matrix-esque narrative in mind, Ivar’s latest Gucci shoot builds complex narratives around the high fashion couture. “Gucci likes to empower the artists they select,” Ivar continues on the open brief, so he decided to experiment with more cutting-edge media, to fit his technology-facing idea in the shoot.

He’d wanted to learn the ins and outs of CGI for a while, and the commission presented an apt opportunity to give it a go. That being said, he shot the pictures in a studio, then learnt how to manipulate the photographs using CGI alongside the retouching. Creating six images in this vein, he then commissioned bbychakra92 to make a seventh. As a result, the mixed-media series culminates in a scintillating mix of high fashion editorial, and artistic interpretation of a digital dream, or not so distant future reality.