A Conversation with Arian Jabbary

So, I moved to New York to go to law school, and to specialise in intellectual property. While I was in law school, I started picking up photography. I was always kind of a hobbyist, but New York is so stimulating in an artistic sense that it encouraged me to take it to the next level, so I started shooting outside of fashion shows. Eventually, after one or two seasons I had created my own publication in order for me to get inside the runway shows. Security wasn’t great, and with a bit of smoke and mirrors I found myself on the risers at New York Fashion Week, with the New York Times Fashion, and Vogue – some heavy hitters – then me just squeezed in the middle.

I did that for a few seasons, and it was fun, but I always loved shooting candid street photography, so I ended up outside of shows again capturing people as they came and went. Not even in the “street fashion” sense, but the sort of Bill Cunningham, voyeuristic sense. My father was a big photography hobbyist as well. He was a career man, but was also really into photography, and I grew up with him always carrying his camera around. He was never shy about taking photos of people in public, and I always found that inspiring. He never really showed anybody, just did it for his own personal photo albums, and he’d take some incredible photos just by not being afraid to go up to people, and having an amicable, soft presence. 

My interest in menswear was always informed by my greater appreciation for culture and the arts. Lately it feels we have become consumers of culture, whereas in previous generations they were consumers and contributors. It’s important to think about the arts and culture in a sort of ‘take a penny, leave a penny’ way, where you’re not just there to consume it, but to contribute to the greater sense of it, as well. While I enjoy being somebody who can experience all these different aspects of culture and the arts, it’s also something I find I’m drawn to express myself into. Writing is a standout example for me. I’ve always loved verse, and when I moved to New York it was something I started exploring further. In the States you don’t have that education. You may glance over one or two sample texts in grade school, but that’s it. Over time I started writing because it felt good, and it was something that was (and still is) – in my circles at least – a bit wacky, or something that wasn’t relatable to a lot of people. But as you get older, you start caring less and less about how you may come across. I was kind of shedding that layer of trying to be some archetype – a phase of growing we all go through – and started to be more public about my passions. I really love the modernist writers, Ezra Pound, H. D., William Carlos Williams – people who were unabashedly themselves, and paving the way for a new movement in the process. Something I’m exploring more as I get older is doing what I like, no matter the reception. Maybe it will land, maybe it won’t, but at the end of the day I like doing it. It makes me feel good. 

There’s a little jazz club called Smalls in the West Village. There’s not much signage, just a little door on the street that leads down into a stuffy basement. It’s not big at all, low ceilings, Persian rugs everywhere, you’re crammed in, and you have this awesome jazz scene filling the air.  It’s always buzzing. Whenever I stumble in there, it always feels like a Woody Allen type of New York moment. And I think those are increasingly harder to find, as the town gets evermore commercial. I love Central Park, too. I know that’s a cop out, but I live pretty much on the park, and green space is so important. Sure, it’s a tourist attraction, but it’s also the city’s best kept secret, hiding in plain sight.