Danshan
Collection: Autumn/Winter 2020
I went back to Paris to capture family portraits for Danshan’s Autumn/Winter 2020 collection. My parents finally settling into their own home has crystallized the passage to adulthood for all of their children. Even though all four of us have been living our own grown-up lives and following our individual paths, this recent move felt like the closing of a chapter. It left the door open for a new one, and I wanted to capture that.
Danshan is a menswear brand that explores the undervalued nuances of modern male life. Emotional, sensitive, vulnerable, and dressed to reflect those qualities, this current collection helped to elevate the narrative of a turning point for my family.
This passage to adulthood is particularly important for me since it is a process several of my peers are undergoing as well. As we are tethered to the problematics of identity, choices, and decision-making, I observe how different subjects evolve throughout this phase in their own unique forms.
Through these portraits, I celebrate the importance of family and acceptance within pivotal moments of change.
Although currently based in London, Arnaud Lin grew up between Paris and Beijing with a French mother and a Chinese father. During his studies at Central Saint Martins’s Graphic Communication Design program, Lin first took to photography and hasn’t stopped shooting since. The relative immediacy, physical simplicity, and the challenges photography brings to his perception of the world make it a medium that he naturally gravitates towards. Photography is a means of making an environment his own; it is a way for him to find some sense of belonging and to capture temporary human reality.