The Voices Inside
Mister Mort’s Head

I was working at Kate Spade, selling women’s shoes and handbags, trying to go to FIT to become an accessories designer. There were some old-school delivery guys from SoHo with British Knights sneakers and ties tucked into their pants, cool characters. I would take their picture with this little Canon Elph for inventory purposes. The girls on the creative team at Kate Spade told me that I should start a blog, so I put all of my photos on Flickr for years. After Kate Spade, Men’s Vogue approached me to be a market editor, that was a dream. It was my job to go out and bring the new stuff in, but after it wasn’t being shot for the magazine, I would shoot it for myself and hold onto the photos. Eventually, I started Mister Mort. I wanted to be the first reporter at the tradeshows. Anywhere there was fashion I wanted to be.

Yeah, I got lucky. Working in SoHo and meeting Kate and Andy Spade. A lot of designers would shop there. Tommy Hilfiger, Andy Hilfiger would come in. All the clients were rock n’ rollers, music historians, authors, it was pretty cool. It was a time in SoHo when somebody came in stinking like weed, I didn’t even know what the smell was. They had holes in their pants, but they were Yohji Yamamoto. There would be real paint all over them because they’d be a painter. It wasn’t like “where’d you get that?” it was just cool. So yeah, they embraced me, the fashion people. Can you hold on just a sec?

[Shouts at a stranger on the street]

Can I get a picture of you in the Yale Grandpa hat? I’ll be real quick. No, on you, on you! Yale Grandpa, oh my god... That’s amazing!

Okay, sorry. Oh my god, I told myself I wasn’t going to do this but he was in high-waisted khakis, suspenders with buttons on the inside, totally trad – traditional menswear – and a Yale Grandpa hat! Yale in a typical Yale font, and then ‘Grandpa’, which I think is so funny because today there’s dad hats, and they’re so common and stupid, but I was at the NYU bookstore the other day and they have a hat that says NYU Dad, and I’m sure every school does, but now it’s funnier. I’m trying not to get distracted but that’s probably the third or fourth person that I’ve walked by and wanted to shoot, but I have my camera in my right hand and phone in my left. I used my phone for that, but I should have used my camera.

Yes and no. Yesterday I’m outside Fashion Week, and the most incredibly dressed guy walked by, a normal looking guy, but he had these big, not Cartier but Cartier-like glasses on. Everyone’s shooting the same fashion idiots and when I see him, I’m like “oh I gotta get that” because nobody else is. Of course the minute I shoot some regular dude walking by fashion week, so many people are running after him. That’s life.

They look super femme, and on a big guy like that! If you normally tell a big guy they’re wearing women’s sunglasses, they’ll punch you. I try not to call people out on what they’re wearing when they are 10 times my size, but he was super cool.

I love that interaction. I feel like the only thing I have over other photographers is that I actually talk to people. I remember being at Pitti Uomo and these guys pull up with huge National Geographic-type lenses. It’s cool, but they’re not talking to the people, they don’t even know what they’re shooting half of the time. People just chase each other and shoot what everybody else is shooting. I try to shoot what nobody’s shooting. It’s funny now with Vetements, they’re all “regular people” in lookbooks. I see an old lady on Instagram in an amazing outfit, I’m about to like it, and then I realize that it’s Vetements and then I don’t want to like the photo.

Oh god, I hope so. I’m scared at the same time, because I’m also so trad. I bought a sarong many years ago from A.P.C. and never wore it. I regret getting rid of it. I should have worn it right out of the store.

I think it’s so cool, but it’s for the beach, and I’m not a beach guy. I’ll go to the beach, but I think you’ve got to be living on the beach for a day, you can’t just like go to the beach once. There’s that phrase “goes to the beach once,” I don’t want to be that guy walking around the city. It’s bad enough I’m wearing Grateful Dead sandals and I don’t know one Grateful Dead song. I’m an oxymoron.

Yeah, exactly! And then I tell my friends I can’t stand the Dead, and they’re like, “You can’t say that.” I’m like, “You’re right, you’re right.” I shouldn’t. But it’s true!