The blue shirt: the great equaliser


Thursday evening saw the launch of Acne’s Snowdon Blue book/shirt/exhibition project. On show until 13th May at the Acne store (13 Dover Street, W1) is an inspiring display of Lord Snowdon’s portrait photography, each subject a vision in blue. A clever, organic concept, it all started six months ago when Snowdon’s daughter (and head of his archive), Frances von Hofmannsthal took her idea for a Snowdon Blue book to Acne’s Jonny Johansson. Although Acne publishes the cult Acne paper, the brand has never published books before, but Johansson was sold on the story of the blue shirts. In his photography studio, Lord Snowdon has always kept a stash of blue shirts for his subjects to wear in front of the camera, claiming they’re like a uniform that creates democracy. “When I looked at the shirts, I thought it was a great idea,” Jonny told me, “but I said to Frances, ‘you have to do it'”. And so she did, assembling and editing the book of 60 portraits including Mrs Thatcher and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

To accompany the book comes the added stroke of genius, a mini collection of Acne blue shirts. Rather sweetly, most of the guests at the party on Thursday also came dressed in their own blue shirts of every shade. The exhibition is up until next Sunday after which it travels to Paris, New York and Stockholm…