FKA twigs and Tyler Mitchell curate a series from Magnum’s vast and iconic photo archive for Farfetch

In order to inform our current and future stylistic, creative choices, we often look to the past for inspiration. Just look at the comeback of cowboy boots, sweater vests, and (god-forbid) mullets. Farfetch – the online fashion platform that’s known for championing independent brands and boutiques – hopes that, with the help of Magnum, it can keep inspiring future generations’ stylistic choices. Thus, opening up “an endless choice of style”, which requires the “endless archive of inspiration”– which the photography cooperative has on offer.

The campaign enlisted the help of the zeitgeist’s creative trailblazers: music artist FKA twigs, photographer Tyler Mitchell and architect musician Carl Gerges are all supported by writer and curator Antwaun Sargent in scouring a themed series of images from Magnum Photos’ archive of 20th Century photography. These images hope to act as each artist’s ode to people, places and style, including the cities they love.

“Life is about curation, of things you love and things that make you happy,” says FKA twigs. She continues, in her campaign video, that it’s both fascinating and important to trace the origins of your stylistic references. For example, learning about the socio-political context of pieces like leather jackets or women’s trouser suits, some of our currently most worn trending pieces, can heighten our appreciation for fashion as more than just an expression of style, but its use as a vehicle for identity claims.

The campaign is joined by impromptu street installations in New York, London and Dubai, using these three cities as gateways for the digital programme which includes in its narrative the cities of Berlin, Paris, Mexico City, Moscow, Seoul, Shanghai, São Paulo and Tokyo via the Farfetch community and curatorial Instagram accounts. “The interaction between hyper-localised presence and universal themes, artistic viewpoints and social storytelling,” says Ronojoy Dam, Farfetch’s global brand and culture director, “all underpinned by a digital mindset, is a reflection of times that call for new forms of communication.”

Eve Arnold, Ernest Cole, Bruno Barbey, Chris Steele-Perkins and Herbert List are just some of the photographers that Magnum can count on in its roster. Their subjects wear pieces that have continued to catalyse stylistic categories today, clothes that not only take cues from past styles but respond to and build upon those styles.

The campaign was developed alongside New Systems for Ideas, a new international collective which specialises in pioneering the interaction between fashion and technology through innovation.