Fiona Hayes & Julia Zirpel discuss The Fashion Yearbook 2021

Vetran Condé Nast magazine professionals, Fiona Hayes and Julia Zirpel, discuss collaborating on The Fashion Yearbook 2021. Recently published by Callwey of Munich, Germany, The Fashion Yearbook features striking images representing outstanding fashion ad campaigns, editorials and covers published last year. Fiona and Julia explain how, with picture editor Katja Sonnewend, they assembled all of this by working with a jury hailing from Europe, North America, Africa and the Asia Pacific region. The jury included Ariel Foxman, Veronika Heilbrunner, Veronique Kolasa, Sebastian Lux, Martien Mellema, Sara Maino, Florentine Pabst, Grant Pearce, Asanda Sizani and Donald Schneider. Julia and Fiona also describe the challenges and rewards of assembling The Fashion Yearbook during lockdown. Magazine publishers were scrambling. Newsstands were closed. The fashion industry was at a standstill. Nevertheless, they gathered 1200 stories for their judges to narrow down to the group showcased in the book. The images meaningfully interpret Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 as well as climate change, gender discrimination and the refugee crisis. Despite the hurdles of publishing this book during the pandemic - and at a time when fashion photography is experiencing total upheaval - Hayes and Zirpel express their hope for the medium’s future. A more diverse group of people are calling the shots in front of and behind the camera, they say. Creativity is flourishing in the hands of a new generation of visionary image makers.