Lamsweerde and Matadin were born in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Meeting Inez and Vinoodh met at the Fashion Academy Vogue in their hometown, Amsterdam, where they both initially studied
fashion design—Vinoodh from 1981 to 1985 and Inez from 1983 to 1985. Inez took a master's degree in photography at the
Gerrit Rietveld Academie (1985–1990) and Vinoodh founded the Lawina clothing line with his classmate Rick Bovendeert. A commission for Inez to photograph the 1986 Lawina collection led to Vinoodh beginning to work with her, first as a stylist and eventually in 1995 as co-author of the images they produce together. The Lawina label closed in 1990 when Inez graduated and the pair began practicing as artists.
Fashion and celebrity photography The duo have shot campaigns for
Chanel,
Calvin Klein,
Louis Vuitton and
Miu Miu, as well as Louis Vuitton under creative director
Virgil Abloh. In 2023, they shot
Taylor Swift for
Time magazine’s
Person of the Year covers.
Music-related work In 2015, they shot the single cover for "
Only One", a collaboration between
Kanye West and
Paul McCartney, along with directing the video for "
FourFiveSeconds", a song by
Rihanna, featuring West and McCartney.
Collaborations Since 1999, they have worked regularly with Icelandic polymath
Björk on several music videos and high profile magazine editorials. In February 2019, they released a jewelry collaboration with Mene, a brand co-founded by Pablo Picasso's granddaughter,
Diana Widmaier Picasso. They also released a line of jewelry with New York brand Ten Thousand Things.
Return to New York Inez and Vinoodh returned to New York permanently in 1994. Their list of editorial contributions includes fashion titles
Vogue,
Paris Vogue,
Vogue Italia,
W,
Visionaire,
Vanity Fair, ''
Harper's Bazaar, L'Uomo Vogue, Vogue Hommes International, Vogue Nippon and Vogue China as well as style magazines Purple Fashion
, Interview
, V
, V Man
, Self Service
, Another
, Pop, i-D
, Fantastic Man
, and The Gentlewoman''.
Film The duo has shot supermodel
Kate Moss while dancing to Michael Jackson's
Billie Jean on film; they also directed
Lady Gaga's 2013 music video for "
Applause". They shot the single cover for "Applause" and shot single covers for other songs from Gaga's album
Artpop. They were featured in her
ArtRave and shot
An Artpop Film.
Retrospectives In 2010,
Pretty Much Everything: Photographs 1985–2010, a retrospective exhibition of 300 works from 25 years' work was staged at
FOAM Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. The show began its international tour in summer 2011 at the Bienal Pavilion in São Paulo, Brazil.
Books In 2011, Inez and Vinoodh's monograph,
Pretty Much Everything was released. Designed in collaboration with M/M (Paris), it was published by
Taschen in two volumes, each containing 333 pages and a pocket book-sized reader featuring essays and fiction by
Michael Bracewell,
Antony Hegarty,
Penny Martin,
Glenn O'Brien,
Bruce Sterling and
Olivier Zahm, with lyrics by Björk and
Lady Gaga. ==References==