Nick Knight Directed Kanye West's "Black Skinhead" Video. So, Who Is Nick Knight?

Image via Complex Original

He was born in London in 1958, and studied photography at Bournemouth & Poole College of Art and Design. His photography has documented several societal tabboos, including racism, disability, ageism, and fat-ism. He once stated, "I don't want to reflect social change—I want to cause social change."

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He said in an interview that carrying around a camera "was a way to chat up girls."

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The photographs documented the British subculture of East End skinheads, and were almost all taken in 1980 and 1981. The book, entitled "Skinhead," is widely considered one of the authorative visual texts on the youth movement, and includes several essays on different aspects of skinhead subculture, including some penned by Knight himself. The book was released while Knight was still a student in art school.

It's pretty nifty that both Knight's first recognized work and his latest endeavor have to do with skinheads. It's a subect that has fascinated Knight since he first observed the brutal subculture in the East End. Coincidence? Definitely not.

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This was a time before lookbooks existed, and a label's catalogues and campaigns spoke almost as loudly as the actual clothing. Knight's work for Yamamoto was groundbreaking, and ushered in a school of simplicity that stood in stark contras to the excess and multiplicity of the early and mid-'80s.

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His portfolio was soon stuffed with some of the most prestigious client names in the industry. Knight subsequently worked for Jil Sander, Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior, Lancôme, and Levi's.

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The site is an online community and platform that pioneered online coverage of the fashion industry, particularly the site's digital fashion films. The site has worked with John Galliano, Kate Moss, Rick Owens, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen, and a ton of other labels and personalities from all levels of the industry. SHOWstudio was also one of the first to live-stream fashion shows, and has garnered numerous awards for its technological and strategic breakthroughs.

Knight gets all his suits from Carlo Brandelli of Kilgour. His shirts are custom-made by the highly sought-after shirtmaker Frank Foster, and he has a personal last at Tricker's for all his black leather brogues. His Levi's are also bespoke. Every pair has his signature embroidered down the side with a gold silk lining hanging to the knees.

Each piece is meant to replicate what British skinheads would wear. "It's the uniform I've built for myself," says Knight. "I know what I like," he adds firmly, "and I tend to be obsessive about it."

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The video depicted abstract images of sex and ejaculation, as well as several grimace-worthy shots of skin being pierced. Bjork also appears topless, wearing only the bottom half of an Alexander McQueen dress. It was banned on MTV in the US.

Lady Gaga supposedly knew that she wanted Nick Knight to direct the music video from the beginning. While working on a separate art video, Gaga said that Knight wanted to push herself harder than she ever did before: "So naturally he wanted me to puke on myself and eat a bovine heart and do all sorts of other things."

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The "Black Skinheads" video won't be the first time these two artists have worked together. Knight photographed Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in the nude for the cover and a spread in L'Officiel Hommes. He also was the one who snapped Kanye's portrait that accompanied the New York Times interview the rapper gave right before the release of Yeezus. And finally, to complement the other big interview Kanye gave before the Yeezus release, Knight created illustrations composed of various abstract images that evoke a conceptual Kanye.

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And according to a later Tweet, both he and Nick Knight sacrificed sleep in order to complete the video, which will allegedly be released in the next week.

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