And Yohji should know, since it was Yohji who engaged Nick for twelve of his cutting-edge catalogues just after the young photographer left artschool and started to work with i-D. It was the graphic gesturality of Nick's 100 portraits project for i-D that seduced the Japanese designer, and in turn it was the designer who encouraged him to work in (techni)colour. Graphic composition, mannerist gesture and a razor-sharp colour sense quickly became the hallmarks of the Nick Knight style, yet it's his highly-evolved penchant for quoting fashion photography's recent past that has set Nick firmly apart. When, some 3 years ago, he shot Linda Evangelista on a blood-red background using a trademark 70s ring-flash, he ushered in an unprecedented frenzy of image-plundering. While the influence is still being felt, Nick Knight, meanwhile, has not ceased to forge ahead...

Nick, looking back on that early work you did for Yohji, it's striking what a break those images made with the way fashion was being represented at the time...

Yes, but the mainstream fashion magazines were way out of synch with what was going on, what the Japanese designers like Yohji and Rei Kawakubo were doing was massive. They were totally changing the way people thought about dressing... the blackness of it, the deconstructedness of it.