MASHA SCHUBBACH & NICOLA REHBEIN: A Magical Combo!

PREFACE

Nicola and Masha are two young German rising artists, Nicola Rebhein is a photographer and a model for his girlfriend Masha Schubbach, stylist.

In their works there is a strongly present component, the color black and the color white, you can really feel the everyday life, a context that seems realistic and close to the common person through the use of black t-shirts and sweatshirts matched with white long sport socks. What’s more is that the setting is always urban, blending all the different European cities scenarios: suburbia, streets, parkings, high buildings rooftops from which you can see sunsets and dawns.

These are the spectacular places that everybody sees and yet no one really takes the time to enjoy and thanks to Nicola they all become the stage for Masha’s creations.

This is the dynamic of the duo, invisible only at the outset, thinking of what’s best for the other before their own.

Your combo is almost magical, alchemical if you wish.

How did you met? In what instance you started working together? Oh, thank you. We met during a shoot. Masha was looking for new photographers to work with, so I got in touch with her. We met up and shot and lost touch for about a year. Then we bumped into each other again and one thing led to another and here we are now, doing what we love as a duo. Masha, your designs are very disruptive and contains this “femme fatal” figure to it. How would you define/call it? I want every woman to be this “femme fatal” character. She should love and respect her body for what it is. Lingerie is more than just underwear, it gives women a sense of sensuality, beauty and strength that only she can feel.

Nicola, the “slice of life” is your main theme, where do you take inspiration for your pictures? Everyday life. I don’t like setting up big scenes on set and changing a lot. I just want to portray the key figures in the photos the way they are, tell a story, feed the longing interest of the viewer.

It seems that the minimalistic style is the leitmotiv of both your productions, is that a thing or not? What is it that you two want to communicate to the viewer? We want the viewer to be able to imagine himself in the scene. This can only be done by making the scenes as everyday usual as possible. The minimalistic style is there to strip the photo down to its core. As they say, less is more. You're very young but you already did a runway show, how would you describe this very special experience? I think it’s an honour for such a young designer to be able get this opportunity to present her clothes on international runways. It’s a real roller coaster of emotions. Your excited and overwhelmed but at the same time scared of the reactions. We know you’ve just started an exciting project with RTL (famous German TV channel), how do you feel about becoming successful and getting in a global dimension in the future? RTL followed us around during a working day of ours and showed how the lingerie gets sown and the photos get taken on location. We are very excited of what’s going to happen in the future. We take each day as it comes, the jobs, the opportunities, the new contacts and sometimes even the failures. Who knows where we’ll be tomorrow!