You've spoken a lot about how you're very selective with your collaborations and the work you do for them. What possibilities do you see coming from your partnership with Havana Club in the future?
Discover Havana Club x Places+Faces latest collection in the campaign series above. To shop the limited-edition Havana Club bottle, head to the brand’s website now.
Not to be cliché but I think the possibilities are endless because we have solidified our partnership now. I think that whatever we do, the brand can be involved in it and it just makes sense. It's not just about events or brand collabs, but community-based things too. We want to champion the next generation of photographers and creatives which gives Havana Club the chance to help out with grants supporting those who don't have the means or access to certain equipment. Those are the things that I think can come from our partnership with the brand down the line. We just want to keep growing by exploring all the things we can do.
Behind the Cuban Connection Inspiring Places+Faces’ New Havana Club Capsule
On P+F's 10th anniversary, co-founder Ciesay chats on the latest collab, cultivating community and artistic documentary.
For Tumblr blog-turned-lifestyle brand Places+Faces, championing the best of new age music guides everything it does. From distinctive photography to the sought-after streetwear pieces, the brand has become ubiquitous across clubs, after-parties and cultural events across the world. But in its more recent years, Places+Faces has begun to carve out a presence in the underground music scenes further afield stretching into Asia, Africa and South America.
As well as its commitment to discovering emerging talent and vibrant cultural hotspots, the brand’s growth has been bolstered by brand collaborations that have brought it in touch with new audiences, especially that of Havana Club. Since 2018, the partnership has yielded drops that have meaning to their fans. Combining two worlds together, they typically craft two-part collections – consisting of a limited edition Havana Club rum bottle and streetwear garments – and bring them into the hands of up-and-coming musicians in a transportive Cuba-set campaign.
Last week, Places+Faces continued its 10th anniversary celebrations by teasing its latest collaboration with Havana Club. In the campaign’s teaser video the audience catches a sneak peak of the limited design Havana Club rum bottle and incoming streetwear pieces set to be released, whilst also hinting at the artist chosen for the main film: Headie One. To celebrate the latest collaboration alongside 10 years of Places+Faces, Hypebeast sits down with its co-founder Ciesay to chat about the inspiration behind the capsule as well as his highlights from the past decade and how he’s cultivated a global community.
Ciesay: Myself and my best friend Soulz launched Places+Faces back in 2013. The journey began in New York on what was meant to be a two-week holiday that ended up being three months long. At that time there was a lot going on. A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg were really starting to pop off but also Kendrick Lamar and all these rappers were having a moment too. For that reason, New York was really hot in terms of entertainment. I happened to sneak into a lot of the events saying, “I got flown in from London to document the event” – of course, that was a lie but it worked.
After the New York trip, I met up with Soulz in London to take pictures of more events which we posted on Tumblr. People would see the pictures and then reblog and repost, so this is where we started to be seen. From there, we started working closely with the artists that liked our work. I guess, familiarity really helped to build our relationships with them, to the point where we would naturally link with each-other wherever we’d go.
Hypebeast: In light of Places+Face’s 10th anniversary, tell us a bit about the brand’s story and some of the biggest milestones that you’ve seen throughout the past 10 years.
We've just done stuff that has made sense to us. For example, we made a hoodie for us to wear at events but also act like a business card with our website printed on it. Eventually our fans wanted to buy the hoodies so we developed some to sell. Afterwards, we made clothes based on things that we would want to wear. That’s how the clothing line started. Besides that, we wanted to create something different that wasn't living on the internet. So from clothes, we went on to make magazines and started putting on events. We love music and we work with a lot of musicians so it made sense for us. Some of our friends would perform and people in our community came out to support us. Each of those things have been big milestones for us.
How did your clothing and lifestyle products come into the mix?
We tend to travel a lot so when we do we try to meet-up with likeminded people that are in a similar creative field as us. We don't always shoot rappers or singers from America and the UK. When we go to places like Tokyo and Nigeria, we look for artists that we like there. That is what opened us up to a global market. It’s also how our relationship with Rema started back in 2018. He wasn’t a global superstar when we first met him, he just had a couple of songs, but our relationship with him still remains. It comes back to the point: we don’t shoot someone for the sake of it and disappear.
Throughout this time you continued your documentation through photography. Why do you think that has opened you up to a global audience?
We don't just document people because of their status but because we’re genuine fans of them and their work. Our relationships with people are based on the fact that they can feel safe with me. We shoot people in different spaces such as hotel rooms, concerts, and more, so they need to feel safe when I work and I think that sort of carries into the brand. They know that this is a safe platform. That has sort of been our values for the last 10 years.
We’re also very selective about the collaborations we do. We have only done eight within the last 10 years and that’s because we choose collabs based on the brand narrative. When we were first approached by Havana Club, we were intrigued by their values and being an authentic Cuban brand , most of its team are Cuban too. So, for Havana Club to give us the opportunity to go to Cuba and see how the rum is made, excited us to do our first official collaboration with them. Since then, our relationship with Havana Club has been growing and our 10th anniversary project with them really celebrates this.
From the people on set to the talent you shoot, you seem to work closely with your community. How do you think your values and your approach to your work will guide the next 10 years of Places + Faces?
From the beginning, I wanted the campaign to be different from any of the work we had done before. I loved the first project we had done together and although we were still figuring out what should and shouldn’t be done, it came together with a raw documentary feel. For this project, I spent months planning out every scene and what I wanted them to look like. Along with the Cuban team, we built this beautiful story even before I went out there.
It really felt like I was planning a short film, which was exciting for me. I watched different movies for inspiration such as City of God as well as Soy Cuba which was shot in the 1960s by the Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov. I also thought about the images, figuring out how I would make them look like a film and how I could make them move. That was my approach. I just wanted to have some level of sophistication to what I was doing and I wanted the work to feel elevated from what we had done before.
Take us through the artistic direction of the new campaign. Did you have in mind exactly what you wanted to capture before you headed out to Cuba?
We have so many relationships with artists in the UK but Headie One is perhaps our favorite because we always gravitate back to him. We've known him for around six years so we just thought it made sense to hit him up for one of our biggest campaigns. He represents Places+Faces in a way that’s organic, we didn't want to go for someone just for their name. He also lives and breathes London and we wanted someone that's very London-focused. On top of that, he’s one of the main faces of drill music.
The campaign sees Headie One featured as the main talent. In what ways do you think he resonates with your audience including both new fans and those who have been following you for years?
“We started working closely with the artists that liked our work. I guess, familiarity really helped to build our relationships with them”
“our relationship with Havana Club has been growing and our 10th anniversary project with
them really celebrates this”
“He represents Places+Faces in a way that’s organic, we didn't want to go for someone just for their name”
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