Matthias Vriens-McGrath

Beauty, Fashion

matthias vriens-mcgrath born and raised in amsterdam, the netherlands, vriens-mcgrath was educated as a classical ballet dancer. a leg fracture made dancing a short-lived career, so vriens-mcgrath turned to the worlds of design and publishing. moving to paris in 1992, he started collaborating with dutch magazine, eventually becoming both its creative director and editor in chief. under vriens-mcgrath’s direction, dutch went from being a local homegrown magazine written in dutch to an international style bible published in english supported by fashion’s major advertisers. tom ford has been quoted as saying dutch was his favorite magazine of the nineties, and style guru diane pernet writes, “back in the nineties, matthias was one of the founders of dutch magazine, a publication that influenced the way we looked at magazines for the next few decades. That was when I first became aware of his power to provoke”. provocation, always done with a sense of humor and elegance, was one of the keys to dutch’s success, including the famous naked issue where the only fashion visible were the brand credits themselves. In 1999, vriens-mcgrath became worldwide creative director for giorgio armani and a year later was named senior art director for gucci group. while working as an art director, vriens-mcgrath discovered his passion for photography and moved to new york city, producing editorial for i-D, the face, vogue hommes international, the new york times, interview, numero and numero homme. vriens-mcgrath lives and works in hollywood, california with his husband donovan vriens-mcgrath, with whom he has created BL33N, an online extravaganza.

Languages: English