Antony Hegarty Searches for Beauty in Music and Christmas Shopping

High art meets high fashion in Italian Vogue's fall photo shoot with Antony and the Johnsons' frontman Antony Hegarty. Promoting the band's October-released new album, 'Swanlights,' the shoot was also composed as a slide show on Vogue Italia's website with Hegarty adding audio commentary and music.

"Well, they just asked me. It's just an accumulation of all the work I've been doing, all the different areas in the work I've been doing," Hegarty explains to Spinner of how this lovely montage came about. "When it comes to fashion and design, I can get involved and interested in it the same way I get involved in anything: Just beautiful lines and shades, and color. It's expressive, you know."

He believes that there is an artistic vision behind the Elles and the Vogues of this world, and that they aren't just about just selling clothes and homogeneous fashion ideals. "I think the magazines try really hard and think about what's possible rather than just putting people in a uniform," he says.

Still, Hegarty says everything, especially things with a commercial motive, should be viewed with a keen eye and pared down to what is truly inspiring. "I did a series of drawings in my book, which I released in October," he says, referring to the 'Swanlights' companion art book, "titled 'Cut Away the Bad.' That's about removing the pieces that are unwholesome in order to restore dignity to the object."

Like all of us at this time of year, Hegarty has been out and about in the retail world doing some Christmas shopping. But he applies his filter there too, and says that reversing the process to find people for gifts works best for him.

"I've been buying some bits and pieces for family and friends," he says. "I tend to just go around and look for the most beautiful things I can find and then assign them to people afterward. Even in terms of giving presents," he says, laughing, "I'm on my hunt!"