Christian Brylle is a photographer (who assisted Mario Testino) and model. Sheila Marquez is a Spanish model and burgeoning stylist. They fell in love, shock of all shockers, on the job—and have crossed continents in hot pursuit of one another ever since. We’re talking nearly five years of language barriers, months apart, and intense bursts of time together. In honor of Gucci’s latest his-and-hers fragrances, Guilty Black (a heady oriental eau grounded in patchouli), we asked the Brooklyn-based couple to turn ten disposable cameras on each other during an intimate Saturday morning to document how they see their better half.
Age: “Twenty-one, always. [Laughs]”
Provenance: “Denmark.”
On meeting Sheila: “So this is what happened in real life: we met, for the first time, at a big fashion show in Germany. And then the following season we’re both back in Germany, and I’m having a coffee at the hotel, and Sheila walks in. She goes, ‘You!’ and points at me, ‘You ruined all my pictures last year.’ Apparently I had photo-bombed bunny ears on everyone. So, I guess that was like the icebreaker. Then she came to visit me for my birthday—she jumped me at the airport, and knocked the coffee out of my hands.”
On cohabitation: “I think it’s very simple, actually. You live together with someone that you want to spend time with, right?”
Favorite thing about Sheila: “Her accent. Sheila’s so concerned about her accent, always. I asked her to never lose her accent.”
Pet peeve: “Her accent. [Laughs] It’s one of those things where—sometimes I wish we both spoke the same language. Even though Sheila speaks perfect English and I do, too, there’s a [barrier]. Maybe a cultural barrier.”
On sharing: “I steal Sheila’s socks. I keep making holes in mine. And Sheila will steal anything new. Anything new that I haven’t worn yet.”
Sheila’s best look: “We go through this every day. It’s like, ‘Oh, what do you think of this?’ If we go out, there’s a routine. She’ll try on an outfit like, ‘What do you think of this?’ This has gone on for quite some time now. So I kind of know what her wardrobe is, and I know what I like, personally. She has this great mid-length coat—it has an outer shell that looks like a cape. She wears it usually with like, black pants, and almost like a Beatle boot. It reads very chic. Maybe it’s because it’s a little more dressed up, or it’s a more grown-up, responsible look. Like a Helmut Newton woman.”
Sheila is sexiest when…: “Unconditionally. She is always sexy to me.”
On applying fragrance: “I usually dab a little on the inside of my wrist, neck, and behind my ears. I guess you could call them pulse areas.”
Gucci Guilty Black: “As the green bottle suggests, an herbal scent comes to my mind, with a hint of orange and wood—it’s especially the later which makes this perfume masculine.”
Guilty pleasure: “I think cameras. Gadgets. Or watches.”
Christian Brylle photographed by Sheila Marquez for ITG in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday March 9th, 2013. Part 2 of a collaboration with Gucci Guilty Black.
