Notes on Feeling: David Luraschi on Holding Onto Childlike Wonder

Photographer David Luraschi reflects on childhood play, creative chaos and the courage of surrender, as Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle’s Northern Love transports him back to an unexpected morning in Riga

“I remember walking through the central market in Riga one morning. I’d only gone out to get a coffee, but I noticed these elderly women in patterned dresses moving through the stalls, inspecting everything with this incredible concentration. I became fascinated by them and started following them, chasing them through the market like a child chasing butterflies, trying to take photographs. I had no idea where I was going. They disappeared outside, through an underpass, into a tunnel, and I followed. Then we emerged at a bus stop and suddenly there was a whole sea of these women, hundreds of them flocking together. It was completely unexpected; it was an almost psychedelic experience. That feeling is very familiar to me. As children, my sister and I would turn the living room into our own theatre. We’d dress up, the couch became the stage and my father would photograph us becoming different characters. I think I’ve been trying to preserve that naivety ever since – that ability to follow something simply because it fascinates you. 

“Northern Love somehow brought me back to Riga and to that sensation of following without knowing. I love chaos for the same reason. Chaos humbles me; it brings me back to something human. The great reward is accepting that you don’t control very much. When you surrender, strangely, everything opens up. For me, courage is part of that surrender: going towards the unknown. I’m still figuring myself out. I think I always will be. There’s courage in accepting that too.”

David Luraschi’s photographs have always been shaped by a taste for movement, accident and play. The French-American artist grew up in Paris. Immersed in cinema from a young age, Luraschi later studied film at San Francisco State University before completing a Master’s in art direction at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne in Switzerland. Returning to Paris, he began working across fashion and art, developing an image-making practice that includes staged pictures and spontaneous observations of everyday life. Since then, Luraschi has photographed for publications including Vogue, M Le magazine du Monde, Apartamento, Dazed and this magazine, while collaborating with brands including Hermès, Dior, Calvin Klein and Jacquemus. His long-running collaboration with the latter has moved between photography, film and publishing. In 2017, Luraschi participated in Marseille Je t’aime, Simon Porte Jacquemus’ heartfelt portrait of his home city. Four years later came Ensemble, Luraschi’s first monograph, published by Loose Joints – a series of black and white photographs of two dancers entwined on beaches and salt marshes in Camargue originally commisioned by Jacquemus. In 2024, Luraschi published Stop Following Me, gathering his long-running series of people photographed from behind. In September 2026, Luraschi releases his latest book, The O File, bringing together more than 20 years of images, arranged without hierarchy.

Northern Love is the new perfume composed by Bruno Jovanovic for Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle. 

Composed like a bittersweet hug, it is a meditation on the courage to feel: to not resist our emotions, but embrace them. An ambery woody perfume of rare warmth, nostalgia and complexity. 

Northern Love by Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle is out now.