Finalist – Prix Picto de la Mode 2025 : Maxime La

Franco-Cambodian photographer based in Paris, Maxime La develops a practice that blends portraiture, fashion, and documentary photography, with identity and diversity at the core of his vision. Shaped by an upbringing between France, the United States, and Cambodia, his work challenges social norms and celebrates individuality in all its depth and complexity.
His series “The Theatre of the Everyday”, created in collaboration with designer Dilara Findikoglu, transforms the streets of Paris into a hybrid stage where the real meets the surreal. Balancing spontaneity and stylization, the project blurs the lines between documentary and fiction, revealing the extraordinary within the everyday.

Maxime La is a photographer based in Paris, France. Maxime’s childhood was shaped by the fusion of diverse cultures and traditions. Raised between France and the United States, to a Cambodian father and French mother, he developed a unique perspective that continues to inform his work to this day; largely reflecting his global upbringing and multicultural experiences. Now living and working in Paris, Maxime’s photography delves into the complexities of identity and culture, embracing the nuances of human diversity and individuality. With a distinctive blend of fashion, portraiture, and documentary approaches, Maxime’s portfolio is an exemplification of his ability to seamlessly merge the worlds of style and reality. Whether immersed in various locations or in a studio, his photographs resonate a sense of spontaneity, depth, and authenticity, inviting viewers to explore the sublime in the everyday, and the rich multiplicity of his subjects. He seeks to challenge societal norms and celebrate the intricacies of individuality in all its forms, reminding the viewer of the beauty that lies in the genuine and real.

A photographic series in collaboration with London designer Dilara Findikoglu. Paris serves as the stage for this series—a visual dialogue between the real and the absurd, the banal and the extravagant. In collaboration with the London designer Dilara Findikoglu, these photographs capture the fleeting moments where the ordinary transforms into spectacle. Shot in the streets of Paris, each image reveals a tension between raw authenticity and deliberate excess. Anonymous passersby and unguarded moments of daily life intertwine with Findikoglu’s subversive aesthetic, where garments become characters, and fashion disrupts the mundane. The result is a tableau of contrasts: the rigid structures of routine fractured by surreal interventions, the starkness of reality softened by fantasy, the expected disrupted by the extraordinary. At once documentary and dreamlike, The Theatre of the Everyday blurs the lines between the familiar and the fantastical, urging the viewer to see the extraordinary within the ordinary.

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