The Tamesis
How are the doubts and trials you went through expressed in the film?
Gabby: Throughout the entire movie – without interruption. The great thing about it is that it really shows the obstacles, but it also shows ease, consistency, perseverance, and determination. It’s nice to have both sides, as it makes the film more balanced.
Sean: Part of what I really appreciate about “Threasfour” is that they were willing to be vulnerable and willing to take on long takes in which a lot of difficult things happened. This is not a piece of fluff. This really shows the struggle they go through. I want people to see the struggle and the fight [Threeasfour] Overcoming difficulties through perseverance and friendship. This love will inspire other artists.
Another thing that inspires me is that in working as a collective you demonstrate that fashion is a collective practice, something that is often overlooked in the current “star system”.
Gabby: That’s very important to us, that’s why we have three and four. We pointed this out from the beginning. Since four come from my last name, the reason for it is immigration. I had to get everyone’s documents. So we named the company after a family that was already documented because we had citizenship, but I’m not American, I’m an immigrant as well.
Adi: Asfour means “a bird” in Arabic. Since there were four of us, we decided to take his last name and separate the “as” and “four”. It became Asfour, which made sense since there were four of us. When Kai left, people started calling us “The Three” and then we decided to change it from “The Three” to “The Four.”
Can you describe the look and feel of the film?
Sean: I started working on this movie with Brian Gonzalez. He’s a really good friend and he’s shot some music videos for me, so I’m a big fan of his. Brian was the director of photography; he did the photography and ended up co-directing with me. What we wanted was timeless, classic elegance without being too modern. It’s a bit like the Maysles films of the ’70s, very simple, allowing the subjects to speak and be who they are, rather than using a lot of flashy technology to project ideas onto the audience.
We wanted to make it feel like a real movie, just filming them, just seeing them, and letting them be themselves. It’s an old school type of filmmaking, but that’s the idea.
