Complete the sentence. Love is...

“Fun, passion, sex, and intensity,” Says Chris Craymer. But what does he know? Well, probably more than most. He’s just completed a 200-page book with 130 images of couples in various stages of romantical intimacy. Also, there’s the fact he’s Conde Nast’s go-to man for fashion and beauty photography, usually with his typical romantic slant. And then there’s the final qualification. He’s a hopeless romantic. “I am very lucky as these are the kind of picture I enjoy the most,” he says. “I just want to take emotional pictures that bring joy!”

A girl throws a cast-iron bucket of water over her brogued boyfriend. Shaggy hair. Skinny jeans. He hides behind the Sedan’s blue door. The same blue as his APC jeans; Two acrid-coloured swallows chase each other, dance across peeling wallpaper; A 50s fridge holds cakes and champagne; A pram leveridges up a hill; A wall of magazine tears; A steamy window; A cookie that reads “Julie”; Hershey’s kisses; A denim skirt; Undies on the radiator; “I want you in bed again,” written on lily white paper. Tacked to the pinboard; A china dove looking to camera. This is Craymer’s vision. This is love. 

“Why love?” He sounds astounded. Why love? Why love! Because it’s love. “I wanted to find a subject which was essentially emotional,” he says. Not hate, anger, lust? “No, love!” love. LOVE. Toes curling, fingers itching, head sweating, heart thumping. Love. “The buzz of being in love for the first time is the ultimate feeling,” Craymer says. And we’re not too cynical for a collection of Hallmark love. Daytime TV love. These days we’re more used to the mature angst-ridden potty mouthed love of Pulling. The head-in-the-oven love of Noel Coward. The anarchic love of Sid and Nancy. Not Love. Love love. LOVE. Everything capitals. The kind we read about in fairytales. Are we ready for this sickly sweet display? “I personally think that everyone wants some ‘romance’ in their lives.” Romantic love? It sounds almost barbaric. “Yes! Romantic love. Romance is magical. It’s about courtship and the early time in a relationship. It is a fabulous and magical time. There have been other books about love, but this is romantic love. It is a time when people just want to enjoy themselves. So purely.” And this is something we need in our lives. “Yes!” Craymer resounds.”Of course!” Lucky then that Craymer is ready to provide it in spades. 

Romance was eight years in the making, and is Craymer’s “genuine attempt to show the emotional rollercoaster of romance.” No tongue-in-cheek. No irony. No sarcasm. “I wanted to show the emotional vibrancy of early romantic love affairs. I want to remind some of us what this time is like, and also to celebrate this time as a special moment in life.” The book is typical of Craymer's work, characterized by witty shots, such as, my personal favourite, a picture of a couple kissing under a giant lampshade, which shows that “romance is fun”. There is no actual ‘fashion’ in the styling, but all the couples are good looking and have a great sense of individual style. Sometimes models, sometimes not, they are all real couples in varying stages of what Craymer has described as ‘pre mortgage love’. It’s not just boy-girl embraces. There’s bed scenes. There’s handshakes. There’s still-life grabs: porcelain elves Eskimo kissing with fat cauliflower piggy noses; balloons decreeing an undying love; a tree and a cactus entertwined; plastic tea cups smeared with lipstick. There’s abstract paper clippings alongside more traditional lifestyle portraits. Some in colour. Some in black and white. All wistful. Lustful. Joyful. And, most importantly, playful. The light, witty touch being an important element in much of Craymer’s work. “I spent a great deal of time casting these couples and needed them to have special qualities in terms of dress sense and also how they were as individual people,” Craymer says “They needed to fit the look, the feel.” Many shots were pre-planned, but Craymer was always looking for a spontaneous gesture. A mistake that becomes a special moment: one picture is reduced to a smudge of brown as the model swings her hair round wildly, her boyfriend beneath her on the crisp white bed. Ankles click clack together, knees sighing as a man naps against a lithe blonde creature. A girl’s lanky body slopes across a car door. She is in love with the driver. Craymer has consistently created images that feel spontaneous, intimate, charming and above all alive, wrapped in engaging narratives that are infused with his own particular brand of English whimsy and eccentricity. Just look at the beaming smiles, the energy, the unguarded friendlness and openness of his editorial shoots for American, British, Indian and Korean Vogue, British, French and American Glamour, Marie Claire and Elle. Always beautiful. Always slight. Always personable first and foremost. With Alex Dow on digital capture and lighting direction, and Oznur Kuzu on post production digital artwork, these pictures are some of the best of Craymer’s career. Because it was a labour of love. Not a commission. It shines from every pixel. “It has been long, but so rewarding,” Craymer laughs, almost exhaustedly reminiscing of the almost decade-long labour. “Definitely a labour of LOVE,” he says. His mind always on the L-word.  

It was “Quite by chance” that Mulberry discovered Craymer. The story is simple. They saw his work. They liked it. It wasn’t long before the English luxury leather goods brand jumped on board. 

The attraction is obvious. Being a brand that prides its reputation as a highly British company with a strong sense of style and individuality, they enjoyed the Britishness, the quirkiness, and the humour in Craymer’s pictures. Romance stills will be displayed in Mulberry's store windows worldwide, so they must feel it expresses something in common with the brand. To fete the launch, Mulberry's creative director, Emma Hill, Steven Kolb, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and Craymer hosted aRomance  party in New York, where signed copies of the books were sold alongside auctioned framed prints. What did Craymer himself contribute? Well, along with the giant books and framed prints were a teeming selection of red balloons and other props like giant scrabble pieces with the letters L O V E. How romantic. “Exactly!” Craymer beams.