“IN CONVO WITH WIISSA”
Meet Wiissa, a couple of creatives who have found their passion as a photo & director duo. Vanessa Hollander and Wilson Philippe have worked with notable fashion houses, musicians, and other publications and delivered the brand’s vision through their keen eyes. Wiissa’s colorful visions and vibrant works show bring a bit of Miami everywhere they go.
Q: How did Wiissa come to be?
A: We met as young teenagers in Miami and started by shooting each other and our friends for fun. Eventually, we moved to New York and started doing a bit more fashion work and music videos, and our work just evolved from there! Wiissa is a combination of our nicknames we gave each other when we first met: Wii for Wilson and Ssa for Vanessa.
Q: You’re based in Miami, a city known for its vibrant cultural diversity. How do you weave elements of multiculturalism into your projects, and in what ways, if any, does the city inspire you?
A: We grew up in Miami, our parents each respectively moved here as they were seeking a culturally diverse city to raise their kids. Wilson moved from France, while Vanessa moved from Minnesota but learned Portuguese as her first language (her dad is Brazilian). We’ve constantly been surrounded by Spanish, French, and Portuguese-speaking people, which has influenced the films we watch, the music we listen to, and the photographers we follow. This combination of influences has for sure informed our taste and we hope that is reflected in our work. We love incorporating different languages in our short films, and it is certainly easier to do this in Miami, where most people speak at least two languages. We love to travel and love meeting people from all over the world through our work.
Q: What does your creative process look like?
A: Vanessa is an avid collector of images she finds on the internet and social media and will spontaneously come up with an idea after seeing a specific image or video. Once we have a broad idea, we dig through our archive of references, put together a mood board, and build out the shoot from there.
Q: Having worked with musicians, fashion houses, and beauty stores, how do you cater to each individual’s or company’s brand while still maintaining a distinct style?
A: Knowing which jobs to take on and which to turn down has ultimately been key in allowing us to maintain our style as best we can in our commercial work. We’re at a stage now where we’re lucky enough to be able to turn down jobs that aren’t the right fit. Our photo and video color grading treatment is also very important to us and is always done in-house, which helps to pull everything together and maintain our style as much as possible.
Q: What advice do you have for young creatives in the area just starting out?
A: Look at some of your favorite photo work and try to mimic it. Try to assist your favorite photographers or directors, and you’re sure to learn a ton!
Q: What’s one of your biggest lessons throughout thiscreative journey? What drives you to keep creating?
A: We’ve learned to never compromise our vision or ethics for someone else. We’ve been stepped on so many times in the past, and we’re now at the point where we just want to make things that make us happy.
The drive to create is deep within us, and what we like to create is constantly changing. Growing up, it was graphic design for Wilson, and choreography and editing photobooth videos for Vanessa. Some years, it’s more photos, while others are more about video. Sometimes fashion, and other times more narrative. We just had a baby last year, so we’re really leaning into working more with children. We also just love the process of creation — meeting new people, seeing beautiful locations in nature, and even the therapeutic monotonous tasks like cutting film negatives. The day-to-day of our work has so many facets, and sometimes, the journey of creation drives us more than the final product.
Written by Emilia Fiorini-Casamayouret