Inspiration '70s Los Angeles. Life is beautiful. The rose-tinted spectacles of imagination.

**The artist: Nicolas Bets**

Nicolas Bets arrived in Paris from his native Belgium at the age of 17, to become a photographer like his father. After abandoning photography classes, he became the assistant to Daniel Lorieux and Claus Wickrath for seven years. It was during this period that he learned about the aesthetics and staging of characters, combining creative madness and technical rigour. Today, he mainly works in the fashion industry and showcases products using models, in which expressiveness and attention to detail are taken to the extreme. He was notably responsible for the success of the ?Babouche? campaign, in which he staged naked characters in the heart of Paris, with babouches (Oriental slippers) as their only accessories! Nicolas Bets works for the magazines Vanity Fair, Photo, Marie-France and Wad. His principal clients are Louis Vuitton, Coca-Cola and Cegetel.