Flavien Prioreau and Zoé Kovacs arrived at photography by separate routes—he through the precision of editorial portraiture, she through the fluid space between fashion and the human face—only to discover, once they met, that their instincts kept colliding in the most productive way. What started as mutual challenge and exchange hardened into a single visual language spoken by two people who still take turns behind the camera.
Studio Mimi is the creative photography studio that grew from that collision. For fifteen years, Zoé and Flavien have worked at the sharp end of beauty and fashion, answering the demands of exacting clients while remaining loyal to instinct, colour, creative storytelling, and the search for the right vision. Their permanent studio is less a production facility than a living centre where images are allowed to form without the usual logistical noise.
In this conversation with hube, Zoé speaks about the origins of that shared practice, their idea of imperfect perfection, the challenge that excites them in beauty photography, and the next space they are already designing for the artists and productions still to come.
hube: How did each of you come to photography, and how did your two paths eventually come together to create Studio Mimi? Were there any defining influences—artists, mentors, or pivotal moments—that shaped your shared visual language?
Zoé Kovacs: We both began our photographic journeys independently. Flavien focused on editorial portraiture, while I worked between fashion and portrait photography. When we met, we naturally started sharing ideas, challenging each other’s perspectives, and blending our practices. We kept confronting our experiences until it became obvious that we should join forces. Much of our commissioned work serves the creative industry, where you have to produce quickly and at scale, without ever compromising quality. Studio Mimi was born from the desire to develop a shared visual language.
“Mimi” means the centre to us—the place where everything converges. Flavien is an exceptional colourist and technician, while I have an instinctive ability to build stories. What we share is a love of colour, a deep sensitivity to people, the pleasure of composing an image together, and an almost obsessive attention to colour.
Our way of working is incredibly fluid. We constantly alternate behind the camera, which allows us to keep the necessary distance while remaining completely immersed in the creative process.
Music has always been a huge influence for Flavien. The visual culture surrounding musicians and album artwork has deeply shaped his eye. As for me, I’ve always been fascinated by conceptual photographers who place ideas at the centre of their work. Tim Walker, Irving Penn, and Sarah Moon are among my greatest influences. I’m drawn to poetry, to carefully crafted worlds, and to photography that gives itself permission to invent.
We meet on the blank page that is the studio—a place where light, this invisible material, encounters the endless possibilities of imagination.
h: Of all the directions photography could have taken you, why did you choose beauty and fashion? And fifteen years later, what keeps you there?
ZK: Beauty and portraiture are endlessly fascinating because they’re both incredibly demanding. They require technical precision, but also the ability to genuinely connect with another person.
What excites us is finding emotion within a very small space—bringing someone to life, capturing presence, revealing something real. We’re equally passionate about still life, especially the dialogue between portraits and objects. We love creating diptychs, allowing objects to extend the narrative of a face and vice versa. Both disciplines feed one another and continually enrich our storytelling.
