Victoria Granof might be the only food stylist in the world with her own pyrotechnics guy.
While all food stylists study what food will do and how it will behave, Granof goes one step further, asking, what would happen if… When the end of that question lands on blowing up some tarts, enter one pyrotechnician and some seriously explosive videos.
Needless to say, you won’t find her composing an untouched meal on crisp white table linens. Her food styling isn’t about the food. It’s about the emotion.
A storyteller through and through, Granof looked thoughtfully at the scattered grains of rice and splashes of soy sauce on our plates after lunch while showing off her photos: frog leg imprints in congealed butter, discarded quail feathers, a chocolate mousse dish brimming with cigarette ash. These remnants say more about the experience of the meal than the meal itself.
Known for a disruptive “beauty is where you find it” sensibility and provocative images that manage to stay on brand while going off on a tangent, Granof has spent 15 years contributing to magazines and ad campaigns for clients who are looking for something different but don’t know how to get there. Like the time a women’s magazine approached her with a piece on neck moisturizers. Granof came back with a photo of a turkey head, cut off just below the neck.