Meet: Camilla Glorioso
- Written byGiada Maestra
- Published date 12 June 2026
Share story
We spoke with photographer and alumna Camilla Glorioso. Camilla graduated from London College of Fashion (LCF) in 2016 with a degree in Fashion Photography. Now based in Venice, Italy, she is the founder of Versatile and How Do We Meet?, as well as a member of the Connected Archive family and Female Narratives. Here, she shares her experiences studying fashion photography and explains the deeper meaning behind her project, Versatile.
A work club is not just a place to work from. It’s an environment to create, engage, and gather around common interests, growing professionally within a local and international network.
Hi Camilla! Please tell us more about yourself and your background.
I grew up in Padova, north-east of Italy. I drew and doodled a lot as a kid and moved towards photography and acting as a teenager. To explore as many routes as possible in the art world, after a science-first high school, I enrolled in the BA Visual Arts and Theatre at IUAV University, while starting — in hindsight — very sweet and rudimentary fashion shoots with friends doubling up as models, make-up artists and stylists, getting acquainted with pull letters and spreads for minor magazines in Italy. Fashion photography felt like a great way to truly story-tell through photography, with a hint of theatre, of set design and plenty of opportunities to doodle and moodboard ahead of each story. With this in mind, I applied and got accepted onto the MA Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion, and moved to the UK in 2015. London became my home, shaping my adult self and the initial steps into the industry.
Can you tell us about your experience studying Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion (LCF), UAL?
Coming from the suburbs of a medium-sized city in Italy, being accepted felt like reaching the peak of the world. I finally had the chance to be in the city where everything happened, receiving new stimuli constantly — not just from the city itself but from the multitude of creative people I could meet across UAL. It felt like the ocean, and I could figure out how I wanted to swim: in which direction, at what pace. Needless to say, at 23 the pace I chose was high speed. The course itself mixed theoretical modules I deeply loved, such as Social Studies and Fashion Psychology, with workshop-style courses that allowed experimentation and practical research. Having always been a lover of notebooks and journals, collecting inspiration and noting each change in my practice felt like a dream, and I am so very fond of still being able to see how much of myself I poured into pages and pages of visual research — how that shaped the way I moved into the industry and how my eye evolved as a photographer. I think the most incredible thing about UAL is the variety of talented people you have the chance to meet and the resources you can access as a student. Central Saint Martins' library, for example, is to this day one of the most beautiful sanctuaries I have experienced for study and creative research.
Why did you choose that course?
I wanted to become a fashion photographer, and it seemed to me that a course specialising in that field would have been beneficial in terms of industry contacts and panoramas. As the course was primarily research-based, it allowed me to carry forward the Fine Arts approach I’d developed during my BA, while at the same time building a strong network of fellow students and graduates through the workshops, and experimenting with editorials and small commissions.
What is one of the most vivid memories from your experience as a photography student?
The visit we made to Tim Walker's studio and the opportunity to speak with him directly about his practice and our current research. I had his pictures on my bedroom wall since I was 14, and seeing the quiet space he worked in, and the multitude of images printed out in preparation for the edit of an upcoming book was extremely special. I cherish that visit deeply.
What did you do after graduating in 2016?
I started working as a photo agent, as it felt like an interesting angle to get to know the industry better, and evaluate how I wanted to enter it as a photographer when I felt ready. I always felt a little conflicted about this path, as I didn't develop as strong a technical grounding as I would have, for example, through assisting. On the other hand, working as a photo agent gave me the chance to get into the inner workings of the industry and engage with concepts such as usage rights, agency commissions, commercial portfolios, and pitches. When I realised I was approaching clients I would have loved to approach for myself — on behalf of the younger photographers we represented — I decided to quit and build my own professional portfolio. I started working as a freelance creative producer for advertising, fashion brands and publications, while focusing my photographic research on long-term documentary series. My work slowly shifted from fashion towards portraiture, and then settled into editorial profiles, studio visits, travel and lifestyle.
Interestingly, my work as a photographer truly took off when I moved away from London. I decided to settle in Venice at the beginning of 2020 and had my move planned for 4 April. Of course, the plan went a little differently due to Covid, and the whole thing was bumpier than I’d hoped, but I arrived in Venice at the beginning of May. Despite the wild times, I was lucky enough to experience the city empty, which was a pretty special welcome.
Looking back, moving country and trying to build a career as a photographer in a new market during a pandemic was tough, but I slowly got my pace and rekindled many of my London contacts. I now collaborate with international brands and publications, including Konfekt, Telegraph Luxury, Monocle, Zeit Magazin, Travel + Leisure, FT Weekend, Financial Times HTSI, and Fondazione Dries Van Noten.
What do you enjoy most about photography, and who are your subjects?
I love capturing mundane details, and a lot of my personal research centres on small gestures and family archives. I’m drawn to the materiality of photography, like old printed images and the written word. In connection to fashion, I continue to be intrigued by worn pieces with stories and how people dress. A couple of years ago, I started capturing street style in Venice for a side project I created called @dotheyliveinvenice. With one of the most important fashion universities in Italy, Venice offers a very peculiar mix of older ladies with splendid brooches and fashion students parading the calli in the most amazing looks — things they designed mixed with baroque finds and second-hand gems. As we walk everywhere, there is a very special quality of cat-walking here; clothes live with their owners' sense of movement at all times.
In 2024, you launched Versatile, a work club in Venice, Italy. Why did you start it? Can you tell us more about it?
Versatile was born from many fortuitous encounters with incredibly talented people in Venice, who are now my partners in Versatile or close collaborators. When I moved here, I was lucky enough to connect with several remarkable women, all from creative professions and different parts of Italy and the world, who — like me — had decided to settle on the island. We bonded very quickly, and these connections became my family in Venice to this day. Some of the most important projects of my life were born from this network, both professional and personal — among them How Do We Meet, the female networking collective I founded in 2022 with eight women in the city. Many of us worked from home or remotely, and we started looking for a shared office. One thing led to another, and the result is Versatile: our work club, a place that aspires to be more than a co-working space and to inspire new connections among like-minded professionals and businesses in the city. We opened our first location 5 minutes from the Rialto Bridge in April 2024, and just this month, we opened a second location, right in front of the first one. We offer dedicated desk and hot desk memberships, day passes, and now two meeting rooms for up to 20 people. The new location, Versatile Carminati, also features a 70 sqm terrace, which is our place to meet, have lunch together, gather after work, and host professional and community events. Hosting and bringing people together have become some of the most important elements of my life; I am deeply interested in creating the right environment for people to connect — or simply to be.
What are your projects for yourself and Versatile in the new year?
The year started in a pretty explosive way with the opening of Versatile's new location, so after a tour de force between February and May, I'm slowly settling into the new routine — as director, I spend a significant part of my week managing the spaces, but I continue growing my practice as a photographer with recurring clients and new projects. In autumn, I would love to devote time to a personal project I've been thinking about for a while, one that would intertwine Dotheyliveinvenice and Versatile.
Along the way, I figured that somehow all the things I studied and worked on — photography, creative production, theatre, budgeting, negotiation — have grown with me and can be part of a multi-faceted, very rich career path that prioritises connection with people, meaningful stories and ways to work together in a sustainable way.
