Mannequins

Inspired by René Magritte’s painting The Lovers. MANNEQUINS(2022) is a concept that I created to critique the romanticization of celebrity/beauty culture within the fashion industry. Where the admirability of a model is used to better sell products. The success of a fashion campaign is entity driven by who is wearing what.  By having an admirable and recognizable face, the photograph is then taken over by the audience's natural instinct to connect and admire. Or on the contrary, the photograph is taken over by the audience’s prejudice towards a particular sexuality, race, religion or gender orientation. By having a face of a fashion campaign for audiences to discuss over it leaves the clothing as secondary.

 

The white cloth over each model's face acts as a vehicle for obstruction. Intended to disconnect the viewer from the models as a means to let the clothing stand on its own, without the admirability of the model playing a factor. Without a face for the audience to connect to, aspects such as identity, gender, sexuality and race are no longer bound to opinions and critiques. Instead it is now the clothing and how it is worn that takes over the audience's perception of the photograph