United Bamboo, S 2011
Model test shots are a basic currency of the fashion world. The same minimal aesthetic is also used in look books, as United Bamboo above. The art of the clean shot is something that fascinates more than just casting agents. This is beauty at its basic, and perhaps most interesting form.
We often know very little about these people other than a first name. Models are meant to be virtually invisible with a subtle suggestion of beauty that does not over power the clothes, that is unless the clothes are super powers by super designers needing super models. For most indie fashion brands however, we see a blank face, a simple beauty.
In other historic eras, portraits were reserved for the most notable and elite citizens, because society was based on selective social power. Today society is based on more widespread prominence, and at least through the lens of media, on youth and beauty. The endless photos of anonymous models reveal that fashion still favors fair skinned northern European aesthetics. But what of these young people, their loves? their sorrows? Fashion does not ask.
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