Fit For A Queen

Sissi Allure
Vogue Italia (October 1992)
Photographer: Arthur Elgort
Model: Kate Moss

I have, as of late, been browsing fashion editorials from years long past. There is such a wealth of fashion, which has over the decades been captured in front the lens, that it seems a shame to consider the painfully short life which the clothes therein serve. Yet fashion photography is an art in itself which I believe manages, rather paradoxically, to occupy a space both inside and outside of the ever-changing fashion sphere.

Whilst clothes are worn, torn and forgotten, the very essence of photography is to remember and record. Of course one is able to play with photography in such a way that it may not necessarily serve the latter, however memory is something far too complex to ever truly erase. One need only recall a time when a simple scent uncovered the most unexpected of memories, or the light falling in a certain way brings a long forgotten conversation to mind. There are traces of memory, and experiences recorded, which although may not specifically be recalled by the viewer, nonetheless are evoked in some part.

These images represent an experience and a whole breadth of memories, which although I myself may not have been privy to, still convey some sense of meaning to me. I would have been but two years old when this editorial was shot, and yet looking at these images, my mind is taken on a journey through the ages. It looks both contemporary and aged, relevant and irrelevant, accessible and yet inaccessible.

Fashion photography often relies on the self-reflexive and historical inspirations of the designers whose clothing it uses. And yet these clothes often reference a period which may never have been personally experienced by that designer. Time, therefore, is in a way democratized, and it becomes not a matter of personal experience within any specific period or decade, but rather a shared experience through the senses. The starting point is the same, these images, and yet the personal experience of these images is different for each viewer, even if that experience be influenced by the same aspects.

This shoot has particular meanings to me, however it may have utterly oppositional meanings to another. That really is part of the magic though.

Currently playing: Chaiyya Chaiyya - Dil Se (Soundtrack)

xxxx