MINUTIAE. RESEARCH
With fiftysomethings on the catwalk, what’s the impact on the traditionally youth orientated beauty industry? Lisa Niven-Phillips reports and four women try out the latest looks Read more from the autumn/winter 2019 edition of The Fashion, our biannual fashion supplement Lisa Niven-Phillips, styling Bemi Shaw, photography Misha Meghna Sat 14 Sep 2019 11.01 BST 179 Afashion season can be defined as much by the people on the catwalk as it can by the clothes they are wearing. This time around, a key moment came at the end of Marc Jacobs’ New York show, when an almost makeup-free Christy Turlington made a rare return to the catwalk, aged 50 (she also stars, with the designer himself, in the label’s AW ad campaign). While this is hardly ancient in the real world, it is in modelling, where the average catwalk model is around 18. A few days later, Simone Rocha arguably upped the ante. The 32-year-old’s show – in part inspired by Louise Bourgeois, who lived until she was 98 – featured models in their 30s and 40s, including cult favourite Jeny Howorth and actor Chloë Sevigny. Of course, the motives for this are not entirely pure. The over-50s account for around 47% of all UK consumer spending, according to figures from 2015, and if their financial clout has been dubbed the “grey pound” by the retail world, it’s an even more dazzling silver in beauty. In an arena where youth has always been highly prized, older faces are finally having a moment in the spotlight, or at least on a billboard near you. Unretouched, unairbrushed Helen Mirren, 74, tells us we’re all worth it for L’Oréal Paris; Neal’s Yard Remedies’ #AgeWellRevolution stars “real” women of all demographics; and Pantene’s #PowerOfGrey initiative challenges the discrepancy between perceptions of men and women with grey hair, encouraging women of all ages to share images of themselves on social media, using the hashtag #powerofgrey. In MAC’s What’s Your Thing campaign, models and non-models wear makeup looks that represent their unique style. Among them are Anna Klevhag, 50, sporting bold, berry-stained lips, and Jan de Villeneuve, 75, in full foundation, pillarbox-red lipstick and smoky eye makeup. Neither has been made to look younger; instead they look confident, stylish, modern – a woman in her 20s would be as inspired to buy that berry lipstick as one in her 50s. Feedback for the campaign has been overwhelmingly positive and thousands have shared their own #whatsyourthing posts on Instagram. Campaigns such as MAC’s demonstrate a shift in attitudes. “Older women are usually forced into either rosy ‘mother-of-the-bride’ makeup or the New York-eccentric caricature of bug-eyed glasses and bright clothes,” says MAC’s Terry Barber. “What people enjoy about this campaign is seeing older women who look very different from one another, are very stylish, and are not just there to tick the diversity box. Consumers are constantly offered ‘fixes’ or told how to hide wrinkles. But what if you don’t want to hide them?” Millie Kendall, a makeup artist and CEO of the not-for-profit British Beauty Council, which represents the industry, says the culture of invisibility around older women is finally lifting. She points to fashion’s embracing of grey hair and advancements in product innovation as proof. Turning 50 made her realise “how invisible my ancestors must have felt – my great-aunts looked like cartoon old ladies at my age. I think the future will be less about age and more about your attitude to life and how you express yourself.” The language of beauty has also had an update. In 2017, US magazine Allure banned “anti-ageing” from its pages and in 2018, a report by the Royal Society for Public Health called for an end to the term’s use for UK cosmetics. Meanwhile, earlier this year, British Vogue released “The Non-Issue”, a mini magazine focused on the over-50s, created with L’Oréal Paris. “Diversity is intrinsic to all that [editor-in-chief] Edward Enninful does, so age representation is as important as skin tone, size and gender diversity,” says Vogue beauty and lifestyle director Jessica Diner. “Having a project dedicated to the idea that age shouldn’t be a factor in beauty felt important.” Having Jane Fonda, 81, on the cover generated a buzz. “This has really spoken to me. Loved it,” read one of the 700-plus comments on Enninful’s Instagram post of the cover. “Beauty is truly ageless. I hope we see more of this in all aspects of the industry,” read another. L’Oréal Paris deserves credit for working with older celebrities long before anyone else, having signed Fonda in the mid-noughties and now boasting a “golden squad” including Mirren and Julianne Moore, 58. “We celebrate women of all ages because women of all ages use and love our products,” says Karen Flavard-Jones, UK general manager. “We know that women over 50 don’t feel represented in advertising, and that the amount spent on beauty increases with age.” Advertisement Beauty advertising has traditionally focused on looking younger, rather than embracing beauty at any age. A Palmolive ad from the 30s even read, “A wife can blame herself if she loses love by getting ‘middle age’ skin.” While things have moved on, there are still issues. In 2017, Dior cast 25-year-old Cara Delevingne in its Capture Youth anti-ageing campaign, sparking a social media backlash, while in 1996, Lancôme famously let Isabella Rossellini go at 43, only to rehire her at 63. “It’s hard to believe in an anti-wrinkle cream if it’s shown on a younger woman who is unlikely to have any,” says Renia Jaz, 53, whose blog and Instagram account @venswifestyle are dedicated to ageless style. “We are not ashamed of the changes happening to our hair, face and body, and we want brands to respect that.” A move towards intersectionality is the next step. Though we do now see older women in ads, almost all are white, a notable exception being 67-year-old JoAni Johnson, selected by Rihanna for her debut Fenty campaign. “It’s time my demographic was reflected more broadly,” Johnson said in an interview with Paper magazine. “Fashion doesn’t have any age, gender or race limit, so why restrict it in the visuals?” While the industry works towards meaningful representation, Kendall points to Instagram as the best place to see “real” women talking about beauty, citing journalist Nadine Baggott and skin expert Caroline Hirons as good examples. Others include 91-year-old Baddie Winkle, whose neon-hued makeup led to her creating her own collection for INC.redible cosmetics, and 69-year-old Suzi Grant, whose @alternativeageing account got her spotted for a role in a campaign for Revolution. “The image of a mature woman that has been in the consciousness of our society for many years is outdated. We want to be represented by women who are just like us, who are real,” Jaz says. “Women over 50 are not unicorns. We are consumers and we know what we want.” Since you’re here ...
There are many reasons why subjective age tells us so much about our health. It may be a direct result of those accompanying personality changes, with a lower subjective age meaning that you enjoy a greater range of activities (such as travelling or learning a new hobby) as you age. “Studies have found, for example, that subjective age is predictive of physical activity patterns,” Stephan says.
By David Robson 19th July 2018 Most people feel younger or older than they really are – and this ‘subjective age’ has a big effect on their physical and mental health. I Imagine, for a moment, that you had no birth certificate and your age was simply based on the way you feel inside. How old would you say you are?
But the mechanism linking physical and mental wellbeing to subjective age almost certainly acts in both directions. If you feel depressed, forgetful, and physically vulnerable, you are likely to feel older. The result could be a vicious cycle, with psychological and physiological factors both contributing to a higher subjective age and worse health, which makes us feel even older and more vulnerable. Stephan’s analysis, which is now in press in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, is the largest study of the effect of subjective age on mortality to date. These large effect sizes demand close attention. “These associations are comparable or stronger than the contribution of chronological age,” says Stephan. Put another way: your subjective age can better predict your health than the date on your birth certificate. With this in mind, many scientists are trying to identify the social and psychological factors that may shape this complex process. When do we start to feel that our minds and bodies are operating on different timescales? And why does it happen?
For most people, subjective ageing appears to occur on Mars, where one Earth decade equals only 5.3 Martian years Working with Nicole Lindner (also at the University of Virginia), Nosek has investigated the ways the discrepancy between subjective and chronological age evolves across the lifetime. As you might expect, most children and adolescents feel older than they really are. But this switches at around 25, when the felt age drops behind the chronological age. By age 30, around 70% of people feel younger than they really are. And this discrepancy only grows over time. As Nosek and Lindner put it in their paper, “Subjective ageing appears to occur on Mars, where one Earth decade equals only 5.3 Martian years.”
Like your height or shoe size, the number of years that have passed since you first This new understanding of the ageing process has been decades in the making. Some of the earliest studies charting the gap between felt and chronological age Lindner and Nosek also measured the “desired age” of their participants – which, to their surprise, also followed Martian entered the world is an unchangeable fact. But everyday experience suggests appeared in the 1970s and 1980s. That trickle of initial interest has now turned time. “It keeps going up with us, and at just a slightly slower rate than how we feel right now,” Nosek said. This would seem to that we often don’t experience ageing the into a flood. A torrent of new studies during the last 10 years have explored the “support the idea that we experience our life experiences as continuously getting better, just a bit more slowly than our actual same way, with many people feeling older potential psychological and physiological consequences of this discrepancy. experiences,” he says. It’s not as if there is one single peak age. Again, this flip occurs in our mid-20s: 60% of 20-year-olds want or younger than they really are. to be older. But by the age 26, 70% would prefer to be younger, and from then on, most people view the recent past with the One of the most intriguing strands of this research has explored the way subjecrosiest spectacles. Scientists are increasingly interested in tive age interacts with our personality. It is now well accepted that people tend Some psychologists have speculated that a lower subjective age is a form of self-defence, protecting us from the negative age this quality. They are finding that your to mellow as they get older, becoming less extroverted and less open to new stereotypes – as seen in a nuanced study by Anna Kornadt at Bielefeld University in Germany. ‘subjective age’ may be essential for un- experiences – personality changes which are less pronounced in people who are derstanding the reasons that some people younger at heart and accentuated in people with older subjective ages. Kornadt’s study hinged on the idea that people’s subjective age might be a multifaceted thing that varies in different domains. appear to flourish as they age – while You may feel differently when you think about yourself at work compared with when you think about your social relationothers fade. “The extent to which older Having a lower subjective age doesn’t leave us frozen in a state of permanent ships, for example. And so Kornadt asked participants to say whether they felt younger or older than they really were in difadults feel much younger than they are immaturity ferent areas of life. Interestingly, however, the people with younger subjective ages also became may determine important daily or life decisions for what they will do next,” says more conscientious and less neurotic – positive changes that come with normal Sure enough, she found that people’s subjective ages were lower when negative age stereotypes are most prevalent – such as Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia. ageing. So they still seem to gain the wisdom that comes with greater life expe- work, health and finance – which would seem to support the idea that this thinking helps people distance themselves from the rience. But it doesn’t come at the cost of the energy and exuberance of youth. It’s negative connotations of their age-group. Believing “I may be 65 but I only feel 50” would mean you are less worried about Various studies have even shown that your subjective age also can predict var- not as if having a lower subjective age leaves us frozen in a state of permanent your performance at work, for instance. Kornadt also found that people with a lower subjective age tended to imagine their ious important health outcomes, includ- immaturity. future self in a more positive light. ing your risk of death. In some very real ways, you really are ‘only as old as you Feeling younger than your years also seems to come with a lower risk of depres- By protecting us from our society’s dismal view of ageing and giving us a more optimistic view of our future, this self-defence sion and greater mental wellbeing as we age. It also means better physical health, feel’. could, in turn, further explain some of the health benefits of feeling younger than you really are. including your risk of dementia, and less of a chance that you will be hospitalised for illness. Given these enticing results, many Despite these advances, scientists are only getting to grips with their potential implications, though it is certainly possible researchers are now trying to unpick that future interventions might try to reduce participants’ subjective age and improve their health as a result. In one of the the many biological, psychological, and Yannick Stephan at the University of Montpellier examined the data from three few existing studies, elderly participants in a fitness regime enjoyed greater strength gains if the experimenters praised their longitudinal studies which together tracked more than 17,000 middle-aged and social factors that shape the individuperformance relative to other people of their age. al experience of ageing – and how this elderly participants. knowledge might help us live longer, And given its predictive power – beyond our actual chronological age – Stephan believes that doctors should be asking all Most people felt about eight years younger than their actual chronological healthier lives. theirpatients about their subjective age to identify the people who are most at risk of future health problems to plan their exage. But some felt they had aged – and the consequences were serious. Feeling isting health care more effectively. between 8 and 13 years older than your actual age resulted in an 18-25% greater In the meantime, these findings can give us all a more nuanced view of the way our own brains and bodies weather the passing risk of death over the study periods, and greater disease burden – even when of time. However old you really are, it’s worth questioning whether any of those limitations are coming from within. you control for other demographic factors such as education, race or marital status. --David Robson is a science writer based in London, UK. He is d_a_robson on Twitter.
T h e i dea of age an d exp lor in g specif ica lly my own a ge a n d h ow I fe e l can b e i n te r p reted in ma n y ways. I ca n look a t m y u n i /h o m e l i fe . My h ome/ per son a l life a n d my in te ract i o n s w i th yo un ge r people. W h et h er it be f r ien d sh ips or d at i n g , re di s cove r in g my sex ua lit y a f ter bein g ma r r ied . My age an d b e i n g w i th i n t h e fa sh ion in d ust r y. How I see myself co m pare d to how ot h er s see me, my fea r of bein g j udge d. As m u c h as t h i s isn’ t a wid e topic t h ey a re ver y per s o n al to m e an d at th e momen t wh ere I seem to be submerged in o n l i n e c u lture I am becomin g more d eta ch ed f rom fa sh io n an d t re n ds eve n th ough I’ m more awa re of t h em t h a n ever.
I decided to explore age gap relationships as the last three years I have mostly dated people between the ages of 20 and 30. I explored age gap relationships and I noticed there were a few famous couples with larger age gaps, similar to my experiences. If a couple is famous, there doesn’t seem to be as much stigma around the age gap. For example, Rick Owens and Michele Lamy, Lisa Bonnet and Jason Mamoa and Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. These couples all have considerable age gaps and are the woman being older as opposed to the more accepted older man younger woman. When I found an extreme love program, I watched the series and realised in everyday real life, non-celebrities are judged more harshly. The programs themselves were filmed in a way that almost joked about it, using silly comedic music in between scenes and the way it was filmed almost mocked the relationships. The couples were clearly trying to show how normal their lives were, but it seemed edited and more jokey. The comments under the videos were calling people disgusting and paedophiles which I feel is extremely harsh comments to make.
Michele Lamy & Rick Owens
Sam Taylor-Johnson & Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Jason Mamoa & Lisa Bonet
What I have to say I’m bad at writing but I think the only way I can perhaps explain this project is by writing it all down and maybe give an insight of where I am, or my mind is. (at the moment) Right now, as I start my 4th and final year of what started off as a ‘wee college course’ I am faced with what feels like impending doom. I am also dramatic. This is meant to be the year that counts. I am meant to produce the best work I can, this never happens because my best skill is procrastination. I am easily distracted. If I don’t feel like something is connecting with me, I will completely switch off and start to ignore it. So, I started my fourth year in the middle of the covid19 pandemic. I thought this would be great because we were told we would be doing our work online. I have my own studio. Saving 6 hours per day travelling. 6 hours is a school day, I was going to get loads of work done, fourth year was going to be a breeze. I could relax. HOW WRONG WAS I?? This year has been exceptionally difficult, I’m not even sure I will be able to pass the first semester to even go onto producing the publication. There is very little help for students and as a mature student with younger friends also in education, I have found myself trying to support them through and keep them motivated. I have had two friends try to take their own life since the beginning of lockdown and one friend with thoughts of suicide. The pressures, especially of the underprivileged is clear. Some people are thriving, but lots are lost. If it weren’t for my age and life experience, I know for a fact I would have dropped out and not even attempted to hand in unfinished work. My theme developed from Ageism in the industry to exploring my age identity and my ‘self’ as I try to navigate my current life path. Going through a divorce, a house moves, raising three kids, A full time uni course and of course the biggest pandemic in my lifetime. I’m watching my family struggle; my friends struggle and myself struggle. Emotionally and financially some of us are completely drained. There are a privileged few and I wonder if this whole thing will create a wider divide between the rich and the poor. If you are not absorbed in yourself at trying to cope with life now, I envy you. I spoke to one tutor who boasted of her academic feats whilst her youngest child was 18 months old and recommended, I become a tough French mum with my kids. I found this completely insulting, this really isn’t the best time to be comparing achievements and family situations let alone the small fact that I am not French. She did acknowledge the struggle, but it really affected my engagement with the whole course Maybe I am too old and just not good enough. After a meeting with Theresa, I felt well maybe I can just focus on myself and try and do as much as I can. I think the whole process is for me a personal journey as I try to overcome judgment and my lack of self-confidence at the same time. When you go back to studying at this age, there are lots of opportunities that you miss out on because of your age, especially with benefits, funding, competitions and more. There is an expectation that you should already be in a more comfortable position when you are 40 and this is just not true for many people who are within my age group. The ageism theme is also probably more to do with how I am feeling about myself as opposed to how others saw me. As much as I don’t give a fuck about most things. To be written off before being listened to when it comes to culture and fashion is hard to take and knocks your confidence when it happens repeatedly. There are probably deeper-rooted reasons for this. My life experiences maybe. I’ve always considered myself a late bloomer, in some ways, I was too busy trying to stay out peoples way and figure out how to avoid being bullied and surviving to have drive to do anything that would be considered useful. I became a watcher and observer. I swear I have talked more in the last 5 years than I have my whole life. watching and observing from a young age, trying to fit in has heightened my awareness socially, culturally, mentally, physically and my own self-awareness. That isn’t always a positive thing ‘I’ve learned. The identity theme gave me a reason to almost fight for late bloomers like myself and acknowledge and deal with the biggest problem I have with my self-belief and self-confidence.
IM I
SICK JUST
OF TALKING ABOUT AGE, DONT CARE ANYMORE
We were asked to look at Li Edelkroot 2020 manifesto or at least ty and find information on what she was saying for 2020 because you know the manifesto itself looks like it cost 25 dollars to purchase. Edelkroot in my eyes really seems to take what is obvious and says it first, in fact not first, she just has, with all due respect through years of hard work, managed to create a large platform to air her views and predictions. The more digitally connected we become the more we see people like this unable to keep up. I see this all the time with the likes of ID, Dazed and other ‘cutting edge’ magazines scrambling for content when they cant move as fast as individual content creators on the likes of Instagram and Tik Tok. I lost count of how many articles I read, especially over lockdown, showing me things I saw a week or two sometimes more before on my own feed. The whole being first to do or show something is becoming increasingly difficult. Everyone is jumping on bandwagons and trends are moving so fast because of how fast content is spreading. Luxury brands using tik tokkers to promote their goods. Its like nothing is clear or structured and everything is everywhere. This might just be my perception as I grow increasingly frustrated and detached. Edelkroot speaks to companies who are also clearly out of touch with what is going on at the root of our communities. She doesn’t predict it its already happening, we, the working class, the students, the poor, are living it we are creating it, the people who become creative because we have no choice but to be, the people who become more ethical because we care more the people who have less but give more. I think it’s the trickle up effect. She takes new ideas from the street to the big brands and businesses who want to sell it back to us repackaged, cheaper, low quality and claiming to be more ethical. Although its encouraging bigger businesses etc to make ethical changes, its still helping big businesses grow. Her words and so called predictions are to help brands and businesses to adapt more quickly than a smaller business who are already doing what she says naturally anyway end up suffering because they don’t have the capacity or the logistics to compete with big business. I’m sure the businesses would catch on eventually anyway but it all makes me realise I’m studying within an industry that I cant participate in because I cant afford to. Its like torture, exposing yourself to parts of fashion you can never afford.
The fact is everything else going on right overshadows my uni work, the changes to my work life, family life and my personal life are becoming increasingly more difficult to deal with. I am naturally an introverted extrovert. I use socialising to re charge. As much I eased into lockdown life with no problems at all even to the point of enjoying too much I have now, more recently, gradually become even more recluse, except instead of using social media and group chats to engage with people im now withdrawing from even doing that. The only pleasures for escapism at the moment are to get high and occasionally meet people, mostly younger guys and women because orgasms produce serotonin right?. Ive always been hedonistic when I have time on my own but this is different. I am connected to myself and my mind and my body more than any other time in my life. Im grasping any free moment to disappear into another world with the use of weed and psychedelics. How does this affect my project? It means I can’t focus on it entirely. Escaping life means escaping my work. I find when I’m working and researching it is affecting my way of thinking. I feel digitally overloaded. 3rd year I noticed few photography styles and trends coming through and I feel they have a much stronger presence now. Lo fi, double/triple exposure, blurred images and psychedelic filters not only are a remanence of the 60’s, 90’s and early 2000’s but they almost match what I feel is in my mind. Everything is a blur, typography and graphics are the same, awkwardly misplaced lettering hard to read words on abstract graphics and photography. It all reflects what’s going on right now in the world and in our heads. Its chaotic. We are having to live day to day as people have less money and no job security. Homelessness and suicide is on the rise, we have no live events, no socialising?? the one thing the working class do for escapism. What the fuck am I going to do after university. On top of all this, personally I’m going through a divorce, selling my house, buying a new house, cars braking down, floods in my bathroom and kitchen, isolating and homeschooling my kids when someone at school has tested covid positive. I have decided to do my project documentary style, it took me weeks to even be sure of what I was doing. The anxiety of the online classes meant sometimes I couldn’t join a call or id leave a class early. I was finding it hard to structure, much like this piece of writing. I tried to make a point of leaving my camera on, I was conscious that any struggles I have working remotely completely extended to my tutors. Who not only had their own struggles but also had to try and keep us motivated and engaged. I personally, on top of that, am 20 years older than most of the students. I have felt that I have had to present myself more confidently because of my age. Speaking up is one thing that definitely comes with age but it’s got to the point where I cant even do that. I was struggling to engage in tasks do the work asked. It’s not that I wasn’t working, my work was just spread between many different apps, software which were all being force fed to me via my social media accounts algorithms and as punk or rebellious one tries to be we are definitely affected and become sheep to some extent. I ended up with apps on my phone that can do a job in 2 mins which would take 30 mins plus on photoshop. Although my style is mostly minimalistic this enabled me to experiment a lot more even with colour, layers and this in itself becomes a distraction. My phone has been in my hand for up to 8 hours per day, researching, collecting images, taking photos, editing photos, connecting with uni. It feels unhealthy and it feels like something is crushing my soul. People I meet from dating apps are deleting social media, leaving, coming back. Some are trying, its too addictive. I only need to mention, type something I like or need or something I don’t and it will pop up on an advert. Another advert for an editing app, a new fashion brand, new music. i fel like these things are all being chosen for me and i’m losing my autonomy, Will this have an impact on my own identity?
I cannot relate to anyone taking part in fashion at the moment I feel that if you are still constantly buying and promoting fashion, especially fast or luxury, you are only participating in a broken system. Maybe its still escapism for some. Maybe I just escape in a different way.
We looked at Sinead Burke as part of ur what we have to say. Although her issues are not what i am involved in somehing that really stands out is her courage to speak up and use her voice. she says she looks for problems in the industry and anywhere that isnt inclusive and she fights for what she believes in, what will benefit her and others. I think after doing some reading and the short task we had to do i realise that finding confidence to speak out about what you believe in is important. Something you have to say whether it be writing or visually may not only be beneficial to you but also to others. Sinead represents a minority of around 6000 people in the UK and Ireland and she has made a worldwide impact by having the courage to speak out. I find this very admirable. i also love how she uses her platform and abuses her platform to accomplish her own goals she is a total punk anda former athletics coach for Disability Sports Fife, I know many people personally with disabilities look up to her.
Caryn Franklin was a household name for me growing up because of the Clothes Show that aired in the 90’s. This was a time when fashion was less accessible for me. Her website which is clearly based aound the politics of fashion is easy to access and navigate. Although it has lots of interesting articles and information and is clearly very personal i dont think its a website that i would often engage in but i would definetely try and visit as the content is good. I think she is providing a great window into what is happening culturally in fashion for people who are a bit older and need to make changes in their lives. I really liked this photoshoot which was for Age of no retirement which is a counter cultural movement.felt it was relevent to my theme and id like to explore it further.
d o c umen tary ph oto g ra ph e rs fashi on p h oto g ra p he rs / fas h ion film make rs / v is ua l a rtists p hoto g r ap h y st y l e s and s k il l s
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daido francessca man nan jo robert corinne sharna casper
moriyama woodman ray goldin spence maplethorpe day osbourne serjenson
The fashion photographers that are mentioned in the next few pages are photographers whose work that I found stands out for me visually. The documentary style of Goldin, Moriyama, Day and Woodman often depict themselves or part of themselves as the main subject, presenting some of the most mundane aspects of themselves, their lives or their own personal thoughts in a striking image. I consider all the following practitioners visual artists. As a highly visual person myself I like to portray a feeling or create a mood in an image or a film clip. It is important for the image to depict the feeling as I have dyslexia and this is easier than finding words to express myself. I am very attracted to abstract photography which I directly link to my visual stress. I never see clearly anyway so sometimes abstract images reflect how I see. I have noticed in the last 5 years especially a rise in the use of analogue processes not only in photography but in film, music and magazines. These processes are more time consuming and expensive to do consistently. We now have a rise in specialised apps and software that allow us to give analogue effects onto new style photography which considerably diversifies the opportunities of the visual artist photographer. Cameras and software are so highly technical now you can take the most perfectly clear hi resolution digital image and it can be changed to look like an analogue image in seconds. This allows us to reject the perfectionism that has been expected from society in images that has spread through fashion and Instagram. It gives visual creators an amazing opportunity to show what can be done with new technology and using a mixture of analogue and digital technology. Man Ray, Sharna Osbourne and Casper Serjenson do this well with their visual photography. i also appreciated the artistic side to these photographers where the idea of fashion comes second to the art itself . At the moment i personally do not have a desire to participate within the fashion industry as there is not much socially going on in my life and there is more focus on and importance on other parts of my life. I made a concious descision that i will try and show my relationship to fashion at the moment. Showing my lifestyle and the reasons why i am not connecting with the industry as fully as i used to. I think these artists are very good and at expressing feelings and thoughts outside of fashion but making them fashionable. i think its important to experiment and not just be conceptual, I have many different influences due to my age and the length of time i have been exposed to culture so its an opportunity to use these braod influences to bring together the ideas for my final publication
Daido
Moriyama.
A
Diary'
Moriyama is one of Japan’s most renowned photographers, celebrated for his radical approach to both medium and subject. Moriyama’s images embrace a highly subjective but authentic approach. Reflecting a harsh vision of city life and its chaos of everyday existence and unusual characters, his work occupies a unique space between the illusory and the real. Moriyama became the most prominent artist to emerge from the short-lived yet profoundly influential Provoke movement, which played an important role in liberating photography from tradition and interrogating the very nature of the medium. His bold, uncompromising style has helped engender widespread recognition of Japanese photography within an international context. Daido Moriyama earned himself a reputation early on as a provocative street photographer, but his work also bears witness to the fact that a life contains many days of so many different encounters and emotional states, from despair to tenderness, from the dirty to the clean. The photographs in this exhibition stems from nearly fifty years of image creation, which cannot be read chronologically or in thematic groupings. A DIARY A Diary is a room full of numerous layers of a real life: Daido Moriyama's life is his images.
FRANCESSCA
WOODMAN
Francesca Woodman was an American photographer known for her black-and-white self-portraits. Despite her short career, which ended with her suicide at the age of 22, Woodman produced over 800 untitled prints. Influenced by Surrealism and Conceptual Art, her work often featured recurring symbolic motifs such as birds, mirrors, and skulls. The artist’s exploration of sexuality and the body is often compared to both Hans Bellmer and Man Ray. Woodman’s work is also characterized by her use of long shutter speed and double exposure, the blurred image creating a sense of movement and urgency, “Am I in the picture? Am I getting in or out of it? I could be a ghost, an animal or a dead body, not just this girl standing on the corner …?” Woodman once stated. Born on April 3, 1958 in Boulder, CO to the artists George and Betty Woodman, she went on to attend the Rhode Island School of Design and traveled to Rome as part of its honors program in 1977. While in Rome, she made some of her most poetic and provocative works. Moving to New York in 1979 to pursue a career in photography, the next two years proved to be troubled for the artist. A lackluster response to her photography and a failed relationship pushed her into a deep depression. The artist jumped to her death from a loft window on January 19, 1981 in New York, NY. Though she had few opportunities to show work during her life, Woodman has been the subject of numerous posthumous solo exhibitions, including “Francesca Woodman. On Being an Angel,” which opened in 2016 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and 2018s Life in Motion: Egon Schiele/ Francesca Woodman at Tate Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
MAN RAY
is an American photographer known for her deeply personal and candid portraiture. Goldin’s intimate images act as a visual autobiography documenting herself and those closest to her, especially in the LGBTQ community and the heroin-addicted subculture. Her opus The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1980–1986) is a 40-minute slideshow of 700 photographs set to music that chronicled her life in New York during the 1980s. The Ballad was first exhibited at the 1985 Whitney Biennial, and was made into a photobook the following year. “For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It's a way of touching somebody—it's a caress,” she said of the medium. “I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.” Born Nancy Goldin on September 12, 1953 in Washington, D.C., the artist began taking photographs as a teenager to cherish her relationships with those she photographed, as well as a political tool to inform the public of issues that were important to her. Influenced both by the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin she saw in magazines, as well as the revelatory portraits of Diane Arbus and August Sander, Goldin captured herself and her friends at their most vulnerable moments, as seen in her seminal photobook Nan Goldin: I’ll Be Your Mirror (1996). In 2018, she collaborated with the clothing brand Supreme by including three of her photographs, Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC (1991), Kim in Rhinestones, Paris (1991), and Nan as a dominatrix, Cambridge, MA (1978) on their spring/summer collection. The artist currently lives and works between New York, NY, and Paris, France. Today, Goldin’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.
Nan Goldin
JO
SPENCE
Jo Spence (15 June 1934, London – 24 June 1992, London) was a British photographer, a writer, cultural worker, and a photo therapist. She began her career in the field of commercial photography but soon started her own agency which specialised in family portraits, and wedding photos. In the 1970s, she refocused her work towards documentary photography, adopting a politicized approach to her art form, with socialist and feminist themes revisited throughout her career. Self-portraits about her own fight with breast cancer, depicting various stages of her breast cancer to subvert the notion of an idealized female form, inspired projects in 'photo therapy', a means of using the medium to work on psychological health.
R LETHO MAPP
ROBERT
PE
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits, and still-life images. His most controversial works documented and examined the homosexual male BDSM subculture of New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A 1989 exhibition of Mapplethorpe's work, titled Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, sparked a debate in the United States concerning both use of public funds for "obscene" artwork and the Constitutional limits of free speech in the United States.
Corinne Day's photographs have influenced a generation of fashion and documentary image makers. Her pictures unflinchingly document her life and relationships with a realist snapshot aesthetic -- representing a youth culture set against the glamour of fashion and avoiding fictionalization or voyeurism. Gaining notoriety both for a scandalous photo of Kate Moss in Vogue in 1993 and for pioneering so-called 'grunge' fashion photography, she was exiled from the mainstream fashion media -- which had always been wary of her potential for controversy -- a few years later as tastes began to shift towards a more stylized, clean-cut look. Since then her photography has tended to focus on her own life, on the daily lives of her circle of friends. Diary is Corinne Day's first publication, cataloguing the photographer's life over the past five years. The subjects of this book include friends like Tara -- a London commune dweller and fashion stylist -- and George and Rose, who after being photographed by Day went on to become catwalk models. Their lives intersect in this book, presenting an honest document of contemporary youth with all their habits, desires, fears, and hopes.
corinne day
OSBOURNE
SHARNA
Sharna Osborne is a photographer and filmmaker whose unique vision and style has propelled her to shoot editorials and covers for the likes of Dazed, i-D, Vogue Italia and System magazine. With her signature use of lo-fi digital imagery and irreverent takes on the human form, Osborne’s instantly recognisable aesthetic has garnered the support of Barbara Nicoli and Thomas Lohr , the latter having described her as “pushing digital photography to another level the only thing I have noticed lately is this style becomeing trendy. Beyonce has recently used lo-fi videos and images in her Ivy Park release . I think someone as big as Beyonce and even the likes of Gucci, with their tik tokker collab jumping on these trends can flood the mainstream, so no w lo-fi filters are on insta and snapchat making it very accessible for everday people to use. .
The Danish fashion, beauty and still life photographer Casper Sejersen is perhaps best known for his ‘orgasm portraits’ of the Nymphomaniac (2013) cast. His work on LarsVon Trier’s infamous film also included the book 'Belongs to Joe' (published by MACK) – a collection of photographic essays in collaboration with art historian Cecilie Høgsbro. Casper subsequently shot Nymphomaniac’s Charlotte Gainsbourg for Self Service magazine, styled by the inimitable Marie-Amélie Sauvé. His photography has also been published in Vogue, L'uomo Vogue, AnOther Magazine, DAZED, Man About Town, Purple, Vanity Fair, Dust Magazine, Garage Magazine, New York Times Style and V Magazine. He collaborates with stylists Mattias Karlsson, Hannes Hetta, Camille Bidault-Waddington and Lotta Volkova regularly and has shot advertising campaigns for brands that include Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Mugler, Missoni, Kenzo, Louboutin, Thom Brown, Ambush and Helmut Lang. Casper
made
his
directorial
debut
in
directing
an
episode
of
the
Danish
television
programme
The
Legacy.
His first solo exhibition in London, 'One, Two, Three, Four' was at Cob Gallery in Spring 2019 and he also exhibited with Cob at Photo London 2019.
c asper s erjenson
I N STAG R A M T O G R A
PHOP H Y
The photography here comminicate the culture of contemp ro a r y p h o t g r a p h y. T h e i m a g es are from magazines to young photgraphers and are featured on content creator pages such as Cold Archive, whohas used instagram and the way he engages with his followers to bud a brand
Cold Archive-
young content creator Strangeboyjames has grown massivly over the last few years. His page documents youth culture content from all over the world, using content from artists and photograhers or anyone else that is creative. He now has a substantial platform where these young low key creatives can have exposure. I find the work on the page is very new, influential and inspiring. I feel he manages to show innovators and early adopters of creative trends within areas such as photography. He also regualarly posts influences from the past such as corrine day’s work. His followers, especially lately, have just reached over 100k. It is the first account lately that i will go to for inspirtation as it is so connected to current culture i have noticed this account does not follow any well known brands or influencers and in his stories he engages with his followers who ask him advice on many different issues, from polotics to sex, to love, life, fashion and creativity. he is open honest and pure. i feel like there are nit many original thinkers on instagram at the moment anf this page is very refreshing. .
GR AP HI C DE SI
G N
TYPEOGRAPHY
Guerrilla is a DIY Contemporary Photography project. It’s an effort to educate people on contemporary photography through a free and worldwide accessible mean of exposure, such as the zine format, which can be xeroxed/printed anywhere in the world with just an internet connection and a home printer. We like to think that real education comes from experience!
My graphic design and tpeography influences come from independent zines from Artzines and Stack magazine. I receive a diffrent magazine each month. The magazines are from all areas of contemporay culture with usually the main themes of slow journalism, alterantive youth culture, visual culture, architecture, science, photography, phillosophy and more subversive content. the way these magazines are presented and delivered give the reader an experience. Guerrilla for example you print off the magazine and put it together yourself and the latest Der Greif the pages were loose leaf allowing me to take out the images and re organise them in any way i like, you can then upload your version to the magazine. The idea behind this was to create a narrative around order and disorder. This style attracts me as its experimental and eclectic and it is interacting with the reader which i find engaging and more satisfying than flicking through a normal magazine. Der greif also continuously look for new ways to produce, distribute and present images giving the reader a new perspective. They also invite guest editors meaning the magazine can have various styles. Interacting with the reader is something that interests me alot and has made me think about ways in which i can incorporate this into my publication. so far i have looked at the idea of using QR codes to directly open up short video clips on youtube. The idea from this came as i feel i am digitally ovrloaded at the moment with the current situation we are being asked to use apps and QR codes to sign into shops etc.
MARFA JOURNAL - The layout of this magazine and the typeography are really eye catching and engaging. its created by artists and named after a small town in Texas. I like the idea that it was set up so that the creator, Alexandra Gordienko, could befriend people she was interested in ad part of her CSM project. I i originally found this magazine when i was researching starting my own about my local area and i liked how it encourages collaboration between artists. the format blends current culture formats including fashion. I am heavily influenced by the eclectic mix of typography and imagery where there is a focus on the appreciation of space and placement making the publication original and what i can only describe as offbeat.
Although most of my influences are from niche publications i have noticed that current trends are influenced still by the 90’s and early 2000’s. this made me think about the magazine Raygun and its graphic designer Chris Ashworth, i really like the mixture of analogue and digital in his work i fel it is experimental and eyecatching. over edited images and graphics using a typewriter for words makes his work releveant and fit into upcoming trends. Again with the rise of digiatal its nice to see work that is less high resolution and handmade.
. I also admire emmanuela amato from DUST magazine. The magazine, although aimed at youth and explores the culture of youth today without conforming to trends. It has a deep narrative which looks at almost culture crises and turns its back on the shallow norms of the mainstream allowing the reader a choice to form a different connection to the world to life and to culture. The graphics themselves are some lo fi layered imagery, street photography and arty fashion spreads. In an issue with stella tenant I believe they went against advice and did a shoot their own way losing money just to allow the photographer to produce his own creative vison. An email sent between the photographer and agent is used and is a page in the book. giving the shoot a documentary feel that contradicts the original idea that was stipulated. As im not an avid reader i skim read to pick out points of interest
These ares some magazine covers which caught my eye on instagram. Also the New Marfa journal which is now just going to be called Marfa. i used this typeograhy on some older instagram posts and in my 3rd year publication as a reaction to trends i saw coming through as part of graphic design and typeography research.
Some interesting pages from 1 granary and Dust magazine. These all have a delibrate look of being handmade. they arent perfect images and the writing is layered and scribbly with abstract layouts again similar to the photography trends its more expresive and lots going on which again reflects the time we are in at the moment. maybe everyone is feeling detached and noone is striving for perfection. Whats interesting about these are that even if you dont read all of the words it looks like art so its even nice and interesting to look at even if you arent absorbing the written content.
stylist I havent been following or researching stylists all that much as my plan was to try and focus on more on what was happening with my life and my connection to fashion over these last months. I feel completely detached. Im always drawn to minimal clothing, tights, catsuits stretchy clothing and mostly black. I like miniaml accesories also. I think in my publication and portfolio i would like to try and keep the fashion aesthetic minimal. I would like to show how I am not buying clothes at the minute but the few I do buy are from charity shops. ive always tried to shop sustainabally anyway but now due to lack of money I am finding i’m wearing items out. ripped tights, holy tops and bodysuits. i’ve been mending and stitching when Ican. I think i’d like to try and put this across in the publication photos. I admire the work of Danny Reed in the Marfa Journal issues and The face spread where she styled a tik tokker back in feburary
PICSART
DOUBLE EXPOSURE
SNAPCHAT
BAAZART
PREQUEL
INSHOT
POCKET PROCREATE PHOTOSHOP MIX
I started using my phone to document my life. I found this easy because ‘Ive always documented things using videos and images especially if I have an emotion to express. i used lots of editing apps that basically gave me new ways to edit photos and way quicker than photoshop and illustrator. I was able to take an image or video and use the apps to edit in different ways. The filters and photoshop techniques are so sophisticated that something like removing a background takes seconds as opposed to the length of time it would take on photoshop. I was able to take one image and edit it on many different apps so you still can create your own unique style with the image without anyone knowing which apps you’ve used. I noticed in a lot of the newer images makers, on the Instagram photography research page, were using some of these apps as I recognised features, filters etc. the following few pages show some of the images I have created using these apps. Most are unfinished because once I know what I’m doing and what effects I’m after I usually leave the image unfinished. If I were to use any in any final publication I would finish it before it goes in. I like to experiment this way and I often go back to the original image after doing many edits.
EXAMPLE OF MY PROCESS I will usually take most images on my phone, by setting a timer or recording a video, if i make slight movements with the timer i can capture more natural poses. usually the best ones to use ae when im getting fed up and i have more negative thoughts about what im doing. these were taken to purely show the process. In my everyday life i engage in image swapping so some of these would be used and have been used for that purpose also. The following pages will show eventually a potential edited style using some of the images. i have practised with filters and removal of background and adding new background etc before an example of a finished page.
Example of a potential publication page. I have used prequel, bazaart and picsart to produce this.
These are working QR codes and can be scanned using your phone. the Kellyolu one takes you to my instagram page and the other two will take you to two seperate clips I put together for research purposes on youtube and should autoplay. They are a mixture of some of the imagery here and video clips i have taken whilst working on my project with the intention of making a longer clip for the final publication.
I Ihave a keen interest in video clips and abstract short film. I like the idea of photographs looking like a film or a flip book, story. It looks like the images are moving. I feel when documenting it can give still images a flow you can get a sense of feeling or emotion from being able to show mannerisms and movement in a still image. The double exposure/ blending and layering also gives the movement effect.
These shoots are with my friend Jimmy and my eldest son Saul. These were taken inbetween the shoots and I felt they tell a better story than the more directed photos. I think having a mixture of posed and candid will be good for the publication and can maybe be more visually emotive for the reader. I have many more similar style photographs I have put these in for examples. Reflecting on last year I realised that my shoots were more documentary style especially in the publication we had to produce for diversity. I have been looking back at my work to see which shoots were my favourite and to reflect on what i feel worked better and why . I knew everyone who modelled for me and I felt even when I styled them it still reflected their personality. I think this is becoming something that is more important to me that just creating a narrative .
As im doing documentary style, my models will be myself, my kids, my friends and whoever I may be dating. Also depending on the situation or if a random person is involved i will gain their consent. With lockdown restrictions due to continue. I can see the publication taking the form of a closure look at the little things in my life. The minutiae of daily life, Minutiae could be a wroking title.
I did a similar technique using my Dslr camera whilst exploring shops in my hometown with my friend Jimmy. He is difficult to capture candid as he loves having his picture taken so even when he is doing something as simple as removing his mask he knows there is a camera. I like how this shows his personality. The shop is an indoor market. We were exploring new shops in town for the purpose of potentially doing photoshoots in. Just beforeand over lockdown there have been so many little independent shops and popups opening up. Our local high street is becoming busier and has an energy about it. This time with Jimmy was escaping from uni and made me think about what I could do if i just quit. I started pricing premises and now have my name down for first refusal of a shop in our towns arcade. I’m seeing opportunities everywhere and this uni course is preventing me to act on it. I’ve been torn between finishing and pouring my efforts into starting a business. It has been feeling like this is the right time and after uni might be too late. My age means i have to really think and act quick. I’m not sure having a degree will give me anything except a feeling of accomplishment, and to be perfectly honest I get that when I tidy my house. The feeling doesnt last long.
I also practiced alot with slow shutter speed and movement which i will use in my publication and portfolio. this is another example of Jimmy. usually when we spend time together we are high. We will design things, logos for tshirts, dress up and take lots of videos and photos. It happens alot when we are stressed and putting the world to rights. This image was taken before we went to sleep, full of regrets, knowing we had uni work to do yet we wasted a night getting wasted and doing dumb shit. jimmy has since dropped out of uni, I know of a few others talking about it. People who have lots of talent but no support and no structure due to these restrictions. Looking at this photo of Jimmy kinda makes me sad.
MOCK- UP OF P U B L I C AT I O N The following is a 20 page mock-up of how my oublication could look. when we are asked to do this i really struggled to consider what the end publication could look like so i kind of just collected some images and tried to place them presentable on a page. if i was working on something on my own id never produce something like this before-hand so it feels a bit fake to me. My process is more messy and would be half finished images but i liked how it helped me realise if you have plenty of relevant content, pages get taken up quite quickly and made the thought of producing the publication less daunting. An abstract documentary style of my life which will give little snippets of my life and what i am doing. Hopefully images will be impactful enough and engage curiousity around the meaning. I would really like to add in one or two QR codes which will lead to short youtube clips that can be scanned with a phone. This will give more context around and image or an idea, adding to thoughts and feelings of where my head is at. im not sure the mock-up is a direct reflection of how mine will look but at this moment due to the research i have done so far and the images i have been editing on apps, this is what i have come up with.
Q R CODE
SLIOFSHFJHCJH
H SJFSHKF KJHIFBKDJFHGKKB DMFBVKDHF FKJHDKGKH BJDJHJBNKHD KJFG DJFHHHM QR CODE
Printers i have looked at are mostly online where you can order a one off book. The prices seem cheaper but the idea of ordering onling is daunting. Some will send examples of paper and covers so you can feel what the quality will be like. i also looked at one in Edinburgh Crawford, where you can contact them and make an apoointment to go in and discuss what you want. i much prefer this method and will probably to this for my publication. Alternativly i have looked at Red lebanese in Paris. i have a curator friend who used them to produce a publication for his art exhibiton in Paris. i couldnt find if they would print a one off but I have a few plans in the future to produce smaller magazines and id love to use them.
KELLY BRAID FASHION COMMUNICATION PRODUCT 1-2 E10PW. EP10PY PUBLICATION RESEARCH FOR FINAL MAJOR PROJECT