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Victoria’s Secret Swim 2012 by Cyril Attias 

INDIFFERENCE MAKES A COMEBACK

October 29, 2024

Camila Bonilla

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The June 1993 cover of Vogue sparked outrage when Corrine Day photographed Kate Moss, blocking an arch just wearing a pastel-pink bra and teal skirt. The back of the hallway overexposes the photo with plenty of light, leaving a blank slate to the foreground. 

 

The rest of the collection features her in a similar fashion, dressed in house lingerie and sometimes an old blanket thrown over her body, with nothing exceptional about the background, oftentimes just wall or regular furniture. 

 

Her face bears no expression. She is absolutely stoic.

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British Vogue offers an explanation to this reaction towards this photoshoot, and the nature of its production: “Back then, Day’s stripped-back ‘anti-fashion’ aesthetic was a novelty…Relaxing the rules meant a hesitant teenager could wear for her first cover a pale pink and ice-blue tweed bustier by Chanel (£1,900 with matching jacket), or an old eiderdown, as she did three issues later, and look like a fashion icon in the making.” 

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The same techniques are being implemented in the creative direction of brands like Adidas and Sandy Liang thirty years later. 

Source: Source: June 1993 Vogue

Garnering another wrath of fury from the public, the photographer Maya who goes by @stolenbesos on instagram captures Tiktok Star Addison Rae donning a white bikini top reading ‘Father and Son’, a blasphemous sight for an Adidas-Praying collaboration. Despite the blasphemy, Addison bears a dumbfounded look that ultimately conveys the feeling of nonchalance in the face of high-end clothing. 

 

This trend has cascaded into our digital culture that has shaped the fashion industry into creative direction for other smaller brands. (Source: @stolenbesos website) 

 

A simple digital camera can now be used to formulate this aesthetic for luxury fashion brands. 

 

Another photographer, Morgan Maher, has used this technique for her project, Girls In Bed, which features women in their natural state. The bed. 

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Source: Adidas

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“Girls in Bed is a love letter to the girls in the hearts of women, owning one’s femininity and reclaiming agency in the most vulnerable of places - the bedroom. There is an intimacy experienced when two girls are sitting in a bed sharing a secret.”

 

Something about the statement concerning agency makes me believe that this is a common 

theme throughout the revival of this stripped-back aesthetic. It relieves women of the 

(Source: Morgan Maher, Girls In Bed)

 

common expectation that comes with luxury, of having to put on heavy makeup and craft an image  of a perfect life to accompany this. 

Source: Morgan Maher, Girls In Bed

The trend brings a newfound freedom in allowing girls to just exist in their personal spaces, whether that means under an old house blanket or in luxury items. These items can just be without needing every other accessory to go along with it–like wearing red lipstick on a bare face. 

 

Although both situations of Kate Moss and Addison Rae triggered backlash in the fashion community, the passivity communicated through the photographic technique has made a rippling change for years to come in terms of creative direction. 

 

Now directors use small digital cameras and a cozy apartment in the background to promote a wide range of high-end products, thereby shortening the gap between what it means to be luxury and what it means to be casual. 

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