Purple Magazine
— S/S 2015 issue 23

The Spring/Summer 2015 collections

best of the season

style by CAROLINE GAIMARI
creative direction by OLIVIER ZAHM

 

Will selfies replace the self-portrait? They aren’t simply the product of digital cameras and smartphones pointed at oneself. Selfies are visually charged messages about yourself that can be shared instantly on social media. This is quickly becoming the first degree of narcissism, broadcasting who you are, where you are, what you’re doing, and how “fabulous” or “interesting” or “sexy” you are.

For this story, composed entirely of selfies, we asked a variety of young women to wear our favorite looks from the Spring / Summer 2015 collections and immediately send the pictures they took of themselves to us. This may be the first fashion story in which the photographer and model are one and the same. Finally, the true amateur photographer breaks into the high-fashion picture.

It’s not that we love selfie images or consider them an interesting type of public representation. What we find new about selfies is that they can’t really be judged as “photography” — there’s no definitively good or bad one. They’re a type of image created for a computer-connected world. They’re also simply intimate moments in the life of these women, sharing their love of clothing. And each selfie moment isn’t interrupted or artificially interpreted by a professional photographer and beauty team. No fashion photographer can take or will ever take this kind of self-celebrating image.

In the beginning of the ’90s, Purple was an integral player in the snapshot revolution, which championed a new kind of fashion image. Now we’re ready for the smartphone to free us further, to generate new ideas in fashion photography — strange angles, different perspectives, accidentally bad quality, or even silly images — that don’t copy or reproduce the poses and attitudes so many fashion photographers constantly revisit. This is not the future of fashion photography, either. It’s more like food for thought and entertainment in real time.

[Table of contents]

S/S 2015 issue 23

Table of contents

purple EDITO

purple NEWS

purple BEST OF THE SEASON

purple INTERVIEW

purple FASHION WOMEN

purple FASHION MEN

purple DOCUMENT

purple BEAUTY

purple LOVE

purple TRAVEL

purple SEX

purple PHILOSOPHY

purple TRAVEL

purple NIGHT

purple STORY

purple VISUAL ESSAY

© Purple Institute

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