In the 21st century, boundaries between editorial work, advertising work and personal work are now blurring. Digital media have changed the way photography is reported, consumed and shared. With the explosion of street-style blogs, Instagram and Pinterest, fashion photography has become the new visual language.
And where the previous generation of visual icons such as Nick Knight, Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Ellen von Unwerth and others set a new bar decades ago and still are, a new generation of photographers, Blommers and Schumm, Solve Sundsbo, Daniel Sannwalkd, Coco Capitan, Viviane Sassen and Erik Madigan Heck, are taking the lead and shooting fashion and beauty in such a way as to challenge the standardized ideals of fashion and beauty.
They reject the notions of the hyper-sexualised body and celebrity driven fashion visions that represented the naked consumerism of the 2000s. Their fashion subjects are distorted and twisted, and the clothing has become a form of draping rather than dressing. Such a visual evolution has been mirrored by the rise of designers such as Demna Gvasalia and stylists such as Lotta Volkova across brands like Vetements and Balenciaga.
