Like Magritte’s famous Son Of Man, Diane von Furstenberg’s spring campaign model is somewhat faceless. Or, obscured at least. It’s another notch on the belt of surrealism in fashion, channeling not just Magritte but backed by cracked desert and cloudy skies that are distinctly Dali-esque.
But Furstenberg isn’t questioning reality or the human condition; her model isn’t faceless by some societal symbolism. The point is to prompt you to insert your own face onto this anonymous Daughter of Man. Hence the slogan: “Be the woman you want to be.” Don’t just look at that model and wish you could be her, it implores; transpose yourself into her shoes and be her.
The thing about Furstenberg’s campaign, though, is that the facelessness makes it ironically less easy to relate to. Humans respond to faces, and odds are you’ll find your eyes drawn away from the clothes to where the face should be, because your brain knows something is wrong and it trying desperately to fill in the gaps. But the anonymity level is so high that you can’t.
The marketing team behind Camilla Akrans’ photographs probably knew this and didn’t particularly care – even if you can’t mentally step into the faceless model’s body, the campaign wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. Perhaps that was the real goal.
View the rest of Diane von Furstenberg‘s spring 2012 campaign at the gallery above.
