Fashion can be about many things: it can be about the clothing, it can be about the message, or it can be about the mood/emotion – the meaning and purpose behind fashion could be inspired from a variety of things. When you look at a photo-shoot such is this one taken by Oleg Bagmutskiy you have to take yourself beyond that which you are seeing and think about the message that is being portrayed.
As far as fashion in concerned there have always been impressions throughout history of the controversy that it can present in terms of religion. The concepts of fashion within religion are usually divided between two categories: one is the sacred and the other is the secular. In taking both the title of the photo-shoot and the subtle emotive implications within the photographs into account Bagmutskiy plays with this controversy and notes the aspects of: faith, natural womanly eroticism and a loss of innocence.
The contradiction of the models’, Vika Pankratz and Daniella Tkach, obvious beauty – their wide eyes, plump lips, glossy hair and smooth skin, the clearly religious and confining garments they are wearing and the subtle indications of childhood and innocence – Barbie dolls playing a role in some of the photographs, the tender way in which the women handle one another and the feeding of milk from one to the other – create a scene that requires further thought and understanding than simply meets the eye.
The use of black and white and the grainy texture used on the photographs also gives them an antiquated quality – showing us the contrast of the woman that was and the woman that is today; an evolution in terms of their role and priority in society.
Sacred and secular; two completely opposing ideals find their way into this shoot, playing off one another to create a fashion message worth thinking about and understanding. View all of Oleg Bagmutskiy’s (bagmutskiy.com) shoot by clicking on the gallery.
