alex prager for bottega veneta

I was immediately struck by the graphic, Hitchcock-esque images from Bottega Veneta’s current ad campaign — no surprise then, when I found out that the ad campaign was shot by Alex Prager, whose anachronistic, colourful, and almost grotesque film-still-esque style has made her one of my favourite contemporary photographers. (I’ve mentioned her before — is this too obvious, you guys? I have no idea how ‘obvious’ photographers are to the rest of the world that doesn’t, like, hang out and talk about photographers or whatever.)

Her images always (to me at least, but we all know I have a one-track mind) call attention to the cinematic/performative nature and artifice of female beauty and also the falsification of so many of the fashion and media images we encounter on a daily basis. The perfect poses and doll-like makeup are made even more eerie by the obviously-polyester wigs thrown slightly askew, the lurid but always exaggeratedly feminine clothes, overly theatrical lighting, and the impossible sharp angles of the camera. I think the main reason I dig her stuff so much is actually because I do tend to gravitate more towards journalistic/candid/unposed/lo-fi/snapshot type photography (remember that exhibit at the Tate I creamed my pants over for like three months straight?), but in Prager’s case the hyperconstructed sets and obviously elaborate planning are just as raw and revealing as the best of more gritty images precisely because of how unreal they are.