Those who know me personally know it's no secret that my favorite photographer and source of inspiration is Francesca Woodman. Famous for her nude, medium-format self portraits, Francesca studied her relationship with space and emotion as she grew from a curious yet focused teenager into a mature artist and young woman, in a period of time just shy of a decade.
What has begun to fascinate me about Woodman recently are the few photographs that do exist of her clothed. Francesca tended to use clothing to detail her portraits and to communicate to those on the outside her messages. One of the best examples of this is found in a portrait Francesca took in 1976 of herself and two friends. All three women seem to be portraying the artist; what identifies Francesca as herself are her knee-high white socks and black Mary Jane flats.
The same socks and shoes were typical staples in Woodman's wardrobe when she began photographing in Rhode Island, and became one of her identifying features. Her friend Edith Schloss reflected in 1995 upon her first meeting with Francesca: "She wore an old pinkish down parka over a long sprigged flower skirt and on her feet were those black chinese Mary-Jane's that gave girls of that period a duckfooted ballerina shape."
The bulk of Woodman's work was produced in the 70's and 80's, a time of notable change for the aesthetics of dress in popular culture. What's striking about Francesca in relation to this is that she refused to dress contemporary to her time, instead collecting and dressing almost entirely in vintage, decades before the act became socially widespread and popular. She loved dressing up and often incorporated thrift store finds in to her work.
Francesca channeled her love for clothing in to her own variant of fashion photography. Often abstract and atmospheric, her fashion photos are mysterious yet wonderfully object oriented. It's possible to lose the model's identity almost entirely; this makes sense given Francesca's undeniable gifted ability to both showcase her body while disguising herself in her work. Her aesthetic knack, in my own opinion, was and still is, beyond the realm of fashion photography. It exists where art and fashion converge, but where commercially the fashion industry does not dare tread.
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| A page from Francesca Woodman's notebook Some Disordered Interior Geometries, 1981 / Photo credit: The Artful Blog |
Woodman's most famous notebook Some Disordered Interior Geometries was her portfolio collection showcasing her fashion photography work. The book also serves as its own exhibition of sorts as it offers us a compiled series of Francesca's artwork, complete with ideas and notations by the artist herself.
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| Francesca and boyfriend Benjamin P. Moore / Photo credit: Tate |
Woodman provides a link in history to the importance and symbolism clothing can and does have on the art world. Her surrealistic influences have been appreciated and modeled within the history of fashion (the most famous example that jumps to mind is Schiaparelli), but I have yet to be made aware of a designer or house that has directly incorporated a photographer's work in to their designs. Here's hoping that one day a designer will take the life and work of dear Francesca and let her mysterious aesthetic lead and inspire their own.
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