What Are We Looking at?

Upon first looking at Fay's fashion photography, the general consensus among the class was that it was well lit, that the models' expressions seemed uncontrived, and that the work presented a cohesive look and identity for the designer, Chevalier Homme. There was some discussion on whether the cropping of the tops of the heads was beneficial to the images or not, yet no consensus was reached.

Next I asked about the narrative in these images. At first the students answered as if responding to a trick question. “These images are meant to sell clothes, they do and that is it. The narrative is about the clothes.” But is it? What is the meaning of attire?

Neither the designer, nor the photographer, or the viewer live in a vacuum and are unlikely to have escaped the dominant discourses of the last ten years.

How Can the Images Be Interpreted?

If we look closer it seems these images tell a history at least a decade old. Let's start on the surface: one of the models looks like a choirboy, dressed in vestment colors. The other model looks like a person who could have Middle Eastern origins (dressed in green and orange). The “choirboy's” looks create a connotation of religion, which is reinforced by the collar. The “Middle Eastern-looking” man's shirt is dappled green with connotations relating to camouflage.

Discussion, press, and debate over sexual abuse by clergy and the longest war in US history in the Middle East have become a staple of the content that has pervaded all manners of our lives over the last ten years. These themes are therefore in the ether, the collective consciousness, and the fashion line presented here appears to reference this history quite directly.

How Does This Play on Our Sense of Identity—Does It Affirm or Threaten It?

It could be argued that the Crusades never ended, because it is the “religious” man who makes direct eye contact with the audience and therefore establishes a dominant and suggested relationship. He seems to know his audience and by implication they know him (Figure 3.1).

The other model looks away and therefore avoids eye contact. By implication, he can be more easily dismissed as the one with whom the audience has no relationship. He also wears a green patterned shirt with its association of military fatigues. This is as implicit as in the allusion to religious garments in the other image (Figure 3.2).

Consider the Subtleties

Deeper still is where it becomes really fascinating. The shape of the embroidered section on the orange shirt looks like the outline of a stealth bomber, or even medieval body armor worn over chainmail. The bomber, by extension, becomes an extended shield to protect Western religion. By contrast the camouflage shirt suggests a more individualized representation of the chronicled conflict.

This speaks to the ambiguity of the relationships that inform many of our political associations in the region. Initially the necklace of the “soldier” resembles a round of bullets or miniature bombs.

On closer inspection however, they look like miniature machetes or scimitars, a one-bladed weapon. Most striking is the belt. It looks like standard issue Guantánamo Bay. While belts are not allowed in prison, prison orange still insinuates either a future or a past in this notorious holding place.

The designer of this clothing line, Chevalier Homme, seems to very directly engage these narratives of our time, which Fay cleverly staged and further reinforced. By staging both men with their hands in their pockets they both seem passive but at the same time might possibly be hiding something. By cropping their heads or photographically lobotomizing them, Fay does not attack their individuality but rather asks the question of how long it will take for the world to come to its senses.

Turn the Tables on Identity

What if the models were switched? How would the narrative change? Given that many ethnic Middle Easterners call and identify with the West as their home, and given that many beheadings, also alluded to by the sliced heads, are carried out by Westerners who have joined ISIS, the medieval boundaries of the Crusades have become blurred. Fay and Chevalier Homme, it seems, are questioning to what extent conflict today is based on personal choices rather than on ethnic origin. The notion of hybridized identities is thus also evoked.

Conclusion

This brings us to another religion, where the belief system is based on multiple incarnations of an individual soul to learn what it must. Associated with that is the saying, “How other people treat you is their Karma. How you respond is yours.” The photographs promote individual identity and distinction through clothing. Seen together they also ask the question of how the wearer identifies himself beyond the gossamer boundaries touching his skin.