When a Fashion Week Image Goes Viral
When a Fashion Week Image Goes Viral
The power of women's pain and social media
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Last week, one of my photos went viral. National Geographic published an image from New York Fashion Week on their Instagram, triggering a social media tsunami. Over the next couple of days, influencers, celebrities and models, including Emily Ratakowski, reposted it, and I got flooded with thousands of comments, DMs, emails, and 35K new Instagram followers.
The photo was taken backstage at a Jason Wu show while on assignment for T Magazine, but it was never published. T Magazine chose a different outtake, showing a more ameliorated view of backstage shenanigans. It was not surprising that a publication dedicated to style wouldn’t want to disturb its reader base or antagonize the fashion industry. I have photographed Fashion week for different publications since 2012, and I learned that most are looking to celebrate rather than criticize. As a result, the hectic environment of the backstage gets reduced to an airbrushed version of itself. Many of the images that wouldn’t make the official cut ended up in my personal, long-term project, Fashion Lust.
Most of the responses I received sympathized with the model, but some came to the defense of the fashion industry, claiming the image was either a fake or an isolated incident that distorted the reality of the backstage. Both of those insinuations are codswallop. I have spent over 12 seasons of Fashion week photographing this shot over and over again, until finally, the yellow satin shoes fitted on battered feet became the final reiteration of a prolonged quest.
Over the years, I have witnessed models with feet that were calloused and covered in band-aids – the bruises resulting from a combination of a grueling schedule and the shoes themselves. Besides the fact that they were often a couple of sizes too small, most of them were uncomfortable to begin with. At a Tommy Hilfiger show in New York, the high-heeled shoes were so ill-fitting that every young woman coming off the runway was gasping in pain.
Photographing models’ scarred feet turned out to be much harder than it may seem. I tried taking images when the women were given pedicures, resting, or standing barefoot, but none of them hit home. The challenge was to find a composition that would encapsulate both the injuries and the glamor in one shot. At a Jason Wu show, I finally found it. It’s important to note that it these particular shoes didn’t cause damage, which was a cumulative result of a whole week of walking the runway, but helped to expose it. The strappy sandals revealed the skin underneath, the yellow of the satin contrasting dramatically with the bloodied heels.
When the photo went viral, it took me by surprise. I have gotten so used to the sight of battered feet that it has desensitized me. But reading the comments and watching TikTok videos discussing the image, I understood that it hit a nerve because the reality of the photo extends beyond the runway into every woman’s closet. Women unwittingly continue the centuries-old tradition that "beauty is pain" when we buy expensive shoes only to classify them according to the number of blocks they can be worn without causing blisters. My favorite high-heeled sandals have a two-block radius (from home to taxi, taxi to event). Putting them on requires steel resolve and preemptively decorating my feet with band-aids.
It is no surprise, then, that young women experienced in the art of pain management wouldn’t be dissuaded from walking the runway, even if that involves a little blood. Many of the models working at Fashion week are underslept, underfed, and poorly paid, but modeling is too coveted of a career to be discouraged by such setbacks and my intention was never to portray them as victims. I don’t bemoan the decision of any young woman who wants to experience the excitement and status that come with the territory. But I did start thinking about my own choices and the amount of compromise I am willing to accept between discomfort and the desire to feel stylish. In my version of female utopia, the fashion industry would respect women’s comfort, and looking beautiful wouldn’t have to be a painful ordeal. The fact that the image resonated with so many women gives me a tiny hope that change is already in the air. Fueled by this grain of optimism, I did a closet purge I have wanted to do for years, discarding a couple of my most unforgiving pairs of stilettos.
When I was leaving the backstage of Jason Wu, the area was blocked off because of a broken escalator, brought to a standstill by a high-heeled shoe. I ran around the barrier and took a photo, which now reads like poetic justice.
Fashion Lust - Personal project from Fashion week.
An Inside Look at the Seductive and Unsettling Backstage of Fashion Week - I wrote about fashion week in a past newsletter.
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Fantastic photographs -- I love that closing shot of the stiletto jammed into the floor of the escalator -- and a fascinating explanation of the context and your own thinking behind them.
You had me at "codswallop". "Unslept' was the icing on the cake.
Great, vivid article.