En vogue

An analytical photographic view on the visual language of covers of fashion magazines, by re-enacting all covers of a major Dutch fashion magazine during it's first year.

May 2012 Issue

“In fashion photography, the human body is very important because it shows the dress; but from Popelier’s experiments, we immediately recognize the photograph as fashion, not only because of the clothes, but also in the way the model looks and poses.”

– Marcel Feil (deputy director artistic affairs, Foam Amsterdam) on Popelier's En Vogue at the exhibition The Space Between Us (2014) at He Xiangning Art Museum, Nanshan, Shenzhen, China

Covers of fashion magazines all have a certain look and feel. They have their own visual language to persuade people to buy the issue. Centered is always a model, styled and dressed, posed in fashionable poses. What is left when you discard styling, wardrobe, lighting, graphic design, even the models themselves, and only focus on expressions and poses?