Photographer: Craig McDean

Model: Natasha Poly

Wendy Bevan’s editorial for this spring’s Muse Magazine seems more like a photography project than a fashion spread. Don’t get me wrong, I think the photos are fun and I love the odd carnival theme, but the blurry, vintage photo quality is rather hard to see. In addition, is it just me or is the fashion focus really lacking here? On a brighter note, if the attention was intended to be on accessories, including headpieces, feather plumes and ruffled neck gear, job well done!  

GALLERY: SPREAD UM: “The Freak Show” Muse Magazine S/S 2009

Thanks Fashion Copious! 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that being a model isn’t all fun and games. The magazine covers, the runway shows, the after parties, the gorgeous fashion, the male models, the fame, and if you make it big, the fortune. Seems like a great life, no? Well, thanks to photographer Ben Hasset and Muse Magazine, Muse’s issue #16 has one of the most bone chilling and dynamic editorials the fashion industry has ever seen. Shot in black monochrome, the editorial titled “Lonely Spirits” seeks to extract the loneliness, sadness and stress, baggage that models carry on a daily basis. Due to the processing behind the photos, the details are poignant and the overall photo is difficult to see, but the emotion evoked from this spread is raw and real. Lonely Spirits is aimed to put readers under the impression that models, like Iekeliene Stange and Georgina Stojiljkovic, who both appear in the editorial, are not modeling but are simply caught in an expressed  moment of their constant despair. Kudos to Muse and Hasset…it’s about time someone documented the “real” life of a model.

Thanks Fashion Copious!