Rewrite
Lead ImagePhotography by Camille Lemoine
Whatever the era, fashion photography holds a mirror up to the cultural moment, reflecting the dreams, desires and anxieties of the society that produced it. It’s more than a window into our fantasies; it plays an active part in forming them. Which is why it’s crucial to investigate this powerful medium and reflect on the messages it relays to us. “Even for people without an interest in fashion, their lives are intangibly shaped by fashion images,” says Violet Conroy, curator of Rethinking Fashion Image (and deputy editor of AnOthermag.com). “They are an inescapable, ubiquitous part of everyday modern life, shaping beauty standards, fashion trends, and broader visual culture.”
Held at Lower Stable Street Lightboxes, a stone’s throw from the Central Saint Martins’ Kings Cross campus, Rethinking Fashion Image brings together work by nine innovative photographers striving to interrogate and evolve the fashion image. “Fashion imagery is fascinating because it’s not just about clothes. It’s about what people want, who they are, and the whole system behind it,” says Rino Qui, one of the photographers featured.
The contributing artists – Kaine Harrys Anamalu, Coco Wu, Carina Kehlet Schou, Xueling Chen, Rino Qiu, Camille Lemoine, Maya-Aska Arai, Olivia Chen and Kaiwei Duan, and Lorane Hochstätter – are CSM students and alumnae, each of whom has been chosen for their unique engagement with the fashion image. “All of these photographers have created their own personal and highly unique visual worlds – no two are the same. Fashion is not the focus here; instead, it is merely a catalyst for play and visual experimentation,” Conroy says. “Themes explored include humans’ connection to nature, diasporic identity and community, relationships, evolving notions of femininity, and the everyday, with projects captured across the world from Scotland to Shanghai, London to Milan, and beyond.”
Geographically and thematically, the scope of the show is vast, but there are certain echoes in the guiding principles behind each artist’s differing practice and preoccupations. “These photographers are interested in real people and real places,” Conroy adds. “They have a very personal connection to their subjects, which feels at odds with much of the aspirational and highly staged fashion imagery we see today.”
Taking inspiration from the documentary style that emerged in the 1980s in the work of Corinne Day, Wolfgang Tillmans and other photographers pioneering a new anti-glamorous approach to the medium, Coco Wu is a casting agent and photographer who street-casts her subjects, selecting them for their unconventional, awkward beauty. Meanwhile, Rino Qui’s “meticulously framed, epic tableaux” resist the myth of effortless, pristine beauty that so many fashion images aspire to conjure. Instead, his work depicts the off-camera aspects of a photo shoot, revealing the hidden mechanisms and invisible labour that go into producing the polished imagery we are used to seeing.
“Fashion imagery is fascinating because it’s not just about clothes. It’s about what people want, who they are, and the whole system behind it” – Rino Qui
“I’m interested in moving beyond fashion’s fantastical elements by turning my focus to fashion’s margins: the workers, the downtime, and the infrastructures that support it. I’m drawn to the in-between moments,” Qui tells AnOther. “My images push back against the notion that fashion imagery must be a flawless fantasy or impose inappropriate glorification on people without their own voice, thus reducing them to spectacles.”
Olivia Chen also shoots real people in her staged photographs of second-generation Chinese youth from Wenzhounese families in Prato, Italy. Moving away from the pristine fashion image with professional models, Chen’s portraits recreate a more documentary-like aesthetic, with a feeling of authenticity.
Authenticity is a guiding principle in the work of Scottish-based photographer Camille Lemoine (although there is a touch of the magical about her realism). “Her work feels deeply spiritual and has more in common with the land art genre, and with Ana Mendieta’s Silueta series, than with fashion photography as we understand it. It’s about the body, nature, and creating a soulful connection with the earth,” says Conroy.
Lemoine shoots her fashion images in the bleakly beautiful rural landscapes of her home – often using friends and family to model garments made from heather, eggshells, feathers and other mystical-seeming materials gathered from the land, all set against a backdrop of what she describes as the “fluctuant weather, the behaviour of light, the repetitiveness of scenery, the subtle changes of season”. “I’m interested in telling personal stories and working with objects and locations I already have a relationship with,” she explains. “Clothes are rarely the main focus of my images. I am more interested in telling a personal story and using this to contribute to wider conversations within visual culture.”
Elsewhere in the show, photographer Maya-Aska Arai also looks to the British countryside, exploring perceptions of place and identity and redressing the absence of portraits of people of colour in rural British landscapes. Kaine Harrys Anamalu, an Italian-Nigerian photographer, is forging a new vision for representations of the Black body within the Italian cultural and aesthetic imagination.
Reflecting on his hopes for the future of the industry, Qui says, “I hope fashion photography can move beyond relying solely on one definition of beauty and aspiration. I envision a future where such imagery embraces greater pluralism, stays more connected to real contexts, and places far less emphasis on perfection and hype.”
As a body of work, Rethinking Fashion Image is an invitation to consider these ideas, and to contemplate the expanded possibilities of the medium: what can a fashion image be? What can it contain? And who can it portray? Situated in a non-gallery space where visitors to the area can encounter the show as they pass, Conroy hopes it will reach a broader, non-fashion audience and spark an interest in this “rich visual world”. She says, “Fashion photography is often dismissed as frivolous or commercial, but it is where some of the most interesting artistic innovation and experimentation is happening in the visual arts. It cannot be underestimated.”
Rethinking Fashion Image is on show at Lower Stable Street Lightboxes, Kings Cross, in London until 5 January 2026.
in HTML format, including tags, to make it appealing and easy to read for Japanese-speaking readers aged 20 to 40 interested in fashion. Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6), translating all text, including headings, into Japanese. Retain any existing
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Lead ImagePhotography by Camille Lemoine
Whatever the era, fashion photography holds a mirror up to the cultural moment, reflecting the dreams, desires and anxieties of the society that produced it. It’s more than a window into our fantasies; it plays an active part in forming them. Which is why it’s crucial to investigate this powerful medium and reflect on the messages it relays to us. “Even for people without an interest in fashion, their lives are intangibly shaped by fashion images,” says Violet Conroy, curator of Rethinking Fashion Image (and deputy editor of AnOthermag.com). “They are an inescapable, ubiquitous part of everyday modern life, shaping beauty standards, fashion trends, and broader visual culture.”
Held at Lower Stable Street Lightboxes, a stone’s throw from the Central Saint Martins’ Kings Cross campus, Rethinking Fashion Image brings together work by nine innovative photographers striving to interrogate and evolve the fashion image. “Fashion imagery is fascinating because it’s not just about clothes. It’s about what people want, who they are, and the whole system behind it,” says Rino Qui, one of the photographers featured.
The contributing artists – Kaine Harrys Anamalu, Coco Wu, Carina Kehlet Schou, Xueling Chen, Rino Qiu, Camille Lemoine, Maya-Aska Arai, Olivia Chen and Kaiwei Duan, and Lorane Hochstätter – are CSM students and alumnae, each of whom has been chosen for their unique engagement with the fashion image. “All of these photographers have created their own personal and highly unique visual worlds – no two are the same. Fashion is not the focus here; instead, it is merely a catalyst for play and visual experimentation,” Conroy says. “Themes explored include humans’ connection to nature, diasporic identity and community, relationships, evolving notions of femininity, and the everyday, with projects captured across the world from Scotland to Shanghai, London to Milan, and beyond.”
Geographically and thematically, the scope of the show is vast, but there are certain echoes in the guiding principles behind each artist’s differing practice and preoccupations. “These photographers are interested in real people and real places,” Conroy adds. “They have a very personal connection to their subjects, which feels at odds with much of the aspirational and highly staged fashion imagery we see today.”
Taking inspiration from the documentary style that emerged in the 1980s in the work of Corinne Day, Wolfgang Tillmans and other photographers pioneering a new anti-glamorous approach to the medium, Coco Wu is a casting agent and photographer who street-casts her subjects, selecting them for their unconventional, awkward beauty. Meanwhile, Rino Qui’s “meticulously framed, epic tableaux” resist the myth of effortless, pristine beauty that so many fashion images aspire to conjure. Instead, his work depicts the off-camera aspects of a photo shoot, revealing the hidden mechanisms and invisible labour that go into producing the polished imagery we are used to seeing.
“Fashion imagery is fascinating because it’s not just about clothes. It’s about what people want, who they are, and the whole system behind it” – Rino Qui
“I’m interested in moving beyond fashion’s fantastical elements by turning my focus to fashion’s margins: the workers, the downtime, and the infrastructures that support it. I’m drawn to the in-between moments,” Qui tells AnOther. “My images push back against the notion that fashion imagery must be a flawless fantasy or impose inappropriate glorification on people without their own voice, thus reducing them to spectacles.”
Olivia Chen also shoots real people in her staged photographs of second-generation Chinese youth from Wenzhounese families in Prato, Italy. Moving away from the pristine fashion image with professional models, Chen’s portraits recreate a more documentary-like aesthetic, with a feeling of authenticity.
Authenticity is a guiding principle in the work of Scottish-based photographer Camille Lemoine (although there is a touch of the magical about her realism). “Her work feels deeply spiritual and has more in common with the land art genre, and with Ana Mendieta’s Silueta series, than with fashion photography as we understand it. It’s about the body, nature, and creating a soulful connection with the earth,” says Conroy.
Lemoine shoots her fashion images in the bleakly beautiful rural landscapes of her home – often using friends and family to model garments made from heather, eggshells, feathers and other mystical-seeming materials gathered from the land, all set against a backdrop of what she describes as the “fluctuant weather, the behaviour of light, the repetitiveness of scenery, the subtle changes of season”. “I’m interested in telling personal stories and working with objects and locations I already have a relationship with,” she explains. “Clothes are rarely the main focus of my images. I am more interested in telling a personal story and using this to contribute to wider conversations within visual culture.”
Elsewhere in the show, photographer Maya-Aska Arai also looks to the British countryside, exploring perceptions of place and identity and redressing the absence of portraits of people of colour in rural British landscapes. Kaine Harrys Anamalu, an Italian-Nigerian photographer, is forging a new vision for representations of the Black body within the Italian cultural and aesthetic imagination.
Reflecting on his hopes for the future of the industry, Qui says, “I hope fashion photography can move beyond relying solely on one definition of beauty and aspiration. I envision a future where such imagery embraces greater pluralism, stays more connected to real contexts, and places far less emphasis on perfection and hype.”
As a body of work, Rethinking Fashion Image is an invitation to consider these ideas, and to contemplate the expanded possibilities of the medium: what can a fashion image be? What can it contain? And who can it portray? Situated in a non-gallery space where visitors to the area can encounter the show as they pass, Conroy hopes it will reach a broader, non-fashion audience and spark an interest in this “rich visual world”. She says, “Fashion photography is often dismissed as frivolous or commercial, but it is where some of the most interesting artistic innovation and experimentation is happening in the visual arts. It cannot be underestimated.”
Rethinking Fashion Image is on show at Lower Stable Street Lightboxes, Kings Cross, in London until 5 January 2026.
and integrate them seamlessly into the new content without adding new tags. Ensure the new content is fashion-related, written entirely in Japanese, and approximately 1500 words. Conclude with a “結論” section and a well-formatted “よくある質問” section. Avoid including an introduction or a note explaining the process.
