MODA Lookbook Episode 8: Man at Sea

Oct 16

Oct 16 MODA Lookbook Episode 8: Man at Sea

Welcome to Episode 8 of MODA Blog’s Lookbook series! We wanted to offer our wonderful team the opportunity to create and direct more editorial content for your viewing pleasure. Completely student styled, modelled and produced, the MODA Lookbook hopes to inspire, empower and challenge the talent of our community. Keep your eye out for more lookbooks coming soon~!

Autumn seems to have come out of nowhere, and I’m sure many of you are feeling the same way that I’m currently feeling - this is certainly not a fall quarter we ever expected. Especially relative to Lookbooks, I think I never would have expected at this point last year that we’d be forced to limit the number of bodies on set, or keep our distance as models move in and out of looks. And yet, despite all the confusion, and all the chaos, we’ve arrived here, at Lookbook Episode 8, almost a full year after our first ever Lookbook, and my how the world has changed.

Like many of my shoots, the idea for this one came while I was on a run along Lake Michigan, where we shot the story. Sailors were floating across my mind seeing that endless expanse across the horizon, and I guess I kept thinking that while imaginary ships sailed their course, I was relegated to watching it all happen from the shore.

I don’t doubt that these recurring runs along the lake became my opportunity to refashion my isolation into something more romantic, but I’m also a firm believer that the isolation made me yearn for the creative outlet that only MODA Blog could offer me. The runs along the lake, the flights of fancy, the swashbuckling stories unfolding across Lake Michigan, amidst everything going on, it was a way for me to cope with my personal anxieties regarding isolation. I wanted some way to escape the pressure of facing hardship after hardship.

In several essays on Fashion, including excerpts from his penultimate fashion text: The Fashion System, Roland Barthes describes how fashion enables us to create a false existence, to don a persona that doesn’t have to align consistently with who we may be otherwise, and how that persona arises as a projection of our own anxieties regarding the state of our world. He characterizes clothing as a prime catalyst for personal transformation, citing that it is personality that gives clothing its meaning, yet inversely, it is clothing that can build and develop a personality.

In this era of social distancing, self-isolation, political turmoil, mental health crises and the ever present pressure to contribute positively to a more and more demanding world, I find that many of us may be turning to this kind of fashion-persona-escapism to cope with our own personal fears. And I think in some way, putting together this shoot was my way to realize my anxieties and to reign them back under my control.

Putting it all together and seeing JR take on new personas with each look reminded me how powerful fashion and dress can be as a form of escapism. This story is very much a personal essay on isolation, but ultimately concludes that perhaps that isolation can also be something worth celebrating as well.

I’m proud to say that this whole shoot was accomplished with just the two of us, with me making use of the styling, makeup and photography skills I picked up from collaborating with the best on all our previous Lookbooks. We shopped our own wardrobes and tried our bests to remain safe and respectful of our circumstance. Both of us wore masks (I also wore a screen for hair and makeup), and shot outdoors, while maintaining social distancing.

So I extend a gracious thank you to my wonderful model JR Ansera who let me put him in all my clothes and makeup with the most trust that the final product would turn out well. I hope you enjoy our efforts and as always, let us know what you think on our Facebook and Instagram. Welcome back, and I hope you enjoy MODA Lookbook Episode 8.

Click on photos to enlarge