At some point, fashion photography all starts to look the same to me. Models are impossibly thin and Photoshopped to perfection, and are often wearing clothes that, quite honestly, I just don’t get. That being said, I cannot stop looking at these wonderful fashion-inspired portraits from Swiss-Italian photographer Christian Tagliavini. The projects are called 1503 and Dame di Cartone and are set against the backdrop of art and fashion history. Tagliavini re-imagines classic fashion silhouettes using non-models who actually auditioned via his website. The 1503 project is made up of nine characters from a visionary Renaissance , and are portrayed in stylized costumes (also made by Tagliavini). Influenced by the Renaissance portraits of Agnolo de Cosimo (born in 1503), Tagliavini has taken these portraits and made them to be elegant and stately caricatures. Dame di Cartone (Cardboard Ladies) uses fashions made from cardboard and paper, all taken different eras. The cut-out nature of the costumes make the women appear strangely two-dimensional. Even more impressive is the fact that Tagliavini is not only the photographer for these projects, he is also the costume designer, set builder, and casting director. He says he loves “designing stories with open endings on unexplored themes or unusual concepts, featuring uncommon people with their lives and their thoughts made visible.”
