Yesterday I went to this incredible exhibition at my favourite gallery in Paris, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Normally there are two or three exhibitions there at once but this time; photographer and environmentalist Sebastião Salgrado took up the entire gallery with his ‘Genesis’ work. His subjects were people, places and animals who had avoided and escaped the contemporary world and it was really interesting learning about cultures and continents so different from ours.
The first thing that struck me was the different tribal dress. In our modern world we are so obsessed with image and technology, don’t worry I’m not criticising anyone as I am just as obsessed as the next person, that it is hard to imagine another way of life. These people don’t care about fashion, they live practically naked and their main concern is surviving off what nature provides. It was incredibly interesting and liberating to learn about this way of life.
What they lack in clothes they make up for in other ways. Large, extreme piercings and permanent scarring are just part of their look the same way hair dye and tattoos are for us Westerners.
At the other end of the spectrum are those living in the Antarctic who don’t wear fur coats as a fashion statement but because it is necessary to survive. Inuit coats are made of four layers of reindeer skin to keep them warm at the coldest of times. When I next complain of the cold, I will certainly think of them.
Ok, my musings about whether fashion is important, over. It is important for us but imagine if we lived like these people, imagine if fashion was not important?
Izzie x