I stand in the hushed glow of studio past midnight, watching a figure posed before my camera. In that moment, I’m not merely a fashion designer arranging fabric on a model – I am a storyteller, a psychologist, a ringmaster on a private stage. Around us, every light and shadow is deliberate. The studio has become a small universe where everything means something. Here, commercial fashion design and studio photography merge into a single act of creation, a process by which we construct identity and capture an audience’s imagination. I often feel I am orchestrating an elaborate dance between business, identity, and desire, all under the banner of style.
As a designer, I’m keenly aware that I work in an industry powered by fantasy and commerce in equal measure. By the 1980s, fashion companies realized they were selling dreams rather than just dresses – “what they were producing and selling were not products but brands” and “what is consumed… is not commodity but the sign” . That sign is the image, the idea of a lifestyle and identity that clothes can promise. When I design a garment and present it in a photograph, I know I’m really offering a story for sale – a coded message of who you could become in that dress or jacket.
Advertising is seduction, and the fashion photograph is its most alluring tool, a “likeness or picture” constructed to convey the brand’s core meaning . I sometimes recall Susan Sontag’s observation that we have all become “image-junkies,” addicted to the confirmation of reality through photographs . In fashion, this means the audience doesn’t just buy cloth and thread; they buy the image of confidence, beauty, rebellion, or sophistication that we carefully stage in the studio. In our visually-saturated consumer culture, the photograph is a proxy for reality and value – “photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful” and we even “learn to see ourselves photographically” . That knowledge humbles and troubles me: my work feeds directly into this powerful image-economy.
This photography presents fashion not merely as adornment, but as a philosophical act of becoming — a confrontation between the self and society. Each image is a moment suspended between containment and transformation, where clothing acts as a mediator between the internal and external, the symbolic and the physical. The body is not a fixed identity but a site of constant negotiation, and fashion here becomes both mask and mirror. The sculptural silhouettes, corseted forms, and disciplined styling evoke systems of power — referencing uniforms, armor, and historical silhouettes. Yet within this structure, there is rupture and rebellion: softness interrupts rigidity, ambiguity destabilizes categories, and posture becomes a language of refusal. Clothing becomes an architecture of resistance — constraining yet empowering, protective yet provocative.
The studio space functions like a metaphysical stage, where light and shadow do more than illuminate; they sculpt reality into allegory. Each pose becomes a philosophical proposition about subjectivity — at once assertive, questioning, and transformed. The minimalist backdrop strips away context, forcing the viewer to confront the body and garment as symbols. Here, fashion is not passive — it speaks, it challenges, it performs. There is also the ever-present gaze — that of the viewer, the camera, the culture — evoked in the intensity of the framing and the theatrical lighting. The viewer is reminded that to be seen is to be judged. Yet these figures do not shy away from this gaze; they confront it, redirect it, subvert it. Their poise suggests agency rather than submission. Fashion becomes a negotiation with power — a way to claim space within systems designed to confine.
Some looks push beyond the boundaries of realism — adorned with metallic elements, artificial structure, or surreal silhouettes. These forms transcend the human and approach the mythic or the speculative. The body becomes a vessel for narrative. These are not representations of everyday life but provocations: fragments of a world not yet born. In this series, fashion becomes an existential act — a declaration that we are not finished, not fixed. Through texture, structure, and light, identity is continuously rewritten. We dress not to conceal who we are, but to discover who we dare to become.
Clothing is deeply personal – it’s the second skin we present to the world. Anthropologist Terence Turner famously called attire a “social skin” that carries “powerful social significance” by enabling us to project a chosen self-image and character to others . I feel this keenly as an Iranian fashion designer; every outfit I create is not just aesthetic but social communication. Each photoshoot becomes an anthropology experiment in identity: a model wearing my designs might embody the fearless hero, the romantic poet, or the subversive rebel. We are tapping into what psychologists call archetypes – timeless symbols in the human psyche.
A sharp-shouldered jacket might evoke the warrior, a flowing gown the goddess, a gender-defying ensemble the trickster. These archetypal cues speak to viewers on a subconscious level, giving the images emotional resonance. I often think about how design speaks to these emotional cues: certain silhouettes, colors, and textures immediately signal power or purity, tradition or innovation. In the studio, I can amplify those signals. By controlling every detail of the scene, I accentuate the story the clothes tell – sometimes even one subtle detail “is enough to transform what is outside meaning into meaning” in fashion, as Roland Barthes noted .
Roland Barthes wrote that “in fashion photography, the world is photographed as a theater” , and I live that truth. My studio often feels like a stage where reality is suspended and a carefully crafted illusion takes shape. I select backdrops, props, and poses the way a director blocks a play. Nothing is accidental; everything in the frame is imbued with intention. A simple wooden chair, a harsh spotlight, a burst of wind in the model’s hair – each element becomes a symbol in the tableau.
The world beyond the studio might be chaotic, but under the cool glare of my lights it becomes, as Barthes put it, a backdrop, a malleable stage for “specific theater themes” of fashion . Sometimes I construct a spare, almost monastic scene to let a garment speak in solitude; other times I build a lush fantasy that whispers of some lost era or utopian future. In these moments I understand what Barthes meant calling fashion photography an “exorcism” where everything in the frame is made “outrageous” so that the garment alone “seems real and convincing” . We exaggerate make-up, emotion, and setting – all to cast a spell that draws the eye to the clothes, making them the one tangible reality in a picture of dreams.
There is immense power in this visual language. A studio photograph can mythologize a garment – turning a dress into a story, a model into a character, and an image into a modern myth. I’ve seen how a well-composed fashion image can transfix an audience, how it captures not just attention but aspiration. In a society dominated by visual media, the studio shot becomes a kind of secular icon, repeated on Instagram feeds and mood boards like talismans of identity. Michel Foucault wrote that the individual “with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power” – and I recognize this dynamic in fashion imagery. The power relations of our world (gender norms, beauty standards, economic status) seep into every photograph.
The identities we construct in front of the camera are shaped by larger forces: the model’s pose might conform to societal ideals of elegance; even my own creative vision is filtered through cultural experience and market expectations. Sometimes I catch myself wondering: Am I the architect of an image, or its captive? Foucault warned that “visibility is a trap” – to be seen is to be subject to judgment, comparison, the invisible pressures of conformity. The studio offers the promise of controlled visibility, but even there I feel the weight of the audience’s gaze, of the client’s brief, of the culture’s biases. It’s a dance of freedom and restraint.
From a sociological perspective, fashion imagery can uplift but also oppress. I cannot forget that my work, however artistic, is also part of a global industry often criticized for enforcing unattainable ideals. As one scholar noted, fashion has sometimes been seen as “hegemonic oppression” that places a heavy “obligation to conform” on women, with photographs that breed “dissatisfaction” by “feeding upon the unreal” and setting expectations “most [people] cannot meet” . Indeed, every time we retouch a photo or agonize to capture the “perfect” angle, we contribute to that unreality.
I remember a young woman at one of my exhibits telling me how beautiful the model looked in my campaign image – ethereal, invincible – and confessing that it made her both inspired and insecure. This duality haunts me. I want my fashion narratives to ignite confidence, not envy; to suggest possibilities, not standards to which my audience feels enslaved. And yet, the line can be so fine.
Commercial fashion thrives on aspiration, which walks hand in hand with impossibility. As Susan Sontag shrewdly observed, photography’s “main effect is to convert the world into a… museum-without-walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption,” turning people into “customers or tourists of reality” . A fashion image offers a curated slice of reality, polished and enclosed, inviting viewers to consume a fantasy. I constantly ask myself: does this consume my audience’s self-worth, or enrich it?
Yet amidst these critiques, I see another side to fashion and photography – a liberating, transformative force. I recall an experimental shoot I did, dressing a friend in an ungendered flowing coat and metallic headpiece. In the privacy of the studio, I watched this friend shed their everyday persona and stand taller, freer, almost defiant in their new skin. In that instance, clothing became a vehicle of emancipation. Avant-garde designer Rei Kawakubo once said, “When you put on clothes that are fighting against something, you can feel your courage grow. Clothing can set you free.” I have felt that truth: a well-crafted outfit or a striking photo can give someone permission to be bolder, to explore facets of themselves society might otherwise police.
Fashion imagery can break boundaries by presenting new narratives of beauty and identity – telling us it’s okay to be different, to be seen. Even in Iran, where I must navigate cultural restrictions, a daring editorial image can quietly challenge norms and give hope to those who crave self-expression. In these moments, I am proud of the subversive potential of my craft.
A studio photo can be a safe arena to project what might be dangerous or taboo in the streets – a place to play with gender, to cloak oneself in otherworldliness, to propose radical ideas under the guise of style. This is the paradox I grapple with daily: fashion’s imagery can liberate and constrain all at once. On one hand, as Alexander McQueen insisted, “Fashion should be a form of escapism and not a form of imprisonment” . I cling to this ideal, believing that the fantasy we create in the studio offers people an escape into possibility – a chance to momentarily step beyond their everyday selves and taste something mythic. On the other hand, I know too well how the pursuit of beauty can become its own prison, with rigid norms acting like bars on the cage.
The studio is my kingdom, but I must be careful not to become a tyrant of images, enforcing only my vision and the industry’s conventions. The visual language of fashion is powerful: it can broaden minds or reinforce clichés, invite inclusivity or deepen insecurities. Every photoshoot is thus a moral negotiation with myself. I ask: What identities am I validating? What fantasies am I selling? Are they authentic or merely profitable? In the end, I find meaning in embracing fashion photography as a kind of mirror with agency. It reflects society’s dreams and nightmares, even as it has the power to reshape them. I speak in the first person – as Salar Bil, a creator who straddles art and commerce – but I know I am also part of a larger conversation across sociology, anthropology, and psychology.
I take guidance from those thinkers who came before me: from Barthes I’ve learned that every button or bow can carry myth; from Sontag, that every image alters our definition of reality; from Foucault, that identity is a negotiation with power; from Kawakubo and McQueen, that fashion is as much about the soul and spirit as it is about the body. My photographs are performances and propositions.
They are my attempt to capture an audience not by imprisoning them in desire, but by inviting them to see new facets of themselves. In the controlled chaos of studio, I choreograph cloth and light into allegories – at once personal and universal. This is the alchemy of commercial fashion and studio photography: we spin symbolic narratives that people can inhabit. And if we are wise and a little lucky, those narratives will empower our audience to imagine and actualize richer identities, even as they navigate the consuming gaze of the modern world.