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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Goldilocks Goes Into the Woods for 'W'

As promised, today I'm posting the 'W' shoot from 2007 by the same photographers (Mert & Marcus) who shot the September '09 Vogue "Into the Woods" spread (though that one is Red Riding Hood themed).

I don't think I've seen a whole fashion spread that plays with the Goldilocks theme before.

You can see that post HERE.

I'm not sure whether the model is a victim of fashion or of those poor 'de-furred' creatures enacting their revenge. Is it just me, or is there a lot of implied violence and death? (And I don't just mean of those poor animals, even though all that fur is, I understand, sadly not at all faux.) There seems to be less cohesive narrative to this shoot but then that wasn't the point.

(You can click on the pics to see a larger version.)
Um - OK, so maybe it's not just me, thinking this might come off as a tad controversial... it's pretty clear this girl didn't just take a nap in the woods.So did Goldilocks (or the original silver haired old lady*) ever make it back home? In one piece? We may never know...

The model for this shoot was Doutzen Kroes.

NOTE: The fact that this tale originally had an elderly main character and was, at least at one point, specifically changed to a young girl because it was thought there weren't enough tales with young people in them, is fascinating to me. Now days, with tale protagonists being mostly young girls and boys (or young men and women) the opposite would be true. It's quite hard to find tales with older main characters! There is only one volume I know of that's made an effort to collect these and I highly recommend it: "Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World" by Jane Yolen

1 comment:

  1. Hi Gypsy,

    I didn't know that about Goldilocks, it's fascinating. I actually came across a collection with older female protagonists just last week in a gallery bookshop. It's called 'Grandmothers' Stories' and is seeking to redress the wrongs of all those patriachal stories that only give us older women as witches and wicked stepmothers. It's published by the wonderful Barefoot Books (www.barefootbooks.com). It's one I'm definitely adding to my Christmas list!

    Claire x

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