The Crow

‍In the 1980s, a new subculture called the ‘crow tribe’ emerged in Japan that rejected the shoulder pad-adorned, form-fitting looks of the time for all-black garments that enveloped and concealed the body. Designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake championed this aesthetic, thus the women who wore their monochromatic, androgynous garments were nicknamed ‘crows’. In my series, The Crow, I am dressed in pieces by said designers to become a ‘crow’ captured in the confines of her own nest due to the ongoing constraints of COVID-19. Self-portraiture provided me with complete, active control in portraying the crow character as I became both the object and subject of the series. Further, The Crow functions as an ode to imagination and the fantasy worlds or personas that I create in my head. The rebellious aesthetic of the crow tribe allowed women to escape into a utopia where there were no expectations or pressures to become the highly gendered, Western 80s woman. Similarly, fashion for me in The Crow acts as a form of body-sculpture and escapism against the reality of the world we are living in right now. My series, The Crow, ultimately explores the possibilities for artistic expression within the medium of fashion photography to create a new self-representation.

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Untitled, 2021  

Polaroid SX-70 Film  

108 x 88 mm

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