22 photographs have been selected from 6 years commissioned editorial work by Frederike Helwig. All shot for Teen Vogue Magazine, Conde Nast US’s powerful magazine for wealthy, fashion conscious, society girls. Each photograph holds our gaze with a smile, bright colour pops out of the shots, reds, blues, yellow, green. Primary colours, patterns, seemless surfaces in locations, like Machu Picchu, Greek Islands, Ski resorts, travel and holiday destinations that we as- pire to be able to experience and that these girls inhabit with an ease as if they were playing in their back gardens at home.
The Grand-daughters of the Stepford Wives may have looked something like this. They are emblems of the perfection of American Girlhood as it is experienced in the 21st century. Mobilised by wealth and opportunity they play in controlled experiences. They smile at us from the pages a little as if we are the friends of their parents, so confident that they do not need our approval, so bright and sunny that we have to put our hands to our eyes.
The Grand-daughters of the Stepford Wives may have looked something like this. They are emblems of the perfection of American Girlhood as it is experienced in the 21st century. Mobilised by wealth and opportunity they play in controlled experiences. They smile at us from the pages a little as if we are the friends of their parents, so confident that they do not need our approval, so bright and sunny that we have to put our hands to our eyes.
We see neither their past nor their future, they are suspended in the aspirational status their parents wealth has achieved for them. Not expected to be financially independent we believe immediately that the girls from Teen Vogue are the daughters of parents who have status, influence, style & power. Gracefully they giggle, smile, pose, drape, have fun, cavort. Sexless they hang in the balance between being Daddy’s little girl and an Ivy League undergraduate.
However, like those perfect life of Steptford, perhaps we can detect the menace underneath it all, an atmosphere of what either does or could lie beyond the frame. We find ourselves asking questions: When these girls come of age, which direction will their lives take? They may smile, obediently but are they politicised, ambitious, anxious? Does this moment represent the beginning of life or the end of innocence, or both. Will they be safe?
In these powerful pictures, Helwig has perfectly captured the rite of passa- ge that used to be the territory of finishing school and the debutantes balls. What happens next is impossible to see.
However, like those perfect life of Steptford, perhaps we can detect the menace underneath it all, an atmosphere of what either does or could lie beyond the frame. We find ourselves asking questions: When these girls come of age, which direction will their lives take? They may smile, obediently but are they politicised, ambitious, anxious? Does this moment represent the beginning of life or the end of innocence, or both. Will they be safe?
In these powerful pictures, Helwig has perfectly captured the rite of passa- ge that used to be the territory of finishing school and the debutantes balls. What happens next is impossible to see.