This series wasn't designed for comfort. It demands attention, almost at close range. I created it alongside Ludovic Cadeo – whose makeup and hair were transformed into graphic gestures – and Pearl Carayol, who provided co-styling, using pieces by Boucheron, Maison Michel, and designer Julie Ehme. A deliberate dialogue between masterful technique and rising tension.

This work is intimate, sometimes oppressive. Emotions erupt unfiltered, as if the image were holding its breath. Sharp touches of red, reminiscent of Bourdin, pierce the surfaces like visual alarms. Every element—pigment, gold, fabric—is used as a charge.

The makeup functions like a pictorial medium, applied with precision and then deliberately disrupted. The provocative, tight framing may recall Newton in its structure, but above all, one senses a tension ready to explode. The image also evokes cinema. In certain poses, we find the Joker's inner turmoil, this way of holding on before the break. De Palma for the off-screen space, Lynch for the point of ambiguity, Almodóvar for the bursts of color. 

The sense of confinement is latent, like in a long take where we wait for something to fall apart. Time stretches out, not to create mystery, but because the image is working from within. This fashion series questions the capacity of the gaze to withstand what does not fully unfold.

Photographer/AD: Flora di Carlo
Makeup/Hair: Ludovic Cadeo
Stylist: Pearl Carayol & Flora di Carlo
Talent: Pauline Houssinot 
Shoes: Giuseppe Zanotti