In the early 1980s designer Loris Azzarro crafted a made-to-measure black dress which was sewn to be worn in a photoshoot for a Playboy France cover featuring Olivia’s mother as a model and shot by James Baes.
Her mother only ever wore it for the photo shoot. Unfortunately, the actual cover photo is nowhere to be found.
It is a hand-me-down from a mother to daughter.
In this project, Olivia reflects on the very personal, intimate connection of the dress with her mother, whose female body wore it some forty years ago before her for a very specific purpose. Perplexed by the implications of why it was crafted to begin with — a 1980s Playboy France Cover and its destined male gaze — she mulls over what it means to be a muse, an object of admiration. Combining personal impressions and autobiographical fragments with site-specific images from where Olivia now lives in rural Catalunya, Black Magic (The Thread) tells the story of a mother-daughter connection through the specific lens of female sexuality and image. Deciding the dress holds a complex type of magic particular to women and their fraught place in and outside of the spotlight, the project is an ode to her mother and the dress which reunites them, opening a discussion around what it means to be as pretty as a picture and questioning those aesthetics by revealing mistakes and imperfections.
Essay by Olivia Baes
Original images and photography: Ketevan Gvinepadze Mixed media collages: Olivia Baes, Ketevan Gvinepadze