Three months ago, we noticed a pattern: In fashion and in marketing, everything had become saturated. Colors like candy, photos like polaroids, and text like closed captions—all challenging the realism associated with photography. In an industry so concerned with luxury and self-image, we found fashion’s heightened playfulness and retrospection a welcome, if unlikely, juxtaposition. We wanted in.
We searched for the weird, wacky, wonderful, and a word to capture it all. We settled on surreality—a feeling of the bizarre that could be achieved by tweaking our “normal” conceptions of reality. Just a bit.
We wanted the issue to be a reading experience and a platform that promoted the clothing, businesses, art, and attitudes that we not only admire but also hope to emulate. This meant collaborating with D.C.-based businesses whose ethoses inspire us. We are lucky enough to feature three of them: LiLi The First, a local boutique with a curated collection of socially-aware and exciting brands; Maven Women, a sustainable company designed by women, for women; and Laiik, creators of handmade sandals with roots in both Greece and Georgetown.
For our cover shoot, student artists designed wearable art inspired by surrealism, and for our written content, Voice staffers considered the complexities of fashion, from virtual reality (page 5) to the ethereal absurdism of fashion brand Rodarte (page 13).
The colossal “Down the Rabbit Hole” (pages 7-12) is the most ambitious Voice photo production to date. We worked with 11 models, 12 balloons, two animal masks, and broke two cellphones in a month and half of photoshoots. We captured thousands of images and hours of video. Only a handful fill these pages but, as always, there are more goodies online at www.georgetownvoice.com.
And now, we must part ways. As seniors, this is our last year producing the Voice fashion issue, although we will continue our ongoing project of exploring the culture and politics of fashion in our Voice-afterlives.
So, please, fall with us down this rabbit hole. Let’s get lost together.
Cheers,
Emma Francois and Isabel Lord
Fashion Issue Producers
