Maquiliage represents photographer Deborah Turbeville’s vision of an ideal fashion magazine. Miss Turbeville, whose work has appeared widely in the more established representatives of the genre, sets curious and rather private goals for her magazine. She depicts a world that, if not fallen, is precariously poised; it is certainly not fashionable. Rather than gleaming photographs of glamorous, coltish women, accompanied by ebullient text, the magazine presents purposely scarred and distorted pictures of what seem to be female melancholics, accompanied by handwritten shards of suitably vaporous prose. This “copy” that Turbeville has affixed to her pictures are portions of letters she has received from models with whom she has worked. Through all of the quirky text, distorted images and layout, the grace and strength of her photographs endure, as will, one trusts, their inhabitants.

F.H.

 

undefined