As we grow older our connections grow with us, and we are today proud to present Cate Underwood‘s second story for Ben Trovato, and all in all her fourth feature after we first mentioned her on Ben Trovato back in mid-2009. It’s been a long eventful ride and her development as an artist has been a true joy to witness and promote.
In her latest story for us Cate wanted to explore new territory, that of feminine, classic pictures you would find in old fashion magazines. “It was about taking these clichés and that look familiar styles and putting them in a slightly odd scenario. It wasn’t about irony rather than making the whole notion of clean feminine aesthetics a bit subversive. We liked that play on soft versus hardcore, lady-like versus punk.”
“It was like Lana del Rey meeting old-school David Bowie.”
They have mixed three scenarios into a continuous story that plays with repetitiveness and self-quoting. “We thought of something very classic, very naive, sort of Burda Moden editorials back in the 70s, and then having something less linear, less ‘elegant’ imagery with outdoor shots that looked a bit apocalyptic and nocturnal. Then we wanted some very natural shots that were inspired by the 90s high fashion pictures by Bruce Weber, those beautiful supermodels with wild undone hair and sexy gaze. So it was pretty much about mixing everything we like — minimal 90s vibe, awkward posing and plain monochrome studio shots.”
Playing the three characters with perfect was model Appoline Rozhdestvenska, who actually got the Ben Trovato team discussing if it was indeed the same girl throughout the story. “We found that interesting -exploring different sides of the same person,” Cate tells us, adding: “The girl we worked with we thought was absolutely amazing, she’s a rising star of IMG worldwide. She has a rare combination of extreme professionalism, intelligence and natural beauty. And obviously she has one of the most intriguing faces we’ve come across.”
Having worked with the whole team before, Cate says it’s a good mix of highly passionate and talented creatives pulling in the same direction.
All the clothing is by emerging Ukranian-based label LITKOVSKAYA , designed by Lilya Litkovskaya, a good friend of Cate. “We selected key pieces from the label’s upcoming Fall-Winter collection, and we are very happy that the label is making its debut in Europe this season. So we hope the images will do justice to the collection which drew inspiration from works of the early 20th Century Russian avant-garde artists but was produced in quite a minimal austere aesthetics that wasn’t very referential in its core.”
“We wanted to create a portfolio of images that don’t quite fall into one single category, mixing different scenarios and, therefore, having different styling that would put the collection in a new perspective, taking it from its runway reality and making it work in a new way,” stylist Venya Brykalin tells us. “We wanted to investigate this feminine idea about the collection but to keep it a bit ‘punk’, organizing and styling the outfits in a slightly odd way (full-on silver look that looked absolutely insane, for example). So it was about having a certain narrative within the images, a bit of David Bowie androgynous tomboy playing classic Richard Avedon glamorous dress-up. We felt it could be interesting for both our beautiful model Appoline to showcase her potential and for the clothes to work in a new way.”
Credits
Photography by Cate Underwood
Modelling by Appoline Rozhdestvenska @ Linea12, IMG Worldwide, Iconic Management Germany
Styling by Venya Brykalin
Hair by Linda Poluetkova
Makeup by Helen Khodos
Retouching by Igor Primak
All fashion provided by LITKOVSKAYA
