LIFTING THE VEIL

Fashion without faces

Made during a visit to Jeddah to exhibit Harrodsburg, Lifting the Veil looks at the strange world of Saudi shopping-mall advertising at the time. Women’s faces are erased, bodies disappear and headless mannequins model the latest clothes. The photographs examine how international brands adapted their displays to religious restrictions, and the contradictions left in the shop windows.

Shop-window mannequins stand beneath fashion photographs with the models’ faces blurred.
Lingerie mannequins stand in a display with a fashion photograph and flower-covered furniture.
A fashion advertisement shows a blonde model with her face obscured by large pixels.
Clothing rails beneath Marks and Spencer fashion posters with obscured faces.
A digital fashion display with a blurred face stands beside a Zara checkout.
Framed photographs of male models hang above polo shirts, shoes and accessories in a shop.
Pixelated faces in framed fashion photographs above a clothing display.
A clothing display beneath an almost bare white wall, with bags and folded garments on a shelf.
Sale posters feature adults and children with their faces obscured.
A shop-door sign reads Ladies Only in English and Arabic.
Headless mannequins display dresses against a gold shop-window backdrop.
A pink lingerie shop displays a Families Only sign above its entrance.
Lingerie mannequins behind glass beside an Arabic sign.
Headless mannequins in pink and purple sleepwear stand in a shop window.
A lowered shop-window blind conceals mannequins’ upper bodies while leaving their legs visible.
Fashion posters cover a shop entrance marked Family Only.
Headless mannequins display clothes and bags at a Paris Hilton shop entrance.
A pink nightdress mannequin stands beside a lingerie poster with both models’ faces blurred.
Close-up of a fashion poster with a model’s face obscured by square pixels.
Sleepwear mannequins and bedding fill a shop window with pink price labels.
Two fashion portraits flank a Step Up Your Spring advertisement.
A glass shop door reads Families Only in English and Arabic above a chequered floor.
A cot display beneath advertisements showing men with baby equipment.
A family picnic photograph forms part of a bilingual shop advertisement.
Headless mannequins wear nightwear printed with cartoon princesses.
A large girls’ fashion photograph has its model’s face blurred above clothing racks.
Bilingual signs mark a Bachelor section inside an IKEA dining area.
Sofas sit beneath a large advertisement showing two men in a living room.
Headless mannequins stand beneath a group fashion photograph with the women’s faces blurred.
A Victoria’s Secret shop entrance with illuminated signs and colourful displays.
A headless mannequin in a floral dress stands above clothing racks with a yellow handbag.
A curved display wall holds handbags in individual illuminated niches.
A window display of handbags sits beside a large advertisement showing a red outfit without a visible face.
A headless mannequin wears a white dress with ornate jewelled shoulders.
Three headless mannequins display formal outfits in an Emporio Armani window.
Two headless mannequins display long yellow and silver dresses in a gold-backed window.
Two headless mannequins wear a blue jacket and a red patterned top behind a shop window.
Two framed fashion portraits show a model with a dark bob and pixelated face.
A scarf display surrounds a photograph of a woman whose face has been pixelated.
A dress mannequin stands beside a Vigoss fashion advertisement and a handwritten sign.
A fashion poster shows a male model beside a female model whose face is obscured.
A fashion poster shows two women wearing sunglasses and pale skirts.
A tabletop advert for The Jegging shows a model with her face blurred.
Three headless mannequins wear ornate evening gowns in front of shelves of fabric.
A dress mannequin stands in front of an Opening Soon sign decorated with football-club crests.
A headless mannequin in a dark fitted dress stands in an ornately patterned shop window.
A scarf drapes over a mannequin in a shop window with intricate purple patterns.
A headless mannequin with gold hands wears a dark embellished robe behind glass.
A woman in a black head covering holds up a mobile phone beside a white car.

LIFTING THE VEIL

Fashion without faces

There is something surreal about visiting a shopping mall in which the women on advertising hoardings and posters have had their faces, hands and feet digitally removed. Lifting the Veil records that world as I encountered it during a visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The journey followed the publication of Harrodsburg, my photographs of wealth and consumption on the streets of Knightsbridge. In an unexpected twist, Princess Reem al Faisal invited me to exhibit the work in Jeddah. Away from the exhibition, the city’s shopping malls became the subject of another project.

At the time, the malls occupied a central place in the city’s leisure life. International retailers filled their windows with familiar clothes and unfamiliar images. The products were recognisable, but the people selling them had been altered or removed. Faces dissolved into pixels. Models became ghostly shapes. Male and female mannequins stood without heads.

The displays showed Western brands adapting their advertising to the religious restrictions operating there. In Marks & Spencer, women’s faces were erased. In Zara, bodies became apparitions. Elsewhere, the female figure disappeared entirely from campaigns selling clothes to women. The photographs look at what remained after those decisions had been made.

The contradictions were hard to miss. Headless mannequins could wear revealing lingerie, while a woman’s face in a poster was obscured. Clothes designed to attract attention sat beside images designed to prevent it. The body was present as a product, but the person had been taken out of the picture.

I worked with a small, fast, discreet camera, concentrating on the displays and empty shops. Even then, I expected a tap on the shoulder and a request to explain why I was photographing women’s underwear. My planned explanation was that I was a fashion blogger interested in the clothes. I was not convinced it would stand up to much questioning.

The project asks what happens when a multinational brand changes its presentation of women to suit the market. The same companies that sell visibility and self-expression in one place were selling clothes through erasure in another. These shop windows made that bargain visible.

The photographs belong to the particular moment in which they were made. They record the uneasy meeting of commerce, religious authority and the female image, through the everyday business of selling something.