ROPES

Costume design and makeup for editorial photoshoot directed by Morgan Lee. ROPES is an editorial narrative photoshoot interrogating womanhood under the patriarchy — the woman as cog, doll, mannequin, object, animal, test subject. Shot through a lens of high-glam magazine gloss , the series follows its subjects as they are handled, posed, dressed, and documented until they break. As costume designer, I built a wardrobe that transformed femininity's ornaments into its restraints. I constructed jewelry from doll accessories and Barbie shoes, recontextualizing symbols of girlhood/childhood play as symbols of objectification and commodification. I designed and made a corset entirely from duct tape and repurposed handcuffs as bracelets, literalizing the shoot's undercurrent of ownership. On another model, I deliberately overused ribbon to the point of gross excess to create a visual link between ballerina ribbons (an ornament associated with femininity) and the physical binding and constraints of femininity and beauty. Giant, hand-painted paper doll accessories styled on another model pushed the "doll" concept into human scale.