A photographic series by Jon Uriarte looks at gender roles and finds a surprising intimacy.
Spanish photographer Jon Uriarte has been taking a series of photographs of young men dressed in one of their girlfriend’s outfits. Photographic portraits usually try to capture something of the inner life of the subject, the person they are behind their facade. Here, however, the men’s own facade has been replaced with a completely different one. They don’t have the power to control how they present themselves with their clothing, because it’s been replaced with clothes designed to send entirely different signals.
What’s most interesting about these portraits to me is not the vulnerability; that’s to be expected. These men don’t know how to wear this kind of armor. What gets me is the intimacy. These aren’t just any women’s outfits—they belong to women these men love. These are clothes that they know, that they’ve seen and touched and admired, at once familiar and unfamiliar. In a certain sense, we are seeing these men inhabiting their lovers’ identities for a brief span. It’s a beautiful way to look at the way lovers get inside each other. (Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, I meant emotionally.)
Photo—Jon Uriarte: please click here to enjoy the full series.
This is one of the most beautiful series of photograph I have ever seen.