Breathing Mannequins

Humans are the only animals in the world to wear clothing. It is something that came as a result of our increasing ability to build and make things with our hands and helped us withstand cold and inclement weather and thus conquer the world. Over tens of thousands of year clothing became more than practical, it became symbolic of class, job, status, taste, tribe and so on. In other words clothing became fashion. Today it is a multi-billion pound industry and one of the fastest changing markets which makes fashion not only a signifier of station or taste but also of the zeitgeist of any particular time. Fashion worn by subjects in a photograph is one of the surest ways to date a photograph and it is markers like that that make the photograph such an important document.