Fake Fashion, 1984–85
The women in Fake Fashion, 1984–85, speak to a trend in advertising that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which commercial photographers such as Richard Avedon, in the United States, and Helmut Newton, in Europe, more blatantly mixed sex with fashion in the pages of magazines like Vogue. This new commercial endeavor played up male fantasy in advertisements selling apparel to women. Simmons’s series offers critique of this idea: Does the sexualized representation appeal to women? Is this a female ambition? Though Simmons’s women in Fake Fashion are not overly eroticized, they address cinematic archetypes, especially as they are set against rear-screen projections and are stylized and flawless. Their poses are mannequin-esque, always averting their gazes; they are to be looked at as the objects of male desire, or someone’s desire.