matching milano

Medium + Process: iPhone photography, inDesign

“Matching Milano: Fashion in the World’s Most Fashionable City,” shines in its irony. In a city where fashion rules, its citizens are still dressing as echoes of each other. So in the birthplace of Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and countless other industry giants, why are are we all dressing the same?  We can point fingers to fast fashion, mass production, or a pervasive internet addiction. But maybe it’s something deeper: there’s something innate in us that wants to belong in a city that so often feels bigger than ourselves. Maybe being part of something is one of the most important ways of separating ourselves from the masses.

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Using the ubiquitous smartphone camera, always in my pocket, I was able to capture phenomenon quickly and discreetly. Therefore, over the three years I pursued this project, I was able to amass an astounding number of matching sets. Inspired by Sean Baker's 2015 film 'Tangerine,' shot completely on iPhone 5s, I became transfixed by the narrative capacity of the iPhone camera.

This was an ongoing work that I completed while I was living in Milan on a student visa. I was fascinated by this phenomenon and collected photos of it from 2020-2023. The result is a self-published book that encapsulates this period.