What Happens When You Let a Nine-Year-Old Style a Fashion Shoot

Photographer Imogen Freeland handed the reins over to her nine-year-old niece, Maude, for a lockdown photo project.

August 3, 2020, 8:00am

A few weeks into lockdown, VICE UK put a call out to some of our favourite photographers. We wanted submissions for photo essays that reflect the time we're living in – but interesting, imaginative projects, not just "I'm stuck inside, here are some pictures of my cheese-plant".

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Luckily, because the photographers we reached out to are all interesting and imaginative people, we got a ton of great ideas back, which we've whittled down to ten final projects. We're running one every week for ten weeks, to be followed by an exhibition you can stage in your very own home (details on that to come).

The seventh project, “Maude styled by Maude”, is by Imogen Freeland, who has kindly explained it for you below.

Maude styled by Maude is a collaboration between myself and my nine-year-old niece Maude, made during lockdown at her grandparents’ house. The idea for the series was that she could style herself for the photographs using clothing and objects that we found around her grandparents’ home, such as her grandmother's wedding dress or some Christmas decorations we dug out from their cellar.The series was influenced by the restrictions of lockdown, and every shoot dictated by its limitations. We were confined to either the house, garden or an office down the road that had been emptied, following government regulations.For each image, Maude experiments with a different persona, resulting in a series of images that present the limitless possibilities of fashion within the imagination of a child.