Contemporary photographic portraits of Breton women wearing traditional lace headdresses, by one of Europe’s most exciting young photographers
Charles Fréger has photographed a series of portraits of Breton women wearing costumes and headdresses of endless variety: from high starched towers to elaborately pinned, tucked and embroidered confections of handmade lace, as delicate as they are distinctive.
Costumes and headdresses may indicate a wearer’s village, as well as age or status. They are worn for celebrations of a marriage, birth, or a local saint’s day, or to mark a period of mourning. Young girls, women both married and unmarried, mothers, sisters and grandmothers pose in costume for these wonderful photographic portraits.
Over 50 headdresses are introduced and described in a separate reference section, accompanied by specially commissioned illustrations. Fréger’s exceptional photographs demonstrate a wealth of pride and personal expression that make this book a unique testament to a living tradition.
'The photographic approach is highly imaginative'
Royal Photographic Society Journal
'Here myth and ritual are replaced by tradition and meticulous craft as Freger turns his formalist gaze on the exclusively female traditional costumes of Brittany'
Observer
'Fréger once again finds a set of individuals observing archaic customs in the modern world'
Amateur Photographer
Format: PLC (no jacket)
Size: 22.5 x 19.0 cm
Extent: 264 pp
Publication date: 28 May 2015
ISBN: 9780500517994