Blood & Guts

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Blood & Guts †༙

Commentary by stylist and media assistant, Amber Lomax

When we adorn ourselves, soak ourselves in lifeblood, we embrace our inner wrath. We lose the faux poise instilled in us and submit to the destruction our human hearts desire.

Carrie White has haunted this shoot since its conception. As has her righteous fury as she is drowned in pig’s blood on prom night. Her baby pink dress and her strawberry-blonde hair, both drenched in the harsh crimson of blood. Or Snow White, her ruby red lips shining against her porcelain skin, just as blood strikes against the white of snow.

We see this horrific juxtaposition in the teenage girl who eats the hearts of boys in her white homecoming dress, in the blood-spattered bride who saw to her husband’s death on their wedding night. In a white bandage on an open wound, in a lipstick stain on a crisp, ironed collar.

The shoot called for the vulnerability of white, lace sleepwear to be stained and ruined by the guts of bloodied-fruits, to mar purity of the dressing. From A Star is Worn’s endless collection of cultivated, vintage wardrobes, we found the characters come to life. The wide-eyed, red-haired Carrie White, her youthful blush an homage to our dear Carrie’s prom dress. The refined and regal Evil Queen presents her poisoned apple to our audiences.

White will be tainted and forever transformed by red, just as red will envelope and lay waste to white. If staining our souls in facets of red is to be human, then to have hands reflect the corruption is to showcase the visceral carnality of our minds. Better yet, the juxtaposition of the purity of white, to the carnality of red is the story of mankind, a perpetual cycle of life and death, blood and guts.