For Vogue Paris’ April 2008 issue, Hedi Slimane photographs Sasha Pivovarova, who he later casted & photographed 5 years later for his Saint Laurent Resort 2014 collection. At the time of this vogue release, Slimane had been away from the Dior house for around 9 months, at this point focusing primarily on photography, presumably as he is now post Celine.

Here Slimane photographs Pivovarova to produce what is surely the most beautiful black & white studio portraiture I’ve ever seen. I believe I came across the 10th image in this editorial a few years back, and straight away i was immersed, hunting this issue down for at least a year before being able to purchase it. Up until that point in time I hadn’t come across a black & white portraite which conveyed as much emotion as this one did, and still to this day I can’t say I’ve found something that could even hold a candle to it in that field. Within these images Pivovarova stands statue esque, as the light hits the left side of her face almost hiding its other half, and as it does, she looks at the camera with the stare of a sniper. I remember thinking how is it possible that she looks naive yet so very redoubtable, so formidable at the same time?