FAJO Photoshoot: Glitter Bomb

December 19, 2017

It’s the holiday season, and this year we have a stunning festive editorial that was exclusively shot and submitted to us by a creative team in New York City.

Glitter Bomb celebrates all the glitz and glamour of this time of the year, but it also touches on important happenings around the world. Here is what photographer Adrianna Favero told us about the inspirations behind this photoshoot.

“Other than the fact that it somehow manages to get absolutely everywhere, you can’t be angry about glitter or sparkles. February in New York can be bleak. When New York Fashion Week rolled around, bringing with it a parade of beautiful collections, many heavily featuring all manner of sparkles—I couldn’t help myself. I was inspired to create a sexy shoot with the kind of frivolous 70s excesses that could provide a valuable and much-needed distraction from real life.

Glitter Bomb photoshoot graces the cover of The Holiday Issue this year. Dress: Christian Siriano, rings: Laruicci.

“This editorial was shot before the Weinstein story broke, before #metoo, before the parade of firings of predatory men in positions of cultural power and prestige; before the conversation had really surfaced about the ubiquity of sexual harassment, its effect on women, and its effect (and that of the male gaze) on media as a social and political tool. We shot this before women across United States started sharing stories of their paths to womanhood (often involving the reclaiming of one’s power when the world takes our girlhood) and how female sexuality can exist as something apart from men, something that belongs uniquely to each individual woman and is not a performance for all men.

“However, while we were all on set, surrounded by rolls of gold Mylar and with Paula in full hair and makeup, the team and I found ourselves affected by the infectious joy of the sensuality of the garments. We were playing an elaborate game of dress-up. The same childlike joy was there, marveling at the clothes themselves, but it wasn’t just about wearing pretty things. The joy and fascination came from embracing the power and layers of cultural meaning that they communicated and in our ability to create beautiful images from the individual raw materials.

“From the Scarface-esque silver slip dress, to the couture Morticia Adams scarlet gown, to the sheer shimmery dancing queen dress with the pink sequined hot pants—we were reminded of women who were not only confident in their sexuality, but almost luxuriant in it. And throughout the shoot, Paula was sexy, and challenging, and cheeky, and happy, and it was somehow all for her. In that moment, it was exactly what I had wanted to create: a shoot where a woman was depicted as an entire person somehow free from the realities of the news cycle that have been getting us all down, and yet still relevant for where we are. I made the escapist fluff that still provides a way to combat the policing that many of us still feel even in this moment of reckoning; by being our unapologetic selves and not letting anyone take our power or our joy from us.”