Poisonous Women

Concept by Helen America

Styling & Screenplay by Sasha Freda

 Note from the Editor

From Helen America

When we were initially brainstorming the Green issue, an interesting fact about costume design in film kept coming to my mind: that outfitting a woman in green makes an audience uncomfortable. I thought about the links between villainesses in green and how they might relate to my beloved Seductresses, but finally settled on the idea to feature women of history whose legacies have been endlessly poured over and debated, for whom the true reality of their lives will probably always remain a mystery. Of course, this is still a long list of women - arguably, every prominent woman of history - but we finally settled on a group of five iconic women who elicit strong reactions based on their names alone. Hopefully this shoot makes you smile and prompt you to delve deeper into the world of each woman, or perhaps other women who you think could have easily made the cut (please let us know your thoughts!). I’ve included my own reading suggestions to kickstart your research! 

We have made this shoot shoppable - so that you may always be able to have a dose of poison to keep in your home… 

THE SCENE

About the Artist:

Los Angeles based photographer S. Elle Quintana grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, finding inspiration in the romance of driving through Laurel Canyon to LA institution Book Soup. It’s there that she would find the hallucinogen inspired writings of Aldous Huxley and the foundational philosophies of Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Those early readings have served as the basis of her investigation to create and images that seem fully possible and also impossible, a dream or reality.  The camera is the perfect vehicle to create her Utopia: a world of valley girl dreams.

Follow her on IG: @selle_quintana

Visit her website: http://www.sellequintana.com/

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—KLEAN Editors