And so it began, as many stories do, at the Musée de l'Orangerie. Sarah Moon^{[footnote-link][1]} stood before Monet’s Water Lilies (1914–1926)^{[footnote-link][2]}, absorbed in a haze of colours dissolving into one another like reflections on a pond during a rainy day. At that moment, I imagine the term fragility^{[footnote-link][3]} became central to her practice. My mind traces that word and lingers on impermanence^{[footnote-link][4]} - a feeling that pervades life in a big city, as spring unfurls and fades, or manifests in the mundane act of scraping burnt toast into the bin.

Fragility, with its essence of impermanence, is a fleeting beauty - unresolved, delicate, and tenuous. Photography, at its best, seeks to capture that fragile moment, hovering between presence and absence.

For this project, I wanted to collaborate with photographer Copper Taylor-Bogaars, and so our conversation began. We set out with a shared intention: to create something that embraced the intertwined themes of fragility and impermanence, positioning the feminine not as a singular or reductive idea but as a compass - powerful, vulnerable, and elusive.

At the time, Copper was looking to the work of Paolo Roversi^{[footnote-link][5]}. I imagined Roversi, too, standing at the foot of Monet’s Water Lilies, immersed in their dreamlike quality, emerging with the idea to paint with light - treating it as a brush to layer pigment across the surfaces of his models^{[footnote-link][6]}. Inspired by this, we threaded together our references, using colour and light as both medium and metaphor, aiming to craft a series of images that bled with the ephemeral beauty of the hidden.

We collaborated with make-up artist Justin Henry who created a palette and a notion that unravelled with each look. With every ensemble, Justin painted pigments that blurred the lines defining a face - blurring certainty into something imagined or dreamed^{[footnote-link][7]}.

As the shoot unfolded, Nicola Matear sank deeper into character, teetering on the edge of a surplus of emotions. With the help of a haunting, playful and immersive soundtrack curated by the gifted Pol Andrés Thió, Nicola slipped willingly into the dreamscape, drawing the garments into this imagined world alongside her.

Slotted into Copper’s intimate studio in the Nicholas Building, the energy in the room was brimming. Copper effortlessly directed and captured the scenes as they unfolded. Shooting on large format film, he brought an inimitable refinery and intuition to the process. Coaxing undisguised emotion and transforming people into characters translated seamlessly into the ephemeral and emotive photographs that followed.

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Photography and creative direction Copper Taylor-Bogaars, hair and make-up Justin Henry, talent Nicola Matear, shoot assistant Pol Andrés Thió, bespoke footwear Matea Gluščevic, leather goods Venus Willendorf, hardware Bobby Corica, woven textile Jacqueline Stojanović