Phreshly Squeezed

Calfnet cape (veal)

Several months ago, I came across this interesting link about chef Roland Trettl’s 2008 collaboration, titled Fashion Food, with photographer Helge Kirchberger. However, the article’s focus wasn’t on the book itself, but rather, on the new photographs of a similar theme taken for the current exhibition at the Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin, which runs until 29 January.

While the concept of fashion and food working together isn’t particularly new, the photographs here illustrate a sort of haute and genuine character. Where we’ve often seen food and fashion work on equal levels, in terms of what is on display and is the main attraction, food plays a much different role in this instance. In many of the photographs, it seems as though food becomes a textile in itself, and therefore subservient to fashion. I make this assertion because of some of the subtle and inconclusive textiles in play – is it really food? Or is it simply like food, but still an actual fabric? These questions don’t arise in other photograph sets that meld fashion and food together.

Why are we so fascinated with food and fashion, though? Perhaps we can relegate it to the Norman Lear Center’s deputy director Johanna Blakely’s blog entry on the lack of copyright in both areas. Although our definition of “copyright” can often be seen as applicable in cases of creation, we see that it refuses to apply itself in both of these cases on account that they are considered “utilitarian” and not “creative.” Do these photographs not demonstrate that it is possible for both to transcend their utilitarian qualities in the most abstract of ways? I would like to think so, though I then come across the complication of fashion and food intersecting photography, which in its own right is copyrighted (because it is considered “creative”). In effect, can we only find copyright to be a possibility when it is “fastened down” in time?

Chocolate Fountaine and Merluza (top: hake skin; scarf: wakame algae; earring: calamari head)

Dos (cloaks: seppia pasta dough; neckband: jackfruit peel) and Transformacion (cloak: sepia skin; necklace: char skin; top: black pasta dough)

Love Pearls

Miss Saigon

Sep Mermaid (suit: nori alage; belt & bracelet: char skin; earring: aubergine; scarf: 'sea spaghetti' algae) and Nori Woman Calm (suit: nori leaves; scarf: octopus; earring: red mullet)

Images courtesy of Fine Dining Lovers

Related posts:

1. Fashion and Food? Never!
2. Exhibitionary Order in Fashion Photography