The Art of Using Food as Props in Fashion Photography, Presented by Xiaohan Lu
The emergence of mainstream social media gave rise to the internet celebrity economy, led by a group of influencers that present an opulent lifestyle in their profiles. Despite their luxurious image that seemingly indicates an entitlement to live lavishly, Xiaohan Lu has noticed that many of these displays are not a reflection of their true selves in real life.
As a professional photographer, Lu’s inspiration is rooted in her observation of life. Working with a large number of models and influencers made Lu realize not everyone appears as glamorous in reality as they do in their social media profiles, which led to the development of the concept of Premiere Mediocre.
“Premiere Mediocre is a term I learned from a book. It refers to the marketing strategy of creating the illusion that consumers live luxurious lives,” Lu explained, “I used the language of fashion photography to explore how young people consume luxury goods, particularly how they use these acquisitions to cultivate their online personas.”
In a recent exhibition, Lu created a scenario in which the girl in the blue background looks to her left to see what the other girls were doing as a reflection of people in real life trying to observe themselves on social media. According to Lu, the “premiere” sector could be achieved through proper makeup and luxury outfits. But how to find something that’s of moderate or average quality to visualize “mediocre” remained a challenge.
Rather than incorporating plain elements into her scenes, Lu decided to use food as props for shooting because she believed that the consumption of daily food items such as sandwiches or sausages was a necessary aspect in most people’s lives, and their use was a perfect demonstration of “mediocre” as being “neither good nor bad.”
The models were all dressed up with either designer bags or shopping bags around but were having food at the most conspicuous places in their poses. In addition to sausages, Lu also took advantage of other commonly seen objects such as shrimp shells, lollipops and popcorn to achieve the collision of “premiere” and “mediocre”.
“I shot the models against backgrounds of lurid pinks, purples, greens and blues to create a popping effect,” Lu added, “The three models I chose were all influencers on RED and were friends of mine in real life. My background color selections were based on their content style and personal preference.”
Lu utilized humor and hyperbole as tools to satirize the aspirations of ordinary individuals and their tendency to present a falsely glamorous narrative about their lives on social media, as highlighted by the term “premium mediocre”. Ultimately, Lu’s aim is to prompt viewers to contemplate the disparity between people’s actual, unremarkable daily lives and the polished, idealized versions they present to society.
