A breeze came up from the water and she bristled, reaching for her shirt. No one had remarked on her less-than-seductive full-coverage underwire bra. Not the production assistants from the Upper East Side. Not even Marc, who ribbed her about everything. Still, she’d been self-conscious in the water with the group. She was self-conscious now. Part of it, she thought, was being Black. The way she stood out physically from the others. Her darker skin, her curvier shape. She’d always been aware of that difference. As a teenager trying on clothes in the shared dressing room at the Loehmann’s in White Plains in a sea of suburban Westchester moms. Or at her predominantly white sleepaway camp in upstate New York, changing discreetly into her one-piece in her cabin among a swarm of blonds from Long Island and New Jersey, equipped with feathered Sun In’ed hair and pink areolae. She felt like an anomaly.
If she thought about it, and she did, she hadn’t been exposed to many naked Black bodies growing up. Her mother, her cousins, Andrew, up to a certain age. But she didn’t see them often in art, or in fashion, or in magazines, other thanNational Geographic, which arrived monthly at the Chens’ doorstep. And where the brown and Black bodies were often unclothed. With tribal piercings and markings, and breasts that had clearly never been acquainted with bras, Victoria’s Secret or otherwise. Cecilia hatedNational Geographicfor that reason. Because while it exoticized and fetishized persons of color, its subjects of European descent always managed to be covered. And yet each month, as much as she loathed it, she felt compelled to look. It was equal parts titillating and torture.
“I love your hair like this. You should wear it down more often,” Anouk said, sitting up beside Cecilia, watching as she twisted her unruly curls into a knot.
“It’s a lot. Especially when I’m working.”
“I love that it’s so dark and silky. I have cousins with hair like this. So pretty.” She reached out then, her fingers entwining with a lock of Cecilia’s curls. Delicately, but resolutely, she undid the knot. “You’re not working. Leave it down.”
Cecilia stiffened. What was it about this girl?
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Anouk asked.
“Um, yes.”
“He must love it.”
“Ha.” Cecilia laughed, unsettled. “He’s a little over me right now. We’re kind of fighting.…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Boyfriends can be difficult.”
“Mine was…pffft… the worst. He broke me two years ago.”
“Broke your heart?”
“My heart, my head, my soul, everything. But it’s okay, he’ll pay for it. I can hold a grudge for a really long time.” Anouk smiled and Cecilia smiled with her.
“Remind me not to betray you.”
Anouk reached across the sand then and grabbed her shirt. She buttoned it, slowly.
When she was done, the model turned back toward Cecilia, who was still watching her.
“Don’t betray me,” she said.
XIX.L’AMOUR EST LE MIEL.
LOS ANGELES.
MAY. 2015.
I shoot Anouk in her pool house.
On a day when her husband is off doing a triathlon in Japan. Or is it Cape Town? Someplace distant, where it’s unlikely he will show up unannounced to swim for however long it takes to swim two-point-four miles. Likewise, I’ve dispensed with the help of an assistant and hair and makeup artist. Because I want this experience to be intimate. I want the portraiture accompanying my project—tentatively titledOn Beauty—to be raw and real. And so I need Anouk to be as comfortable and accessible as possible. I need her to feel safe.
The minimalist pool house provides the perfect backdrop. A sleek structure of travertine and retractable walls of glass yielding an endless supply of Southern California light.
The setting and my subject do not disappoint. The background blown out. Anouk’s face nearly naked, serene. Her features sometimes softened, sometimes sharp. A taupe silk camisole and linen pants the perfect complement to her latte skin.
She is generous before the lens, unguarded. She doesn’t pose so much as she unfolds. She opens up and lets me in. All the myriad sides of her laid bare. Her strength, her fragility, her confidence, her power. This is what she does best. She laughs, she emotes, she flirts.
She flirts.
Her beauty is reckless. Compelling. The way she stares down the barrel of my lens, a dare. And so, late in the day, when the sun has dipped, casting shadows over the travertine, and I ask her if she’d be comfortable shooting a few nudes, I already know how she’ll answer.
I shoot her elongated on the chaise. Her face angled toward the amber light, her body coiled, enveloped in shadow. Her legs entwined, one arm crossed over her rib cage, the other supporting her head. She has that thing seasoned models have, the ability to contort herself, pretzel-like, to show off every line, every plane, every curve, and yet look completely natural doing so.
