Fashion Photography Gallery
Surreal Identities
Surreal Identities: Ten Photographs by Lucia Giacani
by Angela Madesani
My acquaintance with Lucia Giacani began on the occasion of an exhibition I curated, Sguardi di intesa: Fashion Photographed by Women, where I invited her after the catalog's publisher brought her work to my attention. I was immediately captured by the essence, the cleanliness, and the atmosphere that populated her photographs. I promptly chose four images for the exhibition. Then, we met. I was struck by the grace and kindness with which she moved and explained her work, always with self-assurance. I found myself before a determined woman who has built her career and her path step by step—working hard, conducting research, and constantly striving to understand and enter the language she chose to use.
Originally from Jesi in the Marche region, she showed a certain creativity from childhood. She loved to draw, but as often happened in that era—Lucia was born in 1976—her family did not allow her to attend an arts high school. Her father, however, had a great passion for photography and would sometimes set up a small darkroom at home that captured her imagination.
After finishing high school, she enrolled at ISIA in Rome to study Design. She spent five wonderful years in what was essentially a laboratory of ideas. During those years, formative from every point of view, she felt the need to attend a photography course. Day after day, she realized that this was the field in which she wanted to work and express herself. For her graduation, her friends gave her an analog camera, which she still keeps. Her time at ISIA in Rome was a fundamental experience, during which she did an Erasmus program in England, though she eventually returned to the Marche. She managed to work for a fashion photography studio, where she learned to use lighting and flashes. Digital technology was just entering the scene at the time. The clients of the studio were little more than artisanal enterprises, and Lucia wanted to grow. Fashion and research fascinated her more and more. On weekends, she would subject her friends to photo shoots, dressing them in clothes bought at markets, doing their makeup and hair, and then... they would shoot at the sea, in the countryside, or in abandoned farmhouses. She began to build a portfolio.
She bought many magazines, browsed them, studied them, and looked for names in the mastheads to send her materials to. Initially, no one responded, but through sheer persistence, she secured three appointments: Elle, D la Repubblica delle donne, and Kult, an independent magazine. She got the job from the latter, where the art director was Giovanni Aponte. She immediately understood that the fashion photographer plays an important role—they are the director of the entire operation behind documenting a garment or an accessory. They must know how to surround themselves with the right collaborators: models, stylists, hair stylists, and makeup artists. In the beginning, there was much fear, but she learned little by little. She was paired with a talented and generous stylist, Dinalva Barros, who taught her many tricks of the trade, provided the right contacts, and offered advice.
Since her early days, Giacani was told that her work was better suited for the art world than the fashion world. This has become her signature: conducting artistic research through fashion.
"I create worlds deeply linked to my inner self, even if I am inspired by what I see outside. Photography is for me a means of expression." Project planning is a fundamental moment; she often creates sketches and preparatory drawings, where her ISIA training emerges. Nothing is left to chance; her work is constructed and deliberate. "At the time of the shoot, everything is already planned and studied in the smallest detail: the model, the makeup, and the hair are the result of a very specific choice. In each of the protagonists of my images, there is something of me." The moment of the shutter release is relatively short compared to its preparation. The photographer must decide what they want to communicate with the brand they are shooting, and they must do so through all the tools at their disposal; only then is it possible to engage the viewer.
After her first editorial for Kult, she moved to Milan, where Dinalva found her a room for rent. Every job was a challenge; she had to manage on her own, finding the right locations at low cost and building the sets herself.
It was the early 2000s. Her dream was to reach Vogue Italia, directed by Franca Sozzani. During that period, she produced many editorials to build a portfolio. After all, the most important part of her work is the personal research that becomes part of her commercial assignments. After several attempts, she secured an appointment with Elisabetta Barracchia, editor-in-chief of Vogue Accessory, which was also under Sozzani's direction. The meeting went well, and from that moment, an intense collaboration with the magazine began. "At that time, I was the only one doing 'worn' accessories; others did mostly Still Life. My dream was to land the cover. I still remember when Elisabetta Barracchia called to tell me that the cover I had proposed with the princess on the mattresses had been accepted by Sozzani: 'Congratulations, you will be the first to sign a "monocover" for Vogue Accessory!' It was 2011. I was 35 years old and in seventh heaven!"
When speaking to an artist, it is instinctive to ask who their models and points of reference are. Lucia's response is immediate: Francesca Woodman, Mario Giacomelli, Tim Walker, Guy Bourdin, Steven Klein, Miles Aldridge. The photos chosen for the Aosta exhibition came from an editorial produced for L'Officiel Baltics. The colors and models are cool, with unique hairstyles and makeup. The light is extraordinary. They are artworks in their own right, certainly not simple editorial photos.
For the exhibition accompanied by this small book, we chose ten photographs. Faced with the portfolio of a photographer of her caliber, choosing only ten images is difficult. But we made a virtue of necessity. Every image has a story; hers is a narrative photography full of echoes, metaphors, and references to both contemporary times and other historical periods.
Killing Time (2011), published on the Vogue Italia website, features an acid blue background. Telephones pop out from everywhere; a girl kills time by making calls. Is she calling herself? Or no one? There are still receivers that almost no longer exist. The colors are unreal for a home, recalling the visual imagery of Aldridge. They lead us to a metaphysical dimension of another historical time. The photographer constructs everything as if it were a reality coming not from the outside, but from within. The model has an almost bored, somewhat abandoned, and absent attitude. It is an image from nearly fifteen years ago, yet it is more relevant than ever.
Skeletons in the closet (2007), published in Kult, belongs to the second editorial she produced after moving to Milan. The girl, very elegant with a style reminiscent of the 1950s, is resting in an armchair, wearing a sleep mask. In her hand, she holds eyes, like a modern Saint Lucy. Giuseppe Cavalli, a master to Giacomelli who lived in Senigallia for much of his life, had produced a photo in the 1940s of a doll with empty eye sockets, her eyes placed beside her. Title: Bambola cieca (Blind Doll). The reference was certainly to the blindness of humanity during World War II. Perhaps Lucia is unaware of that image, but there is an unconscious metabolization of it.
The title of the series refers to the world of appearances during that decade. Many lives were a facade—somewhat fake and hypocritical. In those environments populated by men in ties and tailored suits and by elegant women, family tragedies were sometimes hidden. But everything had to be kept concealed. Other shots from the editorial are equally unsettling. In one, the woman holds a leash tied to the skeleton of a dog. The mirror she pulls from her bag to touch up her makeup is the gleaming blade of a knife.
In Under my skin (2013), also published on the Vogue Italia website, we see a model in profile. Beside her are veterinary myology models: a cat, a sheep, a rabbit. What is under our skin? She is always interested in the interior. The image was shot in the operating room of the old Veterinary Faculty in Milan, in Città Studi. Those models were used to study musculature. The model is made up to look like one of them; her profile is accentuated by a red mark, and her eye is circled in white. Even the chosen outfits somehow recall anatomical parts. The bun on her head looks like a handful of ground meat. The skill of the photographer is to be supported by the right people: hair stylists, beauticians, models—everything must be perfectly planned and studied.
The protagonist of Marionette (2022), published in Prestige Magazine, looks like Lucia Mondella from The Betrothed. The world of puppets and mannequins particularly fascinates Giacani, who is passionate about Pirandello, his theater, and his characters. Here, it is a work on identity and change. Often, and today more than ever, we believe we are free when in reality we are puppets manipulated by strings. The model, with old-fashioned makeup, looks like a plaster doll among marionettes. We are at the Museo Colla in Milan.
For some photos, the artist chose to collaborate with a sculptor, Lorenzo Possenti, who created large black insects. The aspect of collaborating with other artists who express themselves through different languages is particularly important to Lucia. In Il Bestiaire D’Amor: Gynes, series I (2020), published in NEO2, an enormous beetle of Kafkaesque memory covers much of the naked body of the pale-skinned model. It is a beauty and makeup story composed of four shots. In all of them, the insect engulfs and kidnaps her. Possenti crafted it in an unnatural vertical position, a rebel against nature. It is no coincidence that Giacani chose a model with red hair—a color of rebellion—for a story of this kind.
Possenti also created the octopus that covers the model in Il Bestiaire D’Amor: Cefalopodi (2025). The relationship between the animal world—insects, marine creatures—and the human figure is highlighted. Is there a solution? Is there an answer? It would seem not, given the current conditions of the world.
Also from this year is Hi Tech Amarcord (2025), published in The Collector. The model is elegant, appearing as a bon-ton lady of another era. Bees are applied to her dress. There is a dissonance, even in the title: high technology and Romagnolo dialect. The model's hairstyle reminds me of certain characters from Federico Fellini’s Casanova. It is a perfectly constructed divertissement.
The Gilded Cage (2023), published in The Collector, is set in a particular location, the junk shop Il Poeta near Erba. The girls, dressed in Chanel, have tea amidst the objects displayed on the sidewalk in front of the shop. They too seem part of that extravagant ensemble, frozen like two mannequins. One with a dark look, the other dressed in a delicate pink. Giacani is fascinated by seriality. Having tea is certainly not strange, but having forty-five cups and six teapots perhaps is. Everything is estranging. They are like recluses in the den of a serial hoarder—slaves to objects.
The protagonist of Intercellular (2021), published in The Collector, is also naked. On her white flesh are anatomical prints referring to cells. Here, too, is the desire to discover what is under the skin. Lucia seeks, ironically, to play with the relationship between inside and outside, with the unconscious and the conscious.
Your Highness (2021) is a play on words. The model is so tall she has to bend. Her hairstyle recalls the 18th-century style of French court ladies. Could it be a reference to the "poor" Marie Antoinette, guillotined by revolutionaries? The girl is serious, dignified, and in some ways cold.
Ultimately, all of her women are strong and aware, conscious of what is happening around them; and when they are not, it is only a playful yet dramatic appearance, as in Skeletons in the closet.
- The exhibition was held in 2024 at the Centro Saint Benin in Aosta; the catalog was published by Nomos Edizioni.
- She also realized the work for Secoli with Dinalva Barros.
- L. Giacani in conversation with the author, June 2025.
- Ibid.
- Franca Sozzani passed away in 2016. For two years, before its definitive closure, the magazine was directed by Emanuele Farneti.
- Hair by Giovanni Iovino, and makeup by Simone Gammino.
Surreal Identities Istituto Secoli, Milan 2025.