Louisiana swamps are lush, rich, gelatinously muddy. They digest things that are already dead and wake those that haven’t yet lived. Tossed into the wet, a fallen leaf becomes mulch while a rice seed becomes a thin green stalk. Swamps set life up and break it down.
Claimed from the wetlands, New Orleans exists in a constant state of decay and rebirth — an ontological limbo that has galvanized creatives, especially in recent years. Designers, developers, entrepreneurs and bon vivants are drawn to its mystery and potential. Increasingly, so are seasoned veterans of the fashion industry.
Photographer Elizabeth Perrin is among New Orleans’ native daughters. Photography is her medium; submerged emotion her message. Jewelry designer Kate McNee sources nutria bones from marshes and bayous, bringing an afterlife of sorts to the swamp rat. Clothing designer Elizabeth Shannon’s garments are supported by endoskeleton-like structures. Wendy Karcher (makeup) and Kate Ballard (hair) meld beauty and the macabre in their work, with a result that’s part Brothers Grimm, part Southern Gothic. Model Anna Mixon channels these many spirits.
These are the women of Endo/Exo, Endo/Exo is an exploration of inner and outer worlds: the perceived world, the world waiting to be born, the world that has passed away. In the Mississippi River’s alluvial embrace, the boundaries between worlds are thin enough to be irrelevant. As sometimes-New Orleanian William Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”