Taken between 2007 - 2010 by Mario Testino in his home country of Puru, ‘Alta Moda’ is a collection of portraits of Peruvian locals wearing traditional attire. These striking images are a celebration of colour and design intertwined with a rich history of costume and tradition deeply embedded in Peruvian culture.
The neutral backdrop allows the subject of the pictures and the clothes that they wear to take centre stage, the beauty of the handmade, dyed and embroidered garments is at the forefront of this series. The vivacious festival costumes are worn with visible pride, ‘to me their very vibrancy expresses the intensity of spirit of the people who wear them’.
Cusco is one of the highest cities in Peru, and ‘Alta Moda’ translates to ‘high fashion’. Testino, renowned for his fashion photography, decided to call the series this as a double entendre. The photographs in ‘Alta Moda’ draw inspiration from the work of Martin Chambi, one of the first indigenous Latin American Photographers, Jose Ortiz Echague and also from Irving Penn.
Widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers, Mario Testino is responsible for the creation of emblematic images, transmitting emotion and energy in an open and intimate way, to document people all over the world.