Latest editorial All Form of Things is testament to the style industry’s growing understanding of what constitutes “normal”. Created by a Berlin-based team of creatives, including directors Alejandra Ruiz-Zorrilla and Rosa Lisa Di Natale, creator and stylist Ourania Marmara, photographer Michele Di Dio, producer Ronja Prinz, and casting director Julie Sinios, the project champions the experiences of eight models – of ranging ages, ethnicities, body types, and identities.

Through the photo series, Marmara utilises different items of clothing to distort and enhance model’s body shapes. The resulting images query the established fashion norms we’re confronted with every single day, with exaggerated ruffled bodices blowing up the body to XXL proportions, swirled shoulder pads, and sleek baby pink body armour turning their wearer into statuesque, imposing figures.

To enhance the shoot, it was essential to the team that they discuss ideas of ‘normalcy’, with each model eventually interviewed about their very own experiences inside fashion and beyond. Nevertheless, besides learning from the models’ unique viewpoints, the team faced challenges navigating the industry’s own ideas of normalcy while working on the project – from getting dropped by magazines to dressing models that weren’t sample size, and sourcing diverse models to forged.

“I all the time wondered who sets (the) standards when it comes to fashion and sweetness. Who decides that a particular body type is value showing and others not?” Mamara asks. “I used to be expecting fashion brands and PRs to happily support me when it comes to getting the outfits for the story, but after I wrote (that) we were going to have a forged of eight models with diverse body types, everyone assumed that I used to be on the lookout for greater sizes, so half of the brands said they couldn’t support us.”

She continues: “I used to be shocked, I heard things like, ‘We’re afraid that the model won’t fit (the clothes)’ or, ‘We’d like to be sure you won’t use male samples for female models,’ or, ‘We’re only attempting to avoid the model feeling uncomfortable.’ It really made me query where we stand here.” Nonetheless, the team showed no signs of slowing down – difficult these difficulties by ensuring that every model was styled and shot as any sample-sized model can be.

Below, we hear from a number of the featured models about difficult society’s expectations and what ‘normal’ means to them.

“People expect me to be many alternative things. My family wants me to be their good son and everybody else wants me to be a working a part of our society. Normal is a dumb statement because no one’s normal, everyone seems to be a unique person. Normal relies on your personal imaginations, so nobody really is normal.

Once I see someone for the primary time, I actually have a primary impression, but more often than not it seems that they’re someone totally different, in order that’s why I don’t like having first impressions. In lots of situations I feel misplaced, especially after I’m in big groups where I don’t know a whole lot of people and it’s sometimes a type of rough start. I don’t really think in those sorts of boxes, but sometimes after I wear clothes which are made for girls, I feel a little bit bit more feminine and I actually have the sensation that society is pushing me in that direction.”

@lennyshg

“People expect me to be fabulous. Normal is… I don’t know what normal is. What’s normal? I feel special after I’m fabulous. I believe ignorant persons are so self-centred and don’t have any empathy for what is happening around them – empathy is vital to having healthy communication with yourself and with people around you.”

@gigi.spelsberg

“People expect me to be all types of things, I mean depending on the context they need me to be normal, to be crazy, to be partying, to be calm. I will be every thing without delay. Normal is crazy. It’s not normal. Normal isn’t there, normal isn’t existent. Everyone seems to be normal by existing, I believe. Nevertheless it’s so crazy, you mostly see normal as something that’s made up out of the strange that almost all people do, but isn’t it normal to live a life that no one expected you to do or expected you to be born with?”

@eren.m.guevercin

“Normal is nothing. Nothing is normal. What may very well be normal to me doesn’t mean it’s normal too you – I needed to learn that the hard way because I’m a really logical thinker, and I’m like, ‘That is logical to me,’ but another person can be like, ‘Well I do not see it like that.’

I’ve felt misplaced most of my life. Being Afro-Indigenous, being born in Columbia and moving to a unique country, I felt misplaced there because I didn’t seem like everybody else. I also wasn’t seen how I’m now, so sometimes I do feel misplaced, but I believe my community has helped me gather myself again so I try to not feel misplaced and to create space for myself wherever I’m at.”

@valerinvanegas_

“Who sets what normal is? That may very well be when it comes to how people see things. What does normal seem like? What does art seem like? There’s not a solution. So long as you’re blissful, that’s your normal. You choose your normal.

I feel special after I feel seen and represented. Once I feel like I exist. Once I see those who seem like me on the market, and that will be in any space – media, fashion, sports, or TV. I’d tell my younger self to understand his skin tone. Love himself. Respect himself – not only in the best way I talk over with myself in my very own head or how hard I’m on myself, but additionally the best way that I allow others to treat me and what I accept and permit around me. Proceed being creative, enjoy it. It’ll make you money eventually, and that comes after… and smile and be blissful, and don’t let anyone take it from you.”

@corbincaptures

Try All Types of Things within the gallery above.

CREDITS: Producer Sophie Maus, Make-up artist Linda Sigg, Hair stylist Rabea Richwien. 

CLOTHES: Michelle Bohnes, Aeyde, Juana Martin, Bruna Ingnatowska, Maryam Keyhani, Falke, Kimhekim, Marina Hoermanseder, William Fan, Nike, Jil Sander, Louis Vuitton, GmbH, ETR., Leandro Cano, Calid, Wandler, Rimowa, Roisin Pierce, Balenciaga, Marie-Louise Vogt, AMI via mytheresa.com, Yannick Robey, Issey Miyake, Ottolinger, Essie Kramer