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Authenticity in awkwardness? Why fashion is striking an uneasy pose

Daniel Craig, Cillian Murphy and Winona Ryder all appear ill at ease in recent campaigns. Is this a rejection of the perfection trend?

This is the latest blush in a line of intentionally ill-at-ease modelling – from high street brands to high-end labels, stools are being teetered on, necks appear tweaked and shoulders hunched. Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue’s senior archive editor, who has written about how postures and poses go in and out of fashion – from the debutante slouch to the waifish 90s straight back – sees it as “an anti-AI kind of thing”, linking it to the idea of authenticity, which, she said, is rare today. The fashion historian Tony Glenville is less convinced, citing the idea that magazines and brands are avoiding putting “unrelatable glamour on the cover or in our campaign” as “at the highest price level … a bit try hard”.

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