The shorter a lie is, the harder it is to verify. That was the entirety of the answer I had prepared outside the Berlin Fashion Week venue. Affiliation, name, and whose invitation I had received were all unnecessary. If you wear black, carry a camera, and walk quickly, most people do not continue their questions to the end. Just in case, I had slipped a pass bought at a secondhand market inside my jacket. The iron gate at the back of the building was half open. I blended in with staff returning from smoking and went inside. Black cables were tangled across the floor, while unopened bottles of water and clothes hangers were piled along one side of the corridor. Temporary lights hung over old brick, peeling plaster, and dust-stained curtains. The music came through the walls more like a vibration than a beat. Instead of showing my pass, I lifted the camera in front of my chest. Sometimes a camera is more persuasive than an ID. What is backstage? Literally, it is the space behind the stage, but at a fashion show it is neither entirely private nor an open stage. As models change clothes, touch up their makeup, and wait their turn, official photographers and brand content teams record them constantly. Backstage photographs are also part of the images that make up a show. They are staged in a less orderly way than the runway and selected to look as though they were taken by chance. So what is the difference between a secretly taken photograph and one that merely looks as though it was taken secretly? Is it the fact that the subject did not know about the camera? The fact that the photographer did not ask permission? Or does a photograph become private simply through the visual impression of slightly missed focus, one side of the frame being cut off, and a flash that has made the skin excessively white? My camera hardly ever rose to eye level. I kept it around my waist and pressed the shutter, capturing in the frame most of the things I had not intended to look at. Someone’s shoulder blocked the frame, and instead of the model’s face, the shoes left beneath a chair came sharply into focus. The harsh flash lifted only the person in front, sending those behind back into darkness. The more traces there were of having failed to take a proper photograph, the more strangely trustworthy the images became. In the late 1920s, German photographer Erich Salomon hid small Ermanox cameras in hats or bags and photographed politicians and celebrities. The people he recorded did not look solemnly and directly at the camera as they did in official portraits. They yawned during meetings, exchanged jokes with those beside them, and slumped in their chairs. In 1929, the term “candid camera” began to be used to describe Salomon’s method of photographing. His pictures showed that ordinary human beings existed behind the officially sanctioned images of those in power. Nearly 100 years later, I too hid my camera in Berlin. But behind the official faces of the models I photographed, there was no humanity left to discover.
The fashion we remember is always on the runway. But the time when fashion is alive always exists behind it. The people who keep moving and breathing after the show ends, preparing the next story. We went backstage and met realsnap model Grace R. When the camera found her, Grace R was already ready. Between pale sage-green walls and a dark entrance, she stood still in a sand-colored dress. Grace R’s look is built around a pale sand-beige color. The warm, dry tones evoke withered leaves, folded paper, and fragments of old ivory, while the recurring radial pleats reveal both the surface of natural forms and traces of meticulous craftsmanship. The bodice fits closely to the body in a strapless corset shape, while the pleats spreading along the curve of the bust converge sharply at the center of the waist. Structural panels encircling the hips expand like a peplum, redesigning the body’s natural proportions into an exaggerated sculptural form.The midi-length skirt continuing below has dense pleats and soft volume. Neutral pumps with pointed toes do not compete with the elaborate dress, instead completing the overall silhouette with a long, quiet line.
How would you describe the look you’re wearing today? There are many classic elements. The white collar and embellishments feel familiar, but the color and silhouette keep it from looking old-fashioned at all. The neat mood and glamorous details blend naturally, so I enjoyed wearing it.What is your favorite detail? The color combination. Even though it uses different colors like turquoise blue, burgundy, white, and pink, the balance is excellent. Up close, the beading and finishing are incredibly delicate too.
Reclining lengthwise on a deep burgundy velvet sofa, she lets her gaze drift elsewhere while holding her phone in one hand. An intense flash erupting from the front clearly reveals her skin and silhouette, but her attention remains with the person on the other end of the call, not the camera.Her Prada Spring/Summer 2026 look reinterprets classic preppy codes with a modern sensibility. The structured charcoal-toned top, emphasized by a crisp white collar and jewel embellishments, conveys restrained elegance, while the vivid turquoise-blue skirt brings energy to the entire space.
What moment was this? It was just before the show began. I was sitting when a staff member handed me a card. It wasn’t anything special, but seeing it in the photograph made that brief moment come back very vividly. How would you describe the look you’re wearing today? It’s a look that adds three-dimensional floral details over a light, sheer material. Up close, it feels delicate; from a distance, the color catches your eye first. I liked that it contained both impressions at once. What do you like most about this look? The blue flowers set against the black tulle. Their form changes slightly with every movement, so the dimensionality remains alive even in photographs.
Emma, who spoke to me first “That’s a pass from last season.” The first person to recognize the fake pass was not a security guard but the model wearing look 28 from Prada Spring/Summer 2026. When I turned the pass over to hide it, she confessed something too. She was not an official casting member but a standby model brought in whenever a vacancy opened. She had waited since dawn and completed the fitting, but the original model arrived just before the show. In a little while she would have to take off the clothes and leave, and the name of a model who never actually walked the runway would not remain on the casting list. Before I could answer, she tried to cover the lens with her palm, and the flash went off. After checking the screen, she initially asked me to delete it, but soon changed her mind. She stared for a while at the photograph with half her face covered, then said, “Just send it to me. It’s the only proof that I wore these clothes today.” In return, she said she would pretend not to have seen my pass. Between an unauthorized intruder and an unofficial model, one awkward photograph remained. Prada explained that in this collection, the meaning of clothes is not fixed but changes depending on what they are placed with. A red shirt and black leather jacket looked like a uniform, while the short bottoms and pointed shoes seemed closer to polished everyday wear. Wearing the same clothes, she was a model on the stairs, a guard in front of me, and, after turning a blind eye to the fake pass, an accomplice. Perhaps it was because she was wearing several roles at once. She had not yet made it onto the stage, but I remember her as the person I met that day who understood the rules of the show more precisely than anyone.
Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita features a photographer named Paparazzo. The real-world occupational term “paparazzi” originated with this fictional figure who persistently followed the stars. The name of a photographer who never existed came to refer to an actual method of photography.Paparazzi chase people who are already famous. But the order can be reversed. When someone is secretly photographed leaving a hotel, and their expression during a call and tired face begin appearing in articles, we start to believe that the person has schedules and relationships beyond the camera, and days they do not want anyone to discover. Paparazzi photographs both prove a celebrity’s private life and create the fact that the person is someone whose private life is worth being curious about. The models appearing in this magazine had no morning before the camera arrived, no person on the other end of a call, and no hotel to return to after the show. There was no privacy actually being violated. And yet one person described her clothes, another waited for her call, someone handed over a business card, and someone else covered the lens with a hand. The sense that there might be something more behind the face that had become invisible began precisely with that palm. The photographs did not show privacy, but left the impression that there was an area that could not be shown.
If Erich Salomon’s candid camera discovered the human being already present behind the official portrait, these photographs move in the opposite direction. They photograph the face first, then add the time spent waiting, refusing, and growing tired behind it. Now, when you search their names, Berlin show venues, the looks they wore, brief interviews, and sightings appear together. The photographs cannot prove that they existed. They only make it increasingly difficult to say that they did not.Paparazzi originally chase celebrities who already exist. But that night, the order was reversed. First came photographs of people being chased, and afterward, people worth chasing remained.
