Mari Sarai: Naked

Japan-born, London-based photographer Mari Sarai debuts a selection of intimate and revealing photographs from her forthcoming exhibition and book, Naked. The culmination of two years work focusing on the idea of femininity, the nude portraits offer a new vision of the girls outside of the commercial constraints of the fashion world. Featuring her close friends Janice Dickinson, Daisy Lowe, Alice Dellal and Alek Wek, the images were all taken in the models’ own homes, allowing them to pose comfortably for Sarai and offering her a view of femininity that subverts the "male gaze" propagated by many publications. “We would take time to chat, have coffee or snack, talk about something else or have some whiskey,” recalls Sarai of her approach to relaxing the models. “I really wanted to make them comfortable and natural so the portraits were intimate; it was important to me that they didn’t see this as a job.” Initially working as a photojournalist in New York, Sarai relocated to London in 2005 to further explore her love of fashion photography. Rapidly garnering a name for herself shooting for the likes of Dazed & Confused, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, Sarai has been likened to Helmut Newton for her chic representation of strong, empowered women.