This story is all about the limits of love and desire, possession and narcissism. Photographer Kenny Germé and stylist Edem Dossou, who recently styled ‘The Trade’, use oversized stiff and tailored looks in contrast with the theme of destructive identity and forbidden desire to create a black, white, and red story of impossible unrequited love between two brothers. The lustful one bewitches the other with a spell to possess him. In the end all that is left of the two brothers will be a story of a master and his marionette.
Germé was heavily influenced by the very chic pale and dark aesthetic from classic vampire movies such as Nosferatu by Murnau (1922), or Dracula by Browning (1931), or more recently, Dark Shadows by Tim Burton (2012). Viennese Actionism movement, Marilyn Manson makeup and Rick Owens Men FW16 aesthetics further inspired this story.