Creative Direction, Styling and Words by: Lily Sundberg 
Photography by: Emily Lederman
Models: Anoushka Gold (they/them), Sunny Derham (they/them), Roi Yang (he/him) and Lily Sundberg (she/her)

When asked to explore the world of ‘Playboy’ and what it represents, so many different ways of examining the debauchery, sex appeal, and objectification came to mind.

For ‘PlayThey’, we wanted to avoid a potentially cliche approach, and as a result felt drawn to the aesthetic era ‘Playboy’ was founded in. We took inspiration from 1953 middle America, with its staunch gendered expectations, yet inherently camp and queer media culture that was being oppressed by the newly introduced Hays Code. This was a set of social expectations that the movie industry implemented to suppress sexually suggestive and explicit content from being portrayed on the silver screen.

Through fashion, we explore this paradox by interplaying eroticism of male dominated close contact sports, and a femme approach to styling; to exude that classic ‘PlayBoy’ athletica look. The intermingling of a bright colour palette, feminine silhouettes, and softness in textures, highlights the complicated institution that was the ‘PlayBoy’ dynasty.