UNSUITABLE
A story conceived by COMEFORBREAKFAST, shot by Benedict Brink and styled by Vittoria Cerciello.
Ten women from New York are the main characters of our story, the women we met and got to know during our travels. We were drawn to them by their personalities and attitudes. We asked them to tell us what it means to them to be “Unsuitable”.
The Meaning of Unsuitable.
Its definition in the Cambridge Dictionary is “not acceptable or not right for someone or something, not suitable”.
Our project starts from this sensation, the feeling of being inadequate, not right, a state of mind that is often not perceived externally but regards a deeper feeling within the person, one’s relationship with the surrounding environment, with society, perceived by the person as something lacking. We wanted to look for an added value, a positive force, in all its contradiction and in all its beauty.
Ten women from New York are the main characters of our story, the women we met and got to know during our travels. We were drawn to them by their personalities and attitudes. We asked them to tell us what it means to them to be Unsuitable.
It came spontaneously to accompany this story with a series of photographs that see them as accomplices and interpreters of our iconic pieces: blouse and trousers, an unchanging uniform – yet always different – articulated in 10 different fabrics and materials (from silk organza to leather, from jacquard to velvet) that becomes a statement, a multifaceted expression of the personality of each.
The result was unexpected, the garments gaining strength and visual impact through liberated communication, not focused on the documentation but rather on something else: the 10 portraits show very sophisticated and charismatic women who interpret our imagination.
Benedict Brink photographed them with pure light, choosing an intimate and informal narrative frame, each in the intensity of the moment. The stylist Vittoria Cerciello and the casting director Clare Rhodes made this spontaneity even more intense.
Vincent
Feeling unsuitable is a feeling that takes me back to my childhood. This feeling resurfaces when I find myself faced with people who don’t understand me or don’t try to.
Tasha
Do I feel inadequate? It happens if I move away from the comfort zone of places and friendships where I don’t have trouble expressing myself freely, but on the other hand I am a metamorphosis, a unique entity, a chameleonic work of beauty and gender fluidity.
Mira
When I find myself in a situation where I feel inadequate I react, I try to establish a dialogue, a rapport, a way to communicate with the person who stirred up this feeling in me.
Rowan
I feel unfit everywhere, but I hope to feel suitable everywhere by 2020!
Olivia
Feeling unsuitable gives me strength, it makes me work on my limits.
Chanterelle
It happens rarely that I feel unsuitable, it’s something circumstantial, when it happens I somatize it, I feel a sharp pain inside.
Paulena
People are so limited by their insecurity, they don’t realise that feeling like you don’t belong is a spontaneous natural feeling. Feeling like you don’t belong has a strange power: it offers you the possibility to surprise people.
Adinah
I have felt inadequate many times, but the most embarrassing episode I remember was when I began to laugh uncontrollably at an exhibition in a museum.
Mary
I felt inadequate in an unrequited love, in a situation where who I was was undervalued, this paradoxically helped me to love myself more and see in my unsuitability one of my strengths.
Stephanie
I was always unsuitable: too young, too old, too simple, too inexperienced, too shy, not enough. Or perhaps, I was simply different, different from what someone else expected.
