Ugly Pretty, La grâce des ingrates (The Grace of the Ungrateful) is the result of a meeting between the photographer Isabelle Chapuis and Kappauf a Paris fashion personality, whom the photographer admires for recognizing that “men are rarely prudes”. The young French photographer, winner of the Prix Pictor 2010, took the television show Ugly Betty as an inspiration for her latest series of portraits. On the small screen, Betty Suarez isn’t particularly pretty, but she’s sweet, intelligent and hard-working. In a world ruled by appearances, her invisible qualities become crucial for the fashion magazine that hired her. “She looks like a dork, but she’s got a good heart,” says Chapuis. “I needed to get a grip on her character, and tried to copy her expressions more than creating my own scenes. I had to play with the sober setting while taking into consideration the presence of expensive jewelry.”
We see the person in the photographer’s work, with her thick glasses, heavy make-up and toothy, brace-filled grin. While subverting the standards of feminine beauty, the series, produced at the Studio Rochon in Paris, answer nonetheless to the demands of fashion photography, thru the beauty of the model , the elegance of its ornaments. “You always have to remember that Betty is a fake ugly,” says Chapuis. Nine of her portraits appear in the Winter 2012 issue of the magazine Citizen K and today in La Lettre. “This isn’t my usual style, but it’s always good to experiment with different styles.”
Jonas Cuénin
