The Cover-up

When I first moved to London, I remember being pretty shocked to see half-naked chicks in newspapers. I didn't quite grasp the phenomenon of Page 3 girls (and that Katie Price aka Jordan started off as a topless paper girl. Then again, I had no idea who Katie Price was four years ago).

I was used to seeing Jugs, Tens, Penthouse and Playboy out of reach on the top shelf. Somehow, this made it permissible. But maybe that's the problem with American society, making nudity taboo creates a dysfunctional attitude towards the opposite sex. The New York Police actually arrested mermaids at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. How much more anal (pardon the pun) can you get? I mean, they're mermaids.

But I digress. All these questions or thoughts were raised when I saw Katie Horwich's Page 3 Cover-up series. I like what inspired her to dress these girls with illustrations:

It was a hot summer and I was working in a well-known high street chemist where the uniform was a floor length polyester number. I quite liked it, in a Space Age Florence Nightingale way, and felt like I had to celebrate it in a clothes diary. I was at art college at the time, and one morning found a copy of the Sun on the street. I took it home and painted my suffocating costume onto the page three girl, and suddenly wearing it didn’t seem so bad! We were both in on it together, sweating through the synthetic fabric.





Read the Dazed Digital interview, check out Katie's blog or if you're in London, visit the exhibition.