Arden Wray lives in Toronto and just graduated from the photography program at Concordia University in Montreal. She recently shot an editorial spread for issue 12 of WORN, and sometimes takes photos for our blog. Arden is (almost naturally) friends with Yuli Sato, another Montreal photographer and a recent WORN Crush. Arden talks to WORN about silly high school phases, Britney and Justin’s matching outfits at the American Music Awards, and the inspiration behind her shoot in issue 12.

What’s your favourite fashion publication, and why do you like it?
My favourite fashion magazine is Lula, hands down. I’m a total dork and hold onto all the issues, so I’ve got a big stack of them in my bedroom. I really appreciate how finely they’ve tuned their aesthetic. It’s really consistent in its palette and feel, so after a while it kind of seems like hanging out with an imaginary girlfriend flipping through it. They profile really interesting women and frame it all in such a sweet, earnest, conversational way. It just makes me feel really good to look through it, which is definitely not what I’d say about a lot of fashion magazines.

What did you dress like in high school? Has your style changed much since then?
I went through all sorts of silly phases. Nothing too extreme, just more awful in hindsight than anything. Picture evenly spaced blonde highlights, too much makeup, and platform flip-flops. I like to think it wasn’t all my fault. My friends and I joke about the period between 1999 and 2003 as being “The Void” — just a total style wasteland where pretty much nobody looked good. I would point here to Britney and Justin’s matching denim cowboy get-ups at the 2001 American Music Awards. An IMDB search of the 2001 Teen Choice Awards gallery is also pretty stellar entertainment. So, from there, my style has changed pretty hugely. I think it was in about ninth grade that I really discovered vintage and fell in love. Now, I love wearing classic pieces, natural materials like cotton and leather, and neutral colours. I’m hugely inspired by the look and feel of Chloe.

What’s your favourite photo or series you’ve ever taken?
I think the work I feel most connected to is the “Nesting” series I completed in 2010. I worked on it from this place of just being so completely at peace with where I was at in my life. I was in love and just kind of lazily happy, spending time with close friends and building a home for myself, and I wanted to create a document of that experience.

Have any fashion photographers in particular influenced your work?
I definitely love the aesthetic of Juergen Teller. I’m more influenced by fine art photographers, however, than fashion photographers generally. Stephen Shore and William Eggleston were some of the first artists who got me really excited about the potential of photography and inspired me to start shooting. In terms of people working right now, I’m a big fan of Alec Soth. All of them share a really raw, honest quality in their work which I hugely admire and respond to.

If you could take a photo of anyone, anywhere in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why?
I’d love to be able to photograph my mother’s mother, who died before I was born. Even though I never met her, my mom always tells me ways in which we’re similar and little stories about her. She designed fabulous hats for her living, had a huge personality, and just seems like somebody who would be so warm and delightful to be around. I’d love the experience of taking her portrait and getting to know her in the process.

Can you tell us about the photo shoot you did for issue 12 of WORN?
Setting out for the shoot, we were playing with this idea of two girls sort of camping out in a space but making it their own. We wanted a very luxurious, vintage vibe to the whole thing but to play with the feeling of something always being a little bit off as well — a sort of Margot Tenenbaum meets Dallas vibe. We ended up having the opportunity to shoot in a super ’90s condo in Montreal which belonged to the parents of the art director, Pascale. The space was hilarious — no right angles, mirrors everywhere, intense carpeting, and lots and lots of peachy-bandaid coloured paint. We had a super lovely team of ladies on set and our models were two of my babe friends, Ming and Sadaf, so the energy was high, even though it ended up being a long day, and we all had a good time. It was funny incorporating some of the silly props we did — chinese takeout (which we all happily munched on before using), a big palm tree (which Serah-Marie and Ted bravely lugged to the set), and sparklers in the elevator (which almost set off the fire alarm and called for evacuation of the whole complex). In between chatting about Jordan Catalano and Twin Peaks, ogling Natasha Thomas’s gorgeous designs, and grooving to silly music, we managed to get some really great shots! I love the spread and I hope the readers will too.

Interview by Stephanie Fereiro
Photos by Arden Wray

[Editor's note: WARNING! The following blog post contains many a spoiler concerning the events in our favourite fictional Pacific Northwest town. Read at your own risk. - Anna]

Laura Palmer’s plastic-wrapped body, discovered by an over-eager fisherman in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks, is the first sign that everything is about to break. Audrey Horne’s switch from saddle shoes to heels, moments later, is the first sign that nothing — as long as the show lasts — will ever be as it seems.

Throughout the two seasons of Twin Peaks, there are several incidents that reveal things to be different from what they seem — there are doppelgängers, dream worlds, and Killer BOB, who takes over the bodies of innocent men and uses them to rape and kill. [Editor's note: See?! Told you there were spoilers! Back to you, Stephanie. - Anna] There’s also the character of Laura: though we never meet her alive, she is portrayed in flashbacks and memories as the perfect teenage girl — well-liked and intelligent, beautiful, and every parent’s dream — but in reality, she was addicted to cocaine and was cheating on her long-term boyfriend with several men, including her employer, who is married with children. Finally, and most obviously, there is the town of Twin Peaks itself; it appears to be quaint and quiet, but has horrible things brewing under its surface, in its forests.

The characters in Twin Peaks are defined largely by their wardrobes, which reveal their true personalities, often by making such drastic attempts at concealing them.

AUDREY HORNE: A SEDUCTRESS IN SADDLE SHOES

“I’m insane? Well, I’m Audrey Horne and I get what I want.”

Audrey Horne, played by Sherilyn Fenn, is a high school student and the only daughter of Benjamin Horne, who owns the Great Northern Hotel, Horne’s department store, and — according to Sheriff Truman — half the town of Twin Peaks. In one of the first scenes in the pilot episode, Audrey changes from a pair of black and white saddle shoes to a pair of bright red heels. This moment represents Audrey’s always changing personality and her deceitful, manipulative ways. Audrey’s saddle shoes are the picture-perfect side of the quaint little town of Twin Peaks, and her red heels are the dirty side, the secret “something” that makes Twin Peaks different — and scary. At school, Audrey wears fitted sweaters and pencil skirts and smokes in the bathroom. At the Great Northern, she plays Daddy’s little girl, often dressed in saddle shoes and simple t-shirts, blazers, and matching skirts. Audrey makes it her mission to solve the mystery of Laura’s murder, not because she misses Laura, but because she desperately wants to sleep with Special Agent Dale Cooper. Then again, who doesn’t? Never mind.

JOSIE PACKARD: A WOLF IN WOMEN’S CLOTHING

“If anything unfortunate were to happen to me, it would lead authorities to a certain safety deposit box in a bank in another city, inside of which there is enough evidence to lock you away for three lifetimes.”

Josie Packard, played by Joan Chen, is the wife and heir to the (supposedly) “late” mill owner Andrew Packard. On more than one occasion, she mysteriously disappears to “go shopping in Washington” during an investigation in which she’s a suspect. Josie always looks over-dressed, or like she’s going somewhere important — when really, she stays cooped up in her log cabin, waiting for something to happen. Josie tries to appear fragile and feminine and like the “ideal” waif-like woman, and we’re supposed to recognize her as such. She’s beautiful and immaculately dressed. She’s soft-spoken and apologetic. She’s perfect. And then you realize that she isn’t — she killed her husband for his money and has a long life of crime trailing behind her. Josie is, as Dale Cooper puts it, “a hardened criminal,” and her clothing conceal more than her thin, delicate frame. Even at the end of her life, when she tries to shoot and kill Agent Cooper, she is wearing an ultra-feminine dress that looks almost childish — like something a debutante would wear to her coming out party.

Stay tuned for more on Twin Peaks style, coming soon to WORNJournal.com.

- Stephanie Fereiro

On April 3, 2011, thousands of people walked the streets of Toronto dressed in whatever they wanted in response to comments from a member of Toronto’s police force who told them they shouldn’t. By now, we (hopefully) all know the SlutWalk story: Toronto Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti told a class at York University that women should avoid dressing “like sluts” in order to protect themselves from being sexually victimized. This comment provoked some much-needed attention and shed light on issues that have long been present in our society but are often overlooked — victim-blaming and slut-shaming among them.

Since Toronto’s SlutWalk, at least 25 similar protests have been organized in cities around the world. From Twitter to the blogosphere to The Globe and Mail, it seems like everyone has something to say about the movement.

What to read:

An interview with Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, co-founders of Toronto’s SlutWalk on Feministing.com.

“At SlutWalkTO, Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” by Jaime Woo for Torontoist.

“The Best 30 Signs at SlutWalk Toronto” on BuzzFeed.

“On the street… at Slutwalk” by Sarah Nicole Prickett for EYE WEEKLY.

“Feminism and Fashion: The (Other) Two Solitudes” by Katrina Onstad for The Globe and Mail.

“The Funny Thing About the SlutWalk“ on ThoughtCatalog.com. And then editor Ryan O’Connell’s much-needed apology, “We’re So Sorry About ‘The Funny Thing About the SlutWalk.’”

“A Dress is Not a Yes — SlutWalking in Toronto” by our own Alyssa Garrison for the WORN blog.

Upcoming SlutWalks:

Dallas, TX (April 23)
Rochester, NY (May 7)
Vancouver, BC (May 15)
Waterloo, ON (May 15)
Riverside, CA (May 28)
Montreal, QC (May 29)
Edmonton, AB (June 4)
Chicago, IL (June 4)
Adelaide, Australia (June 11)
Portland, OR (June 11)
Seattle, WA (June 19)

For a full list of SlutWalks, click here.

Want to get involved? Attend an upcoming SlutWalk or organize one for your town. Fight for the countless victims of rape who have felt further victimized by authority figures who care what they were wearing when it happened. Fight for your right to feel safe and dress how you please.

- Stephanie Fereiro

I’ve always been obsessed with my family’s old photo albums; they bring back memories so far gone that sometimes I think I’ll never get them back. On a recent visit with my parents, my dad (while looking for some important papers in a tightly-packed drawer) stumbled upon some albums from his own childhood and teenage years. It was the seventies and eighties; the bell-bottoms were nothing short of epic, the plaids were so bad they were good, and the floral-prints were downright groovy.

Where to begin? Look at those pants (second from the left, like you didn’t already notice)!
Then there’s my grandmother and Auntie Ruth in plaid (on the right). Also note my
Uncle Bill’s hair (centre, back) and that awesome shearling coat in the front row.

Here’s my dad’s mum in a poppy-printed dress, belted at the waist. Spring inspiration?

Well, what do we have here? There’s some wicked-cool knee-high socks with what looks
like a school kilt and a leather jacket. Then there’s the mustard yellow tops (far left, far right), and
my dad in double-denim (front and centre). My cousin Adam sports a bonnet and one-piece sleeper.

Dad’s mum again, this time wearing a simple, navy, nautical-themed outfit.

Auntie Ruth, perfectly happy in purple flowers. If I were in that dress, I’d be smiling too.

I don’t have any recollection of the events at which these photos were taken — I hadn’t yet been born. But somehow, looking at these albums, I’d like to think I was there. I’d like to think my personal style grew from all of these people. Because, after all, I knew my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents before I knew my right shoe from my left.

- Stephanie Fereiro