With bountiful body hair and fruity females, feminist photographer Stephanie Wilson tackles the naivety of beauty stereotypes

Text Ashleigh Kane

The female body as a battleground is nothing new. The daily grind of getting ready, the weekly and monthly grooming rituals and a lifetime of striving for perfection. Yet, with the no make up look now a thing of celebration, and that bed head? Aspirational. It leaves the issue of female body hair as one of the last remaining beauty taboos, something of an urban legend. “As a nation we won the right to vote, abolished racism, homophobia, legal marital rape, but yet we don’t question the rigorous routine of being forever hairless,” says Stephanie Wilson, a photographer, artist, online shop keeper and strident pro-hair supporter who has captured two women in all their glory for her latest series. Forbidden Fruit takes aim at those hairless stereotypes we’ve all grown pretty comfortable with, the ones we’re sold in porn, in coming-of-age magazines and in advertising. Accompanied by an essay, published in full on Wilson’s art collective’s website, the photographer tackles the issue head on, detailing a particularly unnerving shaver review on Amazon from a rather pleased husband, whose wife is no longer – his words, not ours – a “hedgehog”. Below, we catch up with Wilson to talk the joy of forbidden fruit, dirty words and Cara Delevingne.

Could you tell us about the series Forbidden Fruit? Stephanie Wilson: I simply wanted to use two of my friends as an example to show that femininity can still exist without the helping hand of wax and a razor. As for the fruit, I love the way it abstractly mimics the body: it’s shape, hair, colour, imperfections, texture, there’s something very fleshy and limb-like about it. Who are these girls? Stephanie Wilson: Lou and Alice are relatively new friends of mine, introduced through other’s bouts of university. Alice is a willowy, ethereal thing, but she’s also solid as a rock when it comes to her ‘self’. As is Lou, now a key member in the arts collective I set up last summer, Lemon People. They’re both totally grounded, intelligent, happy and comfortable. I find both of them extremely attractive because of it. I didn’t want to hire models and, a few months before, ask them to ‘let it all grow out’. It had to go deeper than that. What influenced this project in particular? Your essay mentions a particularly pleased Amazon customer’s review... Stephanie Wilson: I find the automatic stereotypes that are handed to girls with body hair frustrating, just as much as I do amusing. Feminism is a big part of who I am, but no bigger than it should be for any woman. I find Alice’s relaxed approach to her body hair quite beautiful, and Lou’s, empowering. After our discussions on the subject, and after years of informal campaigning, the Amazon review was the last push I needed. Ironically it was forwarded to me by an ex-school teacher, from the school that wholeheartedly kick-started my passion for feminism due to the boys – and some teachers – er, ‘naivety’.

“If Cara Delevingne didn’t shave her pits and ran a Topshop campaign with hairy legs, I’m sure the repercussions of that would be pretty huge” – Stephanie Wilson

You use the term ‘hedge hog’ jokingly but how are you celebrating this with your work, and why is it important? Stephanie Wilson: I actually prefer the term ‘hairy fairy’, and to quote my boyfriend; “You’re not so much a hedge hog, but a fluff ball.” It is, I think, important to acknowledge one’s fluff, and in the article I echo the term more to smear the absurdity of the man’s alarming referral to his ‘prickly’ wife. Nevertheless, as funny as it is to colloquialise, it’s also important to normalise what ‘it’ actually is. Sure, name your vagina a ‘foo foo’ or your breasts ‘flopsy and mopsy’, but don’t, still, be terrified to call it what it is. I am a – albeit, very soft – hedgehog, but I am still also, plainly, a hairy woman. You talk about femininity being something to achieve as opposed to, as such, a ‘given’, why do you feel this is a woman-only problem in such a modern age? Stephanie Wilson: Women have hardly started yet. Only forty years ago or so we were given the choice of controlling our own wombs. Men have been in control of their bodies, lives, and choices for a hundred thousand years, and we only get a few decades to catch up. Obviously there are going to be hangovers. Still, with social media encouraging a fascinating fifth wave of feminism, I’m hoping it will be feminism’s industrial revolution. With new technology, the Victorian’s hurtled forward. I hope that this time, feminism will be given that same acceleration through the use of the internet.

Photography by Stephanie Wilson