Brazilian model Raquel Zimmermann [IG] appeared in the pages of Vogue Paris August 2014, posing in a fashion story ‘Nouvelle Eve’. Melanie Ward styled Zimmermann in images by Mario Sorrenti.

Brazilian model Raquel Zimmermann has established a career with longevity. Appearing on 37 Vogue covers is just one example of Zimmermann’s widespread appeal. You can follow her most recent work in AOC Daily and our complete AOC archives of Raquel Zimmermann’s work in fashion.

Models are often required to ‘rise to the occasion’ and this fashion story would seriously challenge most of them — female, male or neither.

Photographer Mario Sorrenti has also created a career with longevity. Explore Sorrenti’s recent work in AOC Daily and Sorrenti’s AOC archives.

The Italian-American talent exists in a small group of male photographers embraced by AOC, when sensuality is involved in the story.

AOC and Anne personally have always considered Sorrenti to be a psychological and emotional ally against the backdrop of the global, judgement-ridden, cultural-and institutional terrain degrading female sexuality and women’s identity, credibility, integrity and more.

Reflection

It’s almost impossible to process how all media — and fashion media, in particular — has changed in the last decade. The aesthetics have declined immeasurably, due to collapsing print budgets in the digital age, where the focus is on selling stuff in order to stay in business.

Fashion stories rich in symbolism like this one are abandoned at a time when we humans need connection with symbolism to make sense of the world around us. Celebrities or buy-me, must-have stuff stories dominate a binary-values world terribly short in critical-thinking.

AOC seriously doubted that real snakes were used in this fashion story, but I was wrong. Turning to one of our three AI programs, not only was the result ‘yes’ on live snakes, but it wove the symbolism stories about snakes into the response, as AOC would do. AI must be following me.

OMG! LOL. Arriving at Sorrenti’s IG now, to link it, Mario’s got another snake going on, in the first issue of ‘The Beyond Noise’. I love it!

I thanked my AI program for such good work, but informed it that the result had the wrong photographer.

Always testing AI, I held back Mario’s name in my query. Overall, though, their response was stellar, so I responded “Great work, but Mario Sorrenti was the photographer.”

AI research returned with an acknowledgement of my accuracy, and then shared several high-quality resources on Mario’s career. Included was a wayback, Artforum story about Sorrenti’s pushing-the-envelope-style.

The new information is so interesting that an entire post on the photographer is now warranted, once AOC digests the information.

If you are new to Anne of Carversville, this is how we roll. All posts are a work in process, and this one took me in a direction totally unintended, when I merely asked AI to confirm that the snakes were fake or real. My life was in a very difficult place in August 2014, which is why AOC never posted this ‘perfect for AOC’ fashion editorial.

We’re not done yet. My only goal was to give readers Mario’s IG link just now. Instead, we discover that Mario’s got another snake going on, a fashion story ‘All About Eve’ in the first issue of ‘Beyond Noise’.

I love it! In these dark days for women in America and beyond, this post has become a great source of life-energy sustenance for me. ~ Anne