Chiara

[jump to shoots] Chiara and I did our first shoot way back on 2001-06-09.  She had moved from Milan to Southampton in the days before Brexit deprived us of our right to freedom of movement. We met through a mutual friend. After which, we enjoyed well over 100 more shoots together, during the decade or so that followed…

After a while, Chiara became my researcher, spending most of her working day scanning documents and clinical slides for various customers. Her written English and numeracy proved significantly better than most of the Brits I’d hired. So she turned-out to be a competent proof-reader. And her easy-going Italian charm was an absolute godsend when it came to dealing with customers.

Impromptu shoots after work

However, her real passion was modelling. So when we finished for the day or business was a bit slack, or perhaps we just felt we needed a break, we frequently scuttled-off to my little attic studio for a shoot. While I setup the lights, put fresh batteries in the camera etc, Chiara raided the costumes boxes and slipped into something less comfortable. 🙂

Chiara’s kind and gentle manner developed into a remarkable talent for getting the best out of new models. In fact, she introduced me to many of her friends, who subsequently became regular models too.

If it was a warm day, Chiara would grab a few outfits from the costumes boxes and we would go ‘somewhere nice’ instead. On this particular day, it was around 27°C in Southampton. So we drove to the Tanners Lane beach in the New Forest, about 10km west of Beaulieu. It’s one of the few places on this part of the planet where one can still drive right on to the beach – though it is advisable to study the local tide timetable before doing so!

We tried all sorts of different styles on Chiara over the years. But her “T-shirt and girdle” look proved to be one of most enduring. It is powerfully feminine and flattering and suits figure her perfectly. And it’s a look we continue to shoot here on waist.it for lots of different models. It’s a look that’s both athletic and shapely. And speaking as a photographer, I love to capture it as often as I can.

Hourglass Italian figure

Of course, I always enjoyed photographing Chiara’s classic hourglass Italian body especially when tightly encased in various grades of shapewear. She had the perfect figure for it – still has, in fact. I hate to sound like one of those photographers who tortures his models just to get that perfect shot. But the fact is that tighter the squeeze, the better she looks.

Fortunately for me, it seems corsetry has come back into fashion again, especially with the advent of cheap waist training corsets from China. A lot of my recent models have quite good shapewear and corset collections of their own. Consequently, having experimented this stuff it on Chiara for many years I can honestly say that her influence is with me today in every model shoot I do today.

Even after all this time, and despite the fact I no longer live in Southampton, Chiara occasionally makes the 70km round trip to my new studio here in South East Hampshire

Shoots