Edition of 175. C-type print on Fuji crystal archive supergloss paper. 60 x 50 cm. Signed and numbered by the artist. Launch Price: £650. Mario Testino is best known for his highly polished, exotically bright advertising campaigns and his exquisitely styled photographs of the couture scene. His style has been described as "luxury realism", though Testino himself resists analysing it too much. Lara Stone 2008 (2010) sees the model reclining in swathes of black tulle and chiffon, a slick of satin flowing from the ceiling across the floor. Stone rests contemplatively as though a patient sitter for a Joshua Reynolds painting. The feeling is of a bygone time when days passed more slowly. Her gaze is momentarily diverted away from the camera, suggesting we have caught her in a moment of private thought, yet her body remains obediently fixed in an almost porcelain doll like pose.
