Some accessories are useful. The best of them are useful with theatre.
Robert Harper's collection contains 85 unique photographs across 230 frames devoted to umbrellas, walking canes and hand-held fans. Each object extends the gesture of the person carrying it, even when photographed alone.
Fashion in the hand
An umbrella brings shape, pattern and the British weather into one object. A cane may suggest support, ceremony or elegant eccentricity. A fan conceals and reveals, turning a practical response to heat into a language of movement.
Harper's fashion background made him alert to these implied gestures. After his Condé Nast training and long editorial career, he could make an unmodelled accessory feel attached to a character just outside the frame.
Materials range from fabric and wood to metal and decorative detail, each requiring the controlled light familiar from his bags, shoes and jewellery work.