Selling the Dream is a photographic series made behind the scenes of the luxury retail in Milan, Italy. The project was photographed while I was working within the high-end sector.
From the outside, luxury retail is carefully constructed around desire: immaculate spaces, beautiful garments, polished displays and the promise of a particular lifestyle. Behind this image exists another world — largely invisible to the customer.
Working from within the system, I began photographing the spaces and people that remain outside the carefully curated image of luxury. Stockrooms filled with expensive garments, improvised working spaces, changing rooms, cafeterias, staff toilets, corridors and service areas become a parallel architecture to the glamorous sales floor. The photographs follow employees during cigarette breaks, moments of exhaustion, long working days and the quiet pauses between customers. They document the physical environments in which people work and the routines that sustain the polished image presented to the public.
The series is also concerned with the contradiction between the value assigned to the products being sold and the lives of the people selling them. Employees spend their days surrounded by objects that can cost more than their monthly wages, while being expected to maintain an atmosphere of enthusiasm, elegance and aspiration. Holidays and periods of celebration — moments associated with leisure and consumption — can instead mean longer working hours for those employed in the sector.
Selling the Dream is not an attempt to expose a hidden world as something extraordinary. Rather, it looks at the ordinary reality behind an extraordinary image. By bringing the backstage into view, the series questions who is allowed to participate in the dream being sold, and who is required to sustain it.
The project explores labour, class, aspiration and the constructed image of luxury, while remaining grounded in the everyday gestures and spaces of the people who make this industry possible.