The House
of Muse

A Visual Love Letter to Fashion and Fantasy

Text: Devan Díaz
Photography: Cruz Valdez

Cruz Claudia Valdez has never settled for reality. Instead, the New York-based photographer manipulates it for her bidding. Lights bend, limbs lengthen, shapes emerge. That’s fashion, babes. And while the industry is on pause, and every day feels remarkably less real, Cruz’s affinity for bringing fantasy to form persists. Together with her partner, Marcus Cuffie, who acts as stylist, and best friend and in-house model, Dara, she transforms their Flatbush home into a set at the drop of a seamless. The mattress is reassigned to the hallway; Dara’s bedroom becomes the dressing room. The result is Studio CCV, a loving nickname used in jest, producing images that seduce, dazzle, and bite. These are my best friends.

Instagram, Twitter, iMessage. This is where we hang out, and where we all met. It is where we share recipes, march locations, and gossip. These girls understand my Tumblr-mode of thinking, a process that places image, sound and text on top of itself. Photography is a language, a crucial part of their psychic repertoire.

“Iconic” fills the room one summer afternoon spent together on the Houseparty app. It’s a word we use loosely; internet speak that makes us laugh. It’s Cruz’s favorite expression. In college a drawing professor pointed this out, when she chose to practice with a photo of a glaring Lara Stone. Cruz aligns herself with imagery she describes as “potent.” She recalls being activated by seeing the Balenciaga FW06 Campaign posted on MySpace. It was the era right before the digital boom, when fashion images were kept in print. Hillary Rhoda larger than life from below, a madonna cradling the fabled city bag, shot by David Sims. Iconicity.

*Top Left -* A swimsuit and tights, worn with a vintage cape tied around the neck. Black fabric is sewn to the back like a bustle, adding volume and emphasis to the pose. Rather than taking on the task of painting the face blue, here Cruz has used light.Top Right - Dara wears a Comme des Garçons jacket Marcus found on depop, Cruz’s vintage pussy bow blouse, and a JW Anderson dress worn as a skirt with two tulle skirts underneath. The hair is a wig fall, which Dara styled herself. She utilized the well-worn matted texture for a sculptural style that looks as though it is coming undone. Dara also does the editing, and here she has assembled the body from different images. Taking cues from Fashion Illustration, the body is taken to heightened proportions. The left hand is turned completely on its side, posed down to the fingertips. *Bottom Left -* Three black and white striped sweaters, worn at once. The skirt is a dress, borrowed from best friend and fourth roommate Iris Diane Palma. Marcus’ arm is in the corner, appearing to throw clothing onto Dara’s body as she spins. This has the theatricality of a wardrobe test, with Dara in character. *Bottom Right -* Shot in a lower shutter speed, this is a photo that moves. Emphasized by the makeup, the mouth becomes a red dot slightly off center. A white turtleneck and blue bandeau that belong to Cruz, and a lace trimmed top model’s own.

While today our time is split between protests and the grocery store, these three don’t see this as a reason to stop making pictures. They have everything they need at home—Flatbush is the place they owe their practice to. Cruz, Marcus, and Dara have offered everything to their process. Odd jobs, part times, long hours. Anything to remain selective, to create images they want to make. Outside of their walls protests rage on. Standoffs with police occur on the streets below. It’s hard to know how to go on right now, but Cruz sees no other option: “I owe it not only to myself, but everyone who has supported me, to continue.” It is this that allows them to keep going, uncovering images that are free.

What is a fashion image, if there is nothing to be sold? Without the ability to ship clothes, the garments pictured here are from the group's personal collection. Baltimore native Marcus—who studied as a painter—relates to images in a flat way. When you abandon utility, clothing can become something else: a cape is tied around Dara’s neck, a hand jutting out of her side. The body becomes fragments, brushstrokes. Editorial images are how it began for them, their blog becoming the place for rarely seen scans. Endless hours were poured into this archival effort, combing through eBay for rare magazines. “Marcus’ blog was the benchmark for taste,” Cruz tells me. “It is a dream to live and work with them.” When they began styling the debut of Vejas—the LVMH prize winning Canadian label—collaboration rose out of online friendship, a way to assist the burgeoning 19-year-old talent. Later, as a stylist-assistant, the way forward became clear. They describe the first time they saw a stylist consult with a photographer, discussing ways to establish tone and emotional quality. The clothes were moving, music playing, the model dancing. A moment that Marcus likens to cinema. “That’s what you hope for. You put everything in place, let it go, and capture something.”

This sewn-on bow acts as a partition between the viewer and model. She’s an actress caught in a state of undress. I think of Rita Hayworth: “Gilda, are you decent?” Unable to find a way to create dots with the lighting, Dara took a grease-paint stick and drew them on.

Movies come up constantly. All three mention Monica Vitti in Red Desert. Antonioni’s first in color, a film so meticulously constructed that the trees were painted black so her green coat cuts through. Since their earliest shoots in industrial yards, it’s come down to this: a woman alone, playing in shadows, wearing clothes. Dara is most often the girl in the picture. Raised in San Diego, she grew up a short distance from Cruz, in Orange County. They often drove to department stores together, trying on the fashion of the season, blogging a series of fitting room photos.

We see the hat from before, squashed into a different position. Pink skin is cooled down by the blue background, at a point much later in the day. Shot in the style of a classic studio portrait, Cruz uses light and shadow to draw the eyes to new parts of the body. The clavicle, the neck, and the bend of the arm come into focus.

The same swimsuit as before, this time worn with a Nicolas Ghesquiere era Balenciaga skirt. Here, yellow light is used on a white seamless to create Cruz’s version of a desert. The white orb acts as the sun, a detail they chose to not edit out. Pink light on Dara’s skin glows like a burn. The sun is setting and she’s on her way somewhere, perhaps a nightclub, like Jeanne Moreau in Querelle.

“Glamour is an impression” is a Daraism she often repeats. It’s a sensation, a fluid motion that provides something to aspire to. She works in service of the photos she makes. She fills the frame with a playful exuberance that calls upon Pat Cleveland. It started with photographing herself, blogging was an easy progression from a life of dress-up. Her entry into modelling when Marc Jacobs slid into her DMs for the FW17 season. She became a house muse in the seasons that followed. Appearing on the cover of i-D and a Helmut Lang campaign opposite Alek Wek, shot by close friend Ethan James Green. Fashion as an industry exploits glamour for profit, but Dara believes in its ability to transform. This is a culmination of years of obsession, ever since a friend told her to check out Style.com in the tenth grade. She’s a contributing fashion editor for Interview, sometimes stylist, and the hair and make-up artist in the photos you see here. If there is something in the world that Dara feels is lacking, alongside Cruz and Marcus, she has the ability to create it.