“I aim to unbind the female form and honour its erotic power,” says Capozzi of her new book Womanizer, which captures Chloë Sevigny, Bella Hadid, Pamela Anderson and more
There’s a blizzard out in New York City when Brianna Capozzi and I speak, wind thrashing the crittall windows of her Queens apartment. We meet over Zoom in January to discuss the sun-soaked pages of her new photo book, Womanizer, a hardback collection of near-naked women, glamorously posed against sultry backdrops – the diamond district, Downtown, poolside. Mostly shot in the Sunshine State or on the Sunset Strip, we’re a long way, meteorologically speaking, from the American photographer’s residence on the East Coast.
Published by Rizzoli, Womanizer is a celebration of women and their sexiness. Abuk Adeer stands part-swaddled in a white robe on the roof of Jeremy Scott’s LA studio; Miley Cyrus swings from a bar, legs akimbo; Chloë Sevigny swaps lingerie for steamed lobster; and on the cover, Fanny François – fanny first.
Capozzi has spent the last decade honing her aesthetic in fashion and contemporary portraiture of women through editorials, campaigns and personal projects. One year in the making, the book spans 15 years of Capozzi’s photographic work. It’s a melange of photos – some well-known, others unseen – each photo carefully selected with her muse in mind. “My muse has a very specific energy,” Capozzi tells me. “She’s exuberant, unapologetic, lawless, wild, down to be exactly who she is. She’s sexy, but she’s sexy for herself, not for anybody else.”
“I had thousands of images to choose from, and only so many pages,” she continues. “I would say ‘womaniser’ in my head, and that would help me choose.” At times it was collaborative. “I’m someone who likes to consult. I asked my friends, I asked the book’s designers [Carina Frey and Stephanie Barthe]. And if ever we disagreed, I’d go with my gut.”
Aside from the nudity, Womanizer is unlike Capozzi’s other books – Sisters and Well Behaved Women – where her subject matter touches on more severe terrain. “Womanizer is a powerful representation of women but in a really fun and surreal way,” she explains. “While maybe it overlaps with elements of both, it’s also the opposite in that it’s bright and playful and cheeky.” Erotic, sleazy, seductive, feminine too. “I aim to unbind the female form and honour its erotic power,” she writes in her introduction.
“I like to have fun,” Capozzi says. “I love to be around sexy women. I like to photograph them. I like to be one.” And evidently, they like to be around her too. There’s an inherent connection between Capozzi and her subjects, an ease that is palpable through the photos. “We see many of these women in a different light, no matter who it is, even, like, Gwyneth Paltrow," she says.
Much of that stems from trust: “A lot of celebrities are very guarded,” she says. “Actresses, musicians, sometimes they won’t allow you to take those risks.” But Capozzi has developed strong and trusting relationships with her many subjects, some of whom she’s been working with for years now.
Capozzi met Chloë Sevigny, who wrote the foreword for this book, in 2014 when working with the cult New York stylist Haley Wollens. Capozzi complimented Sevigny’s Harajuku-bought skirt. “What struck me was how gregarious and confident she [Capozzi] was with her big, unruly mane and bright open eyes, she took me off guard,” Sevigny writes. Curious and excited to work with the photographer, Sevigny found herself “in a car to New Jersey at dawn” for a shoot where she would play a range of characters for fake movie posters – multiple looks, multiple wigs, and crustacean-concealed privates. Over a decade later, the pair are now good friends, with Capozzi shooting family portraits at Sevigny’s wedding, as well as her pregnancy and postpartum pictures. “It’s rare to find someone so iconic, so influential, who is so willing to really mess around and get weird and see what works or doesn’t,” recalls Capozzi of their earliest encounters. “I would never do her dirty. I would never do any woman dirty.”
Addison Rae, Adut Akech, Jessica Miller, Laverne Cox, Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid, Omahyra Mota, Pamela Anderson, Dua Lipa all feature, but it’s not just an all-star cast – Capozzi’s friends and family play their part too. “My mom is my original muse. She’s very glam. It’s always fun to shoot her,” she says.
Of her aesthetic, Capozzi says, “There’s always this rawness to my work, even if it’s super glam. I find polished or perfection almost overwhelming. I’m not very put together myself. I live authentically. And I feel like if I had to be more polished, I wouldn’t enjoy life as much as I do. There’s excitement in the improvised.” Which is not to say she doesn’t plan, because she does, meticulously. Moodboards, hair and make-up looks, locations. Props. “I can find a prop in anything, you know,” she says. “Something quirky. I think that lends itself to the Brianna Capozzi photograph.” Proof is in the puddin—or the banana, rather. Or the lobster. Maybe even in the wrench.
And how does Capozzi feel about living in a post-Roe v Wade America? “It is a scary time for women and our bodies,” says Capozzi. “So to make a book like this, to have these women feel so comfortable and powerful in their bodies, in their own image, is very empowering. We’re still in charge of ourselves. No one can take that from us. And we’re going to continue to fight, to make our art.”
Womanizer by Brianna Capozzi is published by Rizzoli and is out now.
