[Book Description ]
Alice’s Adventures is a photography collection that showcases the highly distinctive visual language of contemporary photographer Alice Hawkins. Known for her bold, candid, and dramatically expressive style, Hawkins turns fashion photography on its head—eschewing idealized beauty and conventional models in favor of real people she encounters on the streets, in communities, and while traveling. Through their clothing, posture, and expressions, she captures a raw and captivating individuality.
Hawkins once said, "I love people that make an effort; the old woman in the supermarket with the frilly leopard-print outfit on, that’s who I want to look at and follow around." This quote perfectly embodies the ethos of her work—celebrating those who might otherwise be overlooked. She seeks out authenticity in her subjects and presents them with warmth, theatricality, and emotional depth, making the ordinary extraordinary.
Alice’s Adventures brings together Hawkins’s work from across the globe, featuring striking portraits taken in locations ranging from London and Las Vegas to small towns and remote African villages. Instead of working with fashion industry models, Hawkins collaborates with people she meets on the road—locals, strangers, or friends—many of whom later become long-term collaborators.
Organized by location, the book is interspersed with reflections and anecdotes from Hawkins and her mentors and collaborators, creating a layered visual and narrative journey. With a sharp eye and a playful tone, she transforms seemingly everyday individuals into compelling figures of style and substance, challenging traditional boundaries between fashion and documentary photography.
More than a photography book, Alice’s Adventures is a storybook about vision, identity, and humanity. It dismantles the elitism of fashion imagery and brings it back to its roots—real people in real settings. This collection invites readers into Hawkins’s world, where fashion is a lived experience, and photography is a way of connecting, witnessing, and telling untold stories.
[Book Details]
Author: John C. Jay
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
Publication Year: 2017
Size: 25 × 20 cm
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 192 pages