Lumpen

If you don't know what Lumpen is, the first time you open its website you will think you are into an online slideshow of a project which takes pictures of kids from god-forsaken Eastern European suburbs for mixing art and sociological research. Or it may seem like an awareness campaign about some present juvenile problematic. But it's not like that.

In fact, Lumpen is a modeling agency in Moscow which only selects faces that break the traditional rules of fashion. The agency's aim is to show the most authentic side of the Russian society, offering an online selection of beauty standards (and even ugliness) to which the agency aims.

Its models are far away from the flawless image the fashion industry has always shown us: not-so-nice faces, very bad haircuts, tattoos and piercings, even physical flaws. So, those you could consider ugly people, for Lumpen are real models.

Lumper's founder Avdotja Alexandrova explains the agency has never been motivated by economic interest, rather by the wish to propose atypical beauty standards, closer to reality and full of personality, stricly Made in Russia, which should break the homologation of a perfect beauty. Alexandrova adds: “I have liked this aesthetic essentially for forever. Since I was young, I have wanted to see these types of kids [cast], from photo shoots to movies and basically everywhere” Alexandrova told Vogue.com. 

Today Alexandrova's dream has come true and seems to satisfy the need of a lot of people to see more diversity in fashion, even if it means to fight some beauty rules. The fact that labels like Gosha Rubchinskiy, Kenzo, Balenciaga and Vetements have chosen some Lumpen no-models for their shows is the proof of that, bringing the discreet charme of ugliness on the runway.