A KALTBLUT exclusive. Design, Photography, Direction & Styling by Cohen Taylor. The models are Sasha Khan, Ben McGaghran, Jess Binns and Naia Iezzi. Cohen is a Toronto-based designer and digital media artist from Alberta, Canada. His work is inspired by his experience growing up in this incredibly conservative environment, and seeks to retell it through a colourful, campy, fun and highly dramatised lens. In doing so, he hopes to bring this uniquely Albertan condition to the world.
WEXIT is an original five-look collection touching on the Albertan separatist movement, the conditions necessary to inception and its consequences. More specifically, it explores how fear, anger, uncertainty and abandonment push people to drastic political measures in rural Albertan communities, and how these emotions are manufactured and exploited by the American oil industry.
On a more macro level, the project uses the Wexit movement as a case study of post-pandemic political polarisation manifested through culture war in North America, the division this creates, how it benefits corporations and how it hurts those outside of them. As we see this new political climate manifest itself in extreme political events such as the Freedom Convoy, the January 6th riots and more recently the deployment of ICE throughout the United States, this subject is more relevant than ever.
Design, Photography, Direction & Styling by Cohen Taylor / cohentaylor.ca / Instagram: @cohentayl0r
Models: Sasha Khan / Instagram: @garfieldluvr666_
Ben McGaghran / Instagram: @benmcgaghran
Jess Binns / Instagram: @jessbinnss
Naia Iezzi / Instagram: @naiaiezzi
Fashion/Brands Used: Cohen Taylor / Instagram: @cohentayl0r
