These Portraits Of Women Celebrating Their Right To Go Topless Are Beautiful And Moving
Over the course of 6 years, portrait photographer Jordan Matter asked over 80 women of all backgrounds to volunteer to walk the streets of New York topless, to defy convention and to confront their feelings of shame and inadequacy. Here are the results.
By Sadho Ram — 20 Oct 2013, 12:46 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
Photographer Jordan Matter has based his project and book titled “Uncovered“ to document women’s exploration of the New York law which makes it completely legal for women to go topless in New York!
Inspired by the ‘Nipplegate’ scandal of 2009 involving Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, “Uncovered” is a collection of over 100 women who have posed topless on New York City streets.
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'There was so much hoopla around it and I got to thinking about our culture of covering up. In New York, it's legal for a woman to be topless in public — so I decided to document what happens when a woman bares her breasts,' he told Cosmopolitan.
At first, Jordan felt the project would be making an important political statement, however it became more about the individual women he was photographing as time went on.
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'The photo subjects found the option of not covering up to be incredibly liberating,' he says, describing how women became 'euphoric' after their photoshoots.
Matter's subjects are all volunteers from different socio-economic backgrounds, of different ages and of diverse body shapes.
In order to be photographed so publicly, Matter's subjects had to confront their own feelings about their bodies - shame and inadequecy chief among them. And many found that once they had, feelings of freedom and self-acceptance were an unexpected and life-changing result.
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Kitty: In her foreword, author Susan Seligson states that 'Breasts are an inexplicably big deal.'
Image via dailymail.co.uk
"I admire the volunteers who stepped forward to be photographed and express their personal thoughts and views. I commend Jordan Matter for his exemplary work. 'Uncovered' will proudly be displayed in our home and hopefully, it will prompt interesting and positive conversation amongst family and friends."
Alana: 'I've started wearing T-shirts and sometimes a push-up bra during sex. The men in my life don't have a problem with my body, but I never feel comfortable.'
