Casting As Politics: The Negotiation Of Beauty

Cover: Balenciaga - F/W 2026 Photo by Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Our data-led analysis of visibility and representation for FW26 and SS26. Remember that scene from Ruben Östlund's Palme d'Or-winning 2022 film Triangle of Sadness? Carl, a shirtless male model portrayed by Harris Dickinson, is asked to do "a little walk, no smiling, no stopping" for a casting jury. Real-life stylist and Vogue Scandinavia fashion editor Robert Rydberg then asks him to relax the "triangle of sadness" between his eyebrows and to open his mouth "to look a bit…