Julie Greve is a young art school graduate who has revolutionized the world of fashion photography with her delicate sense for portraits, casting, and scenery. In 2018, she was chosen through a competition to photograph the fall-winter campaign for J.W. Anderson, where she primarily cast young girls from her home country, Denmark.
After graduating from Central Saint Martins, Julie Greve entered a major photography competition in 2018 and emerged as one of the three winners out of over 2000 applicants. The initiative was founded by Jonathan Anderson, who has a personal fondness for photography and art, and wanted to promote young talent. He aimed to provide emerging talents with an unprecedented opportunity to showcase their work: the prize was to shoot imagery for J.W. Anderson’s autumn/winter campaign. Greve, along with Simons Finnerty from the US and Yelena Beletskaya from Russia, each created three contrasting visions for the brand. Their pictures are now being seen around the world, appearing in print and digital publications.
After several editorials in Self Service Magazine, i-D, Dazed, or Gentlewoman, Greve had the opportunity to shoot a very unusual commercial for Miu Miu together with Lotta Volkova after her second J.W. Anderson campaign. The casting for this commercial was no less special, as Greve always stands out with her unique and authentic choices. Once again, she chose several portraits of different young, local, Danish girls who seem innocent, tender, and a bit apathetic, or even insecure. This makes the situation shown more than just a fashion shoot. They are real girls, cast from the street, or from the photographer’s circle of friends. Not models. The girls know nothing about how to act in front of the camera, and this purity is what Greve skillfully captures, making us think back to Sofia Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides.
Very few succeed in not romanticizing femininity and girlhood, but to use it realistically as a reference in an artistic context. Presumably, Greve herself is very close to the portrayed person and only conveys the representation of her own feeling of being a woman. Greve once said completely unimpressed in an interview that she generally does not like models. “I don’t like shooting models. They are taught so quickly to pose.” Her portraits touch and make you stop and think about what is going on in the heads of these girls. A little bit of melancholy, a sense of home and nostalgia, but also such a modern, direct view of the growing woman as it still exists in a commercial context.
Julie Greve is a rising talent whose work continues to be recognized around the world. With a keen eye for authenticity and an unwavering commitment to capturing the pure essence of her subjects, Greve’s images have the power to make us think and feel deeply. Her ability to break the mold and create something truly unique sets her apart in the world of fashion photography. Her work reminds us that true artistry is always about more than just aesthetics; it’s about capturing the human experience and making us feel something real.
