Warning: This video is, as the title notes, very NSFW. There will be gratuitous nudity if you click play.
Leave it to the art world to turn the issue of body hair into a hypnotic visual overload of the most opulent variety. In a gorgeous, albeit excessive, short film entitled "Les Fleurs," a nude woman reclines on a surreal bed of blue, as waves of hair suddenly sprout from every nook and cranny of her body.
The video, directed by Saam Farahmand, is the first of a five-part Nowness series called #DefineBeauty, which explores and challenges different conventions of female beauty. "I wanted to find something about women that was almost unanimously disliked," the filmmaker told Nowness.
Accompanied by Minnie Riperton’s song, "Les Fleurs," the short film takes its subject matter very seriously, presenting body hair in its many forms as an almost mythical force of beauty. Of his song choice Farahmand explained: "There was something so affecting about Minnie Riperton’s ability to breathe her gender -- she speaks to female sexuality in a way that seems to exclude male consideration." Indeed, the melodramatic tour of the female form features close-up follicles in full blossom, shunning the notion that a little pit hair can't be glamorous. Whether you see the prominent body hair as revolutionary or, on the body of a conventionally beautiful naked woman, not so much, is up to you.
This video is only one example of an artistic homage to body hair on the feminine form. Check out Ben Hopper's "Natural Beauty" series or Rhiannon Schneiderman's "Lady Manes" for more female fur.
Let us know your thoughts on the NSFW piece in the comments.