For its return as a partner of Paris Photo, Chloé, under the artistic direction of Chemena Kamali, reaffirms its commitment to contemporary creativity and the visibility of female artists by presenting this year the work of Francesca Allen.

Francesca Allen unveils her series Konkursas, created in Lithuania during the annual World’s Longest Hair competition. Once a year, hundreds of women with thousands of feet of hair flood into an arena to take part in this folkloric beauty pageant, where obsession, tradition, and identity converge. Drawn to the surreal spectacle, Francesca Allen conducted research and traveled to the event (locally known as Konkursas Pasaulio Ilgaplaukės) with a Lithuanian friend to document the competition firsthand.

The resulting series captures some of the nearly 200 participants as they walk the runway, get measured by gloved judges and take part in a ritualistic finale.

British photographer Francesca Allen (b. 1993) earned her degree in Photography at London College of Communication and is based in London. Francesca uses her camera as a tool for intimacy. Exploring the nature of intimate female friendships, her images hold a mirror to our own personal relationships with those closest to us. She is known for her depictions of girlhood and the often complicated coming-of-age experience.

This approach is typified by her debut publication Aya, published by Libraryman in 2018. Spending a month in Japan with the book’s namesake, Japanese musician Aya Yanase (also known as Aya Gloomy), the two women do not share a common language but do everything together. Their friendship blooms via the medium of Francesca’s photography.

I’d like to get to know you, published and exhibited in March 2022, exemplifies Francesca’s craft. Exploring the evolving relationship between herself and younger sister Alida over a summer in Devon, this second monograph documents the sisters tiptoeing around each other with a palpable tension, a push and a pull, opening up and later holding back.

Stand out commissions include a project with British Journal of Photography, where Francesca travelled out to California to photograph 50 subjects across the State’s remotest regions. The resulting body of work, Women of California, paints a vivid and sun-soaked picture of female closeness, and the rituals that help to nurture these bonds.

Francesca has been commissioned to bring her vision to editorial titles such as Dazed, British Vogue, British Journal of Photography, i-D, American Vogue and Twin Magazine. Her work has been exhibited in institutions including London’s Somerset House and The Photographer’s Gallery.