Untitled (girls playing dress-up and trying on clothes) c. 1950

Editor: This silver gelatin print by Jack Gould shows two girls playing dress-up. The photo has such an intimate, domestic feel. What stories do you see embedded in this image? Curator: Consider the dresses themselves. What do they symbolize? Perhaps aspirations, or borrowed identities. Note how the girls’ postures mirror each other, holding the garments like sacred objects. Does it suggest a ritual of becoming? Editor: That’s fascinating. A ritual of becoming… Curator: Precisely. The photograph freezes a moment rife with psychological weight, speaking to the cultural expectations projected onto young women. It’s a charged, yet innocent scene. Editor: I never thought about it that way. Thank you for broadening my perspective.