Dressing Up for Staying In With Photographer Phobymo

Winter evenings in Philadelphia are typically freezing, but not when Morgan “Phobymo” Smith is behind a camera. Recently, the self-taught, Philly-based photographer spent several days dashing around the City of Sisterly Love to capture five self-assured women getting dolled up to stay in. Her subjects—Aliya, Jade, Cheyenne, Liv and Nesiah—basked in the warm, natural glow from window panes and a small soft-box light, dressed to the nines and radiating confidence. Outside, it was frigid; inside, it was piquant.

It’s been 143 years since Margaret Wolfe Hungerford originated the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” in her novel Molly Bawn. But as many women in our current moment have endured the isolation of the pandemic, alone or with others, they have gone without a lick of zhuzh or a sense of being “beheld” for months on end. Such seclusion has pushed even the concept of beauty into hiding, but it has also opened opportunities for ideas about beauty to rise from unexpected places, and for women to reinvent their relationships to it. Now that the onlooker’s gaze has lost some of its power, women are taking their experience of beauty into their own hands—and demanding to be taken seriously.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, with little to do and nowhere to be, Phobymo found herself vexed by the monotony of how she was dressing herself. “One day I looked at myself in the mirror, wearing the same sweatpants and T-shirt I had been wearing for four days in a row, and immediately hopped in the shower, beat my face and put on a cute outfit,” says Phobymo, who turned the lens on herself too.

After getting all dressed up to essentially go nowhere, she says was reminded of who she was, the beauty she had and the greater meaning that held. “There’s a huge misconception that women wear makeup and dress up solely for the attention it can get us,” she says. “The idea that we’d go through all this work beating our faces and putting on a cute outfit exclusively to attract a mate seems like an antiquated and unevolved concept society should have grown out of, but here we are. In reality, most of us are doing it for ourselves because it makes us feel good,” she adds. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put on a full face of makeup during lockdown just to sit around my house and wash it off an hour later. It’s definitely a form of self-love for me.”

Gone may be the days of getting dressed in garments, accessories and makeup, and waiting around for the approval of others. In the new era that Phobymo’s work captures, women want more and rely on less. Her new series of images for Playboy celebrates the act of experiencing beauty on one’s own terms and highlights women in the act of self-acceptance, self-confidence and self-love.

“This shift in beauty standards and embracing self-love has been such an amazing movement to witness and be a part of. Even if my work is only seen by people who know me personally, live in my city or follow me on Instagram, I like to think it has helped make at least a small difference,” Phobymo says. “In line with that goal, I decided to shoot five women I know—and myself—who are insanely beautiful while not necessarily fitting in the box of stereotypical European beauty standards.”

During their shoots, her subjects got ready in the comfort of their own homes and their own skin, relying on their inner and outer beauty. “My favorite thing about all the models I shot, and why I chose them for this, is that they all exude pure confidence,” Phobymo says. Aliya beamed from beneath a bold, red shift robe and dainty metal jewelry, naturally posing for the camera. Cheyenne applied makeup in a bubblegum pink negligee, reeling the viewer in through eye-catching frames with the use of hand-held and stationary mirrors. Jade embraced the gaze in white lingerie, perched atop a cozy bed and between a brick window frame. Nesiah evoked classic glamour draped in a black peignoir, captivating the camera with a fierce stare. Liv welcomed the eye to enchanting, casual scenes of an everyday morning—a femme appeal for those enticed by effortless mystique.

“I’ve found that people are almost always at their most confident when they’re comfortable, so I decided to shoot them all in their homes. I just wanted to be a fly on the wall during the process,” Phobymo says. “Staring into a camera lens makes me feel super self-conscious and uncomfortable, so I tried to use mirrors as a way for them to maintain that connection with themselves and stay in the moment. I really wanted these photos to reflect how these women felt about themselves and capture their beauty.”

Each model also embodies nonconforming, boundaryless ideals of beauty—as represented by their identities as BIPOC or LGBTQ women. Phobymo, as a Black female photographer, knows the importance of representation firsthand. “I’ve always felt a sort of personal responsibility to showcase the beauty of women of color because for so long the focus has been on those who fit the European standards of beauty—tall, white, skinny,” she says. “If I don’t use my platform to celebrate and elevate Black and brown beauty, as a woman of color myself, I can’t expect others to follow suit.”

“Let people feel beautiful if they feel beautiful!” she adds. “It’s so strange how society bands together to tell certain people they don’t fit the mold and are undesirable and unbeautiful because of it. There have been so many things about myself that I never even noticed or was bothered by until I heard people say those traits were not desirable. I work on loving myself every day, and I like to think my work helps people see the beauty in themselves.”

Phobymo’s photography suggests that we are living in the beginning of a new era, seeking to reveal the deeper meaning of how and why people attract attention, and what we can do to elevate attention to our own pleasure in everyday life.