"These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air... We are such stuff As dreams are made of..." Shakespeare, The tempest, act IV, scene I A journey in the world of fashion, the pictures were taken backstage at fashion shows in Paris, Milan, NYC, London and in the fashion schools of Paris, Arnhem, Antwerpen, London and Brussels from 1998 to 2000. Christian Lacroix's preface to the book "The fabric of dreams": "Gerard Uferas asked me to write a text as a preface to the photographs in this book. Looking up the word "preface" in the dictionary, I found a cross-reference to "preamble" from the Greek "to go before." I was also informed that. in liturgical rites, the "preface" is the introduction to the central part of the Eucharist. and that a "preambl" serves to outline the fundamental principles in a treaty or other formal document. Clearly, these two words and the work of Gerard Uféras go hand in hand. When I, as a couturier, write a preface to his work as a photographer. it is surely his eye that has preceded mine and that of the others, presenting, prefacing, and capturing the penultimate phase of our collection at close quarters. It is that magical moment at which the collection enters the limelight. as though finally passing through the looking glass, the moment when the models are reflected in a no man's land of nervous flustering. emerging from a kind of limbo into the glare of light the moment when the collection becomes reality. It is a moment frozen in time. a slice of life, an image arrested in which the lens transforms the dress-which was not the same a second ago and which will be different in a 'moment-like a super-eye revealing the inner workings. its geometry cutting across a bust, sweeping against a leg, suggesting the movement of a shoe that has yet to play its role.like the glass slipper. It is a moment of fragile balance, of risk, of danger: an in-between time, almost meditative, just before going out to face the crowd. Waiting in silcnce. as though in a perfect void, staring into space, or eyes closed, or giddily seeking the solace of the mirror. Wracked by doubt. reassured by the seeming nonchalance of those who stand quite still, and by those who panic. Playing at being someone else, looking without seeing, like schoolchildren standing in line, like the nameless heroines of some unknown legend, acting out precise scenarios, unwritten but for the curve of an arm, a certain shade of make-up, the texture of a fabric. Histories, geographies, literatures are invented here for twenty minutes. Self-absorbed spectators weigh up a scene that is about to absorb them, too, hypnotizing them with the specter of a fleeting life; gothic figures and ancient apparitions sculpted in fabric. penned in fading ink; the drama of a photo-novel whose protagonists strut and stroll, enigmatic at times, like icons unaware of the anonymous hands reaching out to grasp them; a veritable army behind the scenes, busily and attentively fashioning masks and forging finery in rites that verge on banality, for all their esoteric attire. They swarm out like insects caught upon a line of flight. A vibrant. living structure of architectural precision, hieratic to the point of rigidity; a magnificent composition offlesh and bone, bringing the garb of summer to the depths of winter. Just one more step. a moment of hesifation, then taking the plunge with the determined assurance of the catwalk veteran, with the partly lyrical, partly athletic gait of powdered little robots, rhythmic, relaxed, occasionally stumbling or awkward. It is a ballet of statues, of dolls; the dance of a chrysalis finally liberated. And back again. The rite is over. It has run its course in black and white. in chiaroscuro. The light abstractly outlines the esence of a seasonal detail: a stolen image that reveals nothing, yet at the same time, is more telling than the entire show. The alchemy of a bone structure or make-up, a cut or a pose; the horcery by which extravagant gestures take on tbe six-month truth of a supple photographic haiku that captures the ultimate modernity of current taste, the look of today, which is already passing, and which is nothing but a sign, a greeting." Christian Lacroix