Dolly Faibyshev's garish shots of the 146th Belmont Stakes

Date
23 June 2014

I’ve been noticing a lot of really bad hats whenever I read through the Metro in the morning, specifically lots of terrible meshy and pokey headwear at Ascot. Looking through Dolly Faibyshev’s shots of the 146th Belmont Stakes in the US, I’ve come to the conclusion that American’s do their horse racing hats much better than we do. And instead of wearing silk pastel powdery gowns and sharp heels that get stuck in grass, the visitors at the Belmont Stakes go for chunky turquoise clogs and clownish bow ties and blazers, and they adorn themselves with novelty horse heads. The images look like what might happen at an Ascot-themed children’s party.

Dolly’s sweaty, awkward and heavily saturated shots are like a typical Martin Parr holiday transported to America, and she’s got a finely-attuned eye for garish colours and eschewed, clashing patterns. The photographs were taken for The New Yorker, and are set beside a small feature describing the day. Apparently all the people were “wearing purple and green, and held signs that said ‘Truple Chrome’ and ‘Chromie is my homie’” and “It was difficult to tell one horse from another, so most people just yelled.” Sounds and looks like quite a brilliant day.

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Above

Dolly Faibyshev: Belmont

Share Article

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.