A gloss on life

Miles Aldridge's life story borders on parody: son of the famous art director Alan Aldridge, he grew up surrounded by musicians and Pop artists - the kind of kid, apparently, who was met at the school-gates by Eric Clapton. Nowadays he's a top-class fashion photographer, complete with supermodel wife. His big idea is that the real world just isn't pretty enough, so, to rectify that, his images are consistently high gloss, high artifice and most of all, high colour. His signature use of punchy acidic hues deliberately references his cinematic heroes Sirk and Fellini. As a result his stills of bored housewives and rich bitches are intensified eye-candy - and always delightfully off-kilter.