Melanie Dunea’s Newest Project Merges Fashion, Food and Photography

Melanie Dunea has another genre-bending project.

The award-winning photographer and Mood Studios founder, whose career has spanned portraiture, fashion and food photography is melding all of her previous subject matters into one. Called “Amuse-Bouche,” the volume features models dressed in various delicacies fabricated and styled as clothing.

The book, limited to 500 copies — 250 each for two separate colors and covers — debuted on Dunea’s website for $295 on Monday.

“I’m calling this a ‘book’ in quotes because it’s only 64 pages,” Dunea said of the tome, which is printed like a cocktail menu. “It actually looks like you’re opening up something delightful to eat at Chez Dunea.”

On the menu are male models in bikinis of stitched olives, octopus necklaces and more.

“I have a great tailor that I asked, ‘Hey, have you ever sewn some fish together to make a stole?’” she said, noting that models got to walk off with their wares. “It’s this mix of spontaneity and joy, and I wanted everyone to be on board.”

The self-published project took Dunea a few months to ideate and shoot. “It took a few months in the most delightful way, and for the shoot itself, we had 21 looks,” she said, adding that the fabrications ranged “from shrimp to caviar to crème fraîche, which we pretended someone was shaving with.”

For Dunea, the idea was to take her creativity beyond the confines of specific genres. “This one is about pushing those boundaries of, ‘you shoot portraits, you can’t shoot fashion,’ or ‘you shoot food and chefs, you must shoot food,” she said.

She also took a stab at a new medium, having painted some of the interstitial pages between photos. “I’m pressing the rules, I’m questioning them. Why can’t a book be a menu? Why can’t a woman wear an octopus on her neck? Why can’t somebody who’s 90 years old be in a fashion shoot? I wanted to pull all of that together and show that it’s OK.”