Published

Lacey Banghard stands in a sitting room that could belong to a literary editor with a wild side: vintage newspaper-print wallpaper plasters the walls, a tartan armchair sits beneath a leaded glass window, and a rabbit-print cushion leans against the backrest like a knowing joke. She wears a grey button-front henley and dark olive cargo trousers tucked into black cage heels, her ombre hair shifting from chocolate at the roots to golden at the tips. One hand rests on her hip, the other toys with a button at her collar, and the set's title, Published, hangs over the scene like a headline waiting to be written. In this room full of words and print, Lacey is the story worth reading.

The cargos drop to the tartan chair as Lacey turns away, her grey henley slipping from one shoulder to reveal a black bra strap and the smooth expanse of her back above a pair of dove-grey boy shorts that cling to the generous curve of her behind. She unclasps, unbuttons, peels, until she lies face-up across a tartan footstool, entirely bare, her cage heels still buckled as her hair spills toward the carpet and her arms fold over her chest in a pose that is part surrender, part challenge. The wallpaper headlines and printed spines look on like an audience, and Lacey, draped across the furniture with her eyes half closed, is the centrefold they have all been waiting for.