Umit Benan

77 days to grow his beard. Umit’s way of telling his story.

7 photos taken at regular intervals over 77 days.
From clean-shaven, upright, law-abiding citizen to thick-bearded, unkempt bandit, a threat to modern democracy?
Well, not exactly.
On the inside, fashion designer Umit Sahin was exactly the same person at the beginning and end of his short journey.
But his real-life experiment, monitoring the crowd’s reaction everywhere, except for time spent in NY, as his beard thickened and grew, proved to Umit that many people judge others exclusively from the outside.
While the clean-shaven Umit (respectable citizen) was greeted cordially, the fully-breaded Umit (dangerous revolutionary) was frequently shunned, avoided.
His collection also presents hidden treasures, precious materials and beautiful details that you may not notice at first glance.
Again, what you see is not necessarily what you get.
We need to cleanse our perception of preconceptions:
To take a closer look. To investigate before passing judgement.
To give people a chance. To live and let live.
Now, that’s revolutionary.