Gender Wars: Tom Le French subverts ideas of female empowerment

He sums up the concept behind the project as "If beauty is a weapon, who is really pulling the trigger?" In a series of eye-catching photo manipulations, Le French combines images of mass market beauty products and instruments of violence and control (sometimes overtly, sometimes more subtly), to convey a provocative message. "I thought it would be interested to create objects that represent female empowerment and objects that show societal norms which can be oppressing," he explains.

Le French hopes to develop the concept further in future. "I designed the visuals by combining photography from a stock image bank, but the longer plan is to work with a model maker to create these objects in real life, perhaps for an exhibition," he reveals.