TO CELEBRATE World Bee Day, Guerlain muse Angelina Jolie has collaborated with National Geographic on a striking portrait and interview, to stress our urgent need to protect bees. Jolie has joined forces with UNESCO and Guerlain’s Women For Bees programme, which addresses the importance of Bee conservation, while enabling women access to social and economic emancipation through a sustainable livelihood.
Angelina Jolie. Photograph: DanWinters/NationalGeographic
To manifest the beauty of bees, and highlight how intrinsic they are to the survival of our ecosystem, Jolie was adamant that live bees should be used in the portrait, swarming and crawling up her body, as she sits with patience and poise.
Photographer Dan Winters – and budding beekeeper – drew inspiration from Richard Avedon’s 1981 portrait of a California beekeeper covered in a veil of murmuring bees.
A devoted advocate for Bee preservation, Jolie has spent seventeen years supporting local communities in Cambodia as they attempt to combat the deforestation and illegal logging that threaten bees.
And for Guerlain, Bees have long been an emblem for the fashion house, denoting their immense efforts to protect bees from parasites, pesticides and habitat loss, with the added intention of building 2,500 hives within 25 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and restock 125 million bees by 2025.
by Sophia Ford-Palmer