Kepi Bree Street (from the Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder series)

She sees you—and celebrates you—for bringing your best self.

Through Lolo Veleko’s lens, we see “sartorial success” stories about stylish young people fashioning themselves, and their looks, in a nation experimenting with new possibilities. Veleko’s series, entitled Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder (2005–ongoing), presents compelling photographic portraits that document the innovative street fashion scene among the young people of South Africa’s cities. The creative individual styles sported by her subjects demonstrate a confident sense of beauty and optimism that counter perceptions, persisting deep into the post-apartheid moment, of South Africa’s urban neighborhoods being beset solely by crime and poverty.