A shabby chic fashion show

We find a suitably dramatic backdrop to Deborah Turbeville's rather theatrical images in the dimly lit, starkly industrial space of The Wapping Project.

Occupying the basement of this former hydraulic power station, the American fashion photographer's images are either hugely enlarged and suspended in the middle of the gallery or printed on smaller sheets clipped to the decrepit, brick-exposed walls.

In this shabby chic environment, we find Turbeville's haute couture models slouched languidly against the walls of New York bathhouses, balletically draped against walls in sweltering steam rooms or looking pale, mysterious and haunted in wintry forest settings.

One series, shot in Krakow in the decadently palatial room of a grand house that has seen better days, plays out the kind of slightly absurdist narrative evocative of literary modernism.

These, and other images, are accompanied by long, handwritten quotes by Proust, French poet Gerard de Nerval and Polish writer Bruno Schulz. They are all too obviously trumpeting their credentials as art, although they have all been commissioned by high-end fashion magazines.

The photographs, most of which are scratched, distressed or over-exposed to look suitably vintage, are certainly rather beautiful and unquestionably 'stylish' - that ambivalent word that damns as much as it praises.

But the mock Gothic setting and the quotes conspire against them. They hunger too much to be taken seriously: being aware of what they so self-consciously aspire to be, we almost forget how arresting they are simply as fashion shoots.

Until Oct 14, The Wapping Project, Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, Wapping Wall E1, Mon to Sat noon to 10.30pm, Sun noon to 5.30pm, free. Tel: 020 7680 2080. Tube: Wapping

Deborah Turbeville: The Narrative Works - Photographs 1975-1997
The Wapping Project
Hydraulic Power Station, Wapping Wall, E1W 3SG