“My mom cooked us lunch,” the photographer Brianna Capozzi says, recalling a 2014 photo shoot with Chloë Sevigny. “She was at my dining table getting her hair and makeup done. It was incredible to have somebody at that level trust you to that extent.” At the time, Capozzi—who went on to have a star-studded career shooting Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez, along with ad campaigns for Calvin Klein and Gucci—was still a bit of a gamble; she’d only been working as a photographer for a few years prior. But Sevigny was charmed by Capozzi’s energy and warm confidence, and the actress ended up leaning fully into Capozzi’s aesthetic world, which frames her subjects at their most vulnerable, goofy, and real. She donned a nun’s habit, several wigs, and, at one point, draped a lobster over her crotch in place of underwear.
Today, the New York–based, self-taught photographer and director is gearing up to launch her latest book, Womanizer, out now via Rizzoli. The tome features a foreword by Sevigny and an accompanying exhibition, at New York’s Rectangle Room, opening May 14. The images featured in Womanizer speak to the photographer’s adoration for women, and her affinity for props. The name of the book is a reference to Helmut Newton. “I was telling a friend how Susan Sontag thought he was a womanizer, and then what that means to love his images—he’s one of my top influences,” Capozzi says. “How fun, to turn it on its head as a woman. At the end of the day, what does that word mean?” The new book doesn’t so much answer the question as celebrate Capozzi’s singular vision (a unique marriage of erotic power with the absurd and sometimes mundane), featuring Olivia Rodrigo, Karol G, Pamela Anderson, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as her mom and grandma.
Brianna Capozzi, Chloë Sevigny aiming a banana gun, New York City, 2017.
Brianna Capozzi, Selena Gomez with Mickey Mouse gloves, Los Angeles, 2019.
Brianna Capozzi, Karol G
Brianna Capozzi, Gwyneth Paltrow, New York City, 2024.
Capozzi, who was raised in New Jersey, didn’t grow up necessarily envisioning herself as a photographer. She studied integrated design at Parsons in 2006, where her tutors included the fashion designer–turned-artist Susan Cianciolo. Womanizer revisits early work from those years, in addition to the campaigns, editorials, and personal projects she has amassed over the past decade while working with brands like Skims and Marc Jacobs and shooting editorial (sharp-eyed fans will notice a 2018 W story with Grace Elizabeth, featuring a bed frame and a croc-skin purse, among its pages).
Brianna Capozzi, Laverne Cox, New York City, 2025.
Brianna Capozzi, Miley Cyrus shot for her album Flowers, Chatsworth, Calif., 2022.
Capozzi’s photographs merge all the characteristics of her imagined muse, a glamorous risk-taker inherent in her psyche since childhood. “There’s a trickle-down effect that infiltrated my brain,” she says. “I come from a lineage of amazing women and I always felt like I could do whatever I wanted and could get what I wanted. [My muse] has definitely developed over the years, but she remains a bit unhinged, in the best way.”
Brianna Capozzi, Omahyra Mota in the garden of Villa Vizcaya, Miami, 2020.
Brianna Capozzi, Kristen Stewart
While the book is an established format for Capozzi, who released Sisters in 2024 and Well Behaved Women in 2018, the solo exhibition marks a first, inspiring the photographer to engage with her work in a new way. “It’s been fun to think about framing, and to create a smaller edit. I’m such a book person, but this is a completely different context,” she explains. A collaboration between Rectangle Room and film lab Primary Photographic, the show will feature just 16 portraits: eight large-scale prints and eight Polaroids. “I’ve chosen images that epitomize the idea of womanizers,” offers Capozzi. “It could have gone in many different ways, but it’s very much about these single women and their strength. And then all of the Polaroids are the celebrities.”
