Need to know: Frida Kahlo

Few artists have become as popularly recognised for their wardrobes as for their work. Mexico-born painter Frida Kahlo (1907-54) is one.

Her folkloric look - exotic floral headdresses, monobrow and vivid Tehuana dresses - became part of her sartorial and psychological armour, and has since been reappropriated by artists and fashion designers, from Madonna to Valentino and Rei Kawakubo.

Now, Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako is offering a glimpse of Kahlo's interior life. She has photographed the artist's clothes as solitary subjects; taken together, these portraits draw a far more vulnerable picture of an artist famed for her flamboyant stoicism and self-possession. "The clothes people wear are proof of their lives and a personal history," Ishiuchi says.

For her photo series Frida, Ishiuchi shot more than 300 of Kahlo's belongings, including many of the garments the painter wore to counteract her physical disabilities (among them polio and an amputated lower leg). "Bodies are by nature weak and easily damaged, regardless of whether a person is handicapped or not. Rather than hiding her disability, I think Frida tried to supplement the negative aspects of her body with her clothes," Ishiuchi says of the ornate prosthetic boots and spine-supporting corsets.

The marks found on her garments - "cigarette burns on her skirt, mending marks on her silk stockings and paint on her corset" - offer a more intimate view of Kahlo.

As Ishiuchi puts it: "When I came face to face with Frida's belongings, I sensed her serious and intense way of living and saw physical proof of her short life."

'Frida' by Ishiuchi Miyako (2013) is at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, London SW3, from May 14 to July 12

Photograph: Bridgeman Art Library

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