I found out about the closeness of the friendships with everyone taking care of one another

I found out about the closeness of the friendships, with everyone taking care of one another.""I was worried that you'd be like, `Oh, what are you doing there?'" confesses Katherine "And I was happy because you weren't at all. Those were bad times, they say, as well as good, but as they think about them now, a wistfulness settles on them.Your reaction to this intimate and touching work will depend on your view of modern youth. She began the photography project as a result of a five-year, part-time, BA course. Through two of her three children, Katherine, 15, and Toby, 17, she gained access to the private world of these teenagers, earning their complete acceptance They were 13, 14 then, and on the cusp of adulthood. They hate to say it, hate even to think it, but they've grown out of certain shared enthusiasms, grown ever-so-slightly apart. It is almost two years now since Toril started following them with her camera, trying to distil the essence of their young lives.Oslo-born Toril, 44, came to Britain with her husband, Carl, in 1977.

Step into Toril Brancher's homey, slightly scruffy house in Abergavenny, south Wales, walk down the hallway, follow the sound of mirthful laughter, and you find yourself in the kitchen, where Em, Jess, Jo Katherine, Tony and Toby sit around the table, eating strawberries, reminiscing, breaking up with hilarity at their shared memories.They are all firm friends from way back, members of the same large, amorphous group, but something has changed between them lately. It crosses gender and sexuality, and it continues to step from deck to dock, from studio to street.A version of this article first appeared in `Influence'. For details write to `Influence', Burbage House, 83 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3BS. It is both a cliched way of "doing French" and a garment that is still as everyday French as a packet of Gauloise or Gitanes, with which, in terms of iconography, it has much in common - all manage to retain their status despite mass production.

The Breton T-shirt remains a badge of the outsider despite also being available in various guises and cuts by a host of fashion designers, from Paul Smith (for whom the top has remained a collection staple) to Agnes B, and by mail order to the wearers of catalogue-casuals. " As a contemporary aside, Gaultier's recent magazine advertisements featured an illustration of two women: in the foreground Juliette Greco, and in the background, Audrey Hepburn. The story comes full circle.The Breton T-shirt can be worn with no regard or knowledge of its history or status or it can be worn precisely with the intention of imbuing the wearer with the associations of all those who have worn it before. He is outrageous, but acceptable as only a true pop icon can be, because the world now expects and wants him to be the image he presents - like Warhol.