Hunter Schafer has entered Szilveszter Makó's surreal little universe, where paintings hang slightly crooked, proportions don't always behave, and celebrities occasionally look like somebody placed them inside a dollhouse from a museum.
The Euphoria star fronts ELLE's November 2026 issue in an editorial photographed and art-directed by Makó and styled by Jessica Willis. Against hand-painted-looking backdrops and theatrical sets, Schafer models everything from Tom Ford and Prada to Hodakova while maintaining the distant, almost mannequin-like expressions that have become a signature of Makó's work. While the artistry of Makó is undeniably elegant as it depicts sophisticated people in painting-like settings, there is also no denying that they appear like the most bored people in haute couture.
There is something historically familiar about Makó's little universe, too. His images seem to borrow from several artistic worlds at once, moving from the eerie stillness of old portraiture and Regionalist painting to the distorted proportions and dreamlike staging of Surrealism. The stiff poses, eerily blank expressions, and staged domestic backdrops look like someone pulled an old painting off the museum wall and gave it a fashion makeover. At times, there are even shades of Grant Wood's 1930 American Gothic, only the pitchfork has been traded for Prada and the farmhouse has been turned into a dollhouse.
The trademark concept is unmistakably his. That might be both a gift and a curse. After a run of high-profile editorials featuring the photographer's signature visual language, some fashion fans no longer question whether Makó has a signature. They're wondering how many times they're going to see it.
Fashion Fans Have Seen This Dollhouse Before
'First 2 times it was interesting, now I'm so bored with this guy's work,' one Redditor wrote beneath Schafer's editorial. 'Like, every week there's at least one editorial with this style.'
Another expressed the feeling more bluntly: 'she is an actor, could they not have asked her to give more than one face 😔 she looks beautiful but these are so boring.'
The complaints weren't limited to Schafer. Several commenters recognised the same visual vocabulary from Makó's other recent work, pointing to shoots with Elle Fanning, Rama Duwaji, and Olivia Rodrigo.
'Everyone and their mother is being photographed by Szilveszter Makó,' one user joked. Another feared they might be next: 'I'm waiting for this subreddit to post photos of me photographed by him that I didn't even know were taken.'
The Repetition Is Part of Makó's Signature
While some netizens called the photographer and art director 'lazy', the notion would overlook how much physical work goes into creating the art, whether readers feel the aesthetic is recycled or not.
Makó's painterly worlds aren't simply digital backgrounds dropped behind famous faces. Vogue Philippines, which worked with him on Rodrigo's September/October 2026 covers, revealed that the photographer creates paintings on paper before production teams enlarge them into full-scale sets. For Rodrigo, Makó researched Philippine culture before constructing a fictional landscape around the singer.
The outcome is deliberately and spectacularly artificial, a hybrid of classical portrait and paper doll. Schafer's ELLE editorial similarly creates a world of painterly compositions, sculptural silhouettes, and intentionally posed stillness.
One Redditor defended that choice, arguing that Makó's restrained expressions are consistent across his imagery and rooted in older fashion photography. The lack of expression, in other words, isn't necessarily the models 'giving nothing'. It definitely gives 'something', albeit something that induces déjà vu.
Has a Signature Style Become a Template?
That's where the criticism gets more interesting. For many commenters, the issue isn't that Makó has a recognisable style. It's that fashion appears unable to stop booking it.
'I love this style, but they really all look the same now,' one commenter admitted. Another described the photographs as feeling 'more like a template than an individualized vision.'
There are defenders, too. Some praised Schafer's editorial, while another commenter described Makó's work as 'visual poetry' despite acknowledging that it can become repetitive and predictable.
Perhaps that's the downside of developing a visual signature strong enough to be recognised before readers even reach the photographer credit. Makó's surreal dollhouse hasn't suddenly become less meticulous or imaginative. Fashion may simply have invited everyone over at once for tea.
