CODES OF HONOUR: THE BEAUTY OF DISCIPLINE
For decades, Mario Testino has turned his lens toward the codes that define culture, fashion, identity, and desire. With Codes of Honour, he enters a new space in portraiture, studying how tradition and devotion take form through ritual, posture, and dress.
Here, uniforms speak their own language. Across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, these portraits capture men who embody centuries of ceremony. Soldiers, guards, and ceremonial regiments who represent their nations not through words but through presence.
Testino photographs them not as figures of authority, but as symbols of continuity. His portraits show how elegance and duty can coexist, how the body becomes a vessel for history. There is tenderness in their precision, and a quiet intimacy in their composure.
Codes of Honour, The Peruvian Mariscal Domingo Nieto Cavalry, Peru
This series continues Testino’s lifelong exploration of how identity is expressed through what we wear. In Codes of Honour, the uniform becomes both armour and art, a reflection of service, devotion, and belonging.
The images are as still as they are striking. Polished breastplates catch light like glass, while wool, leather, and braid absorb it softly. The result is not reportage but reverence, each portrait suspended between formality and feeling.
Codes of Honour is ultimately a study in shared humanity. By revealing the dignity within tradition, Testino reminds us that beauty lives not only in freedom, but also in structure, discipline, and the collective gestures that endure through time.
Codes of Honour, State Honor Guard Battalion, Mongolia
Codes of Honour, The National Republican Guard Presidential Squadron, Portugal
Codes of Honour, Reggimento Corazzieri, Italy
Codes of Honour, Cuirassiers Regiment, Italy