These timeless portraits were all made in 2007 by the British photographer Vanessa Winship while she travelled and photographed in Turkey. They will be featured as one of the highlights this year at the Rencontres festival in Arles, France. A book of photographs by Vanessa Winship will be released in conjunction with the exhibition.

Winship writes:

One enduring image that had always struck me wherever I travelled was the schoolgirls in their little blue dresses, the same in every town, city or village.

These dresses with their lace collars and sweet messages embroidered on the bodices, were the symbol of the Turkish state, but the girls who wore them were simply little girls.

In the borderlands of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Armenia the dresses were still the same...

See more of this remarkable series here in Lens Culture, accompanied with text by the photographer.