Fashion as Photograph

Catalogue/ Product Photography

Ghost Mannequin/ Invisible Mannequin effect

• Disappearance of the body
• Fashion still life

Age of the fashion magazine

•Improvements in the halftone printing (dot) process means photographs can be reproduced in magazines•First ten years of the 1900’s•Before this drawn illustrations were used.

Petersons magazine plate , 1888

Paul Poiret (1879-1944)

•House of Worth (Charles Worth, father of haute couture)•Freedom from corsetry•Signature shapes- hobble skirt, harem pants•Clothing cut along straight lines•Influenced by antique dress- draping


Though perhaps best known for freeing women from corsets and for his startling inventions including hobble skirts, "harem" pantaloons, and "lampshade" tunics, Poiret's major contribution to fashion was his development of an approach to dressmaking centered on draping, a radical departure from the tailoring and pattern-making of the past. Poiret was influenced by antique and regional dress, and favored clothing cut along straight lines and constructed of rectangles. The structural simplicity of his clothing represented a "pivotal moment in the emergence of modernism" generally, and "effectively established the paradigm of modern fashion, irrevocably changing the direction of costume history.

Early modern fashion shoot

Edward Steichen photographs Paul Poirets designs for Art et Décoration, 1911

He was a photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair from 1923–1938, and concurrently worked for many advertising agencies including J. Walter Thompson. During these years Steichen was regarded as the best known and highest paid photographer in the world

While at MoMA, in 1955 he curated and assembled the exhibit The Family of Man.

Adolf de Meyer, 1920’s

Women look like models

In Pictorialist tradition: 

• romantic soft focus, 
• wistful character 
• theme of nature

Martin Munkacsi, early to mid 1930’s

News and sport photographer

Introduced Casualness

Unlike the romanticised or statue-esque previously

Edward Steichen in High Fashion, The Conde Nast Years, 1923-37

‘Steichen redifned fashion  photography using the avante garde framework of sharp focus modernism: directional lighting, graphic effects unusual angles an interest in geometry and a desire to inject a sense of contemporary life into his images’ Kate Rhodes The elegance of the everyday

Models are assertive eg: Marion Morehouse – socialite

Sculptural- art associations

Vogue vs Harper Bazaar

•Leaders in fashion photography in the 1920’s and 30’s•Hoyningen-Huene for HB (photographs for Madame Vionnet)•Horst P. Horst for Vogue•Cecil Beaton for British Vogue

Hoyningen-Heune, 1931, Madame Vionnet

Horst P Horst Costume for Salvador Dalí’s “Dream of Venus”. 1939

His method of work typically entailed careful preparation for the shoot, with the lighting and studio props (of which he used many) arranged in advance. His instructions to models are remembered as being brief and to the point. His published work uses lighting to pick out the subject; he frequently used four spotlights, often one of them pointing down from the ceiling. Only rarely do his photos include shadows falling on the background of the set. Horst rarely, if ever, used filters. 

Costume for Salvador Dalí’s “Dream of Venus”. 1939

Installation for the 1939 worlds Fair which features semi nude bathers.

Cecil Beaton (1904- 1980)

•British Vogue and Vanity Fair•Photographed and was a member of the “Bright Young Things” of the 1920’s/30’s•Photographed British Royals•Prolific diarist•designed sets, costumes, and lighting for Broadway

Vivien Leigh for Vogue, mid 1930’s   

Stephen Tennant by Cecil Beaton

• (21 April 1906 – 28 February 1987) 
• was a British aristocrat known for his decadent lifestyle. 
• It is said, albeit apocryphally, that he spent most of his life in bed.
• Relationship with Siegfried Sassoon

Queen Elizabeth II in 1968    

In the White Drawing Room in Buckingham Palace

Lee Miller (1907-1977)

Photographed by Steichen

American photographer and fashion model at age 19

She was stopped from walking in front of a car on a Manhattan street by the founder of Vogue magazine, Condé Nast, thus launching her modeling career when she appeared on the cover of the March 1927 edition in an illustration by George Lepape.

Became one of the most sought after models in New York.

Louise Dahl Wolfe

•From 1936 to 1958 Dahl-Wolfe was a staff fashion photographer at Harper’s Bazaar.
•From 1958 until her retirement in 1960, Dahl-Wolfe worked as a freelance photographer for Vogue, Sports Illustrated, and other periodicals.•“Environmental” fashion photography

In 1928 she married the sculptor Meyer Wolfe, who constructed the backgrounds of many of her photos.

Night bathing, 1939    

Panorama of Paris, Suzy Parker in Jacques Fath Gown, 1953

Suzy Parker was a 50’s supermodel

In 1935, American Kodak introduced the first modern "integral tripack" colour film and called it Kodachrome.

Cindy Sherman

40’s 50’s hollywood glamour, retouching lighting- more to do with portraiture and celebrity

William Klein, 1950’s

In BBC doumentary he says that he doesnt see himself as a fashion photographer, it was just something that he was asked to do.

His documentary style comes through in the informality, known for his use of blurr and movement in doc, here using a long lens.

Multi –disciplinary approach comes from his art school training see doc and exhibition at tate.

David Bailey, Mick Jagger

British Vogue

The film Blowup (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, concerns the work and sexual habits of a London fashion photographer played by David Hemmings and is largely based on Bailey.

he "Swinging London" scene was aptly reflected in his Box of Pin-Ups (1964): a box of poster-prints of 1960s celebrities and socialites including Terence Stamp, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Jean Shrimpton, PJ Proby, Cecil Beaton, Rudolf Nureyev, Andy Warhol and notorious East End gangsters the Kray twins.

Terence Donovan Spy Drama 1962

For the October issue of Town magazine

Bond like

Brian Duffy Jean Shrimpton on the Edgeware Road, 1960

Three working class ‘lads’ of swinging london

Picturing the 60’s ‘everygirl’ who has a part time job and there for enough money to spend in boutiques, socialise and enjoy sexual liberation.

Richard Avedon (1923 -2004)

•Harpers Bazaar till 1966•Vogue 1966 onwards•The book ‘In the American West’

Avedon did not conform to the standard technique of taking fashion photographs, where models stood emotionless and seemingly indifferent to the camera. Instead, Avedon showed models full of emotion, smiling, laughing, and, many times, in action.

Tina Turner, 1971    

Helmut Newton (1920-2004) Vogue and Harpers Bazaar

Sado maochistic element to some works

Treatment of the nude

Self portrait with wife and models 1981

Guy Bourdin for Charles Jourdan shoes

During his military service in Dakar (1948–1949), he received his first photography training as a cadet in the French Air Force.

In 1950 he returned to Paris, where he met Man Ray, and became his protégé.

His first fashion shots were published in the February issue of Vogue Paris in 1955. He continued to work for the magazine until 1987.

An editor of Vogue magazine introduced Bourdin to shoe designer Charles Jourdan, who became his patron, and Bourdin shot Jourdan's ad campaigns between 1967 and 1981

the suicides of his wife and two of his girlfriends, and the cruelty in which he treated his models.

Jamel Shabazz, Back in the days,  published 2002

Brooklyn born photographer

Photos from the 80’s 

August 1980

Ridgers- books on skin heads, documentary project

1995

1997

1990,s

Magazines reflected pop culture- music film, clubbing

Derek Ridgers and Steve Johnson- subjects against a brick wall rather than white studio backdrop- ‘sraight-up’

Juergen Teller 

•German photographer
•Photos in The Face, Vogue
•Has worked with Vivienne Westwood and Marc Jacobs
•Works with musicians
•Annie Morton , 1996

Teller studied at the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Photographie in Munich, Germany (1984–1986). He emigrated to London, England in 1986.

Teller's fashion photographs have been featured in The Face, Vogue (US, France, England, Italy), Another, Index, W Magazine, Self Service, Details, Purple, i-D, and 032c, among others. Since 2004, Teller has shot campaigns for Marc Jacobs. He has also shot campaigns for Vivienne Westwood. Teller has recently collaborated with Céline.

He frequently works with the musician Björk.

•British fashion photographer and model•Worked for the Face and Vogue
•Vogue cover with Kate Moss credited with the beginnings of the trend for the ‘waif’ look.

Day used Kate Moss as the model in an eight-page fashion story for The Face, in July 1990. The story showcased garments by Romeo Gigli, Joseph Tricot, Ralph Lauren, and a feather head-dress from the now-defunct Covent Garden boutique World

Adobe Photoshop

•Digital  image manipulation
•Graphics editing program
•First launched 2003

Trend for grittty realism of the 90’s disappears

Return to the idealised form s and bodies of the 1940’s 50’sHollywood glamour- sculpted by clothing, lighting hand retouching.

Bodies and skin can be made perfect, bigger or smaller at whim

Terry Richardson

•Book Terryworld published 2004•US photographer
•Has worked for Vogue, Vanity Fair, ID magazine. Harpers Bazaar
•Sisley, Diesel, Mango, H&M

graphic sexual subject matter.

Line between pornography and fashion erased

Shinkle suggests ‘spoof’

Nick Knight

•UK photographer
•Worked with Yohji Yammamoto in the 90’s and with Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior
•Shots for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Another Magazine
This image: with designer Gareth Pugh for Mercedes Benz 

Fashion and the fantastical

Woman as super hero/ car

Transform- body and machine

Pugh architectural designs

•Democratises fashion photography•Anyone can write about/ photograph fashion•Eg: Tavi Gevinsons “Style Rookie”

American fashion blogger. She began her blog, "Style Rookie" on March 31, 2008 at age 11. Initially, her parents did not completely know what Tavi was doing until she asked for their permission to appear in a New York Times magazine story. Since then, she has had as many as 50,000 readers.

In August 2009, she appeared on the cover of Pop magazine, which feature photographs by Jamie Morgan and was designed by artist Damien Hirst. Since then, Tavi has been featured in the View section of the December/January 2010 issue of Teen Vogue magazine and February 2010 issue of the French Vogue. Bloggers like Tavi have been referred to as the "frontline of fashion". She has also become a regular guest at fashion shows and a muse for designers in Tokyo. She is also partly inspiration for Rodarte's line at Target. Most recently, Gevinson was named a "Vogueista" by Vogue Italia with friend, Kristin Prim.

Streetstyle Copenhagenhttp://copenhagenstreetstyle.thepop.com

Ordinary people/style

Versions of the street style website from all over the world

Founded 2007

Various bloggrs/photographers eg Facehunter and The Sartorialist.

Poppy Dinsey, 2011

What I wore today- outfit for every day.

UK, 24 years old

‘internet sensation, book published

wiwt.com

•20 or more fashion bloggers celebrated•Put forward as a way into employment•Seems to celebrate ‘real’ and ‘street’ fashion 

Examples of bloggers who have been head hunted etc.

Where consumers- buyers of fashion also are the models, the photographers, the fashion forecasters, the experts.

Is this a democratisation of fashion photography or is it a loss for the industry, for fashion photography as art?

Exacitudes- Ari Versluis (photographer) and Ellie Uyttenbrock (stylist)

Casettes gang, London 2008

Neighbours, Rotterdam 2008

Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 16 years. Rotterdam’s heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek,

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.

The end of the illusion of individuality? Doc project, scientific in nature

•Barnard, M (2002) Fashion as Communication. Routledge, London•Rankin, (2009) Seven Photographs that changed Fashion, BBC 4•The Many Lives of William Klein (2012) Imagine BBC1
•Shinkle, E (2008) Fashion as Photograph, I B Tauris and Co Ltd, London