- Put together by Lloyd Spencer
- Click on any image to enlarge
What should a woman look like? How might a woman act? On what should she model herself? Today -- to some -- these might seem like rather impertinent or irrelevant questions but they have been the basis of the history of fashion magazines. Playful or serious, elegant or shocking, these questions lie behind the millions of fashion photographs that have been taken over more than a hundred years.
Fashion photography is always collaborative. It takes a whole team to arrange everything for the shoot; the results are eagerly awaited by the editorial team. Even so, individual photographers have made their careers by bringing something special to the mix.
Fashion magazines seduce by means of their sensuous and spectacular images of beauty. The best 'glossy' paper is used; huge attention is paid to the way photographs are presented. Sometimes the images used within magazines appear at gigantic size on posters and billboards.
For most of the 20th century high fashion was determined by a handful of designers working for the leading fashion houses (especially those based in Paris) in close collaboration with the two hugely influential fashion magazines, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. Fashion magazines abound. Most countries or regions have their own. But the 'international magazines' (with their regional editions) have have dominated the scene.
Fashion is featured in many other magazines, newspapers, colour supplements. Individual photographers are sometimes contracted by fashion brands to help shape their profile or promote a particular line or look. And for even the most dedicated of fashion photographers, fashion was often only part of their output.
For almost a century fashion photography was tied up with print: magazines and books. Today the internet allows everyone involved in fashion - designers, models, stylists, photographers, writers - to have direct access to audiences. Instagram and the internet have already shifted the balance of power and influence. New art forms will emerge.
This web page is an attempt simply to present some of the most significant 'snapshots' or stories from the history of fashion photography that reveal some of its most significant features and challenges.
COUNTESS CASTIGLIONE - FASHION VICTIM
Let's step back a bit ... and tell the story of one of the most famous 'fashion victims', Countess Castiglione and her love affair with the camera...
Fashion has existed for centuries but only during the latter half of the 19th century -- in Paris -- it began to take on a recognisable modern form. New industrial processes meant a new premium placed on craft and creativity. The invention of photography meant a new 'look' could be more speedily disseminated. Fashion houses, rather than the court, began to dictate trends.
Virginia Oldoïni, Countess of Castiglione (1837–1899), was an Italian aristocrat, who became mistress to Napoleon III (1808 – 1873). A spy, artist and famous beauty, she was sent by Camillo Cavour, one of the architects of Italian unification, to influence the Emperor's politics.
She was well-known for her grand entrances wearing the most expensive dresses. Over four decades she directed Pierre-Louis Pierson to help her create 700 different photographs in which she re-created the signature moments of her life for the camera. She spent a large part of her personal fortune and even went into debt to execute this project.
The wife of Napoleon III, Empress Eugénie, was perhaps the last royal personage to have a direct and immediate influence on fashion. That power was soon to pass to the leading fashion houses, the first of which, the House of Worth, was established in 1858 by Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman who had moved to Paris. When Empress Eugénie admired one of his creations on a friend and insisted on Worth creating a dress for her, his fortune was made.
Before she sailed to the inauguration of the Suez canal in 1869 in she ordered 250 dresses from the House of Worth.
THE HOUSE OF WORTH
The model of a Parisian 'fashion house' was created by an Englishman, Charles Frederick (1825-1895) Worth after he relocated to Paris in 1845. He worked as a dressmaker and salesman for Gagelin, a prominent firm that sold textiles, shawls and some ready-made garments. Some of Worth's designs won prizes when they were displayed at the Great Exhibition in London (1851). The restoration of a royal house in 1852, with Napoleon III as the new emperor, began a period (the Second Empire) when demand for luxury goods reached levels not seen since before the Revolution. In 1858 Worth, with a business partner, opened his own firm.
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Worth was the first to use live models (often in the person of his wife, Vernet) to promote his garments. Clients made their selections and had garments tailor-made in Worth’s workshop.
When Worth was made official dressmaker to the court, his preeminence was assured. His fashions were often featured in American fashion publications in the late 19th century. Wealthy Americans sometimes made the journey to Paris in order to buy whole collections from the House of Worth.
At the height of his success Worth succeeded in narrowing the expansive crinoline and then of abandoning it altogether. Worth is also credited with shortening hems and inventing a practical walking skirt.
THE RIVALS: HARPER'S BAZAAR AND VOGUE
Harper's Bazaar began publishing in 1867 as a weekly in newspaper format, becoming a monthly magazine in 1901. By that time there were already 11 fashion magaines being published in America. Below is a cover from 1873.
In 1913 the magazine was bought by William Randolf Hearst. In the 1930s editor-in-chief, Carmel Snow brought together the talents of fashion editor, Diana Vreeland and art director, Alexey Brodovitch. In the 1940s Brodovitch recognised the talents of a young Richard Avedon, who went on to become chief photographer at Harper's. After World War II those four formed a most formidable team.
Vogue began as a weekly American fashion and lifestyle magazine in 1892 targeted at the New York upper class. It was bought by Condé Nast in 1909. A British edition was launched in 1916 and the Paris Vogue in 1920. Today there are 26 international editions. Nast introduced colour printing and developed the two-page spread. From 1941 till 1962 art director of Vogue was the very gifted Alexander Liberman who went on to take over editorial direction of all of Condé Nast's publications.
For many decades Vogue and Harper's Bazaar were the only fashion magazines with offices in Paris, London and New York.
Both magazines faced fierce competition in terms of sales and influence with the rise of the French fashion magazine Elle, which is today the world's largest fashion magaine with 46 international magaines in 60 countries.
...and, of course, there are countless lesser fashion and life-style magazines and supplements being published in almost every country of the world.
FASHION MAGAZINES BEFORE PHOTOGRAPHY
It is worth remembering that fashion magazines, including Harper's Bazaar and Vogue had a long history of illustration before they adopted photography. Illustration was preferred by fashion magazines because it could more easily show the cut and contour of dresses and could even offer colour.
In what follows I have first of all followed the story of fashion photography by focussing on some of the most notable photographers. But I will later find space for a few paragraphs on the importance of the art directors who commissioned and used photography in creative, truly innovative ways, thereby changing the face of modern magazine design.
The first fashion photographs were taken in the 1890s by the French photographer Henri Manuel but as they were monochrome, and somewhat drab, they weren’t deemed a success. For decades fashion houses, and therefore the magazines, preferred fashion illustration, regarding it as better for conveying not only the cut and texture of the clothes, and of course their colours, but also the fantasy element of fashion. In 1911 Lucien Vogel, publisher of the French magazines Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, challenged Edward Steichen to promote fashion as a fine art through photography. In his 1963 autobiography, Steichen would assert that these images, of gowns by Paul Poiret, “were probably the first serious fashion photographs ever made”.
BARON DE MEYER AND THE AGE OF ELEGANCE
Fashion photography began in 1913 when Condé Nast of Vogue asked Baron Adolph de Meyer (1868 – 1946) to try his hand at replacing the pen, ink and wash sheet he’s that hitherto had graced the pages of Vogue and other women’s magazines. de Meyer was a photographer already famed for his photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Irene Castle, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Ruth St. Denis, King George V, and Queen Mary. In 1922, de Meyer accepted an offer to become the chief photographer and Parisian fashion correspondent for Harper’s Bazaar in Paris, spending the next 12 years there.
The Baron’s success was based on his understanding of the world of rich handsome women depicted with the slightly blurred, ethereal aesthetic popular in silent films, as he veiled his lens in gauze and created soft backlighting.
PHOTOGRAPHY BEGINS TO RESHAPE FASHION: the influence of Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen was one of the giants of 20th century photography. In the early decades of the century he produced a series of innovative masterpieces. During a period when he was closely associated with the gallery and publication (Camerawork) of his friend, Alfred Stieglitz, he earned a considerable reputation for photographs in the Pictorialist mode. A dreamy soft focus was turned on modern subjects such as the cityscapes of New York.
On behalf of Stieglitz’s gallery, Steichen made many trips to Paris to buy modernist art from the artists there and to organise for their exhibition in New York. Steichen and Stieglitz played an important role in introducing modernism to America.
In 1911 Lucien Vogel, publisher of the French magazines Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, challenged Edward Steichen to promote fashion as a fine art through photography. In his 1963 autobiography, Steichen would assert that these images, of gowns by Paul Poiret, “were probably the first serious fashion photographs ever made”. He did not return to fashion photography until 1923.
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“The generation following De Meyer began when Steichen (in 1923 and also for Vogue) embraced electric lights to give a sharp and readable impression of the subject, in keeping with his his American aesthetic: clean, forthright, direct.”
Nan Richardson in Louise Dahl-Wolfe
When Steichen accepted the job as Chief Photographer for Condé Nast publications in 1923 it was taken for granted he would work under a pseudonym. Already known as both a famous art photographer and a painter, his employer assumed that Steichen would probably not wish to be associated with the purely commercial work he would be doing for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Steichen surprised everyone by insisting on the authorship of all of his magazine photography. He declared: “I also said if I made a photograph I would stand by it with my name; otherwise I wouldn’t make it.”
Steichen developed a very good creative working relationship with assistant fashion editor, Carmel Snow, according to whom fashion as fashion was of no interest to Steichen.
LEE MILLER
One of Steichen's favourite models was Lee Miller (below), who was also photographed by Arnold Genthe, Nickolas Muray and George Hoyningen-Huene. Her career had begun in 1926 when she was accidentally bumped off a busy pavement. The man who grabbed her and pulled her up from in front of the traffic was Condé Nast, who was immediately struck by her looks. She had the modern look that he felt was needed at Vogue. For the next two years she was one of the most sought-after models in New York.
When a photograph of Miller by Steichen was used to advertise Kotex menstrual pads, without her consent, it effectively ended her career as a fashion model.
In 1929 she travelled to Paris and, despite his initial refusal, she became assistant and collaborator to Man Ray. She became his lover and posed for many of his most distinctive photographs. The accidental discovery of solarisation, together with their immersion in Surrealism, proved an appealing combination and the distinctive style which they developed proved to have wide appeal. When she returned to New York in 1932 she set up a portrait and commercial studio there.
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GERMAN READY-TO-WEAR AND THE NEW WOMEN
When it came to both fashion and photography, Berlin became the place to be in the 1920s. The strength of the fashion industry combined with a vibrant expansion of the mass-media. Where Paris was famous for its haute couture, Berlin became famous world-wide for offering Konfektion, ready-to-wear industrially produced fashion. This was vital to the emergence of 'The New Woman'. By the mid-1920s working women made up 36% of the labour force.
In 1927 there were over 800 fashion-related firms in Berlin alone, many of them Jewish owned. In addition, Berlin possessed the largest and most modern print media in Europe. The Ullstein Verlag published popular magazines Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ), Der Quershnitt, Die Dame, Uhu and others. Harper's Bazaar and Vogue were not distributed in Germany at the time.
Photography offered plenty of opportunity for many New Women. In 1931 Lotte Konig, who ran a famous studio with two other women wrote an essay on "Die Frau als Photographin". Over 130 of the roughly 430 studios in Berlin were run by women, building on the unique educational infrastructure in Germany.
Several of the women who had success as fashion photographers, such as Germaine Krull and Marianne Breslauer, went on to productive and creative careers in other areas of photography. Two whose exceptional contributions were more or less entirely within the sphere of fashion photography were Madame d'Ora (Dora Kallmus) and Yva (Else Neulaender). Whereas Madame d' Ora specialised in Parisienne haute couture, Yva's work was inextricably tied to the Berlin fashion industry. By 1930 Yva's photos could be seen in almost every popular illustrated magazine in Germany.
The Nazi's rise to power in 1933 changed life irrevocably for many in the fashion and photography worlds. Jewish employers were forced to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Many photographers of Jewish descent... or indeed of anti-Fascist politics... left Germany. So important was their work to the 'image' of the new regime that, until 1937, the photographs of Madame d'Ora and Yva continued to be published. In 1939 her studio was closed and in 1942 she and her husband, Alfred Simon were arrested and are assumed to have been murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp.
When the Nazis invaded and occupied Paris Madame d'Ora closed her studio and fled to the unoccupied south of France where she survived the war in hiding.
HOYNINGEN-HUENE AND HORST P. HORST
In the 1920s and 30s, George Hoyningen-Huene was a highly successful fashion photographer who took one of the most memorable fashion images (see below). He began working at Paris Vogue, where he introduced his lover, Horst P. Horst, who often served as his model and who went on to have his own very successful career as a fashion photographer. Hoyningen-Huene introduced men into some of his fashion photographs, which was thought rather risqué at the time. But it was only in the 1970s that fashion for men emerged as an independent part of the fashion industry.
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Some photographs, such as Hoyningen-Huene's swimmers above or Horst's girdle (below left) feature again and again in collections of the 100 most famous photographs ever.
Horst P. Horst studied Greek classical sculpture but was also immersed in Surrealism. Elsa Schiaparelli was a close friend and this led to collaborations with Salvador Dali.
(Left) The Mainbrocher Corset by Horst P. Horst (1939) was taken at the studio of Vogue Paris the evening before Horst fled the city en route to New York. He worked for Vogue until his style fell out of favour in the more informal 'Swinging Sixties' but he was captapulted back into public attention when Madonna based the video for her song Vogue on this image.
From black and white to colour, Hoyningen-Huene and Horst were able to create an ethereal world of improbable poise and glamour.
Prior to 1930 Harper’s Bazaar was not a true rival to Vogue, but then they hired Carmel Snow, and Diana Vreeland became fashion editor. Together with photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, these women created authentic American style.
DYNAMISM AND THE FLOW OF GARMENTS
Poise can involve tension and dynamism but the still images of fashion magazines also needed ways to capture or suggest movement.
Carmel Snow replaced De Meyer with Martin Munkácsi, the first photographer to photograph fashion outdoors. His career had began in Hungary as a sports photographer who went to extraordinary lengths to bring an aspect of composition into his action shots. He worked for the Berlin Illustrierter and despite being Jewish he had photographed some of Hitler's inner circle. After witnessing and photographing the moment in Potsdam when President von Hindenburg handed over control to Hitler he left immediately for New York City, where he signed on with Harper's Bazaar, for a colossal $100,000.
In 1933 persuaded Carmel Snow persuaded him to photograph the Harper's Bazaar December edition's 'Palm Beach' bathing suit editorial. For this editorial, he had the model Lucille Brokaw run toward the camera while he photographed, which was the first instance of a fashion model being photographed in motion.
In the 1930s speed and motion were synonymous with modernism, and the active woman in fashion magazines became a symbol of the same modernity. The "action snapshot" styles of Toni Frissell at Vogue and Martin Munkacsi at Harper’s Bazaar were, on the commercial level, a direct response to the growth in the sports and casual wear industry.
Munkácsi introduced real movement to fashion photography, and thus laid the foundation for contemporary trends. He also showed women with a more modern, dynamic, and fresh look. In his shots, clothes stop being an accessory to become a living element, a part of the models.
In a change from customary practice, he often left the studio to shoot outdoors, on the beach, on farms and fields, at an airport. He produced one of the first articles in a popular magazine to be illustrated with nude photographs.
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SURREALISM
Surrealism was important to fashion photography from the start. 'Astonish me!' was what Alexey Brodovitch, art director at Harper's Bazaar, demanded in his teaching and as art director. Two of the men who were able to be consistently creative and even surprising were Man Ray and Erwin Blumenfeld who had both been artists involved in the radical and experimental Dada movement, producing a surprisingly diverse range of art works, before becoming photographers. Man Ray built a famous portrait studio (assisted by Lee Miller, Berenice Abbott and, briefly, by Bill Brandt) before he was hired for Harper's Bazaar by Brodovitch.
The Surrealists had elevated women to symbol, explored ambiguous sexuality and desire, fetishistically arranged body parts and apparently random objects. There was hardly a strategy of the Surrealists that was not ripe for recycling.
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In a contemporary display for a cosmetics counter (below) which incorporates several of Man Ray's photographs one can see how the Surrealist practice of juxtaposing apparently unrelated elements continues to inform the world of fashion.
Dora Maar, a mistress of Pablo Picasso, took many atmospheric photos with a decidedly surreal edge. Some of her best photographic collages were commissioned for advertising purposes ...such as the two below, both used for perfume ads.
Dora Maar swimmer (below right) was used to illustrate a feature on swim-wear. A few years later Toni Frissell took an even more adventurous approach by photographing the fully clothed model underwater.
Toni Frissell had started as a caption writer for fashion features in Vogue but proved so disastrous in this role that Carmel Snow encouraged her to try her hand at photography. She borrowed models to practice outside and for the rest of her career steered clear of the studio. Later she was to work for Sports Illustrated and remained for decades one of very few women sports photographers.
During the Blitz, Lee Miller and Toni Frissell posed models against the ruins of London buildings. The idea was to show the defiant spirit of the British and encourage American support for the war against Hitler. When America entered the war both Lee Miller and Toni Frissell signed on as war photographers.
Lee Miller landed in France soon after the Normandy landings and stayed near the front with the advancing American army in its advance across Europe. She photographed the liberation of Paris and was thrilled to be reunited with her many friends in artistic and fashion circles, including Pablo Picasso (below).
After photographing the first fashion shows after liberation, she marched on with the army always near the action. Her photographs of the concentration camps were published in Vogue, with her commentary. She and fellow war photographer, David E. Scherman reached Hitler's mountain retreat ahead of the army and he took a famous photograph of her taking a bath in Hitler's bath.
Lauren Bacall was spotted by fashion editor, Diana Vreeland, photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe and featured on this war-time Harper's Bazaar cover. It was her role as a model that made possible her move into movies, when she was spotted by Howard Hawks, and cast opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and To Have Not.
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“Colour photography in the early 1930s was painstaking and reproduction not always faithful. In 1937, when Kodachrome film had made colour easier, Dahl-Wolfe, who was trained as a painter and schooled in colour theory, lept at the chance to invent a sumptuous world.”
Vicki Goldberg
Women always occupied important positions on the staff at Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, and down the years there were a number of important women photographers. From Louise Dahl-Wolfe a number of photographers learnt lessons about using colour as an important part of their whole composition in order to complement the colour of the featured garments. [The three photos below are by Louise Dahl-Wolfe.]
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Mehemed Fehmy Agha, Alexey Brodovitch and Alexander Liberman
Modern American magazine design is a Russian invention. At Harper's Bazaar, Brodovitch was acknowledged as the high priest of editorial design but the first great art director, and inventor of the role, was Agha who re-shaped Vogue and was succeeded there by fellow Russian, Liberman.
Mehemed Fehmy Agha (1896-1978) became art director of Vogue Berlin in 1928. His inventive layouts caught the eye of Condé Nast, who persuaded him to New York in 1929. There he completely revamped not only Vogue, but also sister publications, Vanity Fair and House & Garden. Agha introduced the sensuous curves of Art Deco and the clean lines of Constructivism and, during his career, widened Vogue's margins to such an extent that the white space on either side of the page left enough “room for your laundry list". He introduced double page spreads and 'bleeds' (photos printed with no borders). He could be said to have created the role of art director as a conceptual partner to the editor-in-chief, a role developed by the two great rivals, Brodovitch (1898-1971) and Liberman (1912-1999).
[Below:] A spread from Ballet by Brodovitch, and Brodovitch at work with Avedon and other colleagues.
It is very difficult to do justice to the role of Alexey Brodovitch in the development of fashion magazines and fashion photography. It is worth focussing on his contribution because it offers insight into the contribution of someone not only with a gift for design, but also for spotting and nurturing talent. Brodovitch was a great art director in part because he was a great teacher.
In his early career Brodovitch had worked in Paris as a painter of backdrops for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and was familiar with the artists and art movements of that city. He won a competition with a poster incorporating a drawing by Picasso. He worked doing page layout for two of the most important magazines of graphic design. After opening his own studio he became known as one of the best designers in Paris.
In 1930, Brodovitch moved to Philadelphia and began teaching advertising design, creating a special Design Laboratory. Many of his students went on to prominence across a broad range of fields. Brodovitch's department came to be known as a 'prep school' for agencies and magazines around the country.
In 1934 Carmel Snow, newly appointed to Harper's Bazaar saw samples of his work and asked him to become its art director. He held the post for 24 years.
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Brodovitch continued teaching privately. Taking advantage of his contacts in Europe and his wide knowledge of photography, the Bazaar introduced the work of many artists and photographers to its American audience. Constantly creative in page layout, Brodovitch helped develop the imagination and careers of many photographers, most notably Richard Avedon.
Even today, Brodovitch's page layouts look fresh, dynamic and intriguing. They opened up space for the ideas of his staff and for the imagination of readers.
One example of how these exciting page layouts worked is this wonderful spread featuring a photo by Man Ray and brilliant piece of copy turning lipstick into "the red badge of courage".
The text reads: THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE . . . Every age has its own courageous gestures. The knight drew his sword. The gallant threw down his glove. The seigneur coolly took his pinch of snuff. There is a modern gesture to be added to the list… a purely feminine gesture. When a woman has lost her lover, when a girl has lost her job, when the doctor has told his fatal news, the dinner party flopping, the birth pains beginning, the scandal breaking, the storm striking, the other woman sailing by in triumph… the sudden streak of lipstick across the lips spells courage. …
Richard Avedon joined Brodovitch's Design Laboratory in 1944. His talent was soon spotted and he joined the staff at Harper's. It is easy to see in so much of his work a combination of dynamism and supreme elegance that Brodovitch cultivated throughout the magazine.
Garments are not made to be seen in static poses. Dresses - and other garments - are shown off in a special way by movement. Models spoke of the enormous enegy of Avedon, an energy which he was able to communicate to the models he photographed. That's Avedon in mid-stride with Twiggy in the photo centre-top below.
The 1957 film Funny Face was losely based on Richard Avedon's career and in particular, his 1950 trip to Paris to cover the fashion show, in the company of Carmel Snow, Suzy Parker and her sister Dorian. The photographer was played by Fred Astaire (58), his love interest by Audrey Hepburn (28)
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But Avedon’s involvement in the project didn’t end with the opening; he was also intimately involved in the rest of the production. In addition to creating the fashion magazine-inspired backgrounds for the opening title sequence, Avedon also served as Special Visual Consultant on the film, providing much of the photography used in the movie — including the iconic overexposed image of Hepburn that accompanies the title card — and helping director Donen to stage the Paris photoshoot and dark room sequences.
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Like his great rival, Irving Penn, Avedon was a very great portraitist. Whole features were sometimes based on their portrait sessions with the great and the good - and the beautiful. In their attempts to prove their seriousness beyond the world of fashion and celebrity, both carried out serious 'documentary' projects towards the end of their careers. In the Amercian West consisted of photographs of everyday working class subjects such as miners in their work clothes, truckers, housewives, farmers and drifters. Over the course of five years, Avedon and his crew managed to photograph 762 people and to expose approximately 17,000 sheets of 8×10 Kodak Tri-X Pan film, concluding with an exhibition of huge prints and a catalogue.
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Brodovitch had been art director at Harper’s for a decade when Alexander Liberman started as art director at Vogue in 1944. Brodovitch and Liberman practised an ongoing rivalry as did their leading photographers, Avedon and Penn.
Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from 1934 to 1938, where he studied drawing, painting, graphics, and industrial arts under Alexey Brodovitch. While still a student, he worked under Brodovitch at Harper's Bazaar which also published several of Penn's drawings. He then took off for Mexico to practice painting. When his efforts disappointed him, he scraped all his canvases clean and returned to New York, where Alexander Liberman offered him a position as an associate in Vogue magazine's Art Department. Penn worked on layout for the magazine before Liberman asked him to try photography.
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1947 "The Twelve Most Photographed Models of 1947" with Lisa Fonssagrives in white in profile (centre) and Dorian Leigh on the floor (R) nearest the camera.
Following the Second World War ‘austerity’ Britain was not a productive place for creativity or fashion. Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980) took few fashion photographs after 1950 and, apart from Norman Parkinson (1913 - 1990), who spent more and more time in New York, the only other notable photographer was Bill Brandt, who did occasionally feature in fashion coverage. The connection with British royalty which both Beaton and Parkinson had fostered was taken a step further by Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon (1930 - 2017), who married Princess Margaret, sister to Queen Elizabeth II.
Between the collapse of Picture Post in 1957 and the start up of the Sunday Times Magazine in 1962 there were few outlets for British photographers. The revitalisation of Queen and Man About Town (bought by Michael Heseltine and Clive Lavovitch in 1960) created new opportunities. Tony Armstrong-Jones brought a fresh photojournalistic approach to the society magazine Queen and amongst the first photographers hired by Town were Terence Donovan and David Bailey. The owners might have been Oxbridge but the photographers definitely were not.
The trio who reshaped fashion photography in the 60s, Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy and David Bailey, were all three working-class Londoners looking for work after fractured educations. Their success led Norman Parkinson to dub them the 'Black Trinity'. Duffy commented: "Before 1960, a fashion photographer was tall, thin and camp. But we three are different: short, fat and heterosexual!"
A leading figure in the fashion world was John French who had pioneered a new form of fashion photography suited to reproduction in newsprint, involving where possible reflected natural light and low contrast. French gave a great deal of attention to the set and to the posing of his models, but left the actual triggering of the shutter to assistants. Terence Donovan and David Bailey and Brian Duffy all applied to work in his studio. The applications of Donovan and Bailey were successful.
In 1960 Bailey was contracted by Vogue although he continued to do a lot of freelance work.
American Vogue's creative director Grace Coddington, then a model herself, said "It was the Sixties, it was a raving time, and Bailey was unbelievably good-looking. He was everything that you wanted him to be – like the Beatles but accessible – and when he went on the market everyone went in. We were all killing ourselves to be his model, although he hooked up with Jean Shrimpton pretty quickly". Although Bailey was married at the time, the pair began a relationship which contributed to both becoming icons of the Sixties.
David Bailey was sexy. Being photographed by him was fun. Of Jean Shrimpton, he said: "She was magic and the camera loved her too. In a way she was the cheapest model in the world – you only needed to shoot half a roll of film and then you had it. She had the knack of having her hand in the right place, she knew where the light was, she was just a natural."
"What attracted me to her was that she genuinely didn't care how she looked. She honestly never understood what all the fuss was about. That was very attractive to me."
In 1962 Vogue invited David Bailey to New York to revitalise their "Young Ideas" section. He insisted on taking Jean Shrimpton with him and they took to the streets, working in a free-wheeling fashion that Vogue was - at that time - completely unused to. They called their feature "Young Ideas Goes West".
At Vogue Bailey was shooting covers within months, and, at the height of his productivity, he shot 800 pages of Vogue editorial in one year. Penelope Tree, a former girlfriend, described him as "the king lion on the Savannah: incredibly attractive, with a dangerous vibe. He was the electricity, the brightest, most powerful, most talented, most energetic force at the magazine".
[Above and below:] Jean Shrimpton by David Bailey
In the 60s Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and a few of the other models joined the celebrity chic set and became household names. Indeed, photographers were likely to find themselves captured by other photographers. But it is worth remembering that such fame was reserved for the few. For both photographers and models an element of service is expected. And the relationship between them was never one of equals. Jean Shrimpton was never very keen on her role as a model and retired gracefully from the fashion whirlwind. In an interview with the Guardian in 2011 she admitted: "I never liked being photographed. I just happened to be good at it."
"Fashion is full of dark, troubled people," she says. "It's a high-pressured environment that takes its toll and burns people out. Only the shrewd survive – Andy Warhol, for example, and David Bailey."
DECADENCE AND SHOCK-VALUE
In the 1960s the movement towards 'greater independence, responsibility and social mobility for women' led to a decline in popularity of woman's magazines. The launch of Cosmopolitan in 1964 and Nova in 1965 were a direct response. Fashion commentator, Ernestine Carter remarked of the new, more decadent element in fashion magazines, "Pornography, having taken over films, the theatre, and literature, took over fashion photography too."
It was Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton who took the lead in making fashion photography more explicitly sexual, constantly courting controversy. They were given complete creative autonomy by French Vogue. The American office was often not amused.
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Bourdin's photographs consistently related sex and death. His first shoot for Vogue, for its February 1955 edition, was staged in a Parisian meat market. His famous 1980 Pentax calendar image places the US model Nicolle Meyer naked and prone beside a pool of blood-red nail polish; his 1982-83 campaign image for Roland Pierre looked more like a police accident record than a fashion photograph, while his 1975 image for Charles Jourdan shoes didn’t even a feature a model, but instead linked the red of the wedge heels featured with bloody drips emerging from a electrical socket.
Bourdin’s behaviour was almost as unhinged as the visions he captured in his pictures. Bourdin’s wife, Solange Gèze, died in 1971, perhaps as a result of a drugs overdose, while his girlfriend, Sybille Dallmer, hanged herself in 1981. In all his behaviour towards women Bourdin was controlling in the extreme. His photos often provided evidence of the humilation to which he quite often subjected his models.
HELMUT NEWTON
Interested in photography from a young age, from 1936 Helmut Newton's first job was as assistant to the leading German photographer Yva (Elsie Neuländer Simon). His father lost his factory (which made buttons and bows) in 1938 after Kristallnacht, and was briefly interned in a concentration camp. Newton took sail for the Far East and Australia. Originally set to travel to China, he stopped over in Singapore where he worked as a high-class male escort, as well as a photographer. In Australia he was himself interned for two years by the British.
Yva was Jewish, too. Forced at first to work as a radiographer, in 1942 she was arrested by the Gestapo and murdered, along with her husband, Alfred Simon, in a concentration camp.
In 1948 Newton married the actess June Browne, an association that lasted for both of them throughout the rest of their lives. June proved to be a very able business manager and, when illness prevented him from fulfilling an engagement, she picked up the camera and began a photographic career of her own, calling herself 'Alice Springs'.
Newton worked for Australian Vogue and also for Vogue in Britain during the 50s and 60s but returned to Australia rather bored with the fashion world as it existed then. It was only after he and June had moved to Paris that he was able to develop his particular style marked by erotic, stylised scenes, often with sado-masochistic and fetishistic subtexts. A heart attack in 1970 reduced Newton's output, nevertheless his wife's encouragement led to his profile continuing to expand, especially with a big success, the 1980 studio-bound "Big Nudes" series. His "Naked and Dressed" portfolio followed and in 1992 "Domestic Nudes".
Whereas Bourdin's work had been largely confined to the world of fashion, Newton's flamboyance and ambition meant that his career was discussed much more widely, causing considerable provocation in the age of women's liberation.
The photos above appeared as a provocative double-spread in French Vogue in November 1981. In Newton's theatre of wealth, sex and power, women act, and are often shown, independently of men.' [Appearances, Martin Harrison, 1991]
THE AGE OF THE SUPERMODEL
One photographer who clearly did feel comfortable among women was Peter Lindbergh, a native of Poland, who began working for U.S. Vogue in the 1980s. At one point he shared with the magazine’s editorial director, Alex Liberman, a sense of dissatisfaction. He said he did not like the way the women in the magazine looked as if they were showing off their husbands’ money.
Liberman challenged him to show him the alternative. Lindbergh rounded up some models that he knew, none of them particularly well-known at the time, and took them to the beach.
[Above] Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Tatjana Patitz on the cover of the January 1990 issue of British Vogue.
Editor-in-chief of Vogue, Grace Mirabella, was famously unimpressed. However, when Anna Wintour took over as editor-in-chief six months later, she praised Lindbergh’s well-crafted and intuitive simplicity and said that she would have given Lindbergh the front cover and primary editorial spread in the magazine for his series as it was the “future” of fashion. The era of the supermodel had begun.
“If photographers are responsible for creating or reflecting an image of women in society, then I must say, there is only one way for the future, and this is to define women as strong and independent. This should be the responsibility of photographers today: to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.” - Peter Lindbergh
As the brand-label-obsessed materialism of the Reagan years gave way to the 90s, two contrasting forces emerged. One was a kind of gritty realism, opposed to the aesthetic standards of the past: it came to be thought of as grunge or 'heroin chic'. The opposite tendency was the search for pure fantasy.
For a variety of reasons, what it meant to be a photographer was changing. Just as punk bands abandoned the elaborate productions of ‘prog rock‘ and reduced everything to basics, so a group of photographers, Corrine Day, Wolfgang Jürgen Teller, Christopher Sims and others, wanted to get away from the artifice of fashion and bring it closer to people’s actual lives.
Corrine Day, Kate Moss and ‘heroine chic’
Corinne Day had herself been a model before becoming a photographer.
"Day eschewed many of the conventions of fashion photography, such as beautiful locations and polished photographic studios; She took us instead inside the seedy flats where she and her friends seemed to be just getting by." [Ivan Shaw]
Corinne Day 's big break came when in 1990 she completed an 8-page fashion story for The Face photographing the 15 year-old Kate Moss on Camber Sands.
During the early 1990s Day continued to work with The Face, as well as a number of magazines associated with youth and counter culture, including, i-D, Ray-Gun and Penthouse, working with models including Moss, Rosemary Ferguson and George Clements. In 1993, Day was commissioned by Alexandra Shulman to photograph Moss for the June issue of the British edition of Vogue. Intended as a lingerie fashion spread, the editorial, "Under Exposed" depicted the 19-year-old Moss in her west London flat, which she shared with her then boyfriend, fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti. The images caused a media scandal, with The Independent claiming that the images were hideous, exploitative, verging on child pornography.
The heroin chic debate caused Day to retreat from fashion photography for some time. She chose instead to tour with the band Pusherman and to concentrate on documentary film and photography.
The prestige afforded to the most successful models has always meant that there was a great deal of competition. Many of the most famous models married photographers, or married wealth and quietly withdrew from the scene. The supermodel phenomenon, which meant that catwalk models could now join celebrities for the fashion show after-party, dramatically increased the fierceness of the competition to become models.
THE "#ME-TOO" MOMENT FOR FASHION
Terry Richardson made a career of highly sexualized celebrity photos and despite a series of allegations of sexual assault and sexual exploitation continued over more than a decade to be one of the highest earners. After the Harvey Weinstein trial, articles began appearing in newspapers asking how it was that fashion magazines continued to employ Richardson. Then his fall was swift: Condé Nast announced that they would no longer be hiring him. A long list of brands followed suit. In 2018 the NYPD announced that they were investigating allegations of rape.
More recently it has been alleged that Bruce Weber and Mario Testino had assaulted young male models and were involved in what might be viewed as sex trafficking. The fashion industry is facing its own "#MeToo" moment.
FANTASY TAKES FASHION INTO THE DIGITAL AGE
Not all of the wildest fantasies are explicitly sexual. Elaborate scenarios such as those set up by Miles Aldridge (below) draw heavily on films, especially cult films, to create an air of mystery.
These days fashion photographers are as likely as any other artists to talk about the childhood traumas that inform their current obsessions. Miles Aldridge has talked often about the shock of discovering that his father had another family, kept secret from his mother until he was 12.
About the women in his photographs he has said “They’re troubled, wounded, and confused, questioning who they are now that they have everything they want”.
“I cannot speak for ‘society’ but my view of modern women is that, like their male counterparts, they are wildly confused as to who they are and who they are meant to be. After centuries of wearing masks who is really sure they are who they think they are? My work is about this questioning of who we are now that we have everything we want.”
-- Miles Aldridge
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Increasingly elaborate fantasy remains a staple element of fashion photography.
NICK KNIGHT - FROM FANTASY TO FASHION FILM
One of the most interesting figures in fashion today is Nick Knight. His many technical experiments began long before the age of digital and fuelled the turn to fantasy as opposed to grungy realism. His use of ring-flash and cross-processing (developing transparency film with processes intended for negative film) influenced many of the photographers who followed. He remains at the forefront of exploring the possibilities of new technology for fashion with an interest in AI and 'fashion film' as (opposed to film about fashion) which is showcased on his SHOWstudio.com website.
Nick Knight's has developed the SHOWstudio website to showcase innovative fashion photography and film from across the industry. It covers a wide range of news, ideas and activity offering an unparalleled insite into how the various individuals involved interact.
Knight has conducted an excellent series of interviews with models about photoshoots in which they were involved.
FASHION AND IDEAS IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET
The development of digital has offered fashion photographers a vast and complex toolbox of resources, allowing them to experiment with colour, composition and setting. A new breed of magazine, such as i-D, Dazed & Confused, AnOther Magazine offers a wider range of coverage: "Fashion Worlds, Creative Spheres, Cultural Shifts" to quote one of the straplines below. No longer do Harper's or Vogue dominate the world of fashion i
When the traditional glossy magazines became so very dependent on advertising it introduced huge sums of money into the industry but had a disasterous effect on diversity: it left the fashion industry racist, age-ist and blind to the diversity of body shape. The arrival of the internet has done a great deal to overcome those short-comings.
And, of course, where expensive glossy magazines can offer an intense viewing experience, fashion websites can now offer so much more: fascinating images, readable stories and news as well as rich archives recycling the images from the past.
New internet platforms have offered image makers new avenues or channels to reach their audiences. Indeed sites or apps such as Flickr, Tumbler and, currently, Instagram and Twitter allow a more immediate and more interactive relationship with audiences.
Natalie Lennard (nee Dybisz, b. 1986) is a lass from Leeds whose elaborate self-portraits posted on Flickr while she was still studying English caught the eye of the fashion world. The link below takes you to a page with not only some of her stunning creations but also with revealing behind-the-scenes photos that give some idea of the processes that are involved.
The internet has changed a great deal. Online shopping has disrupted the whole fashion system in which department stores and fashion boutiques played such an important role. Today 'influencers' can earn huge amounts of money by endorsing products on their Instagram or Twitter feeds. The internet can offer the latest news from Paris fashion shows live or allow us to rummage in vast archives of the publications of past decades.
AND WHERE HAS THAT LEFT US? US PEOPLE OF THE 21st CENTURY?
STREET FASHION ? THE SARTORIALISTS ?
For many years photographer Bill Cunningham (above) made a career out of photographing the fashion trends and stylish individuals out on the streets of New York. From 1978 until 2016 he reported for the New York Times and wrote on fashion for several magazines. Although he captured many celebrities he showed his own preference for personal style.
On his website, The Sartorialist, Scott Schuman demonstrates the way many individuals today put together their own distinctive style and express themselves, individually and whole-heartedly, in their clothes.
This is such an unequivocal demonstration that creativity in fashion has shifted from the fashion houses to the street. The ever-popular fashion magazines have taken note and incorporate street-style into their coverage.
But more revealing are the wonderfully varied photos of South African supermodel, Josie Borain, who was given a camera as a gift by her first husband, the French photographer Pierre Houlès. She carried and used the camera throughout her career as a supermodel (she was the first model to be given a million dollar contract - from Calvin Klein). At the same time she photographed for many of the most famous brands and magazines in fashion.
“I just started taking pictures and it became a hobby … It was nice for me because I’m not that kind of girl who sits around and chats, smokes cigarettes, or whatever the girls do when they’re in the back and waiting for the fashion show to start.”
“I was always photographed as an androgynous person. And I think I took pictures of myself to say, ‘hey I’m here’– because when you’re behind the camera [on a fashion shoot], you’re not in the picture.”
Josie Borain compiled her photos from a 20-year career in a wonderful book, "Josie, You & Me". She went on to study and make film. She has talked about the fact that because she had children late in life (her youngest at 39) she found it hard to keep her figure but she has gone on to have an inspiringly creative career.
Perhaps we should end where we began - with that great image by Steven Klein.
The future of fashion ? what have you stashed away in your trunk ? Ready to take that long ride ?
You might want to Google or to consult Wikipedia to learn more about:
Edward Steichen (1879 – 1973), Martin Munkacsi (1896 – 1963), Man Ray (1890 – 1976), Louise Dahl-Wolfe (1895 – 1989), George Hoyningen-Huene (1900 - 1968), Horst P. Horst (1906 - 1999), Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980), Lee Miller (1907 - 1977), Toni Frissell (1907 -1988), Irving Penn (1917 - 2009), Helmut Newton (1920 - 2004), Richard Avedon (1923 – 2004), Guy Bourdin (1928 - 1991), Bill Cunningham (1929 - 2016), Terence Donovan (1936 - 1996), David Bailey (b.1938), Peter Lindbergh (1944 - 2019), Olivero Toscani (b.1942), Hans Eijkboorn (b.1949), Nick Knight (b.1958), Corinne Day (1962 - 2010), Miles Aldridge (b.1964), Terry Richardson (b.1965), Steven Klein (b.1965), Scott Schuman (b.1968), Miss Anelia (b. 1986)
Credits:
Photos taken from the internet under 'Fair Use' ... credited wherever possible