History and development of "how to depict clothes"
June 14, 2006
| It is interesting to explore the bridge that connects two art forms that are really in a deep relationship, but have different rules and tend to focus on different audiences and on different aims.
At the same time is quite intuitive to understand that photography is the medium that communicates fashion in the most immediate way, allowing the spectator the chance to see and evaluate outfits, creations and collections at least a visual level.
Through the decades the figure of the fashion photographer gained respect and esteem, after a long period when the idea of "depicting clothes" was supposed to be the only aim to be pursued; creative effort from the author of the pictures was avoided, as possible source of misrepresentation of the subject.
Only when attention grew in this segment, recognised from specialised magazines and later from the institutional circuit of galleries and museums, the idea of expressing artists' peculiar point of view started to be considered as an enrichment.
With the years the situation turned upside down, it is not rare to see griffes compete for the services from hotter names in fashion photography, with a new generation of artists that are slowly over passing the "sacred cows" tending sometimes to product images that seem very far from the represented objects.
Someway the relationship became finally two-ways, not only the pictures as representational medium of fashion, but fashion as a pretext for aesthetic research of photography.
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A common path might also be found in the struggle that the two disciplines shared to be recognised as arts by the "official culture"; photography was considered for a long time poor and not interesting as a visual art, seen as a mechanic "machine-mediate activity" with no connection to talent (and this is naturally connected with the idea of the most accurate possible portrait). Fashion design was seen for long time as naïve, bizarre and had to fight a lot to receive an allure of artistic creativity and a proper cultural recognition. Italy and France, doubtlessly crucial areas of the fashion system, understood with time the true value of fashion both as an art that adds prestige to the culture of a nation and an important high-standard market branch, which moves enormous amounts of money. The precursors of fashion photography might be found going back to eighteenth century, when images of fashionable clothes were print in magazines, often hand-coloured. This production was mostly settled in Paris and imported to other European countries, especially in England. Technically the passage from the old daguerreotype to halftone printing techniques permitted the mass printing, which was a necessary pre-condition for seminal fashion photography to be featured in magazines; this technical step took place at the beginning of the 20th century. Still the resistance to the photo representation of fashion was so strong, that the covers of magazines that included fashion-oriented reportages in the inside pages were still using drawings that seemed to be more capable of catching reader's eye at a first glance. Slightly the concept of depiction, strictly committed to the first phase of "clothes portrayal" let space to a different aim, which nowadays seems to be what clients ask to photographers. The idea, common to advertising campaigns and lifestyle magazine features, is now to represent a concept, a world and a style more then outfits or accessories; with this attitude, the artists have a new task, filtering through their vision and sensibility the depictional process. The need of "reality" lost his centrality. |
 The idea of creating a "world" gives great importance to the stylist figure, who is another key presence through all fashion photography history; the sector publishings, the art directors and the stylists team up beside the photographer to amplify the power of this form of visual communication. Condè Nast and Hearst publications have been the media which spread formal codes of fashion print communication, and the leading position of magazines as Vogue or Harpers's Bazaar from this point of view is enforced and justified by historic significance. Also big names from the past linked their work to the presence of important collaborators, finding fellow concepts and attitudes in the fashion redactions of these magazines. It is very hard and subjective to make a list of important names in this specific photography area; looking back at the past some references are anyway almost compulsory: Baron de Meyer, E.J.Steichen and Cecil Beaton are artists who mainly contributed to address the directions of the field since the 20's In the decades, following the big changes in costume, fashion and visual arts different authors emerged... David Bailey, Guy Bordin, William Klein and Bob Richardson just to name a few. Speaking about contemporary protagonists, a new generation of highly considered talents has already come through and is the most requested; from Mert and Marcus to Craig Mc Dean, from Steven Meisel to Steven Klein and Mario Testino; griffes entrust to the fashion photographers the message of their creativity, while VIPs, show biz protagonists and public figures really adore the idea of being portrayed by the most acclaimed names. Interesting cross-projects also are born in the 21st century, as for example Nick Night's Superstudio. |
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To close the article it seems correct to underline the contribution of Italian artists to the area, including various important artists with quite different professional paths, from Giovanni Gastel to Alfa Castaldi, from Ugo Mulas to Paolo Roversi till the extreme codes of Oliviero Toscani. In different periods many inputs have been transmitted from one of the homelands of elegance, style and fashion design. For a first overview of the subject here is a list of books that might be a good starting point Frisa M. L., Bonami F., Mattirolo A. -Lo sguardo italiano. Fotografie italiane di moda dal 1951 ad oggi. Catalogo della mostra Ed.Charta R.Derrick. R.Muir -Unseen "Vogue": The Secret History of Fashion Photography Ed.Little Brown G.Schmidt-Archeology of elegance-Ed. Schirmer/Mosel Verlag Gm |
