Edward Steichen In High Fashion

"Steichen was already a famous painter and photographer on both sides of the Atlantic when, in early 1923, he was offered one of the most prestigious positions, and certainly the most lucrative, in photography's commercial domain, that of chief photographer for Conde Nast's influential and highly regarded magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair. Over the next fifteen years. Steichen produced a body of work of unequaled brilliance, putting his exceptional talents and prodigious energies to work dramatizing and glamorizing contemporary culture and its achievers, in politics, literature, sports, dance, theater, opera, and, above all, the world of high fashion." "The Steichen archive at Conde Nast contains more than 2000 original prints. Several of the images are well known, prominently featured in various histories of photographs. Until now, however, no more than a handful of these prints has been exhibited or published. The 1920s and 1930s represent the high point in Steichen's photographic career, and the work he did for Vogue and Vanity Fair encompasses some of the most striking creations of twentieth-century photography."--BOOK JACKET.

By far the most lavish, thoughtfully selected, and beautifully produced book of Steichen s work.

This title, featuring the work of 85 great fashion photographers past and present, drawn from the Conde Nast archives in New York, Paris and Milan, illustrates the early work of such celebrated practitioners as Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and David Bailey that have appeared in the pages of the company's magazines."

In 1911 the French publisher Lucien Vogel challenged Edward Steichen to create the first artistic, rather than merely documentary, fashion photographs, a moment that is now considered to be a turning point in the history of fashion photography. As fashion changed over the next century, so did the photography of fashion. Steichen’s modernist approach was forthright and visually arresting. In the 1930s the photographer Martin Munkácsi pioneered a gritty, photojournalistic style. In the 1960s Richard Avedon encouraged his models to express their personalities by smiling and laughing, which had often been discouraged previously. Helmut Newton brought an explosion of sexuality into fashion images and turned the tables on traditional gender stereotypes in the 1970s, and in the 1980s Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts made male sexuality an important part of fashion photography. Today, following the integration of digital technology, teams like Inez & Vinoodh and Mert & Marcus are reshaping our notion of what is acceptable—not just aesthetically but also technically and conceptually—in a fashion photograph. This lavishly illustrated survey of one hundred years of fashion photography updates and reevaluates this history in five chronological chapters by experts in photography and fashion history. It includes more than three hundred photographs by the genre’s most famous practitioners as well as important but lesser-known figures, alongside a selection of costumes, fashion illustrations, magazine covers, and advertisements.

Modern fashion photography was born when three brothers, Parisian postcard photographers, shifted their lenses to the upper echelon of French society in the early twentieth century. As impromptu portraits of beautiful women in inimitable finery at racecourses, resorts, and cafs began to appear in magazines, courant designers such as Chanel, Herms, and Madeleine Vionnet rushed to send their models to posh watering holes to be photographed with the beau monde. The first-ever showcase of 300 rich black and white Seberger images, this luxe collection is a must-have for fashionistas, Francophiles, and vintage clothing enthusiasts. Elegance recalls a bygone era of glamour, and illuminates the candid beginnings of a now highly stylized photographic form.

Suitable for art and fashion professionals, this book offers an overview of the development of fashion.