The Story of Fashion (photography):
Fashion photography began as drawings, before the first photograph was even taken. These drawings were high class, wealthy and white females dressed in extravagant dresses suggestive of upper class living. One of the first examples of the portrayals of fashion were published in Frank Leslies ladys magazine 1821-1880. Pierre-Louis Pierson began to produce photographs of a similar style in the 1850's with models such as Countess Virginia Oldini. The photographs of her were seen as provocative echoing wealth. Images such as these were primarily of females, conveying them as objects of beauty and opulence. This is suggestive of the 'Male gaze' that is commonly used in literature, this is the idea that books (photographs) were made to be read (seen) by men, thus the images were provocative and attractive to entice these men and please them. During this time period it was common for men to keep a mistress
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nearby their house containing their wife and children, allowing affairs to be simple and widely done. Wives were only there to do housework and pleasure their husbands, those unmarried longed for this as that is all society saw then as being worth, this also made rape and prostitution common too, there was 1 prostitute to every 25 men during this time. So in order to be successful, books and photographs had to be written for the male gaze. this all began to change in the 1850's...
Photography came into play in the 1830's. It was initially considered to be a way in which purely scientific and representational images were produced but after the 1850s advocates such as William John Newton, English painter, suggested photography could be more artistic. Thus began the pictorialism movement, elevating the photo and intervening in the photographic movement, similar to pre-raphaelite work, pictorialism can be quite misleading as to some extent it is quite a romantic approach.
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Soon after the pictoialists came the cubism movement in 1907-08, this was a revolution within traditional art yet still relating to and influencing photography, helping bring photography into the new age. Making photography more experimental and abstract, becoming casual towards 1924. It became less upper class and suggestive of a narrative. Fashion photography also evolved in a similar way as art has always influenced fashion, since printing process were evolving at the same time fashionable clothing was becoming more affordable for lower classes, fashion evolved with the art movements- straying from traditions. Paul Strand encouraged this by realising the camera had a unique quality to capture forms, again evolving photography therefore fashion. |
During the time of the Vietnam War (1955), production was evolving. This was especially due to the emergence of pop art in the mid- to late- 1950's. Pop art rebelled against elitist values as a post- modern expressionism movement, it embraced the mundane introducing aspects of culture, bringing art closer to the growing generation. Pop art had a huge influence on fashion through its use of bold colour combinations, it encouraged the banal to be bright and explorational. For instance the Andy Warhol soup can and the famous Marilyn Monroe pop art portraits, both post- modern takes. Pop art was so popular that it encouraged production to evolve, fashion was now being mass produced in relation with pop art.
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Towards the 1960's fashion photography began to derive documentary photography, adapted from that of the Vietnam War. David Bailey adapted this so that his photos had a documentary aesthetic to them, reinventing fashion photography. further on in the 1980's there was a campaign to advertise heroin as a bad drug, an attempt to discontinue the use of it. The campaign was called 'heroin screws you up', however the add made the drug look glamours as it was studio shot in black and white making it seem empowering,
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this meant the use of heroin increased showing how photography and fashion shots can influence the viewer. This was all going on during the 1980's at the same time as the AIDs epidemic that specifically influenced the fashion industry as many of the models had the virus causing many of the models to die especially the homosexual community whom it hit hard. Many loved models were lost leaving a new sadness to the fashion photography community, the images during the time seemed to echo this sadness, becoming darker to connote the tragedies. This brought fashion photography into the new age.