Photographs by

• Erwin Blumenfeld
• Guy Bourdin
• William Klein
• Helmut Newton
• Norman Parkinson
• Edward Steichen

The exhibition “Threads” covers six decades, from 1924 to 1984, and is devoted to the fashion photographs of six undisputed masters: Edward Steichen, Erwin Blumenfeld, Norman Parkinson, William Klein, Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.

Today, fashion photography is everywhere and we take it for granted. Going back to the 1910s and early 1920s, however, it was considered a non-starter. Editors, advertising agencies, fashion houses and their clients considered fashion illustration a far superior way to show silhouettes, cuts, fabrics and colours. If fashion photography was to make an impact, it had to do more than merely show off garments – it would also have to convey the dream and elegance of fashion.

In 1923 Condé Nast – publisher of Vogue – hired Edward Steichen. He was the first photographer to be commissioned by the magazine, a choice inspired by his involvement in Pictorialism and the Photo Secession, the dominant art photography movements from the end of the 19th century until the 1920s. Steichen was able to reinvent the dazzling atmosphere of his Pictorialist photographs for the pages of Vogue throughout the Jazz Age.

From 1923 to 1929, Nast would divide the magazine between fashion photography and illustration equally, and at the end of the decade hired art director Dr. M. F. Agha to reinvent the publication. He took his cue from modernism, De Stijl and Russian constructivism, discarded fashion illustration altogether and focused solely on photography. In doing so, he not only created the first style magazine as we know it today, but also defined the role of art director.

From this point forward, Vogue and competing magazine Harper’s Bazaar would enlist the services of many photographers who began to experiment with techniques. Erwin Blumenfeld, a key figure in the Avant Garde movement, used solarisation, photographed through veils and printed using mirrors to achieve his signature fashion images. This first wave of fashion photographers had come to the genre from art photography or portraiture, and most successful of these were those who truly entered the spirit of fashion – none more so than English photographer Norman Parkinson. More often than not he would combine elegance with humour – sometimes bordering on the absurd – while others like William Klein began to shoot their fashion on location. His fashion images combine an almost casual elegance with a strong sense of energy, whether his models are crossing the Piazza di Spagna in Rome or standing on the top of a skyscraper in New York.

For a handful of photographers, fashion photography then became something more personal, darker and ultimately complex. One can almost put a date on when this change occurred – late 1954 when French Vogue hired then-unknown photographer Guy Bourdin to shoot a story on hats. Bourdin posed his models in cafés, in front of monuments, took them to butcher shops and placed them in front of lines of gutted rabbits. He called the story ‘Chapeaux – Choc’, which shocked the editors, who refused to publish all but one cropped image.

It would take Bourdin almost two decades and a new sympathetic editor before he was able to fulfill his vision in French Vogue. By that time, the magazine had also enlisted the services of Helmut Newton, and it seemed as though the two were in competition to see who would push the envelope the furthest – the results of which continue to spark creativity in today’s fashion photographers.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

A unique set of Polaroids by Helmut Newton

One of two known prints of the model in front of the gutted rabbits in the now infamous ‘Chapeaux – Choc’ shoot by Guy Bourdin

A rare group of vintage prints by Norman Parkinson

Rare Surrealist fashion images by Erwin Blumenfeld

Private View 12th May 18.30-20.30
RSVP essential by Monday 10th May
Tel +44(0)20 7636 5375
rsvp@diemarnoble.com