Fashion Photography Advertising in High-

Fashion Photography Advertising in High- End Women's Magazines

Typology:

Fashion Photography in the Form of Advertising, for High-End Women's Magazines

Table of Illustrations

Literature survey: Origins / history / theory of fashion photography advertising in high-end magazines

Recent Developments of Fashion Photography Advertising

Case Studies .10

Appendix of Illustrations.

Table of Illustrations

Helmut Newton, "Rue Aubriot," Vogue France. Paris 1975

Helmut Newton, Vogue France, 1979, Paris, Yves Saint Laurent Collection

Helmut Newton, "Self-Portrait with June and Models"

Diego Velazquez, Las meninas (1656)

Helmut Newton, Cover of Vogue France, September 1986

: Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait (1964)

: Steven Meisel, Calvin Klein "Euphoria" Fragrance campaign, 2010

: Steven Meisel, "Madonna hitchhiking (from Sex)," 1993

: Steven Meisel, "Make Love not War" cover of Vogue Italia, 2009

Typology: Fashion Photography in the Form of Advertising, for High-End Women's Magazines

Abstract

Despite a growing respect for the fashion industry, many in our global society have been determined in their viewpoint that photography of such fashion is nothing more than blatant advertising and that there is no artistic skill or qualities involved. However, our society must come to recognize the power fashion photography has to influence and impact us. In other words, by being able to make social and cultural critiques, fashion photography has the ability to make a long-lasting impression on a person, even if that person does not consider himself/herself "into" the fashion industry. This paper proposes to refute this negative opinion of fashion photography, and establish the true, artistic and beautiful nature of the skilled photography required to make fashion advertisements.

By performing a critical analysis of design typology with in the fashion industry, this paper explores the fluid nature of fashion photography and its ability to function as both mere advertising, but also its ability to be a true art form. Through artistic and culturally critical means, fashion photography has developed the ability to artistically make statements on both the past, present, and perhaps future of our global society's values and principles. The unique origins, key characteristics and recent developments in the world of fashion advertising will be examined so as to prove the thesis of such photography qualifying as art.

This paper also explores two important case studies in the world of fashion photography, Helmut Newton and Steven Meisel, and will present examples of their innovative photography to further prove that fashion photography is a respectable art form. Photographs by Newton and Meisel, such as "Self-Portrait with June and Models" by Newton and various examples from the covers of Vogue Italia by Meisel, will be analyzed as fine art in an attempt to sway critics from believing these photographers only create insignificant advertising.

Introduction

Many people tend to compartmentalize different types of photography. In creating these sub-sections and sub-genre within this single art form, fashion photography has come to be viewed as perhaps being a "lesser" or not as respectable form of art. Some critics might even go as far to say that fashion photography is not art at all. However, it is precisely this disparity in opinions that needs to be explored in order to determine whether or not fashion photography is closer to art than just mere advertising. This paper addresses the typology of photography in the form of advertising, published in high-end women's fashion magazines.

It is important to note that over the last two decades, the significance of fashion has grown immensely across the world. Fashion has become a highly conspicuous part of visual and artistic culture. Individual designers, such as Louis Vuitton, Gianni Versace, and Ralph Lauren, have become business and cultural superstars. Fashion has become much more than superficial exterior styling concerned with surface appearance. More importantly, fashion has become an industry that integrates advancement in technology, aesthetics, and social values into day-to-day wearable items. While fashion has always played a role in the cultures of the world, the art of fashion design has increasingly seeped into popular culture. Accordingly, based on the cultural importance of fashion and fashion design, it follows that the art which captures fashion (most commonly photography), should be valued as art as well.

To begin with, the origins and key characteristics of fashion photography will be explored. Subsequently, recent developments and trends in the art of fashion photography will also be examined to draw the conclusion that fashion photography is more than just advertising.

This paper will then explore the work of fashion photographers Helmut Newton and Steven Meisel. Newton, a German photographer having worked in Singapore, Australia, and through Europe and the United Kingdom, and contributed largely to French Vogue and Elle magazines, was quite well-known for his nude studies of women. Although sometimes criticized as being "pornographic," Newton's nude photography eventually added elements of depth and intimacy that helped develop fashion advertising into a true art form.

Meisel, an iconic American photographer, has used his art of fashion photography to shape fashion trends worldwide. He has worked on major advertising campaigns for Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino, and Versace, among others. Also notable is that Meisel's art has appeared on every cover and lead editorial story of every issue of Vogue Italia since 1988. Meisel's photographs have been developed into art as opposed to just fashion advertising by his ability to create controversial layouts involving fashion and politics juxtaposed together.

In addition to these two significant case studies of Newton and Meisel, this paper will also explore some of the important criticisms of fashion photography in order to better understand opposing views that fashion is not art. Some of these criticisms include that since fashion photography is influenced and motivated for economic reasons, it cannot possibly have artistic merit. Another criticism is that in fashion photography, it is too common for male photographers to exploit their female subjects.

Furthermore, another important aspect of fashion photography that needs to be explored is the commentary created by photographers by the intertextuality of fashion advertisements. In other words, the underlying meaning of such fashion photography has come to be what it is due to viewers' relations with past forms of art and advertising.

This paper proposes, then, that fashion photography is more then just a representation of a garment. Fashion photography holds a message and a meaning beyond the clothing; it is an artistic expression by the photographer, and can represent deeper meaning. One of the most significant deeper meanings within fashion photography is that it represents more complex and serious issues than the promotion of clothing, jewelry, and shoes. Issues concerning the objectification of sex, gender, race and class, as well as the politics of consumption and pleasure tend to emerge. Accordingly, this paper concludes that such fashion photography functions as an art form through not only its artistic style and efforts put forth by photographers, but also through the social value fashion photography has stemming from its underlying social commentary of our world.

I. Literature survey: Origins / history / theory of fashion photography advertising in high-end magazines

Fashion photography is the use of photography to open up a dialogue among viewers about the most recent trends in clothing. Scholars note that fashion photography "acts as a representation of popular taste and is created to serve a commercial industry, yet it has also served as an avenue for change, pushing the boundaries of acceptability with innovations in style, technique and the portrayal of fashion" (Grossman 1).

The art of fashion photography has its origins in the advent of the art of photography itself. With new technological inventions in photography, such as the daguerreotype in the 1840s and the collodion plate in the 1850s, there came to be a gradual re-invention of the communication of fashion throughout the Western world (Grossman 1). That is, these new improvements to photography allowed portraiture works to become available to people of varying income levels. However, despite the common use of photography to capture family moments or other important aspects of life, certain photography studios grew to be associated and well-known for producing high quality photographic portraits of fashionable aristocratic and artistic clientele (Grossman 1).

However, these high quality portraits were seldom reproduced in quantity and they could not be cheaply reproduced for publication. As a consequence, wood-engraved fashion illustrations grew to be prevalent, even after the invention of halftone printing in 1890, which allowed a photograph to be printed on the same page as type in large quantities (Grossman 1). It is also important to note that frequently, photographs were used as the foundation for fashion illustrations. These photographs were retouched dramatically to look like drawings, with the use of details bringing the works into more clarity and giving the models idealized features (Grossman 1). Subsequently, in 1901, the first fashion photographs appeared in the fashion magazine Les Modes in Paris (Grossman 1).

As the photography technology continued to develop, fashion photography grew to be used as forms of advertising. One of the pioneering uses of fashion photography in this manner was in the early 20th century by Parisian haute couture establishments to document their styles from season to season (Grossman 1). Later on, throughout the 1930s, fashion photographs were principally created in studios, to take advantage of being able to carefully control lighting, composition and pose (Grossman 1). However, outdoor photo shoots were not unheard of. It has been noted that these outdoor photographs "carried an allusion of authenticity and spontaneity that made the fashionable clothes appear more vibrant than the sculptural effects of studio photographs could achieve" (Grossman 1).

With the impact of World War II, specifically with Germany invading France in 1940, American fashion magazines had to close their Paris locations and only a small amount of information was able to pass from occupied France (Grossman 1). Some fashion photography began to take on the "documentary" type feel of the war footage. However, these wartime fashion photographs were not made available to an American audience until after the war had ended (Grossman 1). From the conclusion of World War II, a new generation of fashion photographers emerged. The photographs of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn were typified with spontaneity and motion, yet still remained quite focused on elegance (Grossman 1).

The 1960s, with its cultural emphasis on sexuality and "free-loving," saw an increase in the sexual depiction of the photographer-subject relationship (Grossman 1). However, towards the end of the 1960s, an economic recession yielded many reductions in magazine budgets, and a new emphasis was placed on dark, violent eroticism (Grossman 1). "After the sexual revolution, photographers worked hard to shock an audience that had grown accustomed to nudity, by incorporating sexual innuendo, homosexuality, cross-dressing, voyeurism and scenarios suggesting rape and murder into their images" (Grossman 1). Additionally, the 1970s saw a distinct shift to emphasize the female body as an object of fetish and sexualization (Jobling 10).

This emphasis on shocking sexuality developed into an even more shocking and compounded depiction of sex and gender in the 1980s (Jobling 10). The 1980s saw men's and women's bodies become objects of desire (Jobling 10). Fashion photography in the 1980s became more daring and diverse (Jobling 17). This new bold and audacious style of photography gave way to an even more courageous style of fashion photography in the 1990s.

Subsequently, the 1990s saw the development of a new "heroin chic" style of fashion photography (Jobling 2). Fashion photographers explored the dirty, gritty, and grungy realities of life. "The shift to a neo-realist style of representation in 1993 by photographers like Corinne Day and Davide Sorrenti and the concomitant debate concerning their imputed celebration of heroin chic is an illuminating case in point. For such photographers the most important thing has been to portray the streetwise attitude of young people and the contempt may of them have for high fashion" (Jobling 2). In other words, the emphasis and purpose of fashion photography became concerned with life on the street, and the true feelings and attitudes of the younger generations.

Thus, this development of fashion photography over almost a century has signified fashion photography's focus on social and political commentary. Scholars and critics both note that "…fashion photography can both make a profound impact on the social and cultural scene, and have the potential to make a lasting rather than fleeting impression on the consciousness of any individual" (Jobling 3). People who buy or even just fleetingly view fashion magazines in passing are being more affected by the fashion photography on each cover and within. "If we look beneath the surface of the fashion magazine, therefore, a whole cluster of more complex and serious issues emerge concerning the objectification of sex, gender, race and class, as well as the politics of consumption and pleasure" (Jobling 3). Accordingly, the modern state of fashion photography has developed into a long-lasting, highly effective means of reaching different types of people across the social spectrum. It is in this way, in addition to being highly relatable to fine art, that fashion photography must be considered true art and not mere advertising.

II. Recent Developments of Fashion Photography Advertising

Currently in modern fashion photography, there are three main categories to be acknowledged: editorial, advertising and documentary (Grossman 1). Understanding these three types of fashion photography is important because it helps understand the motivation and approach each photographer takes in creating the work.

In editorial fashion photography, a magazine or other publication commissions a photographer to provide the source with the most recent updates in fashion for its readers. In advertising fashion photography, the designer or manufacturer or retailer of the apparel commissions the photographer to produce works featuring their products to help create brand identity. The designer, retailer, or manufacturer typically pays for the space in which the advertising photograph appears. Lastly, in documentary fashion photography, designers commission photographers to document their specific collections, to be used either for in-house documentary purposes or to be published as catalogs.

Another important area to focus on in studying fashion photography is the modern criticisms that have been made. Scholars note that one of the heaviest criticisms of fashion photography is that the male photographers were seen as exploiting their female subjects (Jobling 22). With the example of the photographer Newton, feminists tended to accuse him of producing work that was based on male fantasies of women's psychosexuality that were degrading and violating (Evans 87).

Furthermore, another recent development in fashion photography is a growing disparity in focus between fashion magazines. For example the mainstream fashion magazine Vogue always attempts to "harness the photographer's creative autonomy to the demands of advertisers and designers alike" (Jobling 35). In contrast, more "alternative" fashion magazines, such as The Face have been able to enjoy relative freedom "in both their choice of subject-matter and the way that they represent fashion" (Jobling 35).

Perhaps one of the more significant developments in fashion photography is the growing prevalence of fashion magazine's specifically targeted at men. One of the earliest male-focused fashion magazine's was Men Only, debuting in 1953 (Jobling 49). Although this magazine only lasted until 1968, by the mid 1980s men's fashion designers were beginning to have a stronger and more influential impact on society. These male focused designers, such as Jean Paul Gaultier Calvin Klein, and Giorgio Armani, helped spearhead new advertising campaigns in magazines directed solely to men (Jobling 49). From these initial advertising campaigns in men's wear came new and innovative fashion magazines targeted specifically at men, such as Arena, FHM and a British version of GQ (Jobling 49). However, while the aforementioned magazines were not the first male oriented fashion magazines, with the America edition of GQ published in the 1930s and Vogue Pour Hommes being published in France in 1979, these later publications post-1980s emphasized the bolder advertising campaigns. The new magazines such as Area were quite successful and considered to be more as art due to its emphasis on elegance and modernity, as well as having "high design and aesthetic values" (Jobling 50).

Also recently, fashion photography has developed into more of a means of expressing social commentary through art and less as a means of advertising, although the economic benefits of such photography remain solid. "Indeed, on many occasions fashion photography has either little or nothing to do with clothing, or else clothing itself seems to become an alibi for the representation of other contemporaneous issues and ideas" (Jobling 2). Fashion photographers have developed to use their craft, their art, to express their viewpoints and ideas.

With these ideas and developments in mind, this paper proposes that the elements of fine art that are prevalent in advertising must be recognized. "Art -- like marketing -- is an important cultural institution that transmits and reflects values, meaning and beliefs….There are many, many connections between art and consumption" (Schroeder 38). Additionally, the critic Weber has noted that Susan Sontag once wrote in a 1978 Vogue article that "it would be as easy to identify with the woman in [Richard] Avedon's 1953 photograph of Marella Agnelli as with a Brancusi statue" (Weber 1). Accordingly, fashion photography in advertising campaigns must not only be recognized for its marketing ability, but its artistic merits must be celebrated as well.

III. Case studies

There are two important case studies in the world of fashion photography that must be examined to further prove that fashion photography is a respectable art form. First, this paper examines the work of Helmut Newton, a German photographer having who contributed largely to French Vogue and Elle magazines, was quite well-known for his nude studies of women. Despite sometimes being criticized as "pornographic," Newton's nude photography added elements of depth and intimacy that helped develop fashion advertising into a true art form.

Second, this paper examines Steven Meisel, an important American photographer, who used his art of fashion photography to shape fashion trends worldwide. Meisel worked on major advertising campaigns (including Prada and Versace). Meisel's art has also appeared on every cover of Vogue Italia since 1988. His photographs have been developed into art as opposed to just fashion advertising by his ability to create controversial layouts involving fashion and politics juxtaposed together.

Without a doubt, Newton's fashion photography portraits record the opulent worlds of highly stylized and privileged people. This paper will examine four photographs of Newton done for high-end fashion magazines to analyze the elements of fine art photography invoked in each. The first image to be explored is "Rue Aubriot" from a 1975 issue of Vogue France (Image 1.1). This photograph is significant for its brilliant use of sharp lines, perspective, and contrasting colors. Shot in a Paris alley, Newton juxtaposes the androgynous female in a black suit with a nude, pale white female. The angle of the photograph makes the viewer feel like the road on which the two figures stands extends infinitely (use of perspective). In addition to its artistic merit, Newton's "Rue Aubriot" contains deep social commentary given the nature of its subjects: two females paired intimately together, one taking on the atypical "male" role, the other taking on the traditional "female" role. The nude female appears to be weaker and more submissive to the woman in drag, as evidenced by her complete lack of clothes. Accordingly, with the combination of both traditional fine art elements and social commentary, Newton has created a piece of true art for the high-end fashion magazine Vogue.

Along these same lines of "Rue Aubriot," the second image from Newton's work also evokes controversial social commentary and elements of art. The photograph of the Yves Saint Laurent collection from a 1979 issue of Vogue France (Image 1.2) is similar in its black and white nature and artistic portrayal of an androgynous female and a more traditional woman. The women are "connected" by the more masculine woman's cigarette, that reaches the typical feminine woman as she bends over towards her, almost seductively. The way the masculine woman, in a sharp suit, leans over the feminine female evokes issues of power between men and women in society. The elegance of the photograph allows the viewer to believe that it could easily be hung in a museum.

The third of Newton's photographs to be studied is "Self-Portrait with June and Models" (Image 1.3). There is no question that this is a very unique and intriguing photograph. In a single shot, the viewer can see the front and back of the main subject (nude female), another female observing, and then most importantly we can see the photographer himself exactly as he snaps the photograph. To include himself in the work is reminiscent of Velazquez's Las meninas (Image 1.4), which is one of the most important works in Spanish art history. Without a doubt, this technique reminiscent of one of the greatest European painters evokes qualities of fine art in Newton's photograph.

Finally, the fourth work of Newton's is taken from the September 1986 cover of Vogue France (Image 1.5). There is no doubt that this cover shot is deeply evocative of traditional and modern fine art portrait painting. One can compare Newton's cover portrait with Andy Warhol's Self-Portrait (Image 1.6). The intense yet simultaneously empty look of the man in the portrait evokes a new and untraditional image of "man," another clear social critique and method for Newton to turn his fashion photography into true art.

It has been written that Meisel was "known for striking, highly art-directed portraits" (Schroeder 5). The first photograph in this case study on Meisel is an advertisement from the Calvin Klein "Euphoria" campaign from Spring/Summer 2010 (Image 2.1). This photograph has an almost magical, ethereal feel to it. The flowing folds of the model's dress catch the viewer's eye, making one highly aware of the photograph's fine art appeal.

The second piece of Meisels' is "Madonna hitchhiking (from Sex)" from 1993 (Image 2.2). Here, Meisel mixes controversy with fashion, as the viewer sees a nude pop singer and cultural icon, Madonna, hitchhiking in high heels and holding on to her presumably couture purse. The controversial image of a nude women walking along the side of a road, looking for a ride makes a statement that women should not have to be ashamed of either having sex or fleeing from it, and that they certainly should not have to leave their beloved elements of fashion couture behind either. By making this social statement, Meisel elevates his fashion photograph to true art.