William Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Harper's Bazaar, 2007. © William Klein/ Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
Exhibition notice: Fashion in the Mirror, Self-Reflection in Fashion Photography at the Photographers' Gallery, London, until September 14 2008.
Fashion in the Mirror shows how snappers picturing the latest trends often turned the camera at least partly upon themselves – revealing something in the edge of the frame, or in the foreground of the pic, which was a little bit of themselves.
It’s not new. The moment maybe began with people like the great Norman Parkinson, carried on with the idiosyncratic and perhaps a bit warped Helmut Newton, swept up David (‘Baliey’) Hemmings in Blow Up, and rests today with the likes of John ‘Rankin’ Waddell today. The finger on the shutter just can’t remain un-pictured, an innocent bystander.
Fashion in the Mirror is co-curated by Michel Mallard and Raphaëlle Stopin, organisers of the annual International Fashion and Photography Festival in Hyères.
Norman Parkinson, at Queen, 1962. © Norman Parkinson Archive
Publicity for the show asserts that the exhibition deconstructs the image-making process and lays bare the basic principles of the fashion photograph; the way it is staged, its artificiality and the notion of ‘perfect beauty’, finding both comedy and poetry in the set-up of the studio.
Be that as it may – the participation of the auteur or observer within the scene will always, for many, smack of something else, something less wholesome. The exhibition presents an overview of this participation/deconstruction/self-examination; and an intriguing look behind-the-scenes from the 1940s to the present day.
Melvin Sokolsky, Isabella, Me, Nick (Las Meninas), New York, 1960 (for Harper's Bazaar). © Melvin Sokolsky
The free exhibition features work by 21 photographers: Grégoire Alexandre (France, b.1972); Richard Avedon (US, 1923 – 2004); Terence Donovan (UK, 1936 – 1996); Steven Klein (US, b. 1962); William Klein (US, b.1928); Nick Knight (UK, b.1958); Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin (The Netherlands, b.1963); Saul Leiter (US, b.1923); Steven Meisel (US, b.1954); Helmut Newton (Germany, 1920 – 2004); Norman Parkinson (UK, 1913 – 1990); Harri Peccinotti (UK, b.1938); Irving Penn (US, b.1917); John Rawlings (US, 1912 – 1970); Bob Richardson (US, 1928 – 2005); Melvin Sokolsky (US, b.1933); Bert Stern (US, b.1929); Juergen Teller (Germany, b. 1964); Mario Testino (Peru, b.1954); Jonathan de Villiers (UK, b.1968); and Tim Walker (UK, b.1970).
In addition to the the photographers often including themselves in the photograph, the addition of assistants, stylists and photographic equipment also within the images draws attention to the cliché of the ‘fashion entourage’ and queries the myth of the slick fashion image.
