The art of fashion
The Adentity team took an inspiration trip to see the beautiful exhibition: Vogue like a Painting in Copenhagen. The show highlights the relationship between fashion photography and fine arts through fashion images from the vast archives of Vogue magazine.
Created in 1892 as a society magazine targeted at New York’s upper classes, in 1905 a young lawyer and publicist called Condé Montrose Nast bought the header and transformed it into a publication that celebrated fashion, luxury and the arts. To ensure the most unique and high quality images, Condé Nast built a stable of talented up-and-coming photographers from around the world, all signed exclusively to the magazine, and gave them the creative freedom that has become an integral part of the identity of Vogue magazine and indeed, Condé Nast’s successful publishing house. This then innovative approach gave rise to fashion photography as an artform.
Like artists such as: Egon Schiele, John Everett Millais, Johannes Vermeer and Salvador Dali who inspired some of the images on display, fashion photographers have risen to become the new masters of a burgeoning fine art genre. Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, Bruce Weber and Annie Leibovitz have all become respected names within fine art circles. And while the market for fashion photography hasn’t yet caught up with the masters, the over 1 million USD Richard Avedon’s 1955 ”Dovima with Elephants” for Harper’s Bazaar fetched at auction in 2010 suggests it’s just a matter of time.
Visit www.glstrand.dk