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The History of Fashion Photography
This is a short history of fashion photography through the 1970s. Part II, the 1980s through the present, follows this post at the bottom and here . Guy Bourdin, 1978 In order to discuss fashion photography, it should first be understood as a unique type of photograph, one that is simultaneously documentary and art work. In addressing fashion photography in his book The Fashion System, Roland Barthes explains that the world is a backdrop. That backdrop can be transformed into particular stages for specific theater themes. The theater of meaning in fashion then walks the line between the serious and the whimsical. Barthes identifies 3 common strategies in the fashion photograph: 1. literal representation: the catalog shot displaying the garment Tom Kublin, Balenciaga, 1953 2. romanticized: fashion becomes referential, a story where real life becomes art like in acting out dreams Chris Von Wangenheim, Vogue, 1979 3. mockery: