Fashion in the Mirror:

Self-Reflection in Fashion Photography Since the Sixties

Exhibition Dates: 18 July – 14 September 2008

Press View: 17 July 2008

Location: 8 Great Newport Street

The birth of fashion photography as the visual representation of glamour, seduction and dreams, took place within the photographer’s studio. The post World War II period saw these photographers venturing out of their studios in search of more realistic alternative locations. More recently, notably in the 1990s with its championing of the grunge style, the fashion photograph became steeped in raw, uncompromising reality, completely inverting its original position.

Fashion in the Mirror will focus on fashion photography’s subject matter and narrative from within the image itself rather than its more common relationship to realism. The works in the exhibition deconstruct the image-making process and lay bare the basic principles of the fashion photograph; the way it is staged, its artificiality and the notion of ‘perfect beauty.’ It will present an overview of this self-examination and a rare look behind-the-scenes from the 1960s to the present day.

The exhibition will include work by leading international photographers including Norman Parkinson (UK, 1913 – 1990), Terence Donovan (UK, 1936 – 1996), Melvin Sokolsky (US, b.1933), Tim Walker (UK, b.1970), Bob Richardson (US, 1928 – 2005), Grégoire Alexandre (France, b.1972), Harri Peccinotti (UK, b.1938), Jonathan de Villiers (UK, b.1968), and Saul Leiter (US, b.1923).

In the work of Sokolsky and Parkinson, the photographer enters the picture frame and depicts himself in the process of being photographed, including a mirror to create a self-portrait with the model. De Villiers plays on this further by including the art director, the assistant, the stylist and photographic equipment within the image and so making fun of the cliché of the fashion entourage. Alexandre explores the private world of the studio and through minimal signs reveals the full poetic and comic potential inherent within the studio setting.

Fashion in the Mirror is co-curated by Raphaëlle Stopin and Michel Mallard, organisers of the renowned annual International Fashion and Photography Festival in Hyères (www.villanoailles-hyeres.com/hyeres2008).

This exhibition demonstrates the Gallery’s commitment to highlighting international photographic practice that explores the boundaries between art and fashion.

Reader feedback:

Discuss this story: