fashionologie

Irving Penn, One of Fashion's Most Influential Photographers, Dead at 92

fashionologie — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:47:18 PDT

>> Irving Penn, one of the fashion industry's most influential photographers, died this morning at his home in Manhattan, according to a friend. He was 92.

Penn started out in 1937 as an unpaid design assistant at Harper's Bazaar, but it wasn't until he was hired as assistant to Vogue's art director Alexander Liberman in 1943 that his career started taking off. His first assignment involved designing Vogue's covers: He sketched out several designs, but none of the staff photographers would oblige, so at Liberman's behest, he photographed them himself. His very first color photograph for Vogue, a still life of a gloves, belt and pocketbook, became a cover - October 1, 1943. His photographs appeared on over 150 Vogue covers over the next 50 years.

His perfectionism comes through in his work - Liberman related a story of when Penn was asked to take a picture of glasses falling from a serving tray. He apparently insisted that Baccarat crystal be used for authenticity's sake, and went through several dozen shattered glasses before the final picture met his standards.

In 1947, Penn was asked to make a group portrait of the twelve most photographed beauties of that era. At that session, he met Lisa Fonssagrives, a few years older than he and credited by some as the first supermodel. They fell in love and were married in 1950. The two collaborated together, producing what become some of Penn's most memorable pictures - including “Rochas ‘Mermaid Dress,’ Paris” and “Woman with Roses, Paris” - on his first assignment to photograph the Paris collections for Vogue. "I didn't know Balenciaga from a baseball player," Penn told Vogue in 2007. "But she was a real pro. And she was not offensive about teaching me." Their marriage lasted 42 years, until she passed away at 80 in 1992.

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The Picture of Dorian Leigh

fashionologie — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:51:15 PDT

>> If a five foot, five inch woman tried to be a model these days, she'd hardly be taken seriously. Sixty-odd years ago, it was a different story . . . at least for Dorian Leigh, it was.

Ms. Leigh, who passed away earlier this week at 91 after battling Alzheimer's, was widely considered one of the world's first supermodels. In fact, her life was full of firsts: she was one of the first models to be known by name, and after her own modeling career, she opened what is called the first modeling agency in Paris.

Though Dorian started her career late — when she was 27 in 1944, she met with Diana Vreeland, told her she was 19, and landed a Harper's Bazaar cover right then and there — she appeared on seven Vogue covers in the 1940s, and claimed to be earning a whopping $300,000 a year.

She played muse to numerous bold name photographers: Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Irving Penn — the last of whom she had an affair with, and may have been the inspiration for Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. But she didn't take her job too seriously, declaring in 1953: "I'd rather have a baby than a mink coat."
*image: source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source

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New Biography Alleges Coco Chanel Was a Nazi Spy

fashionologie — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:12:08 PDT

>> Coco Chanel would have marked her 128th birthday tomorrow, and though she's been gone for just over 40 years now, new allegations keep popping up about her life. One upcoming biography, out this November, recently made headlines for positing that Chanel did drugs and was bisexual, and now another biography - just out this week - alleges that Chanel was an anti-Semite and a Nazi spy for Germany's Abwehr military intelligence organization.

Citing evidence culled from archives around the world - and recently declassified documents - author Hal Vaughan makes such claims in Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War. The book was spurred by an accidental find in France's national police archive, Vaughan says: "I was looking for something else and I come across this document saying 'Chanel is a Nazi agent, her number is blah, blah, blah and her pseudonym is Westminster.' I look at this again and I say, 'What the hell is this?' I couldn't believe my eyes! Then I really started hunting through all of the archives, in the United States, in London, in Berlin and in Rome and I come across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival materials on Chanel and her lover, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was a professional Abwehr spy,"

Vaughan also suggests that Chanel's alleged anti-Semitism caused her to capitalize on laws permitting the expropriation of Jewish property - allowing her to gain control of the Chanel perfume lines from the Jewish-born Wertheimer brothers, who'd helped make her Chanel No. 5 a worldwide best-seller.

In response to the book's allegations of anti-Semitism, Chanel released a statement: "Such insinuations cannot go unchallenged. [Coco Chanel] would hardly have formed a relationship with the family of the owners or counted Jewish people among her close friends and professional partners such as the Rothschild family, the photographer Irving Penn or the well-known French writer Joseph Kessel had these really been her views. It is unlikely."

"We also know that she and Churchill were close friends for a long time. She apparently approached him about acting as an intermediary between the Allies and the Germans for a peace settlement known as Operation Modelhut. No one knows for sure exactly what happened or what her role was to be. There are several different versions and it will no doubt always remain a mystery."

"More than 57 books have been written about Gabrielle Chanel. To decide for yourself, we would encourage you to consult some of the more serious ones."

As for Chanel's relationship with alleged Nazi spy Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, Chanel noted: "We know for a fact that she had a relationship during the war with a German aristocrat she had met in Paris in the Thirties. The timing of this romance with a German was unfortunate even if Baron Von Dincklage's mother was English and their relationship started before the war."

Cathy Horyn on Jason Wu Fall 2010: "World-Class Designers Are Not Made Overnight"

fashionologie — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:49:27 PST

>> Pre-show, security tried to keep Johnny-come-latelies like Dasha Zhukova, Derek Blasberg, and a few Vogue editors out of Jason Wu, and post-show, after his model of choice Karlie Kloss closed, Wu sprinted the pink runway from end to end ("It's very long and everybody's really busy, so I thought I'd sprint," he told The Cut), but in-between was where all the action really happened.

There's no denying that all eyes are on Wu, who has unofficially become known as the younger generation's Oscar de la Renta. But it seems his Fall 2010 collection - in which he reprised his paint splatters from Spring 2008, this time in real gold leaf, and was inspired by photos of and by Irving Penn - left his audience wanting more.

It all started with the piano runway music: "elevator music," as one editor called it. Another editor said it had her nodding off. WWD referred some of the evening offerings, typically Wu's strong point, as "just awkward," and Style.com noted that his attempts to expand beyond the dresses that first captured the world's attention "were occasionally uneven." But it was Cathy Horyn who really let it rip, writing: "World-class designers are not made overnight . . . Mr. Wu lacks the skill and maturity as a designer to pull off that kind of homage, to even come close to Mr. Penn’s artistry, and the wonder is why Mr. Wu didn’t know better and find another plan." Then again, as a young designer, Wu is still learning the ropes.

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Tom Ford on Why He Takes His Own Photos

fashionologie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:36:45 PST

>> With A Single Man opening in limited release this Friday, Dec. 11 - apparently Aline Weber has a cameo - Tom Ford has been on a serious press blitz this week. Monday, he had 20 television and 12 print interviews; last night, he appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - video here; and this morning, it was appearances on Good Morning America and The Martha Stewart Show. But film promotion isn't the only thing on his mind - in the December/January 2010 issue of Interview, Ford explains why he's gone the Karl Lagerfeld route and started to photograph a lot of his advertising images himself:

Even in fashion, it’s become ridiculous - 60 people to take a still photograph. I’ve started taking my own because I got so sick of all of that. I work with my one photo assistant, and a model, and hair and makeup, and that’s it. And, you know, I worked a good bit with Helmut Newton and with Richard Avedon, and the other day with David Bailey. For that whole school of photographers, it’s always been one assistant, one key light, one camera, one backdrop. And these guys worked on film. No one works on film anymore. I don’t shoot on film: That’s the only reason I can be a photographer. »

John Galliano Plays Peekaboo with Fall 2008 Dior Couture

fashionologie — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:42:03 PDT

>> Transparency is still the word, in John Galliano's mind. The beanie-sporting designer had Lisa Fonssagrives, wife to Irving Penn and oft-credited as the first supermodel, in mind when producing his typical voluminous dresses, but with layers of light chiffon, rather than the heavier, stiffer fabrics Christian Dior couture has boasted in recent seasons.

Frequent collaborator Stephen Jones, meanwhile, looked to Eduardo Garcia Benito, famous for his '20s Vogue cover illustrations of women in cloches, when creating the accompanying skull cap-cum-cloches.

Peplums were aplenty and Galliano couldn't help himself, sneaking a little leopard print into the bunch. But the unifying thought with this collection seems to be: What will we see on newfound Dior client Carla Bruni-Sarkozy first?
*image: source, source

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