Fashion: Photography of the Nineties
Fashion photography in the '90s can be roughly divided into the glamour and grunge schools, with the former drawing much of its inspiration from Helmut Newton and the commercial photographers of the '50s, and the latter dipping into the world of "art" photography for its references. InFashion: Photography of the Nineties, edited by Camilla Nickerson (senior fashion editor atVogue) and Neville Wakefield, the connection between the worlds of art and fashion is explored in a totally pictoral manner, dispensing completely with introductory essays or explanations of the choices of photographs and photographers presented. This approach is tremendously effective: the juxtaposition of full-page images from such fashion industry mainstays as Ellen Von Unwerth, Mario Sorrenti, and Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin with photographers known more for their interest in shocking, art-gallery images, such as Nan Goldin and Richard Prince illustrates well the extreme influence that such artists (as well as Larry Clark, who is not represented here) have had on commercial photography. This beautifully printed volume offers an imagistic history of the low-rent eroticism of the contemporary fashion-photo scene. While this look has been criticized as glamorizing drugs, in fact it seems here, when set alongside the overly made-up, perfectly posed models (without fat or pores) of the glamour scene, to provide a more realistic and attainable vision of beauty, and one that is no less compelling or erotic for it's portrayal of splotchy skin or imperfect forms.