David Sims for Vogue Paris

November 2013, more here

Body Double, Inez and Vinoodh, Vogue Paris

Gisele two times, November 2013

These images reminded me of the passage I wrote that inspired this blog here:

"There is in imitation an affirmation of the other, a love of the other, a love of the neighbor and a denial of the self and singularity. The larger idea of doubles, assimilation, subcultural formation...we have reached the excess with imitation. Everything can be duplicated and imitated. Whatever it is that we have culturally considered with virtual reality, the simulacra, the mirror image, the other... is not so much one another, or even the culture industry but we are imitating indeterminate images and those images are an imitation of real life itself - that is the rupture to imitation."

Axl Jansen for Qvest F 2013

Marcelo Krasilcic for Purple F 2013

more here

FAD Flashback: Avedon, Deneuve, Chanel, 1972

Cara Stricker for Oyster

more here

FAD Flashback: Chris von Wangenheim

For Dior, late 1970s

FAD Flashback: Steven Meisel, 1989

Vogue US, December 1989

Camilla Akrans for Dior Magazine

part Surrealist, part Edie Sedgwick inspired...

Venetia Scott for Self Service

FW 2013

Ahmet Unver for L'Officiel Turkey

selected outtakes, more here

Andreas Larsson for Self Service

FW 2013

Giampaolo Sgura for Vogue España

more here

Nagi Sakai for Marie Claire Italia

 October 2013, styled by  Laura Seganti

Mario Testino for Vogue Paris

Oct 2013

more here

Wolfgang Tillmans in Arles

Last weekend for the exhibition at Atelier de Chaudronnerie, Arles, more here

Raymond Meier: Selling Fashion, Selling Art

These photos by Raymond Meier were first printed in Vogue US, February 2012. Meier then prints his photos, without the magazine information, alongside his yearly ad campaigns without their logos, together in books as art. The very same photos used to sell fashion, are re-sold in a book as art. See all his books here.

above original Vogue layout and below Meier's book

What makes a photograph fashion or art? Largely context. In a disposable magazine, or online fashion site, it is fashion, while printed in a book or framed in a museum it is art. One of the reasons I began this blog was because I have long felt that many, not all, but many fashion photographs are essentially art history of our time, transformed into commercial advertisements through logos, placement and circulation. These photos make a record of our time, like all art history before it, and in many instances are the most avant garde images being produced. Top fashion photographers like Steven Meisel have archived negatives and limited edition prints that vie for blue chip status. Fashion photography is art photography, but often in the secondary, post-production, post-publication consideration.

Raymond Meier, Vogue US, 2010

Meier's photographs are consistently beautiful. But there are also a group of photographers with such consistent vision that what we always see their lens over what we are even seeing. Irving Penn always delivered a Penn photo, no matter the client. In our era, we see similar consistency with Juergen Teller. When I see a Juergen Teller photo, I notice his color palette and his view of the world, then secondly the brand he is working for at the moment. 

Juergen Teller, Marc by Marc Jacobs, S 2011

Juergen Teller, Vivienne Westwood, F 2012

Juergen Teller, Celine, S 2013

Is Juergen Teller selling fashion? art? or Juegen Teller? Is he even selling, or simply showing us a beautiful view of the world we live in like every artist before him?