Sexual Power

by Samantha ShawMario Testino, V 59. The author points to a conflicted hegemony. Different images send different messages especially about women.�Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women�s Interpretations of Fashion Photographs� by Diana Crane�Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women�s Interpretations of Fashion Photographs� by Diana Crane was published in Volume 40, number 4 of The Sociological Quarterly in 1999. This article is a companion piece to a study that examined women�s relationships with the images presented in fashion magazines. Crane questions the validity of the assumption that fashion magazines encourage conformation...

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The Power of Appearances, Part II

by Katherine HomSee the recent history of fashion photography here.Steven Meisel, State of Emergency, Vogue Italia, 2006 �Doing Fashion Photography,� Erica Lennard Erica Lennard is a photographer born in New York in 1950. She has published 14 books and has worked with Perry Ellis, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and Rolling Stone. She is also well known for her work photographing gardens. In this article Lennard�s reflections on her work reveal many of the ideas central to realism. When shooting models she looks to bring out a �personal quality� by being quiet and only directing their movements in an attempt to make them relax enough to be natural....

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The Power of Appearances

by Sara JohenningSee the early history of fashion photography here.Steven Klein, Vogue Italia, 2008Roland Barthes, �Fashion Photography� Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician of the 20th century. Semiotics is the formal study of signs and symbols. Barthes was very interested in examining the relationship between cultural material, bourgeois society, and power � and found semiotics very useful in these interrogations. Barthes� comprehensive roster of work includes writings on fashion, photography, and structuralism/deconstructionism. �Fashion Photography� appeared as an appendix in Barthes� 1967...

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YSL in Paris

The first ever comprehensive exhibition of Yves Saint Laurent is being presented at the Petit Palais in Paris March - August 2010. Read the Times review here and my take here.Yves Saint Laurent, 1983 & 1...

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Brand Power

by Sam GoodmanFashion & Graphics by Tamsin Blanchard: In this reading, Blanchard discusses the importance of graphics and branding in the fashion industry. She says, �There comes a point when designer clothing is not about cut and cloth, but about graphic design, packaging and communication [�.]� (pg 534). Increasingly, a designer puts as much energy and resources into their brand image as they do into their collections. Many work with graphic designers to �express the philosophy and character of the line to the customer� (pg 535), and this is done through the creation of a brand logo, and even ad campaigns.Gloria Vanderbilt is an early...

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