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Twiggy

Richard Avedon – art and commerce

Richard Avedon was one of the all-time-great fashion photographers. For decades after his emergence onto the scene in 1946, he was a dominant influence on the industry thanks to the energy, imagination and willingness to take risks that he brought to his work.

Fashion was where Avedon made his name. It was also his undoing – at least in his own mind. He came to regard it as “merely” commercial, whereas what he really wanted was to be, and be seen as, a serious artist. So he turned his attention to portraiture, using fashion commissions to fund his endeavours.

But such was Avedon’s reputation in the field of fashion that despite all his efforts it continued to dominate his image for most of his career.

Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt by Richard Avedon
1966. Mrs Alfred G Vanderbilt in new Mainbocher evening look. Photo by Richard Avedon. Read more.

Avedon – fashion and portraiture, two sides of a coin

At first sight, Avedon’s portraits seem to be the polar opposite of his fashion work. A distinguishing characteristic of a typical Avedon fashion shot is its energetic high spirits. By contrast, what distinguishes many Avedon portraits is the bleak, unflinching, often inquisitorial dissection of his subjects’ vulnerabilities. His portraits are rarely kind, let alone flattering. More than occasionally, they shock his subjects.

But look more closely and you’ll discover a dark seam of existential angst running through Avedon’s fashion work too. He’s all too aware that beauty can be isolating and that it fades. You can see that in the expression of Dorian Leigh as she looks at herself in the mirror in a photo taken in 1949 at the beginning of Avedon’s career. Pathos is more to the fore in his 1955 shot of Dovima with Émilien Boulione and a clown. But nowhere is his existential angst more explicit than in In Memory of The Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, a harrowing editorial for the November 6, 1995 issue of The New Yorker.

In an interview quoted in Avedon Fashion 1944–2000, he traces the underlying anxiety in his fashion work back to his experience as a boy growing up in a home dominated by women:

I watched the way in which they prepared themselves to go out, what clothes meant, what makeup meant, what hair meant, what men meant. That anxiety was a very important thing that I tried to work into the magazines. And very often they [the photos] were rejected.

Avedon – the great storyteller

Another common denominator between Avedon’s fashion and portrait studies is drama and stories. Throughout his life, he never passes up an opportunity to go to the theatre, the ballet and the movies. He’s also an avid reader. All this helps to provide inspiration and fuel his own creativity

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The model for this shoot, published in the May and June 1951 issues of Harper’s Bazaar, is Dovima, whose face reminds Avedon of the...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima by the great pyramids at Gizeh

1951. The shoot takes place during Avedon’s honeymoon with his second wife, Evelyn, whom he marries on 29 January 1951. So presumably Evelyn is lurking...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the mosque of Mohammed Ali, Cairo

1951. Winthrop Sargeant, in an article for the November 8, 1958 issue of The New Yorker, observes that like all Avedon models,...

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the feet of the pharaohs

1951. According to Winthrop Sargeant, Dovima is so overcome by the grandeur of her Egyptian role that she undergoes a mystical experience....

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Dovima photographed in Egypt by Richard Avedon

Dovima at the Temple of Karnak, Luxor

1951. In a memo to Avedon about the Egypt shoot, Diana Vreeland (Fashion Editor at Harper's Bazaar) writes, “Dick, before you plan these pictures, just...

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The stories are most evident in his fashion editorials, especially the iconic series of images he creates for Harper’s Bazaar to showcase the Paris collections, and which in the process help transform the image of the city after World War II. In A Woman Entering a Taxi in the Rain, an article published in the November 8, 1958 issue of The New Yorker, Winthrop Sargeant remarks:

His leading lady must always be involved in a drama of some sort, and if fate fails to provide a real one, Avedon thinks one up. He often creates in his mind an entire scenario suggested by a model’s appearance. She may be a waif lost in a big and sinful city, or a titled lady pursued in Hispano-Suizas by gentlemen flourishing emeralds, or an inconsolably bored woman of the world whose heart can no longer be touched – and so on. Avedon models play scene after scene from these scripts, and sometimes helps out by actually living an extra scene or two. The result is extraordinary for its realism – not the kind of realism found in most photography but the kind found in the theatre.

Think Elise Daniels with street performers and Suzy Parker and Robin Tattershall.

The mood of those shots might feel improvised, but the shoots themselves are far from spontaneous. They take a great deal of preparation: research into locations, sketches of proposed shots and test photos. On the day, Avedon coaxes and cajoles his models into the personas and poses he has in mind, chatting to them, joking with them and, crucially, telling them the stories he wants them to act out. He’s a bundle of energy, enthusiasm and inspiration and he won’t take no for an answer.

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Twiggy photographed for Vogue by Richard Avedon

Twiggy – annotated working print

1968. A working print of a variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue. The wax...

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Twiggy – final print

Twiggy – final print

1968. A variant of a photo of Twiggy that appeared on page 60 of the July issue of Vogue captioned:

Looking like a picture, left:...

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Hiro, once upon a time an assistant of Avedon, says:

Dick was the most brilliant of all the flashes that illuminated my professional path. His impatience was an inspiration in itself. The preparation he made for each sitting, the perfectionism – sharp, like a scalpel. And then the way he directed. His personality, which helped him clinch every shot. His timing. This man created the modern woman – the Avedon Woman.

In Avedon’s portraits, the drama is in the eyes, faces and expressions of his sitters, usually accentuated by ascetic, plain white backgrounds. More often than not the drama is dark, and not just by coincidence. Before the shoot, Avedon researches his subject and forms a view of what he wants his portrait to convey. And he seems inexorably drawn to his sitter’s vulnerabilities and failings – the skull beneath the skin.

He’s fond of telling a story of how he took his celebrated photo of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The challenge: find a way of getting them to drop their guard – the happy, smiling “Ladies Home Journal cover faces” they would present for their portrait in contrast to the expressions he’s seen as he stalked them at the casino. He wants his portrait to reveal their “loss of humanity.” When he turns up at their NYC apartment for the shoot, he notices their pug dogs, which they adore. So he sets everything up, gets the couple into position and says, “If I seem a little hesitant, a little disturbed, it’s because my taxi ran over a dog.” Both of their faces drop, he clicks the shutter and catches the expression he’s looking for.

It turns out that this story might itself be made up. Either way, it gives us an insight into the store Avedon sets by stories. It also illustrates another aspect of what Avedon is like and how he captures images like no others – he is an arch manipulator, charismatic and ruthless, who knows what he wants from a shoot and also how to get it.

That applies not just to individual shoots but also to Avedon’s legacy and the brand he is determined to create for himself. He’s perfectly prepared to edit his archive, destroying photos that don’t fit with the narrative he wants to create for himself. And when he talks about his experiences, it’s not always clear where fact ends and fancy begins. Indeed, according to Norma Stevens, his studio manager:

Dick would sometimes make merry with the facts—he even joked that if he ever wrote an autobiography he would call it Here Lies Richard Avedon. He said, “There is no truth, no history – there is only the way in which the story is told.”

Avedon at work on Funny Face
1956. Richard Avedon (right) at work on Funny Face. Read more.

Avedon – the Hollywood connection

Not only do many of Avedon’s fashion shoots seem to come straight out of a movie, they even inspire one. Funny Face is based loosely on the exploits of Avedon and his first wife, Doe, played by Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Avedon is retained as a consultant for the movie, revealing some of his working methods, providing tips on lighting and on Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe, and creating title credits and backgrounds plus a montage of freeze-framed fashion.

Funny Face and Avedon’s work as a stills photographer for The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and Some Like It Hot (1959) bridge his fashion and portrait work, with one of his greatest portraits being of Marilyn Monroe lost in thought.

For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that’s – she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn’t photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.

On a lighter note is Avedon’s virtuoso shoot – witty, stylish, extravagant – with Marilyn for the Christmas 1958 issue of LIFE magazine. The idea is to recreate the images of five stars from different eras. With his interest in theatre and the movies, this is right up the photographer’s street.

In every age the entertainment world produces an enchantress who embodies the fancies men dream by – the places they might have visited with her, music danced to with her, suppers shared with her. In the Gay Nineties, it was Lillian Russell, 160 opulent pounds of curvy Victorian womanhood. Then it was Theda Bara, representing all the women who came bursting from their stays in World War I with predatory eyes and heavy make-up into the new freedom. Afterward there was Clara Bow and Marlene Dietrich and Jean Harlow. Heiress today of the fabled five is Marilyn Monroe. On the following pages, in a stunning feat of re-creation, Marilyn impersonates her predecessors in their most enduring images.

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Clara Bow – whom Marilyn re-enacts in these photographs – was the heady...

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Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Lillian Russell

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Marilyn’s sensitive, funny and loving impersonations start opposite with a radiant replica...

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Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Theda Bara

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

The movies’ first heavy-breathing temptress and the original vampire was Theda Bara...

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Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Marlene Dietrich

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

This is Marlene Dietrich in the role that made her famous –...

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Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe as Jean Harlow

1958. The caption in the December 22 issue of LIFE magazine reads:

Jean Harlow always looked as if she were being bent backward over...

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The images here are scans of vintage black and white prints sent to a Hollywood producer, whereas the published versions are in colour.

Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon
1958. Marilyn Monroe as herself. Photo by Richard Avedon. Read more.

Avedon – fashion photography’s great innovator

One of the things that makes Avedon such a key figure in fashion photography is his ability to stay ahead of the curve. Fashion is by its nature so ephemeral that few photographers manage to remain current for more than about a decade. Avedon, almost uniquely, manages to evolve his approach to tap into the zeitgeist and reflect the changing times in which he lives. Perhaps that’s because he sees it as an important aspect of his remit.

I believe that the photographer’s job is to record the quality of the woman, of that moment he is working… Our job is always to report on the woman of the moment. The way she lives, the way she dresses. Our conception of beauty changes and is always changing.

Almost from the off, Avedon is pushing at the boundaries, getting his models to act rather than just pose, using blurred movement and soft focus when sharp focus and detail are what’s expected. According to Winthrop Sargeant, that was just the beginning:

The model became pretty, rather than austerely aloof. She laughed, danced, skated, gambolled among herds of elephants, sang in the rain, ran breathlessly down the Champs-Elysées, smiled and sipped cognac at café tables, and otherwise gave evidence of being human.

Some Avedon admirers date the turning point in his style from a celebrated photograph he made for Harper’s Bazaar in 1950, in which Dorian Leigh was shown bursting into laughter while throwing her arms around the winner of a French bicycle race. The picture created a sensation in the profession, since embracing sports heroes and laughing had not previously been thought suitable activities for fashion models, and the extent of its influence soon became clear as models began to appear everywhere embracing bicycle riders, matadors, coachmen, and Lord knows what else, in a state of hilarity. Next, Avedon, again a good jump ahead of the pack, started photographing models with handsome young men posing as their husbands, and then—most revolutionary of all—models wheeling children in perambulators or, to make the family scene complete, dangling them in baskets gaily held by the father, too.

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Andrea Johnson

Andrea Johnson

1946. This print comes from the collection of post-World War II supermodel, Andrea Johnson. The reverse is inscribed in pen "other shot Larry Avedon S449-2...

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The hand of Ara Gallant by Richard Avedon

The hand of Ara Gallant

1973. The smooth sloping shoulders (Beauty, youth), the manicured rough hand (The Beast, mortality), the balanced asymmetry… just the kind of unexpected magic and storytelling...

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It’s not so easy for us now to appreciate quite how startling Avedon’s work is for people at the time. Over several decades, particularly the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, he helps to define and advance accepted notions of beauty as well as pushing the limits of what’s acceptable in a fashion magazine (for example, his photo of Countess Christina Paolozzi topless in the January, 1962 issue of Harper’s Bazaar). Landmark shoots include:

  • Harper’s Bazaar, January, 1959 – China Machado, the first non-Caucasian model to shoot the collections and feature on the cover.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, September, 1962 – inspired by the coverage of Elizabeth Taylor’s affair with Richard Burton, the autumn collections shot as if by paparazzi and laid out like a pulp magazine.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, December, 1963 – Rebecca Hutchings, the first black model to appear in the magazine.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, January, 1965 – set in Ibiza, an editorial implying a ménage à trois.
  • Harper’s Bazaar, April, 1965 – a far-out mash-up of pop culture, space age and high fashion shot and edited by Avedon and billed as “a partial passport to the off-beat side of Now.”
  • The New Yorker, November 6, 1995 – In Memory of The Late Mr and Mrs Comfort, a dark and satirical fashion editorial starring Nadja Auermann and a skeleton in a tale of decadence and death.

Avedon – his achievement

The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st were a time of social, political and cultural change. Avedon’s fashion work as well as his portraits are a commentary on those decades, probing and revealing what power and wealth, confidence and vitality, deprivation and helplessness look like and what they do to people – a unique legacy of penetrating and iconic images.

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Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar

Nylon dance dress by Wilson Folmar of Edward Abbott

1961. This photo (another copy is in the Hagley Digital Archives) is annotated in pencil on the reverse ‘253527’ and ‘RICHARD AVEDON’....

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Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson by Richard Avedon

Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson perched in a tree

1966. Two of the top models of the day, Jean Shrimpton and Marisa Berenson, perch like birds in a tree in this photo published in...

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Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar by Richard Avedon

Penelope Tree modelling a Cardin collar

1967. This is the year that American-born model, Penelope Tree, moves to London to live with David Bailey. She’s 18 years old and it's...

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This piece is mainly about Avedon as a fashion photographer, but that’s not the half of it. Additionally, he created a whole series of influential advertising campaigns, the most notable of which starred 15-year-old Brooke Shields modelling a pair of Calvin Klein skin-tight jeans. He branched out into film and video. He initiated ambitious and important projects – In the American West is a great example. He ran a sizeable studio, which among other things acted as a kind of academy, training and inspiring generations of photographers. And through his exhibitions and books he helped raise the status of photography to challenge that of painting and sculpture in the minds of curators, collectors and the public at large.

Few photographers have the determination, the courage and the insightfulness to challenge themselves and their sitters to the extent that Avedon did. That is at the heart of his greatness.

Want to know more about Avedon?

Your preferred search engine will offer you many online sources of information and images.

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The Most Sought After Photographer in the World

1. The Most Sought After Photographer in the World

If you’re strapped for time and looking for an overview of Avedon's work, take a look at this four-minute documentary.

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Darkness and light

2. Darkness and Light

If you’d like to spend a bit longer finding out about Avedon, this documentary covers most aspects of his work and includes clips from interviews with him and people who knew him.

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Norma Stevens on Richard Avedon

3. An Insight into Richard Avedon

An overview of Avedon’s fashion work by his biographer and erstwhile studio manager Norma Stevens.

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Being shot by Richard Avedon

4. Being shot by Richard Avedon

Supermodel Kristen McMenamy, interviewed by photographer Nick Knight, recalls her experience of being shot alongside Nadja Auermann for one of Avedon's iconic Versace campaigns.

Here are four videos and a handful of books worth looking up:

  • Avedon Fashion 1944–2000 by Vince Aletti, Carol Squiers and Philippe Garner is outstanding for both the images and the accompanying essays.
  • Richard Avedon: Made in France by Judith Thurman presents a collection of images made in Paris for Harper’s Bazaar during the 1950s, reproduced to the exact scale of the engraver’s prints made for Avedon, uncropped, on their original mounts, with all of the artist’s notations on both front and back.
  • An Autobiography: The Photographs of Richard Avedon is a major retrospective of images chosen by Avedon himself. There is hardly any text.
  • Norma Stevens’ and Steven Aronson’s biography, Avedon: Something Personal is a compelling and insightful portrait, laced with reflections on the great man by people who knew and worked with him. Bear in mind, though, that many of the details are disputed and it’s inconceivable that the author remembered her conversations with Avedon verbatim.
  • Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers by Michael Gross provides a context in which to assess Avedon’s achievements in the field of fashion photography.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Unknown model by Kenneth Heilbron
Kenneth Heilbron – mid-century fashion from Chicago
The Young Look in the Theatre by Norman Parkinson
Norman Parkinson – photographer and fantasist
Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy

Filed Under: Fashion, Films, Photographers, Stars Tagged With: Andrea Johnson, Ara Gallant, Dovima, Funny Face, Hiro, Jean Shrimpton, Marilyn Monroe, Marisa Berenson, Penelope Tree, Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker, Twiggy

The sixties – sex, drugs, rock and roll and a whole lot more

Welcome to the sixties, a decade of controversy, creativity and consumerism; effervescence, experimentation and excess; babes, boutiques and blasphemy.

At the dawn of the sixties, the economies of the US and Western Europe are booming and post-World War II austerity measures are a thing of the past. There’s an air of optimism, tempered by the ongoing Cold War, which comes to a head in October 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis – a close brush with full-scale nuclear war. But to every cloud, a silver lining, and for the movie industry the Cold War serves as inspiration for a string of films including The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Dr Strangelove (1964) and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) – ironically, From Russia With Love (1963) is not really about the Cold War

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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

1. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

No movie better epitomises the paranoia, cynicism and squalor of the Cold War than The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It is based on a novel by John le Carré, who was familiar with the grim reality, having worked for both MI5 and MI6 in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

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2001: A Space Odyssey

2. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film is arguably the greatest sci-fi movie ever made. Among other things, it’s been called awesome, influential, mind-blowing, cool, obsessional and pretentious – and it lives up to all of these designations. It also has a quintessentially sixties style, not least the interiors of the spacecraft.

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The first moon landing

3. The first moon landing

In 1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on the moon with his now legendary words “One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.” The computer on Apollo 11, his spaceship, is much less powerful than a smartphone.

During the sixties, the ideological battle extends way beyond the borders of the Western and Communist powers. In May 1961, in response to the Soviet Union’s rapidly advancing space programme, President John F Kennedy promises to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong makes good the promise. Together with “Buzz” Aldrin, he walks around for three hours, does some experiments, picks up bits of moon dirt and rocks, plants a US flag and leaves a sign. As if in anticipation, three sci-fi movies appear the previous year: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes and Barbarella.

Both the pioneering spirit and the technological advances of the space race fuel developments during the decade. The sixties see the launch of colour television, the audiocassette and quick-drying acrylic paint. Injection-moulded plastic becomes a material of choice, not least for furniture. And the introduction of pantyhose paves the way for the miniskirt. Novelty, instant gratification, disposability, living for the day are all in.

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NASA East

NASA East

NASA administrator George Mueller and astronaut Deke Slayton dub 2001: A Space Odyssey’s production facilities “NASA East” due to the level of accuracy in the designs and the amount of scientific hardware at the studio.

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Scalable solutions

Scalable solutions

All the vehicles in 2001: A Space Odyssey are designed so that the small-scale models as well as full-scale interiors to appear realistic. The modeling team is led by two hirees from NASA, science advisor Fred Ordway and production designer Harry Lange, along with Anthony Masters who is responsible for turning Lange’s 2-D sketches into models.

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The devil in the detail

The devil in the detail

To develop their designs for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ordway and Lange insist on knowing “the purpose and functioning of each assembly and component, down to the labeling of individual buttons and the presentation on screens of plausible operating, diagnostic and other data.”

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Science and savvy

Science and savvy

The design of spaceship Discovery One is based on solidly conceived, yet unrealized science. In practise it would have needed huge cooling fins to disperse the heat produced by its thermonuclear propulsion system. These are eliminated due to Stanley Kubrick’s concern that 2001: A Space Odyssey’s audience might interpret them as wings.

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Modelled on Apollo

Modelled on Apollo

Drawings of Discovery One’s control panels for 2001: A Space Odyssey are based on NASA photos showing astronauts huddled around an in-development Apollo space capsule.

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Space suits inspired by NASA

Space suits inspired by NASA

Hans-Kurt Lange models 2001: A Space Odyssey’s space suits on those of NASA, where he works as an illustrator in the Future Projects Division. The suits use horizontal stitching to maintain a constant volume of air.

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Velcro-equipped boots

Velcro-equipped boots

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, scenes of the astronauts in the Discovery equipment storage corridor and elsewhere, depict walking in zero-gravity with the help of velcro-equipped boots labeled “Grip Shoes”.

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Time capsule

Time capsule

Accuracy might be the lodestar for the designs in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but they are also very much a product of their time. The aesthetic relates to, among other things, the interiors and products emerging from Italy and the fashions of André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin.

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Furniture of the future

Furniture of the future

The Hilton lobby of Space Station Five in 2001: A Space Odyssey is furnished with playful yet functional Djinn chairs designed by Olivier Mourgue in 1965. The desk in the background is a slightly modified variant of a George Nelson design for the Herman Miller 1964 Action Office series.

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Back to the future

Back to the future

The costumes for 2001: A Space Odyssey are designed by none other than established (not to say establishment) British fashion designer, Hardy Amies, best known for dressing Queen Elizabeth II.

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An object of mystery and desire

An object of mystery and desire

The sleek black monolith, which appears in each of the four parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey, is arguably one of the most striking icons in movie history – an object of mystery and desire.

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Man and the universe

Man and the universe

For all its visual and technical wizardry, 2001: A Space Odyssey is also a wondrous meditation on the nature of man and his relationship to the universe. In a 1968 interview with Playboy magazine, Kubrick states:

You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point.

The sixties – the younger generation

Young people are better off than ever and ready to challenge their elders and betters. They feel a new sense of identity and they’re determined to express it.

Nowhere is this more evident than in London where, in 1963, the bowler-hatted establishment is embarrassed, humiliated and thrown into disarray when Secretary of War, John Profumo, is forced to admit that he has lied to the House of Commons about an affair with Christine Keeler, an alleged call-girl. Unfortunately for him, Ms Keeler is also involved with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché. Although Profumo assures the House that he hasn’t compromised national security, he is forced to resign and the scandal threatens to topple the Conservative government.

In 1964, Peter Laurie in an article in Vogue observes that:

London is a city of and for the young. Probably no other in the world offers us the opportunities that are here. Wherever enthusiasm, energy, iconoclasm or any kind of creative ability are needed, you’ll find people in their mid-twenties or younger.

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Christine Keeler

Christine Keeler

1963. Christine Keeler leaves the Old Bailey surrounded by police, press and paparazzi after giving evidence at the trial of Dr Stephen Ward. The 50-year-old...

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Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

1967. Marianne Faithfull has grown up as a well-bred, West London schoolgirl. At the outset of her career and still a teenager, she looks for...

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Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

1964. Paul McCartney, bass guitarist, singer and song-writer for rock band The Beatles, relaxes at a party. It could almost be a scene from Michelangelo...

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Mandy Rice-Davies

Mandy Rice-Davies

1961. 17-years-old Mandy Rice-Davies poses in front of a window two years before going down in history with the quip “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”...

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David Bailey and Veruschka

David Bailey and Veruschka

1965. Sixties supermodel Veruschka dances over photographer David Bailey as he writhes on the ground looking to capture an unconventional angle. Bailey, the son of...

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Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee

Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee

1967. Seated on the baroque throne is Patrick Macnee as suave, unflappable, debonair secret agent John Steed. His wardrobe is inspired by that of Patrick’s...

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Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw

1964. 17-year-old Sandy Shaw hugs the cover of her first hit, Always Something There to Remind Me. She will go on to rack up more...

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Sarah Miles and David Hemmings

Sarah Miles and David Hemmings

1966. Sarah Miles is an Essex girl whose career as an actress kicks off with two sexy roles. Her debut, age 21, is as Shirley...

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Pattie Boyd

Pattie Boyd

1964. This is a whirlwind year for fashion model Pattie. Cast for The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, she meets George Harrison on set,...

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The people making the headlines come from all sorts of backgrounds, not just from posh public schools. They include pop singers and pop artists, actors, models, hairdressers, photographers, interior decorators and designers. Think The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Hockney, Allen Jones, Michael Caine, Terence Stamp, Tom Stoppard, Vidal Sassoon, David Bailey, Terence Donovan, David Hicks, Alan Fletcher and Theo Crosby. All are concerned in one way or another with “image.” Private Eye refers to this group of talented, self-confident young people as “the new aristocracy”.

The sixties – new and not-so-new attitudes

If there’s a single theme that runs right through the sixties like letters through a stick of rock it’s challenge. Traditional notions of values and morality, style and taste are up for grabs.

Taboos around sex outside marriage, under threat since at least the 1940s, are further eroded by the introduction of the contraceptive pill, which opens the door for the permissive society. As the decade goes by, nudity features more and more regularly in magazines, on stage and on screen, to howls of outrage from the likes of Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association in the UK. They are fighting a losing battle – as demonstrated by, for example, the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967 and a rash of movies about sex and power that are released in the early seventies.

Susan Bottomly, aka International Velvet, by Billy Name
Andy Warhol superstar Susan Bottomly, aka International Velvet, in a promotional shot for Chelsea Girls (1966). Photo by Billy Name.

In the US, the civil rights and anti-war movements are gathering pace. The latter, in particular, is associated with alternative lifestyles. This is the age of communes and collectives, of yoga and mysticism, of rock and roll and recreational drugs, particularly marijuana. In 1967, Marianne Faithfull, convent-educated chanteuse, single mother and girlfriend of Mick Jagger (impossible to be closer to the epicentre of swinging London), is found wearing nothing more than a fur rug by police searching for drugs at Keith Richards’ house in Sussex. Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are subsequently sentenced to three and 12 months in prison respectively.

Reactions to the scandal reveal the extent to which underlying attitudes and prejudices have and haven’t changed. The liberals in the establishment are outraged and The Times publishes a leader titled Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?”. Under pressure, the Lord Chief Justice quashes the jail terms, a decision that liberalises drug-enforcement policy going forward. But Marianne will later recall:

It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother.

Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton in Performance
1968. Sex and drugs and rock and roll. Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton in Performance.

The theme is referenced in Darling (1965), a British film about an ambitious girl played by Julie Christie, who is happy to sleep around, moving from one relationship to another to further her career only to get her come-uppance. It turns out that the ideal woman of the sixties is perhaps closer to her counterpart of the previous decades than would appear at first glance. As Betty Friedan observes in The Feminine Mystique (1963), the stereotype of the “ideal woman”…

…held that women could find fulfilment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love. It denied women a career or any commitment outside the home and narrowed woman’s world down to the home, cut her role back to housewife.

Nevertheless, the counter-culture is in full swing, often taking its inspiration from advertising and fast-moving consumer goods. In London, Bridget Riley is at the forefront of the Op Art movement. In the US, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg shock and amaze audiences with their Pop Art creations. Psychedelic art emerges from the drug and music sub-cultures of London and San Francisco.

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Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick

Andy Warhol

The first part of this five-minute video introduces Andy Warhol’s approach to movie-making and collaborator Edie Sedgwick’s method of non-acting. The second part is an audio recording of Andy and Edie talking about the next day’s filming, illustrated by a collage of movie clips and stills.

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Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley

After working for a few years in a semi-impressionist style, Bridget begins to develop her signature Op (short for Optical) Art style around 1960. It uses black and white geometric patterns to explore visual effects and produce a disorienting effect on the eye. In this brief video clip she talks about her work.

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Italy, the new domestic landscape

Italy, the new domestic landscape

The commentary for this 10-minute video on Italy is authored by Emilio Ambasz, curator of design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and responsible for the landmark exhibition, Italy, the new domestic landscape. In it, he identifies three main groups of designers. In their work, conformists continue to refine already established forms and functions. Reformists, questioning the designer’s role in a consumer society, redesign known objects with new, ironic and sometimes self-deprecatory social, cultural and aesthetic references. One faction of contestatory designers focus their attention on political and philosophical discussion, the other seeks to develop objects that are flexible in function.

In Italy, a new generation of architects and designers such as Paolo Soleri, Ettore Sotsass, Joe Colombo and Archizoom favour a more personal, expressive, even light-hearted approach. Their utopian visions will find their ultimate expression in the summer of 1972 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, Italy, The New Domestic Landscape.

In music the headline acts include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, but there are many, many others. What they all have in common is youthfulness and iconoclasm.

The sixties – from futuristic to nostalgic fashion

A new decade needs a new ideal of female beauty. Step forward Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey. She’s been brought up on a farm about 30 miles from London, he’s the son of a tailor’s cutter in the East End of London.

Bailey, together with partners-in-crime Brian Duffy and Terry Donovan, pioneers a new, raw, in-your-face, style of fashion photography characterized by strong contrasts, bold cropping and unsentimental poses. “The Black Trinity”, as Norman Parkinson, a photographer of the older generation dubs them, roam the streets of London shooting celebrities from all walks of life, most notoriously (in Bailey’s case) lethal gangsters the Kray Twins.

In fact, the photographers become celebrities in their own right, going out with actors, musicians and all manner of beautiful people. Nor is it just their photographic style that’s new. In the words of Duffy, “Before 1960, a fashion photographer was tall, thin and camp. But we three are different: short, fat and heterosexual!”

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Blow-Up – Thomas is visited by his fans

Blow-Up – Thomas is visited by his fans

Two teenage fans visit photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) at his studio as he talks to his receptionist (Tsai Chin). The blonde teenager is Jane Birkin; the brunette, Gillian Hills. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – the fashion shoot

Blow-Up – the fashion shoot

David Hemmings, as Thomas, the photographer, shoots a high-fashion session with five models. Left to right: Jill Kennington, Peggy Moffitt, Rosaleen Murray, Ann Norman and Melanie Hampshire. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas relaxes with his favourite model

Blow-Up – Thomas relaxes with his favourite model

Photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) relaxes with his favorite model, Verushka, who plays herself. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas vaults a fence

Blow-Up – Thomas vaults a fence

Photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) attracted by a couple in a London park, vaults a fence the better to stalk his interesting subject. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas hides behind a tree

Blow-Up – Thomas hides behind a tree

Photographer Thomas (David Hemmings), hiding behind a tree, photographs an embracing couple (Vanessa Regrave and Ronan O’Casey) in a London park. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Jane kisses her lover

Blow-Up – Jane kisses her lover

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) and her lover (Ronan O’Casey) kiss in a London park rendezvous in Michelangelo Antonioni’s first English-language film in color, “Blow-Up.” Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Jane comes after Thomas

Blow-Up – Jane comes after Thomas

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) chases after Thomas (David Hemmings) who has taken pictures of herself and her lover in a London park. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Jane confronts Thomas

Blow-Up – Jane confronts Thomas

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) orders Thomas (David Hemmings) to stop taking photographs of her in a London park. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas refuses to give in to Jane

Blow-Up – Thomas refuses to give in to Jane

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) is infuriated when Thomas (David Hemmings) refuses to give her the films he has just taken of her and her lover in a London park. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Jane visits Thomas' studio

Blow-Up – Jane visits Thomas’ studio

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) visits Thomas (David Hemmings) at his studio in a bid to get back the incriminating pictures he took of her in a London park. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Jane tries to sneak off

Blow-Up – Jane tries to sneak off

Jane (Vanessa Redgrave) tries to leave the studio of photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) with the camera she thinks contains incriminating pictures of herself and her lover. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas pulls a fast one

Blow-Up – Thomas pulls a fast one

Photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) pretends to give Jane (Vanessa Regrave) the film he has taken of her in a park but it’s only a dummy. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas has an idea

Blow-Up – Thomas has an idea

Thomas (David Hemmings) realizes that the negative he is holding could be the answer to a mystery. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas develops the film

Blow-Up – Thomas develops the film

Thomas (David Hemmings) develops film in his dark room. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas examines the negatives

Blow-Up – Thomas examines the negatives

Thomas (David Hemmings) examines the negative of a photograph with a magnifying glass. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas scrutinises a print

Blow-Up – Thomas scrutinises a print

Having blown up a picture he took in a London park, Thomas (David Hemmings) looks for details with a magnifying glass. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas studies a blow-up

Blow-Up – Thomas studies a blow-up

Thomas (David Hemmings) studies the blow-up of a picture he took in a London park, with Jane (Vanessa Regrave) and her lover as the subject. Photo by Arthur Evans.

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Blow-Up – Thomas at a party

Blow-Up – Thomas at a party

Thomas (David Hemmings) finds himself a bored onlooker at a London party. Photo by Arthur Evans.

There’s no better introduction to their style, attitude and MO than Michelangelo Antonioni’s film, Blow-Up (1966).

Bailey meets Jean Shrimpton in 1960 while he is shooting for Vogue and she is working with Duffy in a nearby studio. She says: “‘Bailey’ was how he introduced himself and that was all I ever called him. We were instantly attracted to each other.” He says: “What attracted me to her was that she genuinely didn’t care how she looked. She honestly never understood what all the fuss was about. That was very attractive to me.” How very sixties!

He books her for a string of shoots (as well as a four-year relationship) and over the next few years they produce a deluge of iconic images that appear in Vogue, the Sunday supplements and other magazines. Suddenly the aristocratic hauteur of fifties fashion shoots is so passé. In its place is something younger, more energetic, more accessible, more fun, above all more overtly sexy.

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Sue Lyon

Sue Lyon

1962. Sue’s work as a child model in a commercial for JC Penney leads to small parts on TV in The Loretta Young Show (1959)...

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Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch

1966. When Raquel Welch appears on screen in a purposely depleted, furry, prehistoric bikini in Hammer Studios’ One Million Years B.C., she instantly becomes a...

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Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda

1968. Jane is the daughter of Henry Fonda (The Grapes of Wrath, 12 Angry Men, On Golden Pond). Having become interested in acting in the...

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Twiggy

Twiggy

1967. A skinny, freckled and crop-haired 18-year-old model, Twiggy weighs just six and a half stone. The previous year, she was told she’s too short...

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Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave

1966. This is the first year that Vanessa appears on the big screen – not in just one film, not in two but in three....

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Penelope Tree with David Bailey

Penelope Tree with David Bailey

Around 1967. This is the year that American-born model Penelope moves in with David Bailey – "he had this dangerous, lion-king-on-the-savannah vibe." She’s 18 years...

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Unlike the voluptuous beauties of the fifties such as Monroe, Mansfield, Dors and Sabrina, “The Shrimp” is a fresh-faced, slender girl-next-door. In her wake come a procession of waifs such as Twiggy, Jill Kennington, Penelope Tree, Patti Boyd and, at the more exotic edge of the spectrum, Veruschka, Peggy Moffitt and Donyale Luna. While the skinny, androgynous, doll-faced model dominates the decade, she coexists with her more curvaceous sister, embodied in the likes of Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch.

London designers in particular are quick to respond, creating designs for the new generation rather than expecting them to ape their parents. Mary Quant, Barbara Hulanicki, Zandra Rhodes, Marion Foale, Sally Tuffin, Bill Gibb and Ossie Clark are the new kids on the block and they are not afraid to experiment with new materials – perspex, PVC, polyester, acrylic, nylon, rayon, Spandex, even paper. Their fun, eye-catching, easy-care outfits are sold through boutiques. The most famous is Biba but many others cluster around Carnaby Street and the King’s Road.

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Blow-Up

Blow-Up

Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 movie, set in swinging London, stars David Hemmings as a fashion photographer who unwittingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park. It’s both a stylish and intriguing mystery and a brilliant period piece. And at a deeper level it’s an exploration of the relationship between perceptions and reality.

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Carnaby Street

Carnaby Street

1968. In the 1960s Carnaby Street’s independent fashion boutiques are where it’s at whether you’re one of the mods (a clan of youthful dudes) or, a few years later, a hippie. With bands such as the Rolling Stones, The Who and the Small Faces working, shopping and socialising in the area, it becomes one of London’s coolest destinations. By the mid-sixties its fame has reached the US courtesy of Time magazine. According to the leading article in the 15 April 1966 issue, London: The Swinging City:

Perhaps nothing illustrates the new swinging London better than narrow, three-block-long Carnaby Street, which is crammed with a cluster of the 'gear' boutiques where the girls and boys buy each other clothing...

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Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?

Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?

The fashion show at the beginning of William Klein’s zany, irreverent, subversive 1966 movie is a scathing satire on the Paris couture houses of the time. It’s familiar territory for him – he’s been working for Vogue US for almost a decade.

 

Meanwhile, space-age fashion dominates the catwalks of Paris. André Courrèges, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin in particular put a bomb under traditional notions of couture with their emphasis on short skirts, white boots, chain mail – clothes that can be carried off only by the jeunesse dorée.

During the first half of the decade, the direction in which fashion is moving is pretty clear: skirts are getting shorter and silhouettes boxier, with an emphasis on new materials and bold colours. Then the pendulum begins to swing from futuristic towards nostalgic. In the search for something more romantic, styles proliferate. Towards the end of the decade three different looks coexist:

  • Flower-power blossoms at San Francisco’s Summer of Love in 1967 and at Woodstock two years later.
  • Its close cousin, the ethnic / peasant look, is built around items such as Afghan coats, Mexican blouses and ponchos, Indian pantaloons, floor-length gipsy skirts and head scarves.
  • Finally there’s the ruffles-and-ringlets look  – all velvet, lace, frills and beads, taking its cues from Louis Malle’s Viva Maria! (1965), a romp set somewhere in early-20th century Latin America, where Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau get involved in various high jinks with a bunch of revolutionaries.

Want to know more about the sixties?

I embarked on this piece as a showcase for some of the sixties photos in my collection. In order to provide some context for them, I’ve highlighted various themes, events and movies. Inevitably my choices have been subjective and partial. There’s no way that this collage of words, images and video clips can do justice to the sixties. But hopefully it will give you a flavour of the era and pique your interest to find out more.

Three books from my library inspired and informed this piece:

  • Sixties Design by Philippe Garner
  • Antonioni’s Blow-Up by Philippe Garner and David Mellor
  • In Vogue: Sixty years of celebrities and fashion from British Vogue by Georgina Howell.

The Internet is full of information about the sixties including specialist websites about specific models and movie stars, directors and films, events and designers. Just google your interest.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Donyale Luna – the fashion world’s wayward moon-child
Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy
Veruschka and Rubartelli – a fashion legend

Filed Under: Fashion, Films, Photographers, Stars Tagged With: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Andy Warhol, Anita Pallenberg, Blow-Up, Bridget Riley, Carnaby Street, Christine Keeler, Darling, David Bailey, David Hemmings, Diana Rigg, Edie Sedgwick, Italy: the new domestic landscape, Jane Fonda, Jean Shrimpton, John Profumo, Julie Christie, Mandy Rice-Davies, Marianne Faithfull, Michelangelo Antonioni, Mick Jagger, Patrick Macnee, Pattie Boyd, Paul McCartney, Penelope Tree, Polly Maggoo?, Qui êtes-vous, Raquel Welch, Sandie Shaw, Sarah Miles, Sue Lyon, Susan Bottomly, The Avengers, The New Domestic Landscape, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Twiggy, Vanessa Redgrave, Veruschka

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