Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, 1911-2011

Made for consumption in magazines and advertising, fashion photography—like fashion itself—is a reactive genre. To hold our attention, it is perpetually shifting shape in the face of social, political, and economic changes. The pace of these changes has ushered out photographers who were unable to keep up, ensuring that the field is ruled by a handful of the most creative and innovative practitioners. This exhibition explores some of the ways photographers whose careers have been closely associated with the fashion industry have shaped evolving notions of style and beauty. Drawn from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection and supplemented by loans from private and public sources, Icons of Style features more than one hundred sixty photographs presented alongside a selection of costumes, illustrations, magazine covers, videos, and advertisements. Material from a range of media provides a rich context that reaches beyond the magazine page to represent how fashion infiltrates everyday life.

10 July 2018