Level 4 Professional Studies
Fashion Photography
book: Face of fashion, Susan Bright

The fashion system have particular strands of creativity within it that repay close examination. Portraiture is one such strand. Over generations great photographers have taken studio photographs for the purpose of illustrating newly fashionable lines of clothing, make-up or hair-styling within fashion magazines and newspaper supplements. In some shots subjects nakedness stands for 'the ghosts of absent clothes'. A great photographer is everything. It's not enough to have an amazing face and innovative clothes. Photographers need vision to pull image together and tell a story. Fashion is said to be a passing moment. A photograph is capturing that moment and a compelling image lives forever.

Louis Vuitton fashion works may be the hippest and coolest personalities of 1960s London, but stripped of any context they lack emotion, empathy and authority. The models become simply graphic icons of any age. His work of the 1970 and 1980 has divided viewers on whether his representations of women are empowering or exploitative.