Post Category → Author: lilah

Stay the Course

A “stay” was the word of choice for the understructure later referred to as a corset in the 19th-century. Today, the corset conjures up notions of tight-laced, wasp-waisted hourglass figures, however, the stay of the 18th-century was intended to lift the breasts and straighten the back rather than nip in

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Drown Out

As one of the three founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, John Everett Millais, would create some of the most well-known imagery of the Pre-Raphaelite movement which looked to Quattrocento or 15th-century Italian art. Shakespeare often served as inspiration to the Pre-Raphaelites as seen in Millais’ 1851-52 painting Ophelia which portrays the tragic suicide of Ophelia in Hamlet. For Vogue‘s December issue in

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Lampshade Dressing

Paul Poiret’s 1913 costumes for Le Minaret were followed soon after with similar versions available for his avant-garde patrons looking to shock in Orientalist ensembles. Poiret’s translation of harem-style dressing for the Parisian set resulted in a stiffened, oversized tunic paired atop his columnar hobble skirts. The “lampshade” silhouette became a signature

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Banana Dance

A pioneer for African American women, Josephine Baker is commonly associated with her seductive banana dance performance at the Folies Bergère, costumed in a skimpy skirt constructed with a string of artificial bananas. Miley Cyrus would follow suit in a banana skirt lookalike, sporting the provocative ensemble almost a century later to

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In Hot Water

For Love Magazine’s SS 2013 issue, photographer duo Mert and Marcus took to the tub when photographing Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss and Chloe Moretz. A year later, Cara appears as the face for Tom Ford’s Black Orchid fragrance campaign. In line with the brand’s ever-racy ads, the British model soaks nude

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Take Note

Iconoclast designer Elsa Schiaparelli is most remembered for infusing a sense of wit and irony into her designs through surreal touches. Schiaparelli’s Fall 1939 music-themed collection celebrated music, quite literally, with drum-shaped button closures, embroidered musical notes and music boxes designed into belts and hats. This particular dress, owned by heiress

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Lace Faced

To commemorate her transition out of silent films and into talkies, Edward Steichen photographed American actress Gloria Swanson in 1924. A pioneer in the field of fashion photography, Steichen would build a prolific body of work capturing the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In Swanson’s portrait, Steichen suspended a piece of black

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Surf the Net

The beach was a frequent mise-en-scène for Herb Ritts photographs, which often featured nude, sometimes gowned, statuesque women emerging from the ocean or sprawled out amongst the sand. In 1987, Herb–short for Herbert–would photograph Danish model Brigitte Nielsen on a beach in Malibu. Swathed in a fisherman’s net, she appears a

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Strike Gold

Fashion Editor turned photographer Deborah Turbeville, who recently passed this last October, is remembered for her grainy, soft-focused images that depicted and above all celebrated women. Ultra-femme with an underlying darkness, Turbeville’s work would make its way into the pages of Mademoiselle and Vogue by the 1970s. For the August 1st,

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Well Heeled

Long before Terry Richardson’s overt, unabashedly sexy and borderline-pornographic photographs, were those by David Bailey, Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. Employing sex as a shock-factor to emulate one of the finest paris escorts in fashion photography is not a recent phenomena and evident in the work of even the most

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