The Venice Art Biennale opens on Saturday to the public (but the press is already battling its way through its packed gates…), so, to celebrate it, I'm going to leave you today with a fashion magazine cover inspired by this city.
This Grazia magazine issue from 10th May 1959 features on the cover models Flora, Lucia and Pia in pastel coloured cotton dresses designed by Glans with matching hats (well, one is actually mismatched!). The magazine included inside a photoshoot by Elsa Haertter, Anna Maria Pressi and Laura Mulassano entirely shot in Venice and looking at daywear, cocktail dresses and evening gowns.
German photographer Elsa Haertter was a pioneer of fashion photography. Throughout her career she provided fantastical adventures for fashion readers while chronicling, year after year, the constant changes in trends. Born Germany in 1905, after her studies at the Akademie der bildende Künst in Stuttgart with Willi Baumeister, Haertter became a fashion journalist in Paris and started collaborating with German magazines. Moving to Italy during the war, she found her true vocation.
Unhappy with the outcomes of the photo shoots she was styling, she decided to learn more about photography. Her first efforts – mainly in black and white – chronicled the rebirth of Italy after the war and during the first years of the economic boom, allowing us to get an interesting insight into the professional relationship Haertter built with tailors, dressmakers, designers and models through her shots for magazines and look books.
The culmination of her career came at the end of the '50s when, working for weekly magazine Grazia, she did a series of photo shoots entitled "Viaggi di Grazia" (Grazia's Travels), shot during trips all over the world with professional reporters.
Haertter's innovative style was absolutely unique: while at the beginning she used as backgrounds for her photo shoots historical Italian palaces and squares, for her "Viaggi di Grazia" series she moved her locations to other countries, from Brazil to China, from Africa to Mexico, from India to the Antarctic continent.
Telling a story, writing a travel diary and communicating the essence of modern fashion through her images turned into her main aims. Soon the most ordinary images of a picture postcard Italy became a distant memory, as fashion was elevated to reportage. Enjoy the Venice Art Biennale if you are planning to go, or just enjoy this picture and dream about fashion in the lagoon.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Related articles
Rispondi