Blumenfeld: The Photographer, the Artist

One of my all-time favourite fashion images: ‘Portfolio de Vogue: La Tour Eiffel’, French Vogue, May 1939. Lucien Lelong dress; model: Lisa FonssagrivesErwin Blumenfeld (1897–1969) is a photographer most famous for his fashion images. He was, in fact, once the world’s most highly paid fashion photographer. From the late 1930s to the 1960s, he worked for such magazines as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, where he transformed fashion images into high art. He photographed the greatest couture fashions of the day, by Lelong, Chanel, Balenciaga, Piguet, Dior and Charles James in both Paris and New York.

After dabbling in Dada, painting and art dealing, Blumenfeld took up photography in the 1920s. He was highly inventive in and out of the darkroom. He developed a unique, hybrid style, using solarisation and negative printing; layering textures in-camera (shooting through lace, for example) and through double and multiple exposures; painting with light and colour. It is wonderful to see the artist’s hand at work in the time before pixels, and marvel how much can be achieved.

It is wonderful to see the artist’s hand at work in the time before pixels, and marvel how much can be achieved.

Bicorne hats by Schiaparelli; unpublished image for French Vogue, Oct 1938.Immigrating to America in 1941 with his family (and narrowly escaping death in concentration camps), Blumenfeld took up a contract with Harper’s Bazaar. The editor-in-chief, Carmel Snow, for whom he’d previously worked in Paris in the 1930s, put him immediately to work on the next issue.

His friend Cecil Beaton, writing from a besieged Britain, was envious of his freedom. Beaton encouraged him to ‘seek out the most talented people on the magazine: the two photographers he most admired, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and George Hoyningen-Huene, and Bazaar’s fashion editor the “magnifique” Diana Vreeland’. Blumenfeld was certainly in good company there, especially when one considers his first art director was the great Alexey Brodovitch.

‘Violettes de Montezin’, French Vogue, Feb 1939Although the editors of Harper’s Bazaar touted Blumenfeld as the cultured European artist who would add cachet to the magazine, Blumenfeld, much to his dismay, began to hear his profession referred to in terms considerably less elevated: ‘commercial photographer’. To his credit, Blumenfeld believed that fashion was a significant form of cultural expression, but that of all the professionals working on a magazine, it was the photographer who was most responsible for whatever ‘art’ appeared on its pages. (Editors and art directors were far more commercially driven.)

He and Brodovitch hit it off however, for unlike other photographers, Blumenfeld was not precious about the full frame of his negative; he understood the image-enhancing aspect of cropping and bleeding images and often conceptualised within these parameters himself. Both men knew that ‘the page with its synthesis of image and text, was, in magazine terms, the final artwork’.

However, his fashion images, excised from the page, easily stand alone as works of art in themselves.

Images and quotes from Blumenfeld: A Fetish For Beauty, by William A. Ewing, Thames & Hudson 1996. Click images for larger versions.

Untitled fashion photograph, Paris, c. 1939Unpublished fashion image, American Vogue, Sep 1945 Untitled fashion assignment, New York, 1945 The Spanish Veil, Paris, 1937Untitled fashion image, New York, 1945 Untitled, New York, c. 1944 ‘Retouching the figure’, American Vogue, Feb 1953Untitled fashion image, New York, 1952Untitled photograph, New York, c. 1955‘What looks new: a milliner experiments with halftones in lipsticks and powders’, American Vogue, Mar 1947Untitled fashion image, New York, 1947

How to Deal With Cat-astrophes

I have a cat. Sometimes, against my better judgement (because she is gazing adoringly up at me with her big green eyes and looking so cute), I pick her up even though I am wearing some garment that would be utterly ruined if she got her claws into it. In these cases I usually try to hold onto her paws under guise of caressing them. On the odd occasion a sudden frenzy overtakes her (you know how cats get those) and she must be up and doing IMMEDIATELY. That’s when accidents happen.

This could be an unmitigated Catastrophe (depending upon one’s degree of love for said garment) or merely a minor vexation (if garment weave is loose enough to repair). Here’s how to deal with it:

1. Find thread-picker. Spread garment flat.
2. Carefully draw pulled thread through to reverse side of garment.
3. Flip garment back and admire handiwork.
4. Tell cat off. Resolve never to pick animal up again unless one is wearing plasterer’s overalls or similar.

(Half) Hand in Glove

Gloves by Leibo Hate, top by Anthropologie, vintage hat

Last Sunday after I finished my marketing, I wandered down a sidestreet by the Queen Victoria market, peering into the windows of the new little designer shops that have sprung up there in the last year or so. There was a new one that sold vintage. I proposed to while away a little time before I wandered home.

There was a lovely navy maxi-dress in the best Margo Leadbetter style (played by Penelope Keith in The Good Life) all covered over with stars; regretfully it was on hold for someone else. I moved on. On a shelf I spied a little pair of – half-gloves? I made an beeline for them and tried them on in delight. I had never seen such a charming concoction and was instantly enchanted. I hardly need add that I elected to purchase them, do I?

Carrie Bradshaw wearing half gloves in ‘Sex & the City’Later on I discovered that they were made famous long ago by Carrie Bradshaw. They must have slipped my notice at the time; after all, they are such dainty little things it would be easy. I then searched online and apart from an expensive Italian website, found them available to purchase on eBay. Though I much prefer my buff-coloured pair (subtle to the point of invisibility) to the rather crudely bright hues in the latter marketplace.

What’s particularly appealing about them is the fact that while gloves today are no longer part of every woman’s daily wardrobe, and are worn chiefly in winter for the express purpose of keeping one’s hands warm, these half-gloves are deliciously impractical. That’s the beauty of fashion. 

Poppies All in a Row

Cheering Up the Dreary Day :: Tejas // Cano Cafenol // No flash

Today I am working on some children’s book illustrations in watercolour. Since I knew I’d be bending over and didn’t want to have my hair trailing in the paint, or getting in my eyes, I thought I’d better pin it back. But a ponytail is so boring. Besides it puts a kink in my hair when it’s damp (I never bother fully drying it after washing). So I thought a headband. Something fun to cheer up the dreary day: a row of coral pink poppies.

(Yes I know I look pensive rather than cheerful; but this out-of-focus shot was much more interesting than the smiling portrait. It’s hard to self-take with the Hipstamatic, but I suppose a front-facing camera goes against their manifesto.) 

What I Actually Wore #0055

Serial #: 0055
Date: 25/12/2010
Weather: 26°
Time Allowed: 30 mins

I very rarely specifically go shopping for something to wear on Christmas day, but it’s equally rare that I would not have some new vintage item in my wardrobe that I have not shown off to anyone yet.

This year it was a purple tissue-thin taffeta silk frock I’d bought in a vintage boutique. I have no idea which era it is from, and suspect it might have been a custom-made bridesmaid’s dress, since the cut is quite conservative. The vivid lilac and mauve shot silk lifts it out of the ordinary though.

The plunging v-neckline needed something, and I chose a purple necklace of clustered flowers that is always startling. At the beginning of the day I stacked a pair of onyx bangles on one wrist, but they crashed together so ominously I was terrified they would smash, so I swapped one bangle to my left hand. (Normally I would never wear a bangle and a watch on the same wrist – although why I’m wearing a watch on Christmas day, I can’t fathom – maybe because I have to train it there.) A vintage 50s silk summer coat and dark green satin pumps completed my Christmas outfit.

Items:

Dress: vintage, from Fat Helen’s
Coat: vintage 50s
Necklace: Diva
Earrings: hand made by me
Bangles: Vietnamese souvenir
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Shoes: Sportsgirl