The Replacement Girl 5/90. Arbus, Diane & Allan. Manhattan, 1954.“I hate fashion p
The Replacement Girl 5/90. Arbus, Diane & Allan. Manhattan, 1954.“I hate fashion photography,” Diane Arbus declared, “because the clothes don’t belong to the people who are wearing them. When the clothes do belong to the person wearing them, they take on a person’s flaws and characteristics, and are wonderful.” But that was later, after Arbus had carved out a new reputation by zoning in on the flaws of mid-century Manhattan’s misfits, and long after she’d extricated herself from the ‘Diane and Allan Arbus’ strapline - a line stamped across regular magazine editorials from 1946 to 1956, and backed up by a thin but steady stream of commercial work (including the account for Russeks, the lavish fur store on Fifth and West 36th which was owned by Diane’s father, and where the couple had first met as teenagers when Allan came to work in the ad department). Arbus, like Stephens Sondheim and Lois Gould, grew up in a world of garment-industry privilege. And after she married Allan, with backing from Vogue’s Alex Liberman and Glamour’s Tina Fredericks, the couple gradually forged a name for themselves in Manhattan’s crowded fashion photography scene.The Arbuses were known for their elaborately-staged, multiple-model set-ups. In early 1954,though, for Vogue’s ‘The News on the Dot’, they kept things simple and graphic. ‘If anyone should decide to design an American fashion flag this year,’ the accompanying copy cooed, ‘it would probably be polka-dotted, navy-blue and white, and shaped as the wind blows.’ The Arbuses posed Cherry Nelms and Evelyn Tripp in long, white-spotted dresses by Harvey Berin and Mollie Parnis, shot in long-exposure frames so that the accompanying male model disappeared into a blur — and, in a small, tight crop in the upper corner of the spread, a photograph of Barbara Mullen, in a spotted silk Bergdorf Goodman turban inspired by Givenchy’s latest collection. Mullen looks amused, as most models confronted by the Arbuses’ intimate, secretive working dynamic were — as though what was happening off camera was infinitely more interesting than anything caught in the frame.#BarbaraMullen #TheReplacementGirl #DianeArbus #AllanArbus #Vogue #1954 -- source link
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