In the fashion world, you’re not allowed to be fat — unless you’re a book filled with sensuous and even startling photographs and dishy tales of how those pictures were made. Several such tomes are destined to land on designer coffee tables this holiday season.
(Abrams, list price $75) tells how the vision, creativity (and let’s not forget lavish budgets) possessed by eight fashion editors from 1947 to the present have produced the striking layouts that are the magazine’s signature. We’re familiar with many of the iconic images — Richard Avedon’s shot of Twiggy with one eye surrounded by flower-motif face paint; Helmut Newton’s sexy images of model Lisa Taylor — but the book peels back the curtain to show the role such editors as Polly Allen Mellen played in getting those pictures. The era of the supermodel (Linda! Naomi! Cindy!) is revisited through photos orchestrated by Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, and unabashed romanticism comes through in the designer frocks styled by Grace Coddington. (To further delve into the subject, “In Vogue: The Editor’s Eye,” an of the same name, began airing this month.)
Among the photographers working in the industry today, Tim Walker stands out for his ability to tell a story, usually as a fairy tale. “When you’re a fashion photographer everything is contrived from the start. Nothing is real,” he writes in (Abrams, $75). “So what you’re trying to do in this fake world is to make a real moment happen by installing genuineness into the artifice.” The British photographer’s imagination is on full display in his pictures that feature giant spider webs, a cracked Humpty Dumpty and a “floating dinner party” with tables suspended from ancient trees. This book will make you stretch your own imagination as well.
Since its beginning in 1972, W has been unlike any other fashion magazine. Separating it from the other glossy publications is its edgy and often lengthy style editorials, its access to the private lives of top designers, celebrities and philanthropists, and its ability to chronicle the worlds of fashion, society and the arts in a sharp, discerning way. (Abrams, $75) recounts how the publication captures both the high and low sides of society, from Kate Moss and Kim Kardashian, to layouts on the lavish homes of Ann and Gordon Getty and Karl Lagerfeld. With the future of printed magazines far from certain, it’s fun to look back at an era when were not only permitted but indulged.
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697, sbrown@denverpost.com or twitter.com/suzannebro
