Imperfect beauty:
making of contemporary fashion image

Information units with data bank about photographers selected by subjects as architecture, landscape, portraits, bodies, fashion, etc. Special corner of the Imperfect Beauty exhibition at Canon Photography Gallery.

The V&A is deserving a trip to London and, at least, three afternoons of visit to the museum, next to Hyde Park, in South Kensington.

Talking about fashion and similar, it is fair to start with the historic heap, in a permanent exhibition. The room receives thousands of visitors, daily, besides students who spend hours with a piece of paper and a pencil in their hands, researching representative pieces of several periods of the history and practicing techniques of illustration. Next to, the small exhibition Papier a la Mode (till 14/01), joins Isabelle de Borchgrave and Rita Brown's works, who paint and model in paper, reproducing in this material textures, printings, embroideries, laces, drapes and everything else which is made in fabrics. Beside those, and of the Brand. New compilation ,there is still Imperfect Beauty: the making of contemporary fashion photographs. And, as it isn't enough, right next to it, it is Attitude: a history of posing.

Worth while the trip? For the ones who are interested in fashion, for sure the amount is considerable, taking in account Rock Style and Fabric of Fashion. Imperfect Beauty is a shy exhibition in its dimensions, but ambitious when in discussion about its subject, researched by Charlotte Cotton. Occupies half of Canon Gallery, room maintained by Canon which regularly organizes expositions in V&A.

The photograph and image composition of the contemporary fashion is one of the most exciting and creative fields of the visual culture in the last decades. Far from the past frivolities is the social and behavioral portrait. The concept and construction processes of fashion image, been it for publicity, editorials, catalogs, packaging or sites, involve, currently, the meeting of several professionals: photographers, stylists, make-up makers and hair dressers, art directors and graphic designers. It is the common work and the union of talents in these areas which has , specially from de 80's on, given cultural historic image moments, through fashion.

Styling by Katy England and Nick Knight 's photo for Dazed and Confused

It isn't by coincidence that a brand like Benetton and its controversial images cause such polemic. It isn't worthless that the naturalistic/realistic movement - prevailing in the esthetics of the 90's - which culminate with the phase called "chic heroin"- was a subject even to the United States president, Bill Clinton. Definitively, fashion image and culture walk together.

Imperfect Beauty shows a little of the backstage of this complex making of and examines work processes. The displays, assembled and signed by photographers, stylists or in partnership with different professionals, explore their universe and revel some tactics of creation. Some of the panels are pure research of images, color studies and framing, make-up projects; others slide the most diversified inspirations to create, for instance, the subject of an editorial. Others still show the work practice, history boards and photographic essays. There are also, monitors showing video-documentaries of photo sessions, images of fashion shows, pose studies and the "post-productions", or else, the image manipulation after the photograph. This is the case of the graphic designer Steve Seal who has done for The Face the famous editorial which transformed the model Shirley Malmman in Joana d'Arc

Other secrets are also reveled, as for instance, the creation processes and research of stylists as Poly Blank, in partnership with the photographer Elaine Constantine and yet, of Katy England, responsible by the styling of the historic editorial made with physical handicaps, photographed by Nick Knight for Dazed and Confused, in 1998. The couple keep creating images for the magazine, as in the edition of November: the beauty of the women who won from the breast cancer.

Elaine Constantine's photos, Stylist: Polly Banks, published in the magazine The Face in December/1997

Images made by Juergen Teller, Mario Sorrenti and David Sims also give points to Imperfect Beauty, besides the research made by the photographer Jason Evans to choose, on the street, common models. In other words, select "people like us", very photogenic, to be a model - idea heavily worked in the 90's . According to Evans, after this first occasional experience, more than half of the casting worked as a professional model.

Yet, Corinne Day does a provocative compilation of news taken from newspapers - English and American - concerning the movement of exaggerated realism deflagrated by her. With her work in partnership with Kate Moss, more natural than ever for Vogue, in 1990, added to her images of friends and parties and one more series of models in not at all glamorous expressions, Corinne was accused of promoting anorexia and drugs. She completed her display with an old boot, trousers and a torn t-shirt, pieces made by her friend Yank Reid, 34, death this year. And writes: "These are Reid's belongs . He kept them since he was 12 years old, until he died. Clothes are important if they bring something else more than be or not to be in style. They are important if they mean something, that is, if they had the sense of what you are".

Photo by Corinne Day showing Kate Moss super natural (1990) is the cover of the exhibition catalog and symbol of the fashion image from all one decade.

Right next, Attitude: a history of posing, could be part of Imperfect Beauty. Officially it doesn't, but, certainly works as its complement. In a fast retrospective, it is a brief photographic historic of pose: from the hardness of the family photographs to the maximum efforts to capture the subjectivity through natural scenes, in the 90's. A certain "pose without pose" or a purposed "beauty imperfection" : challenges of the fashion photograph in the last decade.

Imperfect Beauty: the making of contemporary fashion photographs
Attitude: a history of posing
Until 18, March of 2001 - Canon Photography Gallery - Room 38 - Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road - South Kensington tube station