Fashion photography

   Since the invention of photography in 1839, clothes have been depicted in portraits. However, it was not until the 1850s that French couture houses began using photographs to document their collections, starting with Parisian photographers in the 1880s: Henri Manuel, Maison Reutlinger, and Talbot. The first important fashion photographer is considered to be the American Baron Adolf de Mayer, whose photographs in the early 1900s were more artistic than descriptive. He was followed by Edward Steichen in the 1920s and Horst P. Horst. In the 1930s and 1940s Bill Cunningham, Man Ray, Irving Penn, and Louise Dahl-Wolfe made major contributions followed by Richard Avedon in the 1950s. The 1960s saw David Bailey, Bert Stern, and Diane Arbus and the 1970s brought the work of Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Debra Tur-beville to the pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In the 1980s and 1990s, advertising fashion became highly important as a means to create and market a look and/or sell a lifestyle—and fashion houses sought the help of photographers to capture and project those images. The work of photographers Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel, Dick Nystrom, David Sims, Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino, Annie Leibowitz, David La Chapelle, and Ellen von Unwerth could be seen in editorial and advertising pages in magazines and in press kits. New photographers continue to be discovered and have become as important to the hype of a launch as the clothes themselves.

   See also Fashion photographer.