Dior: The Legendary Images

Book excerpt: Reaching beyond the intimate setting of the fashion show, the photographer paints a portrait of haute couture that takes the couturier’s intention to enchant the public and elevates it to the level of the sublime. The great names in photography, the mythical photos that have constructed Dior’s image, and the emblematic subjects of the house’s iconography—whether they are dreams of a faraway place or captured in the vast open-sky “studios” of Paris or Versailles—are all evoked in this vast panorama that takes us through more than sixty years in the history of fashion photography. Published to accompany the Dior and Fashion Photography exhibition presented at the Musée Christian Dior in Granville, France, this lavish volume presents a wealth of gorgeous photographs that bring the character of the couturier’s dresses to life, with each photographer interpreting them in his or her unique style. Legendary contributors include Horst P. Horst, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson, Henry Clarke, William Klein, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Sarah Moon, Paolo Roversi, Nick Knight, Ines Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Tim Walker, Willy Vanderperre, Patrick Demarchelier, and many more. Stunning, glamorous, and iconic, Dior and Fashion Photography exemplifies how the haute couture house transcended fashion to enter the realm of legend.