Beneath the Gloss / Fashion As Art

Back in high school, when I was still taking Art class, I remember working on different collages for my portfolio. For some reason, I would usually gravitate towards very controversial topics for my artwork, and would usually focus on using very graphic and explicit images. I remember looking through my teacher's boxes of old National Geographic magazines for these images, hoping to find either an emaciated orphan, a three-legged stray animal, or if I'm lucky, an image of both set against a backdrop of some war-torn third world country.

Image via One Graphics/Phillip Toledano

Looking back, I guess the reason I would do this is because I equated good art with "shocking art". I thought that the more gory and more disfigured my subjects were, the more I'd be able to fool my peers into thinking that I'm actually good at making art. It didn't take long until people saw right through my plan.

In the same boxes that I'd be looking through, I would come across a different kind of magazine. Surprisingly, this magazine would contain images that would be just as vivid, just as striking, and in some cases, just as compelling (sometimes more so) as the images I would see in other notable magazines. However, unlike those pictures, these images focused on a more heightened sense of reality, which was particularly interesting to me.

I would later learn that these were fashion magazines, and the images that caught my attention were posed and artificial. However true, these qualities did not make these images less beautiful nor less valid. To me, they were art. And to this day, I still consider them as art.


Art, to me, is very emotional. It doesn't matter whether you can draw the most realistic or the most detailed picture of a flower vase or a soup can, if it does not grab hold of me, or some part of me, I tend to lose interest and move on. Good art, at the very least, is supposed to provoke a reaction from the viewer, whether intellectual, emotional, or both. While you might think that this is just another view of shocking art, this is quite different. While shocking art pieces do grab your attention, they don't keep it. Once you get over the initial shock, and you realize that this is all there is to that piece, you inevitably move on.

What I like most about fashion editorials is that they tell a story. While they say a picture says a thousand words, imagine a whole novel coming out of a mere 4-6 pages of beautifully shot imagery set in a faraway land, with the most beautiful clothes no less. While we were shooting the 90's photoshoot (see here), I wanted to tell a narrative, a story about teenagers living in that decade, what they did, how they lived, and what they felt. The angst, the indifference, the I-don't-give-a-fuck-because-the-world's-gone-to-shit attitude that was so prevalent at the time. It was important to me to convey the attitude and the mood at the time from two very specific subjects. While it was a fashion photoshoot, I made sure that the clothes were secondary compared to the feeling and mood that I wanted to project.

Fashion photography tends to get a bad rap because, well, it's about fashion. Fashion is not a subject that most people take seriously and while I don't necessarily disagree with this view, think about this for a moment. Fashion plays a huge role in our lives. While we might not be aware of it, fashion is a part of everyone's lives. Whether we work in the industry or not, all of us participate in the fashion cycle. What we wear not only says who we are or how we want to be seen, but what kind of time we live in. Decade after decade, season after season, the changing shapes and forms of clothes reflect the changing state of conditions that we are living in. Just how ancient civilizations left their mark through cave paintings and intricate buildings and structures, and how past artists and painters used paintings as their medium, fashion photographers and editors follow that same concept and exhibit our current way of life through clothes and photography.

Saying that fashion photography is not art, not only diminishes the creative process that went in to making the shoot, but it also devalues the talent and effort of the people behind it. Not a lot of people realize but there is a ton of time, energy, and manpower that goes into a photoshoot. Aside from the people in front and behind the camera, there are also people who direct, produce, style, cater, assist, do make-up, do lighting, edit, and other people who are rarely in the spotlight. There's immense planning involved; from pre-production through post-production, similar to filmmaking. And just like filmmaking, photoshoots are a team collaboration.

Looking at Vogue and all its glossy pages, I am reminded of our own amateur photoshoot and how we had no idea what we were doing. In all honesty, our primary motivation behind the shoot was this contest (click here to vote for our entry). But while we had this contest in our minds, it didn't take long until we were able to let go of that notion of winning and just immerse ourselves in the nineties decade. Much like that of an artist or a writer, we wanted to tell a story about a time and a generation from our own perspective. Granted, it's narrow and not at all representative of a whole decade, but it's a glimpse of the strengths, the weaknesses, the ambitions, the dreams, and the emotions of two jaded individuals who find themselves lost and disheartened by what's happening around them.

While I am not completely dismissing the flaws and failings that have been associated with fashion photography (gross misuse of airbrushing, widespread presence of gaunt and waif-like models) nor do I condone them, I do believe that these issues take away the focus from the artistic value that each image offers. What I am merely asking is that fashion and fashion photography get the due credit that they deserve. Don't you think it's time we let go of our misguided perceptions about fashion and actually take a moment to to look beneath the glossy images and just appreciate the artistry and mastery of beauty behind it? It'll only take a second.