Harper’s Bazaar

–
First in Fashion
(Harper’s Bazaar. Premier magazine de mode)

Press
release
Peter Lindbergh, August 2009 © Peter Lindbergh (courtesy Peter Lindbergh, Paris)

28 Feb
— 14 Jul 2020

Exhibition produced by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs

with support of American Express, Veronica Chou
and GRoW @ Annenberg.
With special thanks to Regina and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten.
Harper’s Bazaar
–
First in Fashion
(Harper’s Bazaar. Premier magazine de mode)

To celebrate the reopening of its fashion

galleries, entirely renovated thanks to
the patronage of Stephen and Christine
Schwarzman, the Musée des Arts
1. Hiro — Décoratifs will present a major exhibition
October 1963 dedicated to Harper’s Bazaar. Harper’s
Bazaar. First in Fashion (Harper’s Bazaar.
2. Harper’s Bazaar — Premier magazine de mode), on view
March 1896 February 28 through July 14, 2020,
Drawing by William chronicles the milestones of the magazine
H. Broadley and its evolution.

press release
2.

One hundred and fifty two years of

fashion history will be summed up
through the vision of the great artists
and photographers who contributed to
the Bazaar’s unique style, from Man
Ray, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol to
Richard Avedon, and Peter Lindbergh.
Sixty couture and ready-to-wear pieces,
most of them drawn from the museum’s
collection, along with loans of iconic
dresses, will be displayed next to images
of them as they were originally featured
in the magazine. The exhibition will also
include a special tribute to three major
figures in Bazaar’s history: Carmel Snow,
Alexey Brodovitch, and Diana Vreeland.
Together, they created the modern
aesthetics both in fashion and graphic
design that are still as influential today. The
architect and designer Adrien Gardère,
who oversaw the renovation of the
galleries, designed the exhibition.

1.
 It was also a world-class literary journal,
with contributions by Colette, Simone
de Beauvoir, Françoise Sagan, Jean
Genet, and André Malraux. Some of the
greatest British and American writers,
from Charles Dickens to Virginia Woolf,
Patricia Highsmith, Truman Capote, and
Carson McCullers, wrote for Bazaar. But
beyond the quality of its content, it was its
aesthetics that set the magazine apart. Its
blend of fashion features and perceptive
criticism have made Bazaar a touchstone
for fashion and graphic design. Great
couturiers such as Charles-Frederick
Worth, Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin,
Madeleine Vionnet, Elsa Schiaparelli,
Christian Dior, and Cristóbal Balenciaga
owe part of their myth to Bazaar’s
prestige.

Staged on two floors of the fashion

galleries, the exhibition is arranged
chronologically around different themes
that have emerged throughout Bazaar’s

press release
history. It aims both to highlight Bazaar’s
contribution to the evolution of the female
silhouette over the past 152 years and to
show how the magazine’s epochal images
were conceived through the sketches,
3. photographs, and patterns that preceded
and inspired them.
3. Harper’s Bazaar — Bazaar was launched in 1867 by Harper &
June 1964 Brothers as a women’s magazine focused
Photography by Hiro on fashion, society, arts, and literature.
Styled after European fashion gazettes, it
4. Balenciaga — stood out for its commitment to the cause
Haute couture dress of women. Its first editor, Mary Louise
Spring /summer 1955 Booth, was a suffragist and an abolitionist
Paris, Musée des Arts who supported the Union during the
Décoratifs American Civil War. A woman of letters,
Booth was a Francophile who would go
on to influence the Bazaar throughout
its history. In the 20th century, Picasso,
Cocteau, and Matisse were among the
many French artists to be featured in the
magazine. Bazaar also published articles
on the leading figures of the American
school, such as Jackson Pollock, Frank
Stella, and William Burroughs.

4.
 Harper’s Bazaar: First in Fashion opens
with a short history of fashion periodicals
from the 16th to the 19th century. Mary
Louise Booth set the tone for Bazaar by
featuring the work of the Parisian couturier
Charles-Frederick Worth, a great favorite
of American high society. The magazine’s
evolution reflected changing styles, from
Art Nouveau to the Orientalism of the
Ballets Russes and Paul Poiret, which
influenced the covers drawn by Erté in
the 1910s and 1920s. It was during this
period that the magazine forged the
aesthetics of fashion photography with
5. Peter Lindbergh — the work of Baron Adolph de Meyer. In the
November 1992 following years, Surrealism influenced the
© Peter Lindbergh photographs of George Hoyningen-Huene 6.
(courtesy Peter and George Platt-Lynes, as well as the
Lindbergh, Paris) cover illustrations created by Cassandre, Then there was the “Holy Trinity” that
which echoed the work of Elsa Schiaparelli turned Bazaar into an avant-garde
6. Melvin Sokolsky — and Madeleine Vionnet, who took their luxury magazine in the 1930s: editor in
December 2014 inspiration from metaphysics and antiquity. chief Carmel Snow, art director Alexey
Brodovitch, and fashion editor Diana
Vreeland. They opened up the magazine
to the great outdoors and to the sun-
kissed bodies captured in Kodachrome

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color by Louise Dahl-Wolfe. They
introduced major photographers like
Man Ray, then Richard Avedon, whose
lyrical style chimed with the billowing
evening gowns of the postwar years. In
1947, it was Snow who dubbed Christian
Dior’s first collection the “New Look,”
ushering in a golden age of couture. By
the 1950s, Bazaar had become such a
force in fashion that it was lampooned in
the musical Funny Face, starring Audrey
Hepburn. The cultural, social, political, and
Pop and Op Art revolutions of the 1960s
were epitomized by Avedon in his famous
April 1965 “Now” issue, with model Jean
Shrimpton on the cover.

5.
 In 2001, with the arrival of Glenda Bailey
as editor in chief, Stephen Gan as creative
director, and later, Elizabeth Hummer as
design director, the magazine took a turn
for the spectacular and the fanciful, with
photographers such as Jean-Paul Goude
as its ringmasters. Bold, ambitious choices
marked the period. But the beauty and
vibrancy of the magazine went along with
a deep respect for its history.

Harper’s Bazaar: First in Fashion is the

first exhibition dedicated to a fashion
magazine to look beyond the photographs
at the impact of the editorial and artistic
direction, the design and the men and
women behind it all, as it explores how
magazines have helped define what
fashion is and what we considerate
fashion.

press release
7.

7. Gleb Derujinsky — Photographers such as Hiro used fashion

July 1958 as a field of experimentation, employing
colored gels and strobes inspired by
8. Hiro — kinetic art. The images of the 1970s
October 1968 reflected the colorful, vivid fashion of
the era. In the 1980s, disco, Dallas, and
Dynasty set the tone for the magazine,
then headed by Anthony T. Mazzola.
During his tenure, close-up portraits of
celebrities photographed in Ektachrome
started appearing on the covers.

In 1992, with Liz Tilberis as editor in chief

and Fabien Baron as creative director,
the magazine reverted to a more classic
vision of elegance, with a new design
and distinctive aesthetic. Photographers
such as Patrick Demarchelier and Peter
Lindbergh became mainstays, and models
like Linda Evangelista and Kate Moss
graces the cover.

8.
Useful Information
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