“Essentially
what you’re doing is collaborating with the photographer to create an image that reflects the fashion
you’re trying to capture and also hold a mirror up to the zeitgeist at
the moment.”
— Hamish Bowles —
The
manifestation of the specialization of team members has historically been the
result of the process of consolidating fashion photography and its
professionalization. They assume the different tasks involved in the
construction of a fashion image in the terms that this blog formulates in its
name—The Constructed Moment.
Some authors,
in their records, tell about how during the first fashion sessions, the models
would do their own make up and prepare their garments. From this we can only
assume that the first members of a shooting, back then, were the photographer
and the model.
I still
haven’t been able to properly document how the new pieces of this set up came
to happen (and I’m grateful for any information any of you can give me). Asking
other people about the topic for this entry [1], they tell me that hairdressers
used to have recognition above make-up artists—and most likely, a little bit of
more participation during the early stages of a shooting— as for the make-up
artists, I believe that images in color had to generate the pressing need of
incorporating a professional; someone responsible of making the skins of the
models give a perfect registry on magazines.
As I
understand, stylists also join shootings as the ones responsible for garments
in a simultaneous way to make up artists. The acknowledgement of this task was
consolidated by Vogue (led by Anna Wintour) when they published credits over
the images on the magazine. In fact, magazines like i-D and Dazed advanced this
process in the 80s and consolidated it in the 90s by naming the stylist as a
part of the team that made the photographic content of the magazine a reality.
Nowadays, we
can say that a minimal photo shooting has a photographer, a model, a make-up
artists and or a hairdresser and last, yet more frequent and essential, a
stylist.
I say a
‘minimal photo shooting’ because it’s almost impossible to currently find a
photo shooting that doesn’t have a stylist. In terms of fashion, the stylist is
like the conductor of an orchestra. He or she is the one that interprets the
sheet music in front of them, this understood in terms of fashion. Another way
to confirm the importance of this role is by observing the prominence of some
people in the industry: Polly Mellen, Grace Coddington, Giovanna Battaglia,
Nicola Formichetti, Emmanuelle Alt, Anna Dello Russo and Edward Enninful, just
to mention a few. These stylists share the same level of recognition as many of
the most prestigious photographers, magazine’s editors, designers in the fashion
world.
A good stylist
is capable of giving a new vision to garments.
It is a common
issue in fashion that brands, beyond the imaginary scenarios they produce,
question the new meaning their products will elicit once under the editorial
approach of photography. This contrast comes from the fear to misunderstand the
message the brand wants to deliver; I personally think that there is no reason
for the mistrust. If we are strategic for a moment, both brand and magazine
will bond when there is a common target: they share the same audience; hence,
they have to share some characteristics. When the target public of a magazine
is not the same as the brand’s then, it could also be understood as an
opportunity to reach a new audience. Another important fact is that an
editorial leaves little room to be interpreted as a language for the published
brands, since it is already a clear concept announced on the header.
A brand needs
to know that a loan of garments means recognition by giving credit to the
products. This can be convenient at times, and yet sometimes, it could be wiser
not to do so, which led me to reflect about giving proper credit in magazines.
A couple of months ago, while I was reading a magazine, and being impressed by
some style I saw, I looked for the credits to know who had created it and was
surprised by realizing there wasn’t any. The name of the make-up artist was
there, but not the stylist’s.
To the
magazines which are not yet giving proper credit to stylists, I’m telling you,
it’s time to acknowledge this part of evolution in the industry. It is
fundamental to do it, since this person, in the case of the best, is
interpreting fashion and is capable of reading the aesthetic sensitivity of the
ultimate consumer, who is the at the end of the day, the spectator of the
constructed images.