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Fashion Photography (2017)
Published
Fashion Photography: The Story in 180 Pictures, Thames & Hudson hardcover, 2017 (Aperture in the US)
The one survey here, and the best first buy for someone who wants the whole history before committing to a single photographer. Eugénie Shinkle tells the story of fashion photography through about 180 key pictures across 272 pages, one image at a time, so it reads well in short visits. The Thames & Hudson printing is now listed as out of print, so US buyers should look for the Aperture edition or a secondhand copy. It also doubles as a shopping guide: the photographers whose pages you keep returning to are the ones whose own books to buy next.
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Horst (2014)
Published
Horst: Photographer of Style, V&A Publishing hardcover, 2014
Led by Susanna Brown, the V&A's curator of photographs, and published for the museum's 2014 retrospective, this 352-page hardcover, about 9.4 by 12.2 inches, sets Horst P. Horst's Vogue fashion work in Paris and New York beside his portraits, nudes and still lifes with classical and Surrealist motifs, collages of plants and shells, travel pictures and photographs of notable homes. That range is the reason to choose it over a tighter fashion edit: it suits a reader as interested in interiors and objects as in couture. The V&A shop lists it out of stock, so plan on a secondhand copy.
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Irving Penn (2017)
Published
Irving Penn: Centennial, Metropolitan Museum of Art hardcover, 2017
The safest gift on the list, because it is still in print at the Met's own store, listed at $70. The catalog of the Met's 2017 centennial show is a 10 by 12 inch hardcover of 372 pages and 365 illustrations, and it places Penn's fashion pictures beside his nudes, still lifes and portraits of people in Peru, Benin, New Guinea and Morocco. Seeing the same spare studio approach applied to a couture dress and a still life is what makes the fashion work click, and the museum production gives the pictures the care they need.
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Avedon fashion, 1944-2000 (2009)
Published
Avedon Fashion 1944-2000, Abrams hardcover, 2009
Richard Avedon's fashion career from 1944 to 2000 in one 372-page hardcover, about 10 by 12.7 inches and 5.7 pounds, published with the 2009 International Center of Photography exhibition. It runs from his early Harper's Bazaar pictures through his years at Vogue and later work for Egoiste and The New Yorker, with essays by Carol Squiers, Vince Aletti and Philippe Garner. The catch is availability: the publisher lists it as out of stock indefinitely, so this is a secondhand hunt. It is worth it for anyone who wants the movement and wit of his fashion pictures gathered in a single volume.
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A message for you (2006)
Published
Guy Bourdin: A Message for You, Steidl hardcover, third edition 2016
Bourdin's late-1970s peak, told through the memories of the model Nicolle Meyer, who appeared in more than 30 of his Charles Jourdan campaigns, with Polaroids, contact sheets, sketches and poems set beside the finished pictures. The 2016 third edition is a cloth-bound, 320-page hardcover in a dust jacket, about 9.6 by 11.8 inches, and it shows how his saturated, unsettling images were built rather than just presenting them. Flag this one before you fall for it: it is listed as out of print with no reprint planned, so you will be searching secondhand, where the two-volume 2006 first edition in a slipcase also turns up.
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Helmut Newton. SUMO. 20th Anniversary (2019)
Published
Helmut Newton. SUMO. 20th Anniversary Edition, Taschen, 2019
The original 1999 SUMO weighed more than 35 kilos, nearly 80 pounds; this reissue, revised by June Newton, brings it down to a still enormous 10.5 by 14.7 inch hardcover in a slipcase, 464 pages and about 13 pounds, with 394 images and a booklet on the making of the first edition. Taschen still sells it new. Choose it when the book itself is meant to be the centerpiece of a low table that can take the weight. Newton's women are often nude and the mood is deliberately provocative, so think about the room, and the recipient, before you put it out.
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Peter Lindbergh. on Fashion Photography - 40th Anniversary Edition (2020)
Published
Peter Lindbergh: On Fashion Photography, Taschen 40th anniversary edition, hardcover
The honest exception on a coffee-table list: at about 6.1 by 8.5 inches it is a chunky handbook rather than a display piece, but its 512 pages pack in more than 300 of Peter Lindbergh's pictures, many previously unpublished, plus an adapted interview with him. Taschen keeps it in print in English, French and German, and in English, Italian and Spanish, which makes it an easy, compact way into his black-and-white fashion work. Buy it for a reader who will actually sit and page through it, or as a gift alongside one of the heavier books here.
More about Peter Lindbergh. on Fashion Photography - 40th Anniversary Edition8
Annie Leibovitz (2022)
Published
Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland, Phaidon hardcover, 2021
Leibovitz's own account of five decades of fashion pictures, published in November 2021: 440 pages, about 9.8 by 11.4 inches, with 350 images, many previously unpublished, and a foreword by Anna Wintour. In her preface she notes that fashion has always been there in her work, and the book bears that out with sittings of Nicole Kidman, Serena Williams, Lady Gaga and Karl Lagerfeld that read as character studies first and clothes second. Pick it for someone who loves celebrity portraiture and wants the fashion story told through famous faces.
More about Annie Leibovitz9
Bill Cunningham (2019)
Published
Bill Cunningham: On the Street, Clarkson Potter hardcover, 2019
The cheerful counterweight to studio glamour. This official New York Times collection gathers Cunningham's street pictures from the 1970s until his death in 2016, mixing favorites from the paper with work never published before. Essays by Cathy Horyn, Vanessa Friedman, Guy Trebay, Anna Wintour and other Times writers fill in the man behind the camera. Published in September 2019 and easy to find new, it is the right choice for someone who cares more about what real people wear on a city sidewalk than what walks a runway.
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Tim Walker pictures (2015)
Published
Tim Walker: Pictures, teNeues reprint, 2015, of the 2008 monograph
The most purely joyful book here: Tim Walker's staged, storybook fashion pictures in a tall hardcover of 368 pages and 268 color illustrations, about 10 by 16 inches, which gives his elaborate sets room to breathe. This 2015 printing reissued his best-selling 2008 monograph, and it is currently listed as unavailable new, so look secondhand, where both the original and the reprint turn up. Check which one a seller is offering, since the listed sizes and page counts differ. Choose it for someone who likes their fashion with a strong dose of fantasy and humor.
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