Guest Speaker 11- Rachel Brown (Part 2)

“What does the future of the luxury fashion image look like?”

The #MeToo movement has changed fashion photography. Bazaar doesn’t show women in an objectified way.

Rachel showed the archive and timeline of Bazaar covers. Fast fashion and the digital world, world disasters have all impacted the covers of fashion magazines. An example I found interesting was the covers from the Spanish flu epidemic. It shows how they responded to a world disaster.

Harper’s Bazaar covers during The Spanish Flu epidemic, 1918.

The covers followed the current social and political climate and also fashion trends over the years; the 2010s was focusing less on the sexualised female body, more considered cover, colour, dreamlike aesthetic.

2020 was when the pandemic affected the production of shoots, and covers being shot for. Many fashion brands had adapted to this new change and way of producing work. Many people had celebrities take selfies for the covers or had their ‘bubble’ take photos of them, some were dedicated to key workers and BLM, and also had drawings (Vogue Italia). Facetime shoots and zoom fashion shows were also things that came out of the pandemic.

I found it interesting to see the different approaches to production that I wasn’t aware of, this is something that I will research into for my own knowledge and also how I’m making my own work in the pandemic is added into this.

Harper’s Bazaar website: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/

Harper’s Bazaar cover during the 2020 covid pandemic- dedicated to key workers