Picturing fashion

Press, 26 January 1980, Page 10

Picturing fashion

MM ; 'ANB BEAUTY

By I

Paula Ryan

One of the inescapable realities of. fashion photography is that no matter how strongly fashion pictures promote new trends, there will always be another person in the photo. The other person is the photographer himself. Fashion photography •has in a graphic sense become an art form, the photographic taste being equally as important as the quality of the garment itself.

It could be said that fashion and photography go together like salt and pepper; as, whenever a new fashion is launched, the snapping of photographers’ cameras will be near at hand.

One of the most nent photographers behind the fashion camera in Zealand is the Christchurch photographer, Euan Sarginson. With a wealth of three decades of experience he has developed an ability of not only portraying emerging fashion but also of capturing the mood and general taste of the time.

Back in the 1960 s he recalls filling many films with photographs of the revolutionary mini-skirt. There was more leg than

skirt but then fashion at this time was aimed at the young. Then came the trouser suit with those sailor-like flared legs. Euan well recalls the popularity of false hair pieces and models painstakingly applying layers of false eyelashes and fingernails.

The Beatles, Jean Shrimpton, Mary Quant and many Others contributed in some way to the way the young people dressed during" the carefree sixties. Girls wanted to look long and lean, and photographers used special lenses to help create- a six-foot illusion. Little faces .shone through heavily back-com-bed tresses and blond locks were “in.”

Eyes were blackened with carefully applied liners and mouths were martened down with paler than natural shades. Then suddenly in the late 1960 s lengths swooped to the ankles , and manufacturers were faced with tremendous yardage increases. It was as sudden as that — one day the mini-skirt, then the maxicoat.

The romantic look around the turn of the decade didn’t last long but strongly influenced the misty photographic phase, partial but subtle nudity creeping into fashion. Seethrough shirts and fine muslin and chiffon dresses worn with huge, flowered and ribboned picture hats photographed in picnic settings were tire order of the day for the young.

The 1970 s were uncertain. During this entire decade fashion meant simply wearing what you wanted to wear. Fashion could not easily be defined in set colours or styles. Clothes were mainly casual and cress lengths stable — around mid calf Jeans were worn anywhere and everywhere, the more faded ’and patched the better.