SMARTER WOMEN

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 114, 8 February 1937, Page 4

SMARTER WOMEN

Effect of Photograph Advertisement

(By Air Mail —From “Finella.”)

London, January 22,

The camera is changing British women. I have long suspected this fact. At an exhibition of commercial photographs, I learnt just how it is happening. The whole exhibition was run by and for a rapidly-increasing breed—“photographers in advertising” is, I believe, the correct term. They are commercial organisations which specialise in producing photographs with which commodities are advertised. This is a development that has crept into advertising to an enormous extent during the past few years; and, although I know little or nothing of advertising, .1 should have to be blind not to observe the effects of this development. You have only to look through any periodical which has any sort of interest to women to see how much the advertisers now rely on photographs. Eight years ago there were in London only two firms which specialised in this kind of photographic advertisement. To-day there are scores and scores of them; probqbly hundreds. The advertisements affected cover almost every kind of commodity—from split peas to housing estates. But there is no doubt that the greatest scope appears to be in the realm of women’s fashions. Here the “photographers in advertising” have tremendous scope; and even the daily newspapers show how keenly they are making the most of this opportunity. Better Technique.

“I believe it is due largely to the influence of the clever photography in fashion advertising that the women in England are catching up to their smart, sophisticated American sisters in the matter of dress and make-up.” This is what Gloria, famous mannequin and model, said when she opened the exhibition, held on a floor of the “News of the World” building off Fleet Street. Gloria is said to be the most photographed woman in the British Isles. Her photograph (I am told) has been reproduced 60,000,000 times a week during the past eight years I She is, in fact, the visual pioneer of this new influence; and, I must admit, she does not look much the worse for such unflinching poise in the face of such prolonged and relentless “shooting.” As soon as Gloria, clasping a vast bouquet of orchids, had finished her speech, I started on a tour of inspection of the 3500 photographs on view. “You couldn’t get anything like these pictures a couple of years ago,” an expert photographer assured me. He indicated some remarkably . fine enlargements and I must say I was astonished at their perfection. Apparently there has been sueh an extraordinary improvement in photographic materials during the past two years that camera work has become a really satisfying art. This discovery was indicated not only l>v the excellence of some of the exhibits but also by some of the exhibitors, prowling about in the neighbourhood of their achievements. The commercial photographer to-day is quite an “arty” individual, it seems. I saw youngish men with strange beards and queer clothes and a brooding look In their eye that hinted at “temperament.”

Models with “Atmosphere.”

I also noticed a number of young women among the crowd. At first, I imagined that they must be visitors from Hollywood, so enamelled and chiselled and “other-world” they seemed. But there was something different. The Hollywood star mav slouch about the place (see Garbo).’ These girls almost floated. They walked with nearly a superhuman grace, fluttered their hands about, and stood in attitudes of sueh purposeful charm that they might have been executing the movements of a certain kind of physical drill.

They probably were. For. on inquiry, I learnt that these immaculate creatures were actually some of the camera models.

“Are they dumb?” I asked. “We are trying to evolve an intelligent type,” a leading “photographer in advertising” assured me gravely. “You will see that photographs are becoming much more realistic,” he said “We have finished with Germanism and Russianism and all that. We want to reach ordinary people. We want realism.”

“How many models do you employ?” I asked. “We have about 1000 on our books.”' he told me. “But,” and he lowered his voice as a beautiful girl slid slowly by, “we use about 30 of them. We can’t use them all, of course.”