Conference Presentations by Lynda Xepoleas
In the 1930s, several key fashion photographers were practicing Surrealists: Man Ray, Georges Hoy... more In the 1930s, several key fashion photographers were practicing Surrealists: Man Ray, Georges Hoyningen-Huené, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, and Erwin Blumenfeld. Using surrealist experimental photographic techniques, each photographer drastically changed the way fashion was seen in the pages of Harper's Bazaar and Vogue magazine. While scholars argue that the assimilation of surrealist aesthetic devices in fashion photography commercialized Surrealism during the thirties, such photographic output has yet to be assessed in relation to surrealist thought and its photographic practice. This presentation reconsiders the association of fashion photography as a form of advertising and instead outlines its relation with the artistic avant-garde.
Thesis Chapters by Lynda Xepoleas
In the 1930s, several key fashion photographers were practicing Surrealists: Man Ray, Georges Hoy... more In the 1930s, several key fashion photographers were practicing Surrealists: Man Ray, Georges Hoyningen-Huené, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, and Erwin Blumenfeld. Each photographer explored surrealist-influenced fashion photography and drastically changed the way fashion was seen in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue magazine. While scholars believe the assimilation of surrealist aesthetic devices in fashion photography commercialized Surrealism during the thirties, such photographic output has yet to be assessed in relation to surrealist thought and practice. This thesis argues that Ray, Hoyningen-Huené, Horst, Beaton, and Blumenfeld did not photograph fashion in the surrealist style to promote desire for the commercial product. Instead, they created new pictures that penetrated, radicalized, and even destroyed conventions of mass culture from inside the illustrated fashion magazine.
Papers by Lynda Xepoleas
Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 2022
In the 1930s, several of Vogue’s staff photographers—Georges Hoyningen-Huené, Cecil Beaton, and H... more In the 1930s, several of Vogue’s staff photographers—Georges Hoyningen-Huené, Cecil Beaton, and Horst P. Horst—explored surrealist-influenced fashion photography in the pages of the magazine’s American, British, and French editions. Using surrealist experimental photographic techniques, they transgressed the accepted boundaries of the photographic genre and created shocking images that, for a time, called Vogue’s pursuit of elegance and refinement into question. While previous scholarship has argued that the assimilation of surrealist aesthetic devices in American fashion magazines commercialized Surrealism during the 1930s, such photographic output has yet to be assessed in relation to surrealist thought and practice. In this paper, I reassess three fashion editorials illustrated by Hoyningen-Huené, Beaton, and Horst in American Vogue and how their experimentations with lighting, unusual angles, and darkroom processes aligned with the marvelous, a key concept of surrealist photography initially pursued by surrealist artist and photographer, Man Ray. I argue that Vogue’s staff photographers did not just photograph fashion in the surrealist style to promote desire for the commercial product. Instead, they created a new visual vocabulary that, for a short period of time, challenged the commercial ethos of American Vogue’s editorial section.
Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 2022
In this article we reflect on our engagement with a broad spectrum of dress- and textile-related ... more In this article we reflect on our engagement with a broad spectrum of dress- and textile-related artefacts housed within the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection and Department of Anthropology Collections at Cornell University. In recent years, fashion critics and scholars have begun to address the biases and prejudices that continue to inform the collection and display of fashion within museums and academic institutions. In addition to museums of art, design, anthropology and history, universities have contributed to and influenced the public’s perceptions of fashion as an embodied material practice and a social phenomenon through the development and circulation of fashion- and dress-related teaching collections. Drawing upon our experiences co-curating a digital fashion exhibition about the development of two ethnological dress collections on Cornell’s campus, we discuss the opportunities and challenges that we faced working with these objects in a university setting. Our objectiv...
Pivoting for the Pandemic, 2020
Research Topic: In this paper, we critically examine the creation of lantern slides for a lecture... more Research Topic: In this paper, we critically examine the creation of lantern slides for a lecture series on the design and construction of ethnological clothing and textiles organized by Morris de Camp Crawford and Dr. Clark Wissler of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in 1916. Since the late nineteenth century, museums of art, design, history, and anthropology have shaped the way we view, value, and experience fashion. Critical readings of fashion in the museum, however, tend to focus on how curators have collected and displayed extant objects within museum exhibitions. 1 By contrast, we investigate another way curators produced culturally recognizable meanings of fashion: through photography and its circulation. Drawing upon primary sources found within the archives of the AMNH, this paper brings to light how several of the museum's curators chose to represent their anthropological collections as primary sources for design research within illustrated lectures. We argue that lantern slides not only became an important technology used to demonstrate the value of their collections, but also led to the normalization of cultural appropriation within the American fashion industry. In this paper, we define cultural appropriation as "the practice of taking the aesthetic or material properties from another culture by someone who is not a member of that culture without giving credit or profit." 2 Background: While there were multiple reactions to the challenges facing the American fashion industry following the outbreak of World War I, Crawford's "Designed in America" campaign became an opportunity to develop an American design practice. In 1916, the fashion editor of Women's Wear and Research Associate of Peruvian textiles the AMNH assembled a group of educators and scholars to discuss the state of American fashion and textile design. 3 Crawford worked with the following individuals to provide training for American designers and manufacturers: Henry W. Kent of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Albert Blum of United Piece Dye Works, Wissler of the AMNH, and E.W. Fairchild of Women's Wear. 4 From 1916 to 1921, his campaign led a number of fashion and textile designers to seek inspiration among the fabrics, garments, and other artifacts in several museum collections throughout New York City, including the anthropological collections of the AMNH. Framework: Drawing from Robert Spindler's criteria for viewing lantern slides as historical evidence, we sought to identify how the museum's curators chose to represent ethnographic clothing and textiles within lantern slides. According to Spindler, it is important to consider the physical and informational components of lantern slides collections. 5 Unlike other photographic material, lantern slides were almost always produced in sets; they were primarily chosen to form a story line of importance to the photographer, museum curator, or educator. 6 Lantern slide collections therefore were arranged according to a particular narrative. Beyond the
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 2019
Curated exhibitions are places where research practice, creative design, storytelling, and aesthe... more Curated exhibitions are places where research practice, creative design, storytelling, and aesthetics converge. In this article, we use the term "fashion exhibition" to refer to the organized display of extant dress-related items within museums or other public spaces. Curation, as a form of creative design research, produces numerous outcomes including museum exhibitions, digital archives, and associated publications; however, our field has not yet established a method to peer review fashion exhibitions. In this article, we build upon the work of previous scholars to propose criteria for evaluating fashion exhibitions. In doing so, we aim to elevate the scholarly status of fashion exhibitions , particularly those mounted by modestly funded institutions, and use the recent fashion exhibition, "Women Empowered: Fashions from the Frontline," as an example to illustrate our argument.
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Conference Presentations by Lynda Xepoleas
Thesis Chapters by Lynda Xepoleas
Papers by Lynda Xepoleas