The view from the front row: a history of the fashion show – photo essay

 

Once, photographers were banned from fashion shows, with designers suspecting they were spies. Today, fashion shows are a multimillion-dollar global business. As London fashion week begins, we cart the evolution of the fashion show, from secret salons to the snap-happy Instagram era

by Tamsin Blanchard, Production: Matt Fidler and Joanna Ruck

Most fashion shows last less than 10 minutes, but have the power to transport an audience to another world. There’s an intensity to a great show, a distillation of a designer’s extraordinary vision.

Once upon a time, though, things were a lot humbler. The intimate salon shows of Chanel in the 1950s bear no resemblance to Karl Lagerfeld’s fully-stocked supermarket in the vast Grand Palais in 2014. The main change is scale – along with location, set production, and budget.

Read Article:  https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/feb/15/the-view-from-the-front-row-a-history-of-the-fashion-show-photo-essay