Friedlander: Dressing Up
Backstage with the Artist at NY Fashion Week
While the best fashion models become fixtures as timeless as the brands shining the spotlight on them, it is that spotlight that makes us all wonder what’s underneath. Angle is everything. Successful fashion celebrates the mystery beneath the fabric with as much reverence as it does the design itself, so it’s no wonder photographers like Lee Friedlander devote endless frames to the tantalizing dance of negative space.
In Dressing Up, Friedlander’s fashion photography book, he explores the glittering frenzy backstage at New York Fashion Week. It was commissioned in 2006, an era of experimentation, by the New York Times, and contains 80 pages of voyeuristic angles, runway makeup, and indulgent textures that not even those with front-row seats were able to enjoy.
The photos are all black and white, so that color is one less distraction for the viewer. Instead, the focus is on the precarious balancing act of putting on stilettos, or the precious time spent waiting for a hairstyle to set. Makeup artists manhandle the models’ faces, their motions too quick to be caught by the shutter speed. Some of the statuesque muses sit crumpled in chairs, bored or buried in a book. Some stand proudly as assistants fuss with the last finishing touches of the design. Even half-dressed, the models make you want to be the one wearing those clothes in that moment, receiving all of the attention.
Fashion’s allure lies in how it enables us to manipulate our exteriors to reflect what we are, what we want to be, or who we idolize internally. It’s impermanent, but style is enduring. One day you’re the tailored picture of Chanel propriety, the next you’re Kate Moss in Calvins. All it takes is a trip to the cleaners – or in this case, a few hours with Friedlander’s photographs.
