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This essay explores the process and labour involved in creating fashion editorials. It is focused on the work of Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Toni Frissell, as case studies of photographers who worked at America’s two leading fashion magazines: Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Images that show these women “backstage” form the basis of this analysis, to expose the images’ compositions and the teams of people involved in their creation. Both photographers worked at a key moment in American fashion, as designers such as Claire McCardell created a simple, interchangeable wardrobe of readymade clothes that catered to the increasingly active lives of middle-class women. They were significant to the “Modern Sportswear Aesthetic” that emerged during this period and which exploited Kodachrome’s rich tones to compose alluring images that showed sportswear as adaptable and fashionable. Frequently shot outside, or using carefully contrived sets, their imagery provides a case study for the ways fashion’s creative workers collaborated to construct convincing visions of sportswear’s emergent style. Drawing upon Bruno Latour’s theories of organization, this article examines these networks of people, working to varied briefs and deadlines to create each magazine issue. From contact sheets and shots of fashion editors and models, to glimpses of the photographers’ efforts to find the right angle, this essay uses Dahl-Wolfe and Frissell’s photobooks and archival materials, including memos between Bazaar Editor-in-Chief Carmel Snow and Frissell, to challenge the idea of the seamless fashion page and look at the professional work and negotiations necessary to create a successful image.
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