From Go-Sees to Editorials: The Ongoing Affair Between Polaroids and Fashion
The Polaroid instant use camera was a revolutionary technology at naissance, allowing us to capture a moment then review ourselves while still in the throws of the emotion photographed. The Polaroid was, in it's archaic way, our first digital camera, a vehicle of instant gratification with pictures developed at a never before experienced speed. With push-button simplicity it quickly dominated and enthralled the market at its peak. Now, it's been over sixty years since the first Polaroid camera was debuted for commercial sale and decades since it's heyday in the 70s and early 80s. The 90s saw the evaporation of the Polaroid camera from mass use with advent of newer and faster technologies. Society and film brands alike turned its back on Polaroids to focus instead on digital cameras and memory cards. We forgot the fun of the instant camera as emerging technology became even more instant, with picture review available within nanoseconds.
However, there is a remaining subset of society that has refused to forget about the Polaroid -- the world of fashion. The fashion world is a peculiar community in that, for as quickly it sprints through its trends, it also remains uniquely moribund in some of its rituals. The velocity of design is inversely proportionate to fashion's commitment to its establishments. Like reverence for the houses of couture and the stalwart scheduling of the biannual fashion weeks, the methodology of model recruitment has remained largely unchanged at its photographical level.
Go-see appointments, where a model is sent to a client for a potential gig, have continued to rely on the bare and grainy intimacy of model Polaroids. Clients are sent Polaroids of bare-face models, sans makeup, dressed in simple outfits. The Polaroids are traditionally taken face-forward, in profile, and a full-length body shot. And that's it and that's how it's been for a very long time. Because these days cameras do lie, especially fancy electronic ones whose images can be easily altered with Photoshop. But a Polaroid is static, unalterable and reveals only authenticity. Polaroids capture in its muddled white wash exposure a timelessness and honesty that is both sentimental and austere. There is no room for editing, no possible deception. With Polaroids what you see is what you get, from every angle, from head to toe. And when you're looking for a true blue beauty, as every breathing soul in fashion is, then only a Polaroid will do.
However, fashion doesn't stop at just go-sees, but whole campaigns are now being photographed on the almost-extinct Polaroid film. Fashion photographers like Terry Richardson continue to photograph subjects on Polaroids, which have provided Richardson with cool and hip collections of celebrity portraits. We cannot help but find it an interesting aesthetic quandary to see portraits of the famous in a most familiar and amateur medium -- our dear old Polaroid. Is that Lady Gaga or is that a vulnerable little blonde hiding behind sunglasses? And is that James Franco, my darling Jimmy, smiling straight at me laughing an intimate joke only we know? Terry Richardson would like to have us so dream. Richardson, whose photography occasionally also takes a turn for the near pornographic, exploits the Polaroid's amateur bias creating editorials with a seedy and voyeuristic quality. Of course, this is a thing we've all loved since Warhol and those CK One ads featuring a teenage Kate Moss.
It's not all sex and scumbags though, there is an innate glamour and inescapable artfulness to the Polaroid aesthetic that finely translates into the world of high fashion. As Ezra Petronio, creative director behind campaigns for Chloe, Miu Miu and Yves Saint Laurent, explains his use of Polaroids "[Were in] homage to Warhol, and they make the photos look glam because they use a flash that diffuses a lot of light."
Most recently, ultra hip brand Rag & Bone, has used Polaroid photos as the medium for its past several campaigns and thoroughly throughout their official blog. Praise for the Spring/Summer 2012 campaign featuring gamine actress Michelle Williams and Pop Art artist Ed Ruscha was widespread. Williams was photographed frolicking in the Hollywood Cemetery and the brilliance of both the photographs and the clothing is that it seemed almost impossible to tell the time period judging the photos on their own. It could have been the 40s, it could've been the 60s, it could've been any time at all.
Rag & Bone designer Scott Sternberg commented on Rag & Bone's use of Polaroids, "It's a very practical, relatively cheap way to shoot using film.... And the 'instant' thing comes in handy when trying to gain a subject's trust." Photos can be quickly shown to the subject and pending their judgment are kept or disposed of. The result is in a special trust between photographer and subject, the kind of trust models need to project exactly what they are meant to. Polaroids give freedom, freedom to expose maximum potential and maximum beauty. Without inhibition or self-consciousness model and photographer alike have the perfect ingredients for a sublime editorial.
Many photographers from the pros to the art school kids are now re-evaluating the Polaroid as an artistic medium. So much so that Fuji Film has continued to produce the popular film, the sole recognizable brand in a once oversaturated market. Fuji Film is now one of only two remaining producers of instant film, the second being the Impossible Project, a group that acquired Polaroid technology before it's bust. And from Urban Outfitters to art stores, Polaroid film is again being stacked on theda front shelves.
The Polaroid has found itself undergo a myriad of transitions, from experimental camera to household electronic and but perhaps it's present status as a medium for fashion is the best place for it to rest its head. The world of fashion parallels this transformative energy as it shifts with the great velocity of trends. However, as fashion trends come and go, all descend with the hope they'll be the next design to last forever, make an impact, and hopefully inspire. Like a boucle jacket, the Polaroid comes from a past generation but is as dynamically modern as it classic.
However, there is a remaining subset of society that has refused to forget about the Polaroid -- the world of fashion. The fashion world is a peculiar community in that, for as quickly it sprints through its trends, it also remains uniquely moribund in some of its rituals. The velocity of design is inversely proportionate to fashion's commitment to its establishments. Like reverence for the houses of couture and the stalwart scheduling of the biannual fashion weeks, the methodology of model recruitment has remained largely unchanged at its photographical level.
Go-see appointments, where a model is sent to a client for a potential gig, have continued to rely on the bare and grainy intimacy of model Polaroids. Clients are sent Polaroids of bare-face models, sans makeup, dressed in simple outfits. The Polaroids are traditionally taken face-forward, in profile, and a full-length body shot. And that's it and that's how it's been for a very long time. Because these days cameras do lie, especially fancy electronic ones whose images can be easily altered with Photoshop. But a Polaroid is static, unalterable and reveals only authenticity. Polaroids capture in its muddled white wash exposure a timelessness and honesty that is both sentimental and austere. There is no room for editing, no possible deception. With Polaroids what you see is what you get, from every angle, from head to toe. And when you're looking for a true blue beauty, as every breathing soul in fashion is, then only a Polaroid will do.
However, fashion doesn't stop at just go-sees, but whole campaigns are now being photographed on the almost-extinct Polaroid film. Fashion photographers like Terry Richardson continue to photograph subjects on Polaroids, which have provided Richardson with cool and hip collections of celebrity portraits. We cannot help but find it an interesting aesthetic quandary to see portraits of the famous in a most familiar and amateur medium -- our dear old Polaroid. Is that Lady Gaga or is that a vulnerable little blonde hiding behind sunglasses? And is that James Franco, my darling Jimmy, smiling straight at me laughing an intimate joke only we know? Terry Richardson would like to have us so dream. Richardson, whose photography occasionally also takes a turn for the near pornographic, exploits the Polaroid's amateur bias creating editorials with a seedy and voyeuristic quality. Of course, this is a thing we've all loved since Warhol and those CK One ads featuring a teenage Kate Moss.
It's not all sex and scumbags though, there is an innate glamour and inescapable artfulness to the Polaroid aesthetic that finely translates into the world of high fashion. As Ezra Petronio, creative director behind campaigns for Chloe, Miu Miu and Yves Saint Laurent, explains his use of Polaroids "[Were in] homage to Warhol, and they make the photos look glam because they use a flash that diffuses a lot of light."
Most recently, ultra hip brand Rag & Bone, has used Polaroid photos as the medium for its past several campaigns and thoroughly throughout their official blog. Praise for the Spring/Summer 2012 campaign featuring gamine actress Michelle Williams and Pop Art artist Ed Ruscha was widespread. Williams was photographed frolicking in the Hollywood Cemetery and the brilliance of both the photographs and the clothing is that it seemed almost impossible to tell the time period judging the photos on their own. It could have been the 40s, it could've been the 60s, it could've been any time at all.
Rag & Bone designer Scott Sternberg commented on Rag & Bone's use of Polaroids, "It's a very practical, relatively cheap way to shoot using film.... And the 'instant' thing comes in handy when trying to gain a subject's trust." Photos can be quickly shown to the subject and pending their judgment are kept or disposed of. The result is in a special trust between photographer and subject, the kind of trust models need to project exactly what they are meant to. Polaroids give freedom, freedom to expose maximum potential and maximum beauty. Without inhibition or self-consciousness model and photographer alike have the perfect ingredients for a sublime editorial.
Many photographers from the pros to the art school kids are now re-evaluating the Polaroid as an artistic medium. So much so that Fuji Film has continued to produce the popular film, the sole recognizable brand in a once oversaturated market. Fuji Film is now one of only two remaining producers of instant film, the second being the Impossible Project, a group that acquired Polaroid technology before it's bust. And from Urban Outfitters to art stores, Polaroid film is again being stacked on theda front shelves.
The Polaroid has found itself undergo a myriad of transitions, from experimental camera to household electronic and but perhaps it's present status as a medium for fashion is the best place for it to rest its head. The world of fashion parallels this transformative energy as it shifts with the great velocity of trends. However, as fashion trends come and go, all descend with the hope they'll be the next design to last forever, make an impact, and hopefully inspire. Like a boucle jacket, the Polaroid comes from a past generation but is as dynamically modern as it classic.