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Imagine if the profession of modeling never existed. Hmmm…That would be incredibly hard to picture! We are just so used to visualizing models promoting fashion, products, services, events, etc! In general, sometimes we overlook the importance of our history while we live and deal with issues in the present. For the sake of being a model as a career, it can only enhance your credentials if you really learn some important names in the modeling and fashion industry (and save yourself some embarrassment, too). Most of those names will be of well known fashion designers, models, photographers, magazines, and modeling agencies, but there is a transition in history from where the fashion model began versus where they are now.
Briefly, there is a very interesting history of the modeling industry and if you ever want to really read more about it, it may help you understand how modeling truly evolved. For instance, we’d probably still be looking at “dummies” (a.k.a. mannequins) wearing designer’s fashions if it weren’t for Charles Worth (1825-1895). In the mid-1800’s, Charles Worth showed innovation in business and design, as well as was the first to use “real people” as models. He actually fell in love and married one of his models, Marie Vernet Worth, and used her as his inspiration. He is known as the founder of “high fashion” (a.k.a. haute couture). That really changed how designers showcased their fashions. (Before that, even dolls were used in miniature versions of fashions throughout Europe to market and sell their styles. Clothing designer Rose Bertin was famous for that!)
The French upper class had the economic means of purchasing fashionable, luxury goods, so Charles Worth also utilized his talents as a designer and dress-maker in many ways like introducing the concept of producing his garments in multiples of his latest creations. This was not the way things had been done, because things were not “ready-made” before that time. Seasonal collections came to be known during this period, too, because Worth was also the first designer to organize and show an entire collection of clothes in advance. He was also the first designer to place a tag with his name signature in every fashion he made.
Fashion spread from Europe to all over the world to places like the United States. Newport, RI was just one of the places for the rich to live out their fashionable lifestyles entertaining in America in the lavish mansions of that period. Among the American women who frequently patronized Worth’s shop in later years were the Astors, Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts. While many of Worth's clients would spend upwards of $10,000 a year on their wardrobes, still others were willing to spend that same sum on a single ball gown. In producing the 6,000 to 7,000 gowns and 4,000 outer garments he designed and sold each year, Worth used the most beautiful fabrics he could find, most from France. It was a reflection of the class of people in that society to have their garments from Paris. The elite women would change their clothes a few times a day depending on the social setting, meal, party, or receiving of guests, etc…and such began the fashion rule, “never wear the same thing twice”. That’s a lot of clothes, and a lot of money, and they were shipped in trunks from Paris to meet the demand!
Many people may be surprised to hear that the center of the garment industry in the U.S. rose in Chicago, Illinois. Most would assume it was New York City, but that came in time. The very first fashion show was in 1914 called “The Greatest Style Show in the World“. Picture 100 models with an audience of approximately 5000 people. It was filmed and then shown all over in the movie cinemas. Modeling had changed from informal modeling using “shop girls” and “actresses” to a socially more acceptable career for “attractive, well-bred” women. The standard had started to change when French designer, Jean Patou, had the assistance of Vogue magazine to do a model search for those special women.
Through this period have come about some of the most memorable images in the history of fashion photography that represents the time in which they were made. Before that, the eighteenth century had just hand-colored images of fashionable clothes printed in magazines. Paris was at that time a center for the production of such magazines, many of which were exported. Enter the age of fashion photography! Photographers such as Baron de Meyer (1868 - 1946), Edward Jean Steichen (1879-1973),George Hoyningen-Huene (1900 - 1968), Horst P Horst (born 1906) , Cecil Beaton (1904 - 1980) Norman Parkinson, (born in 1913), Lillian Bassman, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Richard Avedon, Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969), David Bailey, Jean Loup Sieff (born 1933) pioneered the way for today’s fashion photographer and their models in our digital era.
Here is a link to Modelina.com that has videos of the history of modeling in the 1900's (Part 1 & Part 2) if you'd like to see more progress.
http://www.modelinia.com/videos/history-of-models-i--society-girls---hollywood-glamour/222
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