Clothing, Women, Buildings. The Architectural Images in Fashion Magazines

The contribution analyzes the presence of architecture in fashion magazines, with a focus on the American edition of Vogue. It highlights the various ways in which buildings were utilized as narrative backdrops for photo shoots and as subjects of informative articles. Between the end of the 1930s and the 1940s, fashion photographers frequently utilized iconic historical architecture in urban settings as backgrounds for outdoor shots featuring models. Since the early 1950s, fashion photographers and magazine editors began to take an interest in contemporary buildings signed by renowned architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Gordon Bunshaft of SOM, Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and others. This interest led fashion magazines to bring newly constructed architectural works to the attention of the general public, contributing to their popular success. This created a reciprocal exchange of enhancement and promotion: the innovation of architecture underlined the novelty of clothing, framing the allure of fashion and thereby reinforcing its own glamour.