Elegance

A unique collection of 300 luscious black and white photographs taken by the Seeberger brothers, whose work gave birth to fashion photography as we know it today, and whose images witness the elegance and glamour of the roaring 20s and beyond. Jules, Louis, and Henri Seeberger were Parisian postcard photographers in the early years of the twentieth century who took up fashion photography in 1909 - some of the first photographers to do so. They frequented race courses, which were at the time a Mecca for fashion and elegant society, and fashionable holiday resorts that were popular socialite meeting places such as Cannes, Deuville, Biarritz, and Saint-Moritz.

Their photographs were highly prized, not only by magazines such as Vu, Vogue, and Femina, but by top designers and American retailers as well, who hastened to send their models to be seen in these locales by their best clients – theater and movie stars, singers and painters. The book therefore includes images of the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker. But it is perhaps the relatively un-posed shots of "regular" (though of course very rich and glamorous) women that are the most fascinating – for they allow us to see the somewhat loose, unstructured and candid beginnings of a form of photography which has since become so highly stylized.

Designs by Madeleine Vionnet, Hermes, Chanel, and Jean Patou, among many others, grace the palaces, smart cafes, private beaches and luxury cars of French flapper high society – evoking a bygone era.