In 1909, the American publisher Condé Nast purchased Vogue, which at the time was a weekly society magazine, chronicling the lives of the rich and famous. Though Vogue quickly became more widely accessible to the mainstream public under the direction of Nast, his vision and goal for the magazine remained focused on catering specifically to high society.

Eager to get his magazine on the map, Nast quickly hired Baron Adophe de Meyer, a highly accomplished photographer from Europe. Rather than hiring models, de Meyer used society women and celebrities for his Vogue photographs who often wore their...

As an art historian, I look at the visual images for insight into the world we live in. How do artistic endeavors reflect the social, cultural, economic and political conditions of the times? How do the things we look at, the things we create give insight into the world around us?

Over the years, many of my academic interests have come together in the realm of fashion photography. This critical inquiry into fashion photography has emerged from the history of photography and my interest in the body itself as a work of art--as both a symbolic and real means of communication. Both clothed and unclothed,...