A Smashing Time

Vogue Italia’s Spring 2007 issue brought me some delights today. And that’s aside from the turkey. Today is Canadian thanksgiving, and there is no better day to be thankful for fashion photography. It has been dazzling our minds and satisfying our senses for centuries.

In fact, in 1856, Adolphe Braun published a book containing 288 photographs of Virginia Oldoini, Countess de Castiglione, a Tuscan noblewoman at the court of Napoleon III. The photos depict her in her official court garb, making her the first fashion model.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is 152 years of fashion photography. And it just keeps on getting better…