Issue date: 3/2/10 Section: Current Affairs

To some photography has little importance. Now pair it up with fashion and it is almost extinct. Fashion photography has a bad rep for being "superficial" and just false advertising, but Edward Steichen was eager to change that. If you ever had the chance to browse the pages of "Vogue" or "Vanity Fair" from the 1920s through the 1930s, you have seen Steichen's high fashion photographs. If you do not happen to have a nearly six decades old "Vogue" magazine lying around, the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale | Nova Southeastern University (MOAFL) now features over 200 of Steichen's vintage photographs of when he served as chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. According to Irvin M. Lippman, executive director of the MOAFL, "Steichen was the celebrity photographer in the 1920s who introduces a great sense of fashion."

Upon visiting the museum, you'll instantly travel back in time to an era of black and white visuals and old Hollywood glamour. All the photographs on display portray Steichen's talent of portraiture and his ability to make any piece of garment look fabulous in a time when fashion was changing and fashion photography was just beginning. Long gone were the corsets that created the hourglass shaped dresses as you begin to notice that Steichen's photographs portray garments that are airy and liquid with a touch of elegance. Over the 15 years he worked for the magazines, Steichen invented modern fashion photography. "The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself. And that is the most complicated thing on earth," Steichen has said.

Along with Steichen's works on display is also a beautiful gown by designer Ivonne de la Vega to compliment the exhibit. When asked about the dress, Vega explains, "While incorporating elements from that era, I also wanted to incorporate my signature style and make the gown fresh and modern, wearable but dramatic, and of course, simply fabulous!" The $20,000 dollar gown will be sold as a benefit for the museum in a raffle with only 200 tickets available at $100 each.

Mercedes Lardizabal, an art management graduate student and intern at the MOAFL urges students to take advantage of the merger between NSU and the museum and visit more often because there is a new exhibit up almost every three months.

"This is a subject that is still important today," says Lippman. It is still relevant as we flip the channels through Project Runway and Launch My Line, fashion is everywhere, whether we are conscious of it or not. On display till April 11, this exhibit brings you to the root of it all through a photographer's eye.

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