Collaboration, competition and conflict: The collective labour of fashion photography at US Vogue (1940–42)

While the figure of the fashion photographer has been widely discussed, little has been written on image-making as a collective endeavour. Fashion photography indeed results from technical innovations, publishing strategies, editorial policies, behind-the-scenes negotiations and, ultimately, decision-making. This article analyses ‘The Condé Nast Papers’ – a series of internal documents held at the Condé Nast archives in New York – together with US Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar’s editorials and covers to explore how fashion photographs resulted from the collective labour of photographers, editors, artistic directors and many others in the early 1940s. Through these unique historical sources, this article gives a voice to the workers involved in the making of fashion images and shows how decision-making and creativity were distributed across occupations. It also unpacks the negotiations, arbitrations and power relations that underpinned work relations at US Vogue, showing the collaboration, competition and conflict between the different actors. Drawing on art sociologist Howard Becker’s concept of ‘art worlds’ while combining methods from fashion history and visual and material culture, I question the respective status of the multiple authors involved in this activity and the conventions of fashion image-making. In doing so, I argue that fashion photographs are the product of the interactions of a multitude of workers who are embedded in the power structures of the fashion media industry, and whose collective labour is made invisible. My goal is to rethink the ways in which collective labour has been evidenced and produced in the fashion industry.

Processing Edward Steichen's Celebrity Portrait Photographs at George Eastman House.

This thesis is an applied project undertaken to process celebrity portraits by Edward Steichen that were gifted to George Eastman House by Steichen's widow, Joanna Steichen, in 2002. These photographs were made for Condé Nast Publications between 1923 and 1937. This thesis discusses processing donations of photographic materials, identifying acetate and nitrate negatives, handling gelatin silver contact prints, and rehousing procedures based on institutional-specific collections management policies. The analytical paper portion discusses processing methods, proposes future processing procedures, and addresses the relationship between the contact prints and printed images in Vanity Fair magazine in order to highlight the importance of creating relationships between objects in museum collections.

Processing Edward Steichen's Celebrity Portrait Photographs at George Eastman House.

This thesis is an applied project undertaken to process celebrity portraits by Edward Steichen that were gifted to George Eastman House by Steichen's widow, Joanna Steichen, in 2002. These photographs were made for Condé Nast Publications between 1923 and 1937. This thesis discusses processing donations of photographic materials, identifying acetate and nitrate negatives, handling gelatin silver contact prints, and rehousing procedures based on institutional-specific collections management policies. The analytical paper portion discusses processing methods, proposes future processing procedures, and addresses the relationship between the contact prints and printed images in Vanity Fair magazine in order to highlight the importance of creating relationships between objects in museum collections.

Steichen, Eduard Jean (1879–1973)

Photographer, painter, curator and horticulturalist Eduard Jean Steichen was born in Luxembourg and immigrated to the US in 1881. He was self-taught, favoring soft, harmonious tones in both paintings and photographs. In 1905 he and Alfred Stieglitz collaborated to launch the Little Galleries of the Photo Secession (known as "291") for which Steichen curated the first exhibits in the US by modern French artists. The international success of his double-negative portrait, Rodin—Le Penseur (1904) and sales from an exhibit of paintings at Eugene Glaenzer & Co. led Steichen to Paris in 1906, where his work was influenced by the Fauves and experimentation with autochromes, an early color photography process. Subsequently inspired by the concept of the fourth dimension, his work became hard edged. Steichen returned to New York in 1923, where he was appointed the chief photographer for Condé Nast . He was the first director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Photography (1947–62). In 1955 his photographic essay, The Family of Man, toured internationally and he began a film essay of a Shad Blow tree, which was never completed.

Transforming the Magazine

This chapter examines the changes taking place in the economies, technologies, and markets of women's magazines in the late twentieth century by focusing on three publishers: Hearst Magazines, Condé Nast, and Time, Inc. Although each of these companies produces several women's fashion, beauty, and/or service titles, their organizational structures are becoming quite varied as they reorient departments, positions, and routines to address contemporary industry challenges. The chapter considers the extent to which changes in the magazine industry can be ascribed exclusively to digital innovations, whether such changes are being felt evenly across the industry, and how they have created a perfect storm that has opened up the question of “what is a magazine?” It also discusses the ways that Condé Nast, Time, and Hearst are addressing the challenges of digitization. The chapter shows that women's magazine companies venture into online and digital spaces as part of their concentrated efforts to resuscitate their magazine titles.

Out of bounds? How Gawker’s outing a married man fits into the boundaries of journalism

Gawker ignited a controversy when it published an article about a married Conde Nast executive who allegedly sought the services of a gay escort. The popular blog eventually removed the article following condemnation from readers and other journalists. Guided by the frameworks of boundary work and field theory, this study analyzed 65 news articles and 2203 online comments and found that journalists and audiences problematized Gawker’s identity as a journalistic organization and evaluated the article based on traditional standards of newsworthiness, audiences asserted their role in journalism’s larger interpretive community, and that the larger interpretive community assessed the article based on the ethics of outing. Investigating the discourse generated by this critical incident is important because it identifies where journalists and readers draw the boundaries of legitimate journalism, specifies the place of ethics in boundary discourse, and informs journalistic practice about the phenomenon of outing in the news.