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| © Carter Berg |
| A 2005 photo by Carter Berg. Click photo for more images. |
Rizzoli; 512 pages; 900 illustrations; regular edition: $135; deluxe edition: $400
Fashion week last September found Ralph Lauren in familiar territory. His landmark show, marking his 40th year in fashion, was heaped with Edwardian charm on a set inspired by My Fair Lady's famed "Royal Ascot" scene. Lauren's clothes were, as ever, admirable and wonderfully beside the point. What has always mattered most is the dream realm the designer creates and has marketed so powerfully for so long. Lauren's fantasy was most fulsomely captured by photographer Bruce Weber during the 1980s. As critic Owen Edwards once wrote in American Photo, "Not since the Victorian portraitist Julia Margaret Cameron dragooned her wellborn friends into posing for Arthurian tableaux has a mythical kingdom been more lavishly photographed." Now, to further mark Lauren's anniversary, Rizzoli has brought out this extravagant volume, which, fittingly, blurs creative lines by celebrating Lauren the man, Lauren the icon, and Lauren the ad campaign. The heart of the book is its collection of work by several generations of photographers, including Patrick Demarchelier, Deborah Turbeville, Francois Halard, Anthony Edgeworth, and Carter Berg. The book is essential for historians of advertising and for photo enthusiasts. If you're feeling aristocratic, check out the deluxe edition with a slipcase cover.
-David Schonauer
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