Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

En Vogue

Poster Collection 32

Advertising creates dream worlds, yet always simultaneously bears witness to its era. Both these tendencies are exemplified in fashion posters. Moving beyond the latest modish trends and beauty ideals, fashion posters reflect moral codes and social conditions. In particular, they pander to the longing to escape routine everyday life, for these posters suggest that it is possible to attain a completely new identity simply by opting for a different garment or style. Androgynous models and less normative images of men and women in the advertising industry mark the dawn of a new era that entails constantly balancing aspirations to individuality against a sense of collective belonging.

Fashion posters from past and present are lifestyle propositions; they tell stories, seduce and shock. Playing with convention and provocation, bodies are sometimes lavishly veiled and disguised, sometimes sensually staged. At times consumers are only indirectly encouraged to shop. A button or a coat collar as a pars pro toto illustrate product quality in historical posters. A new, somewhat controversial approach to fashion advertising emerges in Benetton campaigns from the early 1990s. Overtly erotic ostentation contrasts with poetic allusions that are for example the hallmark of highly aesthetic Japanese fashion posters. En Vogue brings together fashion advertising spanning roughly a hundred years and deploying myriad different PR strategies, in each case reflecting the cultures and periods in which it was created.

Advertising creates dream worlds, yet always simultaneously bears witness to its era. Both these tendencies are exemplified in fashion posters. Moving beyond the latest modish trends and beauty ideals, fashion posters reflect moral codes and social conditions. In particular, they pander to the longing to escape routine everyday life, for these posters suggest that it is possible to attain a completely new identity simply by opting for a different garment or style. Androgynous models and less normative images of men and women in the advertising industry mark the dawn of a new era that entails constantly balancing aspirations to individuality against a sense of collective belonging.

Fashion posters from past and present are lifestyle propositions; they tell stories, seduce and shock. Playing with convention and provocation, bodies are sometimes lavishly veiled and disguised, sometimes sensually staged. At times consumers are only indirectly encouraged to shop. A button or a coat collar as a pars pro toto illustrate product quality in historical posters. A new, somewhat controversial approach to fashion advertising emerges in Benetton campaigns from the early 1990s. Overtly erotic ostentation contrasts with poetic allusions that are for example the hallmark of highly aesthetic Japanese fashion posters. En Vogue brings together fashion advertising spanning roughly a hundred years and deploying myriad different PR strategies, in each case reflecting the cultures and periods in which it was created.

This book is part of the Poster Collection series. Get the complete series here

Edited by Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter

With an essay by Elke Gaugele

Design: Integral Lars Müller

16,5 × 24 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ½ in

96 pages, 110 illustrations

paperback

2020, 978-3-03778-641-3, German
English
CHF 25.00

Bettina Richter

Bettina Richter studied art history in Heidelberg, Paris and Zurich and obtained her doctorate in 1996 with a thesis on the antiwar graphics of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. From 1997 to 2006, she served as a research associate at the Poster Collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and in 2006 became its curator. Bettina Richter lectures at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and works as a freelance writer. She is the editor of the publication series "Poster Collection" and has published articles and essays on art history, literature, and the subject of posters.

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Niklaus Troxler

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Poster Collection, vol. 34

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Stop Motion

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Poster Collection, vol. 31

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Self-Promotion

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Poster Collection, vol. 30

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Herbert Leupin

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Poster Collection, vol. 28

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

The Hand / Die Hand

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Poster Collection, vol. 27

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Japan – Nippon

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Out of print
Poster Collection, vol. 26

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

In Series / In Serie

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Poster Collection, vol. 23

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Help!

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Poster Collection, vol. 20

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Christian Brändle (eds.)

Kopf an Kopf

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Poster Collection, vol. 19

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Christian Brändle (eds.)

Head to Head

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Poster Collection, vol. 19

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Otto Baumberger

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Poster Collection, vol. 18

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

Photo Graphics

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Poster Collection, vol. 17

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Comix!

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Poster Collection, vol. 16

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Zürich–Milano

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Poster Collection, vol. 14

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Typo China

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Poster Collection, vol. 13

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Catherine Zask

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Poster Collection, vol. 12

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Handmade

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Poster Collection, vol. 11

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Armin Hofmann

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Poster Collection, vol. 7

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (ed.)

Donald Brun

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Poster Collection, vol. 2

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Felix Studinka (eds.)

Revue 1926

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Out of print
Poster Collection, vol. 1