Black+White Photography, UK

INTERVIEW
All pictures © Cathleen Naundorf
the art of fashion
Taking haute couture fashion as her starting point, Cathleen Naundorf
creates exquisite narratives that go beyond their subject into storytelling.
The resulting images enter the world of fine art. Max Houghton reports
My Paradisebird I – Chanel, Théâtre du Trianon, Paris, July 2008
M
y favourite photograph by
Cathleen Naundorf carries
the evocative title The
Evolution of Fashion. Shot
in the Museum National
d’Histoire Naturelle in
Paris, a sumptuously-dressed woman strikes a
swan-like pose, as though an artefact herself in
the Gallery of Anatomy. Behind her, and to one
side, slightly out of focus, are skeletons following
the evolutionary process from squatting beast to
striding man – or woman. Some are held captive,
behind glass; others are separated by a mere rope
from the exquisite feminine form, lending their
crouching presence a sinister and uncanny air.
To play with this theme for a moment…
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should these skeletal creatures come to life one
bewitched hour before dawn at the museum,
this adorned woman would be rendered helpless,
unable to run away, killed, even, but not by the
marching cadavers. Her restricted body, trussed
up and hemmed in for beauty’s sake, would
meet its death at the hands of haute couture. She
would, of course, make a beautiful corpse.
‘Although the photographer delights
in the sartorial creations – works
of art in themselves – she is not
satisfied with merely capturing
their beauty on film’
The dress, weighing 16 kilograms, was created
by John Galliano for Dior, and is the epitome of
haute couture, fashion’s ultimate expression. To
qualify for this tag of luxury, a couture garment
must be entirely handmade by one of only
eleven registered couture houses. Although it is
estimated that only 4,000 women worldwide buy
couture, it is used as fantasy fuel for consumers,
who might feel that the brand, named through a
mass produced lipstick or handbag, carries the
same connotation of unbridled glamour. What
I love about this photograph is that it seems to
suggest that fashion in one sense has not evolved
since the Belle Epoque, when the S-bend corset
shrank women’s waists, thrust back their hips
and made a mono-bosom of their chests…all of
›
The Evolution of Fashion – Dior, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Galerie d’Anatomie, Paris, July 2010
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La Parisienne III – Dior, Atelier d’Artiste – Rue Manin, Paris, February 2010
‹ which made it impossible to even dress oneself,
never mind walk unaided (this model is wearing
19cm heels).
But this is my interpretation. For Naundorf,
as graceful herself as her photographs might
suggest, this image is simply a ‘provocation’, a
word, along with ‘elegance’, that peppers her
fast-moving conversation.
‘Of course it is not a critique,’ she says, on
the phone from her Paris studio. ‘I have been
working in haute couture for seven years. I am
close to some of the designers, and I respect the
people who make these dresses, and I appreciate
their work. The same families have been
embroidering since the age of Napoleon. These
crafts are very important to our culture. I think
haute couture is the last possibility for creative
liberty; look at the work of Philip Treacy, that
kind of beautiful craziness, it’s so experimental.
I see the pieces I have photographed as art, not
as part of a fashion catalogue.’
S
o when fine art photography meets
haute couture, sparks should fly.
Cathleen Naundorf is that firestarter.
Although the photographer delights
in the sartorial creations – works of art in
themselves – she is not satisfied with merely
capturing their beauty on film. She brings
her own artist’s sensibility to the dress, to the
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Mimi San – Dior, Atelier d’Artiste – Cité Jandelle, Paris, February 2009
model, to the moment, and immediately begins
to create a narrative. Working with Polaroid
to create works of art as unique as the subject
matter, her black & white work follows a lineage
from her mentor Horst P Horst through Avedon
and Newton. It was Horst who taught her
a crucial lesson: never crop afterwards. She
harnesses the power of natural light to sculpt
the faces and torsos of her models in the manner
of Renaissance painters. Despite her attention
to detail, it is in fact the integral imperfection of
Polaroid that attracts Naundorf; the knowledge
that it’s an original every time. Her colour work,
often utilising a Polaroid transfer method, is
much more layered and ethereal, and possesses,
as it should, a totally different aesthetic to her
monochrome images. Naundorf is almost
superstitiously taciturn on the subject of her
archive of traditional materials: its size and
location remain a mystery.
There is an edge to Naundorf’s idea of beauty,
a darkness straight from the most compelling
fairytale. It’s not Gothic – that would be too easy
‘The same families have been
embroidering since the age of
Napoleon. These crafts are very
important to our culture’
– instead, it’s a highly original take on a world
that some dismiss as conspicuous consumption.
Look, for instance, to the sculptural Mimi-San,
with its homage to Japanese shadow play and
Samurai warriors, the better to show off the
Dior dress. The drama of this image comes
from its simplicity, made all the starker by use
of a white background. La Parisienne is another
‘provocation’, mixing the stereotype of the very
sophisticated Parisian woman, who walks the
Seine with her little dog each morning, with a
much racier depiction of French sexuality.
Her long-standing collaboration with the
biggest French fashion houses means that
Naundorf knows the designers personally, and
has earned the great privilege of being able to
select a dress from a specific archive, and have
it brought to wherever she is working. She also
works with only a few models, and once she finds
the right one sticks with her. The same model –
a young Russian called Julia – appears frequently
in the pictures printed on these pages, yet,
fascinatingly, never looks the same twice.
Says Naundorf: ‘I have long relations with
people. A good model, like Julia, is also an
actress. She knows exactly what I want; which
is why we have worked together for five years.
I am drawn to beauty, but not just simple beauty.
I look for la classe, for elegance, mystery, not
empty beauty. It’s a question of translation, to
›
Appartement of Gabrielle Chanel, 31, Rue Cambon, Paris, May 2008
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›
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Madame au Châtelet – Dior, Atelier d’Artiste – Rue Caulaincourt, Paris, September 2007
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s II – Philip Treacy (hat), Hubert Barrere (corset), Atelier d’Artiste – Rue Manin, Paris, May 2010
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›
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Atelier d’Artiste – Cité Jandelle, Paris, December 2007
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No title – Dior, Atelier d’Artiste – Caulaincourt, Paris, 2007
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The Crying Game I – Dior, Atelier d’Artiste – Cité Jandelle, Paris, July 2008
‹ draw out charisma, aura, people’s personality.
I am fascinated by that challenge and it has
touched me always. I am influenced too by the
beauty of the natural: flowers, swans, horses.
I am not interested in ‘the perfect body’. My
models are not really beautiful; they are chosen
for their character and the way they move.’
makes no distinction between the beauty of their
form, and those of Western models. She says she
will never leave fashion, and with the publication
of her Polaroid collection in book form later this
year, and her solo exhibition at the prestigious
T
he results she elicits from the models
is borne of her collaborative working
methods. She will ask her models to
watch Fellini films, or to study the
spirit of Nouvelle Vague in order to get the look
she desires. Naundorf cites the fashion icon
Daphne Guinness as someone she would love
to photograph in the future. A collaboration
between the two women would indeed be
explosive. I can imagine a portrait of Guinness
reclining in an art deco armchair, profile
tilted away from the camera, invoking the
memorable portrait of Coco Chanel by Horst.
Though Guinness is more muse than designer,
she epitomises couture today in the same way
Chanel did almost a century ago.
Yet fashion is not the whole story.
Naundorf has travelled widely, to the Gobi
Desert, Mongolia and Siberia, where she has
photographed the people who live there, and
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Hamiltons gallery in London, Naundorf looks set
for a long and successful career.
Her engagement with narrative will no doubt
flourish in her work. The ancient art of
storytelling comes naturally to Naundorf, as is
evident in many of the titles of her photographs.
A mirrored image of a Chanel creation is named
simply The Soul. The garment, somewhere
between a coat and a dress, is a highly complex
structure, of delicate fronds of white fabric
enrobing and thus animating the human body in
its endless concentric tiers. How fitting, then,
that Cathleen Naundorf should have described
the photographer’s art thus:
‘A photographer always photographs
herself; she is always expressing her soul.’
EXHIBITION AND BOOK
Cathleen Naundorf’s work is showing at
Hamiltons, 13 Carlos Place, London W1K
2EU; 020 7499 9493/4 until 31 March
Atelier d’Artiste – Cité Jandelle, Paris, December 2007
Haute Couture: The Polaroids of Cathleen
Naundorf is published in May by Prestel
at £40; ISBN 978 3791351551
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