The view from the front row: a history of the fashion show – photo essay

Most fashion shows last less than 10 minutes, but have the power to transport an audience to another world. There’s an intensity to a great show, a distillation of a designer’s extraordinary vision.

Once upon a time, though, things were a lot humbler. The intimate salon shows of Chanel in the 1950s bear no resemblance to Karl Lagerfeld’s fully-stocked supermarket in the vast Grand Palais in 2014. The main change is scale – along with location, set production, and budget. From John Galliano’s historical dramas at Christian Dior, to Hussein Chalayan’s theatrical impossibilities and the late Alexander McQueen’s gothic, heart-stopping wonders, we chart how the fashion show developed from low-key to king.

In a show in the 1860s, Parisian-based designer Charles Frederick Worth, the so-called “father of haute couture”, introduced the idea of presenting collections on live models. Like other couturiers of the age, he launched his collections at Longchamp Racecourse. Though not quite a fashion show, it was certainly good publicity.

Source: theguardian