Archaeology of Elegance, 1980-2000: 20 Years of Fashion Photography

Marion De Beupre, Stephane Baumet, Ulf Poschardt

St. Martin’s Press (2003)

Hardcover, 363 pages

3.8 x 26.7 x 31.1 cm

ISBN-10: 0847825124

ISBN-13: 978-0847825127

Be it punk, glamour, hi-tech and futurism or fine art, culture critic Ulf Poschardt believes that photography is now pop culture’s main means of communication and most innovative supplier of ideas. Together with Marion de Beaupre, Poschardt puts his thesis to the test in this anthology of the best and most cutting edge fashion photography of the last twenty years. 204 beautifully reproduced pictures by seventy-four of the world’s most acclaimed photographers, among them Guy Bourdin, Peter Lindbergh, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Stephane Sednaoui and Wolfgang Tillmans, seem to bear his theory out, suggesting that the medium has indeed become the message, and that what used to be a purely functional craft has become an artform in itself.