Fashion photographs – glamorous, provocative, beautiful, accomplished, magical – have always been associated with some of the most famous names in the history of photography, such as Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and Mario Testino. This has been the case since the beginnings of fashion photography in the early years of the 20th century: the great American photographer Edward Steichen took what were probably the first fashion photographs in 1911 and since then some of the most distinguished practitioners have turned fashion photography into an art form.

For many fashion photographers it was the editors and art directors at Condé Nast publications, such as Edna Woolman Chase, Diana Vreeland and Alexander Liberman, who launched their careers. This book, accompanying a major international exhibition, looks at the early work by such luminaries as Horst P. Horst, Erwin Blumenfield, David Bailey, Guy Bourdin, Corinne Day, Deborah Turbeville and Sølve Sundsbø as it appeared in the pages of Vogue, Glamour and other Condé Nast magazines. This creative collaboration has kept fashion photography - and Condé Nast - innovative and often challenging but always able to capture the style of the day.

With unprecedented access to the Condé Nast archives in New York, Paris and Milan, the photography historian Nathalie Herschdorfer has gathered original prints as well as pages from the actual magazines to provide a unique opportunity to see the work of over eighty photographers right at the beginning of their careers. The book also features essays by Olivier Saillard, Director of the Musée Galliera, Paris and Sylvie Lécallier, Head of the Photography Collection at the Musée Galliera, together with an exclusive interview with Franca Sozzani, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Italia.