Melvin Sokolsky: Seeing Fashion [Hardcover]

Melvin Sokolsky (Author, Photographer), Martin Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2000

At the age of twenty-one, photographer Melvin Sokolsky joined the prestigious staff of Harper's Bazaar, whose art department was then led by legendary art director Henry Wolf. Sokolsky's unique take on fashion was quite different from fellow photographers like Hiro, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon. His work took the mundane and transformed it into the marvelous, in a style that today seems ethereal and otherworldly. Women in bubbles floating across the Seine or flying uncontrollably through the air, rooms constructed as to appear upside down, household objects magnified to colossal proportions-these are all elements of the bizarre universe of Sokolsky's memorable fashion photographs. Covering the years 1959-1971, these images have a distinctly 60's "look," but they also point to the work of current photography stars like David LaChapelle and Bruce Weber. Among the fashion and screen personalities included are Mia Farrow, Ali McGraw, Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Dustin Hoffman, Chet Baker, Lena Horne, Natalie Wood, Shere Hite, Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, Suzie Parker, Julie Christie, Lee Remick, and numerous others. This book, bound in simulated pink fine grain leather, is the first retrospective of Sokolsky's fashion photography, and represents another major rediscovery of one of America's finest image-makers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Melvin Sokolsky has exhibited his fashion photographs internationally. Since 1969, the photographer has been most active as a director and cameraman of television commercials. He has been honored with twenty-five Clio Awards, and is the recipient of every major television commercial award including the coveted "Director's Guild" nomination. Many of Sokolsky's commercials are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sokolsky currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Arena Editions; 1st edition (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892041367
• ISBN-13: 978-1892041364
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,351,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Instead of 'Seeing Fashion' simply 'Seeing' would say it all, October 9, 2000

By 

"sbryquer" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Melvin Sokolsky: Seeing Fashion (Hardcover)

I could begin by highly recommending this photography book with all the superlatives that it certainly deserves, but this still would not describe these photos adequately or do this publication true justice. For as the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words and all the brilliant photos in this book one would need thousands upon thousands of words and even then one could never say enough about this extraordinary collection of photograph. I will say this much, rather than having called this book 'Seeing Fashion' --- 'Seeing' would have been enough and a far more appropriate title. For it is about seeing and seeing in a way (or fashion to play on words) that is unique, inventive and an utterly original in the sense that no one takes and took (because much of these photos were taken more than 30 years - a point I will return to a bit later) picture then or now quite like Sokolsky. Photos that first reveal in spite of the fact that were for the most part taken to illustrate the haute couture fashion of the day for Harper's Bazaar, that they are photographs that stand alone for their technical virtuosity but more than this they are work of great inventiveness and a truly personal sense of composition and use of space. They are unique works of art that transcend their time and in turn are timeless in their vision. A vision that still influences photographers in general and the fashion photographers of today. One need only look at today's magazine to see the repetition of his original 'flying' pictures, the use of lighting and also the physical way models pose -- before Sokolsky models simply repeated the poses that had become so common, and yes even boring, from the fashion house's runway. Sokolsky changed all that by posing them in graceful angular articulation that represented a contemporary idiom that could be called sensual cubism, that is a cubism combined with a highly charged sexual aura permeated by the psychological impact of freedoms from social and spiritual oppression and conformities which in its way anticipated the women's lib movement that followed. And again as I looked at these photographs it was difficult to realize that they were taken more than 30 years ago and were indeed taken to illustrate fashion, for these photographs,that also include many portrait of celebreties as well as unknowns and assorted photographic studies, stand on their own merit as extraordinary works of photographic genius and art.

Also another point that I will not elaborate on, besides this publication being long overdue, some elements about this book will make it a collectors items one day.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars REAL fashion- the good old days, December 7, 2001

By 

Victor (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Melvin Sokolsky: Seeing Fashion (Hardcover)

Back when Fashion photogs shot 8x10 and retouching was done by hand. These prints are fantastic. Every shot is a work of art - unlike the fashion created today. This is Composed, settled, undefinable beauty.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless..., October 8, 2000

By 

"reyhanb" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Melvin Sokolsky: Seeing Fashion (Hardcover)

I was reading last weeks New York Times Magazine Section and saw Melvin Sokolsky's series of photographs called "The Dream". I was very impressed and taken by their mystical and ethereal beauty. It wasn't until I reached the last picture that I realized that this was a fashion spread.

After buying his book "Seeing Fashion" I saw that, despite the fact that he was primarily a fashion photographer, he was first and foremost an amazing photographer with tremendous inventiveness and great range...from portraits to still lifes to fashion. Even though these photographs were done more than thirty years ago, I see them as contemporary, but even more, they transcend the sixties to become timeless.

What a delight to discover him for myself after all these years!