Buffalo Jeans from David Bitton, In Style 8/2010

Another fashion photograph that hints at homoeroticism and includes “the sister thing“.  It doesn’t have a strong alienation element, but something akin that I don’t have a term for yet but know as the “come join us, Viewer” look.

I find this especially interesting, given that the ad was published in a fairly straight woman’s magazine, In Style.  It’s interesting, but not surprising, since most female homoerotic advertising appears to be aimed at straight women.

Buffalo Jeans Ad Campaign, Fall 2010

Les Masculines, 1922

I feel terrible for forgetting where I got this image.  It was recently, too.  So I apologize to whomever I took this from for not crediting you.

This is from the French fashion periodical Gazette du Bon Ton (Currently there is an exhibit at Kent University Museum, ending May 30, 2010).

What I love is that the women have adopted riding clothes as their masculine-styled costume.  This makes sense.  Since the 18th century, women’s riding habits had been the first type of clothing to consistently borrow from male costume.  These women in 1922 would have been shocking, but not nearly as shocking as if they had worn everyday male dress.

Gazette du Bon Ton, 1922

Chanel, Fall 2009-2010

Fall 2009/10 season

The way the woman on the left is grasping the lapel of the woman on the right seems intimate, to me. Their faces are too close together for them to be friends. I think they have been together for a long while.

This is scanned from a recent issue of New York Magazine.

Missoni Fall 2008-09

Lesbian imagery in fashion photography is one of my pet loves, so I was thrilled with Missoni’s Fall 2008-09 ad campaign.

Elle doesn’t use the word “lesbian” in their blurb (page 292, I forget which issue), but it’s pretty clear what the source material and Missoni were doing. According to Elle, Missoni was referencing the 1970 movie The Conformist.

I haven’t seen the movie, but from this still it looks like a humdinger.

Incidentally, Threads Magazine has an article recently featured on how to make the wrap in Missoni’s ad. See issue April/May 2009 page 78, entitled “Envelop Yourself,” by Fred Bloebaum. I can’t find it online yet, sadly.

Versace, 1981

Long before lesbian imagery was accepted in pop culture, fashion photographers published in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar got away with publishing suggestive photographs of women together. Who was the photographer who denied that there was any lesbian implication, he just wanted to be able to photograph two dresses at the same time?

This image is from a March 1981 Versace advertising campaign.  I got it from a New York Times video slideshow on Richard Avedon.   The International Center of Photography in Manhattan will have an exhibit of Avedon’s work on display from May 15-Sept 6, 2009.

Photographed by Richard Avedon