This photograph epitomizes the reason why Man Ray's oeuvre has become a cornerstone of modern fashion and art photography: it's at once a fashion photograph, a portrait, and a work of art. This fusion has been his trademark, and it has also been the key to relevant fashion photography in the last eighty years. The photography shows a personality, whose direct gaze into camera makes the pattern on the dress come to life. Ray shows fashion for intelligent women, for whom art and fashion are equally part of her manner of living, quite the contrary of an Instagram celebrity today. This intertwining of art and fashion is also central to my work. It is a vital concern that I feel very passionate about. In Ray's photographs elegance is always suffused with an artistic sensibility, which is what I am always looking for. It's a timeless mysterious quality, which today you find in the work of Paolo RoversiCamille Vivier, Roe Ethridge, or Heji Shin for example. Ray didn't need a lot of material, it was all about ideas. It is fashion photography that was conceived in close contact with an art director, Alexei Brodovitch at Harper's Bazaar, unlike much of today's fashion photography which is overwhelmingly driven by stylists. This is why it has a consistent quality and beauty that still seems contemporary and relevant today.
Mr Beda Achermann, Creative Director and Founder of Studio Achermann
