The ingenious opening scene of Disney’s 1961 “One Hundred and One Dalmatians”, in which Pongo the Dalmatian studies owners and dogs, shows that dogs frequently reflect their owner’s taste as much as someone’s dress choices. Rather than just being a pet, dogs have long been used as a fashion accessory, extension of their owner’s outfits or even the main inspiration for their looks. The Séeberger Frères were some of the earliest photographers of street style and for decades captured the most fashionable people frequently accompanied by their dog.
The Séeberger Frères consisted of French brothers Jules, Louis and Henri Séeberger, later joined by Louis’s sons, and first set up a photography business in 1906 capturing Parisian sights and landmarks for postcards. When approached by Madame de Broutelles, editor at “La Mode Pratique”, in 1909, the brothers refocused their business and would go on to produce one of the most important collections of fashion documentation of the 20th century. Their first business stationary summed up their motto: “High Fashion Snapshots. Photographic Accounts of Parisian Style.”
Until 1940, when they temporarily closed due to World War II, the Séeberger Frères took exterior snapshots with a portable camera to capture socialites, celebrities and people of wealth and importance during society events. Such events, which often took place at racecourses and beaches, attracted many fashionable people and soon couturiers started sending in models advertising their latest designs. The brothers’s images were published in magazines, such as “Vogue”, “Harper’s Bazaar”, “Le Jardin des Modes”, “Femina”, “Les Elegance Parisiennes”, “La Femme Chic”, “Les Modes”, “Vu”, and “Good Housekeeping”. In double page spreads, these photos were accompanied by extensive information on the socialite and their fashion.
The Séeberger Frères did not only influence the fashion world, but Hollywood as well. Between 1923 to 1931, Hollywood cinema agency “International Kinema Research Corporation” commissioned the brothers to photograph Paris and Parisian life in the form of shops, hotels, theatres, cafés and street scenes. These images were then used by artistic and technical directors as inspiration for set designs.
After the war, the Séeberger Frères mainly photographed inside a studio for which models and outfits were carefully selected per assignment. The company continued operation until 1975, when they donated their collection of around 60,000 negatives and documents to the “Bibliothèque Nationale de France”.
During their career, they frequently photographed the rich and famous with their canine companions. After World War 1, dogs became even more essential as a fashion accessory and purebred dogs in particular became a sign of considerable wealth. During the depression, purebred Great Danes were bought for as much as $15,000 in the United States. Many of the socialites and celebrities documented by the Séeberger Frères would, therefore, buy a purebred dog as a sort of conspicuous consumption and display them during high society’s popular dog shows. In France, the poodle was considered to epitomise French chic.
The Séeberger Frères’s images are now owned by the “Bibliothèque Nationale de France” and “Getty Images”.
