Tag Archives: self portrait

Looking Through the Lens of Madame Yevonde

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Dress in Focus From the Collections Uncategorized No Comments

I recently found myself sifting through self-portraits by women photographers in a not very coherent bout of research on the National Portrait Gallery website. I didn’t find exactly what I had been looking for, but I did find something much better – this photo of Madame Yevonde (fig.1).

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Fig. 1. Madame Yevonde by Madame Yevonde (1967). https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw58111/Madame-Yevonde?sort=dateDesc&LinkID=mp06547&role=art&displayStyle=thumb&displayNo=60&rNo=40

 

This photo caught my eye, and made me smile, when I had been otherwise stuck in a trance of endless scrolling. Her smart chequered suit, upright pose, and jaunty hat scream pride in herself, her work, and a humorous relationship between photography and portraiture. Editing of the image has rendered her miniature besides her huge vintage camera, an ode to her earlier portrait studio and a recognition of the many decades she had spent in the industry.

After seeing such a joyful, humorous, and enigmatic portrait, I had to look into Madame Yevonde’s work further. I want to share some of the wonderful images I have found, and generally indulge in Madame Yevonde’s personality-filled work for a while longer.

Born in 1893, Yevonde Philone Middleton was a photographer, primarily taking studio portraits, for an impressive portion of the twentieth century. Known professionally as Madame Yevonde, she opened her first photography studio in 1914 at the age of 21 and continued to work until a few months before her death in 1975.

There always seems to be something eye-catching or dramatic about Madame Yevonde’s photography. Her main mastery was in the VIVEX colour process, which allowed her to produce vibrant and lustrous colour shots. Her portrait of Vivien Leigh (fig.2) demonstrates this perfectly. The punchy red of the background emboldens Leigh, her red lip and scarf connecting her to the red reflections of the light, and her green top bringing her strongly into the foreground. Her face is lit from one side, drawing attention to the outline of her face, and contours of her nose and cheeks. It’s the sort of photo that makes you stop and look twice.

 

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Fig. 2. Vivien Leigh by Madame Yevonde (1936). https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw11846/Vivien-Leigh?LinkID=mp06547&role=art&displayStyle=thumb&displayNo=60&rNo=2

 

The next photo that jumped out to me was the portrait of the Hon. Mrs James Beck as Daphne (fig.3), a part of Madame Yevonde’s Goddesses series. Inspired by a society charity ball with an Olympian theme, Madame Yevonde made a series of portraits of society women dressed as goddesses in 1935. The abundance of leaves represent Daphne’s transformation into a Laurel tree in Greek mythology. The leaves cast a distinctive shadow across Mrs James Beck’s face, as if they are reaching across her and we are seeing Daphne mid-transformation. The shadows are tinted green in a way that the real leaf shadows would not be (they are not translucent), reminding us that this is a manufactured portrait, a piece of art.

 

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Fig. 3. The Hon. Mrs James Beck as Daphne by Madame Yevonde (1935). http://www.users.waitrose.com/~felice/image4.htm

 

The solarised portrait of Dame Dorothy Tutin (fig.4) shows another style Madame Yevonde was adept at. The solarised image brings far more texture to the portrait, particularly allowing Tutin’s ruffled hair to stand out. The darkness of her plucked eyebrows draws our attention to her serene facial expression. The contrast across the wide collar of her top gives her a regal presence. I think this portrait is one of the most characterful that Madame Yevonde produced. The solarised effect gives insight into the formality, poise, and elegance that Tutin is able to project, whilst also highlighting the relaxed side that is hinted at by her haircut.

 

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Fig. 4. Dame Dorothy Tutin by Madame Yevonde (1955). https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw144366/Dame-Dorothy-Tutin?LinkID=mp05851&role=sit&rNo=2

 

I hope to have shown you a glimpse into the wonderful world of Madame Yevonde’s photography. Through skilful manipulation of colour, props, photographic effect, and lighting, Madame Yevonde is able to create bold images that are still able to catch my eye, even in today’s image-saturated world.

By Megan Stevenson

Documenting My Wardrobe: Why My Friend and I Share Daily Outfit Pictures

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Fashion Now No Comments

For the past month and a half my friend, Niamh, and I have been sending each other outfit pictures. We lived together last year in York and now, with her there and me in London, we decided this would liven up our communication. Considering that a large proportion of our conversation is clothing related anyway, this made a lot of sense.

Having a visual record of our outfits gives me much more of a sense of keeping in contact, as the visual translates so much more than a message on a screen. On a daily basis we would have shown each other our outfits and also gauged opinions on new purchases in person, so this felt like a natural addition to our conversation.

We chose our six (tried to keep it to three and failed) favourite outfits from the other’s wardrobe and talked about our choices. As shown by the pictures, Niamh is never not wearing a black item of clothing. When I asked her why, she revealed that “It’s because it’s easy to wear, it’s flattering, I feel like it can be something basic but it being black elevates it in a way, and now I’m so comfortable wearing black it’s hard to wear other things.” She added that she used to steer clear of wearing black, out of fear that it would make her look too pale and stand out. Now she embraces this look, and I love that she took something that made her uncomfortable and turned it into a wardrobe staple.

I don’t normally document my wardrobe, but it has now become part of my morning routine. It falls in the five seconds I have to spare after brushing my teeth and before realising that I’m going to miss my bus. I liked the idea of taking a quick snap each day and sending it, as it felt like a real representation of us – for example, the streaky state of my bathroom mirror, and Niamh’s bedroom in the background. It was also interesting to see the poses we repeated, with Niamh going for phone covering part of the face and a bent leg, whereas I opted for a variation of the peace sign or hand on the hip with a pained grimace. To excuse myself, these pictures were originally meant for Niamh’s eyes only.

We discovered our mutual reasons behind our picture choices were a love of a statement coat and the outfits we would wear of the other person’s. My clothing choices have always been based on a love of bright colours and print, but more recently I have shifted to wearing less prints and more block colours. I feel that the outfit pictures show how different our styles are, but also a mix of comfort and (aiming for) sophistication.

The images we chose were our everyday clothes, rather than images we might share on a public platform, such as Instagram. I like that we are giving importance to our day-to-day wear and how we look, which is closer to our personal interactions, rather than presenting a mediated version of ourselves.

Ellen Bhamra