“He put a little bit of himself into every picture. He was humble, very quiet, very kind. It was as if he didn’t understand or couldn’t connect to the fact that he held a major place in fashion history and photographic history”
~ Carol Alt
(Model)
Horst was 79 years old when he took this photograph, an age when most people would contemplate slowing down a bit or maybe even begin to lose some of their artistic drive or energy. But not Horst. He was commissioned to shoot an advertising campaign for “Round The Clock Hosiery”. What he created was one of the great images of his long and illustrious career.
It is reminiscent of his great 1930’s fashion photographs with the use of dark shadows and bright high lights with light sources coming from the side rather than above. He also seems to be referencing his early interest in surrealism with the use of a cropped and disembodied figure with the legs in this image seeming to be torso-less, emerging only from the wide net petticoat.
It could have been shot yesterday by some young, “hot”, wunderkind fashion photographer rather than by an “old master” whose craft and skill and creativity never left him.
