With New York Fashion Week coming up next month, all eyes are going to be on the front row seats of runway shows, as much as the catwalk.
We know celebrities and stars are front row at Fashion Week showcases to spice up your visibility, showcase your newest styles, and show your logo loyalty.
And brands take advantage of celebrity prestige and the buzz that comes with it. Whether it’s influencers or actors, stars sitting in the front row at fashion week have almost become a proverb. But has it been like that? It was a long time before Anna Wintour and Nicki Minaj shared the front row together.
Since there have been podiums, there have been first places. Certainly, improvised fashion has been around since the 1860s, when Charles Frederick Worth presented his collection on mannequins at Longchamp Racecourse.
But it wasn’t until the 1920s that Parisian designers such as Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet, and Elsa Schiaparelli invited socialites to attend their intimate haute couture shows. In 1931, Elsa Schiaparelli exhibited a collection at Saks in New York, but photographers were allowed to attend. However, from there a first-rate culture developed.
But when it comes to front-row fashion photography, was Christian Dior’s 1947 exhibition (the first time he allowed photographers in) officially the start of it all? In fact, it had its stars. Take this photo above, taken by photojournalist John Chillingworth, in which Harper’s Bazaar editors Marie Louise Bousquet and Carmel Snow sit front row at a Dior fashion show, with Avedon squeezed into the second row, all the most productive skill in the industry.
In fact, Dior’s runways were packed with socialites and even royalty. Below, a photograph shows the occasion when Princess Margaret attended a Dior exhibition at Blenheim Palace in 1954, sitting in an armchair between John Spencer-Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and his wife, the Duchess of Marlborough Alexandra Mary Cadogan Spencer-Churchill. Talk about fashion royalty.
Princess Margaret, flanked by John Spencer-Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and his wife, Duchess Array. [ ] of Marlborough Alexandra Mary Cadogan Spencer-Churchill, attends the exhibition of Christian Dior’s Autumn/Winter collection at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock in England, United Kingdom, November 4, 1954. (Photo via KEYSTONE-FRANCE/Gamma-Rapho Getty Images)
This became the norm in the 1960s, with the rise of French designers such as Yves Saint Laurent (who opened his Rive Gauche boutique in 1966) and Pierre Cardin. Stars such as Barbra Streisand, Marlene Dietrich, Catherine Deneuve and Bianca Jagger attended Saint Laurent exhibitions in the 1960s and 1970s, generating buzz around the brand.
One of the first notable logo collaborations is the friendship between Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn.
It wasn’t until 1973 that the world saw the first recognized Paris Fashion Week (New York Fashion Week was founded in 1943). Cardin, below, attends a Thierry Mugler runway show in 1980.
Designer Pierre Cardin is seen in the front row. (Photo by Michel Maurou/WWD/Penske Media via Getty … [+] Images)
By the time the 1980s rolled around, Andy Warhol and Brooke Shields were sitting front row at the Valentino show in 1982. And of course, Halston had his own camp of celebrities, too.
Her friends, like Studio 54’s Steve Rubell, Jagger and her style peers sat in the front row, as did Lauren Hutton, Marisa Berenson and Karen Bjornson all sat in the front row. They were all stars, but it was personal. They were his friends, it didn’t seem like a business partnership.
Entrepreneur Steve Rubell, actress Bianca Jagger, stylist Lauren Hutton and visitors are seated in the front row. . . [ ] Model Nancy North and her guest are seated in the audience. (Photo via Dustin Pittman/WWD/Penske Media Getty Images)
In Italy, the catwalks were held in Florence in the early 1950s, with designers such as Simonetta Visconti, Schuberth and Emilio Pucci.
Meanwhile, in Paris, London and New York, Chris Moore, the undisputed king of catwalk photography, photographed runway shows from the 1960s onward. He shot mostly models, and recalled one standout designer—Kenzo founder Kenzo Takada.
“Kenzo Takada changed everything about fashion presentation; in the early 1970s when most ateliers were still showing to small, somber gatherings in stuffy venues, Kenzo took Paris by storm with shows that had more of the atmosphere of a music festival,” wrote Moore on Instagram.
“The happy, smiling models [were] full of power and having fun, which of course reflected their happy, optimistic attitude and smiling face. ”
Italian actress Sophia Loren and her mother at the Christian Dior fur show. (Photo via Alain. . . [+] Dejean/Sygma Getty Images)
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