The gaunt, skinny, praying-mantis model—an image calculated to frighten most males out of their wits—was a caricature of her sex, a fierce, denying goddess. Presumably she sold the clothes that she wore, for that was her expensive purpose, but her chic was exclusively that of the limited world of high fashion, where any suggestion of womanliness was banished as vulgar. She was as vivacious as a marble statue and as appealing as a mummy—an overt symbol of the death that all good fashion designers, according to the psychiatrists, unconsciously wish to visit on womankind.
About twelve years ago, this approach to fashion photography began to be subtly undermined by a sprightly and ingenious photographer for Harper’s Bazaar named Richard Avedon. As far as he was concerned, the statues and mummies went out the window. The model became pretty, rather than austerely aloof. She laughed, danced, skated, gambolled among herds of elephants, sang in the rain, ran breathlessly down the Champs-Elysées, smiled and sipped cognac at café tables, and otherwise gave evidence of being human. Whether she thereby sold more clothes is open to question. [...] A good deal of this accomplishment can be attributed to his imagination and resourcefulness in handling a camera, but some of it undoubtedly stems from the fact that his primary interest is not in fashion but in women.