When Herb Ritts created this image, it was touch-and-go whether he would get his crew and model off the El Mirage lake bed before a storm swept through. Mark McKenna, now executive director of the Herb Ritts Foundation, was Ritts’s… More»
Did you know that artists used pig bladders to carry paint before tubes were invented, that the gold leaf used to gild paintings and manuscripts was made by pounding a coin into thin sheets, or that 18th-century fashion designers used… More»
For over a year now, a fashion trend from medieval Europe—once reserved for men of elite social standing—has been resurrected and adopted by women, causing some fashionistas to cringe. Tights are back. In mid-15th-century England, a law restricted the wearing… More»
Today the Getty Museum announced the acquisition of 69 photographs by famed fashion and celebrity photographer Herb Ritts. The acquisition includes photographs of nudes, celebrity portraits, and images made for high-fashion ad campaigns. A portrait of Richard Gere as a budding… More»
The current exhibition Fashion in the Middles Ages, closing Sunday, August 14, examines costumes in the pages of medieval manuscripts. At times, the clothing seen in manuscript illuminations reflected the actual styles and fabrics of the Middle Ages—but at others,… More»
A “fashion revolution” in the Middle Ages? Yes, says art historian Roger Wieck, curator of Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands at the Morgan Library. Just as art was changing with the dawn of… More»
It’s the summer of decadent outfits here at the Getty. Just opened is Fashion in the Middle Ages, which gives you a peek at clothing, real and fantastic, in the pages of manuscripts; continuing is the all-things-Rococo blockbuster Paris: Life… More»
Remarkably realistic for medieval illuminated beasts, which were often fabulous admixtures of fantasy and fur. The unicorn is clearly drawn from life, for example.