Lee Miller in Fashion

Lee Miller was a woman who would have been perfectly at home in the 21st century. She outshone many of her contemporaries and lived a life that anyone would envy no matter the time frame. Becky E. Conekin, with the help of Ms. Miller’s son, offers up one of the great stories/biographies/sagas that will ever concern itself with a wider world view of the world of fashion.

Ms. Miller was a trailblazer of the first order and above all, a woman who chose to live her life with no boundaries and with endless talents.

“By the 1930s, Miller was a fixture on the Paris scene and at the center of art, fashion and high society. She was young and cosmopolitan fashionable and sexually liberated and involved with the Surrealists.”

For many of us who are involved within fashion circles, we may not even be familiar with the name Lee Miller, and yet she was an unbelievable presence within the industry during her life. She was a model who was favored by the likes of Schiaparelli, Vionnet, and Gres.

Ms. Miller then turned her attentions to photography where she bedded and studied under some of the greatest photographers of the 20th century such as Man Ray, Stieglitz, Hoyningen-Huene, Horst, and Cecil Beaton. Lastly she became a world class photographer who was an integral part of Vogue on two continents and later an amazingly prolific war correspondent.

“By May 1934 Vanity Fair was listing Miller alongside Laszlo Moholy Nagy, George Hoyningen-Huene and Cecil Beaton as one of the “most distinguished living photographers.”

Lastly she turned her attentions and skills to writing and was a constant presence in Vogue, the British and American editions. While focusing within this arena she was also rubbing elbows with Conde Nast, Edna Woolman Chase, Frank Crowninshield, and Diana Vreeland to name a few. During this time she became quite well known for her coverage of fashion during World War II as well as for her coverage of post Hitler Germany and Europe.

“Almost none of Miler’s fashion photography from the 1940s has been republished since it first appeared in British Vogue. And, as is so often the case with fashion photography, the unseen contact sheets and negatives are the most revealing.”

This is not just a biography, the book is truly a wondrous and alluring story of a woman who was in total control of her life and lived without fear or boundaries. Lee Miller in Fashion would certainly make a scintillating Lifetime movie or a compelling documentary. Its appeal reaches far beyond just those of us who are tuned into fashion: It is a great chronicle of the times starring a women whose talents took her everywhere.