Surrealism in Vogue

Vogue June 1, 1939 cover, by Salvador Dalí

From Condé Nast’s purchase of the magazine in 1909, Vogue presented readers with the newest in art, fashion, and design. In the 1920s, Vogue helped disseminate Art Deco across the American continent by hiring artists who specialized in that mode to illustrate the covers and draw the fashions. By the 1930s, surrealism had stolen the scene.

Surrealism emerged in Europe as a literary movement in the late 1910s and early ’20s as a way for poets to explore the imaginative and creative powers of the mind, free from reason or analysis. The movement gained recognition in 1924 when the French poet André Breton published Manifesto of Surrealism. Visual artists soon aligned themselves with the surrealist movement, and before long, painters, photographers, sculptors, and fashion designers were producing provocative, bizarre, and fantastical works of art, full of unexpected imagery, dreamlike landscapes, and symbolism. Photographers working for Vogue transformed real women and real fashion into surreal works of art by using layering, collage and montage, solarization, rotation, distortion, double exposure, and perspective. The resulting images resemble snapshots of a dream.

Elsa Schiaparelli, photographed by Cecil Beaton in the November 1, 1944 Vogue

Costumes from Salvador Dalí’s ballet “Venusberg,” photographed by Horst P. Horst in the October 15, 1939 Vogue

Model wearing butterfly ensemble by Schiaparelli, photographed by Horst P. Horst in the March 15, 1937 Vogue

Model wearing evening corset by Marguerite, photographed by George Hoyningen-Huené in the April 15, 1930 Vogue

Four models wearing evening mantles by Charles James, photographed by Cecil Beaton in the November 1, 1936 Vogue

Models in surreal landscape, photographed by André Durst in the January 15, 1936 Vogue

Actress Merle Oberon posed against Christian Bérard’s setting design for “Symphonie Fantastique,” photographed by Edward Steichen in the March 1, 1937 Vogue

Music-themed shop windows at Bergdorf Goodman, photographed by W.C. Gray in the March 1, 1938 Vogue