Saatchi Gallery show explores changing face of fashion photography

In this edition of CULT, Damon Embling checks out the Saatchi Gallery’s latest exhibition called Beyond Fashion.

The summer show features the works of almost 50 photographers from around the globe. Stretching from the 1980s to the present day, the images go deeper than iconic photos of designers and supermodels.

The Saatchi Gallery’s Lily Waterton tells Damon how fashion photography has evolved to explore a range of notions of beauty, with the exhibition embracing works that look through various lenses.

The themes of beauty, along with identity and gender are tackled by one of the show’s flagship installations called “Under Your Smell”. Huge fabric prints created by photography students from a Swiss university offer an immersive, visual interpretation of Jean Paul Gaultier perfumes.

Elsewhere at the exhibition, Paris-based photographer Jonathan de Villiers, who has two French Vogue images on show, tells Damon how he creates works that shake up industry norms.

His exhibits feature luxury diamond jewellery in domestic, “chaotic” scenes.

The Beyond Fashion exhibition features established names right through to the new generation of image makers, documenting how fashion photography has become a new and exciting visual language.

The exhibition runs at London’s Saatchi Gallery until 8 September 2024.