Wit and class.

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“You’re using a Rollei? Did God put your eyes on your stomach? And a flashlight? It’s an arbitrary interference! And color? I would only use color if I had my own palette, but I certainly wouldn’t rely on Kodak’s!”

The year is 1950, the city is the center of the western world – Paris – and a very young Italian photographer named Frank Horvat (1928-2020) had just received this tongue lashing at a weekly critique session. The lashing came from none other than Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Suffice it to say that Horvat traded in his Rollei for a used Leica and went on to become one of the mainstays of fashion photography in the last great decades of haute couture, the 1950s and 1960s.

Like the Englishmen Duffy, Donovan, Bailey and Armstrong-Jones, Horvat ditched the large format negative swapping it for the much grainier one from a Leica or Nikon and took the model out of the studio and into the streets. Lots of fun. Luxuriate in the host of images contained in the book’s 250+ pages, Horvat’s work filled with wit and whimsy.

Paris, 1958. Givenchy dress.