Double Takes

Model with hair standing on end posed against a solid-colored backdrop. Movie star wearing full skirt hunkered down in her seat. Actress photographed in a joyful jump.

Helmut Newton in 1973, Milton Greene in 1956 and Philippe Halsman in the 1950s, right? Yes, and Stephanie Pfriender, Lance Staedler and Peggy Sirota in this month’s magazines.

A legendary fashion designer once observed that if there were no copying, there would be no fashion. A corollary might be: If there were no photo copying, there would be no fashion magazines.

And, maybe, no cheap, easy way to learn about great photography.

A casual paging through recent American and foreign fashion and general-interest publications offers a veritable course in appreciation, with new work by established leading lights such as Newton, Richard Avedon, Hiro, Irving Penn, Deborah Turbeville and others as well as new likenesses (some acknowledging their inspiration, some not; some undoubtedly, ahem, unconscious, and some humorous) of images that Newton, Avedon, Man Ray, Guy Bourdin, J.P. Goude and others made famous.

You might think that getting to the source by way of the derivative is a little like reading “Fairest Shlump” in MAD magazine before taking in the Tom Hanks movie. But fashion, at least, often works that way. Where would the brilliant but long-ignored Yves Saint Laurent be this season without the furry candy-colored chubbies of Anna Sui? Certainly not the subject of admiring magazine articles.

Besides, our culture has a morbid fascination with imitations, good or bad, straight or parody. How else to explain the popularity of Madame Tussaud’s? Or drag shows? Or trompe l’oeil ?

Part of it is being a wanna-be, sure. But there’s a craft involved in making a good copy, and that can be appreciated just for itself. Now, didn’t we read that somewhere else?