Penn & Fashion

The exhibition Penn & Fashion will present a journey through the career of Irving Penn (New Jersey 1917 – New York 2009), through the lens of fashion.

Irving Penn, one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, upended the codes of fashion photography and influenced entire generations of photographers. His collaboration with Vogue magazine for nearly sixty years allowed him to pursue a singular body of work that, defying conventions, often went far beyond fashion itself. From his legendary images of the 1950s to his color works of the 2000s, his work is that of an auteur consistently ahead of his time.

From Jean Patchett in Christian Dior, Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in Balenciaga to Marisa Berenson or Lauren Hutton in sculptural dresses, all the way to creations by Yves Saint Laurent or Issey Miyake, each image is the result of a long process of contemplation leading to timeless compositions translated into exceptional prints.

The exhibition is organized around the remarkable collection of Nicola Erni as well as that of the MEP, and benefits from the collaboration and significant loans from The Irving Penn Foundation and The Miyake Issey Foundation.