(The National Portrait Gallery, 21 December 2025)
Beaton's failing as a fashion photographer lies in succeeding as a fashion photographer. People like to connect with other people, and fashion can serve as a catalyst. The subject of the photograph is always the connection, never the fashion itself. There is precious little of human connection in Beaton's photography. Beaton was an aesthete, not a humanist.
Fashion photography as a genre is generally rather good not (only) because its subject matter is beautiful but also because it is answerable to the objective metric of market success.
