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But it wasn’t until William Randolph Hearst
purchased Bazaar in 1913 that it began to hint
at the vehicle for visual art that it would become.
In 1915 , Hearst hired the Russian-born artist
and designer Romain de Tirtoff, a.k.a. Erté (the
French pronunciation of his initials), to create
covers for Bazaar. Erté’s work—whimsical and
ethereal, drawing on Art Nouveau, Art Deco,
and other European and Eastern influences—was
a departure for the magazine, which had
traditionally featured more literal subject- and
seasonal-minded illustrations on its covers. Instead,
Erté, who had collaborated with the couturier
Paul Poiret and created costumes for Parisian
performance troupes like the Ballets Russes
and the Folies Bergère, riffed on abstract
themes that were more interpretive.
In the 1930 s, under editor in chief
Carmel Snow, Bazaar ventured deeper
into the great swirl of creative ener-
gy emanating from Europe. Snow
recruited the French artist, writer, and
critic Jean Cocteau as a contributor,
and got Christian “Bébé” Bérard and
Marcel Vertès (both of whom worked
with designer Elsa Schiaparelli) to create
illustrations for the magazine.
Snow’s art director, Alexey Brodovitch, further
upped the ante. Like Erté, Brodovitch was a
Russian émigré who had made his way to Paris,
where he designed sets for the Ballets Russes.
In his hands, Bazaar became a cinematic torrent
of images, type, and white space that incorporated
elements of collage, Cubism, Russian Construc-
tivism, and Surrealism, and advanced the electric
mix of moods, visuals, and ideas that Snow wanted
the magazine to embody. Brodovitch’s early
treatment of the covers, many of them collabo-
rations with graphic artist A.M. Cassandre,
recalled theatrical and political posters. Marc
Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, and Kees van
Dongen also soon entered the fray, along with
gritty documentary photographers and por-
traitists Brassaï and Henri Cartier-Bresson, giving Bazaar
a heavyweight roster of contributors.
Brodovitch was known for a simple creative directive
he often issued to photographers, illustrators, and underlings:
“Astonish me,” a phrase he is said to have borrowed from
the Russian art impresario Sergei Diaghilev, under whom
he’d worked at the Ballets Russes. But Richard Avedon, a
former student of Brodovitch’s at New York’s New School
who came of age as a photographer in Bazaar, described
his mentor in more nuanced terms. “For him it was always
about the discipline of the new—he wanted me to pushbarriers, see things in a new way,” Avedon told
Bazaar in 1994. “Brodovitch encouraged me to
be a Renaissance photographer, to try portraiture
and reportage. His mandate was to use the camera
to express my feelings about the world.”
That ethos continued through the 1940 s and
into the ’ 50 s. Lisette Model, an influential street
photographer and colleague of Brodovitch’s
at the New School, began to do work for Bazaar.
Not long after, Andy Warhol started doing
illustrations. One of Model’s star students, Diane
Arbus, later shot for the magazine. By the fol-
lowing decade, Brodovitch’s successors, Henry
Wolf, Marvin Israel, and Ruth Ansel and Bea
Feitler, would fully integrate the princi-
ples of Pop Art and conceptualism into
Bazaar’s visuals.
In more recent years, as the worlds
of fashion, art, and entertainment have
converged, Bazaar’s editor in chief
since 2001 , Glenda Bailey, has fre-
quently turned to artists as full creative
partners, working on collaborative
stories with John Baldessari, Jeff Koons,
Yayoi Kusama, JR, Takashi Murakami, and
Mickalene Thomas, among others.
One of Bailey’s most memorable collab-
orations involved Cindy Sherman. In 2015 ,
Bailey asked Sherman to create a series of
performance photos for Bazaar inspired by
Instagram influencers and street-style stars,
which Sherman did, building characters around
looks from the spring collections. Images from
the story ran as limited-edition covers on the
March 2016 issue; portraits adapted from the
Bazaar photos are now part of a retrospective
of Sherman’s oeuvre opening this month at the
Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
For Sherman, the mixing and merging of
fashion and art in her own work has been
seamless, if not radical; she has also appeared in
campaigns for Comme des Garçons, Marc
Jacobs, and M.A.C., and worked with brands
like Balenciaga, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Louis Vuitton.
Asked by Bazaar if she could ever envision herself becoming
an influencer, Sherman demurred. “Like, if people will
give me comments or likes, or something like that?” she
said as she contemplated the notion. “And followers,” she
eventually replied. “I just want lots of followers.” ■“Harper’s Bazaar: F irst in Fashion” is on view at the Musée des
Arts Décoratifs in Paris through July 14. Tickets can be purchased
at the museum box office or by visiting madparis.fr. T he official
catalogue for the exhibition is on sale now from Rizzoli.“For Brodovitch it was
always about the discipline
of the new,” said
Richard Avedon. “He wanted
me to push barriers,
see things in a new way.”FROM TOP: ERTÉ, NOVEMBER 1920; ALEXEY BRODOVITCH, JANUARY 1936; JEAN COCTEAU, NOVEMBER 1946, ARTWORK: © ADAGP/COMITÉ COCTEAU, PARIS, ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/ADAGP, PARIS 2020; A.M. CASSANDRE, OCTOBER 1938Design o’ the times. From top: Bazaar covers illustrated by Erté, November 1920; Alexey Brodovitch, January 1936;
Jean Cocteau, November 1946; A.M. Cassandre, October 1938.