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Freedom daysRobin Muir looks back at a spirited shot by Norman Parkinsoncelebrating the end of war, Vogue July 1945Throughout the late 1930s, Vogue had pursued NormanParkinson, but he was tied to rival Harper’s Bazaar.His view of women was modern and appealing:“I wanted them out in the fields jumping over thehaycocks. I did not think they needed their knees boltedtogether.” By the time he arrived at this magazine in 1941,fashion photography had come out of the studio and intothe real world – and was utterly in tune with his sensibilities.Parkinson combined his Vogue work with farming inWorcestershire; his desire was to witness through the lensthe broad sweep of the landscape with “its carefully observedrural intimacies”. His message to readers that fulfilment couldbe gained from a simpler way of life was a powerful one.``````In order for it to be published in the July 1945 issue (Vo g u e’swartime production schedule was strict), Parkinson wouldlikely have photographed this beach scene in May, aroundor just after VE Day, when the war in Europe had been won.As such, its carefree energy is given extra resonance –and no little sense of optimism. The fashion – a whitewaffle piqué jacket over a swimsuit, both from Fortnum& Mason – was certainly blithe, daring and undeniablyforward-looking, too.Parkinson’s eccentric personal style, his quirky royal portraitsand a later career that hovered, as he put it himself, on “theknife edge of bad taste”, have sometimes overshadowed,regrettably, the merits of his earlier work. QARCHIVE95ICONIC IMAGES