HUMPHREY BOGART AND LAUREN BACALL IN THE FRONT ROW AT CHRISTIAN DIOR, 1952

Front rows aren't what they used to be, but celebrity endorsement has always been the order of the day. What would these two bored and beautiful creatures , in pride of place centre stage , make of their counterparts now that l!l~~~~Oim!I~~~I!J~I~m!ID~~~~~~I:!l~l[l]~~allt:J~!ml:!lm!l~al~ll!l~I!J~~~~m!ll:!l~ l!~!'allJ!m~~~; Perhaps Ms Bacall was in attendance for research purposes : in 1956 she played a fashion illustrator in Vincent Minelli 's Designing Woman. However, she doesn't appear wholly interested. Neither, judging by the inactivity of her pen , is she ordering any clothes. Mr Bogart, resplendent in his overstuffed chair, is smoking (wasn't he always?) to all eviate any fashionable ennui. This picture- and those on the following pages- was taken by Willy Maywald, who concerned himself with the vagaries of fashion for ten years in a career that spanned more than 50 . He documented the rise of the house of Christian Dior, capturing the New Look in 1947. Maywald shot the clothes and the haughty model stars of the day as well as turning his attention to the world's great couturiers . The workings of the ateliers and the comparatively staid haute couture shows were also of interest , from Christian Dior fit ting Ava Gardner, to fashion's more humble hangers-on squashed like sardines on to the salon stairway. By 1960, the youthquake was kicking in and the elegant work of th is photographer and his generation gave way to a less formal , sex-fuelled sc hool headed up by David Bailey and Terence Donovan.