Runway Madness: Photographs by Lucian Perkins

“[B]eyond the smoke and mirrors of the runway lies another part of the fashion world. It is rich in emotion, complicated by personalities and human frailties, and rooted in commerce. These photographs capture fashion’s other face.”

– Robin Ghivan, Washington Post

“Runway Madness presents the photography of Lucian Perkins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer from the Washington Post. He has captured the ‘silent anguish of a designer putting himself and his art on the line,’ the panic of a split seam moments before a model takes to the runway, the world of fashion editors and buyers, and the critical eye of the press.”

– American Textile History Museum

The beat…the lights…the cascade of color… This arresting collection of photographs by Lucian Perkins, Washington Post photojournalist and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is the total high fashion experience.

For this exhibition, Perkins trained his lens on the New York fashion shows, taking his audience backstage and to the front row for an eye-opening overview of the bewitching legerdemain of high-end fashion. Perkins captured the models up close and personal: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Roshumba Williams, and many others, in high pomp as well as unguarded circumstance. Quotes from fashion insiders provide a running commentary, and captions by Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan explain each image.

These 64 black-and-white and color photographs vividly depict the fashion editors, journalists, and stars whose high visibility makes Fashion Week such a spectacle, as well as the backstage preparations, hopes, and exacting protocol that undergird today’s elite runway modeling.

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