Atmosphere as language: deconstructing the staging in fashion photography

fashion photography, given its communicative function and rhetorical intentionality, constitutes the ideal vehicle for the transmission and externalization of emerging stylistic trends. The creations go beyond simple garment representation, enriching and enhancing them through visual, narrative and symbolic mechanisms. The objective of this article is to analyse the role of atmosphere and staging as crucial elements in fashion photography during the 20th century. Through a qualitative approach that combines bibliographic review and visual analysis of works by A. De Meyer, I. Penn and D. Turbeville, the evolution of atmospheric strategies from the 1920s to the 1970s is examined. It is concluded that atmosphere not only defines visual narrative but generates different emotional typologies ranging from the romantic and sophisticated to the minimalist and intimist.