Inge Morath

Book excerpt: Witty, playful, and effortlessly chic, Inge Morath: On Style reveals the vital forms of fashion and self-expression that blossomed into existence in England, France, and the United States in the postwar decades. The book follows the photojournalist Inge Morath (1923–2002) through intimate sessions with Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn; scenes of window-shopping on Fifth Avenue; American girls discovering Paris; the frenetic splendor of society balls; and working women—from actresses to seamstresses to writers—everywhere taking their place in the world. The photographs in On Style focus on an extraordinary period of Morath’s creativity, from the early 1950s to mid- 1960s, with a coda of work from later years. Here are the fundamental humanism, joy, and unerring eye for life’s brilliant theatricality that characterized her work and made her one of the most celebrated photographers of her time.