In 1950 and 1951, Irving Penn created portraits of workers in Paris, London and New York who are dressed in their work clothes & carrying tools of their trades. Irving Penn’s photography has molded & influenced the way I set up objects in the front of the camera from my very early days of styling & continues to inspire the storytelling in my hospitality spaces today.
In Small Trades the patissiers and chevrier with his tray of fromage, the sword swallower & acrobat, the tinker, gardener, street sweeper, showgirl and even chestnut vendor side by side – Penn’s lens doesn’t discriminate. See them in their uniforms and garbs, each with his or her little nuances. The quaint & humble sit alongside the mischievous and perhaps the devious telling the stories of urban life.
Small Trades by Irving Penn (Getty)
Photos by Sophie Flecknoe