Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Unseen Vogue  goes beyond the cliches and often repeated "greatest hits" of fashion photography and tells a completely new story. Drawn from the archives of British Vogue , the book presents hundreds of images never seen before--the killed pictures, rejects, and outtakes--to form a fresh, new history of fashion photography. Features the first attempts of many now internationally famous photographers, great pictures by forgotten masters, outtakes from famous shoots, and many other extraordinary and sometimes controversial pictures. By showing contact sheets and unedited film Unseen Vogue opens up the process of making fashion images, previously the reserve of fashion's inner circle.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

The world of fashion has been both romanticized and criticized for its ability to project a vision of ideal beauty onto runways, magazines, and fashion books such as this one. But unlike other publications, this one seems to take its cue from the public debate about whether fashion magazines are contributing to the image problem of today's youth by using retouching that turns unusually beautiful women into impossibly perfect ideals. Highlighting the photos "left out" from the pages of British Vogue, the book gives readers a tour of how fashion magazines both choose their photos and change them. While British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman uses her introduction to highlight the gems of the book, Derrick and Muir take a slightly different approach, focusing on fashion photography as art and the history of the Vogue franchise, respectively. Most important, the photos, running from the late 1920s to 2001, are richly showcased: large color prints fill up the page and are accompanied by the name of the photographer, the model, the year, and a small but informative history of the shoot. A great addition to any fashion collection, large or small.-Rachel Collins, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Whatever happened, you might ask, to Twiggy and Bianca Jagger and Jean Shrimpton, among other supermodels of yesteryear? British Vogue creative director Derrick and sidekick Muir sifted through 1.5 million images housed in the magazine's library to produce a multidecades-long tribute to the artists, photographers, and beauties parading through its pages. It starts at the earliest, in the 1920s, with a black-and-white picture of three aristocratic women; all photographs, at the very least, identify the photographer, the subjects, the credits (hair, outfit, cosmetics)--and at the very best, tell some fascinating stories. Like Vivien Leigh's sensitivity about her large hands. Or Marlene Dietrich's amazing knowledge about lighting, printing, and photography. Even a politely heated exchange between editor Audrey Williams and Cecil Beaton about his then most current project. Fantastical, ethereal, yet a very real portrait of many ages. --Barbara Jacobs