Lee Miller
Fashion in Wartime Britain

Lee Miller: Fashion in Wartime Britain

Lee Miller Archives, 2021

Ami Bouhassane, Robin Muir and Amber Butchart

29.0 x 24.0 x 1.5 cm | 165 pages, 130+ photographs | Hardback | English

Lee Miller’s photography of British fashion for Vogue during World War 2 was prolific yet few are aware of the full extent of this body of her work. Many know Lee Miller’s name in connection to her inspirational World War 2 reportage. Few are aware of the volume of her British fashion images that were published on British Vogue’s pages from 1939 to 1944. This beautiful book of her wartime fashion work addresses Lee Miller’s contribution to the fashion industry in these years and her significant service to the survival of British Vogue magazine.

‘she [Lee Miller] has borne the whole weight of our studio production through the most difficult period in Brogue’s [British Vogue’s] history’. Wrote Audrey Withers, Lee Miller’s editor at British Vogue, in 1941.

Containing over 130 images, with the majority printed full-page this book also contains an accompanying text by Lee Miller’s granddaughter, Ami Bouhassane, Co-Director of the Lee Miller Archives, who provides insights into Lee Miller’s work process. In two additional essays, fashion historian Amber Butchart writes on the fashion of the period and Robin Muir, contributing editor to British Vogue, discusses Lee Miller’s work for Vogue.

As soon as government restrictions in the UK permit, the Lee Miller Archives will be opening a 63-print exhibition of Lee’s wartime fashion photography in Britain, at the Lee Miller Gallery, Farleys House, Chiddingly, East Sussex.