Capturing the beauty and style of an era, Bruno Benini is recognised as one of Australia’s leading 20th century fashion photographers. For five decades the Italian immigrant recorded the evolution of fashion, from the elegant couture of the 1950s through to the hippy chic of the 1960s, to the raunchy attitude of the 1970s, right up to the fit, body-sensitive era of the 1990s.

Establishing his studio in Melbourne in the mid 1950s, Benini refined his craft, working alongside famed photographers Helmut Newton and Athol Shmith. His marriage to artist Hazel led to the formation of an innovative partnership – Bruno as the elegant photographer and Hazel as the creative fashion stylist. Together, the couple produced some of Australia’s most memorable and elegant images.

Drawing on the remarkable fashion photography archive of Benini, the exhibition features vintage and recent photographic prints, original colour transparencies and black-and-white negatives, and biographical material, dating from the 1950s through to the photographer’s death in 2001.

Creating the look unpicks the ideas, props, backdrops and locations, the tricks, technical devices and other compositional elements used by the Beninis, as well as by today’s digital generation of contemporary fashion photographers. It reveals how designers, models, make-up artists, hair stylists, fashion editors, props and locations all work together to produce the shot. Interviews with Benini’s collaborators including Hazel Benini, former models Jan Stewart, Janice Wakely and others, help bring the photographs to life.

The exhibition acknowledges how Benini’s photographic techniques are interpreted in innovative ways by contemporary photographers and stylists. Four case studies are Australian fashion photographer Juli Balla, styling by Edward Coutts Davidson, urban street fashion photographs of Fernando Frisoni and a selection of directional new Australian fashion film and video for online media.

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