The Easel

7th October 2025

Lee Miller review, Tate Britain – Seeks to rescue the artist from her role of iconic beauty and muse

Miller was seen as a 1930-ish glamour girl until the posthumous discovery of her photography archive. It revealed that she was an accomplished photographer. When working with Man Ray in Paris, the “presiding spirit” of their work seems to have been his. After that, though, she emerges as a “high end, classic modernist”. Working as a war photographer, her cool eye produced some of that century’s most distressing images. For her, says one writer, “beauty and brutality had equal weight.”

30th September 2025

In Milan, the fashion world gathers to say goodbye to Giorgio Armani at his final show

Intended to mark 50 years of the Armani brand, a Milan show has become a retrospective. Armani’s concept of dressing was “fluid rather than structured suiting”. Women in particular were liberated from “fussy and figure-hugging silhouettes”. The Armani look was one of “louche glamour”, achieved through “refined use of decoration, the preference for neutral and refined tones, and attention to workmanship”. Said he “I am neither a couturier nor a tailor, but I feel I am someone who creates a style”. Images are here and an obit here.