i-stylis: By George

I've seen the photo of The Divers above dozens of times yet didn't realize the photographer was George Hoyningen-Huene until recently. He was born in Russia in 1900 and during the Russian Revolution fled to London and later Paris. He worked as a photographer and eventually became chief of photography at French Vogue. In 1931, he met Horst who was the subject of many of his photos and who would also later become a photographer for Vogue. In 1935 he moved to New York where he worked for Harper's Bazaar and on books before moving to Hollywood in the 1940's.

It's his beach photographs of bathing suits from the late 1920's and early 1930's that are my favorites. They are still used for inspiration for magazine shoots to this day. I especially love the fact that bathing costumes from that era are larger than some of the clothes that people wear on the street today. Those were the days.