There can’t be many cities on Earth where it’s possible to faithfully recreate a classic photograph 65 years on and find virtually nothing has changed.
Yet, as this picture shows, Bath’s timeless beauty can provide a stunning backdrop today in exactly the same way it did when the great fashion photographer Norman Parkinson visited in 1948.
Bath photographer Chris Burfoot took the photo as a homage to Norman Parkinson, whose exhibition in the Octagon in Milsom Place is causing a sensation.
The display, curated by high-profile French fashion designer Roland Mouret, opened during Bath in Fashion week and among many of his most iconic shots is a series of photos from a Vogue commission shot in Bath.
Organisers were struck that the backdrops of some of Parkinson’s stunning shots taken in the city back in 1948 had barely changed as illustrated by the photograph A Spring Hat in the city of Bath, shot close to where Bath Thermae Spa is today,
Parkinson, who was born 100 years ago this month, is one of the 20th century’s best-known and most-prolific fashion photographers.
He worked with celebrities, actors and the British royal family and, in 1975, famously took Jerry Hall on a fashion shoot to the USSR. Concerned at being asked to hand over his footage for the authorities to check, he is said to have persuaded her to smuggle some of the films out in her trousers.
The Mouvements de Femmes by Norman Parkinson exhibition runs until May 12.
