Sighs and Whispers in Bloomingdales: A Review of a Bloomingdale Mail-Order Catalogue for Their Lingerie Department

When, in the late 1970s, Bloomingdale’s commissioned Guy Bourdin to take the photographs for their lingerie mail-order catalogue, they must have been aware that overnight it would become a collectors’ item. The other major ’70s fashion photographers, Helmut Newton and Deborah Turbeville, have both been anthologised; but the Bloomingdale catalogue, Sighs and Whispers, is the only book by Guy Bourdin available. It is actually more of a pamphlet, being only eighteen pages long and containing the same number of photographs, including the front and back covers, and placing Guy Bourdin’s name only on the back page as a vertical photo-credit. None the less, the double role of Sighs and Whispers as a photo-series by Bourdin and as an album for registering consumer choice, was an irony that would not have escaped either Bourdin or Bloomingdales. It is indicative of a split in consumer attitudes and in the consumer product image which, whilst it is characteristic of a tendency in a range of advertising and consumer products now, was first noticeable in fashion photography in the mid-’70s. At this time, at the bodily centre of advertising, the nature of the relationship between product-image and product (form and content) changed.