During the mid-1950s, while teaching photography at St Martin’s School of Art in London, Joseph McKenzie developed an extensive body of black-and-white fashion photography in collaboration with the school’s fashion students.

McKenzie photographed their designs and garments, creating finished images that the students could use in their portfolios when presenting their work to prospective employers and others within the fashion industry.

What began as an important part of his work with students consequently produced a substantial and distinctive photographic collection. The images bring together McKenzie’s understanding of light, form and composition with the creativity of a generation of young designers at one of London’s leading art schools.

These photographs were not created for exhibition and have never previously been publicly shown. Preserved within the Joseph McKenzie Archive, they are now being brought into the public arena for the first time, revealing a remarkable and largely unknown aspect of McKenzie’s photographic career.

The collection provides a fascinating record not only of McKenzie’s work at St Martin’s, but also of British fashion education and emerging design during the 1950s.