True Colours: dress and fashion in autochromes from Albert Kahn's collection 1914

Launched at the Photo Club de Paris in 1907, the Autochrome process invented by the Lumière brothers was the only photographic medium that reproduced colours truthfully until the late 1920s: once exposed the glass plate positives could not be retouched or manipulated in any way. Compared to hand-coloured film, photographs or crude lithography in print media, the authentic representation of the colour of clothes in autochromes comes as a revelation, as does the beauty of the images themselves.

Hitherto seldom referenced by dress historians, autochromes have been neglected by scholars and curators because of the difficulties of storage, handling and reproduction, yet from their invention until the introduction of colour film c1930, they were widely used by amateurs and commercial photographers, therefore they are invaluable for the authentication of colour in dress during this period. Of an estimated 20 million plates manufactured by the Lumières, approximately 4 million are thought to have survived.

This paper explored the potential of the autochrome as a source of visual evidence for dress historians during World War 1, by exploring the Archives de la Planète, created by French millionaire industrialist, Albert Kahn (1860-1940), whose pacifist beliefs lead him to equip a team of photographers, both professional and untrained, with this latest technology. Kahn’s autochromistes were commissioned to record the daily lives of the people they encountered in fifty countries across the world, particularly those whose cultures he anticipated would soon be under threat from the consequences of political and social turmoil in the early twentieth century. The Archives de la Planète, now comprising 72,000 autochromes, 4,000 black and white photographs and 120 hours of moving film footage is housed in the Musée Albert Kahn, his former home just outside Paris. Digitization of the collection is ongoing today.

The Kahn autochromes show the dress of many people and cultures across the world from the West of Ireland to China and Japan in the years immediately before the outbreak of the War. His photographers also recorded the French troops during the conflict and the daily lives of local working people as well as celebrations such as victory parade in London in 1919. Folk dress, army uniform and working dress are well-represented, in addition to some images of fashionable dress worn by visitors to Kahn’s villa in the south of France and to his Paris mansion. Autochromes from other collections, such as those taken by Lionel de Rothschild and those in the National Media Museum, London and Bradford may also be referenced.