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Guy Bourdin's Walking Legs take a stroll through Michael Hoppen Gallery

Pioneering fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, whose arresting photographs filled the pages of French Vogue for three decades from the 1950s onwards, is notorious for breaking the boundaries of traditional commercial photography and reshaping the classic fashion picture, using a daring narrative and vibrant colour palette.

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Person wearing pale pink heels standing among vibrant pink roses in a garden

Vogue's editor introduced Bourdin to the shoe designer Charles Jourdan, for whom he became the brand's official advertising photographer, producing some of his best images during this period. In 1950, Bourdin met Man Ray and became his protégé. The spirit of the Surrealists is ever-present in his work.

Taking photography as his medium of choice, Bourdin explored the provocative and the sublime with a relentless perfectionism and sharp humour. He captured the imagination of a generation, and yet his images have a timeless quality, so much so that they continue to influence the worlds of fashion and advertising today, twenty years since his death.

To coincide with the UK's largest ever exhibition of the influential and enigmatic fashion photographer Guy Bourdin at Somerset House, the Michael Hoppen Gallery is exhibiting a wonderful group of images entitled 'Walking Legs' – one of Bourdin's most loved Charles Jourdan campaign series.

Shot in 1979 by the French designer and photographer using quintessentially English landscapes as the backdrop to this high-end campaign. Photographed at locations on a road trip taken in a Cadillac from London to Brighton, many of the city and seaside scenes remain the same today and include familiar sights such as the London bus stop and the classic park bench. As with much of Bourdin's work, the model is mysteriously absent - all that is seen is a pair of mannequin legs, adorned with Charles Jourdan's creations.

Via Michael Hoppen Gallery

A woman's legs in heeled shoes stride past a row of bright blue beach huts with a metal lamp post in the foreground
Woman's legs in high heels emerging from behind a red bus shelter with London Underground roundel logo visible
A woman's bare legs stride across a cobbled street lined by dark stone walls, with a vintage car parked in the shadowy background
Person's bare legs protruding from turquoise and dark wooden pier railings above water, with a white passenger ship in the distance under a blue sky
Red wooden chair and table against cream and burgundy striped wall with small framed photograph above, featuring disembodied legs in shoes beneath the furniture
Pair of bare legs protruding beneath a corrugated metal wall with industrial buildings silhouetted above, from Guy Bourdin's Walking Legs series
Woman's legs in tan shoes rest on concrete beside a bench overlooking water with ducks swimming nearby
Pair of legs in red shoes walking past a large pile of terracotta bricks against a dark green hedge
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