With the eye of a painter, Guy Bourdin redefined the genre of fashion photography. Bourdin shot for Chanel, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget, Issey Miyake, Emanuel Ungaro, Charles Jourdan and Gianni Versace. Rejecting the "product shot" in favor of atmospheric, often surreal narratives, Bourdin transformed the ad campaign to
an art form. With a career spanning over three decades, fashion photographer Guy Bourdin elevated fashion photography to fine art through his pioneering and provocative images.

Like most fashion photographers of his time, Guy Bourdin would take Polaroids on set in preparation for his shoots. He would then incorporate them into his final shots to create a layered effect. The French call this technique of placing an image within an “mise en abyme,” which roughly translates as “place in the abyss,” and many of these experiments with Polaroids were actually shot as highly original ad campaigns for French shoe designer Charles Jourdan in the 1970s.