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A new exhibition shows the extraordinary lengths to which fashion photographers go for the perfect shot. As if Judy Rumbold - herself once a put-upon assistant used to satisfying their mad whims - really needed reminding… I don't think it struck me as wrong or even remotely tasteless to be pleading with a toothless Egyptian beggar to give me his hat. The hat, after all, was fabulous - battered, attractively misshapen, a to-die-for shade of buff - and I needed it. As a young fashion assistant just starting out, I had been instructed by a gobby, bullying photographer to get that hat, or else. It would, he said, look perfect with the pristine white linen clothing we had brought out to Cairo to photograph for a magazine shoot. Never mind the beggar's impoverished circumstances and, in searing 40° heat, the crucial shade the hat... [read full story]
