Chanel was not the sort to rely on intermediaries to form her aesthetic judgments.

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And that aesthetic is not limited just to its form, but is found in the details as well--right down to the grooves on the door handles, which make them look as fast and sleek as airplane wings.

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Having grown up when photography was just being recognized as an art form, the French-born Cartier-Bresson was perhaps being an aesthetic contrarian, the anti-Stieglitz and un-Steichen, resisting the soft-focus tradition of those photographers that often conferred a romantic mist on their subjects.

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