This 1939 photograph by Erwin Blumenfeld features Lisa Fonssagrives poised on the Eiffel Tower. This outtake, from a shoot published in the May 1939 edition of French Vogue to mark the tower’s 50th anniversary, captures Fonssagrives in a Lucien Lelong dress, billowing dramatically against the Parisian skyline.

At the time, Fonssagrives was not yet the supermodel she’d become in New York, and Blumenfeld, a German photographer, was on the cusp of international fame. Later that year, as war clouds darkened over Europe, both would flee to America—Fonssagrives to build her modeling career, and Blumenfeld, after escaping internment camps, to become a titan of fashion photography.

In 1939, Paris was a city on edge, with the shadow of World War II looming just months away. Yet, the fashion world continued to thrive, and this shoot was a bold departure from the norm.

While most fashion photography of the era was confined to highly stylized studio settings, Blumenfeld took to the heights of the Eiffel Tower, infusing the frame with the fresh, exhilarating air of Paris.

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