From society balls to Marilyn and Audrey in their heyday: 20th century celebs in Austrian photographer’s pics

In a society where yoga pants rule everyday wear and dating apps are the new normal, the era of Audrey Hepburn's little black dress and high society Cotillion balls seem like they happened centuries ago. 

But a window into a world where Marilyn Monroe dominated the headlines and 1950s Hollywood glamour reigned supreme is now being offered in the new book Inge Morath: On Style, the Daily Mail reports.

Although she came of age during World War II in Nazi Germany, the late Austrian-born American photographer Morath, who died in 2002, was never attracted to filming death and destruction.

Although she came of age during World War II in Nazi Germany, the late Austrian-born American photographer Morath, who died in 2002, was never attracted to filming death and destruction.

Morath was studying at Berlin University when she refused to join the Hitler Youth at the height of the war. 

She was thus drafted to work alongside Ukrainian prisoners of war in an airplane factory, which she was forced to flee on foot and return to Austria when it came under attack by Russian bombers. 

Morath worked as a journalist after the war and was one of the first women hired to join the famous Magnum Photos Agency in Paris, according to New York Magazine.

She was one of only two women who worked at the agency in the 1950s and thus was often assigned to photograph the likes of debutantes, models, balls and beauty schools. 

But it was how Morath, who went on to marry and collaborate with playwright Arthur Miller, filmed her subjects - rather than who they were - that helped make her one of the greatest photographers of the post-war decade. 

Whether it was Audrey and Marilyn behind her lens or everyday American women at a beauty school, Morath had an eye for capturing 'life's brilliant theatricality', John Jacob, the McEvoy curator for photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, explains in the book's afterword . 

It wasn't the fashion, the “seasonal changes of attire”, that Morath was interested in, Jacob explains, but rather the “social relations of appearance” and the “endurance of the human creative spirit in conditions of transformation and duress”. 

Thus it is not Yves Saint Laurent's debut fashion show that we see, but rather the soon-to-be iconic designer preparing a gown backstage.

Nor does Morath show us Audrey in her iconic black Breakfast at Tiffany's Givenchy dress, instead photographing the star behind a simple cracked wall, make-up free and only accessorized with a wide-brim hat.

Also included in the collection are photos of actresses Ingrid Bergman and Jayne Mansfield, as well as everyday women in England, France and the US navigating life and searching for glamour in the postwar decades. 

And no matter if it was a Hollywood celebrity or a woman simply window shopping on Fifth Avenue in front of her camera, Morath always made sure to help them find it. 

 Marilyn Monroe, 1690

Audrey Hepbern, 1959

Andy Warhall

Yves Saint Laurent

Jane Mansfield, 1959