Astrid Heeren in Talmack, photographed by Jeanloup Sieff for Harper’s Bazaar, Palm Beach, 1964.
A Tumblr, like many others, to celebrate subjects of beauty and cultural significance. All content sourced and scanned by myself from books and print media.
For my writing, on menswear and matters of equal importance: La Vida Magazine.
For my writing, on menswear and matters of equal importance: La Vida Magazine.
Photograph by Jeanloup Sieff for Harper’s Bazaar, Rome, 1962.
Photograph by Jeanloup Sieff from his first fashion shoot, Paris, 1952.
Sieff’s first fashion photo was taken in 1952 with a friend as a model. The picture that can be seen in the shot was drawn by Sieff himself. His photographic career began shortly afterwards, in the mid Fifties, when he received a commission for the French fashion magazine Elle.
—Ira Stehmann, Barbara Sieff & Sonia Sieff, 2012
‘Early fall picnic in Dolce & Gabbana’, photographed by Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue, 1998.
Steven Meisel’s picnic illustrates a collection by Dolce & Gabbana. The sunny lighting contradicts the cold, dull background, giving the picture a surreal edge. Meisel calls himself ‘a reflection of my times’. It is a phrase that equally applies to his work. His strength is as an image-maker, both in terms of his own image, and that of the designers’ work he photographs and the models whose careers he has transformed—Meisel discovered Linda Evangelista and Stella Tennant. He has a sensitivity towards clothes and is able to adapt to each garment he photographs: ‘I am always influenced by the philosophy of the particular couturier whose dress I am photographing.’ American and Italian Vogue are Meisel’s biggest arenas. In one Italian edition he has been given as many as thirty pages to depict a single story: a fact that makes him the undisputed emperor or fashion image-making.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Missoni spring/summer 1998, photographed by Mario Testino.
1971 or 1998? We rely on modern photography and styling for the answer because the enduring popularity of Missoni’s colourful knitwear in basic shapes means their clothes have changed little over the years. Their strength and appeal lies in their simple beauty. Colour is the key to the Missoni look. The distinctive, flecked ‘flame dye’ effect is achieved by only partly immersing the yarn in the dye to leave a white mark or to allow the colour of the yarn to show through. The Missonis met at the 1948 Olympics in London, where Ottavio was competing in the 400-metre hurdles, wearing the team tracksuit that had been designed by his own small knitwear company. They married and their first collection was presented in Milan in 1966. In 1997 Ottavio and Rosita handed the business over to their daughter, Angela, who has inherited the Missoni sensibilities.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Angela Lindvall in Jil Sander, photographed by David Sims, 1998.
Sander began her career as a fashion journalist, but moved into fashion design. In 1968 she opened a boutique in Hamburg and five years later was showing on the catwalk. Sander perceived a need for understated clothes with a sense of quiet self-confidence, but which would provide the wearer with the ultimate in fit, quality and modernity. It was a prophetic vision: today, her clothes have become the byword for an ultra-modern, androgynous sensuality that is as uncompromisingly technical as it is beautiful. Her simplicity must not, however, be confused with classicism. As Sander told Vogue, ‘A classic is an excuse, because one is too lazy to contrast the spirit of the time.’ Brutal purity defines her work. She rejects the clichés of femininity, its ruffles and furbelows, for the refinements found in the architecture of men’s suits. This approach throws emphasis away from detail and onto the material, as can be seen here with a pair of trousers, the most striking aspect of which is texture.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Stella McCartney for Chloé miniature satin evening dress, photographed by Perry Ogden, 1998.
An embroidered, miniature evening dress of satin bears the richesse associated with traditional French fashion, but the proportions belong to the modern age. Chloé showed the first collection by Stella McCartney, appointed designer in 1997 at only twenty-five, in the opulent setting of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. Even though Yves Saint Laurent beat her by a few years (he was just twenty-one when he took over at Christian Dior), McCartney’s appointment was seen as a precocious one. She worked briefly for Lacroix and was influenced by finds made in Portobello Market, close to her West London flat. On Friday and Saturday mornings McCartney would garner antique buttons and vintage clothes, a passion which explains the romantic strand of her style. The other, tailoring, is attributable to a short, unofficial apprenticeship with Edward Sexton, a Savile Row tailor. McCartney has said, ‘Anyone who has seen my work knows I am not about shock tactics.’
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Nicole Farhi spring/summer 1998 shirred linen dress, photographed by Kelly Klein.
Easy, wearable, comfortable linen is the fabric most associated with the work of Nicole Farhi. When she launched her own label in 1983, Farhi’s clothes became the epitome of understated fashion for women—all based on the kind she likes to wear. They are not intended to make major fashion statements. Instead, they drift with the differing times, staying in touch with them but always bearing the wearer in mind. Farhi described herself in the Guardian as ‘a feminist in a soft way’, and her clothes appeal to women who are looking for approachable tailoring and casual clothes which have Farhi’s own dressed-up European attitude. Farhi studied fashion in Paris and freelanced for Agnès b and de Castelbajac before moving to Britain in 1973 to design for the French Connection chain. In 1989 she introduced menswear to the Farhi label, blending British tailoring and her European unstructured style.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Alberta Ferretti autumn/winter 1997, photographed by Paolo Roversi.
Two women recline on a chaise longue in ethereal chiffon dresses. The overall effect is one of old-fashioned prettiness, yet their gaze and pose are self-assured, undermining any sense of passivity that prettiness might imply. ‘I like to think I design feminine clothes,’ says Ferretti. ‘Everything is created by a woman for women, understanding what they want.’ That vision is a particularly delicate one. Ferretti developed a special appreciation of textiles, especially daintily beaded or embroidered chiffons and sari silks, through watching her couturière mother at work. A young entrepreneur, she opened her own designer clothes shop at the age of seventeen. At the end of the twentieth century, Ferretti is one of the most powerful businesswomen in Italy, manufacturing not only her own collections but those of Narcisco Rodriguez and Jean Paul Gautier.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Princess Diana in Catherine Walker dress, 1997.
‘Clothes are now not as essential to my work as they used to be,’ Diana, Princess of Wales, told Vogue in 1997. It was a confident statement from a woman who had come to realize that a pair of jeans wouldn’t compromise her effectiveness. And it showed. Toward the end of her life, Diana’s wardrobe finally took a back seat to the person she was and the work she did; an utterly modern concept. Here she wears an artfully uncomplicated navy lace dress by Catherine Walker for a charity film premiere in 1997. From the day Lady Diana Spencer was first caught on film in the early 1980s wearing archetypal British upper-class clothing, ensuing developments in her wardrobe and the colour of lipstick she chose were closely watched and widely copied. Particular attention was given to her hair, sleeked and simplified in the 1990s by Sam McKnight.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Photo by Kelvin Bruce.
Louis Féraud spring/summer 1997 haute couture ‘Golden Sun’ dress, photographed by Sylvie Lancrenon.
Sunny, heavily embroidered clothes are Louis Féraud’s métier. The designer says of his work, ‘I live in the joy of being surrounded by women, of somehow directing their destiny, in so far as their destiny depends on a note of excess’. In 1955, Féraud opened a boutique in Cannes. He had dressed the young star Brigitte Bardot in an off-the-shoulder, white piqué frock with a lace collar; much photographed, 600 copies of this dress were sold and Féraud’s success was established. Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman and Christian Lacroix’s mother were also customers. He opened a boutique in Paris where he began to produce couture alongside prêt-à-porter, and he and his wife were dubbed ‘The Gypsies’ because of their brightly coloured, Midi-inspired look. In the 1960s, Féraud’s work was characterized by simple, architectural shapes with graphic detailing; Twiggy modelled the collections and Féraud designed the costumes for the cult television serial The Prisoner.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Shalom Harlow and Linda Evangelista in Eric Bergère, photographed by Mario Testino for Visionaire, 1997.
These spare wrap dresses represent the self-assured work of Eric Bergère. Briefly apprenticed to Thierry Mugler, he arrived at Hermès aged just seventeen. It was Bergère who gave modernity to Hermès’ luxury, using the then passé snaffle and H logo to add wit. In doing so, he famously created a camp, mink jogging suit. Bergère blends European humour and respect for tradition with the American sportswear sensibility. He has said, ‘I like the work of Americans, like Anne Klein … very simple clothes, very elegant,’ and he keeps detail to a minimum, using a thin tie belt or a tiny bow on a knitted camisole top. His first collection under the Bergère label was tightly edited: twelve pieces of knitwear in three colours and one jacket in three different lengths. ‘I want the jackets to be like cardigans, I try to make everything lighter—the finishings, the linings, the foundations—but they must still have a definite shoulder.’
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Gucci autumn/winter 1996, photographed by Mario Testino.
Svelte pinstripes for a man and woman, a gilt-trimmed clutch bag, body-conscious shirt and, most telling of all, a golden ‘G’ shining from her waistband. These are all the elements which go to make up Tom Ford’s image for Gucci. As Creative Director he took styling from the 1970s, a time when Gucci represented flashy European style, and created a culture of seasonal icons: handbags and shoes that shine brightly for six months but become redundant through their high-fashion visibility. It is a brilliant example of fashion which breeds demand for the next collection. Ford’s success is rooted in his American blend of sexy, market-aware commercialism married with Italian craftsmanship. As John Fairchild, owner of the fashion trad paper Women’s Wear Daily, wrote in 1989, the year before Ford joined Gucci, ‘If American designers were working in Europe with the … eagerness to be different for novelty’s sake … they could be better style leaders than anyone.’
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Kate Moss in advertising campaign for Calvin Klein CK Be, photographed by Richard Avedon, 1997.
Every so often a special face appears, a face that changes the way we perceive beauty and which challenges our tastes. This is once such face scrubbed bare. Kate Moss was ‘discovered’ aged fourteen at JFK Airport, New York. Sarah Doukas, the spotter and owner of Storm modelling agency in London, felt ‘she was going to be special’. She was. Kate Moss became the Twiggy of the 1990s; young and fresh, she symbolized the triumph of naturalness over artifice. Part of that charm is a naturally skinny frame that does not bear the fleshy undulations usually associated with beauty icons. Labelled a ‘superwaif’, her rise to fame coincided with the grunge phenomenon that celebrated an anti-designer look of uncoordinated clothes worn with rock-star attitude. Calvin Klein’s unisex perfumes were one of the first products to literally bottle this attitude and make it a commercial product, leaving Kate Moss as the obvious choice of model.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
Annie Morton, in her apartment, in ‘make-up’ by Dick Page, 1996.
Model Annie Morton sits in her apartment bare-faced and with disheveled hair. The image is deshabille in the extreme. Make-up artist Dick Page did nothing to disturb her early morning beaty. Using this pre-shoot image, he contests the idea of what constitutes beauty, saying, ‘There is no such thing as natural make-up. As soon as there is make-up on the face it is not natural.’ This is the key to Page’s ethos. While effecting transformations by giving skin a shiny surface, he rejects further artificiality and won’t use make-up that regulates and reduces women to a uniform beauty—on one occasion even leavin spots as an ‘undeniable part of the woman underneath’. Page’s iconoclastic methods are unique in a business that is designed to sell make-up. However, he was a champion of the ‘greasy, glossy’ direction of make-up in the 1990s, a movement that, bizarrely, accelerated the sale of make-up.
—Phaidon Editors, 1998
