Special Tribute to Liz Tilberis

Harper’s Bazaar, July 1999 issue. Tom Cruise’s cover was the last cover approved by Liz before her death just 3 months prior. All ad revenue went to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Models, photographers, stylists, make-ups artists, etc., donated their time for free. There are no editorials. It is the one issue which features the solidarity of the fashion industry for an icon.

Illustrations by Karl Lagerfeld

Obituary by Cartier

Christy Turlington photographed by Patrick Demarchelier

Guinevere Van Seenus photographed by Craig McDean, clothes by Yohji Yamamoto

Naomi Campbell photographed by David Bailey clothes by Versace

Left: Linda Evangelista illustrated by Mats Gustafsson; Guinevere Van Seenus photographed by Richard Burbridge

Nikki Uberti photographed by Terry Richardson, clothes by Dolce and Gabbana

Anne Catherine Lacroix photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadinanne, clothes by Balenciaga

Erin O’Connor photographed by Patrick Demarchelier., clothes by Calvin Klein

Natalie Portman photographed by Robert Bromann, clothes by Moschino; Cindy Crawford photographed by Mary Ellen Mark, clothes by Malo; Rita Wilson photographed by Sante D’Orazio; Milla Jovovich photographed by Cliff Watts, clothes by Tommy Hilfiger

Jun 4

A Courageous Fashion Editor

Elizabeth Tilberis, (b 7 September 1947 – d 21 April 1999) born Elizabeth Jane Kelly, known professionally throughout her career as Liz Tilberis, was a British fashion magazine editor.

Tilberis went to Malvern Girls College. She then went to Leicester Polytechnic where as a fashion student, she was expelled for having a man in her room. She then tried to go to Jacob Kramer Art College in Leeds. Andrew Tilberis, was an art tutor, and looked over her portfolio for admission. He was unimpressed with her work, but Liz gave him a speech why she wanted to attend and won him over (and later married him).

In 1967, British Vogue held a contest requiring three essays. Liz was the runner-up and began an internship there, making tea, picking up dress pins, and ironing for fashion shoots for 25 pounds per week. Later stating about her internship: “I succeeded by knowing the right answers, but also when to keep my mouth shut, when to smile and to do really good ironing”

Beatrix Miller, then editor-in-chief, noticed how nice and enthusiastic Liz was, and was promoted to fashion assistant in 1970. In 1971 she married Andrew Tilberis, whom her father forbade her to marry because “he was a foreigner.” They remained married for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Liz began fertility treatments to try to conceive. They were not successful and she adopted sons Robert in 1981 and Christopher in 1985.

After 20 years at British Vogue, Liz was offered a lucrative job in New York City as part of Ralph Lauren‘s design team in 1987. She sold her house, packed up, and was about to leave for the United States. Anna Wintour, the then-editor, suddenly called Liz into her office, and informed her that she was moving to New York to become American House & Garden‘s new editor. She offered her job to Liz, which she accepted. Its circulation began to rise under her leadership and she said, “My staff are respectful rather than frightened.”

In 1992, Tilberis took over the helm of fashion institution Harper’s Bazaar. In December 1993, Tilberis was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 46, a disease she publicly blamed on her use of fertility drugs. She spent the next seven years at Bazaar balancing chemotherapy and revitalizing the 125-year-old magazine. Under her leadership, the stale magazine became a leading American fashion magazine again with top supermodels and fashion photographers such as Patrick Demarchelier.

Princess of Wales Diana, right, walks through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to attend the Costume Institute Gala with Liz Tilberis, chair of the event, Monday Dec. 9, 1996

Tilberis also served as President of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund from 1997 until her death in 1999. She escorted Diana, Princess of Wales on one of her last visits to New York, even though Tilberis herself was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for her cancer. Diana would telephone and write Tilberis to give her words of comfort and encouragement, until her own untimely death in a car accident on 31 August 1997.

Tilberis died on 21 April 1999 in New York City from Ovarian cancer. Tributes to her were in the June 1999 issue and the entire July 1999 issue of Bazaar.

Jun 3

The Most-Sought-After Title of the Nineties

Linda Evangelista. Art Direction: Fabien Baron. Photo by Patrick Demarchelier. It was the first issue from Liz Tilberis at Harper’s Bazaar. September 1992

Sex and design, not that long ago, were total strangers—at least in magazines. You could have sex and fashion, as Helmut Newton had memorably proved in Vogue, and you could have fashion and design, as Alexey Brodovitch, Harper’s Bazaar’s legendary art director from 1934 to 1958, had shown. But Fabien Baron’s remarkable 1992 redesign of Bazaar, under editor Liz Tilberis, brought them together under one elegant, sensuous roof. Baron also introduced art-world and European photographers (Mario Testino, David Sims, Cindy Sherman, Craig McDean, Mario Sorrenti, Raymond Meier, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin) to the fashion world for the first time, permanently altering our perception of what a fashion photographer does.

Baron grew up in Paris, the son of a magazine art director. He came to New York at 23; his first magazine job was at GQ, in 1982, where Bruce Weber was making his name. By the late eighties, he was multitasking prodigiously, producing Barneys’ famous ads with Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, and working on Franca Sozzani’s Italian Vogue and Ingrid Sischy’s Interview, all at the same time. By 1992, when he landed at Bazaar, he was a ubiquitous design star.

And a new kind of star at that: a “creative director,” which in short order became the most-sought-after (and then clichéd) title of the nineties. “I was the first person to have that title,” he says. “I didn’t want to be just the art director!”