The Face of Contemporary Art

Kate, Sir Peter Blake, 2013

Model by Allen Jones, 2013. With a whiff of art nouveau, it pays homage to her love of a vintage frock

Body Armour , Allen Jones, 2013

‘Photography has replaced the artist’s eye in the depiction of reality. For most people Kate exists as a photograph. It is harder to draw somebody than to take their photograph. Painting Kate was a challenge in my world, but first I wanted to prove myself in her world — the world of professional photography.’

Allen Jones

Porcelain Kate on white background, Nick Knight, 2013.
Moss and Knight have collaborated often – but this is the photographer turning his muse into something 3D, a sculpture. Still, Moss is an angel here so reality is still a long way off

Kate Jacquard Tapestry by Chuck Close, 2007.
Close, a famously meticulous artist, turns Kate into a tapestry. All about a stripped back and natural Moss, this is a reprise – in thread – of Close’s 2003 daguerreotype portrait of her

A gold statue of supermodel Kate Moss entitled Siren by British artist Marc Quinn, circa 2008

Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment), Marc Quinn, 2007

Eyescape, Rankin, 2012

Naked Portrait, Lucian Freud, 2002

Kate, Gary Hume, 1996

One of the world’s best-known faces, Kate Moss has long been a favorite of Mario Testino, Bruce Weber, Juergen Teller and a legion of top fashion photographers. But her latest incarnation as a gleaming goddess provides new confirmation that she’s equally as popular with artists.

In fact, the world’s most enduring super-model has probably been portrayed more often than anyone in recent history, and an ever-growing body of art testifies to the true cultural icon she’s become.

The emergence of BritArt, which started to make its presence felt when Kate was already an international star, was certainly a major factor. Moss hung out with Damien Hirst, became pals with Tracey Emin, and at one point was said to be romantically involved with Jake Chapman. Painter Gary Hume famously portrayed Kate in 1996, and it wasn’t long before others followed suit.

In September 2003, W Magazine commissioned leading American art stars to produce their own take on Kate.

Jul 3

A Statement About the Transience of Life and Fashion

“Visionaire first featured the designs of Lee Alexander McQueen in 1996 and since that time, he has been a continuous inspiration and a presence in Visionaire. McQueen’s special commissions are among our most treasured contributions. His daring designs and challenging ideas of fashion have consistently excited and provoked us.”

Stephen Gan, Cecilia Dean and James Kaliardos

Magazine’s founders

Visionaire 58 SPIRIT, a limited-edition of 1500 numbered copies

Protected in a modernly-chic white box, the tri-annual fashion and art publication Visionaire has released its tribute to the life and work of late fashion designer and icon Lee Alexander McQueen. The issue includes a collection of photographs by Nick Knight, Lady Gaga, Steven Klein, Steven Meisel, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, Mario Testino, Mario Sorrenti and more, each printed on a piece of pulp paper embedded with wildflower seeds that will actually blossom if you plant them, water them and give them enough sun. However, with its striking images and homage to a true fashion legacy, we don’t intend to plant the pages anytime soon. Plus, the case features a metalized brocade detail from the designer’s final collection. All in all, a very romantic collector’s piece.

Several years before issue 58 came to be (2003), Alexander “Lee” McQueen came to the Visionaire office to discuss collaborating on an issue that ultimately never happened. One day, the staff was discussing a potential issue printed on seeded paper, and the next day, news came that McQueen, one of the most brilliant creative minds of our time, had passed away. The team took this as a sign and dedicated SPIRIT to him. The issue set out to commemorate McQueen’s life and career by publishing the imagery that had defined it.

Alexander McQueen by Steven Klein

Illustration by François Berthoud

Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Visionaire 29 WOMAN

Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Visionaire 26 FANTASY

Horst Diekgerdes and Camille Bidault Waddington for Visionaire 25 VISIONARY

Alexander McQueen and Phil Pointer for Visionaire 24 LIGHT

Nick Knight for Visionaire 20 COMME DES GARÇONS

Steven Klein for Visionaire 18 FASHION SPECIAL

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!”

May 18

Fashion’s Favorite Son

Portrait by Russel Wong, taken in Raffles Hotel, Singapore, 1997

“A kind of Seventh Avenue Oscar Wilde” Time magazine called Isaac Mizrahi in 1998, after the shocking news broke that the superstar designer was closing up shop. The dimming of lights at Isaac Mizrahi & Co. marked the end of a spectacular run for the Brooklyn native, who had been a fashion and media darling since his first rave reviews more than a decade before.

Naomi Campbell, Isaac Mizrahi and Linda Evangelista. Photo by Mario Testino

Beloved both on and off the runway, the mop-haired raconteur was already a household name when he made a charmingly manic appearance in the fashion documentary Unzipped. By trailing the designer as he prepared his fall 1994 collection (conceived with the help of an Ouija board), Douglas Keeve offered a tantalizing peek behind fashion’s velvet curtain in his film. But not even the king-size force of Mizrahi’s character was enough to sustain the ride. Though his couture-luxe line of candy-color (“Pink! The new beige!”) sequined slip dresses and mink-trimmed ball skirts was admired by critics and Park Avenue princesses alike, his star was destined to fall. Isaac Mizrahi, the personality, was, it appeared, bigger than Isaac Mizrahi the brand.

Dress from Ready to Wear Spring 2012 collection

But after spending several years on other creative endeavors (including a one-man stage production, Les MIZrahi, and a talk show), the buoyant designer that Vogue once called “Fashion’s Favorite Son” was itching to get back to his first love.

The polymath Isaac Mizrahi in his studio in Manhattan. Photo: Damon Winter

In 2003 he surprised the industry by announcing a multicategory deal with Target. Kicking the Mizrahi machine into high gear, he spun straw into gold, raking in as much as $300 million in annual sales for the bargain retailer and paving the way for it to forge lucrative partnerships with other high-profile designers. Meanwhile, Mizrahi was also working at the opposite end of the price spectrum, indulging in glorious fabrics and flamboyant silhouettes with a new haute couture line for Bergdorf Goodman. In a landmark 2004 show, Mizrahi helped popularize the high-low concept by pairing pieces from his two new lines on the same runway. “My goal is that you won’t always be able to tell the difference between what is Target and what is couture,” he said. “If it freaks out a few people now, it will turn them on a few months from now.” The risky proposition paid off, and a trend—populuxe, or luxury for all—was born.

In 2009, Mizrahi applied his golden thimble to the ailing Liz Claiborne brand with a fresh injection of his signature brights and prints. And in 2010 the tireless dynamo launched a collection for the shopping channel QVC, with a broad spectrum of products from jewelry and hats to cheesecakes adorned with his favorite tartans and polka dots.

Running like a thread through all these projects is a philosophy of bringing out the best and brightest from within his customers. To borrow the advertising slogan from his Isaac line: “Inside every woman is a star.”

Mizrahi and Cindy Crawford. Still from Unzipped

Apr 25

Hopes and Glory

The Union Jack cap is paired with a leather and horsehair hat by Soren Bach. The black embroidered tulle and lace dress is from Dior Haute Couture by John Galliano

The vintage Russell Sage Union Jack jacket joins forces with a short tulle dress hand embroidered with guipure and silk taffeta from Elie Saab Couture

Looking patriotic in makeshift Union Jack trousers by Katie Eary, worn with a Jean-Paul Gaultier’s beaded Deco top

Images of Kate Moss by Mario Testino, Vogue, October 2008

Mar 30

V.I.P.’s (Very Important Portraits) by Roxanne Lowit

Roxanne Lowit is one of the pioneers of behind-the-scenes fashion photography as we know it today. “For the first 10 to 15 years I was the only one shooting backstage at all the shows. I had no credentials to begin with but quickly realised that that was my métier, that’s what I found most fascinating.”

The revelation came when she was gifted an Instamatic camera while still attending the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York studying Textile Design. At the time Lowit was a keen painter, but with this new tool discovered a more efficient way of capturing the spirit of her subjects. “I wanted to paint the people I admired but nobody had the time, so I thought I’d take a photograph of them and work from the photograph,” she says. “However, once I took the photograph I realised that I didn’t need to capture the whole soul in a painting. So I traded in my paintbrushes for a camera.”

Her background in textile design became her backstage pass when she was invited by the designers who worked from her patterns to photograph the completed garments before their shows. Eventually word got out that Lowit’s images were something worth publishing, and in 1978 she was contacted by Annie Flanders from the SoHo News. “She heard that I was going to Paris so she said ‘if you get a real camera I’ll use your pictures when you get back’. I learnt how to put film in a real camera on the plane on the way over. Next thing I was on the top of the Eiffel Tower shooting with Yves Saint Laurent and Andy Warhol. It was all downhill from there because how could it get any better?”

But things did get better, much better. After that first trip to Paris doors flung open for Lowit and her career as a backstage fashion photographer gained swift momentum. As industry insiders came to know and love her, the invitations to the parties flooded in, which was where much of the magic happened in front of Lowit’s lens. The 80s were heady times for fashion and she was always there, stationed in the fray, ready to catch the fanfare, frivolities and outright excess as it happened. “It was phenomenal,” she recalls. “We had the Supermodels and all those designers who loved the Supermodels. There were great parties – Elton John was always there and all sorts of celebrities started coming to the shows and parties.”

These days Lowit finds the more homogenised collections produced by contemporary designers as a result of an increasingly commercialised fashion industry much less inspiring, but revels in rising to the challenge all the same. “I usually play a game with myself, how good can I make this look?” she laughs. “But really it’s just about taking a great picture and finding a great moment. It’s always exciting to think, where am I going to go and what am I going to shoot next?”For the fashion designers themselves, as Lowit recalls, it was a time of tremendous creative freedom, where their unique artistic vision was nurtured by the industry and experimentation was encouraged. The shows, it seems, were less about selling clothes and more about the artistry, theatre and spectacle of it all. “It was so much more creative back then. You didn’t need a name at the end of the runway to know who it was you were watching,” she tells me. “When you saw long red nails with vampish clothes and great big hair you knew it was Thierry Mugler. When you saw flower dresses and a girl on a horse you knew you were at Kenzo. Stripes and knits, you were at Sonia Rykiel.”

Lowit gets a kick out of shooting just about anyone who gets a kick out of being shot. “All the pictures I’ve taken are important to me. They’re all like my children. It’s always the next image I look forward to. But looking back I think my favourites are the ones where the people just enjoyed having their picture taken – they were just having a good time. That’s really when I can capture something great.”

Roxanne Lowit, Andy Warhol, Jacqueline and Julian Schnabel, Kenny Scharf, Jean Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol

Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld

Helena Christensen, Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour

Diana Vreeland

Ralph Lauren and Diana Vreeland

Salvador Dalí, Janet Daly and the recipient of a kiss

Helmut Newton

Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton

Peter Lindbergh, Arthur Elgort and Patrick Demarchelier

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino

Patrick Kelly, Iman, Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista

>Manolo Blahnik and Anna Piaggi

Lauren Hutton and a chauffeur

Elton John in concert wearing the Donald Duck costume, Central Park, New York

Shalom Harlow

Amanda Lepore

Halston

John Galliano

Annabelle Neilson Rothschild and John Galliano

Backstage from Dior Show, Paris

Kate Moss and John Galliano

Kate Moss

Ellen Von Unwerth and Mario Testino

Herb Ritts, Christy Turlington and Steven Meisel

Apr 23

Swan’s Way

Blazon

For the Countess of Peralta

The snow-white Olympic swan,
with beak of rose-red agate,
preens his Eucharistic wing,
which he opens to the sun like a fan.

His shining neck is curved
like the arm of a lyre,
like the handle of a Greek amphora,
like the prow of a ship.

He is the swan of divine origin
whose kiss mounted through fields
of silk to the rosy peaks
of Leda’s sweet hills.

White king of of Castalia’s fount,
his triumph illumines the Danube;
Da Vinci was his baron in Italy;
Lohengrin is his blond prince.

His whiteness is akin to linen,
to the buds of the white roses,
to the diamantine white
of the fleece of an Easter lamb.

He is the poet of perfect verses,
and his lyric cloak is of ermine;
he is the magic, the regal bird
who, dying, rhymes the soul in his song.

This winged aristocrat displays
white lilies on a blue field;
and Pompadour, gracious and lovely,
has stroked his feathers.

He rows and rows on the lake
Where a golden gondola waits
For the sweetheart of Louis of Bavaria.

Countess, give the swans your love,
for they are gods of an alluring land
and are made of perfume and ermine,
of white light, of silk, and of dreams.

Ruben Darío

Photo: Bruce Weber

Carmen Dell’Orefice by Norman Parkinson, 1980

Swaroski logo

Bathyllus in the swan dance, Aubrey Beardsley

Henri Matisse making a study of a swan in the Bois de Boulogne, c. 1930

Advertisement illustrated by René Gruau

Illustration to Garcia Márquez’s short story Bon Voyage Mr. President, by Josie Portillo

Still from The Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

Anna Pavlova

Still from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (Bill Condon, 2011)

Helena Bonham Carter

Laetita Casta. Photo: Mario Testino

Uma Thurman and Mikahil Baryshnikov as The Swan Prince. Photo: Arthur Elgort

Truman Capote styled his beautiful and wealthy female friends “swans”

Accompained by Lee Radziwill and Jane Haward

With socialité Babe Paley in Paris

Escorting CZ Guest

Capote and Gloria Vanderbilt Lumet arrive at New York’s 54th Street Theatre for the opening performance of Caligula., 16 Feb 1960

Gloria Vanderbilt ad campaigns

Ludwig II (Luchino Visconti, 1972). He was sometimes called the Swan King

Mirror, Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012)

Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby (Jack Clayton, 1974)

Leonardo di Caprio. Photo: Annie Leibovitz

Madonna. Photo: David LaChapelle

David Bowie

Ad campaign featured in Vogue, January 1997

Tory Burch swan-print wedge sandalias

Swan Evening dress by Charles James, 1951

Kate Moss wearing a Givenchy gown by Ricardo Tisci, Spring-Summer collection 2011

Giles Deacon Spring-Summer 2012 collection

Erin O’Connor wearing a gown by Alexander McQueen. Photo: Tim Walker

Eglingham Children and Swan on Beach, Tim Walker, 2002

Apr 2

Fashion Takes Its Bite of the Big Apple

Peter Som, United Bamboo, Imitation of Christ, Jeffrey Chow, Behnaz Sarafpour and Sebastian Pons

Actress and Imitation of Christ creative consultant Chloë Sevigny, with Elephant lead singer Diego Garcia, Hope Atherton and male model

Michael Kors, Carmen Kass and Mexican actor Diego Luna

Mark Badgley, James Mishka, Vera Wang, a group of rappers and models

Narciso Rodriguez, Oscar de la Renta, his daughther Eliza Reed Bolen, Karolina Kurkova, Liya Kebede, Eugenia Silva and other models

Proenza Schouler designers Lázaro Hernández (left) and Jack Mc Collough. In this picture they attempt to corral a llama, inspired by Inge Morath’s 1957 photograph in which the animal rides a cab through New York City.

Tommy Hilfiger and Karolina Kurkova

Zac Posen and his circle of friends

Angela Lindvall and Donna Karan; Isabelli Fontana and Kenneth Cole; Alek Wek and Diane von Furstenberg

Carolina Herrera, surrounded by models and the members of the Frick Museum’s gala benefit committee.

Ralph Lauren, Anouck Lepere, Isabelli Fontana and Filippa Hamilton

Marc Jacobs and his close friend Sofia Coppola

Calvin Klein creative director Francisco Costa, Natalia Vodianova, Luca Gadjus and Patrick Robinson (the-then designer of Perry Ellis)

Fashion Editorial pressed in Vogue USA, February 2004
Photographer: Mario Testino
Editor: Tonne Goodman

Mar 27

Down To a Fine Art

Renée Zellweger was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Beatrix Potter, creator of The Tale of Petter Rabbit, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, and a score of other children’s classics. I’m posting the pictures of a Vogue USA article written by Kennedy Fraser about the play based on the British illustrator.

Actress Renée Zellweger with a favorite Beatrix Potter subject. Alexander McQueen mauve woven cropped jacket with embroidered cream tulle cap-sleeved blouse and A-line skirt with sailor-style buttons. Manolo Blahnik spectator lace-up stilettos.

Zellweger in head-to-toe-jet-black McQueen. Philip Treacy for Alexander McQueen black bowler hat with floral appliqué, silk faille cropped jacket, tulle blouse, and organza ball skirt, all by Alexander McQueen. Badgley Mischka evening bag.

Zellweger bikes in an Oscar de la Renta silk-cotton-blend navy-and-red floral. print dress.

In an elegant nod to retro Hollywood high glamour, the actress wears an Alexander McQueen cream corseted bubble-hem dress with black lace overlay. Christian Louboutin champagne satin d’Orsay sandals.