Fashion’s Mike Nichols Moment

WORKING GIRL (1988)

“Tess, this is business.” Georgina Chapman as Sigourney Weaver and Keren Craig as Melanie Griffith.

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (1966)

“You’re not man enough. You haven’t the guts” Winona Ryder’s Elizabeth Taylor with Marc Jacobs’s Richard Burton

THE GRADUATE (1967)

“Mrs. Robinson, you’re… trying to seduce me”. Prabal Gurung’s Dustin Hoffman with Diane von Furstenberg’s Anne Bancroft

Photos by Mark Seliger. Harper’s Bazaar, February, 2011

Nov 3

Picked Flowers From Neighbor’s Yard

Acetate mechanical for 82-inch Flowers, 1964. Ink on acetate, handwritten ink on Bristol board, overall

Photo of hibiscus flowers by Modern Photography executive editor Patricia Caulfield, published in that magazine in 1964 where it was found and used by Andy Warhol

Warhol in a field of black-eyed Susans with an early Flowers canvas, Queens, New York, 1964. Photo: John William Kennedy

Warhol with his assistants Philip Fagan (left), and poet Gerard Malanga (right). At the Factory, 231 East 47th Street, New York, 1964.

Warhol working on a large Flower painting at the Factory, New York City, March 1965.

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964, acrylic and silkscreen on linen, 24 x 24 in. each (16 works shown).

At the 1964 New York World’s Art Fair, the architect Phillip Johnson commissioned 10 artists to make large-scale works to adorn the facade of the State Pavilion—a monument Johnson had designed as a celebration of human advancement. Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Robert Rauschenberg were among the Pop artists selected. Andy Warhol was another contributor. However, Warhol’s piece Thirteen Most Wanted Men, which depicted silkscreened mug shots of real criminals, was censored—covered with silver paint, and never seen by the public.

Was this event the catalyst for Warhol’s transition from felons to florals? The flower, a symbol of fragility and purity, is antithetical to the blunt violence associated with the criminal. The art historian Michael Lobel eloquently explores this collision of themes in Warhol’s work in his essay Andy Warhol Flowers: a fitting accompaniment to the comprehensive survey of Warhols’ Flowers paintings.

Warhol’s flower paintings, created between 1964 and 1965, were initially inspired by a photograph of several hibiscus flowers taken by Patricia Caulfield, then the executive editor of Modern Photography magazine. The foldout article depicted how a new Kodak home color processing system could manipulate color. Warhol appropriated the image without permission, cropped, copied, enhanced the contrast, and eventually settled on a square format that meant the paintings could be viewed from any orientation. Caulfield, by-the-way, sued Warhol for copyright infringement and it was settled out of court. We get to see Caulfield’s original photograph that was printed in Modern Photography magazine along with many of Warhol’s variations on it in paint, silkscreen and collage on a wide range of materials. A collection of these paintings was the focus of Warhol’s first show at the prestigious Leo Castelli Gallery in late 1964, and signaled his ascension into the legitimized art world.

Dress designed by Halston, 1972

Diane Von Fürstenberg Spring Summer 2012 collection

Jul 8

After a Photograph

Joan Collins

Truman Capote

Anjelica Huston

Michael Jackson

Eddie Sedwick

Madonna

“Divine”

Cher

Grace Jones

Miguel Bosé

Isabella Rossellini

Maria Schiano

Debbie Harry

Diane von Fürstenberg

David Bowie

Mick Jagger

For 15 years, beginning in 1972, Richard Bernstein’s signature artwork graced the monthly covers of Interview magazine, that seminal celebrity chronicle of the social, fashion and art crowd that had met in Andy Warhol’s Factory and the back room of Max’s Kansas City in the 60′s and catalyzed in the sybaritic heat of Studio 54 in the late 70′s.

Using an airbrush, pencil and pastel on photographic portraits, Bernstein made the up-and-coming celebrities of the era-Sylvester Stallone, Calvin Klein, Madonna, even wholesome Mary Tyler Moore-look as sleek and sexy as our nostalgized memories of that era. “Things are stronger, faster and further,” Paloma Picasso wrote of Bernstein’s oeuvre in a published collection of his work, Megastar . “Superstars became Megastars.”

But though Bernstein’s work helped put many a celebrity into the hot zone, he never seemed to be able to make the same conversion in terms of his own career. “I never felt that Richard got the full recognition for his contribution to the art world,” said Steve Newman, director of still photography at 20th Century Fox studios. “He never got the representation or put himself out there enough to earn the kind of reputation that other contemporaries of his did. I still think it’s a great shame.”

Some who knew Bernstein said he never broke out because his work, which was clearly influenced by Warhol’s art, was too often confused with the Pope of Pop’s work, and that Warhol, who enjoyed autographing the covers of fans’ copies of Interview , didn’t work too hard to disabuse them of that notion.

Other friends said that Bernstein was too nice and not ambitious enough, and that he was often taken advantage of by those who were in a position to help him.

With his dark, wavy hair, good looks and unfussy fashion sense-black jeans, leather jackets-Bernstein attracted members of both sexes, and though he was gay, he had at least one significant relationship with a woman, the actress and photographer Berry Berenson.

On Oct. 18, Bernstein’s body was found on the other side of that door, in his high-ceilinged studio apartment that once was part of the Chelsea Hotel’s grand ballroom. According to friends, a note found in his apartment that said simply “Do not resuscitate” left some with the suspicion that he had taken his own life.

May 12

Some Stylish Mothers

Portrait of Carolina Herrera’s daughters and granchildren by Annie Leibovitz.

Carolina Herrera surrounded by her daughters. From Left to right: Patricia, Carolina Jr., Ana Luisa and Mercedes

Colombian fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi and Sofía

Donna Karan and Gaby Karan de Felice

Elsa Schiaparelli and her daughter Countess Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor (Gogo) in St. Moritz, 1934. Gogo Schiaparelli, married shipping executive Robert L. Berenson. Their children were model Marisa Berenson and photographer Berry Berenson.

Sonia and Nathalie Rykiel in a photo editorial by Jason Schmidt featured in Harper’s Bazaar. The photograph is inspired by the movie Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988)

Joseph Corré, son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, is the founder of lingerie brand Agent Provocateur

Diane von Fürstenberg and Prince Alexander von Fürstenberg

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.