The Bite Magazine Issue 17

Images courtesy of Taschen Karen Alexandra, Christy Turlington, Estelle Lefébure, Tatjana Patitz and Rachel Williams, all dressed in white shirts with hardly any make-up, giggling together on the beach. “When I came back with the images, they [Liberman and Mirabella] just looked at them and put them in a drawer after asking me, ‘What are we supposed to do with THIS?’” Mirabella’s successor Anna Wintour would discover the rejected images when she took over in July 1988 but they had already been picked up by then editor-in-chief Liz Tiberis at British Vogue who published them in the October issue. The white shirt image would later be named the most impor- tant image of the 1980s in the book 100 Years of Vogue and it also made Wintour aware that things had to change at Amer- ican Vogue . Tired of the way that women were photographed in the ‘80s, Lindbergh desired to capture them in a com- pletely different way. He stated, “I wanted to move away from the rather formal, quite perfectly styled woman who was very artificial. I was more concerned about a more, outspoken, adventurous woman in control of her life and not too concerned about her social status or emancipated by mas- culine protection. My ideal was always the young women I met in art school, very independent and who could speak for themselves. The supermod- els represented this change. It explains why they dominated the visual world for many years.” Not only did singer George Michael book the five models that Lindbergh shot for the 1990 cover of Vogue , but the late fashion designer Gianni Versace also booked them for the finale of his Fall 1991 fashion show, having them strut down the catwalk singing along to George Michael’s song. The rest of the chapter chronicles Lind- bergh’s journey from conceptual artist to renowned photographer, working with the likes of Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Hans Feurer, and Paolo Roversi (an up-and-coming photographer at that time too) with whom he formed a life- long friendship. Lindbergh’s iconic photography would lead him to work with established fashion designers such as Yves Saint Laurent who in 1966 brought the concept of modern ready-to-wear with his Rive Gauche line, and also new gen- eration fashion designers like Giorgio Armani, Thierry Mugler, Kenzo and Claude Montana. The chapter goes on to explain the movements of twenty-five fashion designers who went from one fashion house to the other, such as Alber Elbaz, Tom Ford, Stefano Pilati and Hedi Slimane whose common factor was designing the Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche line from 1998 to 2012 collectively. Lindbergh also witnessed through his lens the evolution of design- ers’ collections from ready-to-wear to haute couture by Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Giorgio Armani and Dolce & Gabbana. All those who worked with Lindbergh, whether they are designers, magazine editors or celebrities, described the work of Peter Lindbergh as genius in their own special way. The remaining pages show a series of black and white images captured by the iconic photographer which are sectioned into four categories bite book review