The ever-brilliant Steven Meisel flips a switch and brings digital technology to the printed page. His latest editorial for Vogue Italia features a paper Twitter feed filled with supermodels in grainy cell phone-like pics. The layout matches the blue bird's site exactly and I had to resist the urge to mouse and click the mag pages.
Meisel's Twitterific layout that features the heavy hitters of modeling: Kristen, Freja, Linda, Hannah, Agy and others.
It's pretty phenomenal and fearless of a photographer who has made his major mark in print to embrace the quick-shot, usually low quality product that the Twitter tech offers. Meisel is a genius of the magazine medium, and even though the medium is dwindling, I'm sure he'll transition nicely. I'll be sad when all of the fashion photos I view glow rather than crinkle, but I'm open to change. I think it's inevitable, and so does Steven Meisel apparently.
Let's try and forget about Anna and her American Vogue empire for just a second. In terms of provocative, artistic achievement Italian Vogue is the true top of the fashion magazine heap. It has been for years. The cover of the Italian edition of the fashion bible has launched a thousand models' careers from Kristen McMenamy to Karen Elson. The partnership of the publication and photographer Steven Meisel has yielded shoots as innovative and notorious as Super Mods Go To Rehab, and the all black issue.
Meisel shots from Italian Vogue's all black issue, and their editorial that cheekily sent supermodels to rehab a la Lindsay and Britney.
While Meisel is the maestro in charge of shooting the superb content, none of the magazine's insanely good material would ever come to be without the pub's editor in cheif, Ms. Franca Sozzani.
Sozzani has a surfeit of laudable qualities. She's softer than Roitfeld and eons more daring than Wintour. Her humble demeanor and undeniable talent has won her legions of fashion insider fans and more praise than one can proffer in a reasonable lifetime. Sozzani's sartorial style is as admired as her editing skills. Her soft mane of blond waves compliments her striking baby blue eyes in a way that leaves her looking angelic and gentle. Yet, she dresses like a sharp Milanese woman; her choices leave her looking sophisticated and stunning. Here, watch her talk about transforming the magazine from a trade rag to an international phenomenon over the past 20 years:
Mr. Steven Meisel is unparalleled in the field of popular fashion photography. He is the industry's greatest living, working talent. He still uses his genius eye to pluck girls from relative obscurity and sky rocket them to fame via his covers of Italian Vogue (of which he has shot every single one since 1988), or his shoots for American Vogue. Just like the models say in the Cathy Horyn praised May Vogue profile of the super photographer, Meisel changed my relationship to fashion. In fact he opened my eyes to a whole new world. This exact shoot, for the pages of Vogue's December 1992 issue, was my first addictive dose of amazing fashion photography.
I was 10. I was so besotted with Kristin McMenamy's eyebrowless, chiseled face, and her dark hair, and pale skin that I clipped her picture from the glossy mag and taped it into my grade school diary (see first photo above!). There was something absolutely magic about it. I can even feel it now when I look at it. I think the idea that a woman could look that strange, that different, and be the main attraction in a Vogue portfolio just totally cracked my ten year old world view wide open. That's Meisel's magic; take the quirky beauty (or classic, whatever) and highlight her amazing features until she looks like an otherworldly creature who somehow alighted on earth through divine intervention. His talent for doing so is unmatched and has been for about 30 years. Kristen and the elusive Steven creature are both snapped by the photog in the new May Models issue of Vogue.
In his profile writer Jonathan Van Meter makes much of Steven's reclusive nature, and I'm thinking maybe I've discovered the reason behind it. Maybe Mr. Meisel is just hiding from this cameo he made in the 1983 film Portfolio, which has surfaced on the internets thanks to Youtube.
I must admit that I cannot say with confidence whether this video is the real deal or not, but I think it could be. Either way, don't worry Steven, your genius far outweighs your early penchant for frosty lipgloss. And anyways, it was the '80s! We as a nation were in love with Paula Abdul and puffy sleeves, thus all indiscretions are null and void. You can come out of hiding. Have a splashy museum retrospective, put out a giant book, or maybe dance down fifth avenue with Linda on your arm. Whatever you want. You can do no wrong.
The word iconic doesn't even cover photographer StevenMeisel's status in the fashion world. He's a legend; a slightly mysterious, super-talented legend. He's launched a thousand models' careers via his work, especially the covers he's shot for Italian Vogue. He's also been one of Madonna's most significant image makers and a consummate industry tastemaker. His style is varied but has a flair for the dramatic. His shoot for Vogue which filled an oh-so-chic rehab center with beautiful models was brilliant. Here's a taste of his past work and examples of why he's still going strong:
July has come and gone, but the beautiful Italian Vogue issue featuring all black models shot by Steven Meisel is still a hot item. Conde Nast had to reprint the issue to get more copies onto sold out newsstands. Publicity stunt or not, it is a gorgeous exercise in calling attention to an easily overlooked issue. I've always wondered what it does to people of color to be surrounded by images of what they are not. Well, here are stunning images of what they are: beautiful. The white models in nearly all of the magazine's ads look a little pale in comparison.
