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Contents
Acknowledgements 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Fashion’s Front Line 12 The Culture of Runway Preparing for Battle 31 Becoming a Runway Photographer Capturing the Runway 41 The Skills and Scrums of Runway Photography Runway Coups 59 Game-Changing Collections Fashion Factions 71 Designer Battle Lines Full-Scale Assault on the Senses 103 Spectacular Show Productions The New Model Army 119 Walking the Walk Blazing Style, Dynamite Charisma 141 Front Row and Beyond Inside the Bunker 156 Magic and Mayhem Backstage Surprise Ambush 169 The Unexpected and Unscheduled March of Technology 177 Changing Tech from Production to Dissemination Postscript 185 Reflections on Fashion’s Battlefield Biographies 190 Index 192 CONTENTS 7
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CHAPTER 1
FASHION’S FRONT LINE THE CULTURE OF RUNWAY
Parallel universe: no one ever forgets their first fashion show. Left, a pregnant Debbi Mason, former British Elle Fashion Director modeling for Comme des Garçons, S/S 1992. Right, Vivienne Westwood, Hobos collection modeled by Sara Stockbridge, S/S 1983.
Y
ou never forget your first big runway show. For me, it was 1983, Paris, Vivienne Westwood. I was a fresh fashion student, seventeen, triumphant at having dodged security guards to claim a precious space in the tent. I was here. I was in. I did it again with Montana where I actually managed to occupy a seat, and later, with more restrained fervor (and considerably fewer kudos), I waltzed into Jean-Charles de Castlebajac. Although I remember very little about the clothes, this was a rite of passage. I recall the physical, emotional, sensationrich experience of finding myself in the middle of this parallel universe, not unlike my first visit to a nightclub. Pounding with music and strident with style, this was totally intoxicating. I was in. Not just physically in the tents of Paris’s Louvre courtyard but in fashion, right on the front line, where it was all happening. In years to come as a fashion writer and editor (Elle, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times), I legitimately and professionally frequented this world. As a member of the press, I had my own handwritten invitations and a seat with a good view. I was able to collect my free bottles of perfume and linger over the running order, double-checking fabrics and precise shades of brown. One senior member of the press had a standard question with which she tested all newcomers. “Is that faggoting?” she asked me, eyes narrowed, as some elaborate lacework sauntered down the runway. “Definitely,” I replied with no idea what she was talking about. Every runway regular has his or her own archive of runway hits. It might be a collection that resonated personally and aesthetically. For British Elle’s former fashion director, Debbi Mason, it was Romeo Gigli. She was told by colleague Hamish Bowles that “being at a Gigli show is like being inside your head.” Suzy Menkes had a candid adoration of Christian Lacroix and wore his statement jewelry pieces on her collars. Alongside personal favorites, a show might also make a top five list for its memorable production attributes. Whether low-fi and gritty like
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Martin Margiela’s dour presentation in a dark, disused post office in Paris’s outskirts or the glossy extravaganzas of Versace or Chanel, some shows are simply unforgettable. But perhaps, the mother of all fashion moments are those when a fashion editor can almost feel the crackle of change in the air, hear the creak of the pendulum as fashion starts to shift. Former Daily Telegraph fashion editor Kathryn Samuel recalls sitting in the dilapidated Bluebird Garage on the Kings Road surveying, with some bewilderment,
models wearing “Clingfilm nappies” by a then unknown designer named Alexander McQueen. “Why are you here?” she asked Constance White, an American journalist sitting next to her. “I want to be here when the next John Galliano is discovered” was the response. This book celebrates three decades of runway shows through the photographic record of Niall McInerney, who covered this rich and colorful field in London, Paris, Milan, and New York. It’s a book that tells the story not
Another day at the office: the planning of fashion editorial, networking with colleagues, and hunting out the new is the business behind the glamour. Fashion editors, photographers, and stylists take their seats in Paris, Milan, London, and New York alongside dignitaries, obsessives, and celebrities.
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From left to right: Alexander Schulman and Lucinda Chambers, Grace Coddington; Andre Leon Talley, Anna Wintour, Liz Tilberus, Bruce Weber, Denise Dubois, and the Chambre Syndicale; bottom left, Stephen Jones and Polly Mellen; center, Kathryn Samuel in blue jacket.
of changing hemlines and proportions—that tale has been told countless times before—but of the runway as a culture and construct. It examines the perspectives and eyewitness accounts of those who have encountered it firsthand. Fashion is change, and that change is reflected not only in the evolution of seasonally paraded cut, color, and cloth but also in the way these garments are packaged, presented, and recorded. In the thirty years Niall McInerney spent inveigling his way into shows, clamoring
over runways, or standing in one position for hours at a time, he has witnessed enormous change. He has seen changes in the scale of the production and certain players, be they capital cities or individual designers, public relations firms, or press organizations. When he started, London was just hatching; by the time he finished, British superstars were being transplanted into the leading French houses of Dior and Givenchy where, eventually, McQueen and Galliano imploded under the pressures of le machine. FASHION’S FRONT LINE 15
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CAPTURING THE RUNWAY 51
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RUNWAY SHOW-STOPPERS All fashion editors want a story. All runway photographers want a picture. Using all means at their disposal, clever fashion designers Sizzling in Milano, main picture, Dolce & Gabanna. This memorable collection from S/S 1992 saw the supermodels stepping out en force in black suspenders and basques. Top left, Rifat Ozbek gave fashion his New Age Collection for S/S 1990, striking for the fact that it was presented in one color only – optimistic white and the unusual casting of a “New Age” family; Below, Katherine Hamnett utilized the runway as a political platform with her agitator slogan T-shirts in F/W 1984–85. 98 FASHION’S FRONT LINE
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FASHION FACTIONS 99
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FULL-SCALE ASSAULT ON THE SENSES 107
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140 FASHION’S FRONT LINE
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CHAPTER 8
BLAZING STYLE, DYNAMITE CHARISMA FRONT ROW AND BEYOND
I
f you want to understand what selfinvention is, you just have to look at a fashion show audience. No one is born with a bob. It is something that is acquired and maintained. No one emerges from the womb in brocade trousers and a bow tie. This is a look, carefully considered and skillfully styled. The fashion audience consists of many individuals who have rebuilt themselves out of ordinary life according to the laws of fashion and style. Whatever estate they came from, be it working class, country, or baronial, here everyone is special, and everyone belongs. As part of a unique traveling community that is both inclusive and exclusive, how you dress here really matters. It’s not where you came from; it’s what you’re wearing. On one level, fashion shows are all about the business and represent the glamorous apex of a powerful industry. Fashion’s relationship with the media is vital for the circulation of messages and the manufacture of desire. This is what stimulates consumption and keeps the machine thrumming. On a more human level, a show is an event—a good-looking, seductive occasion that demands an appropriate dress
Watching him, watching them: previous pages, Bill Cunningham, the original street style photographer, is a firm fixture of international runway shows. McInerney catches him at work outside the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Serendipitous style: left, American Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Suzy Menkes, then fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune were snapped in identical Versace shirts. Below, British fashion patron and style diva, Isabella Blow would bring the party with her in outfits that framed her English eccentricity. Right, fashion editor Hilary Alexander hunting out the news and the new BLAZING STYLE, DYNAMITE CHARISMA 141
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CHAPTER 10
SURPRISE AMBUSH THE UNEXPECTED AND UNSCHEDULED
A
wobble, a twist, and a tumble added up to one of runway photography’s most iconic moments. When Naomi Campbell was defeated by her nine-inch heel, five-inch platform Vivienne Westwood purple leather ghille shoes* at the S/S 1993 collection in Paris’s Le Circle Republicaine on March 17, she couldn’t have known it would go down in fashion history. “It put Naomi Campbell, Vivienne Westwood and Paris on a completely different footing,” says Sam McKnight, who was watching backstage with Yasmin Le Bon. A photograph that made the national news, it has appeared regularly ever since to illustrate everything from the folly of fashion to an exhibition of footwear. Campbell has talked about the episode on chat shows on both sides of the Atlantic (David Letterman and Jonathan Ross), disclosing that the fall led to lucrative commercial campaigns for an insurance company and a well-known chocolate brand.
Capture it: Naomi’s tumble has become an iconic image of fashion runway and, as Vivienne Westwood’s house photographer at the time, Niall McInerney was one of the few runway photographers to capture it.
The mishap also paid dividends for the photographer: “It’s the picture that made me rich,” says Niall McInerney, who was remunerated every time it was printed in the media. As the house photographer at Vivienne Westwood, Niall McInerney was one of the few to capture this image. Because the space was relatively small, there were two performances to accommodate numbers, and most of the photographers had been at the first. “It was just luck that I was there,” reflects McInerney. Arguably, luck is when talent meets opportunity. An incident such as this requires instant reflexes, a quick fire response no different than that of a news photographer. For this image to have come about, the photographer had to be there in position with camera poised. Ready to frame, compose, and balance the subject, a fast aesthetic and technical judgment was required. McInerney reflects, “Sometimes, you have a feeling a photograph will be good
This super-elevated shoe has been around since 220 BC, when Greek actors wore them on stage; the more important players wore higher platforms to make them more visible. The 14th century saw them renamed chopines and worn by Italian nobility.
*
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UNCORRECTED ADVANCE PROOF ‘I’m so happy that Niall is doing a book, a chance I hope for people to see pieces from my fashions starting from the beginning and he does capture the excitement. He has always been generous in giving me copies of his photos and with this we built our archive. Lots of love, Vivienne’ Vivienne Westwood
‘Niall McInerney’s images burst from the page in this fashion feast matched by Nilgin Yusuf’s fascinating A visual journey through three decades of Interviewees include: insights into the colourful culture of an evolving catwalk. Conveying its excitement, glamour and creativity, photographing runway shows in Paris, Milan, Designer Antony Price; model agent Sarah this is a must-have for fashion-lovers and aficionados ... this book will be my fashion bible from now on!’ London and New York, Fashion’s Front Line Doukas; PR and lifestyle guru Lynne Felicity Green OBE, fashion journalist and former newspaper executive showcases dazzling images taken by long-serving Franks; hair stylist Sam McKnight; director catwalk photographer Niall McInerney, whose of photography Simon Chaudoir; editors life’s work has been painstakingly preserved and and fashion commentators Caryn Franklin, made available through Bloomsbury Publishing’s Debbi Mason, Kathryn Samuel, Elizabeth Fashion Photography Archive. Giving readers the Walker, Brenda Polan and Iain R. Webb; complete picture, the book captures many rare photographers Andrew Lamb, Niall McInerney, and never-before-seen images of iconic moments Chris Moore, Anthea Simms and Mitchell on the runway as well as famous faces on the front Sams; set designer and art director Simon row and the buzzing atmosphere backstage. With Costin; fashion consultant and former show commentary from the photographer, as well as producer Mikel Rosen; show producer John interviews with top international fashion insiders, Walford; and digital entrepreneur Jonathan Fashion’s Front Line is a unique window onto the Chippindale. world of late 20th-century fashion. As good as a front row ticket, this book will be a must-have for fashion lovers. November 2015 UK December 2015 US Hardback: 9781472596598 US Publicity Contact: UK/ROW Publicity Contact: 192 pages / 200 colour illus Heather Brown Dora Coventry 9 781472 596598 $40.00 / £25.00 Heather.Brown@bloomsbury.com Dora.Coventry@bloomsbury.com www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury Visual Arts 212-419-5312 +44 207 631 5927 www.bloomsbury.com