The Eye Read online

  1969–2010

  ALEXander mcqueen

  Derrière-flashing “bumster” trousers; headpieces fashioned from antler horns; a plastic bodice filled with tapeworms—Alexander McQueen was a master of provocation, thrill and technical craft. Fueled by an obsession with beauty and the natural world, the London-born designer produced complex, emotionally intense collections that rallied against convention and were, above all else, outstandingly original.¶ The son of a taxi driver, McQueen left school at the age of 16 to pursue tailoring apprenticeships on London’s Savile Row. By the time he was 21, he had also worked for the theatrical costume company Angels & Berman and designer Romeo Gigli. Armed with skills in classical tailoring, ready-to-wear and costume, McQueen gained a place to study at London’s Central Saint Martins. His 10-piece graduate collection was bought in its entirety by stylist Isabella Blow, who instantly took McQueen under her wing and became one of his most valued confidantes.¶ For better or worse, McQueen’s eponymous brand pushed people’s buttons and whipped up a storm of media attention from the outset. The Autumn/Winter ’95 Highland Rape collection, for example, made a pointed statement about the ravaging of Scotland by England, and featured ripped tartan and torn tailoring to expose flesh. His Spring/Summer ’97 show, La Poupée, saw models shackled to angular silver frames while walking a water-soaked runway in homage to the surrealist artist Hans Bellmer.¶ In 1996, McQueen succeeded John Galliano to become the artistic director of Givenchy, while simultaneously showing collections under his own label. He parted ways with the French house in 2001, having felt stifled by its commercial constraints. From that moment on, his work became increasingly more elaborate and was staged accordingly. His final outing, Plato’s Atlantis, proved to be one of his most memorable. Streamed live to a global audience, it comprised wildly sculptural reptilian-print dresses, jackets and vertiginous platform shoes. McQueen was just 40 when he took his own life, but his uncompromising vision continues to set the standard for fashion today.*

  Savage Beauty, the designer’s first retrospective, was a sellout at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when it ran in 2011, drawing over 660,000 visitors. Its London showing at the V&A in 2015 was a third larger, marking a homecoming of sorts for the provocateur, who was born and raised in the city. Alexander McQueen was published by V&A Publishing to commemorate the record-setting five-month run in his hometown.

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  Although his name is synonymous with French fashion, Saint Laurent actually grew up in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, which was then a French colony. Often bullied for his sophisticated tastes, he moved to Paris at 17.

  1936–2008

  yves saint laurent

  Yves Saint Laurent shot to stardom in 1958 at the tender age of 21 with his debut collection for Christian Dior. Titled “Trapeze,” it offered a light and fluid silhouette, which flared from a fitted shoulder line, making the body seemingly disappear. It marked a significant aesthetic shift for the period and instantly distinguished the young Algerian-born designer from his late master, Dior.¶After serving compulsory military service during the war that France was then fighting in Algeria, Saint Laurent discovered that his role at Dior had been terminated. In a bid to forge his own path, he opened his haute couture house in partnership with his lover Pierre Bergé in 1962. From the outset, it was clear that Saint Laurent wanted to redefine the modern women’s wardrobe with his simple, elegant and informal clothes that moved with the times. For inspiration, he would plunder the archives of history, pop culture and art to create bold new fashion concepts, such as the sharp, color-block shift-dresses he crafted in tribute to the linear compositions of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian for Autumn/Winter ’65.¶ In 1966, Saint Laurent famously admitted that he had had enough of “dressing jaded billionaires” and introduced a more accessible ready-to-wear line, Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, stating: “Saint Laurent’s women are from harems, castles and even the suburbs; they are from the streets, subways, dime stores and stock exchanges.” This was the first French luxury house to adopt a more democratic outlook, and it proved to be a winning formula. In the years that followed, Saint Laurent continued to mastermind a number of style milestones. He gave women the safari jacket, the trouser suit (Le Smoking), the sheer shirt, the peacoat and the jumpsuit—easy-chic pieces that freed women from gender-stereotyped dressing. In another unprecedented move, Saint Laurent posed nude for the advertising campaign of his 1971 fragrance, Pour Homme, becoming the first designer ever to do so.¶ Saint Laurent showed his last ready-to-wear collection in 1998, but he carried on creating the brand’s haute couture line until 2002. He died just four years later following a period of ill health.*

  1895–1972

  CRISTÓBAL BALENCIAGA

  Cristóbal Balenciaga was the consummate couturier, lauded for the sculptural purity of his work. His ascent to high fashion began in his early teens, when he reputedly stopped a local aristocrat, the Marquesa de Casa Torres, in his hometown of Guetaria, Spain, one day to tell her how much he admired her Drecoll tailoring. In response, she gave him a length of expensive fabric and her outfit so he could copy it. Balenciaga recalled being petrified yet elated while crafting the pieces. The Marquesa went on to become his first patron and arranged his apprenticeship with a tailor in San Sebastián.¶ Balenciaga eventually opened ateliers in Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastián, before being forced to close due to the Spanish Civil War. Refusing to abandon his elite clientele—which by this point included the Spanish royal family—he decided to open an atelier in Paris, where he quickly accrued a loyal following of society types and a deluge of praise from the French press. By the 1950s, he was authoring such pioneering looks as the balloon jacket—an elegant sphere that encased the upper body—the high-waisted baby doll dress, the draped cocoon coat and the masterful balloon skirt, which resembled a graceful pouf of taffeta. Throughout the next decade, Balenciaga continued to fine-tune these fluid and shapely silhouettes with adventurous new fabrics such as silk gazar and heavy cloth.¶ Yet for all his success, the man behind the illustrious brand remained a royal enigma. He famously shunned attention, granting just one interview throughout his entire career and refusing to appear in public view during his highly anticipated runway shows. He was also known for discouraging wealthy clients such as Barbara Hutton and Countess von Bismarck from purchasing entire seasonal collections, and instead would advise them on what he felt best suited their individual needs. Balenciaga might not have had the personal profile of Coco Chanel or Christian Dior, but his life’s work speaks for itself.*

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  Born to a middle-class family in a small fishing village, Balenciaga was over 40 years old when he set up his first shop in Paris. Notably, at the height of the postwar couture industry, the house of Balenciaga was the most profitable of all the couturiers, even though competitors like Dior were six times larger in terms of employees.

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  After his father’s death, a young Balenciaga began sewing to help his seamstress mother and by the age of 12, had his own tailoring apprenticeship.

  reading list

  1. The 2017 book Loewe chronicles the brand’s 170-year history, including its 2013 rebranding led by creative director Jonathan Anderson.

  2. Dutch photographer Ferry van der Nat’s Polaroids in Mr capture male beauty at its purest.

  3. Pretty Much Everything offers a retrospective on the genre-bending careers of photography duo Inez and Vinoodh.

  4. Dior By Avedon includes never-before-seen images from the iconic fashion photographer who captured the brand’s essence for nearly 30 years.

  5. The Private World provides a detailed look into the eight homes shared by partners Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent.

  6. Koto Bolofo’s photography in La Maison offers an inside look into the world of Hermès.

  7. Polaroids is a collection of Robert Mapplethorpe’s instant photos, and reveals the photographer and provocateur’s early
vision.

  8. In Impossible Wardrobes, Tilda Swinton walks the runway, sporting the most notable clothing designed over the past two centuries.

  9. Rick Owens: Furniture intimately explores the lives of the designer and his wife, muse and collaborator, Michele Lamy.

  10. Thom Browne curated the 15th issue of A Magazine, collaborating with everyone from Baz Luhrmann to Martha Stewart

  11. In Yohji Yamamoto, experience the working approach of one of the industry’s great explorers.

  12. Undressed—by longtime Vogue contributor Mario Testino—examines the notion of disrobing in photography.

  PUBLISHING

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  Tonchi’s best career advice came from his mentor Alexandra Penney: Don’t be late, but don’t be too early.

  STEFANO TONCHI

  W magazine

  T Magazine

  Esquire

  Want to work for the editor in chief of W magazine, Stefano Tonchi? Then heed his advice: don’t agree with him. “I look for people with an opinion—I cannot stand people who agree,” he says. “Complicated people are the only people who are interesting,” he adds, laughing. “Usually if someone is easygoing, they’re probably also very mediocre. Have the courage of your convictions.”

  When Tonchi traded The New York Times style magazine T for W in 2010, he arrived armed with his own arsenal of ideas. “It was very focused on fashion and was really just about clothes,” he explains. Tonchi says he wanted the magazine to return to its roots: When it launched as the little sister of the fashion-industry trade journal Women’s Wear Daily in 1972, W was presented as a lifestyle title. “I wouldn’t say we were aiming for a general interest magazine necessarily, but we did want to present fashion in the larger context of culture,” he remembers. “What I brought to W was a more interesting connection with the worlds of cinema, pop culture and contemporary art, in a meaningful and relevant way —that’s what I added to this magazine that always had models on the cover.”

  He admits his own choices have often been controversial, like the decision to give Kim Kardashian her first cover in November 2010. The editor’s inaugural art issue featured a nude Kardashian and strategically placed words collaged by conceptual artist Barbara Kruger that stated: “It’s all about me, I mean you, I mean me.” “It was very meaningful because it was before the age of selfies,” Tonchi explains. “Discovery, diversity and disruption—these are the three main things that stand out when I think about my years here.” He continues, “Diversity because we opened up the magazine in a very inclusive way to minorities; discovery because we are very good at discovering people before anybody else—we’ve been very courageous that way—and disruption we try to do with issues like our transgender one. We’re not afraid, you know?”

  Curiosity is an underappreciated quality.

  In 2009, The New York Times launched its first country-specific edition of T magazine with T Qatar. Exploring topics like fashion, beauty and travel in a bilingual format (Arabic and English), the Middle East edition is currently the largest circulated and most widely read luxury lifestyle magazine in the country.

  Being bold and taking risks are two traits bequeathed by his mentor, the late editor of Vogue Italia, Franca Sozzani. “Franca was really a big, big influence,” he says fondly. Another influential woman in his life is the artist, journalist and author Alexandra Penney, whom Tonchi worked alongside at Self magazine. “Alexandra has been a mentor to me for more than 20 years. Her advice was always to follow your instincts, be true to your inspirations and make the right compromises,” he recalls. He’s also indebted to S.I. Newhouse, who hired him at W. “Mr. Newhouse was an incredible mentor, a very important person in my life. He was incredibly generous and incredibly supportive,” he says.

  One of Tonchi’s favorite aspects of his job is collaborating with people from different backgrounds and disciplines.† “It’s always interesting to see how somebody reacts out of their comfort zone,” he explains, noting that curiosity is one of the traits he admires most. “Curiosity is an underappreciated quality,” he explains. “Some people think it can be destructive, but I think it’s really the driving force—it’s what pushes you to wake up, get up and go out, to see more. That’s very important. That’s what I look for.”

  Tonchi says his own curiosity is piqued primarily by music and contemporary art. “Throughout the ’80s music was really my strongest inspiration, and I think that is still true today,” he says. “Music is how we channel ideas of style and fashion—think of Rihanna, or Madonna, or David Bowie. That’s how fashion and style gets communicated in a large way, so music is very important.” He adds that artists have inspired him, too. “I grew up surrounded by art—when you think about Florence, art really is everywhere. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true,” he laughs. “But really, I discovered my love of contemporary art through my personal relationship with my husband,” he says of his partner, the art dealer David Maupin. “It became a common interest of ours and also a social interest; contemporary artists are a part of the social texture of society today.”‡

  Perhaps it is surprising then to discover that Tonchi’s W office at One World Trade Center is not wallpapered with floor-to-ceiling art, until you realize that the rooms are flanked by wall-to-wall windows. “It’s a beautiful view,” he says. “I can see the Statue of Liberty and all the way to New Jersey and beyond, but because of the glass, we can’t have anything on the walls.” Instead, he plasters every other inch with what you might expect: books and magazines. “I don’t like bookshelves anyway,” he says. “I like to be surrounded by books and magazines at home, too, in piles, on the floor, hundreds and hundreds of them.”

  Tonchi says it’s a passion that started when he was young. The first publication he worked on was a high school project he started with two friends: Apache. “We were very inspired by British magazines like The Face and i-D and American publications like Interview magazine. Those were our reference points,” he remembers.

  David Maupin is one half of the iconic New York gallery Lehmann Maupin, which has been influential in advancing the careers of artists like Juergen Teller and Liu Wei. The art dealer met Tonchi while studying in Florence and the couple has twin daughters, Isabella and Maura, both of whom speak Italian.

  His entry into the fashion industry came later with a job at Pitti Immagine in Florence. “I worked for them in different capacities. I scouted for them, I did press and at one point, I was part of a branch called Pitti Trend, responsible for discovering people,” he recalls. During this time he also co-founded a fashion magazine called Westuff, serving as editor and art director on what would later become Emporio Armani magazine. “It was primarily modeled after Interview,” he says, laughing. Similar to its American counterpart, it was a large-format magazine with a lot of music content. “We never did fashion in a literal way; we weren’t trying to do Vogue,” he explains. From there, he moved to Milan in 1987 to pursue what he describes as “a more classical kind of career” at Condé Nast as editor and, later, fashion director of L’uomo Vogue.

  Tonchi moved to New York in 1994 to take up the position of creative director at Self magazine for two years, then held the same title at J. Crew from 1996 to 1998. Next, he spent five years as the fashion creative director at Esquire, exiting for a role as style editor at The New York Times Magazine, where he would create and launch T in 2004. The publication was awarded Magazine of the Year by the Society of Publication Designers in 2008.

  “I went in a different direction, but I always kept up my relationship with Pitti Immagine,” he says, speaking of the numerous exhibitions and book collaborations over the years. So what makes an image stand out for a man who looks for the contrarians in life? “I think it’s one that goes a little bit beyond the beauty of the image,” he says. “It should open up conversation.” He adds, “Take the photography of, say, Juergen Teller. His pictures are admittedly not th
e most beautiful, but they make you think. I like images that have a narrative. They should offer you a starting point, not a closing point.” *

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  Tonchi rejects the notion of any sort of uniform in his own life. He explored the subject in Uniform: Order and Disorder, a book he co-edited and published in conjunction with an exhibit at MoMA PS1.

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  In 2016, for the first time since joining Vogue in 1988, Coddington was permitted to work on projects outside the iconic magazine.

  GRACE CODDINGTON

  Vogue

  “Rules are made to be broken,” says Grace Coddington, the auspicious creative director at large of American Vogue. The risk taker has been challenging fashion norms since the 1960s; she was the model who inspired Vidal Sassoon’s iconic five-point haircut. In 1975, as the British Vogue fashion editor, she led the magazine’s first journey to the former USSR with a groundbreaking editorial that cast Jerry Hall as a statuesque lady in red, conquering soviet monuments and posing with the communist flag. The stunt was a gamble, and Coddington and her team were forced to smuggle the film out of the country or face the consequences.