On a summer day in June 1994, Kate Moss, then just 20, and British photographer Glen Luchford headed to New York for a reportage-style fashion shoot that unforgettably captured the energy and beauty of the young model, in love and on the brink. The energy and light of a city that has great fame and is about to change as well.
Dozens of images from this shooting, which took place over a day and used more than 200 film rolls, have now been published. roselandis out now from Idea Books and takes its name from the downtown ballroom that hosted the orchestras of jazz age greats Louis Armstrong and Count Basie.
Like this music, the images reflect the purity of another age; A day in New York, courage and beauty, sexiness and sex. And they celebrated the extraordinary moment when Moss, who turns 50 next month, entered the fashion world as the most influential supermodel of her generation.
“It’s a book about New York as much as it is about Kate,” says Luchford. Observer. “I saw taxi driver and I was really excited that the city still looked this way. But I noticed that New York was changing and I wanted to capture it. “So we took to the streets, went crazy, and this is what happened.”
Months ago, Luchford was paying Moss for a taxi back to Croydon. Now in New York, Moss’s famous Calvin Klein ads were running in Times Square. “New York can be fast-paced enough to inject someone’s career. He was sent to see Steven Meisel and Calvin and returned home on the Concorde. He succeeded [in] one week. “It was a pretty amazing and fun moment that we all participated in.”
However, the shooting was not successful at that time. Harper’s Bazaarat the time he had commissioned color illustrations under the editorship of Liz Tilberis; black and white, no hint of underwear or nipples could be posted. Stylist Sciascia Gambaccini says Luchford stuck to his guns. “I told him we had to shoot in color or they would kill us. But he said he had never shot in color in his life.”
The group, including makeup artist Kay Montana, set out around New York in a caravan with a friend of photographer Mario Sorrenti, who gave Moss impromptu boxing lessons. The caravan visited Times Square and the Hotel Chelsea, as well as alleyway sex shops in the area.
“This was gritty New York, the kind of city Glen wanted to explore and be excited about,” Gambaccini recalls. “And that was just when Kate was booming in the US. She had just started dating Johnny Depp and was beaming.” Gambaccini and Moss were in Mexico, and Moss had insisted on stopping in Dallas to buy a Stetson hat on the way home.
“I said OK. We stopped and bought a hat. I had a bag of clothes, sequined clothes, all mismatched. So I said, ‘If you wear the hat, we’ll shoot you with it; you wear a cowboy hat in New York.'” Then just following their pattern. They had to, and Gambaccini posted on Instagram: “dance to his rhythm.”
But there is something else in the pictures; the faces, images and attitudes of a New York that no longer exists. In his book Times Square Red, Times Square BlueLiterary critic Samuel R Delany described the changes and growing social disconnect in the community around Times Square, which was then about to be sanitized by mayor Rudy Giuliani with the help of Disney and other entertainment giants. “In the rush to adapt to the new, much of what was beautiful went along with much of what was shoddy, much of what was tasteful along with much of what was dilapidated, much of what was functional along with much of what was inefficient,” Delany wrote.
Luchford recalls Delany’s first foray into this field, which he described as “a complex of interlocking systems and subsystems.” “It captured my imagination,” he says. “I went to Times Square to see it. RobotPolice. A prostitute was sitting behind me performing oral sex, and to my right was a man smoking drugs. “I think the most shocking thing was that when RoboCop shot each one, everyone in the room started cheering and joining in the film, which is something you never see in England.”
The paintings Luchford and Gambaccini submitted were not well received. “I was excited, but I was immediately fired from the magazine and never reassigned,” Luchford recalls. “I was a little hurt, but now I understand a little bit… I was just taking pictures and not paying any attention to fashion.”
“The editors said, ‘Oh my God, her hair is dirty, it doesn’t look clean, and the pictures are black and white,'” Gambaccini recalls. “I was on my way to the hospital. And I said, ‘I don’t know. These are pictures, you can figure it out.'” The pictures were published, but they had color on them. “Then they became the epitome of cool ’90s fashion… and all hell broke loose because editors were wondering if they were going to hate it or not.” Or they didn’t know whether to love it or not.”
These photos also mark a turning point for Moss. There would no longer be just Kate, but supermodel Kate, and fashion entered what Luchford calls the industrial era of corporate brands. Friends needed to be more serious. “It was the last era of entertainment,” he says. “We were friends, laughing hysterically, drinking and smoking. They were all very unprofessional, quite amateurish, and that’s probably why they were great photos. Nobody was taking it seriously.”