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Juergen Teller, collaborations (part 2)

(ph. Johnnie Shand Kydd)

Juergen Teller and Vivienne Westwood have known each other about 16, 18 years. The last six years, Juergen Teller has been doing her advertising campaign, so he’s been dealing with the dress code of her fashion a lot. Teller says he’s mesmerized by who she is, what she stands for. He admires her and the way she looks, her white skin, red hair and the way she is so uninhibited.

Vivienne Westwood by Juergen Teller

Vivienne Westwood ad campaigns by Juergen Teller

vivienne westwood

Juergen Teller was curious to know what Vivienne Westwood looked like naked and asked her if he could photograph her naked. Immediately she said: “Yes, come next Sunday”. Whenever Teller is super-nervous, he takes his wife Sadie (Coles, contemporary art dealer) with him and this time their son Ed came along. he was about 4 and a half at the time.

Andreas (Kronthaler, Vivienne’s husband) and Vivienne made a lovely early dinner and after she said: “Are we going to do this or not?”, because Teller was too shy to make that step. She got undressed and Ed came in and said: “What’s going on there? Why is Vivienne naked?’. Teller answered: “Because I’m interested to see what she looks like and I want to photograph her and she looks really beautiful I think.” And Ed went back to playing with his PlayStation.

This was the atmosphere in which the photo shoot took place.

When Juergen Teller took these pictures at the designer’s home in Battersea in south London in 2009, Vivienne Westwood was 68. Inevitably, her body lacked supple youthfulness. But so what? But in her coquettish, self-assured and letting-it-all-hang-out relaxed, she looked magnificent: sexy and with a dazzlingly impressive appearance, like a playful queen in the private apartment of a Baroque palace. The photographs are wonderfully harmonious, too – constructed around a palette of red, golden-yellow, beige, cream, orange, white and pale pink.

(The Vivienne Westwood nude pictures are part of Juergen Teller’s “Woo” Exhibit at ICA in London)

Woo, Exhibition

Considered one of the most important photographers of his generation, Juergen Teller is one of a few artists who has been able to operate successfully both in the art world and the world of commercial photography. The exhibition provides a seamless journey through his landmark fashion and commercial photography from the 90s, presenting classic images of celebrities such as Lily Cole, Kurt Cobain and Vivienne Westwood, as well as more recent landscapes and family portraits.

Teller’s provocative interventions in celebrity portraiture subvert the conventional relationship of the artist and model. Whatever the setting, all his subjects collaborate in a way that allows for the most surprising poses and emotional intensity. Driven by a desire to tell a story in every picture he takes, Teller has shaped his own distinct and instantly recognisable style which combines humour, self-mockery and an emotional honesty.

Kate Moss Gloucestershire

Juergen Teller, Go-Sees

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In 1999, Juergen Teller had another stroke of genius! After becoming successful, model agencies started calling, asking if they could send over models for a go-see (casting), which means, new models come to show their portfolio and hand over a setcard. At first he didn’t know what to do with these requests, but then he turned the procedure around and called the agencies to send girls and photographed them all at the entrance to his studio. Juergen Teller, Go-Sees became a photographic log of every model that had visited his studio May 1998 and 1999. The hundreds of portraits made for an artistic concept exploring identity. The book is an uncompromising journal of the uncharted world that lies behind the outward glamour of the fashion industry. These portraits of models, most of whom are unknown, are sometimes deeply moving.

go-sees

The Missoni family

“We wanted the campaign to be a snapshot of an evening with the Missoni family,” said creative director Angela Missoni, “I always think that our product has some extra value – an artisanal, traditional value – and I know that people often collect the pieces and keep them for a long time. The product is real so I wanted to show it in a real context – and that is difficult to do with traditional fashion imagery.”

The campaign was shot at the home of Missoni founders Ottavio (or Tai) and Rosita Missoni in Sumirago, in Italy’s Lombardy region and starred three generations of Missonis: the founders themselves, their daughter Angela and son Vittorio and grandchildren Margherita, Francesco, Theresa, Marco, Ottavio Jnr and Giacomo, all wearing pieces from the Missoni ready-to-wear collection.

“It was very relaxed, we had a lot of fun,” Missoni laughed. “Juergen had only one assistant so there was no big crew – it was just us and him. We did have to make some samples up specially for the shoot – because my son and my nephews are huge compared to catwalk boys – but apart from that it wasn’t a big effort. At half past midnight my father said ‘Are you planning on staying much longer?’ but it was definitely a good day.”

Céline , autumn/winter 2012

Recently Daria Werbowy returned as the face of Céline for a/w 2012. Daria cut her hair and dyed her eyebrows a lighter color. Posing without makeup and unstyled hair, she wears the Parisian label’s clean-cut tailoring and signature oversized coats in unique shades for a mixture of candid shots which are interspersed with some accessory close-ups and some quirky snaps of pink flamingos.

Juergen Teller is one of the most influencial fashion photographers of his generation

(Juergen Teller & his wife Sadie Coles)

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Categories inspiration

Juergen Teller, collaborations (part 1)

17 Feb

Photographer Juergen Teller was born 1964 in Germany, where he studied photography for two years. To avoid military national service he learned English and moved to London in 1986 (age 22). Here he started working for record companies and photographs record covers. Later he got commissioned by magazines to make feature portraits. He meets stylist Venetia Scott and together with her, he started to photograph fashion stories for magazines like Face, i-D and Vogue Homme International.

(Venetia Scott & Lola, daughter of Juergen & Venetia. Years later Marc Jacobs named his perfume after daughter Lola)

Juergen teller’s early fashion series were very much influenced by Venetia Scott’s styling, which wasn’t negative ofcourse… Later styling will still be an important element of Teller’s pictures, but it’s more blending in with the pictures, not dictating them….

The Magic Show

Face, December 1994

Juergen Teller by Juergen Teller

In 1996 Taschen published the book Juergen Teller. On the cover, and inside, pictures of Annie Morton and a wide range collection of Teller’s work from 1990 till 1996.

The pictures of Kristen McMenamy, made for the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, were considered shocking to a lot of people. Teller was accused of ruining her career ( the pictures show bruises and a scar on her body), but Kristen loved and still loves to work with him.

kristen mcmenamy1996

Pictures of Juergen Teller, behind the scene of Helmut Lang fashion shows, like the ones from Kirsten Owen. Helmut Lang liked them so much, he decided to use them for his next ad campaign and a collaboration, which stayed on for many years, was born. Teller recently told he fell completely in love with Kirsten Owen the first time he saw her in a hotel bar in Milan, where she walked in with Peter Lindbergh (but Teller was with Venetia Scott a the time). Many years later, backstage at another Helmut Lang fashion show, Teller finally had the courage to tell Kirsten he was in love with her, she answered: “So was I”.

A fashion story with Linda Evangelista for Interview magazine 1993, photographed in Central Park showed a pure side of her, while most magazines and other photographers worked with Linda because she was a incredible chameleon.

Juergen Teller had already met and photographed Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain in 1991 for Details and got commissioned by i-D to also photograph Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love. He flew to Seattle and was able to capture her outgoing (read outrageous) personality…

Björk & son, in Iceland for Face (1993) was the beginning of a still going on working relationship between Björk and Juergen Teller. Teller likes longterm creative relationships with the people who inspire him, like Kristen McMenamy, Kate Moss, Helmut Lang and Marc Jacobs.This picture became quiet iconic for Björk.

About the way he works:

‘I can achieve something in a very quick moment, but it does get very personal. I think I open a lot too. I don’t come around as the archetype fashion photographer dude, playing the big guy with the horde of assistants. I let them know I’m also nervous and insecure. Them I let them relax. The way I photograph is quite hypnotizing. I found a way to hide my insecurity – I have two cameras and I photograph like this [mimes cameras in each hand moving hypnotically] and this helps me to figure out what I should do, where they should go…it’s so intense, so psychologically draining, it’s like my brain works on overdrive in those minutes -or hours or days- I’m photographing.

Uno Stille

Kate Moss by Juergen Teller for Vogue Italia October 1995, Styling Venetia Scott

The last picture of the book Juergen Teller I show, is one for Vogue Hommes International , 1992. This picture always stayed with me, I don’t know why. Maybe because I have a soft spot for (miniature) boats? It just makes me happily emotional….

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/3822883107/sr=/qid=/ref=olp_tab_collectible?ie=UTF8&colid=&coliid=&condition=collectible&me=&qid=&seller=&sr=

Working with Marc Jacobs

Juergen Teller’s work with Marc Jacobs, started 14 years ago. Venetia Scott turned down the work with Marc Jacobs, because she was about to give birth to the couples child, but CEO Robert Duffy and Marc Jacobs were persisting. They was flew over to reconsider the offer and Duffy and Jacobs were very understanding and clearly Venetia Scott couldn’t say no.

Marc Jacobs asked Juergen Teller if he was interested in photographing Kim Gordon, who was in London and wearing Marc Jacob’s dresses on stage. There was a small budget to place the pictures in a magazine and Teller thought it was a nice thing to do, to go to a Sonic Youth concert. Teller said he wanted to be in control of the image and how about it was going to appear on the double page and wanted to design how the Marc Jacobs logo was in relationship to the advertorial… Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy agreed and Juergen Teller created Marc Jacobs imagery.

After this adventure Juergen Teller did numerous things for free, just like in the beginning at Helmut Lang. Teller said it was just the pleasure of being involved in such a thing. When Prada took over Helmut Lang and LVMH bought into Marc Jacobs, Teller got a proper share of earnings for all

his contributions.

People were saying: “How do you get away with that, being in control of how it looks?” and Teller answered :”Weel, I put my heart and blood into it.”

And the better Teller and Jacobs got with what they were doing, the more confident they became, the work they did together was an excellent package. When, at one point, Juergen Teller became very insecure, Jacobs told him: “I really like that you get the best result if I let you do what you believe is right.” For Teller this was the nod of confidence he needed….

Most of the time it was just Juergen Teller on his own with a handbag full of bags and shoes, no art director, no assistent, no stylist or anything. That’s how it all started…

Book about Marc Jacobs advertising 1998 – 2009, all photographed by Juergen Teller. Published by Steidl

http://www.amazon.com/Juergen-Teller-Jacobs-Advertising-1998-2009/dp/386521715X

(Lola photographed for Marc Jacobs by her father Juergen Teller for the perfume named after her)

Next week Juergen Teller, collaborations (part2), with Viviënne Westwood, Celine, nominated actors and a recent exhibition…

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Categories inspiration

David Sims, fashion photographer

10 Feb

Fashion photographer David Sims is born in Yorkshire, England in 1966. He leaves secondary school when he is 17 and soon starts assisting photographers Robert Erdmann and Norman Watson. At 19 he steps out on his own and gets his work published in i-D. He also starts collaborating with make-up artist Dick Page and hairstylist Guido Palau. He becomes one of the ‘new photographers’, who are partially responsible for the changes in fashion photography in the 90ties.

In 1993, David Sims is hired by Calvin Klein to shoot an ad campaign with Kate Moss and for this David Sims becomes internationally recognized. He signs a one-year exclusive contract to Harper’s Bazaar (USA).

In the post ‘fashion photography changed in the 90ties’ I showed some early pictures of David Sims, modelled by Emma Balfour and his first i-D cover of February 1996, starring Kate Moss covering one eye with her hand. Another series that stayed with me is published in Harper’s Bazaar in ’93, modelled a young Linda Evangelista.

Harper’s Bazaar US, September 1993. ‘Anatomy of a suit’

David Sims’s photographs appear at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and in ’94 and he is named Young Fashion Photographer of the Year. But it is his ’95 campaign for the Japanese avant-garde designer Yohji Yamamoto that is the real turning point in his career.

Yohji Yamamoto campaign 1995

In ’96 David Sims is named Photographer of the year at the International Festival of Fashion Photography, beating Steven Meisel, Juergen Teller, Craig McDean, Mario Testino and David LaChapelle. He also starts working with menswear designer Raf Simons. Together they produce ‘Isolated Heroes’, a collection of portraits of Raf Simons’s unconventional models dressed in his s/s 2000 collection. This eventually develops into a book and a traveling exhibit.

Isolated Heroes

In 2000 Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) reports the days of alternative fashion magazines may be coming to an end, as'”phtographers once synonymous with the underground are now employed by the likes of Vogue“.

In 2002 David Sims becomes romantically involved with Luella Bartley, a fashion journalist turned designer. Soon son Kip Sims is born, two years later followed by daughter Stevie Sims and in 2007 second son Ned Sims joins the family. When he’s not travelling the world shooting for the world’s top fashion magazines, David can be found hitting the surf in Cornwall, where family lives.

David Sims known as a very private person and prefers to leave little trace- only the beautiful photographs he makes. his style has shifted with time, becoming more kinetic and less nitty-gritty after the turn of the millennium. David Sims still prefers to shoot against a plain backdrop, but he instructs his models to bend, jump, and otherwise push the edges of the frame. He works for Vogue not just with one main fashion editor, but with all the magazine’s stalwarts: Grace Coddington, Tonne Goodman, Camilla Nickerson, and Phyllis Posnick.

Vogue Paris 2009, Kristen McMenamy

Vogue Paris 2009

Luella Bartley, an English writer and magazine editor who first became famous for her now-defunct fashion label, has admitted to being nervous about revealing new projects—say, a book cover or home-decorating scheme—to him. Why? Because he is an arbiter of extreme discernment. (“Dave has such amazing taste, so he always ends up doing the house,” she said in 2007.) The couple, both fanatic surfers, live near the waves in a seventeenth-century farmhouse in Bodmin, Cornwall. When the writer Mark Holgate visited Luella Bartley—and their children, Kip, Stevie, and Ned—for a Vogue profile in 2006, she said that she and her husband share a need to create their own atmosphere and surroundings: “We will get the most beautiful piece of furniture, something that cost a fortune,” she said, “and we have to do something to it—scratch it, slap on stickers, anything—to make it ours.”

David Sims & Luella Bartley are named in The Independent’s list of style influencers in 2009. When Emmanuelle Alt, editor-in-chief, spoke about her vision as the new editor in chief of French Vogue, David Sims’s name popped up. He’s been tapped by Prada and Yves Saint Laurent to do advertisements and after photographing Kate Moss with ‘faux-cropped’ short hair for the book Heads: Hair by Guido, she was inspired to cut her hair for real. All these proof positive of how the understanding and taste of this least self-promoting of fashion photographers is respected across the industry.

W magazine, February 2009 Alexandra Deshorties is ‘Aria’

Vogue Paris November 2012, ‘Le Noir Dans La Peau’

Alexander McQueen s/s 2012

Alexander McQueen s/s 2013

The Alexander McQueen collection s/s 2013 runs with a beekeeper inspiration … For the campaign pictures model Raquel Zimmermann has her entire hair, face and shoulders (and the statement collared-necklace she’s wearing) dripped in honey.

Proenza Schouler s/s 2013

proenza-schouler-spring-summer-2013-campaign-david-sims-www.lylybye.blogspot.com%252B3

proenza-schouler-spring-summer-2013-campaign-david-sims-www.lylybye.blogspot.com%252B4

Visionaire issue 40/ Roses

For this issue of Visionaire, Sims reveals a personal project that he has been working on for several years. ”I think of these roses as portraits. ” Sims explains, ”I was a pupil at the school where these roses grow…when I look at these roses close up and trace their own knocks and dents, I find a greater beauty and a complexity in their imperfections. The roses represent for me a very definite point in life and a state of mind. ”

http://www.amazon.com/Visionaire-No-40-David-Sims/dp/1888645199

most information: Voguepedia

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Categories biography, inspiration

Fashion photography changed in the 90ties

3 Feb

In the late 80’s and during the 90’s fashion photography changed and still is undoubtedly influenced by these changes. It was a result of collaborations between designers, stylists and photographers. No one was interested anymore in over-produced imagery, instead the new generation in fashion was looking at their surroundings like their friends, the street and the local neighborhood. This was often referred to as ‘grunge’, but actually it was more a kind of realness.

The new super-real fashion photography was full of photos that draw from the gestures and demons of the documentary subjects of Larry Clark and Nan Goldin, whose most influential work has been confessional diaries of downtrodden lives. Photographer Corinne Day was most influenced by Nan Goldin. The fashion super-realists showed the seemingly snapshot spontaneity, in high contrast to the perfectionist fashion pictures of the 1980’s; they rejected the staged studio’s lighting, seamless paper and seamless images.

Some critics have accused Nan Goldin of making heroin-use appear glamorous, and of pioneering a grunge style that later became popularized by youth fashion magazines. However, in a 2002 interview with The Observer, Goldin herself called the use of ‘heroin chic’ to sell clothes and perfumes ‘reprehensible and evil’.

Nan Goldin photographs

Corinne Day Photographs

Under the new fashion collaborators were Mario Soretti & Kate Moss (boyfriend& girlfriend), David Sims & Emma Balfour (boyfriend&girlfriend), David Sims & Guido Palau (hairdresser), Juergen Teller & Venetia Scott (stylist and his 1st wife), Juergen Teller & Helmut Lang and Nick Knight & Yohji Yamamoto. They found a platform for their work in magazines suchs as The face, Purple, Dazed and confused, I-D and Six from Comme Des Garçons.

Kate Moss & Mario Sorrenti

David Sims ‘Are friends electric’

The Face, november 1993. Model Emma Balfour

David Sims cover I-D

Helmut Lang told a young Juergen Teller approached him to photograph his work backstage because he liked what Lang was doing. Juergen teller produced phenomenal images. Lang thought they acted as an extension to his work and used them for his next campaign.

Juergen teller Backstage at Helmut Lang

Juergen Teller & Venetia Scott

Jason Evans & Simon Foxton

Jason Evans (born 1968) is a Welsh photographer best known work is a series of portraits of young black men dressed as ‘country gents’ made in collaboration with stylist Simon Foxton and which were acquired for the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery in 2004. Characterizing his photo-series Strictly, Evans said: “Strictly was a weird mixture of macho clothes and quite effeminate clothes. Sportswear-based but classical English things, turned around. The syntax of clothes was completely upside down, and then worn by black people, it was a new vision of Britain. We were trying to break down stereotypes.” The series first appeared in the I-D in 1991.

Evans got in contact with Nick Knight after seeing his work in Arena(magazine) in 1989. ‘Those pictures characterized a place I wanted to be emotionally and physically, but hadn’t previously known. I think this is what great fashion pictures can do…. propose a way of being.’

90ties photography in advertising

Advertising also altered in the 90’s, because it obsorbed the new trends and aesthetics very quickly. Once more, Calvin Klein was the first to bring the newest fashion photography, documentary-style realism, into the his advertising for CK Be. This created a huge stir….

One of many critics to CK be campaign

The photos depicted being pale, disheveled, dirty, tired, strung out, starved, scratched, pierced, and tattooed. While these explicit images provoked critique, what was more disturbing (at least to this author) was the placement of Moss (or in other CK ads, another straight-looking male model) at the end of pictorial sequences of junkie-looking models, and under the slogan “just be.” Moss and other end-positioned models appeared anorexic thin, but otherwise strikingly normal/straight looking compared with the other models. ….. Playing at the “hotness,” the “coolness” or the “hipness” of being a “bad” junkie—the dangerous exotic other—was thus produced and consumed as safe and familiar consumer play.Calvin Klein’s commodified promise was that one could emerge unscathed when traveling to and through radical superficial otherness, emerging with conventional identity intact. (by Karen Bettez Halnon, ”Heroin Chic, Poor Chic, and Beyond Deconstructionist Distraction” in Consumers, Commodities and Consumption, Vol. 11, No. 1, December 2009, emphasis Halnon’s own)

But as raw as the images looked, they constituted just another fashion fantasy, this one a newly pervasive fantasy of reality. Even if bruises, scars and underarm hair showed, the models were still there to sell something.

”What we’re seeing is a collective attraction to something that seems to symbolize, in quotes, reality,” said Ingrid Sischy, the editor of Interview magazine and the former photography and fashion critic for The New Yorker. ”But of course, reality is more complicated than that. Not all reality is a bruise. Reality can also be a sunny day.”

Mario Sorrenti for Calvin Klein

Nowadays almost all boundaries (in fashion and commercial photography) are broken and the collaborations are strategic and just moneymaking machines like Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuitton, Damian Hirst for Levi and all collaborations of Nike and Adidas with various fashion designers…

Next week more about Fashion Photography….David Sims

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Categories inspiration

Frida Kahlo, an icon in many ways (part 2)

27 Jan

Frida Kahlo is a fashion icon and remains one of the most popular artists ever. Frida was a true original and her life and looks are appealing to many. I admire Frida Kahlo also because she was an incredible strong person, who didn’t drown in sorrow because she suffered a great deal during her life, instead she stayed true to herself and tried to make the best of it.

Recovering from her injuries isolated Frida from other people and this made her focussed on her painting. It also influenced her works, many of which are self-portraits. “I painted myself because I am often alone and because I am the subject I know best”, Frida stated, “I was born a painter.”

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”—Frida Kahlo

Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The dresses of Frida Kahlo

After Frida died in 1954 Diego Rivera (her husband) locked the closet doors and vowed never to allow anyone to enter fearing the contents would be mishandled or ruined. When Diego died, not many years later, he entrusted the inheritance to a friend, Dolores Olmedo, who promised to keep it on-opened till her death. She died in 2002.

Eventually, museum personnel decided it was time to look inside. And what a discovery. Art historians and fashionistas already knew Frida was unique and ahead of her time. But, what the items in the exhibit show are that despite the disabilities, the monobrow, and the violent depictions of the female anatomy in some of her paintings, Frida Kahlo was a bit of a girlie girl who wore makeup, used perfume and dressed up her prosthetic leg with a red high-heeled boot. Her clothing aimed for style and self-protection but it also made a statement, both political and cultural. Inside not only articles of her clothing, but also hundreds of personal items, including photographs, love letters, medications, jewelry and shoes.

This was especially true of the Tehuana dresses Kahlo wore like a “second skin,” said Circe Henestrosa, the exhibit curator. Colorful and carefully made by native artisans, they were a tribute to the matriarchal Tehuantepec society whose women were traders, considered equals with the men. Tehuana’s long skirts were also the perfect way for Kahlo to hide her ailments, including a polio-deformed leg she would eventually have amputated.

On november 22, 2012 an exhibition opened in the Frida Kahlo Museum for which they collaborated with Vogue Mexico. ‘Appearances Can Be deceiving: The dresses of Frida Kahlo’ . The exhibition will stay there for a year.

In order to elevate the exhibit from simple costume into a fashion exhibit in collaboration with Vogue Mexico, the show also includes examples of how her style has influenced modern design. There are the corsets from Jean Paul Gaultier and Comme des Garçon collections. And in the Givenchy dresses on display, designed by Riccardo Tisci, there are Kahlo-inspired flowers, white lace and cotton, reminiscent of a few key elements often found in her paintings.

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Jean Paul Gaultier, Comme des Garçons and Givency for Frida Kahlo Exhibition

Frida (the movie)

Frida the movie is a beautiful, colorful and entertaining biography, although not always accurate. For many years Salma Hayek, who portrays Frida Kahlo, worked and lobbied to get this movie produced.

Frida the movie is a beautiful, colorful and entertaining biography, although not always accurate. For many years Salma Hayek, who plays Frida Kahlo, worked and lobbied to get the movie made.

Frida begins with the traumatic accident Frida Kahlo suffered at the age of 18 when a trolley bus collided with a motor bus she was riding. She is impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustained plague her for the rest of her life. To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas upon which to start painting. Throughout the film, a scene starts as a painting, then slowly dissolves into a live-action scene with actors.

Frida also details the artist’s dysfunctional relationship with Diego Rivera. When Rivera proposes to Kahlo, she tells him she expects from him loyalty if not fidelity. Diego’s appraisal of her painting ability is one of the reasons that she continues to paint. Throughout the marriage, Rivera cheats on her with a wide array of women. The two travel to New York City so that he may paint the mural Man at the Crossroads at the Rockefeller Center. While in the United States, Kahlo suffers a miscarriage, and her mother dies in Mexico. Rivera refuses to compromise his communist vision of the work to the needs of the patron, Nelson Rockefeller; as a result, the mural is destroyed. The pair return to Mexico, with Rivera the more reluctant of the two.

Kahlo’s sister Cristina moves in with the two at their San Ángel studio home to work as Rivera’s assistant. Soon afterward, Kahlo discovers that Rivera is having an affair with her sister. She leaves him, and subsequently sinks into alcoholism. The couple reunite when he asks her to welcome and house Leon Trotsky, who has been granted political asylum in Mexico. She and Trotsky begin an affair, which forces the married Trotsky to leave the safety of his Coyoacán home.

Kahlo leaves for Paris after Diego realizes she was unfaithful to him with Trotsky. When she returns to Mexico, he asks for a divorce. Soon afterwards, Trotsky is murdered in Mexico City. Rivera is temporarily a suspect, and Kahlo is incarcerated in his place when he is not found. Rivera helps get her released.

Kahlo has her toes removed when they become gangrenous. Rivera asks her to remarry him, and she agrees. Her health continues to worsen, including the amputation of a leg, and she ultimately dies after finally having a solo exhibition of her paintings in Mexico.

(Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo in self-portrait with the earrings Picasso made for her)

Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress: Frida’s Wardrobe

The first book focused on one of the most memorable aspects of Frida’s creative output: her wardrobe.

Original and beautifully staged photographs (95) of Frida’s newly restored clothing are paired with historic photos of the artist wearing them and her paintings in which the garments appear. Frida’s life and style were a large part of her art and she deserves recognition as a fashion icon.

Fashion designers and photographers are still inspired by Frida Kahlo

For the Givenchy Fall 2010 Couture collection, Ricardo Tisci’s inspiration was Frida Kahlo and her three obsessions: religion, sensuality and given the painter’s lifelong battle with spinal pain, the human anatomy. The zipper pulls were little bones, a belt was a spinal column re-created in porcelain. The dominant motif of the collection was the skeleton. At one point during his presentation, Tisci rather tellingly muttered, “A romantic way to see death.”