Steven Meisel
(1954 - )
Steven Meisel was born in New York in 1954. During his high school years Meisel photographed models he saw on the streets of New York, including Loulou de la Falaise and Marisa Berenson. Meisel studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York. After graduating with a degree in fashion illustration, he immidiately
went to work as an illustrator, first for Halston, and then for Women's Wear Daily.
In the 1970s, after sketching and illustrating for the designer Halston and writing about fashion for the magazine New York Rocker, Meisel was hired as an illustrator by Women's Wear Daily. During his time at Women's Wear Daily, Meisel self-taught himself photography, and took test shots on weekends of various young models and actresses, including Phoebe Cates. Some of these shoots, on which he was responsible for the hairstyles, makeup, clothes, and photography, attracted the attention of editors at Seventeen magazine. He begins to work for Seventeen and for the Soho Weekly News. Meisel's credentials soon brought him to the attention of Conde Nast magazine Self, who hired him as cover photographer, the covers eventually established Meisel's reputation. Meisel began working for Mademoiselle and Vogue. Introduced to Vogue's editor-in-chief Alexander Liberman and its fashion editor Grace Mirabella, Meisel was asked to style hair, apply makeup, and take photographs, first for the French and Italian collections, and then for the New York collections.
Meisel began getting a reputation for discovering girls and making them famous models. He feels he has changed fashion photography by using models of different ethnic types, such as the African Americans Naomi Campbell and Beverly Peele, and older models such as Marianne Faithful, Benedetta Barzini, and Lauren Hutton. Meisel also discovered Dutch-Japanese model Ariane and, in the 1980s launched to stardom supermodels Christy Turlington, Stella Tennant, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evagelista.
In 1992, Meisel became the first photographer to sign a large contract with Conde Nast. He began working for Anna Wintour's Vogue, where he continues to take unforgetable photography. In 2001, Meisel shot model Karolina Kurkova dressed in Gucci and Ferre, in the guise of Marilyn Manson, and a number of other models impersonating other rock stars. Meisel also attracted notoriety for taking the photos of Madonna in her book Sex; for creating the controversial 1995 advertising campaign for Calvin Klein jeans; and for photographing model Sophie Dahl nude to advertise the YSL perfume Opium, an image banned in several countries.
Meisel is used to breaking the rules. In a body of work notable for its imaginative range and diversity, he has achieved dominance in both editorial and advertising fashion photography. Meisel has produced some of the most memorable fashion advertising ever created, including campaigns for Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Valentino, and Yves Saint Laurent, among a long list of advertising clients.
His influences range from 1960s fashion, Los Angeles's architecture, Nan Golden's photography, Alex Katz's paintings, and many types of films, from work by Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, and Michelangelo Antonioni. Steven Meisel became one of the most important and prolific fashion photographer of his generation. In fact, when Meisel's work for the fall 2000 Versace advertising campaign was shown in London's at the prestigious White Cube Gallery, it significantly bridged the gap with fine art photography.
Today, Meisel continues to merge his own innovative range of ideas with an extraordinary ability to capture the moment in order to produce fashion photographs of importance and interest.
