Vogue Italiaのインスタグラム(vogueitalia) - 10月2日 22時00分

Helmut Newton, Stern, Los Angeles 1980

In 1980, Newton shot an editorial for Stern magazine in Los Angeles. The same two models appear in most of them, modelling dresses by Karl Lagerfeld designed for Chloé, in combination with five well-trained, tanned men in tight, black swimming trunks. Fitness training was popular at the time and Newton used the men here as extras. His fourth book, published in 1984, which included a reprint of this image, was aptly titled World Without Men. In Newton’s fashion visions, men are merely an accessory. But they play the lead role in his portraits.
The location looks like a Hollywood movie set, and the men could be from a gladiator movie. They are being flirted with by the two women, who stand at the left and right sides of the landscape-format picture. In the middle of the picture, one of the men takes a vain pose against a white, life-size nude sculpture near the poolside. This contrasts formally with the dark window behind it, which looks into the villa interior. The sculpture is a poor copy or interpretation of an antique and is likely not even marble, while its nudity contrasts with the female models’ dark outfits. Both of the women stand with one knee bent, showing off their long legs – also a subtle gesture of seduction.
In another picture from this fashion series, also published in 1980 in Stern and four years later in World without Men, one of the two women wears a short dress and stands with her legs slightly apart at the open door of the same house, leaning against a classical fluted column. The antique reference is again present with life-sized sculptures of women to her left and right with, one of them with a bare breast. Here, however, Newton has the woman play an active role in this erotic game between the sexes, as she lures the men into the house with a smile. We should never forget that these pictures were produced in order to stage a Lagerfeld dress for magazine publication. As always with Newton, however, the parallel story conveys an ambivalent message, expanding the possibilities for interpretation.

Vogue Italia’s takeover by Matthias Harder, director of the @HelmutNewtonFoundation.

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