Hélène
DO YOU REMEMBER THE INTERNET, EMAIL AND MOBILE PHONES? WHAT ABOUT TERRY RICHARDSON AND CHLOE SEVIGNY? ITS LIKE THE NINETEEN NINETIES NEVER ENDED. THE FIRST DECADE TO START RECYCLING ALL PREVIOUS TRENDS WAS ALSO THE LAST TO HAVE ITS OWN DISTINCT STYLE. PLUS ÇA CHANGE, PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE...
This back is the front cover of Hélène
, the catalogue of an exhibition curated by Purple magazine co-founder Elein Fleiss in 1997. Published in Japan by Hysteric Glamour, Hélène
is perhaps the purest, most perfect fashion photobook of the nineties.
Elein Fleiss's great strength in curating this exhibition and photobook, and indeed in editing Purple
from 1992 to 1998, was undoubtedly in resisting the obvious and the commercial.
Chloe Sevigny photographed by Mark Borthwick. See much more of Hélène
on this link. Photographers include Anette Aurell, Laetitia Benat and Anders Edstrom.
This is Hélène Fillières photographed by Mark Borthwick. We can only assume Hélène lent her name to this book. She was also photographed by Borthwick for the cover of the first issue of Self Service. Hélène was the face
and the name
of Parisian anti-fashion.
These pages are from Claude Closky's photographs of La Baule, the society Brittany beach resort. Half Rineke Dijkstra / half Martin Parr / totally brilliant unstyled fashion reference.
Camille Vivier's photograph is about as anti-fashion as it gets. Can't quite stop us checking the credits to see where we could get one of those yellow blankets though!