Helmut Newton

Nadja Auermann by Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton...

Jason Wu Womenswear S/S 2013  

The designer shares an inspiration image by Helmut Newton. The set at Jason Wu was like the opening scene of a noir romance. Massive black and white tiles met a full length tilted mirror at the end of the runway, forever reflecting into what looked like endless space. The illusion transformed the St. John Centre Warehouse of the West Side Highway into a fantasy vanity powder room, the perfect place for a woman to wander around in her slip, setting her hair and her makeup before going out. Whatever mysteries are conjured up behind closed doors though were on display in leather and lace. To the lilting piano of Moonlight Sonata, Wu's lingerie-esque camisole minis, leather harnesses and lace covered bustiers added to the effect, a slightly restrained undressing that let a little sex into Wu's traditionally formal designs. Perhaps this luxurious lavatory motif was inspired by Wu's recent collaborator and show sponsor Brizo, a high end bath fixture company that featured a similarly noir motif in a press release at the show. Whatever the influence, the tiles were gleaming and the women walked them endlessly, mirrored like ghosts on a marble floor.  

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"Never love anybody who treats (and fucks) you like you’re ordinary.”  - Oscar Wilde

First Looks: David Bowie Retrospective at London's V&A Museum

Next spring, London's V&A museum will mount David Bowie Is, a major retrospective that will explore his creative processes "as a musical innovator and cultural icon" over the past five decades. More than 300 objects will be on show, including handwritten lyrics, original costumes, musical instruments and album artwork.  

The show runs from March 23 to July 28, and will include Ziggy Stardust costumes designed by Freddie Burretti in 1972; costumes from the 1973 Aladdin Sane tour, designed by Kansai Yamamoto; and Bowie and Alexander McQueen’s collaborative Union Jack coat, as worn on the 1997 Earthling cover. There’s also fashion photography from the likes of Herb Ritts, Helmut Newton and John Rowlands. Check out the slideshow for a preview of some of the show’s most noteworthy exhibits.   

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Helmut Newton: Sex & Landscapes – Los Angeles Gallery Show

We are not being pervy when we say that we could stare at naked women all day. Those cheesy lines about the beauty of the female form—like most worn-out clichés—happen to be true, and few photographers took this fact of nature to the heights reached by Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton’s Sex & Landscapes, a series created in collaboration with the late artist’s wife and collaborator, June Netwon, features 20 of his so-called “sex pictures”—glamorous, seductive shots of women in various states of undress and seductive performance—and 20 landscapes.

Show opens on June 1st at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in Los Angeles.

© Helmut Newton (1920-2004) Polaroid, St Tropez, 1975

Check out the full list of 100 Fashion Icons here

Helmut Newton and His Nudes

More than other photographers, the late Helmut Newton was known for his lush books of photographs, among them the truly enormous SUMO, described by its publisher Taschen as "the biggest and most expensive book production in the 20th century." It's so big it comes a stand of its own. Another of his books, Big Nudes, is also notorious, for obvious reasons. Heroic nudity was his thing, mixed in with fashion when required.

Now, following—but not associated with—the massive Helmut Newton exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris, a smaller exhibit, White Women/Sleepless Nights/Big Nudes, combines the images from his first three books into one show. The publications have seen many reprints and hundreds of thousands of copies sold, but never have they been juxtaposed side by side in a gallery space. 

White Women/Sleepless Nights/Big Nudes, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin. Opens in early summer—stay tuned.

  Helmut Newton Polaroids

If the collective obsession with Instagram is any indication, polaroids aren't going anywhere any time soon. Nor will Helmut Newton Polaroids, the exhibition of the photographer's own obsession with the instant medium. Now comes news that the show will be held over through May 20, 2012. The extension—timed to coincide, and then some, with Berlin Fashion Week this month—is the result of popular demand. So far, more than 70,000 visitors have taken in the 300-plus photos on view at the Helmut Newton Foundation (Jebensstrasse 2, Berlin).

INTERVIEW: PAOLO ROVERSI TALKS TO FILEP MOTWARY

Filep Motwary: How did you feel when fashion started taking a flashier, commercial turn about a decade ago, with Mario Testino and then Terry Richardson?  Paolo Roversi: This is good! I think it is how this business works. Fashion is moving every month, and the same goes for fashion photography. The worst thing for someone in fashion is to be called a”has-been”. All these people bring new, fresh things in.It’s not a question of quality any more. It’s about new energies, new ideas.  Filep Motwary: Agreed, but in the ’70s or ’80s, for example, we had craftsmen like Guy Bourdin or Helmut Newton. Is fashion becoming more laid-back?  Paolo Roversi: Of course I am not going to compare Testino to Newton—each of them has his own vision and approach. Indeed, things have become easier with all these new cameras and technology. The quality too. But this is part of the times we are in. If you compare the way Balenciaga or Dior made a dress back then to how it’s done now, you can see that nothing is the same. It’s not about the flash; it’s what our times demand to see. Everything is faster now. You know, Guy Bourdin could take three or four days on 10 pages or even more. Now Testino or Richardson has one day for 20 pages. So yes, times have changed.

Motwary: You have insisted on working with a Polaroid camera since the ’80s. How did this obsession start?

Roversi: As soon as I discovered this type of film I was enchanted by it. Even now I still feel this way and I cannot justify the reason. You know how you fall in love with something—maybe it was the colour, the contrast. It became my palette immediately. I also started to work with this camera for its size, the 8×10 format. Taking pictures one by one is a slow procedure. I found my way through this camera— how to work. It was the ideal way to express myself. By now, I know it very well. It has become a part of my skin; my blood.

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