WEEKEND READING LIST: PICTURE BOOKS OF 2015

I've sworn off buying books for a while now, not for any noble green reasons (although you must consider these), and have been dutifully been borrowing all my reading from our wonderful libraries here. Truth is, I simply have no more shelve- or indeed floor-, space for one more book, and yet... I couldn't resist these. 
These are all picture books, and are about drawing, a talent which I've been neglecting - I havn't picked up a pencil to sketch in ages, and I suppose these purchases are meant to inspire me to draw in the new year (and not act as dust magnets). Fingers and toes crossed, guilt-drenched.

How can you resist Gruau: Portraits of Men (with a come hither cover like this)? 

How to resist anything by David Downton? I squawked when I saw it and flew down to Kinokuniya and bought it in a flash. David Downton: Portraits of the World's Most Stylish Women is not unrelated to Gruau and his work is very much in that tradition, although Downton doesn't acknowledge that debt. I don't agree with Downton's pick of "most stylish" - Coco Rocha? Dita Von Teese? Really? - but still.

Finally, my niece Sharon very kindly ordered the book Harry Bush Hard Boys - and she promptly added one into the cart for herself! I think she said she bought it on Book Depository, but whatever it was, it arrived to make an excellent Christmas present for me!

Love, Linda

Jon Jon Linda Turlington

And let me tell you this: Jon Jon is Linda and Christy in drag. There was always something completely asexual about Jon Jon's beauty for me - but you see, it was the same sort of androgyny as Linda's and Christy's beauty. Jon Jon is the final flower of Peter Lindbergh's vision of beauty from the 1990s. We love you Mr Lindbergh! How I miss your early, early days at Vogue Italia.Linda!Christy!

Vogue In Stitches

O Linda!

Iris Strubegger in a story in Vogue Paris, shot by Mert & Marcus, styled by Carine Roitfeld. It really does recall those spreads of Linda Evangelista shot be Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia in the early 1990s.

Working Girl

Poor Linda in the good old days! Her brows were still where brows should be. Vogue August 1987 A New Working Advantage by Steven Meisel. Male models: John Pearson, Todd Bentley. Hair: Oribe

More Poor Linda/ Leopard Preens/ Scandal

Poor Linda.
Now age 45, she has split with billionaire Hard Rock founder Peter Morton, 64, in fall, after a series of disagreements. According to a family source Mr Morton is very settled in Malibu, while Linda liked to spend time in Canada and New York. She is high-maintenance and likes to be treated like a princess. "Some members of Peter's family were not too fond of her, and were dismayed when she appeared around last Thanksgiving with a large diamond ring on her finger. But the marriage never happened," the source reportedly said.
Linda, who started dating Morton in late 2006 when she was pregnant, denied reports that the father of her son, Augustin James, was Francois-Henri Pinault, Salma Hayek's husband.
Linda's agent, Didier Fernandez, said: "She has never said who the father is."
Sources confirm that billionaire Gucci owner Pinault is in fact the father, and this has caused rivalry between Linda and Hayek. And then there are the bizarre Talbot ads.Source: Page Six

Poor Linda!

Linda doing Kate.

Lady be Good

More pictures of Our Lady of the Infinite Crazies in drag. Anna Wintour is LOLing somewhere.Feeling constipated? Could be the soiled socks you swallowed Lady!Sniffing the ammonia fumes (yum yum) that rise off the urinal - truly Gaga.The best picture of the series: And it's because we can't see her face. Yay!
And below is HOW IT"S DONE: Good old Linda!

Really Ga Ga

I think our Lady of the Crazies has really taken her status as a gay icon too much to heart. Now she wants to be a man, and has created a persona for Vogue Hommes Japan (they will publish anything, apparently, as long as it is white) called Joe Calderone. Of course, like everything else she does, this is mere dress-up. Not convincing as a female, she's just as unconvincing as a male (I've seen Linda E do much better, amd even Christy!). All she really proves in these pictures is that she's just not very pretty, and in the end, not terribly interesting or creative. Pictures, Nick Knight.

Irving Penn's Beauties

Linda!Christy and Cindy!Those were truly the days. The supers in October 1987, Vogue.

Peter Lindbergh Back At Vogue

“Fashion photography has gotten a little lost. There is a lot of carnival going on. The hair has gotten too crazy and the make-up. At the moment, everybody is trying to do young. They have to look young or dress young. Youth is so overdone. All the advertising and magazine covers today — they don’t look like natural women. For me, that’s a real pity. There’s all this retouching. A little humanity would do good, especially in fashion photography.” - Peter LindberghPeter Lindbergh hasn't shot for Vogue for eighteen years. He went from working with Vogue to Harper's Bazaar in 1992, lured by Liz Tilberis to work on the revamp of Bazaar. Mr Lindbergh plans to begin work again with Vogue, as well as other Conde Nast publications in the US, after a recent meeting with Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington. “They asked. It was like you are the black sheep in the family, and your older brother asks you to come home,” he said.

Linda, 1992

One of my all-time fave images of Linda by Steven Meisel (Vogue, Oct 1992). It's so stripped down and that hair! I remember trying to do this hair back in school... The look stands the test of time doesn't it? Even those Versace clogs look today. HEART.

Before

... And this is why we have stylists, photographers hair and makeup. Linda Evangelista (mid 1980s) before Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, etc. Oh, and the clothes? That's why we have designer labels!

LINDA

It was around this time when Linda Evangelista became just Linda... She was created by Peter Lindbergh, very much an Elle girl...

John Galliano

John Galliano has such nice ads this season, with Simon Nessman and Linda E!

Linda in Vogue Italia

Steven Meisel's pictures of Linda E in September's Vogue Italia are really outstanding fashion photographs, and I can see him referencing Cecil Beaton, Lillian Bassman and Irving Penn in them, while making them all his own. However I must speak out against bloated fashion editorials that have no meaning at all: Calling a spread Urban Decay, then showing a lot of random clothes that do not have any discernable running theme makes even the best photographs look irrelevant. Is this a portrait of Linda? Not exactly. Is this about hats? Coats? Leather opera gloves? What is it about, one wants to know. What am I looking at?

Linda in W

You know Madonna would be sooo jealous (she also want le!). Do I like it? I'll have to see the rest of it in November's W. My instinct is I won't like it. It's outrage for the sake of outrage, and not particularly clever. It's rather bo liao, if you know what I mean.