Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s

‘I think it is quite a dark impression of New York as it was,’ says photographer Dafydd Jones, who spent the 1990s capturing the city’s most exclusive parties. ‘It is an insight into who was considered important at fashion shows, benefits and parties.’

Jones, who had previously photographed Oxford and London’s upper class, was hired by Vanity Fair magazine to attend New York society’s hottest parties, capturing celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, President (then Senator) Joe Biden, Leona Helmsley, Brooke Astor, Donald and Ivana Trump, Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Mapplethorpe and Michael Milken.

‘In England, I’d become too well-known as a Tatler photographer. It was wonderful to be invisible again.’ Jones adds: ‘I hope readers may laugh, be moved and maybe a bit scared. My process for choosing the images starts in the darkroom. The photography book is an edited selection of images from a box of prints I made last year. So what the readers are seeing are reproductions of darkroom prints. Often I’m thinking of the light and shade and tones and printing with rich blacks and not considering the subject matter.’

For Graydon Carter, New York in the 1990s was a world ablaze with ambition and glamour. ‘This New York was the one of new money trying to catch the attention of old money and of Wall Street vampires who raided the accounts of widows and orphans while their wives dined on quenelle and salads (dressing on the side) at places like La Grenouille and Le Cirque.’

New York: High Life, Low Life is published by ACC Art Books and is available to buy at Amazon, £27.99