‘He immortalised the birth of the supermodel’: inside Dior’s career-spanning retrospective of photographer Peter Lindbergh

If the 1980s was a decade of heady womanhood – immortalised by the colourful confections of couturier Christian Lacroix, the wide shoulders and bouffants of Working Girl, or the high-voltage glamour of the women of Dynasty and Dallas – the soulful, stripped-back photographs of German photographer Peter Lindbergh provided a riposte to the era’s more-is-more aesthetic. ‘He truly shaped a new way of representing women in magazines,’ says Olivier Flaviano, head of Paris’ La Galerie Dior, where a new exhibition ‘Dior / Lindbergh’ celebrates the late photographer’s work, particularly that made in collaboration with the maison.

Lindbergh, who was born in Lissa (Leszno) in German-occupied Poland in 1944, grew up in Duisburg, a town close to the German-Dutch border, before going on to study at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts and the Kunsthochschule (College of Art) in Krefeld. After assisting photographer Hans Lux and working at Stern magazine (an influential title which then counted Helmut Newton and Hans Feurer as contributors), his breakout moment would come in 1989 shooting for British Vogue.

‘Dior / Lindbergh’ at La Galerie Dior, Paris

Photographing the cover of the January 1990 issue – one of the defining fashion images of our time – Lindbergh captured then-burgeoning models Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista on the streets of New York’s Meatpacking District. The accompanying editorial would herald the stripped-back aesthetic of the 1990s – an era of cool minimalism and undone glamour – and introduce the world to the supermodel.

‘He immortalised in 1990 the birth of the supermodel,’ says Flaviano, who also curated the new Paris exhibition. ‘Peter Lindbergh was a proponent of a naturalist approach to photograph, which was often at odds with the stereotype published in magazines. His constant quest for the “truth” of his subject, free from artifice, is a testament to his wish to affirm women’s identities.’ Describing his own approach, Lindbergh would say that his ‘great subject was women... To follow them as closely as possible so that they could express themselves and assert their truth. I track down a mystery, I seek an emotion.’

The new exhibition began with the 2018 release of Peter Lindbergh. Dior, a Taschen-published two-volume book that saw the photographer shoot a number of garments from the house’s 70-year history on the streets of New York (largely, the images were set against the bustle of Times Square). ‘He played with contrasts: 70 years of Dior haute couture shot in the present day; Paris haute couture shot in the streets of New York. These images bring back “the movement of life”, so dear to Christian Dior, to the archives,’ says Flaviano. The exhibition has a similar aim: tracing 70 years of the house ‘through the lens of Peter Lindbergh, and a retrospective of Peter Lindbergh’s work based on the images he created for Dior,’ Flaviano continues.

Spanning 1988 to 2018 (Lindbergh died in September of 2019 aged 74), the images are divided over ten spaces at the gallery, which is located at the same address as the house’s flagship, 30 Avenue Montaigne (it is also the location of the house’s couture atelier, where Christian Dior himself was based during his lifetime). Dotted among the photographs are a series of tableaus, often featuring the real-life garments from the Dior archive that appear in the images. ‘I really like the room dedicated to [his work] for magazines,’ says Flaviano. ‘The Peter Lindbergh Foundation loaned to the Galerie Dior archives that are exhibited for the first time: contact sheets, work prints, final proofs, provide the public with an understanding of the process of creation.’

La Galerie Dior first opened in March 2022 and hosts exhibitions that change twice yearly. ‘These exhibitions always takes a “new look” at its [Dior’s] history and archives,’ says Flaviano. ‘What makes the gallery unique is that it tells the history of the house of Dior in the spaces where it was born in 1946 – the haute couture ateliers are still creating Dior’s collections in the floors above the exhibition spaces.’

Dior / Lindbergh runs until 4 May 4 2025 at La Galerie Dior, Paris.

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