Steven Klein: Vogue

Something probably almost everyone, at least everyone in the creative industry, likes to do is to stroll around a nicely set up concept store and flip through the shiny pages of big coffee table books. You know, the kind of books that are highly visual. With bold colours and works of fashion designers, artists, photographers and iconic personalities. The kind of books that you can display in your flat, on a shelf or on a chest of drawers, on a windowsill, next to your bed or wherever else you want to place them. The kind of books that are decoration, inspiration, and education all at once. For everyone who likes to collect these printed and bound archives, on December 4th, there is the launch of a new treasure: Steven Klein: Vogue, a selection of the photographer and filmmaker’s work for American Vogue from 2000 to 2019.

If you are not sure right now whether you have heard the name Steven Klein before or not, I can comfort you: you probably have. And if you haven’t heard it, you’ve seen it for sure. As the cover of Britney Spears’ third studio album, Britney, for example. The famous picture, Girl with Hat (1993), that shows Kate Moss with a black turtleneck and a huge fur hat. Or at least the music video of Alejandro—yes, the one where Lady Gaga dances as a latex nun, grieving widow or simply in a machine gun bra surrounded by topless policemen in stilettos. Klein’s work is dark, seductive, unsettling, and cinematic. A bold fusion of glamour, eroticism and psychological drama, all staged in a highly intentional way. Every shadow is controlled. Every movement. Every facial expression. How a lock of hair catches the wind. How a finger touches the dress. The placement of the feet. Every highlight. Every background detail. Whatever it is you see in the images, you can be sure that Klein chose to present it like that. Because Klein creates and controls chaos at the same time.

“I remember early on, people didn’t quite know what to do with my work,” the New York-based fashion photographer says himself in the press notes for the 256-page-long hardcover book. “It didn’t fit into the polished, high-gloss fantasy that fashion magazines typically sell. My work had blood in it. Bruises. Power games. Isolation. It had the feel of surveillance footage or a scene from a film you weren’t supposed to watch. Anna Wintour got it.” So, after Klein started his career in Paris in the 90s, a blooming, unique symbiosis between Vogue and the photographer came to life. Over two decades Klein’s visual language evolved alongside the prestigious magazine, while in return he is behind some of the most striking fashion stories and covers that were published. Or, as Klein phrases it himself, “it’s a platform that has allowed me to inject subversion into the bloodstream of luxury.”

Subversion means challenging conventional beauty standards through surreal, exaggerated suburban scenes that address womanhood, heteronormative dynamics and society in a bigger picture. He basically takes the models, the clothing, and the accessories and creates a whole new narrative that consciously or subconsciously sparks the imagination. So, while looking at the pages of Steven Klein: Vogue, you can see a model making out with a Greek statue inside a lustrous garden in the fashion editorial Cursed Romance from 2012. You can see a model standing topless and freezing inside a chiller room, looking at pieces of raw meat dangling from the ceiling, her straight, sleek bob matching the colour of the flesh. You can see a model dressed as a classical housewife cutting a roast with heavy bloodstained machinery. And you can see models working with tarantulas, drones, scissors, and lawn mowers.

While the highlight definitely lies in the power of storytelling through the various fashion editorials that feature mainly unknown models, you will also find some prominent faces: Lee Alexander McQueen, for example. Bjork, Nicki Minaj and Karl Lagerfeld. Amber Valletta next to a tank of eels, Karolína Kurková next to a chill crocodile and Gisele Bündchen alongside ethereal, strong horses—a perfect fit, knowing that she is famous for her legendary horse walk, just saying. Anna Wintour herself leaves some flattering thoughts about Klein’s work: “Great fashion photography not only understands the beauty of clothing but also adds a twist that grabs the eye and sparks the imagination. With Steven Klein, you’ll give him a dress, and he’ll give you a girl with a dress with a robot in a garden. It’s clever, conceptual, and ultimately lyrical.”

In the end, Klein’s photography is artificial. But that’s exactly the point. “Reality is a construct. Beauty is manufactured. Power is staged. I just make the stage more explicit,” the artist says himself and perfectly summarises what we can expect from the book that, by the way, happens to launch right in time for Christmas. A coincidence? Probably not. Just good timing. So, if you still need the perfect gift idea, or maybe even want to treat yourself (because you deserve it) from this week on, you have the chance to purchase a groundbreaking, captivating archive of one of the most influential fashion photographers of our time. An archive that would definitely look stunning on a shelf as well. But to finish with Klein’s own words, words to keep in mind once you flip through the pages: “Look closely. Not everything is what it seems.”

I Control Chaos