Vogue Italiaのインスタグラム(vogueitalia) - 10月2日 23時00分

Helmut Newton, Amica, Milan 1982

Helmut Newton loved the atmosphere of luxurious hotels and staged dozens of his iconic photographs at them, including this fashion shot for Italian Amica in 1982. Two models dressed in black, knee-length cocktail dresses are pictured in a plain and elegant room. One of the models sits on a classic red fabric sofa. She seems to be in the process of fastening or unfastening the stiletto sandal of the other woman, who stands with one foot on the sofa in a challenging pose. Her slender legs are quite muscular, a characteristic that Helmut Newton often emphasized with set light. In a film made by June Newton in 1995 about her husband, we see the couple at Newton’s studio in Paris discussing two print versions of a life-size nude; a particular focus of their lively conversation is the visibility of depicted model’s leg muscles. As we learn there, this aspect – as a symbol of women’s strength and power – seems to have been of utmost importance for the photographer, much more than the superficial eroticism of nudity.
During those years Newton often worked with Arielle, the model on the left. She also posed for him for a number of nude photographs. Incidentally, her hairstyle is the same as June Newton’s at the time. The photograph for Amica was taken one year after Newton’s famous series Naked and Dressed and Big Nudes, which marked the transition from fashion to nude photography in his work. In this case, we are witness to either a friendly gesture or an intimate situation, depending on our personal interpretation of the scene. This ambivalence has been a special aspect of Newton’s work since the 1970s, when he was able to convince his female models to hug or kiss each other in front of his camera. Those productions at the latest earned Newton his reputation of being a “naughty boy”. Just as Brassaï, whom Newton admired, often depicted lesbian couples in Parisian cafés of the 1930s, Helmut Newton also occasionally played with the illusion of same-sex intimacy and sensuality for his fashion shots.

Vogue Italia’s takeover by Matthias Harder, director of the @HelmutNewtonFoundation.

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