The Quintessentially Modern Peter Lindbergh

A look into the archives of the fashion photographer who died in September, courtesy of the new Taschen book Peter Lindbergh, Dior.

Reese Witherspoon, Los Angeles, 2011

To celebrate 70 years of the house of Dior, in 2018, photographer Peter Lindbergh had an idea that was both “a masterstroke of recontextualization and a crazy extravaganza,” as Martin Harrison writes in the introduction to the new Taschen book Peter Lindbergh, Dior. Eighty garments were removed from the Dior Museum and shipped to Manhattan, where models including Alek Wek, Irina Shayk, and, Freja Beha Erichsen and Kiki Willems wore the priceless designs on the city streets. “While Haute Couture is closely linked with an idea of perfection and the mastery of every last detail, I wanted to transport 70 years of Dior creations to an unexpected place,” Lindbergh said of the project. “The streets of New York embody the most contrasting background to reveal unforeseen emotions.”

Jennifer Lawrence, Paramount Studios, 2016

Peter Lindbergh died in September of this year, leaving behind a legacy of peerless fashion photography, much of it for Dior. This, a look inside Peter Lindbergh’s Dior, which is presented in two volumes—the first his ambitious 2018 project in New York City, the second his archives, featuring portraits of Kate Winslet, Robert Pattinson, and more stars as seen through his unforgettable lens. As Harrison writes, “the inspirations he absorbs are re-imagined and revitalized, so that his work remains quintessentially modern.

Kate Winslet, Le Touquet, 2015
Carey Mulligan, Camargue, 2010

His photographs are in a creative dialogue between the various modernisms that swept through all the arts a century ago and the modernity of today, a kind of neo-avant-garde.”

Robert Pattinson, Paris, 2016

– Courtesy: Vanity Fair

Dior's 70 years and the Quintessentially Modern Peter Lindbergh