Avant Garb
AMAZING AMAZINE. THIS IS THE REASON WE ARE WRITING ABOUT DETAILS NOW. THE AVANT GARB ISSUE IS ALL WE EVER WANTED TO FIND. NOW WE HAVE IT - AND SIXTY MORE ISSUES FROM THE EIGHTIES TOO! GALLIANO TO MARGIELA. BUT IT IS ALL ABOUT THE BILL CUNNINGHAM.
Set in stone. Shot on film. Bill Cunningham's bi-annual 40 page collections specials for Details are the most massive achievements in fashion and photography and this issue is our favourite of them all.
John Galliano. Early. This is the third London show. Styled by Amanda Grieve. The models splashed with water. We have the second show too in the September 1984 issue.
So a good look. There are very few visual references to these collections. And very, very few that do what Bill Cunningham can do. He is unique. There are catwalk photographers and there are fashion photographers and then there is Bill Cunningham. He shoots the shows and the street and backstage and is always creating anew. His photographs make more of the clothes. His photographs are fashion.
This is not Bill Cunningham. It is Bruce Weber. From the stunning eight page run of ads shot for Calvin Klein. A huge bonus that they also appear in this super charmed issue. See more of the 1984-1990 covers on this link .
March and September 1989. 212 pages of Bill Cunningham pages between them AND the first two Martin Margiela Paris shows. This THE REFERENCE. But better even than the above is the issue of March 1990. See it on this link and below. IT IS MAGIC.
This is the show. Staged in a banlieue on the outskirts of the city - as Cunningham describes it, 'a demolished third-world Paris ghetto'...
The show was overrun by local kids who scaled the walls to join the action. Cunningham, who writes as well as he photographs, related what happened to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It looks like freedom. LOOKS LIKE FUN.
Fourteen pages. Of Margiela. Cunningham had found his subject. Obsessed over the details. There are pages of details. It is quite wonderful. Sixty five issues we have. They are not all as amaze as the Galliano and Margiela finds. They do not all have 40++++ pages of Bill C... BUT THEY ARE GREAT!