44 NOVEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
Peter Lindbergh(194 4–2019 )
Vogue’s longtime Creative Director Grace Coddington
collaborated closely with Lindbergh on many of his iconic
shoots for the magazine. Days after Lindbergh’s death
in September, she reminisced to Hamish Bowles about her
years of working with the legendary photographer.I
started noticing Peter’s pictures for Italian Vogue
and in campaigns for Comme des Garçons and
Yohji Yamamoto in the early ’80s. He had a very
strong point of view: I loved the roughness and
the wildness. He would do all the girls with no
makeup, on the beach in Deauville, France. He
took everybody there, including myself eventually, and
he did not care whether it was winter or summer. It didn’t
matter. In winter it was bloody freezing and he didn’t
care! The girls didn’t care, either, because they all loved
him. All the supermodels trusted him so much. He always
made them look so real, so touchably real. He loved
Kathy Ireland, and Helena, Linda, Christy, Naomi, and
Cindy. He loved Tatjana Patitz and Stephanie Seymourand Cecilia Chancellor. He loved Kate Moss and Kristen
McMenamy. They were all brave, and smart enough
to trust him. Peter just loved women. He did not believe
in retouching, which I think is great. And he used real
women—womanly women.
He always had a very faithful team of people: Julien
d’Ys did hair for him and Stéphane Marais did makeup
for years and years and years, and then Odile Gilbert
later on. He liked to stay with the same people, and he
liked them all to be one big family.
I thought his first American Vogue cover [November
1988] that Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele styled was brilliant—
so full of life. I remember having a conversation with
Anna about it. She said, “What do you think?” And she
had Peter’s image here and the Richard Avedon one
that had already been planned for the cover over there.
And I said, “You know, if you want to makeTURNING POINT
LINDBERGH’S PORTRAIT OF MODEL MICHAELA BERCU APPEARED
ON THE COVER OF VOGUE, NOVEMBER 1988.Tribute