marieclaire.com.au 47D
uring his teenage years when
George Allen Aarons’s grand-
mother put a camera in his hands
it would prove to be serendipitous,
kickstarting a 40-year career that
continues to captivate successive
generations of fans. His talent?
Capturing high society living la dolce vita. It was a
world of glamour and luxury, where celebrities and
socialites celebrated a perennial party to which the
respected New York photographer was always invited.
Aarons – nicknamed Slim for his frame – had no
interest in looking at life through a dreary lens.
Left disillusioned by his experience as a newspaper
photographer in World War II, Aarons returned to the
US determined to “have fun photographing attractive
people doing attractive things in attractive places”.
So began a career that would explore some of the
most dazzling enclaves of exclusivity in the world, and
those who frequented them. Ten years after his death,
at age 89, in 2006, his body of work is now the subject
of a new book – Slim Aarons: Women. It showcases his
main focus – the incredible female muses who shared
his life and work. Some were selected for their striking
beauty, others for their pedigrees and achievements.
A man who loved to have fun, Aarons remained
unapologetic about his rarefied workspace. “Ninety-
nine per cent of my contemporaries kept on reporting
about the miseries of the world after the war,” said Aar-
ons. “But hell, someone had to do the other stuff.”Swedish actress
Britt Ekland
(above), Porto
Ercole, Italy, 1 969
“I never style my
ladies,” Aarons later
said of this portrait.
“Those are all her
rings. She showed
up with them all on.”C Z Guest with her
son aZò , poolside
at Villa Artemis,
Palm Beach, 1 955
“Everybody that he
photographed liked
him. You couldn’t
help but like him,”
Guest, Aarons’s
most favoured
muse, has said.Reportage