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Dreamlifetext by Robert Goethals, photography by Irving Penn

Amber Valletta, Irving Penn, estate

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In Americas money-scarfing, youth-obsessed fashion biz, photographers can go

from cold to hot faster than a drop-dead model can shiver her slim fingers down

the slopes of her hips. Sometimes it appears the industrys only permanent

fixture is the nastiness of its dominant tsars. Yet the fashion photographer,

Irving Penn, forever an emblem of Vogue, shot stunning women for over 60

years straight. His impossibly chic images of Lisa Fonssagrives, a Swedish

ballerina and arguably the worlds first supermodel, first emblazoned Vogues

pages back in 1947. Yet it wasnt just irresistible women with their perfectly

shaped noses, voluptuous lips, and bewitching eyes whom Mr. Pennimmortalized. He immortalized sewing machines, skulls, and cigarette butts, too.

Penn made Jell-O look so desirable it took on the wayward quality of a dream.

This doyen of the fashion world died one year ago, aged 92, gigging right down

to the end. For haute coutures dispossessed, Irving Penn is a savior: a man

whose work ethic was so tireless and persistent, no gravestone in our sprawling

Fashion Cemetery will ever cap his luminous vision.

Irving Penn, Vogue U.S.A.

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In 1930s, the American woman made a giant leap off the pedestal of the prim

and proper. She smiled easily, acquired a real body, and began breezily running

and jumping through all the glamour magazines, forcing every straight, page-

flipping male to reevaluate his sorry life. A decade later, cutting through all

commercial myth making and falsehoods, Irving Penn thoughtfully refined these

images into those that made sophisticated, strong, and independent women feel

good about themselves. Penns photographs were less about the surfaces and

textures of what women wore than about the women themselves. He broke

through the magical radiance in which they dwelled.

Girl with Tiny Goggles, Irving Penn, Vogue U.S.A.

Penns sitters often described their experiences with the photographer as

sances. They were impressed by Penns intensity, his benevolence, and how

words became lost in the silence and softness of intervals, as they approached

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the moment in which an intimacy would suddenly be revealed. His relationship

with designers was often equally mystical. Issey Miyake rarely visited Penns

hallowed studios, nor did the aristocratic photographer bother to materialize

amid the hurly burly of the legendary Japanese designers fashion shows. Miyake

simply shipped his clothes from Tokyo to Paris, to patiently await a series of

astonishing platinum prints in return. Irving Penn shows me what I do, Miyake

once mused. In the business of being beautiful, for Penn, there was no poverty

of the soul. Just pure unadulterated poetry.

Irving Penn. Guedras In the Wind. JGS, Inc. Permanent Collection

~ Robert Goethals, October, 2010