→
Nickerson inherited a collection of fashion magazines from her grandmother, who was friends with the painter Augustus John and the photographer Cecil Beaton.
Camilla Nickerson
Vogue
Harpers & Queen
Camilla Nickerson was only a teenager when she was discovered by Sophie Hicks, then a fashion editor at British Vogue. A young Nickerson was smoking a cigarette outside of school when Hicks approached her and within days, she was on set donning designs by Rei Kawakubo. “I was a terrible model,” she laughs. “So when I realized that fashion editors existed, I was really happy to find and connect with my passion.”
She goes on to describe that passion as “using clothes to tell stories about the world,” something she has done for the likes of American Vogue, i-D and W, as well as notable fashion houses including Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent and Céline.
It is perhaps unsurprising that Nickerson, having worked with some of the top names in fashion and publishing, has countless sources of inspiration. “There are hundreds of thousands of things that have influenced me,” she admits. Nonetheless, there are a few people who earn special recognition.
“After work, I used to go to Crunch Studios,” she recalls, harkening back to the early days of her career. “There was this hotbed of creative people: Judy Blame and Christopher Nemeth making clothes, and Mark Lebon photographing them. They took me under their wings and were hugely inspiring and nurturing.” As for other mentors, Nickerson names the iconic editor Grace Coddington, whom she worked alongside at British Vogue (“You could really see her passion translate to extraordinary storytelling,” she remembers) and Steven Meisel, “who could turn these women, with his light and love of fashion, into extraordinary muses.” Nickerson has also become an advisor; former women’s creative director for Calvin Klein, Francisco Costa, dubbed her his“extension,” explaining to V magazine, “I trust her judgment 100 percent.”
←
When Nickerson isn’t working, she enjoys spending time with her two teenage sons. “It’s great to see when my boys connect to clothes, or music or a book or play,” she said in an interview with The Gentlewoman.
Nickerson has long emphasized the importance of looking outside of the industry when it comes to her own creative process. “I go to galleries, read a lot of books, just constantly try to stay in touch,” she says. “I’m intrigued by what is going on elsewhere in culture and how that can connect back to fashion.” With that mind-set, Nickerson has become an essential authority for the modern and minimal aesthetic that she helped to define.
In 1990, director David Fincher, known for films like Fight Club and The Social Network, called on Nickerson for a project: George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” music video. The set was an old mansion, and the stars were some of the top supermodels of the day—Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Tatjana Patitz. With the budget going almost entirely toward a white linen sheet that wrapped around Turlington, Nickerson styled the other women in clothes from her own wardrobe (Crawford sported boots that belonged to Nickerson’s boyfriend at the time, and Evangelista wore her sweater). “And then suddenly there was this new mood, which was about reality,” Nickerson told Vogue. “It was okay just to be you, and it was okay to borrow your boyfriend’s clothes, have chipped fingernails, tell it as it is.” The iconic video set a new precedent—from the models themselves to Nickerson’s work—for the interaction between popular culture and fashion.
My work is informed daily by something as simple as walking around.
The images also set the stage for the book Fashion: Photography of the Nineties that she co-edited in 1996 with her then-husband, critic Neville Wakefield. Work by fashion photographers like Juergen Teller and Corinne Day sat alongside shots by Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman. “The rawness and spontaneity that for so long set Goldin’s work apart from the vast majority of fashion images,” wrote Holly Brubach in a 1997 article for The New York Times Magazine, “are now standard features of the new style—a style so closely allied with art photography that in Nickerson and Wakefield’s book it is often impossible to tell the difference.”
Nickerson is still making waves in the industry, and credits her two sons, Atticus and Jackson, with keeping her linked to popular culture today. She also acknowledges the importance of New York, a city she’s called home since moving from London more than two decades ago. “It’s an incredibly democratic city,” she says. “It’s so intense. We’re all reduced to the same level while trying to find our own space. The city is also just full of crazy people with fantastic style, and they’re all in the street. My work is informed daily by something as simple as walking around.” These “snippets,” as she calls them, “are what ultimately inform the clothes and the photograph.”*
←
Martinez de Salas brought American and European furniture with her from New York but has turned primarily to local design while decorating her home in Mexico City.
KARLA MARTINEZ DE SALAS
Vogue Mexico
Vogue Latin America
W Magazine
Interview
T Magazine
Shortly after Karla Martinez de Salas relocated from New York to Mexico City, she gave birth to twins girls, Costanza and Ines. “Through everything that I promote, all the content, I’m very aware of how my daughters will consume it when they’re older,” she reflects. As editor in chief of Vogue Mexico and Vogue Latin America, she strives to illustrate the different sides of women. “I want the images to celebrate strength, power, vulnerability,” she says.
Martinez de Salas took her early inspiration from powerful female figures: “[At American Vogue], I worked with an assistant market editor, and we called in clothes for Grace Coddington, Phyllis Poznick, Camilla Nickerson,” she remembers. These women were the “creative forces” at the magazine and in her case, personally instrumental. Nickerson, she says, “would do all of these twists and turns with the clothes but knew that at the end of the day, she had to turn in a certain kind of image. She was breaking the rules, but in her own way that she knew Anna [Wintour] would like and appreciate.”
Looking back, she calls Vogue “an amazing school,” crediting her job at the company as one of the most formative. She admits that although it might seem trivial to have called in clothes and jewelry for these women, it was one of the best learning experiences. “It was never just a bathing suit. It was about the process. And that’s how it is for me now,” she explains. “It was never, and is still never, only clothes for me; it’s the process of making an amazing picture.”
From Vogue, she went to work at The New York Times’ T magazine, under the influential wing of Stefano Tonchi. “With him, I learned that it’s about more than fashion,” she recalls. “It’s about art, travel, food, architecture—all of these things that make up style.” Thinking back on her first meetings at the magazine, she laughs, “I would write down all of the names that were mentioned, because I didn’t know who they were talking about. Everyone was so much smarter and more cultured than I was.”
A 10-month (“short, but productive”) stint at Interview alongside Fabien Baron and Karl Templer followed. “That’s where I really learned how you really get the picture that you want,” she says of her time at the magazine. Eventually, though, she was lured back by Tonchi, this time at W magazine, and hired as the fashion market and accessories director. Now, helming Vogue Mexico and Vogue Latin America, Martinez de Salas says she is more ambitious than ever.
“I feel like Latinos haven’t really raised their voices. We’ve been silent about our place in the creative industry,” she admits. “Like when Nina Garcia was appointed the editor in chief of ELLE, nobody said she was a Latina woman. She is, and that’s kind of a big deal.”
With that in mind, Martinez de Salas is on a mission: “It’s super important to not o
nly promote the culture and all the amazing beaches, what have you, but the people who are here, who are representing Latin America and Mexico in the fashion industry and the world in general,” she says.† “I feel like our platform could be really powerful in that sense, and that’s exciting for me.” The editor in chief aims to “give voice” to photographers, models and other creative professionals, both in the magazine and behind the scenes. As for any major difference in her work, having moved markets, she says, “The staff here is much smaller. In New York, there are 10 people in the fashion department alone. Here, we have something like 15 in total.” But, she adds, “It’s kind of a reality check on all the excess of the industry in New York.”
In 2010, Martinez de Salas co-founded Project Paz with a group of friends in New York City. The nonprofit partners with designers, artists and brands like Sotheby’s and Carolina Herrera to support children and promote peace in Juarez, Mexico.
Life in Mexico City has been an adjustment as well, but one that Martinez de Salas takes in stride. “One of the biggest mistakes that I made when I moved here,” she remembers, “was trying to mimic my life in New York, which was not very easy to do.” Relying on a car, she says, has been a significant lifestyle change, on top of adapting to cultural differences more generally. “Fitness culture, which only recently started taking off here, is really interesting. People can come late to a class, which would just never happen in New York. The other day, I was stressed because I was late for yoga, but when I walked in, nobody cared,” she laughs.
When it comes to the city itself, she bubbles with excitement. “There’s always something going on here,” she says. Mexico City, she notes, is one of the cities with the most museums in the world—Museo Nacional de Antropología, Museo Nacional de Historia and Museo Frida Kahlo are just a few of its most notable. On top of those institutions, the region is gaining more international notice in the art world with fairs like Zona Maco. “Mexico has been in the spotlight, and in a good way,” she reveals. “There was a stigma around Mexico being dangerous—and it can be—but people are coming here now for the food scene, the art, the culture.” That attention is markedly different from where she grew up. “I always say that El Paso is the forgotten child of Texas,” she explains of her southwestern roots. “When you grow up in a small city, you really appreciate other cities. Everywhere we went had more than El Paso, and was really exciting because I wasn’t jaded.” Now in the heart of a world-class city, Martinez de Salas is grateful for her less-than-traditional roots. “We grew up listening to Depeche Mode, the Violent Femmes and other alternative rock bands,” she says. “I feel like the people around me were always rebelling against the fold.” El Paso, in her eyes, doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.“There is a big group of people from El Paso and Juarez who wound up in New York, in creative industries.”
After studying marketing at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which she describes as “also a very small town,” Martinez de Salas moved to Paris for an internship, first with IMG Models and then at the Hearst offices. “I thought, ‘Oh my god. This is the best place ever,’” she recalls. That awareness, she says, sets her apart from those who grew up in major urban environments and allows her to see things in a different light.
“There are so many types of people here, and that really influences you creatively,” she says of Mexico City. With her unique eye and endless inspirations, Martinez de Salas is not just shaping the future of Vogue Mexico and Vogue Latin America; she is shaping the future of the region itself. “I really hope that when people see my magazines, they want to know more about our culture, the people and what happens here,” she adds. “And that they discover something new.*
Martinez de Salas says the Parque de Chapultepec is one of her favorite places to run and roam with her daughters in Mexico City.
I feel like the people around me were always rebelling against the fold.
PUBLISHING ARCHIVE
←
Collaborating with close friend and photographer Steven Meisel, Sozzani helped create the phenomenon of the supermodel. Her editorial instinct led her to feature topics and issues that other fashion publications avoided, such as domestic violence, drug abuse and recovery and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010. She also launched Vogue Curvy, staffed by plus-size bloggers, in February 2011.
1950–2016
FRANCA SOZZANI
Franca Sozzani was appointed editor of Vogue Italia in 1988, creating a magazine that was “extravagant, experimental, innovative,” in her words. She also pushed the magazine to be image-led, considering visual language more international than the written word. Her photographers and stylists, including Bruce Weber, Peter Lindbergh and Steven Meisel, were given creative freedom, with Sozzani ever-ready to defend their ideas. According to American Vogue, Weber once wrote to her: “When I sent all these photos to you, I would write on the package ‘personal.’ I now realize that I took them for you because you would be the only one who would understand.”¶ She considered fashion to be not simply about clothes but also about life, and ran photo-stories that confronted issues of race, gender and the environment. The editor also worked with a number of charities and initiatives, including the United Nations World Food Programme. Of her creative drive and passion for life, her son once explained to The Guardian: “She’s very much about the future.” Sozzani added, “It’s not that I don’t think of the past, but it’s a waste of time. If you’re stuck in the past, beholden to it, then your creativity is stuck there, too, because you don’t give yourself a chance to evolve.”¶ Sozzani was born in Mantua, Italy, in 1950, to a traditional family. She wanted to study physics, but after her father refused, she chose literature and philosophy at the University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. Upon graduating, she was briefly married—with only three months passing before annulment—and soon left Italy to travel to India. She said, as quoted by American Vogue, “I thought it was time to do something good with my life.” And that she did. Asked by a reporter from The Guardian what, in her opinion, is the greatest asset that she brings to her work, Sozzani replied: “I add the dream.” She held her editor role at Vogue Italia for 28 years, until her death in December 2016.*
→
Known to value emerging talent, Sozzani opened Vogue Italia’s Milan office to the public on multiple occasions. Young visitors could meet with and ask questions of the editor and her staff.
1887–1961
CARMEL SNOW
Born in Dalkey, an affluent suburb of Dublin, Ireland, in 1887, Carmel Snow moved to America as a child, following her mother, who found work at the Irish Woollen Manufacturing and Export Company. Snow would later assist at the custom dressmaker T.M & J.M Fox, where her interest in fashion was cemented. ¶ Snow was hired as an assistant fashion editor at Vogue in 1921, befriending Condé Nast, and was promoted to fashion editor in a few short years. In 1932, she accepted an offer from William Randolph Hearst to become editor of Harper’s Bazaar, then the main rival of Vogue, and was informed by Nast that her “treacherous act [would] cling to [her] and [her] conscience,” as reported by The New York Times.¶ It was a bold move, followed by a series of bold editorial decisions that would redefine the nature of fashion publishing. Snow considered fashion “an aspect of highly developed culture,” according to The Irish Times, and under her editorship Harper’s published fiction and journalism by the likes of Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, Colette and Truman Capote. She also ran Henri Cartier-Bresson’s wartime photojournalism, and worked with Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Richard Avedon and Martin Munkacsi. In fact, it was with Munkacsi that she disrupted fashion photography altogether. She commissioned the photojournalist to capture a model running toward the camera on a windswept beach, bringing personality and life to a context traditionally known for still, mannequin-like reserve.¶ Under her leadership, the magazine was art directed by Alexey Brodovitch, who worked with Snow to reassess the form—both in the context of Harper’s B
azaar and as a genre—and reconsider the relationship between text and image, cropping, white space and typography. Snow’s most renowned protégé was Diana Vreeland, whom she hired as fashion editor after seeing her dancing at New York’s St. Regis Hotel. The decision was fitting for an editor whose career was defined by bringing the page to life.*
As editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Snow championed the concept of “a well-dressed magazine for the well-dressed mind.” Starting in 1932, the former Condé Nast insider changed the tired and dowdy rival publication into a dynamic cultural force that grew into an unprecedented 500 pages. She was a thoroughly modern thinker as well, presenting a teenage Lauren Bacall and a then-unknown Andy Warhol to what was then a mostly conservative readership. Notably, when all Hearst magazines were forbidden to publish photos of African Americans, Snow defied her boss and signed off on a portrait of the great opera singer Marian Anderson.
1925–1983
WILLY FLECKHAUS
Known as “Germany’s most expensive pencil,” Willy Fleckhaus is thought to have introduced the art director role to that country’s design industry, inventing the position for himself at youth lifestyle magazine Twen. Fleckhaus’ dominance of the magazine is said to have caused a slew of editors to leave with battered egos; the graphic design quarterly Eye called Twen “the embodiment of a single-minded vision, a synthesis of New York editorial chutzpah and Germanic rationalism—Madison Avenue meets the Ulm School.”¶ Fleckhaus played with extremes of scale, contrast and repetition, and was known for his visual drama—cutting and pasting text with image in a flat hierarchy that sprung from the page. His aim, he said, was to “illuminate words,” which he successfully achieved by employing groundbreaking typography. Fleckhaus was born in Velbert in 1925 and was drafted into Germany’s armed forces during World War II. Graphic design was a way for him to relive the youth that had previously seemed impossible. In Eye’s profile on the seminal designer, his friend and peer Adolf Theobald said, “Protest, opposition, liberalism, sentimentality, pleasure—all these things were worked out, processed through the layout.” *
The Eye Page 13