Both have been the great passionate artisans of their faces. For Lindbergh, who has built his notoriety on the images of these great models, the authenticity of their traits is all that matters. Through the visages that they both magnify, they accomplish their great work in this strange rapport of the disciplines that attempt to efface themselves in order to better reveal the other.Īlaïa’s clothes, according to the wishes of the couturier, must act as pedestals for the smiles and the eyes of the women, icons and supermodels who wear them. The metal roof beams of an engine room, the foundations of the Eiffel tower illustrate the memory of an industrial German landscape for one and reference the inordinate passion for functional design and architecture held by the other. A beach in Le Touquet, the streets of old Paris suggest shared inspirations of black and white cinema and vast panoramas. Both reject any artifice that distracts from the true subject and it is with great ease that they come together over a number of powerful collaborations.Īs is the case with the true greats who feign the absence of obstinance, simplicity is their playground. Step by step they became the creators that dominate their respective disciplines. Soon, this young German man taken with a passion for noble photography and this young man of Tunisian origin wielding his scissors with lightning precision would write some of the greatest chapters of the history of Parisian and French fashion.Īlmost simultaneously, Alaïa became the architect of bodies, revealing and unveiling them, while Lindbergh distinguished them by shining a light on their soul and personality. Whilst Lindbergh’s reputation in Germany was growing, notably thanks to his work in the magazine Stern, and he set up his studio in Paris in 1978, Alaïa was the couturier shrouded in discretion whose sophisticated techniques were a secret whispered amongst the most important clients of Haute Couture. Both men shared a taste for grand horizons, whether of the Mediterranean or of the North, and where the use of solid blacks often creates a complicit dialogue.

The architecture of Duisburg, an industrial and commercial town, provided the photographer’s setting, as did the Dutch beaches that he visited frequently. The white chalk façades that reflect the shadows of passers-by became a part of Alaïa’s Tunisia. Azzedine Alaïa studied in the sculpture department of the Beaux-Arts in Tunis, the town where the couturier grew up. Raised in Duisburg, a town located in Germany, at a looking distance from the Netherlands, Peter Lindbergh trained at the Krefeld School of Applied Arts. Despite their geographically opposed origins, Lindbergh and Alaïa pursued similar horizons.

Peter lindbergh