You probably have a photo from Kate Moss’ iconic photo shoot for The Face on your bedroom wall, or as the wallpaper on your phone or your computer. Or maybe you prefer her 1993 Vogue cover shoot, where she was prophetically hailed as the face of London style. Even people who don’t pour over fashion magazines will probably recognise the images of a teenage Kate Moss that heralded accusations of glamorising anorexia and inspiring ‘heroin chic.’ What most people do not know, is that the woman behind these photographs is Corinne Day, who is in many ways, the anti-muse.
For a woman who has made such an impact on the fashion industry, I think it is interesting that fashion was far from her core focus as a photographer. Instead she claimed, “Fashion magazines…it’s all fantasy, isn’t it? I’ve always liked to go in the opposite direction.” Her disdain for the fantasy of the fashion world is clear in her photographs, in which Kate Moss barely wears any clothes at all. In other portraits, Scarlett Johansen wears an intricately beaded gown while reclining in a chair bare foot and make-up free and sex goddess Gisele Bundchen wears a lose fitting dress and converses. The focus is always on the imperfections of young women . Kate Moss perhaps describes her work best saying, “I love reality – things like bad posture, vacant stares, skinniness… they’re normal to teenagers. Women forget what it’s like to be young.” Perhaps this is why Day’s images resonate with us, we may not look like Kate Moss but we can relate to being fifteen, awkward and freckled. The beauty of Corrine Day’s work is not in it’s obvious beauty, nor is it in her celebration of fashion, rather it is in the chinks in the armour of the fashion world. For a woman who shunned the fashion industry in so many ways, her influence is hugely important.
This is perhaps why, out of the thousands of photographs taken of Kate Moss over the years, Day’s remain the most iconic. In an interview with Vanity Fair she recalled how Corrine ‘would say, ‘The more I piss you off, the better pictures I get.’ And I’d just look at her with a look of ‘Hate you!’ Because I was myself. I don’t want to be myself, ever. I’m terrible at a snapshot.’ They are completely raw and unguarded. The two lived and worked together for three years.
After the controversy that followed her work with Kate Moss, Day drifted away from the fashion world and instead began to focus on her own portraiture – a venture that culminated in a collection called ‘Diary’. Uninhibited by the commercial constraints of fashion the book follows the daily lives of women, inspired by the lives of her and her friends.
For someone who so vehimently rejected the values of the fashion industry, Day had an incredible influence within the world of fashion. Following her untimely death from a brain tumor in 2010 journalist Belinda White wrote, “Corinne opened the door for a whole generation of photographers, designers, models and stylists who suddenly saw that the fashion industry didn’t have to be this exclusive club for the privileged and perfect.” Even so, almost a decade after her iconic photographs of Kate Moss the public remains divided over the legacy of Corinne day. Some argue that she is responsible for the unhealthy and unattainable body image projected by the fashion industry. On the other hand, Alexanda Shulman, the longtime editor of British Vogue comments, “One or two maintain that these are still the most interesting pictures we published. I knew they were unconventional, but I never knew there would be this fuss. I would have published them anyway. I thought they looked beautiful.” Regardless of where you stand on the conversations that Day’s photographs inspired, her conviction in her beliefs is astounding. In a society that places so much value in materialism and obvious glamour and beauty – Day was unapologetic in her aesthetics and never compromised her vision. Her art was not democratic, but it was always truthful.
MxE 