Here is Kate Moss, with pink hair splayed across a pillow, her face scrubbed of makeup, her smile sweet and wonky. Sarah Lucas’s Pauline Bunny artwork with its confrontational hosiery on a charity shop chair. Sean Ellis’s collaborative knights-in-grubby-armour shoot with Alexander McQueen. Here are happy ravers, in a club, or saluting the sun as it stretches and yawns over a litter-strewn hill.
These photos are old. They were taken a long time ago. But they’re young, too. They are curated by Edward Enninful for the Tate’s exhibition The 90s: Art and Fashion (Enninful worked at i-D in the 90s) and almost everyone involved is shiny and fresh. The models, whether professional or not, are mostly in their 20s, and the photographers are early in their careers. It gives the photos a youthful fizz, a verve. But the energy also comes from an understanding between photographer and subject. In many of the pictures you can feel the shared mischief, a “yes we’re serious about our ideas” but also a “look, we’re getting away with it!” delight.
