If the 1980s was a decade of heady womanhood – immortalised by the colourful confections of couturier Christian Lacroix, the wide shoulders and bouffants of Working Girl, or the high-voltage glamour of the women of Dynasty and Dallas – the soulful, stripped-back photographs of German photographer Peter Lindbergh provided a riposte to the era’s more-is-more aesthetic. ‘He truly shaped a new way of representing women in magazines,’ says Olivier Flaviano, head of Paris’ La Galerie Dior, where a new exhibition ‘Dior / Lindbergh’ celebrates the late photographer’s work, particularly that made in collaboration with the maison.
Lindbergh, who was born in Lissa (Leszno) in German-occupied Poland in 1944, grew up in Duisburg, a town close to the German-Dutch border, before going on to study at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts and the Kunsthochschule (College of Art) in Krefeld. After assisting photographer Hans Lux and working at Stern magazine (an influential title which then counted Helmut Newton and Hans Feurer as contributors), his breakout moment would come in 1989 shooting for British Vogue.
