Fashion Reverie looks back at renowned fashion and celebrity photographer Francesco Scavullo. This week marks the ten-year anniversary of Scavullo’s death. In addition to countless fashion and entertainment covers, any important celebrity of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s Francesco Scavullo photographed. From Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Lena Horne, Brooke Shields, Bianca Jaggar, Barbara Streisand, Madonna, Lou Reed, Sting, to Gia Carangi, Beverly Johnson, Verushka, Cindy Crawford, Cristy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Kim Alexis and a host of others, being photographed by Scavullo meant you had arrived.
As a young child, Scavullo loved looking through his mother’s fashion magazines and after perusing photos of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich before they became big movie stars became “fascinated by the thought that you could make people attractive.” By high school, Scavullo already knew that he wanted to work on the other side of the lens.
Scavullo first became an assistant to the great photographer Horst P. Horst at Vogue studios. There he learned cutting-edge lighting techniques, including the use of muslin filters and umbrella reflectors. But that most important thing that Scavullo learned from his mentor Horst was establishing a friendly rapport with clients.
Francesco Savullo’s first cover was for Seventeen magazine. As Scavullo began to shoot for every major fashion and entertainment magazine and develop a huge celebrity clientele, with the help of makeup artist Way Bandy, hairstylists Suga and Maury Hopson and personally selected wardrobe, he created the Scavullo look.
Though Scavullo was wildly popular through the 70s, 80s and into the 90s, he was known to be difficult, suffering from mood swings and depression that was later diagnosed as bipolar disorder. He died from heart failure on January 6, 2004.
His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute.
—William S. Gooch
Image credits
- collages176.jpg — Editorial image.
- collages175.jpg — Editorial image.
- stacy-chang-feature.jpg — Editorial image.
- collages177.jpg — Editorial image.
- francesco-scavullo-13.jpg — Editorial image.
- francesco-scavullo-13-2.jpg — Editorial image.
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