“It really was a coincidence,” says Debbie Dickinson of her entry into the modeling industry in the mid-’70s. She had moved to New York with aspirations of becoming an actress and dreamed of Broadway. But that changed when scouts from a Parisian modeling agency noticed her and offered to fly her to France.
“The day I landed, I was working with Louis Féraud, who was considered one of the best couturiers in 1975,” says Dickinson. “I walked in from Les Puces flea market in shorts and had $600 in my pocket at the time.”
She lived in Paris for 7 years, became a muse of Karl Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent, a house model for Chanel, was Issey Miyake’s first model and the first US contract model for Giorgio Armani.
Prêt-à-porter was emerging from the shadow of haute couture and Dickinson found himself at the center of an exclusive creative circle that combined culture, art and fashion. “I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but it really was one of the greatest eras in fashion.”
She sees similarities between then and now. “It’s a really creative time and it’s a time where fashion’s great artists are emerging. We see the pendulum swinging back in the direction of classic and elegance,” says Dickinson. “The Paris collections are slowly evolving back into something very elegant and beautiful, which I’m really excited about. Fashion is coming back. To me, fashion means being able to put together things from their wardrobe that look like they really put some thought into their clothes.”
Like fashion itself, Dickinson is a master of reinvention. When she put modeling on hold in the ’90s, she transitioned into public relations, eventually “ending up in fashion very organically.” She says, “I’ve always had a love for art.” Years of traveling around the world, experiencing the scenes in Paris, Milan, Tokyo and London allowed her to expand her social circle, or her “group of creatives” as she calls them, and in May she opened her first pop-up -Gallery. “I wanted to focus on artists who are struggling to get their name out there but are top notch talent. They just don’t get recognized.”
“Ombre, Awakening and Reinvention” is the title of her current exhibition in Manhattan, in which fashion and art come together. Featuring sculptures, photographs and canvas works by eleven artists, the show is a reflection on how creatives move from darkness to light and a response to the past two years marked by global and national unrest, climate catastrophes and pandemics.
Megan Heekin Triantafillou’s large-scale abstract floral paintings, painted in acrylic and oil, evoke the most decadent of luxury textiles, but Dickinson also has a penchant for illustration. She points to Erté, Warhol and even Picasso as pioneers in this field. “Traditionally, the art world turns up its nose at illustration, but I think it’s about time that stopped,” she says. “Illustration is absolutely an art.”
Fashion illustration is the focus of the art exhibition in Manhattan
Audrey Schilt, a former sketch artist for Halston at Bergdorf Goodman and longtime in-house illustrator at Ralph Lauren, is exhibiting twenty works that underscore this point. Of particular note is Putting it Together, a large canvas that showcases the archetype of a designer at work, matching looks to models, checking drape and styling before the collection debuts on the runway. As such, the scene is reminiscent of Dickinson’s earlier role as a model and the intimate process of bringing the creative’s vision to life.
Tehran-born Iranian Issa Khan is another artist whose large-scale photographs of natural forms are notable not least for having featured on the covers of Dickinson in the 1980s Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar photographed. “She was precise, spectacular, a perfectionist,” says Dickinson of Issa Khan. “You sat with her for hours because she was the best for beauty photography.” The photographer spent four years photographing flowers that only bloom for one night, and it wasn’t just capturing exquisite faces. “How fashionable is a giant yellow coral?” asks Dickinson, pointing to the sun-toned archival handprint entitled ‘Golden Pleasure’, which could in fact pass for an enlarged sample of Issey Miyake’s famous pleated fabric.
“I always have one foot in fashion,” says Dickinson. “It’s really a home for me, even though I’m fully committed to the art world at the moment.” She says design teams from Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Maggie Norris and Nicole Miller have all visited the exhibition. More fashion greats are expected on October 6, when the premises will host an art talk hosted by Anthony Haden-Guest, where attendees will be able to hear from Ombre’s artists. “It’s becoming a hub for designers,” says Dickinson, who shows no signs of slowing down in her reinvention with a big NYC show next May.
‘Ombre, Awakening and Reinvention’; is on view at the Debbie Dickinson Gallery, 7 East 14th Street in Manhattan through October 14.
This is a translation of an English post by Jackie Mallon. Jackie Mallon teaches fashion in New York and is the author of ‘Silk for the Feed Dogs’, a novel set in the international fashion industry. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ