

Ellen von Unwerth
I Did It My Way, 1993

Harry Benson
Halston and André Leon Talley, Tanglewood, Massachusetts, 1975

David LaChapelle
My Own Liz, 2003

Arthur Elgort
Oscar de la Renta and Karl Lagerfeld, Paris, 2002

Ellen von Unwerth
Two models in John Galliano, 1993

Patrick Demarchelier
RuPaul, 1998

Slim Aarons
Truman Capote at home in his Brooklyn Heights apartment, New York, 1958

Paul Tanqueray
Cecil Beaton, 1937

Fergus Greer
Leigh Bowery: Session 1, Look 2, 1988

Horst P. Horst
Gertrude Stein with Basket, Paris, circa 1930

Abe Frajndlich
Horst P. Horst, Oyster Bay, New York, 1988

Francesco Scavullo
Portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Wagstaff, 1974

Bruce Weber
Ray, John and Eric, Bear Pond, Adirondack Park, NY 1989

Helmut Newton
Rich Girls, Bordighera, Italy, 1982

Herb Ritts
Fred with Tires, Hollywood, 1984

Chris von Wangenheim
Gia Carangi and Sandy Linter, 1979

Len Prince
Three Wrestlers, Puerto Rico, 1992

Abe Frajndlich
Statues at the home of Horst P. Horst, Oyster Bay, New York, 1988

David LaChapelle
David Hockney: The Golden Hour, 2017

Arthur Elgort
Fire Island, New York, 1976

Ron Galella
Divine and Grace Jones at Grace Jones’ birthday party, Studio 54, New York, 1978

David LaChapelle
Diesel Jeans, Victory Day, 1945, 1994
In 1995, Italian denim brand Diesel ran a campaign photographed by David LaChapelle which looked like something torn from a school history textbook or a copy of LIFE magazine - but with a significant difference. The black and white image shown above appeared to depict D-Day celebrations of a US Naval ship but in the foreground of the image two sailors stood embracing, their mouths locked together in a kiss which recalled AIDS activists Gran Fury’s famous ‘read my lips’ poster. At the height of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" – the controversial policy which banned openly LGBTQ+ people from serving in the US Military – the ad was published around the world.
For LaChapelle, the campaign created a response he couldn’t anticipate. “Neither of us knew the impact of what we were doing,” he remembers, referring to himself and Diesel founder Renzo Rosso. “The impact was huge because it was seen in 72 countries. At the time, in 1995, two men kissing – that had never been seen before like that, internationally. People thought I'd taken an old photograph and added them digitally, like I was blaspheming a photo of D-Day by superimposing two guys kissing on it. I just took that to mean that the art direction was really good.”
Out of his immense body of work, LaChapelle says that this image is particularly significant for him. Once, he was driving out in the desert in California, and stopped at a small gay and lesbian bar. “There it was behind the bar, taped up from the magazine, all yellow,” he remembers. “That was like it being in the best gallery or the best museum in the world. It meant something to people.”
- From “Dazed” Magazine, 2017