Stephanie Pfriender Stylander
Kate + Marcus, NYC Love Story, 1992
One-of-a-kind collage of gelatin silver prints on board
Framed size: 21x41 inches / 53x104 cm
Signed by the photographer
I was living in Paris in the early 1990’s and my French assistant would take me to these small cinemas behind the Champs-Élysées and introduced me to the films of Jean-Luc Godard. I fell in love with Godard's muse, the actress Anna Karina. When I received the call from the creative director of Harper’s Bazaar Uomo to shoot a fashion story in NYC (the brief was “a love story, a young couple roaming the streets”), I thought: I HAVE to find MY Anna Karina.
The male model Marcus Schenkenberg was the star at that time - he was in all the Versace ads with Avedon. But I wanted someone unexpected to go with him.
I called up Women modeling agency, spoke to a booker that I knew, and told her all about Anna Karina and that I was looking for this type of girl - different, a bit off, kooky, beautiful, and unusual. She told me that she had just received these faxes from their British agency and there was this girl - but she said: "I think she has something, you might like her - but I have to tell you she is really tiny.” The next day I saw the faxes and really couldn’t believe it - Kate was perfect. I could see in those faxes that she knew innately how to speak to the camera and her look was something I had never seen in a model before.
It was Kate Moss’s first-ever shoot in New York.
- Stephanie Pfriender Stylander