What a surprise it was to come across this portrait of Leigh Bowery by Fergus Greer — Session VII, Look 37, June 1994 — a few days ago, in a room of the Tate Modern as a part of the museum’s exhibition dedicated to him.
It was impossible not to think of Rick Owens’ Spring/Summer 2016 show and the so-called « human backpacks ». The press had seized upon the gesture, which the designer described as a tribute to women: “It’s about nourishment, sisterhood/motherhood and regeneration; women raising women, women becoming women, and women supporting women.”
However, there was no mention of this possible echo — no parallel drawn and Rick Owens’ reinterpretation of it. Still, this image — a body carried by another — had already been staged by Bowery some twenty years earlier. It’s just one of the many intersections the exhibition brings to light, which shows just how underestimated his influence on the creative fashion scene is.
As I continued my research, I found that Annie Leibovitz had photographed the same look in 1993 — a few months before Greer. This is yet another trace of the protean figure that was Leigh Bowery, whose radical aesthetic continues to resonate today.
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