Some collect Panini stickers of soccer stars. Others porcelain ducks. I....I seem to be collecting JPEGs of photographer Steven Meisel's series Four Days in L.A.: The Versace Pictures.
Meisel made his Versace photos over four days in two L.A. mansions in 2000. As Pernilla Homes writes, nearly-identical supermodels Amber Valetta and Georgina Grenville are
primped and preened within an inch of their lives, dripping in gems and gold, they are surrounded by orderly opulence from Old Master paintings to hyper-groomed poodles.
So why am I collecting these things?
Because they're gorgeous. But also they're vacuous.
Nicolas Ghesquiere, the creative director of Balenciaga, once said the most fantastic thing:
We have idols but no models to follow. You have to define your own model.
Meisel gets this.
In the L.A. series, he creates a model from an idol - and vice-versa.
And rather than be political and meld and switch between the authentic and ambiguous in a Hillary Clinton kind of way, these images are totally inauthentic *and* ambiguous.
Pure sheen. I love it.
