Product Details
Hardcover
powerHouse Books
Published 1999
Amazon.com
Famed makeup artist and photographer François Nars has assembled a book of his portraits in X-Ray. The one-page preface, written in French by fashion maven Andre Leon Talley, makes the point that this is not a text-heavy book. The photos are large-format, and each portrait occupies an entire page. Readers will find many familiar as well as unfamiliar faces here, all set in vivid Technicolor against a stark white background. Among the most recognizable are the photos of supermodel Shalom Harlow as a naughty Snow White. Nars's subjects are varied, but they are all legends in their own right, contributors to a stylistic vision, both of his world and their own. A few favorites of this reviewer are Ivanka Trump as a perched yellow canary, Kate Moss as Dorothy, Alexander McQueen wearing British flag contact lenses, and Amber Valletta as a 1960s airline stewardess. Then there are the more straightforward portraits--involving less costuming--of Chloe Sevigny, Sharon Gault, Grace Jones, Isabella Rossellini, Francesco Clemente, Tim Burton, Susan Sarandon, and a slew of models, designers, artists, and musicians young and old. The portraits are simple, yet Nars's sense of color and the up-front-and-center feeling of the images--so many interesting faces, some staring at readers unmasked, others transformed into utter fantasy--are phenomenally powerful. --Amra Brooks --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Paper Magazine
Francois Nars sends off the century with syle. In X-RAY, the French makeup artist and photographer gives us 256 pages of captivating faces-from socialites to supermodels to street punks-that capture the essence of of-the-moment cool and natural glamour.His clean, bright style magnifies his subjects' sensuality, while his makeup artistry-from a dab of lip gloss to full-fledged fantasy-showcases his vision, even if, he says with a laugh, it doubles the amount of work for each portrait. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
World renowned makeup artist Francois Nars started photographing just two years ago. Deciding to art direct his own marketing campaign, Nars started casting and shooting models. The results were smashing: soon ads appeared in W, Harpers Bazaar, and Allure, featuring stunning full-frame images of strikingly elegant women, in very untraditional casting, showcasing his new, blazing hot NARS line of cosmetics.
The famed designer decided to expand his vision: create an enormous art book with over two hundred richly stylized presentations of elegance, featuring his favorite personalities from the worlds of fashion, design, film-even passersby on the street: people who personified to Nars the very notion of bold and audacious chic.
Nars then set about travelling the globe and inviting each individual to sit for him, styling each portrait session according to the sitters metier, personality, and elan. The results are simply stunning: 240 immense color portraits-creations, really-extracting the essence, as with an X ray, of the worlds most remarkable individuals: Alexandra Von Furstenberg, Alexander McQueen, Amber Valletta, Angelica Huston, Anna Sui, Betsy Bloomingdale, Boy George, Bridget Fonda, Dave Navarro, Donatella Versace, Eartha Kitt, Francesco Clemente, Grace Jones, Hamish Bowles, Isabella Rossellini, Ivanka Trump, Jacqueline de Ribes, Juliette Lewis, Kate Moss, Lauren Hutton, Lauryn Hill, Marc Jacobs, Paloma Picasso, Penny Marshall, Polly Mellen, Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, RuPaul Charles, Stephanie Seymour, Sylvia Miles, The Divine David, Tim Burton, Verushka, and many, many others.
X-Ray is not fashion photography: it is a portraiture of style that is meta-fashion. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. |
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