A First Look at Peter Lindbergh’s Snapshots of Karen Elson, Alek Wek, and More Wearing 70 Years of Vintage Dior 

Peter Lindbergh was a master at recontextualizing clothes. With his camera in hand, the prolific photographer, who passed away in September at the age of 74, stripped glamour bare, put couture against concrete, and rejected the overdone hair and makeup typical of the genre. His images gave us a fresh, uninhibited lens through which we could consume fashion. And he did this all again for one of his final projects: a book of photographs, titled Dior Lindbergh.

To be published by Taschen on December 5 (it’s available for pre-order on the Taschen site now), the book consists of two volumes, one called Archives highlighting Lindbergh’s work for and featuring the Christian Dior brand, and another titled New York. For the latter, Lindbergh pulled over 70 years’ worth of precious fashion—80 pieces to be exact—out of the Dior museum in Paris and shot on the streets of New York City. He photographed Monsieur Dior’s Bar jacket from spring 1947, a ruffled gown from John Galliano’s dance-inspired fall 2003 couture collection, and pieces from Marc Bohan’s tenure in the 1960s on supermodels like Karen Elson, Amber Valletta, and Alek Wek (Dior s behind-the-scenes video from the shoot can be seen here). They appear undone, natural, storming the sidewalks as if—yes—they’re heading to the office.

In a statement about the book, Lindbergh wrote, “While Haute Couture is closely linked with an idea of perfection and the mastery of every last detail, I wanted to transport 70 years of Dior creations to an unexpected place. The streets of New York embody the most contrasting background to reveal unforeseen emotions.” The shoot took place in and around Times Square. As Karen Elson remembers, Lindbergh “wanted us to get lost in our imagination, to dream, to glance at him like he was another stranger that we were making eye contact with—mimicking those intense life moments we all have when we lock eyes with someone for a second and the world seems to stop until we move on.” She adds, “Peter understood that and brought those moments to life in his images.”

Lindbergh’s art director Juan Gatti says that the photographer’s intention was to surprise. “People are more familiar with seeing these sublime costumes photographed in the rooms of Louis XV or in the Gardens of Versailles, not in the extreme setting of Times Square.” Curator Martin Harrison, who penned the book’s forward, goes on to explain Lindbergh’s genius for re-contextualization. He writes, “the inspirations he absorbs are reimagined and revitalized, so that his work remains quintessentially modern. His photographs are in a creative dialogue between the various modernisms that swept through all the arts a century ago and the modernity of style today, a kind of neo-avant-garde.”

Here’s a first look at Dior Peter Lindbergh / New York.