SLIM AARONS STYLE
FOREWORD:
ATTRACTIVE THINGS
BY JONATHAN ADLER
BIRTH, SCHOOL, WORK, DEATH
that bleak and iconic 1988
song by the Godfathers terrified my younger self. Like every Gen
X-er, I was born with a Kaa-esque outlook. Birth, School, Work,
Death
was that the story of Life? Oy vey! Birth had occurred
twenty years earlier and school was about to end, so work and
death were all I had to look forward to. There was no way around it.
Or was there?
Enter Slim Aarons. It was 1993, and I had recently quit my
office job and was embarking on a career as a potter (mishugana
career choice, btw). For kicks I would haunt the Strand bookstore
in NYC looking for design inspiration. One day I was flipping
through the photography section and there IT was: a Slim Aarons
monograph. Instantly I felt a surge of dopamine. Here was Babe
Paley lolling at Round Hill villa. Socialites in lemon and white
resort clothing lounging poolside at the Kaufmann House. A rou
and a beauty playing backgammon
in
the pool at a groovy Acapulco
resort. A family outing in a streamlined sixties amphibious car?
Um, yes please! Here was a world that combined design with fun,
optimism, color, and spontaneous glamour. These people were
all going to die too. But before they did, they were going to have
F-U-N, probably in a gorgeous Caprese palazzo.
The pictures were blowing my mind. But Slim Aaronss hilari-
ous motto was changing my life. Slim summed up his oeuvre per-
fectly: attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.
Attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.
Attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places. I
repeated the phrase three times, and suddenly my bleak worldview
was washed away like a Thetan from a Scientologists body. I had
a new guru.
In Slim Aaronss world, the dramatis personae are never to
be found staring at the horizon with existential terror. They are,
in sharp contrast, frozen during moments of heavenly becaftaned
unapologetic self-indulgence. Slim Aaronss glamorous jet-set
snaps were the big bang of FOMO that made Instagram possible.
Everybody on earth faces challenges, but when Slim hits the pause
button, the world takes a momentary break and the relentless
cycle of Birth, School, Work, Death takes a back seat to color, style,
Regency pool pavilions, sun-soaked ski slopes, bougainvillea-
covered colonnades, and suntanned arms clanking with statement
jewelry. In Slims world, birth happens at New York Presbyterian.
School? Brearley. And then the nasty bits of lifework and death
evaporate into a cloud of Palm Beach, Capri, Southampton, Aca-
pulco, Gstaad. Rinse and repeat. Life is so... attractive. Its always
time for another boozy and sun-soaked luncheon.
By some miracleIm sure Slim Aaronss optimism had
a hand in itI managed to turn my little pottery concern into a
viable business. I work, I pay my taxes, and Im lucky to live a cre-
ative life. But on the bad hair days, the days Im trapped in Topeka
because of a missed flight, when rainy days or Mondays have got
me down, I conjure the jet-set glamour of guru Slim. Suddenly the
Topeka airport fades away and I find myself sitting poolside with
that lady in the lace crop top with the blonde flip, and an import-
ant question pops into my head: Can I please have another Harvey
Wallbanger?
Guests mingle by the pool at the
Kaufmann House, architect Richard
Neutras Palm Springs modernist
masterpiece, 1970.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
BY SHAWN WALDRON
WHEN GIVEN THE CHANCE,
Slim Aarons would be the first to
proudly and enthusiastically admit that he was not a fashion pho-
tographer. His own words were, I dont do fashion. I take photos of
people in their own clothes and that becomes fashion. Its a simple
premise: These are the Beautiful People, this is how they dress, and
soon, this is how you will dress, too.
Fashion photography first appeared on the printed page in the
early twentieth century in magazines such as Art et Dcoration and
Vogue
. Baron de Meyer and Edward Steichen, two pioneers of the
genre, overcame photographys technical limitations by introduc-
ing dramatic lighting and custom-built sets to infuse pictures with
elements of distinction and chic. Their photographs showed the
latest fashions, naturally, but also incorporated avant-garde art
and design. Society women, already the main subject and readers
of the fashion press, were among the earliest sitters,
often wearing
garments from their own wardrobe. The practice was not with-
out controversy Vogue caused a minor scandal in upper-class
circles after publishing a particularly haughty portrait of Gertrude
Vanderbilt Whitney taken by de Meyer in 1913but within a few
short years the mutually beneficial relationship between fashion
photographers and the elite was firmly established.
Fashion pictures evolved aesthetically throughout the first half
of the twentieth century, but never drifted far from their raison
