Lori Goldstein - Lori Goldstein: Style Is Instinct

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.
CARL JUNG, Letters, Volume 1: 1906-1950, 1973

FOR MY MOTHER, MARCIA
Without your loving criticism and inspiring strength, I would not be who I am today.

Lori Goldstein is one of the most talented and real people in the fashion business. She and I have collaborated for so long that, to be honest, I dont even remember when I first met her or where we first worked together. It might have been before I was a photographer, or maybe it was for Lei magazine. Im seriously drawing a blank.

But I can tell you this: success has not changed Lori at all. She is the same as she has always been.

She is a survivor, and she never quits. Even when not-so-great things happen, she just turns the page and moves forward, which is an unbelievably wonderful quality.

Lori and I have a lot of fun when we work together, even though work can be extremely stressful at times. Other editors freak out, making everyone crazier, but Lori remains peaceful and calm. Dont get me wrong: she is very serious about her work, but she knows that in the bigger picture its important for us to enjoy what we are doing and to be as creative as we possibly can under the circumstances.

One of the main reasons that Lori has been able to stay at the top of her game for so long is that she has always kept a healthy arms length from the industry. I dont think she would have it any other way. She doesnt get involved in politicking and nonsense, and she genuinely cares about the job. She is an artist and isnt interested in being a star. The work and her passion for it come first, not her ego.

What really sets Lori apart is her unrivaled ability to mix. She loves mixing everything: periods, collections, fabrics, colors, prints, new, old, everything. She is amazing at it. And trust me, shell go to the ends of the earth to find something unusual or something that you havent seen before. You never know what youre going to get when you arrive at a shoot with Lori, because there is such a variety of things that she has chosen. Yet she puts it all together, and it works.

STEVEN AND LORI, New York City, 1991

In some ways Lori works like a painter, mixing colors and textures. And like a true artist, she sees it immediately. Shes eclectic, taking a bit from here and a bit from there; mixing something very expensive with something vintage. And why not? If you have a great eye and great taste, you can afford to break the rules. Not everyone can pull that off. Shes one of those people you go to a store with and even though youre looking at the same clothes and accessories, she will be the one to come away with something amazing and unexpected.

I really think that Lori was the first to bring vintage fashion back into style. She was certainly the first fashion editor I worked with who was searching out all sorts of places for vintage, especially in Los Angeles. And she was the first one to start mixing vintage with new collections. Nobody used those clothes before.

For Lori, styling comes naturally because she absolutely loves and understands clothing and accessories. I think thats one of the main reasons her LOGO by Lori Goldstein collection for QVC has been such a hit. She brings an honesty and passion to the collection, and women are able to relate to her because she is not phony. She loves women and knows how to help them at a price point that is accessible. She really is interested in helping women put themselves together, whether shes doing it on QVC or in the pages of Italian Vogue. These two venues arent contradictory for Lori. Whatever work shes doing comes from a place of passion, openness, and fearlessness.

Besides, strict rules are for other people. Lori is a free spirit who lives life to the fullest. She is a rebel, certainly, but armed with her sense of humor, her amazing taste, and her heart, she is my kind of rebel.

Steven Meisel

Where does style come from? For some people, it emerges from suggestionthis seasons jacket; this seasons bootbut that isnt style. Thats fashion. Thats trend. Style goes deeper; its an appreciation of what lies beyond the conventional definition of beauty, that is, of what is different, of what upsets a surface, turning a still pond into something with waves, something more like an ocean.

My aesthetic emerged at a young age. I always knew what I wanted to wear, what I wanted to see. I was captivated by the blue of the sky, by the rough texture of the bark of the trees, by the freedom that I felt when I was outside in the summer with the sun on my face. That was what I sought then and what I seek now: to be surrounded by beauty; to be suffused with freedom; to be allowed complete creative expression.

That is what style has always been and will always be to me: the expression of a personal philosophy about beauty, about the world, about the nature of life itself. My style is an expansion of the notion of beauty, sometimes slipping, sometimes pushing beyond the familiar or the obvious: adding layers, textures, colors, more, always more. My style says chaos is beautiful. It says ugliness is beautiful. It says everything is beautiful.

I ask myself, if that is style, what is a stylist? A dream catcher. A conjurer of fantasy. A partner to the photographer, to the subject, to the moment. A stylist produces a physical entity so that the photographer can capture a dream. A stylist turns the subject into a fantasyor reveals his or her humanity. A stylist respects the value of the moment, bringing everything into one place so the moment can take hold.

And then, snap. Clothes, hair, makeup, set, stylist, subject, photographer, and moment all disappear into the finality of the right photo, the photo that makes people stand up and point at the monitorsthe photo that becomes the one.

Like any beautiful sonnet, sonata, or still life, a great photograph has a quality of timelessnessit conveys a sense of always having been there, of being meant to be. But in order for something to be meant to be, it must be meant. Someone has to envision it, imagine it, breathe it into being.

The first stage of creation, whether building a mood, feeling, or story, is the same: discovery. At the outset of a project, I am an obsessive collector of all the ingredients I need to cast my spells. For me, the hunting doesnt begin when the agent or the magazine editor calls or when the photographer asks about my availability. I am always working, hunting and gathering wherever I happen to be. Whether I am in the stores, at the markets, or on the streets, I am looking, discovering, responding, finding, taking, collecting.

I always bring my newest treasures to a shoot: a pair of sunglasseswhich I saw on an elderly woman in Palm Springsthat I fell in love with because of their shape, or more jewelry than I could possibly ever need because too much jewelry can never be enough. The point is, you never know what youll want to use, and its often those very clothes or accessories that I go for instinctively that make their way into the pictures, then into fashion magazines and the stores, and then back out to the street again.