Forty legends, fifty icons, one authorial eye. Steven Meisel builds the picture first, then lets fashion fall into place.
A single frame can hold an era. Think of Art Kane’s “A Great Day in Harlem,” fifty‑seven jazz greats assembled on a Harlem stoop, or Avedon’s 1976 portfolio of America’s power brokers. The group portrait turns a crowd into a chorus, and tells you who matters now.
Decades later, Steven Meisel channels that same spirit in fashion photography, he staged a British Vogue cover shoot assembling 40 women from models to movie stars for Edward Enninful’s grand finale issue. He also gathered a who’s-who of 50 top models for Zara’s 50th anniversary, marking the fast-fashion giant’s milestone with an iconic group image and video. In late 2024, Meisel reunited with his longtime friend Marc Jacobs to photograph Kaia Gerber for the December 2024 issue of American Vogue, part of a special edition guest-edited by Jacobs. Not one to rest, Meisel also lent his masterful eye to Fendi’s 100th anniversary campaign in 2025, celebrating a century of Roman style with elegant, sepia-toned visuals. Each of these headline-grabbing projects shows Meisel’s uncanny ability to set the industry abuzz, just as he has for over four decades.
Even as he remains one of the industry’s most mysterious figures. Often described as “fashion’s ultimate enigma,” Meisel kept Vogue Italia under his spell for decades. A rare 2008 interview offered a glimpse behind his mystique: Meisel confessed he doesn’t constantly carry a camera like many peers and even mused, “When I think about it, am I really a fashion photographer?”. Such self-reflection hints at Meisel’s expansive role, much more than a photographer, he is a visionary image-maker who orchestrates narratives and moods that define fashion itself. Behind the lens, he’s also famously loyal to a tight-knit crew, the long-standing creative “mafia” he travels with, and has even been known to refuse a shoot if his preferred team isn’t available (notably makeup artist Pat McGrath or hairstylist Guido Palau.)
Beginnings and Breakthroughs
Born in New York in 1954, Meisel was infatuated with fashion from childhood, sketching models and devouring magazines instead of playing with toys. He studied fashion illustration at the Parsons School of Design, and one of his first jobs was illustrating for Halston before landing at Women’s Wear Daily. It was in the late ’70s, while still an illustrator, that Meisel started taking photographs on the side. A model agent at Elite noticed Meisel’s drawings and invited him to test-shoot some new faces, and those images caught the eye of Seventeen magazine, which promptly hired him.
“My favorite editorials are the ones that allow me to say something, the ones that I have a minute to think about.”
— Steven Meisel, 032c (2008)
By the early 1980s, Meisel’s eye behind the camera eclipsed his sketchpad. In 1986 he shot his first Vogue cover for British Vogue and soon became a regular across Condé Nast. When Franca Sozzani took the helm of Vogue Italia in 1988, she gave him unusual latitude. Over nearly three decades he photographed almost every cover, more than four hundred in total, and the magazine became synonymous with his vision. Together, they turned Vogue Italia into a stage for high fashion and pointed social narratives. His shape-shifting aesthetic, from Old Hollywood gloss to grunge grit, reset the bar for editorial photography. “The one thing that taking pictures allows you to do is occasionally make a larger statement,” he said in 2008, and he kept making them.
The Supermodel Whisperer of the ’90s
Meisel’s rise coincided with fashion’s superstar model era, and he became nothing less than the architect of that movement. He has been credited with launching or elevating the careers of Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and countless others, muses who became his close friends and collaborators. “He taught me how to be a blank canvas… like I can take on any character imaginable,” Naomi Campbell once said of working with Meisel. His sets were a creative playground where models learned to embody any persona he dreamed up, from screen siren to androgynous rebel.
Fashion was much more open in the ’70s, and even in the ’80s, which is insane. Today, it’s totally closed down and worse than it has ever been.”
— Steven Meisel, 032c (2008)
In 1992, Madonna collaborated with Meisel to photograph her notorious Sex book, instantly cementing him as a pop-culture force. Despite the media-shy mystique he cultivated (he rarely gives interviews, letting the images speak for themselves), Meisel’s name became synonymous with provocative, era-defining imagery. By the mid-1990s, his photographs for Versace, Dolce Gabbana, Prada and more were not just ad campaigns but cultural events; one Versace series in 2000 was even exhibited in a fine-art gallery. Yet, for all the hype, Meisel maintained that the “supermodel moment” wasn’t a calculated spectacle. “We were simply having a great time and documenting it… It wasn’t something I did consciously. We were friends; it was my beginning as it was theirs,” he later reflected of that golden era. In other words, Meisel was just doing what he loved, and in the process, changing fashion history.
When Fashion Becomes Commentary
Throughout the 2000s, as trends came and went, Meisel continually reinvented his style, and used his visual narratives to spark conversations. With Franca Sozzani giving him free rein at Vogue Italia, he shot audacious editorial stories that pushed buttons and tackled social issues. Makeover Madness (July 2005) satirized the plastic-surgery obsession with an 80-page photo novella starring Evangelista swathed in couture and bandages. Another shoot took on celebrity paparazzi culture by depicting a model’s “arrest” by police, and in 2008 Meisel made headlines with Vogue Italia’s “Black Issue,” featuring only Black models in response to industry racism. (That issue became the magazine’s fastest-selling edition ever.)
“My style changes constantly. Fashion is about change. In order to stay current and excited, I try new and different approaches.”
— Steven Meisel, American Photo (2003)
Meisel has never been afraid of controversy, from a Calvin Klein campaign criticized as too provocative to stylized editorials on oil spills and war, he consistently used fashion imagery to reflect the world’s uncomfortable truths. “I was just holding up a mirror to society,” he noted of his more controversial work. Sometimes his visions did get censored or sparked debate, but more often they pushed fashion forward, forcing it to address topics it preferred to gloss over. When Sozzani passed away in 2016, Meisel’s longstanding Vogue Italia cover run ended, but his voice remained influential. He began collaborating with Edward Enninful at British Vogue, bringing his genre-defining creativity to a new era and new audience.
Evolving Legacy
Even after four decades at the top, Meisel shows no signs of slowing; if anything, he’s expanding his influence. In 2022, Inditex impresario Marta Ortega mounted Steven Meisel: 1993 A Year in Photographs, a high-profile exhibition in Spain devoted to one seminal year of his work. And in 2023, Meisel surprised the industry by stepping into design: he partnered with Zara on a limited collection, Steven Meisel New York, translating his personal uniform of bandanas, work boots, and parkas into ready-to-wear. (As supermodel Linda Evangelista commented, “It’s classic, effortless, and chic – it’s Steven,” when she saw the clothes inspired by her longtime friend.) He also published a celebratory book with Evangelista, showcasing their 25-year creative partnership. And of course, Meisel remains the go-to choice for marquee fashion campaigns, whether it’s capturing today’s top models lounging in luxe Fendi finery or bringing together legends for a one-off Zara extravaganza, brands trust his storytelling instincts as much as his impeccable technique.
“I think it’s like everything that you grow up with becomes part of your aesthetic eye. It’s not that I am consciously thinking about any of it. I guess it becomes part of who you are.”
— Steven Meisel, 032c (2008)
At 71, Steven Meisel remains both a fixture and a constant innovator in fashion photography. He is the visionary who can conjure a cinematic narrative in a single frame, and the mentor who has shaped generations of models and photographers. “Fashion is about change,” he once said, and his own career is living proof. It is a story of relentless reinvention that has defined fashion’s past and continues to chart its future. In an industry obsessed with the next new thing, Meisel’s work endures because it creates the new. Every time his shutter clicks, he reminds us that image-making is an art form, one that can capture beauty, provoke thought, and occasionally make a larger statement. As long as Steven Meisel is behind the camera, fashion will never stop moving forward.
