Fire Island Fashion history- Photographer Arthur Elgort & Gia the first Super Model.
In the 1970’s the Pines was a creative melting pot. Drawing all from every creative field. Many fashion photographers and models were here for the use of the Pines as a beautiful backdrop. Also for the fringe benefits of the party atmosphere. Such was the case with fashion photographer Arthur Elgort and one of the first super models simply known as Gia.
Arthur Elgort
was born in Brooklyn New York, he attended Stuyvesant High School and Hunter College, where he studied painting. He now lives in New York City with his wife, Grethe Barrett Holby, who is a producer, stage director, choreographer, and dramaturge, and three children, including actor Ansel Egort.
1976
Elgort began his career working as a photo assistant to Gus Peterson. Elgort’s 1971 debut in British Vogue created a sensation in the Fashion Photography world where his soon-to-be iconic “snapshot” style and emphasis on movement and natural light liberated the idea of fashion photography. In September 2008, he told Teen Vogue that he credited Mademoiselle for his big break: “They were really brave and gave me a chance. It was the first time I was shooting a cover instead of a half-page here or there.”
1978
1979
He worked for such magazines as International and American Vogue, Glamour, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Teen Vogue, and shooting advertising campaigns with fashion labels as Chanel, Valentino, and Yves Saint Laurent. He still works for fashion publications, as well as working on his most recent 2009 advertising campaigns with Via Spiga and Liz Clairborne with Issac Mizrahi. His work is exhibited in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography in New York, in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. In 2011, Elgort won the CFDA Board of Directors Award.
Susan Hess
Janice Dickinson
He has photographed some of the most famous models including Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, and in 1977 Janice Dickinson (right).
Christy Turlington
Vogue photographer Arthur Elgort
made his mark in 1971 when his portfolio of black-and-white pictures of a model playing with a dog ran in the British version of the magazine, and something new was injected into fashion photography: movement.
This snapshot aesthetic has characterized his work since the beginning of his career and garnered him acclaim for bringing buoyancy, lightness, and naturalism into fashion and advertising images. Trained as a painter, he switched to photography to feed his need for human company.
Before all those girls started the rise of the Super Model there was Gia. The first of the Super Models. Her full name was Gia Carangi, but she was known as Gia. No last name needed. Her rise in the fashion world was meteoric, and her fall from it was a story of an era of decadence and indulgence.
1980
In the Pines in 1980
for Italian Vogue photographer Arthur Elgort photographs Gia in an unhibited setting. He also gets the camera turned on him.
Gia Marie Carangi (January 29, 1960, Philadelphia, PA – November 18, 1986, Philadelphia, PA) was an American fashion model during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Carangi, who was of Italian, Welsh and Irish ancestry, was widely considered the first “Supermodel”. Cindy Crawford, who also appeared on the covers of several fashion publications during Gia’s time, was later referred to as “Baby Gia”, due to her resemblance to Gia. Carangi was also the first to present unusual poses, facial expressions and gestures. She is credited by many at the upper echelons of fashion to have created a new style of modeling, emulated by models since then to the present.
Carangi was featured on the cover of many fashion magazines, including Vogue, April 1, 1979; Vogue Paris, April 1979; American Vogue, August 1980; Vogue Paris, August 1980; Italian Vogue, January 1981; and several issues of Cosmopolitan between 1979 and 1982.
After becoming addicted to drugs, Carangi’s modeling career rapidly declined. She later became infected with HIV and died in Philadelphia. Her death was not widely publicized and few people in the fashion industry knew of it. Carangi is thought to be one of the first famous women to die of AIDS.
GIA
who was known in modeling circles just by her first name, had a turbulent childhood. Her parents fought frequently, and she was given little attention.
Carangi moved from Philadelphia to New York City at the age of 17, and quickly rose to prominence. She was the favorite model of many eminent fashion photographers, including Francesco Scavullo, Arthur Elgort, Richard Avedon, and Chris von Wangenheim, and she posed for photos in many countries. By the end of 1978, Carangi was already a well-established model. Carangi did modeling for these designer and cosmetic firms: Body Basics, Christian Dior, Cutex, Diane von Fürstenberg, Giorgio Armani, Lancetti, Levi’s, Maybelline, Perry Ellis, Versace, Vidal Sassoon and Yves Saint Laurent.
Gia Carangi was a regular at Studio 54 ( with Halston) and the Mudd Club. Carangi usually only used cocaine in clubs but later began to develop a heroin addiction.
In October 1978, Carangi did her first major shoot with top fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim. Wangenheim had her pose nude behind a chainlink fence with makeup assistant Sandy Linter.
Carangi immediately became infatuated with Linter and started to pursue her, though the relationship never became stable., Carangi’s agent, Wilhelmina Cooper, died of lung cancer. Devastated, Carangi started abusing drugs. Scavullo recalled a fashion shoot in the Caribbean when “She was crying, she couldn’t find her drugs. I literally had to lay her down on her bed until she fell asleep.” By 1980, Carangi began having violent temper tantrums, walking out of photo shoots, and even falling asleep in front of the camera. In the November 1980 issue of Vogue, Carangi’s track marks from heroin can be easily seen. For three weeks, she was signed with Eileen Ford, who soon dropped her.
In 1981, Carangi enrolled in a 21-day detox program, and started dating a college student, Elyssa Golden. The Carangi family, along with her mother, had suspected that Golden had a drug problem. Carangi soon began using again. She moved out of her mother’s house and in with some friends, once again entering a detox program.
Her attempt to quit drugs was shattered when news that good friend and fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim had died in a car accident. It is said[weasel words] that Carangi locked herself in a bathroom for hours, shooting heroin. In the fall of 1981, she looked far different from the top model she once had been. However, she was still determined to make a comeback in the fashion industry. She contacted Monique Pillard (who was largely responsible for Janice Dickinson’s career), who was hesitant to sign her.
For her second time, Carangi received the harsh treatment she skipped last time. Nobody would book her. Desperate, she turned to Scavullo. She landed a Cosmopolitan cover, a gift from Scavullo. Shot in the winter of 1982, it would be her last cover.
In West Germany, a budding fashion industry was being created. Although seen as tacky by the designers from New York, Paris and Milan, the Germans were willing to pay 10,000 marks a week to shoot Carangi abroad. However, no one in the States would book her. In the spring of 1983, she was caught with drugs in a shoot in Africa. Her career was over. After pressure from her family she entered a drug-rehabilitation program again at Eagleville Hospital. After six months, she was released from the program and moved back to Philadelphia, where she seemed to be getting her life back on track. She started taking classes in photography and cinematography. But, three months later, she had vanished once again, and had returned to Atlantic City, and started shooting heroin again. She slept with men for money and was raped on several occasions. She soon became sick with pneumonia, and her mother came and checked her into a hospital in Norristown, Pennyslvania.
Gia Carangi was diagnosed with AIDS,
then a newly recognized disease. As her condition worsened, she was transferred to Philadelphia’s Hahnemann University Hospital. Her mother stayed with her day and night, allowing virtually no visitors.
