He wants ladies to look their best
The man dubbed Mr. Happy Snappy by the press in his hometown of London was looking up the length of Rodeo Drive and it was making him, well, happy. Flapping from poles up and down the street were flags imprinted with photographs of some of fashion photographer Mario Testino’s favorite things: pretty, pretty girls.
There were Kate Moss and Cameron Diaz. Up the street a bit, Madonna. All gorgeous, fun and fab. Madonna made him famous outside the fashion world when she asked him to photograph her for a Versace couture campaign in the mid-’90s. The bubbly Diaz would be among those to celebrate him at the 2005 Rodeo Drive Walk of Style event, where Testino and his late colleague, Herb Ritts, were honored Sunday with sidewalk plaques. As for Moss, the waif turned mom was simply his favorite model.
“The girls that I liked when I was young were like her,” said Testino, 50, reminiscing a few days before the event. “They were cool, happening, good looking, girls in control.” Testino, who grew up in Peru and prides himself on his impeccable South American manners, clearly loves his girls, and it certainly hasn’t hurt his career that they love him back. Indeed, asked whether he prefers the curvy Kate to the once bony Kate, he demonstrated one of his secrets to success in a highly competitive field.
“I love her any which way,” he said. “Even if she were to get fat, I’m sure I would think, ‘Isn’t fat great?’ ” Now, you know that one of the reigning photographers of the fashion and celebrity worlds, the guy who presented Princess Di and Tom Ford’s Gucci confections to the world through his fairy-dusted lens, is never going to think fat is great. But that’s not the point. Testino is the architect of that rare place in the imagination where everyone is beautiful, happy and enviable, at least for a moment. Then you can turn the page.
British Vogue editor “Alexandra Shulman said I choose what goes into my world and I choose it to be only beautiful and only positive,” Testino said. “But at the same time, I’m documenting people. I try to present them in the best light they can possibly be. Whether that’s valid or not, I don’t know. I think it gives a lot of pleasure to a lot of people to see pure beauty sometimes.”
Two evenings later, the block of Rodeo south of Dayton Way was shut off to traffic, and 700 people gazed at image after image from Testino’s new-and-improved world, beaming down from 8-by-10-foot screens on both sides of the street. Vogue Editor Anna Wintour, herself a prime arbiter of the perfectly turned surface, told the gathering that Testino “makes people look more vibrant and wonderful than they can possibly imagine. This is why he is so in demand.”
It was the third annual Rodeo Drive Walk of Style event put on by the city of Beverly Hills and the Rodeo Drive Committee, envisioned by the shopping street’s retail godfather, Fred Hayman, as a way to broaden its appeal for stylish customers. The block was pretty snazzy itself, dressed up with long, white lighted tables topped with white orchids and candles by the event planner, the Donohue Group.
The first two events honored fashion icons Giorgio Armani and Tom Ford, then of Gucci. This year’s party, hosted by Anjelica Huston, was the first to reach beyond the pool of fashion designers to honor style makers in other fields with a torso statuette designed by her husband, the sculptor Robert Graham, and a bronze plaque on the sidewalk, reminiscent of that other street in Hollywood. Testino and Ritts were chosen by a selection committee composed of 25 magazine editors, designers and heads of fashion schools and museums around the country.
“They’re both geniuses behind the camera and in front of the camera,” said committee chair and Armani executive Wanda McDaniel. “They’re both beloved men.”
Before presenting the award to Ritts’ mother, Shirley, Patrick Swayze delivered an impassioned tribute to the photographer, who evolved into a close friend after they met on a shoot. “He said, ‘You’re a dancer and a gymnast. You want to play?’ ” Swayze recalled. “By the end of the session, I was hanging upside down naked. He changed my life. He became that big brother I never had.”
Indeed, the photographer-subject relationship can get pretty intense, especially in the fashion world, despite its preoccupation with surfaces. In an industry where attitude is practically an accessory, working with a professional with people skills produces more than inhibition-shedding pictures. It makes life more pleasant, and that goes both ways, for photographer and subject.
Two days earlier, Testino ruminated on the qualities that make his favorite girls his favorite girls. He may be the favorite photographer of many models and celebrities, but don’t think he doesn’t have a list of his own. He ticked off the qualities that put Kate Moss at the top. “She’s beautiful. She’s got huge amounts of taste. She’s funny. She’s clever. She’s kind.
“I have to live with these girls, you know,” said Testino, who recently bought a second home in Los Angeles. “It’s not a 9 to 5 job. It’s really a life job. We spend a lot of time together when we travel, a lot, which means you don’t only spend days with them, you spend evenings with them.”
But it was Testino’s ability to make his subjects look great, not just feel great, that made the stars come calling. And that tweaked his career, enabling him to evolve into a portrait photographer, the 21st century equivalent of Joshua Reynolds in an epoch obsessed with celebrity. Both he and Ritts have had major museum exhibitions -- Testino at London’s National Portrait Gallery and Ritts at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
Still, that hasn’t turned Testino’s pretty head. “I don’t pretend to be a fine artist,” he said. “I’m very conscious of it. I’m a commercial artist. My job is to sell clothes.”
