MeIn the early 1990s, fashion shows were still a rough and ready business. Things weren’t as tightly controlled as they are these days, especially when scratching under the surface.Joe Jones, now fashion editor at Observer magazine and then a student at Central Saint Martins, was at the Vivienne Westwood in Paris. I was able to invite myself and fellow student Gavin Bond backstage at the show.

It was 1993 and they were there on a student trip. Somehow, the ever-tenacious Jones was able to negotiate access to “all areas” through Vivienne Westwood’s mother, who worked as part of her daughter’s team in preparation for the show. For her student magazine, Jones worked in a room and interviewed Westwood’s mother, as well as Kate Moss’ mother, who was there to accompany her fledgling teenage daughter. began photographing the scene, chatting with the models, playing cheeky banter, and focusing the lens on atmosphere, chaos, hair, and makeup.

The resulting images shot on film were used not only in Jones’ final magazine project, but also in TimesBond was in the right place at the right time, just as he was for the next decade. His behind-the-scenes photos document all the raw, raw glamor of the early ’90s. Bond befriended hair and makeup teams, models, dressers, DJs, designers, assistants, editors, journalists and even security guards. He was so at home behind the scenes that he was allowed to be with Naomi, Kate, Cindy, Linda, and Helena when the other photographers were kicked out before the show. , ball gowns, elaborate makeup, and extraordinary hairstyles, they posed, put on cheeky faces, told jokes, and were content to be themselves. Photos contain an unconscious honesty. In the book’s preface, Christy Turlington describes them as “sweet and stolen moments.”

Gavin Bond: Being There Beginning when Bond was forced to stay home, perhaps longer than he’s had since his trip to Paris as a student, it’s a new book published by Idea. I started looking through a unique archive containing contact sheets, scrapbooks, polaroids, clippings and letters from designers. The access and trust he has forged with his subjects, in a style he developed as needed using the available light, yielded frame after frame of pure magic, and depending on whether or not he wanted to shoot full-length. Only he selected three apertures. figure or face. This simplistic approach meant he missed nothing.

Seeing the current photos, which are on display as part of Bond’s first solo exhibition at the Hamiltons Gallery in London until October 29, puts you in the shoes of a photographer and brings you closer to the whole scene, exhilarating and laughing. You will feel like you are surrounded by , lipstick, champagne. Up close look at the clothes, the perfection of the model’s skin, the impossible knotting of the corset, the cigarette smoke (imagine smoking backstage!) and all those important finishing touches – curls. A spritz of hairspray applied by Lagerfeld, a stressed Gianni Versace watching the final running order.

Anyone who was in the fashion industry at the time feels nostalgia. “If you were there, you would feel the same way,” writes Turlington. .”

All photos © Gavin Bond, courtesy of Hamiltons Gallery.

Gavin Bond: Being There runs until October 29th at Hamilton’s Gallery in London.