American fashion photographer Roxanne Lowit has died at the age of 80. Her Lowit is considered one of the most groundbreaking photographers in her field thanks to her intimate and her personal behind-the-scenes photography of the fashion world.

Born in New York City in 1942, Rowitt never studied to be a photographer, graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with a major in art history and textile design.

But after tinkering with an Instamatic 110 camera gifted to her by illustrator Antonio Lopez in the late 1970s and using it to shoot her own designs behind the scenes at shows, Soho News fashion editor Annie Flanders decided to take a look at Lowitt. has been assigned to cover Paris Fashion Week. .

Lowitt learned how to load film into his new Nikon 35mm camera on the plane to France. She found herself filming the backstage scenes of her fashion week in Paris, and she famously photographed Andy her Warhol and Yves Saint her Laurent at the top of the Eiffel Tower on that trip. is. When she returned to New York, Rowitt quit her job and she promised to become a full-time photographer.

Rowitt became a pioneer of behind-the-scenes fashion photography. Her images offer valuable insight into the glitzy, lunatic excesses of the fashion industry in the late 20th century.

As trend “It was Rowitt’s instinct to capture behind the scenes of a fashion show, and it will prove to be one of her most enduring legacies. It was born almost out of necessity. She noted that at the time, mostly men were allowed to film runways, and Rowitt was able to sneak behind the scenes and capture a different side of the fashion circus. It was now the go-to reporting format for Fashion Month trade publications and provided an intimate window into the more mundane aspects of life as a model.”

Throughout his career, Rowitt has photographed cultural icons such as Salvador Dalí, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Karl Lagerfield. But her most iconic photos document the rise of supermodels like Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Noami Campbell and Linda Evangelista in the 1980s and her 1990s.

A representative confirmed the photographer’s death on Instagram last week: “Roxanne Rowitt delves into the world of fashion and shows us a side of nightlife most people never get to see. He was a legendary photographer.”

Image credit:Featured photo by Museum at FIT.