June 1993 Bryan Ferry photographed by Snowdon

L’Uomo Vogue considered Bryan Ferry a ‘dandy par excellence’. He has appeared in the magazine many times as style icon and serious artist. Most of the time it’s both, and every time he is f lawless. Since Roxy Music’s debut album in 1972, he has fused music with a way of life that counts self-presentation as a work of art i n its own r ight.

In many ways Ferry, with his stylishness, his sense of irony and that enviable

vie-de-luxe, is his own best construct, though his art tutor and pioneer of Pop Art, Richard Hamilton, once considered that authorial accolade as his, calling him ‘my greatest creation’. In turn, Ferry credited Hamilton with inf luencing “my way of seeing art and the world”. And Roxy Music was essentially an art school project, an experiment. “We were never a typical rock’n’roll band. We were basically a group of art students and my focus was always about creating this theatrical style and look, a real ly strong image.” A col l ision of music, art and fashion. Never has that early song title Re-Make/Re-Model seemed so apposite: Ferry t urned himself i nto his own l iving work of art.

And in Ferry art always met style in spectacular fashion. He recounts tea with Salvador Dalí: “We had to sit on a crocodile then we went out to dinner inPa risina C ad il lacwiththe se s ix amazingbl onde model san datewit ha waiter behind each chair. Dalí didn’t speak any English but it didn’t matter.” It is very telling. Ferry and Dalí. It was enough that they collided, that there was a performance, that there was an i mpact. They did not have to l ike each other or even to t alk to each other; they just had to ‘ be’.

In 1993 Ferry was stil l the impeccably groomed rock star, perhaps more so than ever before. Of th is s itting with Ferry i n a Gianfranco Ferré s triped suit, it was noted t hat a workman, walking t hrough t he st udio, commented: “Who’s that? He looks just l ike a young Bryan Ferry...”