All creatures... great and small
From Andy Warhol's delightful elephant illustrations to Karl Lagerfeld’s memorable self-portrait with his cat Choupette, the pages of Bazaar have teemed with beloved beasts, flocks of birds and fluttering butterflies. Here are some of our favourites, to c
Beauty is in all beings that love and are loved, animals and children,’ declared Diana Vreeland, Bazaar’s legendary fashion editor. No wonder, then, that the magazine has always celebrated the beauty of animals, alongside that of the women featured in these pages. Across hand-drawn covers of the 1920s, greyhounds dance, leggy and lovely, their swooping curves mirroring the sinuous elegance of their Bright Young mistresses; later, Dalmatians and other photogenic spotted dogs hold sway, providing a witty counterpoint to monochrome designs; the soft ruffles of a spaniel emphasise the cosiness of a duffel coat. Elsewhere, lambs, goats, chickens, snakes, swans, doves and butterflies abound. Giraffe Manor in Nairobi is a location to which Bazaar’s fashion teams have returned on several occasions over the decades for the surreal juxtaposition of this formal English-style house and its towering, gentle residents. In similar vein, for a 1950s fashion story, a conventional tweed-clad mannequin caresses a peacefully snoozing cheetah as though it was a domestic moggy.
This month, in our Dior story on page 130, we republish Avedon’s photograph Dovima with Elephants, one of the most famous fashion images of all time, featuring the slender model standing between a brace of circus pachyderms. Less well-known, though equally memorable, is Andy Warhol’s charming illustration of an elephant from the July 1960 issue; a reminder of his early career as a contributor to Harper’s Bazaar.
Nowadays, we avoid such exotic creatures, in favour of domestic pets (most often our own); while Karl Lagerfeld’s selfportrait with his beloved cat Choupette, which we ran as a limited-edition cover in 2015, sold out completely in less than a day. But we continue to be inspired by the beauty of horses: satin-skinned and noble, symbolic at once of femininity and freedom, the embodiment of poetry in motion. And just as we highlight the glories of the British countryside in our fashion stories, so we cherish our native fauna: a frosty-winged little owl for a wintry Christmas cover shoot; a dove nestled in the hands of Sienna Miller; Helena Bonham Carter in decorative bunny ears, clutching a white rabbit to her bosom; and, most recently of all, Karen Elson in red velvet, surrounded by chestnut-coloured hares and holding Oscar, the friendliest of foxes, in her arms. ‘Animals make people stop and breathe, and experience the now,’ says Richard Phibbs, who photographed the flame-haired duo for our June cover. ‘They are such gifts to all of us.’ lydia slater