We were sad to learn the news today that revolutionary fashion photographer Corinne Day, passed away age 45. Day, who defined an era with her raw depictions of young, scrawny beauties, was responsible for launching Kate Moss’s career and the controversial “heroin chic” look into the stratosphere. Day shot a 15 year old waif Moss for the Face in 1990 which catapulted them both to prominence. While her critics disliked her brutally real, anti glamour, her photographs for The Face defined the moment, a backlash to the 80s polished excess, with ripped, torn, second hand clothes, a precursor to the grunge movement. Corinne Day parted company with Vogue in 1993 after a particularly ungroomed set of photos of a sad looking Moss in cheap underwear appeared in the magazine. Day was blamed for encouraging anorexia, drugs, even paedophilia which turned her off fashion for the following years. “Photography is getting as close as you can to real life, showing us things we don’t normally see. These are people’s most intimate moments, and sometimes intimacy is sad.”

In 1996 she was first diagnosed with a brain tumour and has been suffering with disease on and off ever since. Her invaluable impact to fashion and the 1990s will live on. It is another sad loss to the fashion world this year.

Grace Joel x

Corinne Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Day