It’s photography season in the south of France. Paris-based photographer Ann Ray just opened an exhibition called “The Unfinished – Lee McQueen,” which is part of the Recontres d’Arles photo festival, which is showing over 100 exhibitions until the fall.
Ray first met Lee McQueen in 1996, when he had just been made the artistic director of Givenchy. The next 13 years, they developed a friendship until the designer’s passing and she shot over 40,000 photos of McQueen’s runway looks, backstage and inside the talent’s home.
She tells i-D: “All this work is about finished things, about London in the late 90s. It was an era. It’s a kind of closure. The legend around Lee is the sadness, the grief, the magic. And all that is true, but it was really a revolution. We were having so much fun; it was joyful. The ending is tragic, for sure. But the story is so bright, and vibrant.”
It runs until September 23, so there is still time.
It runs until September 23, so there is still time.
Text by Nadja Sayej
Photos via i-D
