Pierre et Gilles
by Nicholas Curry (aka Momus)
Taschen, 80 pages, 1993
In 1997, on a trip to Europe, I came across the then-brand-spanking-new book, Pierre et Gilles: The Complete Works at an art bookshop in Amsterdam. Clocking in at over 350 pages it was big and heavy and ultimately I deemed it too much to lug around in my (non-rolling) suitcase for the next couple of weeks. This was a decision I grew to regret, and a book I still wish I had in my library.
Instead, I’ve had to make due with the much slighter Pierre et Gilles, published in 1993. But this is not such a sad thing, as the oversize book features nice, thick pages and fabulous reproductions of some of the French photographers’ best work in the 1980s.
It’s also a great place to start if you’re unfamiliar with the weird, wonderful world of Pierre et Gilles. Fantastical and kitsch, the super-saturated images had me hooked from the start. There was glitter, glamour, and their photographs often incorporated over-the-top religious and/or gay references. It was everything a middle-class Canadian girl from the suburbs could want.
The photographs speak for themselves here (the book includes only a one-page introduction as its key text — but in three languages, in typical Taschen style). Always exacting, perfect vignettes, Pierre et Gilles may not have made the mainstream fashion scene in North America in the 1980s, but their work was a staple in the European fashion and art press. The portraits are lush and rich with colour; they’re filled with melodrama and a playful wink, and the images are always worth revisiting, no matter how many pages the book holds.
