Bold, Beautiful, and Damned: The World of 1980s Fashion Illustrator Tony Viramontes
by Dean Rhys Morgan
Laurence King Publishing, 192 pages, 2013
You’ve probably seen Tony Viramontes work without knowing it was his — on ’80s album covers like Arcadia’s So Red the Rose and Janet Jackson’s Control, or perhaps on covers of old issues of The Face. You may have flipped past an illustrated Claude Montana ad or spotted some of his work in Vogue Italia, circa 1984.
Viramontes wasn’t as well-known as his idol and sometimes-mentor Antonio Lopez, and that’s one of the factors that makes his work — and his life — an ideal subject for a book. Bold, Beautiful, and Damned is oversize, full of colour pictures and bursts of dense text that serve as a brief biography and give context to the many illustrations, most of which have not been seen in decades.
Viramontes’ personal story is short and ultimately tragic (he died in 1988 at age 33 of AIDS). A California boy who sought a career as a fashion illustrator first in New York and then in Paris, Viramontes worked quickly, intensely and developed an instantly-recognizable style that once you know is his, you’ll certainly recall. As his career took off, he developed a taste for heroin which resulted in unprofessional behaviour, but his work was in such demand that the industry tolerated his demands and drama.
Ultimately, Bold, Beautiful, and Damned is a story of an artist with great potential that was never fully realized. It’s sad to be sure, but also fascinating to read of Viramontes’ climb up the fashion ladder and how he fit into that world. He developed many connections to well-known fashion types in unusual ways. The model/actress Rene Russo was an early muse and Viramontes even took a drawing class taught by fashion photographer Steven Meisel during his early years in New York in the late 1970s. There are plenty of such tidbits here, though it would have been nice to have the text flow throughout, rather than presented in large chunks in tiny type.
Minor structural issues aside, the book is a must for any serious student of 1980s fashion — as an introduction to or remembrance of Tony Viramontes’ superb talent.
