Half a Century of Sarah Moon, Doyenne of Fashion Photography

Whenever I look at a photograph by Sarah Moon, I think of the famous line from Diane Arbus: ‘A picture is a secret about a secret; the more it tells you the less you know.’ Few photographers have understood that paradox – the seduction of withholding – more completely than the eighty-four-year-old Frenchwoman whose recent work is on show at Michael Hoppen Gallery in West London until 17 July.

Moon’s distinctive aesthetic – muted colour, blurred detail, softness, texture – seemed to emerge fully formed in the early 1970s, her signature immediately differentiating her from other great fashion photographers of the day such as Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton and Irving Penn. But it is the emotive element that really activates her images. A sense of romantic melancholy and transient fragility haunts her pictures in a way that is felt rather than understood. 

Is that consciously constructed or does it emerge instinctively, I ask her? “I look for what I recognise, yet also what can surprise me,” she says. “In the studio, even though the clothes and the background are pre-prepared, I try to avoid tricks as much as I can. Then, in a slow-motion, mingled with the movement of the wind, the gesture of the model, with the clothes that make her one [thing] or another, I give it a go… to express something I feel close to.”

Sarah Moon, Djenice for Yohji Yamamoto (II), 2022, silver gelatin print, 60 x 50 cm, signed and titled in pencil by the artist verso, edition 3/15 © the artist. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

There is, perhaps, something lost in translation as Moon writes answers to questions put to her by The Art Journal while sitting in her cabane, cooled by a “wind machine” during the heatwave of late May. But that’s also the mystery of photography itself, and never more so than in Moon’s pictures, which often reference literary ideas rather than visual influence. “I am never looking for truth,” she says. “If there is truth, it is when I believe in what I see.”

She is essentially describing photography – and especially fashion photography – as a process of controlled spontaneity, creating conditions carefully and then waiting for something emotionally ‘true’ or unexpected to emerge. Her process is instinctive rather than intellectual. She doesn’t want the image to feel overly manipulated, theatrical, or merely decorative. The central idea is that meaning emerges gradually through atmosphere, movement, repetition and collaboration.

Marielle Warin, as she was first known, was born in occupied France in 1941 to a Jewish family who fled to England shortly after. She took up modelling in the early 1960s, working with Biba in London and Cacharel in France, and began taking pictures of her colleagues. By 1970, she was concentrating fully on photography, adopting the name Sarah Moon and shooting commissions for Vogue magazine, Chanel, Comme des Garçons and Dior. In 1972, she became the first woman to photograph the Pirelli calendar, and since 1985, she has focused on gallery and film work.

Did starting out in front of the camera inform her direction when she moved behind it? “To tell you the truth, I didn't think of going in one direction or another,” she replies. “I knew, having been a model, that there was often a body language between the camera and the model. I knew it was not mine.” But, of course, she could relate to the young women she later photographed. “I wasn't comfortable being a model, not only because I was judged for my looks, but because I didn't feel it was my place. I felt I was a misfit for many reasons. And yes, it did help when working with younger models. Arriving in a foreign country, I could feel their shyness. I knew what that was about.”

Sarah Moon, Oiseau des îles, 2003, colour pigment print, 74 × 57 cm, edition of 15 © the artist. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

Moon introduced a female gaze to fashion photography, though she puts it somewhat differently. “I am and have always been in solidarity with women,” she states. “I admire them, not only for their looks, but for what they are. In fashion work, let’s say they have the first part to play, and I am happy to give them their own voice and not have them play the game of seduction by posing for a picture. I respect their gestures… I always feel our complicity, and probably this is what creates [an atmosphere that is] more backstage than onstage.”

From the early 1980s, following Improbable Memories, her first photobook, and solo shows at the Rencontres d’Arles photofestival in southern France and the International Center of Photography in New York, Moon pursued personal projects, engaging with fashion more as an extension of her own artistic practice, and incorporating nature, landscape, architecture and still life into her oeuvre. This work was seen in magazines such as Zoom and a series of critically acclaimed photobooks by Éditions Delpire, the imprint of her husband, Robert Delpire, the legendary publisher and curator. Coïncidences (2001) brought together her first 15 years as an independent photographer, followed by 1.2.3.4.5, a five-volume box set (2011) that won the Nadar prize, Dior par Sarah Moon (2022) and Dialogue (2025), created with Yohji Yamamoto.

Her film career developed alongside: she has made 150 television adverts, winning both a Lion d’Or and a César for her work on Cacharel perfume launches such as Loulou and Anaïs Anaïs; a feature film titled Mississippi One; a 38-minute documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson; and short films that mirror her photographic approach, such as Circus and The Red Thread.

Sarah Moon, Le Chemin, 2019 © the artist. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

Her last major institutional retrospective was PasséPrésent in 2021 at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Last year she was awarded the Grand Prix de l’Académie des beaux-arts in photography. Is there a renewed interest in her work? “In a funny way, Sarah’s never had a moment,” says Hoppen. “Sarah’s just always been there… Even now that she’s in her eighties, she still appears as this diminutive little bird, sort of pecking away at moments of photography.

“The people that come here – young and old – they get it. She communicates very well. We’ve got a picture of a railway, Dior dresses, and a Hornbill. The interest that she shows in a hugely diverse range of subject matter is brought together with her style.”

She is certainly as busy as ever, having recently opened shows in Normandy and Venice, and is currently working on a new film and a project with Paolo Roversi. “She smokes and shoots, shoots and smokes!” says Hoppen, who has now done five exhibitions with Moon, and whom he counts as a good friend, having also been an admirer and close acquaintance of her late husband, who died in 2017. “The images don’t change very much. That’s what’s interesting. She’s so consistent. Most of her work comes from Polaroid negatives, and when I look around the room [at the gallery], things don’t really look very different from the pictures she made in the 1970s and 80s, even though they’re only a couple of years old. I think she’s comfortable with that.”