Getty Images: Jack Manning/Contributor
Richard Avedon in his New York City studio, 1985. He is standing in front of his photograph Clifford Feldner, Unemployed Ranch Hand.
At Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, the famous 1966 masquerade dance held in Kay Graham’s honor at the Plaza Hotel, Richard Avedon solved the problem of how to see and enjoy the splendid party by wearing a “wrap-around mask that covered his glasses,” according to Life’s December issue, published shortly thereafter. Avedon and his spectacles were equal entities; images of the photographer show him with glasses pushed up to the forehead, ready to flip down when needed. His look was unchanging: a pair of stylish mobster aviators that were just on the casual side of hip-hop and undeniably cool. His eyewear inspired Garrett Leight—the son of Oliver Peoples founder Larry Leight—to design an Avedon frame in 2015. Avedon’s fashion light shines bright in his work as well. His photographic aesthetic was about immersion: for him, couture—however fancy—was about interaction, with models moving, dynamic and in the moment. His methods brought life and character to the clothes he shot. His images are iconic: the model Dovima wearing Christian Dior and posing with elephants at the Cirque d’hiver in 1955 or his 1957 homage to Martin Munkacsi of Carmen Dell’Orefice wearing Pierre Cardin, carrying an umbrella, and jumping off a curb into a Paris street. Just as his commercial work took fashion to new places, his portraits explored and surveyed their subjects with rare intuition, always discovering something new to share about the sitter—whether famous figures like Martin Luther King Jr. or outsiders like Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981.