“The supermodels were like superheroes. People wanted to know everything about them, and they appeared in pop videos such as George Michael's Freedom!'90. The supermodels were larger than life. They were so glamorous. They were super professional, and it was fun to work with them: it was like driving a Ferrari.”(Ellen von Unwerth).
One of the supermodels of the 1990s was Claudia Schiffer, who was actually discovered by Ellen von Unwerth in 1988: "Ellen von Unwerth was the first photographer I worked with, and her pictures launched both of our careers. In the early years, when we were both first signed to Guess. It often felt like two friends fooling around together, and that's the perfect shoot, where the chemistry between photographer and model is just right. You can be as silly and cheeky as you want because there's trust."
Born in Frankfurt/Germany in 1954, Ellen von Unwerth took a roundabout route to photography. On her first day at university, she was discovered by a modelling scout in Munich. She spontaneously moved to Paris, where she spent many years modelling for the likes of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin, as well as walking the catwalk for designers such as Kenzo, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier. It was not until 1986 that Ellen von Unwerth became a photographer virtually overnight: "A friend gave me my first camera. He said, ‘There's a plus, a circle, and a minus. When the circle lights up, you start taking pictures.’ That was my crash course in photography.” She achieved international recognition as a fashion photographer with the iconic Guess Jeans ad featuring Claudia Schiffer, who was virtually unknown at that time. Ellen von Unwerth's photographic style is characterized by her portrayal of women: “I always wanted to create this glamorous girl, but capture her in a natural way. I want to photograph her in a way that doesn't look too posed or overly mannered. That's just how I see women. They appear beautiful and sexy to me, but also strong and in full control of themselves — liberated and self-confident.'
Her fashion photos exude lightness, joie de vivre, spontaneity and sensuality. "With disco music, everyone starts to relax. The team relaxes and everyone sways and dances a little. Music is essential for lightening the atmosphere”.
Her first major monograph, Snaps, was published in 1994 and features Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington on the cover, taken in Cannes in 1990. The book brings together 100 of her iconic black-and-white photographs from the early 1990s. ‘I love black-and-white photography because you can really see whether it's a good picture or not. Black-and-white photography looks better because it's graphic, timeless, and has a cinematic feel.” Ellen von Unwerth has been one of the few women to be internationally celebrated in fashion photography since the late 1980s, and she recently made a cinematic mark with her cameo appearance in the Netflix series Emily in Paris.
© 2025, Birgit Filzmaier