A great lady has died. Photographer Roxanne Lowit was a beautiful person, inside and out, with an exquisite eye for style. I met Roxanne at Danceteria in 1982 when I was 16 - we were introduced by Miriam Bendahan, who impressed upon me how discerning and respected Roxanne was. We became friends and Roxanne photographed me often, over many years, while out and about at the nightclubs, fashion shows and art openings. Roxanne took the photo of me above in 1983, wearing a collage of new wave and new romantic elements; in that year I contributed some articles to my friend Aileen McNally’s ‘zine Ephemeral Youth and I was able to do a story on Vivienne Westwood because Roxanne very generously gave me photos that she had taken backstage at Westwood’s spring (“Punkature”) and fall (“Witches”) shows. It’s remarkable that a relatively established photographer would let her work be published in a little ‘zine put together by a bunch of teenagers, but Roxanne was remarkably kind and mentoring. The text I wrote titled “Avant-Garde Goes Overground,” shows that cultural appropriation was a good thing back in the 1980s, contrary to the current thinking which aligns the practice with colonialism and racism:
Vivienne Westwood, the woman who, with Malcolm McLaren, brought you punk and pirates (and Buffalo Girls), now gives us hobos for summer, and for next fall, witches. Presented in a show in Paris in October, her spring/summer collection focused on the theme of the hobo, with the maternity shape and tube skirts most in evidence. (The prevalence of maternity style dresses, and a line of rap printed in the program, “Vivienne Westwood, pregnancy in its infancy,” caused many to rumor that the designer was pregnant herself.) Her fall collection was a collaboration with artist Keith Haring who designed many prints for the brightly colored, but generally more conservative clothes than are expected from Westwood. Now that she has borrowed from most of the cultures of the world, one wonders where she will turn next.
In April 1983 my brother Charles and I hosted a party for the London designers that Susanne Bartsch presented in a fashion show at the Roxy nightclub. Roxanne came to our party and took many wonderful photos including the one of Charles and me with Leigh Bowery.
Charles took the delightful photo of Roxanne above, wearing her uniform (Chinese black cotton jackets and pants) and carrying her camera. Following her death Charles reminisced: “she was the first person I knew who practiced macrobiotics and we had conversations about that: a factor that led me to get a master's degree in nutrition years later.” Charles and I spent the summer of 1986 in Paris and dined with Roxanne at a macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant there for the first time. Roxanne was in Paris to photograph backstage at the haute couture fashion shows and she told me that if I wanted to go to any of the shows I should just tell the gatekeepers that I was her assistant. I got to see Christian Lacroix’s last collection for Jean Patou, Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent, all thrilling.
Roxanne is among the most distinguished alumnae of the Fashion Institute of Technology, which became my own alma mater, and she will always be one of the most beloved people in our big (but small, really) fashion family.